by Katie Ruggle
Too dazed to fight and not really wanting to be away from him anyway, Grace relaxed, allowing him to hold her against his chest. Lexi burrowed in, pressing her head into Grace’s side.
“You okay?” Hugh’s voice was gravelly, sounding as if he’d been screaming for hours.
“Yes.” Her first try was soundless, and a sharp pain shot through her right shoulder, making the answer a lie. Taking a deep breath, she tried again. “Not really.” Although her voice didn’t even sound like her, at least it was audible.
Hugh pushed himself into a sitting position, letting Grace slide into his lap. With a whine of protest, Lexi shifted until she was plastered against both of them again. “What’s wrong?”
The question almost made her laugh. Tipping her head forward, she pressed her forehead against his collarbone. “Besides almost dying? Again?”
“Yeah. Besides that.”
“My arm doesn’t seem to want to move.”
His hands were instantly on her, running from her wrist to her shoulder. “Where does it hurt?”
“My shoulder, mostly.” As he started manipulating it, she flinched. She’d been automatically stroking Lexi with her other hand, but she stopped for a second so she could shove against his chest. “Ow. Stop it.”
His face set and serious, he didn’t react to her push—or stop moving her shoulder. “It’s not dislocated. If it were, or if it were broken, I’d be peeling you off the ceiling right now.”
“Are you done with your sadistic science experiments now?” she asked, although her sarcasm was thinned by the quaver in her voice. Now that her shock was wearing off, and the realization that all three of them had survived was slowly starting to sink in, Grace wanted to laugh or cry or maybe dance around wildly, if only her shoulder wasn’t hurting so badly.
Hugh carefully lowered her aching arm to her side before reaching for Lexi. “How about you, partner?” he crooned, running his hands over her furry body. With a sound that was more sigh than whine, Lexi lay down next to them, not flinching at Hugh’s probing touch until he reached the area just behind her front legs. When Grace started to move out of his lap so Hugh could reach the dog more easily, he wrapped one arm around her and brought her firmly back down onto his thighs.
“Okay,” he said, finishing his examination of Lexi with one hand, since the other was busy keeping her snugly against his chest. “Hospital for Grace, and vet for Lexi.”
Any objection that Grace had about going to the emergency room disappeared when she shifted and accidentally jarred her injured arm. A wave of pain—so sharp she could taste it—flooded her. “Oh. Yes. Hospital, it is.”
Hugh shot her a look so full of concern that it made her want to cry again, but she clenched her teeth and forced back the tears. If she started, it would be big and ugly, with a ton of snot and racking sobs. She needed to wait until she got back to her new room and…
The thought trailed off as she remembered that she couldn’t go back to her safe-house bedroom, not without endangering Jules’s whole family. The tears rushed back, and Grace had to bite her tongue hard to keep them contained this time.
Hugh shifted her off his lap onto the floor next to him, and she instantly missed the comforting warmth of his hold. As he hauled himself to his feet, he kept his injured leg straight, hopping a few times on his good leg before he caught his balance. She watched him, concerned. Hugh always hid any sign that his injury was bothering him. If he was showing her that he was in pain, then he had to be in agony.
“How bad is your leg?”
He shrugged, concentrating a little too hard on untying the knotted nylon rope around him. “I’ll live.”
“I’m only going to the emergency room if you promise you’ll let them look at you, too.”
He eyed her sharply, but she held his gaze without flinching. “Fine,” he grumbled, throwing up his hands. The movement made Grace notice his palms, and she sucked in a harsh breath.
“Your hands!” Scrambling awkwardly to her feet, she rushed the few steps to him. Grabbing one of his wrists, she gently turned it over. His palm was raw and bleeding. Her gaze moved to the yellow rope, several feet of which had been stained a rusty color.
Following her gaze, he made a wry face. “Didn’t think to grab a pair of gloves.”
A laugh burst out of her. “So between us, we have one working hand? Good thing I don’t drive a stick shift.”
His grin, the one that usually infuriated her, was now the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
Chapter 12
“That’s it!” Theo slammed the exam room door. “I’m sick of this shit.”
Hugh hushed his partner, but it was too late. Grace, who’d finally dozed off five minutes earlier in a very uncomfortable-looking chair, had already startled awake. She winced, probably because the movement hurt her strained shoulder. Curled up in the chair, she looked so fragile, so delicate, that it was hard to believe she was the tough woman who’d saved herself and Lexi. Hugh watched her closely while absently responding to Theo. “You’re sick of it? I’m the one who keeps bleeding. All you have to do is visit me.”
Turning his head, he saw that Theo was vibrating like a tuning fork—a rage-filled tuning fork. Hugh couldn’t help but smile again. He knew that Theo would take every bruise and burn and bullet hole for Hugh and Otto and Jules and the kids if he could. The same went for Otto. Hugh’s partners were his family.
From the look on Theo’s face, it seemed that Hugh’s happy expression was just cranking up his anger, but that was fine. If Theo did give into temptation and punch Hugh in the head, at least they were already at the hospital.
“It’s not a joke,” Theo snarled. “The R and R guy talked about you.”
“About me?” Hugh widened his eyes, trying to keep a straight face. “Really? What’d he say? Has he heard good things? Bad things? Is it my hair? Does he hate it? Did he say that my T-shirts are so last year? Because that’s just mean.”
By the way Theo worked his jaw muscles, Hugh was pretty sure that his partner had ramped back up to murderous. It took Theo a few seconds to say a word, but he finally gritted out, “About who wants you dead, dumbass.”
Grace sucked in an audible breath.
“Me?” That caught Hugh’s interest. He’d much rather discuss which scumbag had a grudge against him than the way it hurt Theo’s secretly tender heart when anyone he cared about got hurt. “Not Grace?”
“It wasn’t Jovanovic. The truck bomb, the shooting, the biker, your deck… They were aiming for you. There’s a hit out on you.”
“What?” Grace came to her feet. “What do you mean there’s a hit out on Hugh?”
He’d been so sure that Martin Jovanovic was trying to get to Grace that Hugh’s thoughts were scattered by the unexpected revelation. He stared at Theo for a long moment before he spoke. “Who ordered the hit?”
“Truman.”
“Truman?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s Truman?” Grace asked.
“Sit.” Hugh frowned at her. She was looking pale, too pale, and he knew her arm had to be killing her.
Of course she ignored him. “Who’s Truman, and why does he want you dead?”
“A coke dealer.” Hugh couldn’t answer the second part of Grace’s question. The man known only as Truman was a major player in the Denver area, but Hugh had never had a run-in with him. In fact, he’d never even met the guy. All Truman was to Hugh was a fuzzy surveillance photo and half a name in a briefing. It didn’t make sense that Truman wanted him dead so badly that he was willing to pay a lot of money to have him killed. “Why?”
“Dresden.”
“The china?”
“The town.”
“In Germany?”
“Why would the… No.” Theo was looking exasperated again. Grace just appeared confused and scared as she t
urned her head back and forth between the two, following their conversation. “Not the German city. The Colorado town. The one just forty miles from here. The one with a lot of rich skiers and boarders who want their coke.”
Of course. He should’ve figured it out a lot earlier. Hugh blamed his denseness on the fact that both his leg and his hands felt like they’d been put through a meat grinder and then set on fire. “So, Truman’s finally figured out what the Rack and Ruin guys have known for years. If they take Highway Six from Denver to Dresden, instead of the interstate, then they’re a lot less likely to run into any state troopers who might take their nose candy away. But Six takes them right through Monroe.”
“And you’re the only narcotics-detection K9 team in Monroe since Denny retired.” Theo started to pace the room.
“Does Denver PD have any idea where to find Truman?” Hugh asked.
“No.” Pivoting around, Theo paced the other direction. “They’ve been trying to pin this guy down for years, but they don’t even have a last name for this asshole. LT called in the FBI to help. Apparently, they’ve been trying to get a solid case against Truman for a while now, too.” The door swung open, forcing Theo to stop abruptly so he didn’t get slammed in the face. When Otto stepped inside, he looked about as happy as Theo and Grace did.
“More good news?” Hugh tried to make his voice sound light, but he didn’t succeed. His burned hands throbbed in rhythm with the bullet wound in his leg, and he cursed his intolerance of pain medications.
Otto scrubbed a hand over his head. “The lieutenant and I checked out what was left of your deck.”
The nightmarish image of Grace and Lexi hanging off the edge of the railing, dangling over endless space as he tried to knot the rope around his torso, hit Hugh hard. He wanted to grab Grace’s hand, to pull her against him and keep her safe, but he managed to restrain himself. “Someone messed with it.” His voice was dark and sure. He’d rebuilt that deck just a few years ago. It had been strong and secure; he’d bet his life on it.
Silently, Otto gave a short nod.
Theo swore, and Grace made a small sound in her throat, but Hugh tightened his jaw. Although he’d known the investigating officers would find that the deck had been sabotaged, it still hit him sharply. It was one thing to threaten his life or to blow up his truck, but Grace and Lexi had been hurt, had almost been killed.
Truman had declared war, and Hugh was ready to fight back.
Chapter 13
Grace woke up with a cat purring on her head.
She blinked, taking in the unfamiliar, simple bedroom, the lack of city sounds. It took several seconds before all the details of her new messed-up life came back into focus. When they did, she wished she could go back to sleep. She even tried, closing her eyes firmly, but the cat rubbed its head against Grace’s cheek, squashing it. With a laughing groan, Grace gave up her feeble attempt at escaping reality and sat up.
Immediately, her arm throbbed, and she sucked in a pained breath. The doctor had told her that her shoulder was sprained, and that she’d strained pretty much every muscle in the top right quarter of her body, but nothing had been torn or broken or dislocated. Rotating her shoulder carefully, she bit back a gasp. It felt like it had been ripped off and then casually reattached, but at least she could move it. Right after the deck incident, she hadn’t even been able to raise it.
Otto had invited them to stay at his place after they’d left the hospital. Hugh didn’t want anyone to stay at his house until the crazy drug dealer who’d put a hit out on him was arrested and the contract canceled. She could tell it bothered him—a lot—to be chased out of his own home. Looking at the hard set of Hugh’s mouth last night as they were driving to Otto’s, Grace had almost pitied Truman. Hugh’s expression had shown clearly that he intended to make the guy pay. She still couldn’t believe that Martin Jovanovic hadn’t been behind the attempts on their lives. Only she could have the bad luck to escape from one killer in California, just to stumble over another in Colorado.
Grace slid out of bed, ignoring the cat’s displeased grumbles. Looking down at herself, at yet another borrowed, oversized T-shirt and sweatpants, she sighed. What she wouldn’t give for her own jeans.
There was a quick knock on the door, right before it swung open. “Hey. You’re up.”
Why was she not surprised to see Hugh’s grinning face? “You have the worst manners I’ve ever seen. What is so hard about waiting until you’re invited in?”
“I knocked,” he countered with no remorse. None. “Listen, the guys just got here, and they have some information on Truman. I figured you’d want to hear this.”
“I do, thanks. Give me two minutes.” Feeling like she was forty years older than she actually was, Grace moved toward the doorway…and Hugh. He was watching her with an odd look on his face, and she restrained the urge to touch her hair. It was a hideous, snaky mess, she was sure, but she was also sure that she shouldn’t care what Hugh thought of her appearance. People were shooting at them, blowing things up, chasing them through print shops, and booby-trapping decks. She needed to focus on that, not her twitchy, fluttery stomach as his gaze dropped from her face down her poorly dressed body.
She reached the doorway, but Hugh didn’t move, instead continuing to watch her with an unreadable expression. From what she’d learned about Hugh, he didn’t do unreadable. He was either happy, jokey Hugh or serious, intent, keep-them-from-dying Hugh. “What?”
“What what?”
And there it was. A gleam of humor returned to Hugh’s eyes, and Grace rolled her own. “Quit staring at my Medusa head and get out of the way. I need two minutes in the bathroom, impatient pants.”
“Impatient pants?” Now he was actually chuckling. “That’s your insult? Good one, Gracie.”
With a frustrated grumble, she elbowed past him, squeezing into the hallway and stomping toward the bathroom door. “And let me pee in peace this time. Go downstairs. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“As if I want to stand here and listen,” he huffed, although there was that constant amused undertone to his voice, as if he was suppressing laughter.
Grace paused while pulling the bathroom door closed behind her to glance at Hugh with her eyebrows raised. “I know how you are with women’s restroom doors.” Without waiting for a comeback, she closed the door the rest of the way. Even though she knew it wouldn’t slow Hugh down too much, she shoved the button lock in with her thumb.
Through the door, she heard him make a scoffing sound. “One time. I broke into a women’s restroom one time. Can’t you just let that go? I was concerned for your safety. You’d been in there for hours.”
“Minutes, Hugh.” Raising her voice, she corrected him without opening the door. “I’d been in there just a few minutes. You need to grow some patience.” When the only response was a wordless, cranky growl, she grinned. Despite her minor victory, she still did what she needed to quickly. After all, a serial bathroom door unlocker was not about to change his stripes overnight.
The three cops standing around the large kitchen looked at her as she came in. Lexi was stretched out in front of the stove. Although she raised her head and thumped her tail against the floor in greeting, she didn’t get up. Grace figured the dog must be feeling as sore as she was.
The grim expressions on all three of the guys reminded Grace of the situation, and she felt a wave of hopelessness and homesickness crash over her. Bantering with Hugh upstairs, she’d been able to push the whole assassin thing to the back of her mind, but now, facing the three serious-looking cops, she wasn’t able to think of anything but the killers who were after them. Her knees sagged under the weight of her despair, forcing her to drop into one of the chairs surrounding a wooden table.
As if he knew what she was feeling, Hugh moved behind her and squeezed her shoulders. She was glad he kept his hands, bulky with bandages, there, since the weigh
t of them was reassuring.
“Where’s your sling?” he asked, and she sighed. So much for silent support.
“Probably the same place as your crutches,” she snapped back, and then immediately felt guilty. He’d saved her life over and over, and he was just concerned about her arm. Before she could apologize, though, she realized that Theo and Otto were hiding smiles. Distracted by the rare grins on Dour and Dourer, the words died before they could leave her mouth.
“Eggs?” Otto asked, scooping a mound of them onto her plate before she could answer. The smell made her stomach rumble, and she tried to remember the last time she’d eaten. Honestly, she couldn’t remember.
“Thank you.” She picked up her fork and started shoveling food into her mouth. With a satisfied grunt, Otto returned the pan to the stove and poured her a glass of orange juice. Dropping his hands—which made Grace have to swallow a protest—Hugh sat in the chair next to her.
“Good thing you like your eggs scrambled,” he said, idly picking up a fork. “That’s the only way Otto knows how to make them.” When he reached toward her plate, as if intending to take a bite of her food, she held her fork threateningly above his interloping hand.
“Back off.”
The hungry-puppy look was out in full force. Grace would’ve had more sympathy if she couldn’t see the stack of dirty plates that Otto was rinsing off and placing in the dishwasher. “But…”
Narrowing her eyes, Grace gave him her most threatening glare. With a pathetic glance toward her plate and then back at her face, Hugh gave a loud sigh and pulled back his own fork.
“Cruel,” he sighed.
Having warded off the threat to her eggs, she continued eating. When she’d finally had enough that her stomach’s demands had quieted slightly, she put down her fork and took a drink of juice before looking at Otto.
“Thank you for letting us stay here.”
He did a grunt-and-shrug combo that made her suspect her gratitude made him uncomfortable.
