“I am not bleeding to death,” Cassie mumbled for the fifteenth time, the words muffled by the wad of paper towel she was holding to her head. Tommy was small, but his fists were mighty. Especially when he had a rock in one of them. The blood splattered all over her shirt was proof of that.
She didn’t dare look in the powder room mirror. Virginia had taken one look at her face and started screaming hysterically. The kids had scattered to the winds, running upstairs and into their rooms, Rachel carrying poor Juan who was screaming almost as loudly as Tommy. Only Virginia and Destiny had remained, one of them looking shell-shocked and scared, the other hollering for help that wasn’t going to come.
If Cassie hadn’t had blood running down her temple she’d have told Virginia to calm down for the sake of the kids. As it was, she’d had to find a way to staunch the bleeding without any help from her assistant.
“Are you sure?” Destiny hovered in the doorway, the phone in one hand, a baseball bat in the other. For such a young girl, she had a good head on her shoulders. She didn’t usually panic and was helpful when help was most needed. “Virginia said—”
“How about we stop talking about what Virginia said for a while?” she muttered, the coppery taste of blood in her mouth. She’d already had a headache. Being slapped in the temple with a fist-sized rock hadn’t made it any better.
“But—”
“Cassie!” Virginia yelled. “Are you okay? I found some help.”
“I don’t need help,” she called. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine! You bled all over the kitchen.” Virginia peeked into the powder room, her eyes wide and filled with fear. “You’re still bleeding, aren’t you? How much blood can a person lose before she passes out?” she asked no one in particular.
Cassie sighed, and kept pressing on the two-inch gash in her temple. She wasn’t going to bleed to death, but she hoped to avoid stitches. The kids were traumatized enough. If she had to make a trip to the ER, they’d be even more upset.
“A lot,” a man said.
Not just any man, either. Gavin. Cassie recognized the voice, bracing herself as he stepped into view.
He’d put his life on the line for her and for Tommy, positioning his body so that it was between them and the gunman. Maybe the wound to her head was worse than she thought, because looking at him standing in the doorway of the powder room, his eyes bright blue and somber, she felt something melt in the region of her heart.
She turned away, catching her reflection in the mirror.
She looked like she felt—ragged. Blood stained her cheek. Her hair stood up in a hundred different directions. She had dark circles under her eyes and dirt on her chin.
It didn’t matter. She had no one to impress. Nowhere to go. Her life was her job, her kids. That’s the way she wanted it.
For some reason, though, she had the absurd urge to wash her face, tame her hair.
She frowned. Her reflection frowned back.
“Cassie?” Gavin stepped into the small room, and it suddenly felt tiny, his large frame taking up more than its fair share of space. “What happened? Were you hit by shrapnel?”
“Nothing that glamorous.” She forced herself to smile. “I got beaned in the head by a rock-wielding, panic-stricken seven-year-old.”
“Mind if I take a look?” He moved her hand before she could say one way or another, and probed at the gash. “A couple of stitches wouldn’t hurt.”
“They wouldn’t help, either. I’ve got some butterfly bandages in the medicine cabinet. I’ll just slap a couple on, and we’ll be good to go.”
“You need to stop the bleeding first, wash it out.” He tucked a couple of strands of hair behind her ears, reaching past to run the water in the sink. She could feel the heat of his body through her blouse, feel the firmness of his bicep as it brushed her arm. She wanted to step back, but there was nowhere to go, and she just stood there like a ninny while he wet the cloth, dabbed at her face, gently wiping the blood from her cheek, the dirt from her chin.
She could have closed her eyes, and just let him do what he was doing, because she suddenly had no energy, her legs weak with the aftermath of fear and adrenaline.
“Don’t pass out on me now, Cas,” he said quietly, and she shook her head, trying to force some blood back into her brain.
“I never pass out.”
“Good to know.” He smiled, and her heart gave a funny little jerk.
“Is she going to be okay?” Virginia asked, her voice wobbling.
“I don’t see why she wouldn’t be. Can you go find those butterfly bandages?” Gavin dabbed the area around the gash with the cold cloth.
“Of course!” Virginia raced away, her feet pounding on the stairs.
“Good idea, giving her a job to do,” Cassie conceded. “She does better when she’s got something to focus on.”
“I’ve noticed. Hold this.” He grabbed her hand, pressing it to the cloth. “How about we go in the living room, so you can sit down while we wait for Virginia?”
“I’ll bleed all over the couch.”
“The dining room, then. I think the kitchen door is still down, and I don’t want you anywhere near the back of the house until we get the perimeter of the yard secured.”
She didn’t want to bleed all over the dining room floor, either, but she had to admit, she was feeling a little light-headed. “Did you find the guy who was shooting at us?”
“No,” he said grimly, his hand cupping her elbow as they walked out of the bathroom.
She wasn’t going to admit it. Especially not with Destiny standing a few feet away, the baseball bat still clutched in her hand, her expression tight and unreadable, but she needed the support.
“Can you check on Juan, Destiny?” she asked as she passed the young girl. “And Tommy?”
“Tommy is a punk. He should be grounded for a month, and I’m not checking on him, because I don’t care if he’s buried under the entire pile of his stupid stuffed animals,” Destiny responded, her chin wobbling, her eyes filling with tears Cassie knew she wouldn’t shed.
“He didn’t hit me on purpose. You know that.”
“Doesn’t matter. He should have been more careful. I’ll check on Juan, but I’m not saying one word to Tommy ever again.” She stomped up the stairs, her footsteps ringing through the too-quiet house.
The kids were probably hiding under beds and huddling in closets.
Or maybe not.
Most of them had come from homes where violence was the norm rather than the exception.
“It’s going to be okay,” Gavin said as he pulled out a dining room chair, pressing her down into it.
She sat, because she was exhausted, because her head hurt and her stomach ached, and she thought she might just do what she’d said she wouldn’t—pass out.
Outside, sirens screamed, people shouted, an entire world of chaos was happening. She could hear it, but she tuned it out. There was nothing she could do to help. She’d given the best description she could of the man who’d been on the back porch, she’d cooperated in every way she could, but the guy was still free. That was something the police had to deal with.
What she had to deal with were eight traumatized kids, a hysterical assistant and a head that just would not seem to stop bleeding. She pressed the cloth tighter against the wound, wincing as it dug into the gash.
“You and the kids can’t stay here. You know that, right?” Gavin sat in the chair next to hers, turned so that they were face to face. He looked relaxed, his elbows resting on his knees as he leaned forward to look into her eyes. She knew he wasn’t. There was tension around his mouth, a hard edge to his gaze. He had an agenda. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be part of it. She also wasn’t sure she had a choice.
“I hadn’t thought much further than getting through the next few minutes, getting the kids calmed down and going back to our routine,” she hedged, because leaving All Our Kids had never occurred to her.
“It might be time to think a little farther. Even with guard dogs and twenty-four-hour protection. Even with the best security the city has to offer, you and the kids are in danger here.”
“As long as we stay inside—” She started to argue, but he raised a hand, cutting off her words.
“We tried that, remember? And one of your kids ran outside and nearly got all three of us killed.”
“Tommy didn’t nearly get us killed. The guy with the gun did.”
“You’re putting up straw men, Cassie,” he said calmly. “And it’s not going to change the situation you’re in. One of the kids was out last night. I think we can both agree to that. The guy who killed Michael saw him over at the congressman’s house.”
“We don’t know that for sure.”
“Look.” He leaned in close, his eyes blazing. “You can bury your head in the sand or you can face the facts. One of the kids saw something. You saw something. You two are key witnesses in a murder case, and the perpetrator is still on the loose. None of you are going to be safe here. The guy knows how to use a gun. He had an accelerant with him last night. For all we know, he’s gone off somewhere to build a bomb that he can toss into your living room window or onto your front porch.”
She hadn’t thought about that.
Hadn’t considered all the ways the guy could get to them. Not just through a door or a window. He could throw a bomb, detonate an explosive, set the house on fire.
She shuddered.
She hated to do it, because the kids needed the security of their routine. But she couldn’t risk their lives.
“All right,” she finally said. “If you’ve got a safe place for us, I’ll pack the kids up and we’ll head out.”
He smiled, a real smile, a warm smile. The kind of smile that could make a woman look twice. “Good.”
“You may not be saying that after you get my eight kids into the safe house.” She pulled the cloth from her head. Blood didn’t pour down her temple, so she thought the bleeding had stopped.
“I like that,” he said, and she touched her temple.
“What’s to like about a gaping wound on a woman’s head?”
He chuckled, a deep quiet rumble that went straight to her heart. “Not that, Cassie. The fact that you think of these kids as yours. Not every foster parent feels that way.”
“Not every foster parent has been a foster kid,” she responded, doing everything in her power not to look right in his eyes. She didn’t have time for flirtations, didn’t have time for relationships. Her job had been the death of her last relationship, and she wasn’t willing to go through the effort of connecting with someone, finding common ground, falling in love only to have it not work out.
There was too much pain in that, and she figured she’d been through enough pain in her life. God had brought her out of it, and He’d brought her to All Our Kids. She was content with that.
“You’re right. I don’t think any of mine were,” Gavin responded, and she made the mistake of glancing his way, looking into his vivid blue eyes. And, then, of course, she couldn’t look away.
“How long were you in the foster system?” she asked, curious despite all the warning bells that were going off in her head. Bells that were ringing loudly and telling her that she’d better keep her distance or she might find herself in deeper than she wanted to be.
“The better question might be how long wasn’t I in it?” he responded. “I was in ten different placements before I turned twelve. By the time I was fifteen, I’d pretty much run out of options.”
“So, you ended up here?”
“I ended up picking the pocket of Harland Jeffries while I was on a field trip to the National Monument.”
“No way!” Virginia gasped as she walked into the room, a first-aid kit in her hands. “I’d never believe something like that about you, Gavin.”
Cassie could. She could picture him as a teenager, sullen, angry at everyone and everything, not caring about anything but getting back at the world. He wasn’t that boy now, but she could see it in the sharpness of his gaze, hear it in the things he hadn’t said.
“Believe it,” he responded. “That’s how I met Harland, and it’s how I ended up in All Our Kids.”
“How is Harland?” Cassie asked.
“Recovering well, the last I heard. I’ll check in on him later this afternoon. I’d have done it sooner, but I’ve been a little preoccupied.” He took a couple of butterfly bandages from the kit and pressed them to her forehead.
It hurt, but she didn’t complain. She had other things to do. Like help the kids pack their bags.
She brushed Gavin’s hands away and stood on legs that were a little shaky for her liking. “If I’m going to move eight kids to a new house, I’ve got to get packing.”
“They won’t need a lot. A couple of sets of clothes. Maybe a favorite toy. I’ll make the call and put in a request for some kid-friendly foods, soaps, diapers.”
“Do you really think these kids are going to leave any of their belongings behind?”
He ran a hand along the back of his neck. “Right. Let them pack what they want. We’ll take as many cars as we need.”
“I’ve got a fifteen-passenger van, Gavin. Plenty of room for everyone and everything.” She walked toward the stairs, pleased that her legs didn’t collapse out from under her.
“It would be, but you’re not going to be taking your van.”
“Of course I am. How else are we going to get the kids out of here?”
“Separate cars. A couple of kids in each of them. The less notice we get, the happier I’ll be,” he responded.
“But—”
“Would you rather the guy who just tried to kill you and Tommy see us all leaving? Would you rather he try to follow us or maybe take a potshot at the van?”
“You’re assuming he’s still around.”
“I don’t assume,” he responded sharply, his eyes hard as stone. “I imagine every possible scenario and I plan accordingly.”
She didn’t want to concede, because she didn’t want the kids traveling in different cars. Just like she’d told him, they were her kids, her responsibility, the only family she had.
Then again, she didn’t want them hurt. Or worse.
“All right,” she said. “We’ll go to the safe house. We’ll take separate cars. But, I’ll tell you one thing we’re not going to do. We’re not leaving Tommy’s stuffed animal collection behind. He needs it to sleep, and since I don’t want to spend an unspecified amount of time being sleepless with him, I need it too.”
Gavin blinked. Twice. “Sure. Why not?”
Maybe because the collection was a hundred stuffed animals and growing. And maybe because the stuffed animals didn’t come from the store, they came from Dumpsters and piles of trash and often smelled like skunk mixed with cadaver until they’d been washed ten times.
Cassie didn’t bother explaining.
She had a lot to do. Not just packing and getting kids moving, explaining why they had to leave, where they were going to go, that they’d all be together.
That was important to her kids. They might not be a conventional family, but they were all each other had.