Guarding Miranda Read Free Page B

had an entry hole about the diameter of a pen but the back of her shoulder had a messy exit hole, at least six times the size of that of the entry wound. 
    From what he could tell, the bullet had passed right through her. 
    It explained the shattered driver’s side window.
    “Oh, Miranda, I’m so sorry,” he whispered hastily, rolling her unto her right side, as he had been told to do in First Aid.
    “I should have been closer,” he continued, “I should have been watching more carefully…”
    Brian tore off his white dress shirt and used it to staunch the bleeding wound. 
    His large hands were soon covered in her bright crimson blood. 
    He applied direct pressure to the wound, the adrenaline in his body causing him to tremble uncontrollably. 
    He checked her ABC’s – her Airway, Breathing and Circulation. 
    Well, she was breathing, that much he was certain of.
    Slow and shallow breaths but breathing just the same. 
    He felt for the pulse in her neck and found that its tempo had become somewhat quicker than what he knew was normal.
    He offered the unconscious woman a wry grin.
    “That’s a good sign, love – it means you’re in luck, haven’t lost too much blood.  If your heart was beating faster than that or much more slowly, it’d mean a whole lot of bad news.”
    A small crowd of spectators, most dressed in formal wear, had gathered about the scene.
    He looked back at the milling crowd of high society’s creme de la crème. 
    One of them had to be a doctor but no one was stepping forward.
    “Is there a doctor amongst you?”
    Several heads shook side to side.
    Brian swore under his breath. 
    It was just his fucking luck. 
    The one time and only time he actually needed a doctor from a crowd of wealthy people in suits worth more than he paid himself in a month and he came up empty handed.
    “Any nurses?” He tried again.
    There was more head shaking, plenty of gawking mouths and several blank stares.
    “Then just stand back.” He warned them, remembering the bullet casing. “There’s evidence here the police will need to survey.”
    Just his luck indeed.
    He was both a witness to the crime and the first on the scene of the incident with no one trained in medicine to help him. 
    Brian knew he was going to have to make a statement to the police and Lord knew how much fun that was going to be. 
    He could hardly explain why he had been there in the first place. 
    What would he say? 
    That he was keeping an eye on a millionaire’s niece, to be sure she wasn’t mixed up in her fiancé’s drug dealing and gun running schemes?
    Oh yeah, great ice-breaker for the cops.
    Not to mention, he was witness to the crime. 
    They would want a statement from him but there was no way in Hell he was leaving Miranda’s side! 
    That would go over really well with the cops too. 
    More questions would follow and more questions after that...
    Brian glanced at Richard’s body, saw the small, oozing hole in the front of his head, the splattering of grayish-red gore and fragments of bone, of skull, that adorned the interior of the Mercedes Benz. 
    He looked down and felt another wave of nausea at the sight of Richard’s blood on the front of Miranda’s beautiful face.
    The palms of his hands were warm with her blood, the backs of his hands, cold with it. 
    He put more pressure on the wound and prayed that the ambulance would hurry up. 
    It wasn’t long before he heard the sirens, approaching in the night. 
    It wasn’t much longer after that, he saw the red and white flicker of the ambulance lights followed closely by the red, white and blue of the San Francisco Police Department.
    Brian looked down again at Miranda. 
    Her eyes were closed and he knew that it had to be a good thing.  
    It was better for her to be in Morpheus’ arms, than for her to be awake to watch her sanguine life pouring out of her. 
    Her lovely ivory face, marred by her dead fiancé’s blood, seemed more pale under that