Shockwave (Calendar Men: Mr. May) by D.L. Jackson Read Free Book Online

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    Six years before ....
    They’d pushed the reporters and bystanders back, but Lannie ducked inside one of the tactical vehicles when no one watched. She waited until they moved away to climb out and hide by a stone wall. The soldiers were too busy keeping the crowd outside the two-block area to notice her. She’d remained invisible with the perfect view to the action.
    First, Sergeant Tanner North slipped under the bus. Nothing profound happened for quite some time. Then, about ten minutes later, he scrambled out, screaming for the children and their chaperones to get off and run, sending them toward where she’d hidden. He ran onboard and toward the rear, where a woman and child were still sitting. A flurry of movement ensued and Tanner carried a small boy off the bus, leaving the woman behind. He’d run three hundred yards, not quite to the wall where the rest of the children had already taken cover, when the bus blew.
    Lannie snapped her career-changing picture at that exact moment, when a fireball bloomed behind Tanner. The blast knocked him off his feet. The child had been uninjured, but Sergeant North took the brunt of the force in his back and was injured again when he hit the pavement. The impact would put him in the hospital for weeks. The shockwave caused a concussion and, she’d been told, if he’d been any closer, the damage to his organs and brain could have been fatal.
    Sergeant North had saved fourteen children and one woman. The mother of the young child he’d carried out had been chained at the back of the bus with a bomb strapped to her, and didn’t escape the blast. With the IED rigged to a countdown timer, Tanner’d no choice but to comply with her pleas to take the child and leave.
    The public hailed him as a hero, despite the single fatality. Lannie had captured his bravery, but also his pain at leaving the young mother behind. His face—the haunted look—would capture the hearts of millions around the world. The emotion she’d captured had been a shot in itself, but the explosion she caught behind him was the stuff of legends, a once in a lifetime photograph.
    Tanner North became a celebrity overnight, the secret crush of women everywhere.
    Her worst enemy.
     
    ***
     
    Tanner had planned to give Lannie the rest of the night before he approached her again, after acting like such a dick. Nothing put things into perspective the way quiet time and reflection could, and had. He’d mauled her and ended the encounter by accusing her of stalking. Real smooth.
    He sat in his truck for an hour, waiting for her to come out. When she didn’t, he wondered whether she saw him in the parking lot and waited for him to leave. So he headed for his lodgings, determined to give her space.
    When he’d reached the motel, he couldn’t resist calling the nursing home to ask her grandmother where she might be staying. He’d told the older woman he wanted to apologize. What her grandmother said next, surprised him. Lannie booked a room at the same place. She went on to give him the number, maybe with a little too much enthusiasm. And what did he discover? They were neighbors.
    Then he was pissed again and chose to sit out in the hall, ready to confront Lannie about the stalking. He rolled a thousand scenarios around in his head as to why she’d done it, getting angrier with each passing minute. Money. Fame. Who the hell knew. All he knew for certain, their supposed chance meeting would benefit her somehow. He shouldn’t be surprised. She’d used him to climb the ladder of success before.
    Then she came around the corner and he got a good look at her face, traumatized, not the expression of a woman on the hunt, prepared to bring down her prey. She looked, for lack of a better term, shell-shocked, and he’d been the one to cause it.
    Back to feeling like a dick.
    He hadn’t meant to follow her into the room like a puppy, and he never intended to kiss her, but around Lannie, Tanner seemed to do the