Love & Redemption by Chantel Rhondeau Read Free Book Online

he didn’t see them, he knew he had to move fast. If the criminals worked that quickly to find them, they must already know the diamonds they had were fakes. They wouldn’t just blow up a car and be done with it. They would come to collect the jewels.
    Jumping up, Gavin rushed toward Shelley, sweeping back her hair. It relieved him to note she had no visible injuries to her head or face.
    “Shelley? Can you hear me?”
    She didn’t stir.
    When he checked for a pulse in her neck, her heart beat strong and steady beneath his fingers. Just knocked out from the blast. Sighing with relief, he lifted her up, struggling against her dead weight. He carried her between the cars and laid her on the ground in a spot without much glass.
    She still didn’t move.
    Gavin tapped her cheeks lightly, unsure how to rouse someone who’d been knocked out. “Shelley,” he whispered urgently into her ear. “You have to wake up. Terrance and Stephen are coming for us, and I don’t know what to do.”
    He had watched Shelley take the diamonds from the safe in the closet that morning and put them in her suitcase, though he didn’t make an issue of her taking charge of his fortune. There was little hope of him getting out of here with her and the suitcase, and they needed the diamonds. Time to steal them back.
    He unzipped the fake Gucci bag and dug through Shelley’s belongings, searching for the black jewelry sack.
    “Ugh...” Shelley let out a soft moan. “What happened? What’s with the car alarms? It’s so loud.”
    Relief fluttered through his stomach. “Shh... Don’t talk too loud, Shell.” Although it probably wouldn’t matter. No one could hear much in the cacophony of alarms going off.
    He searched further in the suitcase, knocking shirts out of his way. Success! She’d tucked the diamonds inside her underclothes. Gavin tried not to think too hard about her sexy panties as he slipped the black sack into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
    He crawled back to her. “Are you okay?”
    She blinked owlishly a few times and shook her head slightly. “I’m not sure. What did you do this time, punch me?”
    “This is no time for jokes. The car blew up when you hit the remote start.”
    “Oh, shit!”
    “Oh shit is right.” He stood up cautiously and looked around, just in time to see a white van with dark-tinted windows turn into the parking garage from the lower level. Ducking quickly next to Shelley, he shoved her suitcase and garment bag beneath the car to his left so they wouldn’t be noticed as easily. “We need to move. A van just pulled in. Might not be them, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
    Shelley struggled to sit up, placing a hand against her head and slumping to one side after trying to balance on her knees. “I’m really dizzy.”
    Threading his arm beneath her armpits, Gavin used the Ford Focus next to them as cover while he half-dragged Shelley to the wall. After leaning her into the relative safety of the space between the cement wall and the front of the Ford, Gavin chanced another look into the main part of the garage.
    The white van parked a short distance away, but so far no one had exited the vehicle. There was no way they could make a run for the elevators. Not now. If the killers were in that van, as soon as he stepped into the center aisle with Shelley, they were sure to shoot them down.
    Gavin struggled to remember what the outside of the garage looked like. If Stephen and Terrance stepped out of that vehicle and they had no other choice of escape, Gavin had a plan. Shelley might not like it.
    Leaning far over the outer edge of the cement wall, he tried not to look down the five-story face of it. Then he spotted it, what they needed to survive—a thin ledge. The sounds of slamming doors put an end to his inspection. It was time to find out who was in the garage with them.
    “Won’t be long before every cop in town is here, Terrance. I told you we should have connected it to the