by LENA DIAZ,
He held up one finger to his lips again, then held his palm out telling her to wait. He crouched down with his pistol out and dove in through the open front door. An agonizing ten or fifteen seconds later, he pulled her inside. He shut and locked the front door, waved her to silence again and disappeared down the long hallway.
It was too dark to see many details, but Heather could see the back door was closed. They’d left it open when they ran out that same door earlier this evening. Or had they? Had Nick closed it just now, when he came inside, before he pulled her inside with him? Had he had enough time to do that?
Her throat tightened at the sound of running feet. Nick ran from the hallway into the living room. He ran past her in a whisper of sound, heading into the kitchen. A door creaked, footsteps sounded. Was that Nick? Or someone else making those sounds?
She inched her way back toward the front door. Should she run for it? Go for help? Nick had said there weren’t any other houses on this road. Where would she run? Back to the ocean?
She stopped. No, no, she couldn’t run. She couldn’t leave Nick, not again. If only she had a gun. She chewed her bottom lip. Nick didn’t seem inclined to give her his backup gun. But did Mark have a backup gun? Had he mentioned that? She couldn’t remember.
A noise sounded from the garage to her right. Her knees started to shake. She had to do something. She couldn’t stand here waiting to be rescued, especially if Nick needed help. She squinted in the dim moonlight from the skylights. The end table by the couch had several statues on it. The dolphin statue looked heavy enough to crush a man’s skull if she put all her weight behind it. The idea of actually hitting someone with it had her stomach churning, but if that’s what it took to save Nick, she’d have to do it.
She pushed herself away from the wall and hurried to the statue before she lost her courage. Someone rushed into the room. Heather whirled around, lifting the statue before she recognized Nick’s familiar silhouette.
He stopped in front of her, his white teeth flashing in the dark. “You can put the dolphin down,” he teased. “The house is clear. I’m going to get Mark.”
Heather clutched the heavy statue to her chest. It was the only weapon she had and she wasn’t giving it up until Nick was safely back inside.
He opened the front door, holding his gun up at the ready. He leaned out before he ran outside, leaving the door cracked open behind him.
Heather rushed to the door and peered out. Nick was on the front lawn, crouching down next to Mark’s body. He pressed his fingers against Mark’s neck as if checking for a pulse. He hoisted him up on his shoulders and turned back toward the house. Thank goodness. Mark must still be alive or Nick wouldn’t have risked his life to grab him.
Heather held the door open, closing and locking it after Nick came inside.
“I heard someone in the woods in the side yard,” Nick whispered. “Get to the garage. Now. Go.”
Her mouth went dry. She pitched the dolphin statue on the couch and led the way through the dark house, sorely wishing she could flip on a light. She held the door open to the garage so Nick could pass through with Mark.
“Is he going to be okay?” Heather asked.
“I don’t know.” His voice was tight, a harsh rasp full of pain and regret.
He rushed past her and heaved Mark over the side of the car into the backseat.
She ran to the passenger side of the car, stealing a quick look over the side at Mark. His chest rose and fell. He was still breathing, but just barely.
A muffled noise sounded from inside the house, followed by a dull thump.
Nick jerked his head toward the car, motioning for Heather to get in. He disappeared back into the house.
Heather bit the inside of her cheek to keep from calling out to him. What was he doing? She got into the car and turned in her seat, her gaze fastened on the dark maw of the open door that led into the kitchen.
Another thump sounded from inside the house, followed by a low moan.
Heather leaned over the side of the car, looking at the shelving for some kind of weapon. Why hadn’t she kept the statue? She gasped when a dark shadow moved into the garage. Nick, again. The man was going to be the death of her the way he kept disappearing and re-appearing. She pressed her hand against her chest, her heart beating so fast she could hear it pulsing in her ears.
Nick gently eased the door to the house shut, dug his keys out of his pocket and ran to the car.
He jumped over the side and plopped down onto the driver’s seat. “You said you wished you had a gun earlier. Just how good a shot are you?”
“I grew up on a farm. I’ve been shooting since I was ten. I guarantee I can outshoot you.”
“Unfortunately, you just may have to prove that. The door to the house has hinges on the inside, meaning there’s no way to brace it from out here.” He laid his pistol in his lap and reached down, yanking up the leg of his jeans. A small holster was strapped to his calf. He pulled out a .38 snub-nose and handed it to her. “If anyone comes through that door, don’t hesitate, shoot them.”
She nodded, grateful to finally have a weapon, and turned around in her seat, aiming at the door that led back into the house.
The garage door squeaked as it began to rise.
Heather swallowed hard. She felt so exposed knowing the door was opening behind her, but she kept her gun trained on the house door as Nick had told her to do.
The doorknob rattled. The door flew open. Heather didn’t wait for someone to step out. She squeezed the trigger, aiming at the middle of the dark opening.
The shot was deafening in the confines of the garage. A man screamed and fell through the doorway onto the concrete floor behind the car.
“Hold on,” Nick yelled.
Heather grabbed the back of her seat with her left hand as the car rocketed forward out of the garage. She kept her gun trained on the door to the house.
“Ah, hell. It’s the freaking O.K. Corral around here. Get down,” Nick yelled.
Heather dropped down into the seat.
Shots rang out behind them as the car flew down the driveway. Nick slid down in his seat, too, trying to take cover while steering the car. The already cracked windshield shattered and sprayed bits of glass all over the inside of the car.
The car fishtailed into the road out front. Nick slid up higher in his seat and yanked the steering wheel hard left, then hard right. He punched the gas again.
Metal pinged as a bullet hit the back of the car. Nick gunned the car down the road. As soon as they rounded a curve, he sat straight up in his seat and wrestled the steering wheel to keep them from going into the ditch on the far side of the road. The car straightened out and practically flew down the narrow two-lane road back toward town.
When the car quit swerving, Heather stowed her gun in the console and climbed into the backseat.
“What are you doing?” Nick demanded.
“Checking on Mark.”
“Hang on, I’m turning.”
She held on to the back of the seat in front of her as Nick swerved onto a side road, tires screeching. He continued his mad dash, flying down street after street, passing more and more houses as they got closer to town.
“How’s he doing?” Nick asked, turning onto another road, but at a less-frantic speed than before.
Heather pulled Mark’s shirt open and found the entry hole in his chest, about halfway down his rib cage on the right side. She pressed her hands against his injury, applying pressure. “The bleeding isn’t that bad now, but he’s still unconscious. We have to get him to a doctor.”
“Check his pockets for his phone. Mine is...waterlogged.”
Heather wondered why he hadn’t hidden his phone, just like he’d hidden his gun, to keep it dry when he swam out after her. He must have forgotten. She
kept one palm pressed against Mark’s wound while she fished into his pockets. When she found his cell phone, she pressed a button and was relieved that the light came on and five bars showed they had service. “You want me to call 911?”
“No. Call this number instead.” He rattled off a phone number and Heather punched it in.
She handed him the phone, then pressed both palms against Mark, trying to stop the bleeding.
Nick spoke in some kind of DEA combination of code words that made no sense to her. When he hung up, he set the phone in the console next to his gun.
“We’re ten minutes from the hospital. Backup’s on the way.”
“You sure about that?” she asked. “I don’t remember backup working out so well the last time.”
She saw his quick grin in the rearview mirror. She didn’t think she’d ever met someone before who could smile or laugh so much when people were trying to kill him. She had a feeling he might have actually enjoyed tonight if she hadn’t been there to slow him down or force him to have to protect her instead of going after the bad guys.
Some of the tension drained out of her shoulders. Maybe the worst was over now. Maybe they really would make it out of this mess alive.
“You were right,” she called out over the sound of the wind rushing by. “About everything. I should have trusted you back in Saint Augustine when you warned me about Rickloff’s plan.”
His grin faded and his jaw tightened. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for. You were put in an impossible situation. You’re a civilian. You never should have been given the choices Waverly and Rickloff gave you.”
“I realize that now.” She shoved her wet hair out of her face. “But there’s still the question of what to do about my sister. I don’t even know if she’s alive.”
“We’ll figure something out. Trust me.”
“I do.”
He gave her a sharp look in the mirror before looking back at the road.
Heather wasn’t sure what that look meant, but she was willing to bet it had something to do with him not trusting her. Since her arrest at the nightclub, she and Nick had never sat and discussed what had happened. Would it make a difference in his feelings toward her if they sat down and talked? Or would he even give her a chance to explain her side?
A few minutes later, the squeal of tires sounded behind them. Nick checked the mirrors. Heather jerked around in her seat. A car had just swerved from a side road and was rapidly gaining on them. The headlights blinked three times.
Heather half stood, holding on to the back of Nick’s seat for balance. She reached for the snub-nose she’d left in the console.
Nick grabbed her hand before she could get the gun. “Hold on, Annie Oakley. Those aren’t the bad guys. That’s our backup.”
She plopped back down, grinning over his Annie Oakley comment. Either she was too exhausted and relieved that backup had arrived to think clearly anymore, or his warped sense of humor was contagious.
Minutes later, as promised, they were at the hospital. Nick pulled up to the emergency room entrance. The backup car pulled right up behind them and two men jumped out. They both wore wrinkled shirts and jeans, as if they’d pulled on whatever clothes they could find when Nick’s call came in. They immediately flanked Heather.
Nick scooped Mark up out of the backseat and preceded them in through the emergency room doors. A nurse saw them and her eyes widened with alarm. She ran around her desk and grabbed a wheelchair. Nick set Mark in the chair and braced him so he wouldn’t fall out.
One of the agents put his hand on Mark’s shoulder, anchoring him to the chair. “I’ve got this.”
Nick nodded his thanks, and the agent rushed off with the nurse and Mark through the swinging doors into the heart of the emergency room.
Nick introduced himself and Heather to the remaining agent, who said his name was Tanner, and that the other agent who’d gone with Mark was named Chuck.
Another nurse stopped next to them and handed Nick a hospital gown to replace the shirt he’d left in the woods when he’d given Heather his vest. He murmured a thank-you and shrugged the gown on as he spoke to Tanner.
Heather was surprised at how much blood was smeared on Nick’s abdomen. Mark must have bled all over him when Nick picked him up out of the backseat. She quietly offered up a quick prayer for Mark’s safety and tuned back in to what Nick and Tanner were saying.
It soon became clear they had never met each other before.
“Wait. Nick, you don’t know this man but you called him for backup?” she asked.
“I called the satellite office here in Key West and asked for help. Tanner and Chuck were barhopping nearby so they answered the call.”
Tanner rolled his eyes. “We were working, not barhopping.” He waved his hand at his clothes. “It may not look that way, but half my job involves dressing down to blend in.”
Heather smiled at him. “I understand. I do that a lot, too.”
“You’re DEA?”
“Oh, no. I’m a private investigator. But half the time I either meet prospective clients in bars or end up meeting informants in bars. It’s an unfortunate downside to my job.”
“Ah.” He didn’t look impressed, and Heather felt her face grow warm with embarrassment. She probably seemed like a bumbling amateur to an experienced DEA agent.
“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Tanner said. “We’ll take good care of both of you. Let’s go find somewhere a bit less out in the open and figure out what’s going on.”
“Go ahead. I’ll catch up,” Nick said. “I’m going to check on Mark.” He hung back while Tanner led Heather down the hall.
“Wait a minute.” Heather stopped and turned around. Nick was going to let her out of his sight, with an agent he’d only just met? Knowing how protective he was, that didn’t sit right with her. She stared at him suspiciously.
He raised a brow in question and crossed his arms over his chest. That action made the hospital gown mold to his body. Heather’s eyes widened and she gasped in shock.
A growing red stain saturated the part of the gown covering Nick’s lower left side. That wasn’t Mark’s blood.
It was Nick’s.
Chapter Seven
Nick plucked at the fresh hospital gown, hating the necessity of wearing the darn thing. His jeans, lying on the emergency room countertop beside the bed he was sitting on, were bloody where the bullet had scraped across his hip. He didn’t relish the idea of putting the jeans back on, but he couldn’t exactly walk out in the flimsy gown he’d worn while the doctor had sewn him up.
A knock sounded on the door. Before he could say anything, the door flew open. Heather stood there, her two DEA agent shadows standing behind her. Two more agents had arrived a few minutes ago and were guarding Mark, just in case someone came in the hospital to seek him out and finish what they’d started.
“Give us a minute, okay, guys?” Heather called over her shoulder. She didn’t wait for an answer. She shoved the door shut, tossed a small bag onto the countertop and put her hands on her hips. Her deep blue eyes were practically shooting sparks as she glared at him.
Nick’s curiosity about what was in the bag was no competition for the vision standing in front of him. He couldn’t have moved to pick up that bag if he’d wanted to. He was too busy just trying to draw a normal breath.
He crossed his arms and tried to appear unaffected, but boy did she look good. Someone had given her a fresh white T-shirt and jeans, both a size too small by some standards but pretty near perfect by his. Every curve was outlined for his hungry gaze. He swallowed, hard, and reluctantly dragged his gaze up from her generous breasts.
“Is there a problem?” he asked, barely able to get the words out past his tight throat. He swallowed again and reminded himself she was off-limits. She wasn’t his
girlfriend, not anymore, not if he wanted to keep his job. He’d have a hard enough time as it was explaining to Waverly how he’d ended up in Key West in a firefight when he was suspended and was supposed to be in Saint Augustine.
“You got shot,” Heather accused.
“Uh, yeah. A little bit.”
“A little bit?” she choked out. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”
“We were busy trying to escape without getting killed.”
She shook her head and fisted her hands at her sides. Her gaze went to the items sitting in the tray next to his bed. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open.
He probably should have hidden his phone.
She strode toward him and grabbed his ruined phone from the tray. When she held the twisted piece of metal up, the bullet hole was clearly visible. Her eyes flashed daggers at him as she tossed the phone back onto the tray. “Waterlogged, Nick? You said your phone was waterlogged.”
“I’m pretty sure I said it was broken.” She sure looked good when she was angry. Her skin was flushed a delicate pink. Her long hair flew out around her and her breasts pushed against her too-tight shirt as she put her hands on her hips.
Nick clutched the edge of the bed to keep from reaching for her.
She narrowed her eyes. “No, you said the phone was waterlogged. You implied you forgot to leave your phone on the beach with your gun when you went into the ocean. I thought that was odd for you to forget something like that. Now I know you didn’t. You lied to me.”
He shrugged, unimpressed by that accusation. He lied all the time. It was his job. If lying meant keeping her from worrying and keeping her safe, that’s what he would do. “I didn’t want you to worry about an insignificant injury.”
“Insignificant? You call a gunshot insignificant?”
“Through and through. A handful of stitches.” He gave her his best frown when what he really wanted to do was pull her against him and remind himself how well her curves fit against his hard planes. There was only one reason he could think of for her to be this upset. She still cared about him. After the way he’d treated her, that surprised him. And pleased him. Blood started pumping to a part of his body that left his brain slightly dazed from lack of oxygen.