Page 16 of Rescuing Sadie

Sadie shook her head, trying to get herself back under control. “Yeah, I’m coming,” she told Rayne, taking a deep breath and heading for Chase’s car as if he hadn’t shattered her with a simple touch of his lips on her skin.

* * * *

It was after a trip to the Temple mall and a short stop to grab some alcohol for the get-together that night, and when they were coming back to the car after stopping at the grocery store to stock the little apartment with food, that it happened.

Sadie was laughing at something Rayne was saying when she felt Chase stiffen at her side. “Wha—”

She didn’t get anything else out before Chase grabbed her arm and yanked, spinning her around until she was behind him. He shoved her hard enough that she went flying toward a parked SUV. Luckily, she put out her hands and caught herself, otherwise her face would’ve smashed into the glass on the driver’s side door.

She turned and saw Chase hustling his sister toward her in the same urgent, not-gentle-at-all way. It would’ve been comical—Rayne still had ahold of the grocery cart and Chase was literally dragging her and the cart to where he’d basically thrown Sadie—but because of the deadly look on Chase’s face, it wasn’t. She opened her mouth to ask what was going on, but Chase beat her to it.

“I saw someone crouched by my car. Stay here. Stay down. Do. Not. Move. I’ll be right back.”

And with that, he was gone.

“Shit,” Sadie muttered, knowing whatever was happening couldn’t be good.

Rayne dug into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. She pushed a couple of buttons and put the phone up to her ear.

“I’m in the parking lot of Walmart with my brother and Sadie. He just shoved us behind an SUV and told us he saw someone hanging around his car.” She paused, listening to what whoever was on the other end of the line was saying. Then she said, “Right. Okay.” Another pause. Then, “I don’t know.” Finally, after a long moment, she whispered, “I love you. Bye.”

Sadie waited impatiently for Rayne to hang up. When she didn’t say anything about their situation, Sadie whispered, “We need to do something to help Chase.”

Rayne shook her head. “Ghost said to stay put.”

Sadie ground her teeth in frustration and lifted her head enough so she could look through the window of the car they were hiding behind. She didn’t see anything unusual, and Chase was nowhere in sight. She turned back to Rayne and gestured toward the phone she was still clenching in her fist. Her fingers were white with the tension of her grip. “Ghost is coming?”

Rayne nodded.

For some reason, Sadie was more freaked out now than she’d been back at the school when Jonathan had pushed her down on the bed. Maybe it was because she didn’t know what was going on. Maybe it was because Chase could be in danger. She wasn’t sure. But she was sure she didn’t like the feeling. Not at all. She had no idea what had happened to the badass Sadie she’d been up in Dallas, but at the moment, she felt completely out of her league.

“Maybe we should go back into the store,” she finally suggested.

“No,” Rayne replied immediately. “Ghost said to stay put, so we’re staying put.”

She didn’t want to say it out loud, but she was wondering what would happen if whoever it was that Chase saw circled around and came at them from behind.

Suddenly knowing the person Chase saw was Jonathan, Sadie began to shake. She knew Jonathan was obsessed. She also knew she’d tricked him, and he was beyond pissed about it.

But crouching by that SUV in the middle of the day, wondering if Chase was all right, Sadie knew without a doubt, after he’d had his way with her, Jonathan was going to kill her. She’d wounded his ego. His male pride. And with the way he’d been raised by Jeremiah, he wasn’t going to just get over it. He’d need to prove that he was man enough to deal with her.

She didn’t know how much time had passed, but it seemed to be going by extremely slowly. She wished she had her small pink gun on her, but she’d stupidly left it back in the apartment over the garage. Sadie wanted Ghost there now. Hell, anyone who could help Chase would be super. For the first time, she understood a bit better what the men and women of McKay-Taggart did on a daily basis. How in the world the wives, and husbands, dealt with knowing their spouses were facing bad guys like this was beyond her. She hated the thought of Chase being in danger. Especially since it was because of her.

When she couldn’t take the waiting for another second, Sadie peered over the edge of the door once more, needing to see Chase. Needing to make sure he was all right.

As if her thoughts about Jonathan had conjured him out of thin air, she saw him crouched behind a car a row over from where Chase’s vehicle was parked.

She knew it was Jonathan because he turned his head and looked right at her.

She’d recognize his blond hair, pointed nose, and the hateful look in his icy blue eyes anywhere. Even across a parking lot.

He turned from her then and aimed his pistol.

Sadie looked in the direction he was facing and saw Chase cautiously moving between two cars near Jonathan. Her mouth was open and she was yelling at Chase before she even thought about what she was doing.

“Chase! Behind you! He’s behind that red car!”

He spun at the same time Jonathan pulled the trigger. The small-caliber pistol he held made a slight popping noise, which seemed somehow muffled in the busy public parking lot.