TEASE ( A Stepbrother Romance ) By Caitlin Daire

17

Chapter Seventeen

Charlotte

My eyes snapped open, and I frantically looked around. Cade's been shot by this lunatic, my mind repeated over and over.

I couldn't have been more wrong, though. Cade was unhurt, and he was clutching Evan's bleeding left arm, his face pale. Evan was even paler, and he was muttering something as Cade wrapped his suit jacket around his arm and tied it tightly, stemming the flow of blood with pressure.

I whirled around to see Keith tackling the blond man to the ground, knocking the gun out of his hands before twisting him into a submissive position. "You think you can come to my wedding and hurt my son!" he snarled. "You'll rot in prison forever for this, you bastard!"

The security guards finally did the damn job they'd been hired for and rushed to Keith's aid, with two of them handcuffing the blond man and hauling him to his feet while another spoke into a black handheld radio.

The rest of the room was still in pandemonium, with guests running around shrieking and trying to get out of the room, while some hid under the chairs, their faces twisted in fear. Some others who were still standing were on their phones to 911, and another few of them were even filming with their phone cameras, which disgusted me. This wasn't some sort of action thriller movie, this was real life, and they were filming it like some kind of sick voyeurs, presumably so they could sell the footage to the media for a pretty penny later on.

My mother was on the ground, curled up in a ball, and I crawled over to her. "Mom! It's going to be okay. Keith got him, and the security guys are taking care of everything now."

She nodded and kept staring into space with her brown eyes wide. "Evan...what happened to him?"

"He's been hurt, Mom, but people have called 911. There'll be an ambulance here any minute, and he'll be fine, I promise."

I knew I had no right to promise that; I had no way of knowing whether it was true or not, but I had to say something to get her off the ground. She finally nodded and got to her feet, her legs shaky, and I led her over to one of the security guards before racing back over to Keith, Evan and Cade. Evan appeared to have passed out from shock at this point, but he was still breathing.

"How bad is it?" I asked, my voice choked with emotion. My legs were starting to feel unsteady, and I knew I wouldn't last much longer before completely succumbing to the shock of the incident. I needed to try and be strong for a few more minutes, though. Evan had been hurt, and he needed everyone to rally together and be strong for him.

"It looks like his arm was just grazed," Cade said. "But I wrapped it up anyway, just like you showed me when he cut himself a while back, because it was bleeding a fair amount."

Keith's face was pale, and he knelt down and grabbed Evan, hoisting him into his arms. Then he stood back up and carried him down the aisle, towards the entrance, where police and paramedics were beginning to pour in. Cade and I followed, and he slipped an arm around my shoulder as we walked. No one said a thing or even looked at us funnily, because they were all too caught up with what had just happened, and as I felt his warm fingertips gently stroking the side of my arm, I had a sudden mental flashback of what had happened only a few minutes ago.

Cade had jumped in front of all of us while a gunman was within close range, and he'd risked himself to save us. If he hadn't done so, I had no idea what might've happened....maybe the gunman might've had a clearer shot. Maybe someone would be dead right now.

It was too horrible to even imagine.

I looked up at Cade, and as he watched the EMTs tend to his little brother, I could see the raw emotion in his eyes. "Cade...thank you," I said. "You might have saved us all."

He shook his head. "I should've done more," he said. "I thought Evan would be safe down on the ground with your Mom, where I pushed them, because the guy looked like he was aiming at Dad. But..."

I stopped, moved to his front and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. "Cade, it's not your fault. He wasaiming more towards your Dad. You couldn't have known he'd move at the last second. He was crazy."

He was silent for a long moment.

"My brother got shot," he finally said, his voice flat. It was like he needed to say the words out loud for it to really register with him as reality.

"I know," I said, hot tears springing to my eyes now. "But you tried, Cade. You did what you could, and you did way more than most other people would in the same scenario. You're a good man."

"What if he dies?"

I wrapped my arms around him, not even caring if anyone saw us. "Cade," I said, my mouth comfortingly close to his left ear. "Evan isn't going to die. It was just a graze on his arm, and he's going to be fine."

"You don't know that."

I sighed. "No, I don't, but I have hope," I said. "And you need to have hope too, for Evan's sake. He'll wake up, and he'll be okay. I just know it." I took a few deep breaths before squeezing him even tighter. "And until then, I'll be here for you. A few weeks ago, you told me you'd always be around to stick up for me and be here for me...and now I'm saying the same thing to you. I'm here for you, always."

I pulled back and looked at him, and Cade looked down at me. "Thank you," he replied, his voice gruff with emotion. "Charlotte, this isn't the right time to say it, but I..."

His voice trailed off, and I pressed a finger to his lips. "I know. But you're right. This isn't the right time. Let's wait for a better time to say it."

He nodded and didn't say another word as he stared down at me, but a whole world of communication passed between us in our gazes. I knew exactly what he'd been about to say.

I love you.

My response was conveyed to him in my eyes. I love you too.