The Way You Make Me Feel (26 page)

“It all went down so easy. Honi's still in touch with Damien's people and she chatters about him all the time. And you'd lost your memory, or so you said, so I felt safe for a time, but memories come back.

“I was set to kidnap my kid and disappear to Mexico the minute your memory returned. It didn't happen until today. You should have kept on forgetting.”

He showed her the gun then. A silver-plated .22. “Well, time's a-wasting, lady. I hate to do this to Damien, but you've got it coming.”

Her brain was going in slow motion, but one thing she knew, she couldn't let herself die like this.

 

Damien and Detective Rollins reached Whip's apartment building in record time. The desk clerk greeted them excitedly. “Detective, why're you here?”

“I'm going up to Mr. Wilson's apartment.”

She told them then about Whip and Stevie passing through. “Stevie looked so frightened,” she said, her hand to her bosom.

They were off then, racing up the stairs and on to Whip's door.

Inside the apartment, Whip's eyes still glittered as he glanced at the dark-red rug he would roll Stevie's body up in. He was gloating and he wasn't watching her as she moved with the speed of light, bolting up and rushing him.

“You're dead meat!” he grated and outside, the two men could hear him as they rammed their shoulders to the door and burst it open.

Whip's bullet, meant for Stevie, caught Damien's shoulder, but Damien moved on, unmindful of the pain. He had to get to Stevie. And he held her in his arms as Detective Rollins took Whip down with powerful blows until Whip was out cold.

Stevie saw the blood slowly staining Damien's shirt. She cried bitterly as he collapsed, and she cradled him in her arms.

Detective Rollins stood up and called for an ambulance and officer assistance.

Stevie looked at Whip's inert body and shuddered at what had just gone down. Then she became aware that Damien was murmuring something and she bent to him to hear.

“Can't let him get Stevie,” he was saying. “Stevie is my life.”

“And you are
my
life, love,” she told him. “Detective Rollins called an ambulance and you're going to be all right.” Then she told him fiercely, “You hold on, you hear me.
You hold on!
”

It didn't take long for the ambulance and reinforcements to get there. They were rough with Whip. They always were with killers.

And in the ambulance with Damien, Stevie prayed hard and held Damien's hand as he slipped in and out of consciousness until they reached the hospital. He had lost so much blood, but it wasn't long before the doctors told her that Damien had a flesh wound mostly and would be all right. Even then she didn't stop praying, but switched to prayers of thanks.

 

The next morning Damien was awake and lucid when she roused from sleeping by his bedside.

“Morning, beautiful,” he said, smiling.

She rubbed her face. “I must look a mess, but you're all right and that's all that matters.”

“No, you're beautiful and you're mine. That's all that matters. My wife and mother of my child-to-come. I love you, and that's all that matters.”

Stevie leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth, thrilling to his closeness and his love. They were both right, she thought. They had each other, and
that
was all that mattered.

S
eptember came in lush and beautiful and Stevie thought she'd never known such peace. She felt herself getting bigger by the minute with the baby, and Damien couldn't seem to do enough for her.

She still relived the nightmare with Whip Wilson, and she still shuddered when she thought of Jake and his bodyguard. All three men were in prison and Jake would still be tried in October for tax evasion and racketeering.

She sat in the music room softly humming several tunes in linear fashion. Damien came and stood in the doorway. “How about singing ‘The Way You Make Me Feel'?”

She smiled at him as he walked over and kneeled by her. “Only if you sing it with me.” Her look at him was flirtatious and full of promise.

“Okay.”

She struck a chord and began, and after a moment he joined in. They blended beautifully and both their hearts filled with joy as he stopped and kissed her throat. Like heaven, he thought. That was the way she made him feel. And she sat thinking that this was everything that love was intended to be.

Don't miss new titles from Kimani Press next month including new titles by Rochelle Alers and Brenda Jackson.