Unexpected Protector

by Justine Davis

  And then her tongue began its own hesitant exploration and his muscles clenched in response, so fiercely he was vaguely surprised his bones didn’t snap. His body was on full alert, ready to discard reality and take what it wanted. It was a feeling he’d never experienced before, a consuming, fiery need he wouldn’t have believed existed if he weren’t being swallowed up by it himself.

  He felt an odd sensation at his waist, realized her hands had slid downward and were tugging at his shirt. Just that knowledge threatened to destroy the last little bit of his control. As if her actions invited his, he slid his hands up beneath the soft sweatshirt, savoring the silken skin, feeling the slight ridges of her ribs. He reached the curve of her breasts, felt the soft flesh round into his palms. He groaned, unable to stop the escape of the harsh, almost helpless sound.

  Cutter barked. Quietly. It sounded odd, almost reluctant, as if he didn’t want to interrupt them with that reality.

  Reality.

  A tiny part of his trained mind that was still functioning sent up a warning, a warning he’d ignored until now.

  With a tremendous effort he broke the kiss. Hayley’s small sound of protest sent shivers through him, and nearly sent him straight back to her sweet, soft mouth.

  But Cutter barked again, still sounding reluctant, yet more definite this time.

  Quinn looked at the dog. If it was possible for a dog to look apologetic, this one was doing it. The moment he saw Quinn looking at him, the animal trotted across to the front corner of the cabin, then looked back.

  As clearly as if he’d spoken, Quinn understood the dog’s message.

  They’re coming.

  Reality slammed back into him like an iceberg, and that lovely, burgeoning heat vanished.

  “It’s them, isn’t it?” she asked, her eyes starting to refocus, but still touched with the remnants of that exploding heat.

  He nodded. He sat up, ordering a body resistant to the abrupt cessation of the most pleasure it had ever known, to stand down. There was a battle coming, and he couldn’t let this, whatever the hell it was, cloud his thinking.

  Nor could he resist reaching out and lifting her chin with a gentle finger.

  “Hayley.”

  It was a voice he’d never heard from himself, a voice full of longing, need and promises he’d never made before.

  She met his gaze, steadily, and he could almost see her gathering herself to deal with what was coming. Admiration spiked through him. Yes, she would do, he thought.

  “It wasn’t a fluke, Hayley.”

  Surprise flashed in her eyes, confirming his guess that this was what had been behind her request. Not that it changed anything. He spared a split second for regret, knowing full well that when this was over she’d likely want to walk away and never think of this, and that he would have to let her.

  But first, he had to keep her alive to do it.

  * * *

  She’d been wobbly at first, as if Quinn’s strength-sapping kiss had somehow liquefied her bones. But Cutter, now that he’d interrupted them, was indicating they had little time before the enemy was upon them, pacing anxiously by the door, growling, casting impatient glances at Quinn.

  But she was steadier now. Something about the act of picking up a handgun you actually expected to have to use did that, she guessed.

  Quinn had given her a holster that clipped onto the waistband of her jeans, and she slipped the small semiautomatic into it. She slipped on the vest he’d given her as well, then took up the shotgun.

  When she was done, he was already at the door. He’d suited up quickly, wearing his own vest of a different kind, loaded with weaponry and ammo. Cutter was dancing at his feet in his eagerness to get at it. Two of a kind, she thought, her throat tight.

  “This could get nasty,” he said. “Maybe you should get in the bedroom now and—”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  She said it with more bravado than she was really feeling, and was surprised it sounded so steady and determined. But the upward quirk at the corner of Quinn’s mouth was reward enough for much more than a declaration of a strength she wasn’t sure she really possessed.

  “Hang on to him.” He gestured at Cutter. “I need to get to the windmill.”

  “You’ve witnessed how well that works when he’s determined,” she pointed out. “Why the windmill?”

  “High ground. And as clever as he is, I doubt he can climb that narrow ladder.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Lock up after me.”

  She nodded.

  He reached for the door. For an instant he paused, looking back at her. Their gazes locked, and something deep and primal and undeniable leaped between them, as if the connection were a living, breathing thing.

  He moved as if he were going to kiss her again, and Hayley’s pulse leaped. At the last second he stopped himself.

  “Later,” he muttered. It seemed he said it as much to that vivid connection as to her.

  And then he was gone into the night.

  Chapter 31

  Cutter lasted until the first explosion.

  It was distant, probably one of the mines Quinn had set, but the dog didn’t care. He clawed at the door his idol had left through, clawed at the knob, trying to turn it with his paws. He whined, so loudly and insistently it tore at her. She went to try to calm him, but he spun away from her. From a yard away he stared at her, then the door, intensity radiating from him.

  I have to go, I need to help him.

  Hayley shook her head sharply. If the situation weren’t so dire, she’d laugh at herself for putting human thoughts into a dog’s head, even if that look in his eyes was more commanding than she’d ever seen in some humans, let alone an animal. No wonder sheep did what he wanted; it was all she could do not to herself, not to just open the door and let him out there.

  Another explosion—was it closer, or was that her imagination?—sounded. Still Cutter stood there, silently demanding she let him out into the melee.

  Quinn would understand, she thought. Whatever code he lived by, it didn’t include staying behind while others fought. Apparently Cutter lived by the same code. And at this moment it didn’t even seem ridiculous to think that a dog had a code.

  A third explosion. Definitely closer. And this time it was followed by the sound of gunfire. Not the rapid automatic-spray technique of their attackers, just steady, single shots fired with calm purpose. Rafer Crawford might be the team sniper, but Quinn was no slouch.

  She heard several shots before the automatic return fire started. Bursts of it, fired by men whose strength came from firepower instead of skill. The steady, calm response of Quinn’s shots continued; obviously he wasn’t rattled by the attack.

  Cutter, on the other hand, was about to claw his way through the door. She crouched beside the frantic dog.

  “I know you want out there, but it’s too dangerous, you need to stay here, where it’s safe.”

  The dog gave her a swipe of his tongue over her cheek, as if in appreciation for the sentiment, but went right back to clawing at the door.

  The next explosion was much, much closer. It had to be, it was so much louder. Cutter barked, a booming, angry sound. He looked at her, again with that demanding expression in those expressive eyes.

  Out of nowhere a thought hit her. That explosion. Had it been louder because it was closer?

  Or louder because it wasn’t a mine, muffled by the earth around it?

  She ran to the window. The now-familiar tableau was painted an eerie silver by the moonlight. She could just see the edge of the windmill, the high ground Quinn had headed for. And several feet off the ground, smoke curled out from one of the vertical legs. Even as she looked, something flew through the air and hit the leg. Another explosion, bright yellow flames a shocking burst of color in the silver light. Mor
e smoke and some debris burst from the base of the tower.

  Explosives. The man draped like a suicide bomber.

  They were trying to take it down. Apparently unable to get any closer because of Quinn’s deadly accurate aim, they were trying to take it down with explosives, lobbed from a safe distance. She couldn’t see them, both because they were far enough away and they were out of the field of vision of the small window.

  If they managed to collapse that leg, the whole thing would go. With Quinn in it.

  The sound of Cutter running spun her around. The dog was headed toward the back door. She called to him, but he kept going. Much as he had that night this had all began.

  She watched in shock as the dog reached the door, reared up on his hind legs and batted at the lever-style handle with his front paws. She started toward him, but before she got there he had gotten enough pressure on the handle to release the lock. The crazy dog had opened the door.

  “Cutter, no!”

  His dark head turned, and he gave her a look she could only describe as apologetic. And then he was gone, racing into the fray with all the determination of the man he was following.

  For an instant she just stood there, staring at the empty place where the dog had been. The sounds of more gunfire and another explosion echoed from the bluff just outside the now-open back door. If that door hadn’t had that lever-style handle, Cutter would still be safely inside. She should have known the too-clever dog would figure out that he could open it if he just got his paws in the right place. And she had inadvertently aided his escape by not immediately throwing the dead bolt on that door.

  She didn’t do it now. Anybody who came through that door who wasn’t Quinn or Cutter she was going to shoot, she thought with determination. She darted to the small, lens-style window. Cutter was racing down the open space at the foot of the bluff in an odd, zigzagging pattern it took her a moment to figure out. When she did, her breath caught; he was dodging the mines Quinn had buried. As if he not only knew the threat they posed, but remembered where each and every one was.

  To her surprise he headed, not toward the windmill and Quinn, but to the south. He skidded to a halt just past the outcropping of rock that had sheltered Quinn and him before. He crouched there, looking ready to pounce, his gaze and that powerful nose pointed upward.

  Her fingers tightened around the shotgun still in her hand. Quinn could handle himself, as she’d seen. He was a dangerous man, a formidable opponent. And he was armed and ready, trained to fight against just such an enemy as this. She knew that as surely as she knew his eyes were blue, even if she didn’t know where he’d gotten that training.

  Cutter, on the other hand, was a dog. An impossibly smart, clever and resourceful dog, but still, just a dog. Something she had to force herself to remember at times like this, when he seemed to exhibit an intelligence far beyond ordinary canine capabilities.

  The tumble of a rock down the bluff, just a few feet away, brought her out of the reverie she could ill afford. Her gaze shot upward, just in time to see a rope coming over the lip of the bluff to the south. And she realized with a shiver that Cutter hadn’t headed for Quinn because he knew they were closer than that.

  They weren’t just trying to take down Quinn’s tower.

  They were coming after her.

  Chapter 32

  They would kill Cutter. Because he would try to stop them. She had no doubts about that. Just as she no longer had any doubts about the nature of this enemy. The story Quinn had told her had made it clear they were merciless, and would do anything to get what they wanted.

  And what they wanted was in Quinn’s head. Anything or anyone else was just in the way.

  But she wasn’t in the way. She was here, and if she’d been thinking clearly enough, Cutter still would be, too. So why were they coming after her? Why bother, when she was so obviously harmless?

  They’d been hurt, badly, by Quinn and his men in their first attack. They had to know it would take everything they had left to get to him. For all the good it would do, he would never tell them a thing. She knew that down to her bones, although it made her shudder inwardly to think of what they might do to him to try to get him to talk. What they might use on him to—

  It hit her then. They wanted her, to use on him. They might not know what she was to him—couldn’t know, since she herself didn’t—but they did have the measure of the man. And somehow they knew he was the kind of man who would never allow an innocent to be hurt if he could stop it.

  They wanted her for leverage.

  For an instant she felt a flash of relief at the realization that for that, they’d need her alive. In the next instant, self-disgust filled her. Had she always been such a coward? Quinn had risked his life to keep Vicente safe, and now was risking it for her; she had belatedly realized he wasn’t in that tower just for the high ground, but to lead them away from her.

  Cutter barked, and she heard a shot. Close. Too close.

  She grabbed up an extra box of shotgun shells and shoved them into the one empty vest pocket that remained. She yanked the door handle until it unlatched. She kicked the door open, simultaneously putting both hands back on the shotgun, ready to fire.

  Cutter had dug in, literally, behind and below the outcropping. Amazingly, he was in a place where the angle made it impossible for anybody from above to get a clear shot at him. Did he somehow sense that?

  This was not the time to dwell on the wonders of this particular canine mind. She could see the tracks Cutter had left in the dry dirt, thrown into stark relief by the moonlight. It didn’t really matter whether he knew where the mines were, or maybe smelled them, he’d gotten through and therefore his was the path she should follow.

  Assuming the mines just weren’t set so that his slighter weight wouldn’t trigger them....

  She shook off the thought. It didn’t matter. She’d had enough of this, enough of being a helpless pawn in all this.

  “God made man, Sam Colt made them equal.” She tightened her grip on the shotgun as she whispered Quinn’s words. “Or in this case, Mr. Mossberg.”

  She made her way through Quinn’s minefield safely, thanks to Cutter trailblazing the way. The dog’s ears swiveled, and she knew he heard her coming. But he never looked away from the vertical outcropping, as if he expected someone to pop out any second.

  And if he did, she thought, he probably had very good reason. This was Cutter, after all.

  She thought quickly. The back of the cabin and thus her position was also out of the range of vision of anyone on the other side of the rocks. Here in the shadows no way they could see her, even with moonlight pouring down, without sticking their head out. Out into her line of fire.

  And if they were looking somewhere else....

  “A little noise would be good, dog,” she whispered, wishing the dog would bark again from his protected spot, draw their attention.

  She knew he couldn’t have heard her, but in that moment Cutter let out a trumpeting volley of barking like she’d never heard from the dog before. If she hadn’t been so focused, she would have been staring at him in surprise.

  A head and shoulders popped up like a tin target in a county fair shooting gallery. Hayley had always been good at those. And her eyes were completely adjusted to the silver light now. The man aimed a handgun in Cutter’s direction. She snapped the shotgun to her shoulder and fired in one smooth, easy motion. A satisfying yelp echoed off the back of the cabin. The next thing she saw was a pair of feet in ridiculously shined boots and a set of back pockets over a skinny backside as her target tried to scramble back. She peppered the backside just because, and heard a string of curses that she was guessing called into question her parentage and her occupation.

  Much easier than skeet, really, she thought, barely suppressing a grin. “Shoot at my dog, will you,” she muttered.

  Cutter was quiet no
w, and back to looking up. The rope over the lip of the bluff moved slightly, and Hayley lifted the shotgun once more. She’d lose efficiency at that distance, and she’d have to compensate for shooting at such a sharp angle, but she could still make anyone who looked over in response to the injured man’s yells very sorry.

  Someone did, a round-faced man who looked as if this was the last place he wanted to be. She reinforced the feeling with two quick shots that took the edge of the bluff almost out from under him, and she hoped from his yell, had put his right arm out of action.

  Her breath caught in her throat when Cutter suddenly burst from his cover and headed back toward her. He paused for barely a second, just long enough for her to run a hand over his head, and for him to give her a wet-nosed nudge. And then he was moving again, heading around the corner of the cabin.

  Heading for Quinn.

  She glanced back, but there was no more sound of movement except for the first man crawling painfully away, scuffing his shiny shoes in his effort to move with shotgun pellets in his backside. And then a volley of gunfire, so many shots in succession she couldn’t count them, came from the direction Cutter had gone.

  She swiftly replaced the fired shells. Then she followed her dog.

  The moment she rounded the corner of the house, she saw Quinn had a problem; the wooden leg of the windmill was burning, and the flames were climbing the rickety-looking structure at an alarming rate. She guessed the thing was reinforced, as was everything around here, but that didn’t mean the smoke alone couldn’t kill him.

  Cutter apparently sensed the danger as well, because once again he ran a crazy, zigzag pattern across the open space to get to Quinn.

  A shot rang out from somewhere near the barn. Cutter yelped and went down.