Intercepted By Love: Part Four Part 9

Chapter Fourteen.

"No, Cade, no!" Andie collapsed at the side of the train tracks unable to spot Cade's body as section after section of the train sped past her.

"Ay, wey, ese." One of the gang members breathed hard as he fell to the ground, staring at the train.

The other guy scrambled up the river bank, holding his head. "It got Paco? Dios mio, Paco!"

The men's screams were joined by Bret's wails as the train clattered past them, leaving the tracks full of blood? Empty?

Andie and the two gangsters darted their eyes on the tracks. Screams pierced her ears, and one of the guys picked up a foot still encased in a sneaker. He stood there waving it and hollering.

While the riverbank was lit, the area beyond the tracks was dark and shadowy. Andie hopped over the track with Bret. "Cade? Cade, where are you?"

"Over here," his voice called from the dark side.

"Oh, thank G.o.d. You're alive." She stumbled toward his voice.

Two figures were huddled above a man writhing on the ground, screaming in pain with blood gushing from his leg. One of the gangsters had removed his shirt and was tying it like a tourniquet around the stump.

Andie screamed and shuddered, swallowing to fight the nausea. She could see the white gleam of the man's bone in the moonlight.

A pair of arms held her tight and Cade rubbed her back. "I'm okay. We have to call an ambulance. I wasn't fast enough. I shoved him off the track."

"You could have gotten yourself killed. Oh, my, Cade. You could have died." Andie buried her face into his chest.

"Call 911, let me get the baby." Cade fumbled in his pocket and found his phone.

"It's okay, I called," one of the gang members said. "You guys go. We don't want no trouble. Thank you for saving Paco."

"Yeah, man, no trouble, you go." The guy who tied up the severed leg said.

The third guy was on the ground covered with blood, trying to reconnect his brother's leg, totally hysterical.

"Odale, vato." Cade flashed them a sign, whatever it was, and pulled Andie across the track on the way back to the pinball arcade.

"We're just going to leave? Aren't we going to give our statements to the police?"

"Not in LA. I don't want to deal with court dates, not with my schedule and neither of us were hurt. You okay?"

She nodded, swallowing a lump in her throat. "I thought you died. You were so f.u.c.king brave and so f.u.c.king stupid."

Everything hit her then, and she pounded his chest and Bret cried, agitated by her thudding heart and the fear screaming through her veins.

"You're so stupid. So stupid, but you have a huge heart, and you love the unlovable. Look at me, Bret, your mother, and that gangster. Oh, Cade. What would I do if you'd died?"

"I'm right here with you, and I'll never leave you, even in death, I'll be in your heart."

"No, Cade. You're not dying on me. Don't ever do anything that stupid again."

Of course he would. It was how Cade was wired. A hero, sacrificing himself. He couldn't let the man who'd tried to rob them die on those tracks. He'd give his life for a stranger.

G.o.d forbid, he'd have to give it for her. She'd never forgive herself. Never allow Cade to leave his baby fatherless.

"Hey, babe, I'm still here. Stupid and all." He kissed the top of her head. "Let's go find out if your mother burned out the pinball machine."

Tears gushed into her eyes. "I almost lost you today. Bret too, and all you care about is the pinball machine?"

Of course, he was defusing the tension, letting her down from the adrenaline rush, calming and protecting her, but she felt the pain in her chest, relished it, and hugged it tight.

It meant ... It meant she loved him. It had to be true.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, blew it out and shuddered. What a brave, but stupid man she'd fallen for. And the funny thing? No one besides her would ever know what he did tonight. Of course the robbers would, but they'd never tell.

Suddenly, a surge of pride flooded her, and she placed her palm on Cade's chest, over his precious, beating heart.

"You know what? No one but me will ever know what a hero you were tonight. This is one memory I'll always treasure. I love you, Cade. Everything else will take care of itself."

He hesitated a beat, blinking, as if he couldn't comprehend what she'd just said. "Say that again?"

"I love you, and everything else will take care of itself." She gestured to her head. "Everything."

"It definitely will. I'm in heaven now." His smile was bright and white in the dim light, a contrast to the dark pools of his eyes. "Till death won't we part."

"Never apart." She vowed and latched her lips to his, as a chill skittered down her spine.

"Where have you two been?" Sylvia's eyes were as wide as disks when they walked up to entrance of the laundromat above the pinball arcade. "We called and neither of you answered."

Andie's mother pointed at them. "Cade, you're covered with blood. What happened?"

"We took a walk." Cade shrugged, steering Andie back toward the parking area. "Listen, I hate to cut the night short, but I have to be at the stadium tomorrow morning at seven-thirty."

So he was rude, but now that all the adrenaline that had flooded his system had subsided, he felt every ache and pain. Besides, being covered with blood and having the memory of the train rushing past them with the man howling in his ear was enough to shorten his life ten years.

"Hold it." A man elbowed his way between Andie and Cade. "You endangered my wife, taking her out walking in this dangerous, gang-infested neighborhood."

"I handled it, didn't I?" Cade hated the way Declan acted all proprietary toward Andie. "Come on, Andie, let's go."

Declan corralled her beside him, acting like a bantam fighting c.o.c.k about to get his neck wrung. "Not if you're covered with blood."

"It's not my blood." Cade squared off against the smaller man.

"Andie's coming home with me," Declan said. He started untying the baby carrier from her back.

"No, Dec. I'm not going anywhere with you until you tell me what happened to the divorce papers." She held onto Bret, but her mother intervened.

"Come, let me hold the baby," Pam said. "You've been on your feet too long, and you must be tired."

She disentangled a sleepy Bret, who was starting to stir, from Andie's chest and took him into her arms.

Andie shoved her hands on her hips and resumed glaring at Declan. "I don't know what I ever saw in you. All I care about now is the divorce papers."

"Why? Because you found someone richer? Someone to pay all your bills and bribe Mr. Silver into letting you have the part?"

"What? I thought ..." Andie's face flushed. What if it was Cade who'd gotten her the role? Hadn't he said Mr. Silver was his friend, or had Sylvia mentioned it? After all, she had no acting experience, and this move to a starring role as Michal was even more surprising. But no, Declan was only distracting her. She stuck to her guns. "The divorce papers, mister."

A smart-aleck grin crept over Declan's face. "You mean you don't know what you did with them?"

"I had them with me in the car. They say the police gave everything to you. My purse, my cell phone and anything else I had."

"You left everything at my place, except for the divorce papers." Declan spread his hands, face up. "If you come home with me, I'll give you your phone and purse."

"No, you bring it to us," Andie said. "I don't really know you anymore, so I'm not going to your house."

"You sure, babe? Because right before your accident, you ripped up the papers. You told me how glad you were to find out we were still married. We went to my place to celebrate your promotion to the concubine role and had a bit of a rehearsal, what I'd call an undress-rehearsal. You were thrilled. You called it kismet and fate, and then you hopped into bed with me, screaming my name when you came all over my f-"

Pow. Cade's fist connected square on Declan's jaw, and the d.i.c.khead went down like the rag doll girly man he was.

Chapter Fifteen.

"How well do you really know Cade?" Andie's mother cornered her once they were back in their bedroom. "The man was covered with blood."

"We almost got mugged, okay?"

"What exactly happened?" Her mother drew a tired hand over her brow and turned down the sheets. "I worry about you."

"Well, don't. Cade handled it, and we're fine."

"What did he do, kill someone? He had blood sprayed all over his clothes. Tell me everything. I can't rest until I know."

Andie flung herself into the bathroom and stared in the mirror. Ugh, even she had blood on her. Was it Declan's or the thug's or Cade's? What a mess.

Cade had broken Declan's jaw, and of course, her freaking ex was threatening a lawsuit. True, Declan deserved it, telling all sorts of lies and being provocative, but still ...

"Look at you." Her mother followed her into the bathroom. "What kind of guy decks another guy because he's fighting for a girl?"

The machismo kind, the one who loves and protects, the Papa Bear type. Andie's mind raced with all kinds of excuses while her body went fluffy and soft wanting to be wrapped up with his hard, potent physique.

"Look, we were both amped up from the gangsters, and he comes talking trash. Did you hear what he said about me? Besides, you slapped him, too."

"My slap didn't knock him out and require an ambulance. You're lucky the police didn't arrest Cade or you and question why you two were covered with blood." Her mother grabbed a makeup wipe and dabbed Andie's face.

"The policemen were too busy asking Cade for autographs, and of course Bret started hamming it up for them." She'd distract her mother, although it was useless. Once Mom hung onto something, she worried it like a terrier with a dead rat.

"That's what's always bothered me about athletes. They think they're above the law. What would you do if Cade used his fists on you? I heard about those football players who beat their wives and kids."

"Oh, come off it, Mom!" Andie swept her hand aside and splashed water on her face. "There you go all judgmental again. I thought we were helping Cade with the baby."

"You were supposed to help, then you go gallivanting off with that strange girl all day buying revealing clothes. I think we should go back to New York. You look well enough to fly."

"I'll need to ask permission from my job." Andie cranked the hot water for the shower. "Can we talk later? I need to get this blood off of me. It gives me the creeps."

"As well it should. I'm going to turn on the news and see if they have anything about what happened, since you won't tell me."

"Cade saved that guy's life, okay?" Andie tore her b.l.o.o.d.y clothes off. They were brand new and now ruined. "He tried to rob us and then ran across the tracks. His foot got stuck as a train was coming. Cade pushed him off the track, but he lost his foot. You satisfied?"

"You're telling me he walked away from the scene of a crime and didn't call the police? How do you know the guy lived?"

Andie stepped into the shower and slammed the door. As the hot water drilled her body, she leaned her forehead on the cool tile. What did she know about Cade other than how he made her feel? Cherished, protected, beautiful, and loved.

Shouldn't that be enough? Apparently not with Mom, who was making a list and checking it twice with the naughty outweighing the nice.

When Andie got out of the shower, her mother was eating a cup of yogurt and staring at the nightly news.

"A man got run over by a train and lost his lower leg. Nothing was said about you or Cade."

"Of course not." Andie wrapped her hair in a wet towel. "The thugs weren't going to tell the police they were robbing us. Now, can we get to sleep and call it a day?"

"Sure, it's not every day that begins with a baby being abandoned by his mother, followed by your husband insulting you, then drugs delivered to the doorway, hoodlums amputated by a train, and your husband's pretty face rearranged by your football player mystery man. Sure. Just another wonderful day in Hollywood. Or should I say, Hollyweird."

"You forgot you being anointed Pinball Queen of LA." Andie smirked and turned off the light.