Page 72 of For Always
With that, Noah turned quickly, tossing Gabriella to the floor and kneeling down over her. She kicked instantly, swinging her arms at him even though she knew he had a gun.
“Let her go, Noah!” Tyler yelled.
Gabriella had tears in her eyes and she was fighting to get him off of her, but over his shoulder she saw Tyler with a gun. He’d finally gotten to the gun Gabriella had seen him push between the mattresses before they went to bed.
“Let her go or I’ll blow your head off right now!” Tyler told him.
Noah stopped fighting her. He rolled over on the floor and jumped to his feet, pointing his gun at Tyler. Now, they both had guns and they were in a stand-off. Gabriella quickly got to her feet.
They’d all switched positions so that now, Noah stood with his back to the door leading out to the hallway and Tyler was closer to the closet. When Gabriella stood, she was beside Tyler.
“Noah, just put your gun down,” she said, her heart beating so loud she could barely hear herself speak. “Just put your gun down and we can all sit and talk this out.”
She took a step toward Noah and was rewarded with a roar that sounded like a battle cry before he turned the gun to her and prepared to pull the trigger. Everything from that point on happened like a movie playing in slow motion. The bedroom door opened and Jagger ran inside, pushing Noah out of the way just as a gunshot rang out. Gabriella fell to the floor with Jagger on top of her and then there were two more shots. The room went silent after that, except for the sound of someone choking, sputtering some unintelligible words and then falling into the dresser before hitting the floor.
Gabriella immediately pushed Jagger off of her. Her feet scrambled beneath her as she struggled to stand and looked around the room. Noah was lying on the floor bleeding and Tyler…he was still standing, holding that gun, alive. He was alive.
She ran to him and he hugged her close, whispering in her ear over and over again, “I’m so sorry for getting you into this. So damn sorry for all of it. I love you,” Tyler said. “I love you so much. If he had hurt you. If he had ki—”
“I’m fine,” Gabriella told him. “I’m right here, Tyler. I’m fine. And I love you, too. I love you and you’re alive.”
She didn’t know how long they stood there, but she heard when Alex and Monica came into the room. Because that was only seconds before Noah raised his arm and aimed the gun at her and Tyler as they stood embracing each other. Monica screamed and Jagger pushed the dresser on top of Noah, causing the gun to fall from his hand and clatter across the floor. Alex hurried to pick up the gun and handed it to Monica, who quickly aimed it at Noah. Alex lifted the dresser off of Noah and yelled for Jagger to find him something to tie his hands with.
Tyler sighed and rested his forehead against Gabriella’s, still holding her tightly.
“It’s over,” she whispered. “Everything will be fine now because it’s over.”
Tyler nodded and kissed her forehead. “It’s over,” he said.
Chapter 17
The next hours passed quickly with sirens and police cars filing onto the ranch once again. Tyler sighed because this time his house was the crime scene. Police had been in his bedroom where they’d handcuffed and arrested Noah Windmyr. They’d been downstairs in the living room as well as every other room in the house and they dusted for fingerprints to prove Noah had broken in. Tyler wasn’t optimistic they were going to find any because when Noah was being lifted off the floor, the gunshot wound to his knee and his shoulder still gushing blood, a security pass had fallen out of his jacket pocket. It was a pass issued to a supervisor of the construction crew, a man who would now be questioned about a connection to Noah and the murders.
Noah had walked onto the property that night he’d vandalized the pens, but after that he’d had to find another way to get inside. And he had. Sometime last night Noah had slipped into the house and when they’d locked up, they’d unwittingly locked themselves inside with a killer. How did that happen? And how did Tyler prevent it from happening again? Because the sight of Gabriella standing with a gun to her head wasn’t something he ever wanted to see again.
“It’s almost over, Ty,” Clyde said after clapping a hand to his shoulder.
Gabriella was in the kitchen with Alex, Monica and Dessie. Sheriff Alvarez was talking to Stephen in the office and Naomi was fixing coffee, going around the house making sure everyone had a full cup. It was almost dawn and the house was full of people like it was an afternoon gathering. Tyler stood in the den, next to the mantle over the fireplace that he’d told Gabriella not to touch in her redecorating. She hadn’t and the West family photos still stood proudly on that mantle looking on to the next generation.
“He just wanted to carry on the family name,” Tyler said as he looked at his parents’ wedding photo. “And she wanted to make it bigger and better, to bring it into the 21stcentury with the glamour and style it deserved.”
“Now it’s up to you,” Clyde told him. “You and Jagger. They loved and were proud of both of you. I know that George had a funny way of showing his pride and appreciation toward you boys, but that was just the way he’d been brought up. His father wasn’t affectionate toward him and so George did what he’d learned. You boys had Verna. Her light shines in both of you.”
“Noah said Jessie proposed to my mother,” Tyler stated slowly, the words still causing him pain. “Is that true?”
“Yes,” Clyde replied. “I’d forgotten about that it was so long ago. But the day before prom Jessie walked right up on Verna’s front porch and asked her father if he could speak to her. Verna’s dad had seen Jessie around town with George so he hadn’t thought anything untoward was going on. He sent Jessie in the house where Verna and her sister, June, were. Jessie went in there and got down on one knee, asked her right there in front of her sister. June told us later that Verna turned him down in the nicest way possible, but that Jessie left the house spitting mad.”
“Why did my dad hire him at the ranch if he knew that Jessie was in love with his wife?” That was like Tyler asking Austin to come work for him at Ty-Fitness.
“Jessie had been following me and George around since we were young boys. Right after Jessie’s father went to jail for burning down three buildings in one weekend, Jessie started acting strange. Rumor was, his father was looking for a black man who he said had stolen from him, so he followed the man and burned down every place he thought he’d seen him. Everyone in town knew that Windy, that’s what they used to call Jessie’s father, was a little touched in the head. Anyway, Jessie was about ten when that happened and he started acting strange kicking cats and breaking stuff for no good reason. That’s when George decided we should keep an eye on him. From that point on we just kept Jessie real close because we thought it would help him get past what his father had done and that bad reputation.”
“And then his son grew up to murder my parents, the ones who only tried to save his father,” Tyler said quietly.
The grief was heavy and powerful as it weighed on him. For his parents and for Hannah who, no matter how simple-minded she could be, did not deserve to die.
“You will move past this,” Clyde told him. “We all will. The world keeps turning, no matter what.”
“It does,” Tyler said with a nod. “And things just keep changing.”
