Designed for Love (Texas Nights) by Kelsey Browning Page B

services were on the ball, Mac would give them that. Couldn’t have been more than ten minutes after his call that they barreled through the trees, somehow shoving a backboard between them. Like a perfectly orchestrated football play, the paramedics had the man’s neck stabilized and him hefted onto the board. The female paramedic couldn’t have weighed more than a buck and a quarter soaking wet.
    “Hey,” Mac said, “I can help carry him.”
    The paramedic smiled but shook her head. “We’ve got it.”
    Ashton shoved around Mac to follow the paramedics to the ambulance. “I’m riding with him.”
    “Are you related to...?”
    “His name is Bill Cravens.” How she jogged to keep up with them in that tight-skirted suit and those shoes, Mac couldn’t figure. “No, but I
will
ride with him.”
    “You can follow behind the ambulance.”
    “But—”
    Mac grabbed Ashton’s arm, drew her back. “We’ll take your car.”
    Her eyes, so blue and suspiciously bright, widened. “I have to go.”
    Determination wrapped with compassion. Was she a blonde bit of self-involved fluff or wasn’t she?
    They made it to the car, but Ashton just stood staring at the convertible as though she’d never seen it before, so Mac grabbed the keys and escorted her to the passenger side. “Why don’t I drive?”
    She just nodded and let him help her inside.
    He jackknifed himself inside the tiny car, forcing his knees to kiss his chin. Even with the seat shoved back, he felt like an elephant shoehorned inside a doll car.
    Fifteen minutes later, they pulled up outside St. Martha’s emergency bay. Before he could even kill the car, Ashton flung herself out and sprinted for the hospital. He strode through the automatic doors in time to hear her ask, “Can anyone tell me about Bill Cravens? I need to see him. Make sure he’s okay.”
    “Ma’am.” A nurse waved her toward the waiting room seats. “If you’re not related then we can’t—”
    “You don’t understand, I think I killed him.”
    The nurse’s eyes rounded, and she grabbed for her phone. “Is that a confession?”
    God, Ashton needed to learn to think before she spoke. Before she did anything. Mac strode forward and said, “No, she meant she was with the guy when he collapsed. That’s all.”
    “I’m obligated to call the sheriff’s office.”
    Mac glanced back out the glass doors, caught sight of the paramedics unloading the ambulance—slowly. With a completely covered gurney.
    He grabbed Ashton by the elbow before she could dart past the nurse toward the exam rooms, turned her into his chest so she didn’t have to see what he was seeing. “Ashton—” her name was scratchy coming from his throat, “—I don’t think you’ll be seeing Mr. Cravens again.”
    * * *
    “Bill Cravens is dead? Dead-as-a-doornail dead?” In the library of her Fort Worth home, Gigi sat back in a hair-on-hide-covered chair two times too big for her. Correction—too big for her body. Just right for her personality.
    Although Ashton had dreaded this conversation every second of the three-hour drive from Shelbyville, she knew this was news she should deliver in person. “One minute, we were discussing the project,” she said. “The next minute, he was on the ground.” The memory of his transformation from a blustery, florid man to a pale, lifeless body snaked through her, leaving her shaky. “The staff at St. Martha’s said it was an aneurysm. Apparently, he was gone by the time he fell.”
    “But you and a friend followed him to the hospital?”
    Mac had definitely acted like one in all that craziness. Driving to St. Martha’s. Quietly informing her Mr. Cravens was gone. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders to keep her from crashing to the ground herself. With all the trouble she’d caused him, he could’ve easily walked away. But he hadn’t. And something told her Mac wasn’t the kind of man to just walk away when things got tough.
    Still, Gigi’s words stung,