James Bravo's Shotgun Bride. Christine Rimmer

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      Levi only groaned in impatient disgust. “I know he was your friend. I also know that’s all he was to you—nothing like you and lover boy here. Come on, Addie honey. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve seen the way this man looks at you, the way he’s been chasin’ after you—and though I know you’ve been trying to pretend nothing’s going on, it’s plain as the nose on my face that you are just as gone on him as he is on you.”

      “She is?” James barely kept himself from grinning like a fool.

      But no one was looking at him anyway. Levi kept arguing, “James is the daddy, no doubt about it. And, Addie girl, you need to quit telling your old PawPaw lies and admit the truth so that we can move on and fix what doesn’t need to be broken.”

      “I am not lying,” she cried. “Brandon was my best friend in the whole world and he grew up in foster care, with no family, with nothing.”

      “Stop tellin’ me things I already know.”

      “What I am telling you is that he wanted a child, someone to carry on a little piece of him when he was gone. Before he got too sick, he took steps. He had his sperm frozen...” Addie sniffed. Her big eyes brimmed. She blinked furiously, but it was no good. She couldn’t hold back her tears. They overflowed and ran down her cheeks. “And then he asked me if just maybe I would do that for him, if I would have his child so that something would be left of him in this world when he was nothing but ashes scattered on the cold ground...”

      By then James was so caught up in the story he’d pretty much forgotten his own predicament. Everyone in Justice Creek knew that Addie Kenwright and Brandon Hall had been best friends from childhood. People said that, near the end, she’d spent every spare moment at Brandon’s bedside. As the dead man had no one else, Addie had been the one to arrange the funeral service. She and Levi and her sister, Carmen, and Carmen’s husband, Devin, had sat together in the front pew, all the family that Brandon had.

      James asked her gently, “So, then, it was artificial insemination?”

      Addie sniffed, swiped the tears with the back of her hand and nodded. “We tried three times. What’s that they say? The third time’s the charm? Well, it was. But Brandon died the day after the third time. He died not even knowing that he was going to be a dad.”

      James realized he was in awe of Addie Kenwright and her willingness to have a baby for her dying friend.

      Levi, however, refused to accept that he’d kidnapped the wrong man. “That’s the most ridiculous bunch of bull I’ve ever heard. And I’m seventy-eight years old, Addie Anne, so you’d better believe I’ve heard some tall tales in my lifetime.”

      Addie only swiped more tears away and moved to stand behind James again. He glanced over his shoulder at her. She met his eyes and said softly, “I just hope you’ll be kind, that you’ll take pity on an old man who never meant to hurt anyone.”

      “I will,” he vowed quietly. “I do.”

      “Thank you.” Her cool hands swift and capable, she began working at the knots Levi had used to bind him.

      Levi let out another shout. “No!” He started waving the shotgun again. “Don’t you do that, Addie Anne. Don’t you dare. Under no circumstances can James be untied until I am absolutely certain that he’s ready to do the right thing!”

      Addie said nothing. She kept working the knots as Levi kept shouting, “Stop! Stop this instant!” He ran in circles, the gun held high.

      Just as the ropes binding James went slack, Levi let out a strange, strangled cry. He clapped his hand to his chest—and let go of the shotgun.

      The gun hit the floor. An ungodly explosion followed and a foot-wide hole bloomed in the ceiling. Addie screamed. Ears ringing, James jumped from the chair. Sheetrock, wood framing and kitchen flooring rained down.

      And Levi, his face gone a scary shade of purple, keeled over on his back gasping and moaning, clutching his chest in a desperate, gnarled fist.

      “PawPaw!” Addie cried and ran to him. She dropped to her knees at his side.

      Levi gasped and groaned and clutched his chest even harder. “Shouldn’t’ve...untied him...”

      “Oh, dear God.” She cast a quick, frantic glance in James’s direction. “Call an ambulance. Please...”

      James grabbed his phone off the side table and called 911.

       Chapter Two

      Once he got help on the line, James gave his phone to Addie so she could talk to the dispatcher directly. He scooped up his keys and wallet and stuck them in his pocket. And then he waited, ready to help in any way he might be needed.

      Addie pulled his phone away from her ear. “You can go.”

      He didn’t budge. “Later. What can I do?”

      She listened on the phone again as Levi lay there groaning. “Yes,” she said. “All right, yes.” She made soothing sounds at Levi. Then she looked at James again. “If you could maybe go up and get a pillow from his bed. His room’s off the front entry on the main floor. And get the aspirin from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom there?”

      He was already on his way up the stairs. He found the pillow and the aspirin and ran them back down to her.

      “Thank you,” she said. “And really. We’re okay. You just go ahead and go.”

      Levi was clearly very far from okay. James pretended he hadn’t heard her and eased the pillow under Levi’s head.

      Addie gave the old man an aspirin. “Put it under your tongue and let it dissolve there.” Levi grumbled out a few curse words, but he did what Addie told him to do. Addie shot another glance at James. “I mean it. Go on and get out of here.”

      Again, he ignored her. Not that he blamed her for wanting him to go, after all that had happened. But no way was he leaving her alone right now. What if Levi didn’t make it? James would never forgive himself for running off and deserting them at a time like this, with Addie scared to death and Levi just lying there, sweating and moaning and clutching his chest as he tried to answer the questions that Addie relayed to him from the dispatcher.

      At the last minute, as the ambulance siren wailed in the yard, James glanced up at the hole in the ceiling. He looked down at the rope abandoned on the rug at the base of the chair and the shotgun that had landed in front of the TV. All that was going to look pretty strange.

      He couldn’t do much about the hole, but he did grab the shotgun. He ejected the remaining shells and gathered them up, including the spent casing, which he found right out in the open in front of the sofa. He put the gun and the shells in the closet under the stairs and tossed the rope in there, too. The straight chair, he moved to a spot against the wall.

      “Thank you,” Addie said. He glanced over and saw she was watching him.

      He shrugged. “There’s still the hole in the ceiling. But don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

      “Hope so.”

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