Shot Through the Heart

by Nicole Helm

  She knew she should go get the gun she kept in the kitchen cabinet. Mom and Dad always insisted she keep more than one gun, and to always have it within reach, but she hated having a deadly weapon in her room. It felt so grim.

  She crawled into bed, determined to live her life on her terms. Let her parents handle their own problems. She’d gotten a message to them. Or at least tried. They didn’t always get the coded emails in a timely manner.

  She blew out a breath and resolutely closed her eyes. She was going to go to sleep. She was going to live her life and let her parents deal with the effects of theirs. End. Of. Story.

  She lay there, repeating that to herself, as her body refused to relax and sleep. Because no matter what she told herself, reality didn’t have to follow reason. Or what she wanted.

  She wasn’t sure how long she lay there, nerves taut and unable to sleep. But she wouldn’t give up. Eventually exhaustion would win. Please.

  Jim let out a low growl and got to his feet from where he’d been sleeping. His body quivered in concentration, that low growl continuing as he began to pad toward the door.

  Fear shuddered through Willa. Even though Jim occasionally barked at some wild animal outside, this was different. No wild rush to go downstairs and outside. A careful, menacing growl.

  What with everything that was going on, she couldn’t ignore it probably was different.

  She didn’t curse her parents, or her lot in life. There was no point. She got back out of bed.

  “Stay,” she ordered the dog. She grabbed the first weapon she could find, the fire poker that hung by the fireplace in her room—both that acted more as decoration than were actually used functionally.

  Jim whined as she walked past him. Willa gave him a sharp look. “Stay,” she repeated. She wouldn’t have any of her animals getting caught in the crossfire of this mess. No. She would handle it.

  She wanted the independent life. She had to handle it when the danger of her parents’ life spilled over into hers. That was just...it. She didn’t have a choice in that. She only had a choice in how she responded.

  She crept down the hall and paused at the top of the stairs. She listened intently. She could still hear Jim growling from her room. She heard the normal creaks and groans of the old house settling.

  Then another creak that sounded much more like a footstep on a loose board than the others. Faint but unmistakable.

  Willa took a deep breath. Her options were to go lock herself in her room and hope for the best. Call the police—something her parents would be really mad about. Or try to handle the intruder herself.

  With a fire poker? Well, she could try to get to her gun. The stairs led her down to the living room. She’d have to creep around through the TV room, the bathroom hallway and then to the kitchen to get there. All without accidentally running into the intruder or giving herself away.

  Still, it was the best option in her mind. So she crept down the stairs. The house was dark, and though her eyes adjusted, there was no way to tell if the shadows were human beings, animals or simply her eyes playing tricks on her.

  She made it to the bottom of the stairs, where she paused and listened. Nothing. Not a hint of someone moving or even breathing.

  She crept forward, moving by memory and feel through the living room and TV room toward the kitchen. After making it through each room, she paused. Listened. Then moved forward again.

  She finally made it to the kitchen, but even without pausing, she knew the intruder was in here. There wasn’t the noise of breathing, or the sounds of footsteps, it was just a...feeling. Of not being alone.

  She wouldn’t be able to get her gun. Not by creeping around. She’d likely bump into the intruder, and that wouldn’t be any good. She’d rather fight for her life face-to-face, in the light. So, she’d have to use the element of surprise and hope for the best. She squared her shoulders and felt around on the wall until she found the switch.

  On an inner count of three, she flipped the switch on, fire poker at the ready.

  Holden was standing in her kitchen, much closer to her than she’d imagined the intruder would be. How could he be within reach and she hadn’t heard him?

  He didn’t even wince at the sudden light, though he did pull a face. “Good God,” he said, pointing a gun at the bunny-shaped door stopper on the ground next to the back door. “What is that?”

  Willa didn’t bother to answer him. She swung the fire poker at him. She knew she should aim for his face or his crotch, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to. So she hit the arm with the gun instead, hoping she could get him to drop it.

  He barely flinched, so she raised the poker again and whacked his shoulder as hard as she could.

  “Hey! Would you stop that?”

  “No! You have a gun,” she said, bringing the poker back so she could swing it again.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not going to shoot you,” he said, lowering his arm with the gun, and holding his other hand out as if it would stop another swing of the poker. “At least I won’t if you stop whacking me with a... What even is that? A fire poker?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let me guess. From 1875,” he said dryly.

  She looked at the slim metal object in her hand. “Well, I don’t really know. It came with the house. 1875 seems unlike—Why are we discussing fire pokers?” she demanded, pointing it at him as if she could use it like a sword.

  But Holden shook his head as he looked around the kitchen. He frowned at the ceramic bear family lined up on the windowsill. “Why is this place some sort of animal menagerie of horrors?”

  “Why do you have a gun?” she demanded, still waving the poker in his direction.

  He looked back at her and the poker. “Why don’t you?”

  “Why do you ask so many questions?”

  “Why do you?”

  Willa huffed out a breath. “How did you get out of the chains?”

  He grinned at her, and she knew her parents would find a million faults with how she was handling this, but chief among them would be that she was mesmerized by that grin for a second.

  “Magic,” he offered.

  She was charmed, and that was all wrong. He had a gun. He was creeping around her house in the middle of the night. He’d escaped the chains she’d put on him, and not by magic.

  “What are you doing sneaking around my house with a gun if you’re not going to shoot me?”

  “Trying to figure out who you are.”

  She frowned. If he didn’t know who she was, why was he here? What was he doing? Or was he just looking for confirmation for what he already suspected? Maybe her parents not being here had thrown him off. Maybe he was looking for them, not her.

  Either way, he was a threat. So she should absolutely not set down the poker. She shouldn’t trust him not to shoot her.

  She sighed heavily and did both. “Do you want some tea?”

  * * *

  TEA. SHE SET DOWN the weapon and offered him...tea.

  “No. No, thank you.” Holden shook his head at himself. Why was he being polite?

  She shrugged. “I’m going to make some tea.” She crossed over to a cabinet. She was in her pajamas. A cozy sweatshirt and shapeless sweatpants with thick socks on her feet. No wonder—it was colder in here than it was out in the dark night air. Her hair was still in the pigtail braids, and her face was as fresh as it had been before.

  She didn’t seem...fazed by any of this. When she opened the cabinet, he immediately saw the gun sitting there.

  He adjusted his grip on his own, but she didn’t grab it. She shoved it aside and pulled a tea bag out of the cabinet.

  This was no cold-blooded assassin. It just didn’t make any sense. He knew he could be fooled. A man would end up dead if he believed he could never be fooled.

  But there was also something to be
said for gut feelings. Maybe he didn’t know what or who she was, but it wasn’t a killer.

  She moved around the kitchen. She pulled out a mug in the shape of an elephant, the trunk acting as the handle. It matched the teapot, which had what appeared to be a scene from The Jungle Book painted on it. Seriously, what alternate dimension had he fallen into?

  “Where’d you get the gun?” she asked conversationally as she made the tea.

  “I went back to my car.” Once he’d gotten himself out of the chains, he’d made quick work of figuring out how to get back to his car. He’d seen her truck parked, then followed the gravel road behind it. A few dogs had happily trailed after him, not a one of them barking in alarm. He’d found his car, gotten his gun and his phone, but left the rest. He’d been able tell someone had gone through his stuff. He could only assume it was Willa.

  She hadn’t taken his gun, or his phone, or anything that was of use to him. He shook his head. He should have taken off. He should have called in to North Star instead of sending the quick message that he was okay and would have a more detailed report tomorrow.

  He should accept she wasn’t the person he was after and get back to the task at hand, but something about this woman...

  “Why were you at that PO box this afternoon?” He had no doubt she’d answer his question with another question, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from asking them. Couldn’t seem to stop himself from giving away parts of what he was doing.

  She paused in her tea preparations. “It’s my PO box,” she said. Unconvincingly.

  “No, it’s not. I asked about it. Specifically. Who rented out number ten. The answer was no one.”

  “They aren’t allowed to give you names,” she said, her back still to him as she poured hot water over her tea bag. Her movements were precise, and if he hadn’t been looking for it, he might have missed the slight tremor in her fingers as she put the pot back on the stove.

  “No, but they can tell me if a box is rented or not. Number ten is not rented. But I get the funny feeling you’re not the person who picked up the package of illegal ammunition.”

  She turned to face him, eyebrows drawn together in confusion. “Illegal ammunition. What would I do with illegal ammunition?”

  “That is the question.”

  “I...” She chewed on her lip. “I didn’t get any ammunition from the box. Ever. I do sometimes use it, without it being rented to me. But I can’t tell you why or for what. No, I suppose that isn’t true. I won’t tell you that.”

  “I could help you if you would.”

  She stared at him for a moment. An earnest look in those haunting green eyes. Damn it, he did not have time to be haunted.

  “I don’t need any help,” she said at length. “Unless it means getting you out of my hair, of course.”

  “You’re the one who chained me to a bed in your barn.”

  “You’re the one who followed me home.”

  She was infuriating. Holden scrubbed a hand over his face. If she was of no danger to him, he supposed it wouldn’t hurt to give her a little information. But it galled that she wasn’t giving him any first. Usually he could charm, demand or threaten anything he wanted out of people.

  Willa just looked at him blandly and boiled the water for her tea, answering any question he had with one of her own.

  But she could have killed him. She could have fought him. She could have done a lot of things, and aside from trying to beat him with an ineffectual fire poker and chaining him to the bed and then the door, she’d bandaged his wounds, fed him and offered him tea.

  Tea.

  “I’m not here by accident,” Holden said, gritting his teeth against the frustration he felt. “I’m here because of that PO box. It’s connected to something. Something dangerous. Now, maybe you’re not, but you using it is a heck of a coincidence for me to ignore.”

  She stood there, leaning back against the counter, and though her eyes were on his, he could tell she was somewhere else. Thinking things through. Trying to decide what to tell him.

  Pressuring her wouldn’t get what he wanted. He wasn’t sure patience would, either, but he thought it was the better option at the moment.

  “Tell me who you are, what you know and what you’re after, and maybe I’ll consider supplying some necessary information based on that,” she said. As if the demand was reasonable when he was the one in her kitchen with a gun.

  “I can’t do that.”

  She raised an eyebrow. No matter how friendly or familiar she acted, she was not a pushover in any way, shape or form. “Can’t or won’t?”

  Holden shrugged. “A little bit of both.”

  They stared at each other, at an impasse. Her green eyes were sharp and direct, and she held the ridiculous elephant cup in small hands. Freckles dotted her nose, and the pigtails and slouchy sweats gave her a childish air. But she was no child. Her look wasn’t cold like it had been at the post office or outside when he’d grabbed her arm, but it was intelligent.

  Whoever she was, whatever she was, it was far more complicated than Holden wanted to give her credit for.

  He felt something...shift inside him. Something snapping into place he couldn’t have understood if he tried.

  And he most certainly didn’t want to try.

  “Look...”

  She frowned at his forehead. “You have...” Then she lunged at him, and because it had been so unexpected and so...bizarre, he couldn’t brace himself in time. He tumbled to the ground, her on top of him.

  But he quickly forgot the lunge when something exploded and splintered above them. He rolled them over so he was on top of her, protecting her from what else might come.

  She looked up at him, eyes wide. “Who’s after you?” she asked.

  It dawned on him them. Pieces clicking together. Maybe he still didn’t understand who she was, or why anyone would be after a pretty woman on some isolated farm, but it was clear.

  “They’re not after me, Willa. They’re after you.”

  Chapter Five

  Willa pushed Holden off her—or tried. He didn’t budge. Even when Jim skittered into the kitchen, whining and barking at turn. She pushed Jim away from her face, where he was enthusiastically licking her, then tried to push Holden off her again. “That’s ridiculous. No one is after me.”

  Which, of course, wasn’t necessarily true. Someone could be after her. To be honest, she’d always expected kidnapping over murder. After all, she was more use to anyone who wanted to get something out of her parents if she was alive.

  Unless someone wanted to punish her parents. A possibility, but that meant someone had to know who her parents were, then trace them to her.

  Her parents had given her a yellow warning, though. It wasn’t a red, but it was a warning nonetheless. To be careful. To be watchful.

  Someone had shot at them. But the red dot had been on Holden, not her. “The red dot sight was on your forehead, not mine.”

  “That you saw,” he returned. He was looking around the kitchen, studying doors and windows. Jim had a similarly alert air about him, but the strangest thing occurred to Willa.

  Jim hadn’t so much as growled at Holden. He’d rushed into the room, licked her face, and now sat in quivering alertness as if awaiting orders.

  “We have to get out of here,” Holden said. He moved off her but immediately grabbed her arm. “Keep low as possible.” He started to drag her toward the TV room. She tried to shake his grip off her arm.

  “You’re going the wrong way.”

  “We’re not going out the front door,” he said, flicking a glance at the bunny door stopper.

  “Of course not. That’s the back door.”

  “That doesn’t change my answer.”

  “Fine. You stay here in this drafty old house, and I’ll go to my lockable-from-the-inside storm shelter.�
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  He muttered something she couldn’t quite make out. “What kind of lock?”

  “One even you couldn’t get out of, I promise you that. Just follow me.” She led him to the back door. Jim whined behind her. “It’s all right,” she said soothingly to the dog. She kept low and reached up to turn the knob, but it was Holden who eased the door open.

  He was different now. Sharper. Deadly. She had no doubt he would take down anything in his way. It gave her a cold chill, but as he eased the storm door open and held out his hand for her to take, she took it. She couldn’t seem to help herself from believing he was the good guy.

  They slid into the dark night. She inched forward, still crouched low. They didn’t speak. They just moved, Willa leading him down the porch stairs then across the yard. Jim followed behind without making a sound.

  Willa had learned the hard way her dogs couldn’t wear tags like normal dogs. Because nothing in her life was normal, and tags clanked together when a dog walked.

  She entered the barn—the one where many of her animals lived, not the one where she’d chained up Holden—Holden and Jim behind her. She moved through the soft hay and tried not to think too much about who was out there and shooting at them.

  One step at a time. First they had to get to safety.

  She went to the very last stall. “Hi, Creed,” she murmured as the sleepy goat clopped over to her. She gave his head a pat but moved to the back of his stall, grabbing the broom. As quietly as she could, she swept the hay out of the way of the door. There was no way to see it in the dark, but she knew where it was, knew where to feel around on the ground for the latch.

  She pulled on the latch, and the heavy door groaned and creaked open. “Hurry,” she whispered to Holden. She went into the opening first, dangling her legs until she could get her feet on the rungs of the rope ladder that would take her down into the dark space.

  Once they were in with the door closed, even in daylight, anyone would be hard-pressed to find the hidden door. Creed would kick around the hay, obscuring any hints of where they’d gone.