Tag: romance

Waking up wasn’t a one step process.

Mackenzie slowly became aware of the fact that she was floating.

No not floating.

She was being carried.

Cradled gently in someone’s arms.

There was cold air on her skin.

On parts of her skin that shouldn’t be exposed to the air.

Was she with a boyfriend?

No that couldn’t be right, she hadn’t been with anyone since she had kicked her cheating ex to the curb.

It was dark.

Then suddenly light shone on the other side of her closed eyelids.

There were voices.

A lot of them and they were all talking too quickly for her to make out any of the words.

The arms that held her set her down on something soft and immediately panic coursed through her.

She didn’t know why, and she didn’t know who had been holding her, all she knew was that she didn’t want that person to leave.

Her eyes snapped open and the sudden movement combined with the too bright light made her moan.

Immediately concerned green eyes looked down at her.

She knew those eyes.

They belonged to Jax, Tayla’s ex-turned-current boyfriend Dean’s partner.

What was he doing here?

And where was here?

Her memory was all fuzzy and she had no idea what was going on.

“Its okay, Mackenzie,” Jax soothed, reaching for her hand, but it was clear both by the tone of his voice and the look on his face that things were far from okay.

“W-what h-happened?” she asked, surprised to find her voice croaky. “Wh-where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital,” Jax replied, and she realised that she was indeed on a gurney being wheeled through the emergency room as a doctor and a couple of nurses buzzed around her.

That answered one of her questions but it didn’t tell her why she was here. It felt like Jax was trying to keep something from her but why would he do that? Had something else happened to Tayla and Dean?

“W-why am I h-here?” she asked, trying to make her voice strong but it was hard because she was shaking and her head felt like it wanted to explode.

“You hit your head,” Jax answered vaguely, his fingertips lightly touching her forehead.

“An a-accident?” she asked.

“No, sweetheart, not an accident.” His devastated green eyes were full of guilt and she had to wonder why? They’d spent lots of time together the last week or so, and although neither of them had acted on it she knew he had felt the same energy bubbling between them that she had. So what would he have to feel guilty about?

“Jax,” she pleaded, needing to quell the anxiety that was making her feel like she might throw up at any second.

Jax sighed. “Someone attacked you, I found you unconscious, I don’t know how long he was with you before I came along but you were half naked so we’ll have to do a rape kit.”

Rape kit?

She gasped, shook her head in a frantic denial, and then plunged back into the oblivion of unconsciousness where she was safe.

Jax hurried through the hospital’s parking lot towards the alley. A call had gone in to the 911 dispatchers that someone had seen a woman being yanked into an alley, and since his boss knew he was here at the hospital with his partner Dean, and Dean’s ex-and-now-current-girlfriend Tayla, he’d asked him to go and check it out.

It was getting dark, the mid-fall evening was cold, and after the rough couple of days he’d had he just wanted to head home and chill out. But if someone was in trouble he wasn’t going to say no.

Hand on his weapon, which was holstered at his waist, he approached the alley. As soon as he entered he saw the small heap lying about halfway down.

His heart rate picked up, and he had to remind himself to clear the space before he ran to whoever had just been attacked. Methodically he worked his way down to the end of the alley, making sure no one was hiding behind the dumpster or in any of the doorways.

When he’d cleared the alley he ran to the body, pulling his phone from his pocket as he went. “Dean, get someone to tell the ER to send a gurney to the third alley on the right side of the parking lot, I have a body,” he said without preamble, then immediately shoved the phone back into his pocket as he skidded to his knees beside the small body.

A mass of light brown curls partially obscured the face, but a sinking feeling in his gut told him who he was going to find before he gently brushed them away.

Mackenzie.

He’d met Tayla’s colleague when he and his partner had gone to question Tayla about a couple of murders that had been staged as suicides. Mackenzie was tiny, barely five feet tall, with wild brown curls, dark blue eyes, and a personality that was bigger than she was. She’d helped him and Dean locate Tayla, and had been at the hospital with them just thirty minutes ago. He remembered her announcing she was leaving to take a cab home, had even toyed with the idea that she should offer her a ride but had decided against it because he wasn’t looking to hook up with anyone and the beautiful woman was enough to tempt him into forgetting why he had vowed to remain single.

Once burned twice shy.

Now because of his decision she was lying in an alley, a large gas on her forehead, blood streaked down her face, unconscious, the jeans she had been wearing shoved halfway down her legs.

Jax cursed. “Mackenzie, I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered as he pressed two fingertips to her slender neck to check for a pulse. It was there but weak, and her skin was ice cold to the touch, not wanting to wait for doctors and nurses to arrive he scooped the tiny bundle into his arms. Despite the fact that she was unconscious and a dead wait she was light as a feather in his grip, so small, so vulnerable, and thanks to him about to wake up to the worst nightmare a woman could find herself in.

That she had been attacked was squarely on him.

His messed up love life had left him wary and because of that he had neglected to do the right thing and make sure that Mackenzie made it home safely.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he murmured as he carried her towards the ER. “I’ll find the man who hurt you, I swear I will.”

Mackenzie was tired of waiting.

She was outside the hospital, having just been visiting her best friend Tayla who was lucky to be alive after being poisoned, shot, abducted and beaten, then shot again. She wasn’t sure the shock of seeing Tayla like that wasn’t something that was going to wear off anytime soon.

With a sigh she cast another glance around the hospital’s parking lot but she didn’t see her cab.

“I hate waiting,” she muttered under her breath. She’d give it one more minute and then she’d just start walking, it was only a fifteen minute walk to her house and maybe the walk would help her work of some of the anxiety of the last few days.

The minute passed and still no cab so with an irritated sigh she started walking. It was getting late, almost dark, and the parking lot was quiet, and she quickened her pace, suddenly uneasy.

That tingling on the back of her neck said that something was wrong, but when she scanned the area she didn’t see anything out of ordinary.

“Its just because of what happened with Tayla,” she rebuked herself, taking a cleansing breath and forcing herself to calm down.

As she was walking past an alley arms suddenly wrapped around her, yanking her backwards.

It took a second for what was happening to sink in and by the time Mackenzie opened her mouth to scream a hand was clamped over her mouth.

Fear coursed through her making her shake violently despite the warm evening, and although she fought valiantly the arms wrapped around her were like steel.

Her attacker shoved her into the wall, the hand over her mouth moved to tangle in her hair, but her scream was cut short when her head was slammed into the brick wall.

Once and she saw stars.

Twice and pain threatened to drag her into unconsciousness.

Three times and the blackness claimed her.