by Cindy Skaggs
Ryder’s plan had been solid. A week ago, someone had sent Lauren on a collision course with this hill at the bottom of the lake. At the time, Ryder had recognized the spot as the perfect place for an ambush. They put Fowler at the top of the hill and lured Echo into position. If Rose had done his job, he’d have captured the driver before he could escape up the hill, but Rose hadn’t been able to desert Debi, another reason to stay the hell away. The attraction screwed with his focus. He didn’t have time for sex, games, and rock and roll, and he damn sure didn’t have the right to paint a bigger target on her chest.
He turned his gaze to the gold sedan. It was late model, with dents along the front panel. The front windshield was shattered, likely from the bullet. Despite the shot and the high-speed chase, Echo had prevented the car from flipping when it hit the curve. The other soldier was well-trained by the same assholes who had trained Team Fear. Behind him, Ryder spoke in low rumbles on the phone. Debi had gone back to the truck to get something from the medic pack. Rose dropped to the ground to search under the car.
Debi’s heeled boots returned and crossed his line of sight. Damn woman had legs for miles and those slim black heels gave her an extra four inches of pure sass.
“I got the swabs and some Ziploc bags. I can—”
He gripped her ankle to lock her down. “Hold up.” Her foot blocked a rectangular protrusion on the undercarriage that didn’t belong there. “C4," he yelled. "Everybody back.” He jumped up to hustle her away from the car bomb. She was already moving. They made it a dozen steps.
Chapter Six
The concussion blast split the air like dry thunder. The pressure in her ears expanded until an ache in her head threatened to explode. Sound ceased. Debi tumbled in a vacuum surrounded by light and debris and the terrifying absence of sound. Flickering electricity danced on her skin.
She flew faster than pain. Whoosh, her back hit before she crumbled against the side of the bluff. Rose landed against her. The bruising impact of solid muscle moving at the speed of C4 hit like a second blast. Air compressed in her lungs before they dropped the rest of the way down. He twisted as they rolled, taking the brunt when they hit solid rock at the bottom. An unnatural silence throbbed in her ears.
She fought the cocoon of his arms, struggling to regain her feet. Fight. They needed to get up and fight. She was no tactician, but they were easy pickings. Rose’s eyes focused on hers. His mouth moved, but she didn’t hear the words. Panic welled up in her still tender chest. “Let me up.” She didn’t hear her own voice, just an echo of pain in her eardrums.
He used his body to contain her struggling limbs. Once he had her tied down, he gave her shoulders a hard shake. His lips moved.
Tears dripped from the corner of her eyes. “I can’t.” She couldn’t what? Think? Hear? Speak?
He gave her another solid shake before turning her head to meet his gaze. “Stay. Down,” he mouthed.
She nodded and the back of her head scraped gravel. She struggled to see around him, to know what had happened, but he had her wedged into the ditch like a coffin. The lines of his face warped as her vision blurred. Coffin. Not helping. Sweat slicked her skin.
His body settled over her and he loosened his grip to run a finger along her jaw. The gentle touch against the backdrop of the explosion stopped her mid-breath. Blinking away the fog, she focused on his face. Tan. Golden. And his dark eyes were blue this close, like a midnight sky with the barest sliver of a moon. A deep well of emotion hid in the depths.
Deep breath. She couldn’t hear him, but the words from earlier were locked in her memory. The way he’d talked her down. No one had soothed her in the middle of an attack before. The memory helped her focus. Deep breath. The way he’d taken a breath with her, counting ... one, two, three, four, and exhale. The tactile imprint of his large palm brushing over her back stayed with her, down her spine and across her shoulders. Calm. His voice was like water over rocks, rough against smooth, a kind of meditative focus.
The intensity of his gaze froze the fear. There was no other word for it. Everything inside her froze, waiting for his orders. He moved his lips in slow, exaggerated movements. “Ready. To. Go.”
The words were more vibration than sound. The words stayed trapped in her throat, she was afraid to speak. She nodded instead.
He counted down this time. “Three. Two. One.”
He lifted her to her feet and shoved her toward the twisted metal of his truck. Her boots slid in the gravel, seeking purchase. He didn’t give her time. He lifted her and tucked himself around her. The driver’s door flung open and he shoved her across the seat. She didn’t have time to strap on the seatbelt before the truck rumbled to life. The windshield shattered as Rose slammed the truck into reverse.
A scream scratched her throat, tore free, but she didn’t hear more than an echo. Rose spun the car in a one-eighty, heading down the highway as fast as her grandpa chasing a hooker. They made the turn away from the bluff, away from the lake, and Debi dropped slowly back against the seat. Relaxing her muscles brought every ache to the fore. Her head pounded and her entire back throbbed like a nasty bruise, which it probably was. She reached up to pull her seatbelt on, but her arm wouldn’t move. A burning pain spiked through her shoulder. Her opposite hand reached to rub away the ache and came up bloody.
Crap. Debi closed her eyes. Took a deep breath, but a breath wasn’t going to cut it this time. The seeping wound forced her into the flaring reality of pain. Was it shrapnel or a gunshot? She hadn’t heard gunfire, but she hadn’t heard anything since the bomb bruised her ears. “Gunshot?” she asked, but she couldn’t hear her own voice. Could he? She glanced across the seat.
The anger in his gaze went so deep it threatened to draw her into the black hole of his soul. He reached across with one hand and pulled her seatbelt over her body.
Some words you didn’t need to hear. The injury was bad. Moving jolted pain through every nerve ending. Hell, having a cow knock the wind out of her was playtime compared to the stretch and burn slicing through her body right now. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back.
Breathe deep. One, two, three, four, and exhale.
He counted like a dance instructor, with a silent beat between each count. His calming voice, even one she couldn’t hear, sent her inward. Tingles spread down her arm to her fingers. Blood oozed down her chest. Damn, she’d liked this shirt, although, truth be told, she’d worn it one too many days. Ok, she was seriously losing it. She tried to open her eyes, but the heaviness was too much to push past.
Passing out right now would be great, because good God-awful son of a Texas steer, this hurt. But she stayed awake, each jostle of the truck sending spasms through her trembling chest. Gradually, she became aware of wind swirling her hair around her face like a whip, and then, a whisper of the wind, a mere snap pierced the silence.
Sound. Thank God. At least the hearing loss had been temporary.
Minutes or hours later, the wind stopped smacking her and went silent. She opened her eyes to see the metal sign and family brand that spanned the driveway to the ranch. Home. Tears burned the back of her eyes, but she sniffed them away. If she started, she might never stop. She focused on the details so she didn’t panic. Didn’t fall asleep and never wake up.
Red paint was weather rough on the side of the barn. Rose pulled in front, jumped out to open the garage-sized double door before backing inside. The dim light made it possible for her to fully open her eyes.
Red stained the right side of her body. Pebbled glass covered the dash and floor. Debi brushed remnants of the windshield from her legs.
“Stay still,” he barked. He stood outside the driver’s door, pulling his medic bag from the back. If she’d ever believed him peaceful or kind, the look on his face disabused her of it. Anger lived in the hard line of his jaw and the muscle ticking in his cheek. “Ornery woman going to bleed all the hell over my truck,” he muttered.
“Just so long as I don’t die in
your truck.”
He shoved the bag over his left shoulder. “Don’t move.”
“Good idea. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it.”
“You know how to shoot a handgun?”
“What about my shoulder?” She didn’t want to sound like a wimp, but the pain escalated like some savage creature trying to eat her from the inside out. “Remember, I don’t like blood.” Actually, the sight of it made her want to lose her lunch. Or whatever meal she’d last eaten. She was starting to lose grasp of reality.
“Gunshot wound. You’ll live. I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I have to make sure we’re not walking into a hot zone. The barn provides cover, but there’s only one way in or out. We need inside the house for me to patch you up right. Now, answer my question. Do you know how to shoot a handgun?”
“Grew up on a ranch.”
He pulled a black handgun from his pack. A semi-automatic, probably a Glock, although her vision was foggy. Rose racked the slide to chamber a round. “The barn is empty, but I need to clear the house before I take you inside. Understand?”
“Sure.”
He handed her the weapon. “Anyone comes through the door, shoot first, ask questions later. Got it?”
She gripped the weapon in her left hand, careful to keep her trigger finger positioned to avoid accidentally discharging the weapon. “Sure, Rosie, go clean the house.”
“Clear the house.”
“I’d rather you cleaned it, but you do you.”
A muscle twitched above his lip. “Stay alert.” Bag slung on his back, he marched to the open barn doors. He closed one and with a final and intense look, he was gone.
Debi lifted her gun arm to brace the butt of her hand against the dash. She was a righty, and at the moment, her right side had all the mobility of a rusted tractor. The odds of hitting the side of the barn while in the barn were unlikely with her left. Come to think of it, she was an easy target. The idea sped panic through her pulse. She was strapped into her seat with the passenger door closed. Trapped. The sides of the truck closed in on her like a carnival fun house. There was nowhere to run if anyone came through the door. She may as well paint a bull’s-eye on her chest. Although the blood was doing enough of that, seeping through the thin cotton. Cold made her fingers tingle.
Pain kept the panic in check, but she needed free of the restraint. She set the gun on the dash and lowered her hand to the seatbelt. Her fingers tracked down the belt to the locking mechanism where she mashed the button to release the clip. The belt retracted, slipping across the wound. “Holy mother.”
Pain zipped through her body like aftershocks. Sweat dripped down her face. The what ifs of the situation kept her moving. She needed to get free of the truck in case something bad went down, so she reached across her body and popped the door open with her left. The door gave and her body lurched with the sudden jolt, more pain spiraling from the wound. She eased her legs around to the opening and scooted to the edge of the seat.
“Jesus H Christ.” Rose’s tone had bite. “You had one job.”
Startled, she slid off the seat and had to catch herself with her left. Her right arm dangled like cooked spaghetti.
Rose grabbed her before she slid to the hard packed ground. “What if someone from Echo had walked in the door?”
“Then I’d be gone and you’d have to forgive me for bleeding all over your truck.”
“Not funny.” He grabbed the Glock, set the safety, and tucked it behind his back. “Wasn’t worried about the truck. You’ve lost a lot of blood, sweetheart.”
She twisted to get a look, but he maneuvered so her good arm faced him, and just like that, he had her up in his arms. He paused long enough to close the barn. Moments later, he had her in the shelter of her house. The deadbolt slammed home with a solid click. He wove a path through the house to set her on the sofa.
“Wait. Blood will never get out of the microsuede.”
Rose rolled his eyes. “Where do you want to do this, Princess?”
“Take me to the bathroom down the hall.”
“This isn’t some scratch we can bandage up in the bathroom before you hop in the shower.”
“Oh.” Last night’s dinner agitated in her stomach. “Hospital?”
“First place Echo will look.”
When a hospital was unsafe, she’d fallen pretty far down the rabbit hole. “Doctor?”
“Mandatory reporting on gunshot wounds. The police will get involved, which will draw Echo right to us. Don’t worry. I’m trained in battlefield triage, you’ll—”
Something pounded on the front door. Rose transformed. An invisible shield covered his expressions as he went warrior strong before her eyes. He set her on the couch and pulled out the Glock. “Stay here.”
Like she could get up at this point. She didn’t hear him move, but moments later the door clicked open and voices filled the emptiness.
“What the fuck happened?” Rose’s angry voice followed by something or someone smacked into the wall. Granny’s china cabinet rattled with the pounding noises in the other room.
“Get the fuck off,’ Fowler answered. “We didn’t know about the bomb. Found the detonator minutes after the car blew sky high.”
“What about the shot? The bastard tagged Debi. You should have had him contained before he could take a shot.” Rose’s voice lifted in anger.
Fowler’s angry voice shouted right back. “Wasn’t the asset who did the shooting, asshole. There was another shooter, so get the fuck off.”
The china cabinet rattled and something clattered to the bottom shelf, the broken glass like a mini-explosion in the tense room. “Maybe you should take this outside.” She wanted her voice to be stern, but it came out a mere whisper. Neither of the men responded as the argument escalated. Debi stood to make her point, but the ground wiggled underfoot. She dropped to her butt. The soft cushion called.
Let go. Drift.
Chapter Seven
Boom, one minute she was upright and snarky, the next she dropped to the couch like a medicine ball. Rose dislodged his elbow from Fowler’s throat and raced around the couch. “Grab my kit.” He eased Debi’s head down and lifted her feet onto the couch. “A little hydrogen peroxide will get the stain out,” he assured her.
“S’okay,” she mumbled. “Barry sat here. We could burn it. Isn’t that your specialty?”
“Incendiary devices. I prefer blowing things up.” He put a pillow behind her back to keep the wound elevated. “But I could branch out; help you start a Barry the Bastard bonfire later.”
“Sounds like a plan. We had a barn fire here last year.”
“So I heard. Maybe fires are your specialty.”
“Wasn’t me. I think Barry started it.”
The runt from campus had lit her barn on fire? That was more than a bad breakup. Rose grabbed her boots and yanked them from her feet.
“You cut off my boots and I will haunt you.”
“We don’t do that.” He let his eyes show a humor he didn’t feel. Color drained from her cheeks, leaving her skin a sickly grey. “The ER likes to cut off your clothes. I think they get kickbacks from the clothing industry.”
Fowler grabbed the medic bag and setup on the opposite end of the couch. “Field dressing or are we stitching her up?”
“How much time do we have?”
“Ryder’s on the hunt. The bastard won’t get anywhere near here. We’ve got time.”
That gave him time to assess, something he’d wanted but couldn’t do until they were secure. “Compression.” Rose warned Debi before he put a clean dressing and pressure over the wound.
Debi hissed breath between her teeth. “What happened? I thought we set a trap?”
“We did.” Fowler pulled a medicine bottle and syringe from the kit. “The guy on your tail set the bomb and hightailed it up the hill. We were right on his ass when he blew it. Took him down.”
“Then how the fuck did he get off a shot?” Rose scrubbed his hands in
the kitchen sink. He glared at Fowler from across the room.
“Wasn’t him.” Fowler injected Debi with a painkiller. “What’s your pain level?”
“Fifteen.”
“One a scale of one to ten.”
She grimaced. “My answer remains the same.”
“Lucky it wasn’t me doing the shooting. You’d be dead.”
“You didn’t kill the soldier in the car behind us.”
“I had orders. We needed information.” Fowler drew liquid into the syringe. “Which is why his partner took him out.”
“There were two?” Her words started to slur.
Rose shook clean water from his hands. “We went over this once, sweetheart. Keep up. Bad guy one hightailed it up the cliff when Fowler shot him. Bad guy two shot him so we wouldn’t capture him.”
“The second guy killed the first guy.” Her eyes alternated between wide open and long blinks. “To shut him up. You think he would have talked?”
They were good at their job. “He’d have talked,” Rose said. There was no end to the pressure they’d exert to get the information they needed. Rose grabbed the Celox applicator from the kit. The blood-clotting agent stemmed blood loss.
Fowler frowned as he finished the story. “What I don’t understand is how Echo Two took out Echo One with a damn-near perfect shot, but managed to miss Rose’s big ass in the truck and hit Debi instead.”
“Distance. Rapid movement. Not everyone has your skills.” Rose frowned down. Her color hadn’t improved and her face was pinched in pain. “How’s the pain?”
“I think it’s gone down. To a fourteen.”
