The Girl Next Door (Shadow Agents #6)(48)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Gunfire didn’t thunder again.

The gun fell to the floor. Deuce gasped. His hands fought for the knife.

Cooper shoved it even deeper into Deuce’s chest. “It’s…over…” Cooper growled. “Over.”

And it was.

Gabrielle grabbed the gun. She pointed it right at Deuce.

But Deuce wasn’t looking at her. Blood soaked the floor beneath him, and he lay there, staring at nothing.

Not anymore.

His gaze was open. Empty.

Gone.

“G-Gabrielle…” Cooper reached her for her.

Her wonderful, strong, alive Cooper. She hugged him and held on to him as tightly as she could.

More footsteps raced into the room.

“Mercer?” she heard one man demand sharply.

She didn’t look over at the new arrivals. She was too busy holding tight to Cooper.

“I’m…fine,” Mercer told them. “Get Cooper—he needs…hospital…”

Cooper was sagging in her arms. “Cooper?” Tears slipped from her eyes. No, no, he couldn’t do this. The killer was dead. This was the point where everyone was supposed to be okay.

But Cooper was too pale. His clothes were soaked in blood, and he was so cold.

Too cold.

She held him, as tightly as she could.

When the EMTs rushed in, she was there.

So was Mercer.

Mercer’s body trembled, but he glared at the EMTs. “You keep him alive. Keep him alive.”

“And you damn well better follow his orders!” Gabrielle heard herself shout. Tears thickened her voice.

“Annalise’s son won’t go out like this. He won’t,” Mercer vowed.

Then they were in the ambulance rushing toward the hospital. Mercer was in the back of that ambulance with her. EMTs were trying to work on him and on Cooper, but Mercer kept shoving them away and demanding that they focus on Cooper’s wounds.

“D-don’t worry…” Cooper whispered.

She barely heard his words over the hum of the machines and the scream of the ambulance’s siren.

“I’m not…leaving you,” he said. His eyelids flickered then his eyes opened. The blue was hazy, weak, but he was looking straight at her. “Not…ever…”

“You’d better not,” she told him, not able to hold back her tears. “Cooper, I’ve got plans for us. Do you hear me? Lots of plans. Spaghetti dinners and cherry pies and more breaking and entering. We’re just getting started. I just found you.” She could taste the salt of her own tears. “I don’t want to lose you.”

It almost looked as if he smiled. “Promise…” A bare breath of sound from him. “You won’t.”

He’d said that he wouldn’t break any more promises to her. No more lies. No more secrets.

Only truth.

I won’t lose him.

Hope began to grow inside of her.

Hope that her secret agent was as strong as she’d always thought. Strong enough to cheat death—and to stay with her.

Forever.

* * *

COOPER HATED BEING in the hospital. The place smelled too much of antiseptic, and the stark white walls hurt his eyes.

Not that the room was 100 percent white. To the left, right near his lone window, he had an explosion of color—twelve blue balloons, reaching for the ceiling.

The balloons were from Gabrielle.

His beautiful Gabrielle. She was beside him right then.

Sleeping.

She’d been with him since the attack.

He’d woken a few times, seen her staring at him with fear and hope in her gaze. One time when he’d fought through the drugs, he’d opened his eyes and seen her holding those balloons.

She’d been trying to smile at him then.

She’d been crying, too.

Her fingers were entwined with his. He curled his around hers a little more, squeezing lightly.

Gabrielle gave a little gasp, and her eyes immediately flew open. “Cooper?”

He smiled at her.

In the next instant, Gabrielle was in that bed with him. She put her mouth to his and kissed him.

He loved having her mouth on his.

Her kiss was light and gentle, and the woman was out of her head if she thought that was enough to satisfy him. Her body was next to his, not touching him, and that wasn’t good enough, either.

He pulled her closer, ignoring the burn of the IV in his arm.

“No!” Gabrielle said, pulling back. “You have to be careful. You need—”

“I have what…I need.” He was staring right at her.

Her lips trembled.

“You said…you loved me…” His voice was raspy, and talking made his throat ache more, but he didn’t care. The pain just meant that he was alive.

“I did,” she whispered, searching his eyes.

“Say it again.”

Her smile bloomed, full and beautiful. “I love you, Cooper Marshall.”

“Again.” His demand. He would never get tired of hearing those words from her.

Gabrielle pressed another too light kiss to his lips. “I love you.”

This time, he was the one to tremble. Because, for an instant, he’d wondered what he would have done if Deuce had killed her.

I would have been lost.

“Cooper?”

He shoved the darkness away from his mind and focused on the light—on Gabrielle. “I think we need…to reevaluate our partnership,” he managed to tell her.

Her brows lifted. “We do?”

“Um, I was thinking about something more…permanent.” A whole lot more permanent.

She shifted against him, pushing herself up so that she could gaze down at him. “That had better not be the drugs talking.”

A rough laugh escaped from him. That was his Gabrielle. Only she could get to him—could make him laugh, make him dream of a future. “It’s not. It’s me.” But then his gaze fell on the white box that was perched on the table near his bed. A small, square box.

The kind that usually stored jewelry.

Gabrielle followed his gaze. “Mercer brought that by for you. He said that he thought you’d be needing it.” Her fingers stroked his arm, an almost absent gesture. He loved her touches. Her caresses.

Loved her.

“His wounds weren’t nearly as bad as yours—no internal organs hit for him. He was cleared the next day, but you…” Her hand stilled on him. “You scared me.”

He caught her fingers, brought them to his lips and pressed a hard kiss to her knuckles. “I’ll do my…damnedest to never scare you again.” He only wanted to make her happy.

Some of the sadness eased from her eyes. “Rachel’s okay. She’s still here, and Dylan’s making sure that she gets plenty of rest.”