He pushed onto one elbow in time to watch her disappear into the dark, his heart pumping up high in his throat. Shelby had long legs. Her barely covered backside looked way cute in matching black panties as she scampered out of sight. The girl was full of surprises.
Gabe scrambled to stand the floor lamp back where it belonged.
“You’re still awake?” Zack asked surprised, shrugging out of his jacket. “Thought you’d be dead to the world by now.
“Just waiting for you. See anything?”
“Yeah, lightning and thunder in the middle of a downpour. Hail, too. Crazy weather tonight. How about you? Feeling any better?” Zack’s gaze trailed down Gabe’s wide open polo and those missing buttons. He scanned the floor next. “You sure you’re okay?”
Gabe took a deep breath and relaxed into the back of the couch, the panic attack gone. Let Zack think what he wanted. “I’m good.”
Real damned good.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Are you guys trying to drive me crazy?” Kelsey asked, her shoulders squared. She’d showered and brushed her hair, maybe even curled it. It had been pulled high on her head, where a few chocolate strands escaped the clip.
Gabe had been on his way out the door to scout the neighborhood and give Zack a chance to catch some shuteye, but damn. This woman sure wasn’t the same one who’d gone to bed heartbroken the night before. Kelsey Stewart was back in the house, and ready to fight.
The fire in her brown eyes caught Gabe’s attention—until she slapped a long-stemmed red rose on the kitchen table, splinted fingers and all.
“Did you put this on my pillow last night, Gabe?” Her toe tapped the linoleum floor, her Irish obviously up.
“No, ma’am. I most certainly did not,” Gabe said, not believing what he was seeing. He raked a hand over his head. When had that happened? “Hey, Zack. Are you seeing this?”
Zack hoisted his tired butt off the computer chair and sauntered into the kitchen. “This was on your pillow, Kels? Really?”
“Yes, it was.” She had her nose in the air, and her comeback was full of attitude. “I don’t care what that Sam Becker man said. I don’t know him, and neither does Alex. And another thing—I’m tired of you guys hovering over me like I’m going to fall apart every time something bad happens. I’m not, and it’s not my imagination, either. Alex pulled me out of the river and took care of me those three missing days I can’t remember. He’s not a ghost, and he’s not dead, do you hear me? And he’s not Sam Becker, either.”
Gabe couldn’t wipe the surprise off his face. Wow, what a change. No wonder Alex loved this woman. She might not have made the most logical argument, but Kelsey had her swagger on.
“And another thing.” She paused to draw in a deep breath, her fingertips tracing the petals of the rose. “I’m not some helpless little waif who needs a big tough hero to come to my rescue. I’ve already got my hero. It’s time we start thinking about him for a change. What if he’s the one who needs help this time? Have you guys ever thought of that?”
“Kels.” Zack’s voice turned to honey in that soothing way he had. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. You’ve been on a lot of meds and—”
“That’s another thing. I’m not taking any more prescriptions. They make me tired and fuzzy until all I want to do is sleep. They make me dream too much. I’ll never feel good at that rate. Explain that rose, Zack. It’s real. If you guys didn’t sneak into my room and put it there, who did?”
“Shelby must’ve gotten it for you.”
“She better not have,” Gabe muttered. That meant breaking protocol by leaving the premises without letting him or Zack know. Speaking of which, where was Miss Shelby? Gabe had been extra quiet to let the ladies sleep, but now he ran to her bedroom and knocked. “Open up, or I’m coming in.”
He gave her two seconds before he followed through. Her bed was made, but no Shelby was in it. “Not here.” He stormed back to the kitchen, his anger up.
Zack was already at the back door, so Gabe hit the front in time to see her little red car pull to the curb on the other side of the street. Sure enough, Shelby’s long legs slid out of the driver’s side.
The second her shoes hit the pavement, he couldn’t get to her fast enough, his rage ignited at her damned stubborn streak. “Where have you been?”
The happy-go-lucky smile on her face dropped. She extended her right hand and the small white paper bag that was in it. “I ran to the pharmacy for some medicine. You were so sick last night and—”
“Get inside,” he hissed, scanning the street for anything out of place while he hurried to her side.
“Oh, stop grumbling.” She aimed her key fob at her car. “You caught the guy last night, didn’t you? What’s the problem with me running one little errand? I came right back.”
He grabbed her elbow, intent on dragging her if necessary. “Do you ever do what you’re told?”
She twisted around to her cutesy excuse for a car, hit the remote lock and—
BLAM! It blew sky high.
The earth shook.
Gabe teetered. Blinding light and searing heat flashed over him and Shelby in a wave.
She shrieked. He pulled her into his side, shielding her as the blast body slammed them backward to the ground. Gabe rolled, covering her, his arms and hands around her head and face to protect her. Just in time. A piece of burning plastic zipped by her head. She whimpered, but he had no time to worry if she was hurt. Not yet.
A black SUV roared out of the cul-de-sac, gunning for them, its engine at full throttle and its tires screaming. Gabe pulled the pistol from his holster and prepared for battle.
The front plate on the vehicle was covered. Automatic gunfire strafed Kelsey’s yard and house. Bullets thudded all around. Plugs of dirt splattered. Windows shattered.
Zack ran straight out the front door and into the line of fire, swearing a blue streak and returning shot after shot. With Shelby planted firmly under him, Gabe offered the same.
The fleeing vehicle screeched on two tires at the T-section and screamed away. Gabe let out a deep sigh of relief, staring at the frightened woman staring up at him. She blinked rapidly, her glasses gone from her face. A huge part of his male soul needed to turn her over his knee and spank the shit out of her for her blatant disobedience. Fear will do that. It will make a guy think things he’s never thought of before, but damned. She sure as hell had a whooping coming.
“You get the bastard’s plate?” Zack bellowed, lowering his weapon but his gaze still fixed on the direction the assailants had gone.
“No. They were blacked out. Front and rear.” Gabe pulled himself and Shelby off the still rain-dampened lawn, his heart pounding at the near miss. He jerked her into his side, his free hand at the back of her neck while he holstered his weapon. “Two men. One driver. The other guy in the rear seat. One of us hit him. He was bleeding.”
“Doesn’t matter. They’re gone.” Zack glared at Shelby. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I just went to the pharm—”
“I don’t give a shit where you went!”
“But I—”
“You’re insubordinate! I told you what the rules were and you ignored them. Look what you’ve done!”
“But Gabe’s sick, and—”
“Bullshit! In case you haven’t notice, Sullivan, Marines don’t get a sick day. They hump every stinking day, tired, hungry, or crying their eyes out. Gabe isn’t sick. He’s on duty!”
Shelby wilted. It was one thing to get an ass chewing, but another thing all together when an ex-Marine did it. An odd need to protect her from Zack skittered up Gabe’s spine. If anyone was going to chew her ass, it needed to be him.
“Lay off.” Gabe secured Shelby into his side. She trembled from head to foot. Her glasses were gone and those violet blues were brimmed and glistening. The damage was done. Raining crap on her wasn’t going to help.
“Don’t start on me, Cartwright.” Zack stabbed one an
gry finger at him with a clenched fist to back it up. “Get your gear. We’re moving.” He stomped into the house, not waiting for agreement or argument.
It was a good thing he did, too. The oddest inclination to kick Zack’s butt had just bubbled to the top of Gabe’s mind. His fingers curled had into a fist. One more word and there’d have been a different kind of showdown.
“I’m... I’m sorry,” she whined. “I thought the coast was clear. I made a big mistake.”
He couldn’t bring himself to look at her yet, not if she was close to crying. “Yes, you did. We don’t have time to talk about it now. Are you hurt?”
“My glasses,” she whined, looking down but obviously not seeing them.
Gabe swooped them off the ground, pissed at Zack and mad as hell at Shelby. He tucked them into his shirt collar and ushered her to safety, his nerves still on high alert. Whatever ordnance demolished her car came from nearby. Or some bastard had rigged the car her pretty butt had just been sitting in with a bomb.
Gabe pulled her tight against his hip, needing to keep this hardheaded woman safe despite herself and the panic attack poking at him.
Shit. The bomb might have been stashed under the hood and ready to blow when she drove home. He could have been picking up pieces of her instead of wanting to pound some real world caution into her. He quelled the rising darkness in his head and focused on getting her sweet little ass inside.
“Someone tried to kill me.”
“Damn it, Shelby. No shit. That’s why Zack’s smoking hot. You scared the hell out of him. Me, too.” Gabe blew out puffs of air through pursed lips, needing to get in control. She could’ve died. What do I have to do? Sit on her to make her listen?
He couldn’t have been more surprised at the front door. There stood Kelsey, a single-carry shoulder holster slung over her left shoulder and a pistol in her hand. A nine-millimeter SIG. Of course. Alex’s conceal-and-carry weapon of choice. What else?
She might have trembled a little when she rammed its magazine home. Her splintered fingers made it look all the more surreal, but the sight of a woman who knew the business end of a weapon? Nothing like it in the world.
“Who were they? The same guys who tried to kill Alex?”
“No ma’am, these guys were different.” Gabe aimed Shelby at a kitchen chair. “Sit. Stay.” Sam Becker is behind Alex’s murder. If he’s really dead.
Surprisingly, she did as she was told. He almost felt sorry for her as pale as she’d gone, but there wasn’t time to play nice. Not now. She’d screwed up. Big time. Zack had a right to be nail-spitting pissed.
The front of the house had taken the brunt of the assault. Glass and debris littered the front room. The plate glass picture window was shattered. Bullet holes pockmarked the ceiling and walls. The oil painting over the couch hung askew.
“Pack what you need to travel. Keep it light. Do it now,” Zack ordered. He’d already tossed his and Gabe’s sleeping rolls and gear to a pile by the door. “We leave in five.”
“But Zack...” Kelsey planted her feet in defiance.
Gabe held his breath. Did she honestly think she could stay there now that her home was shot to hell? She’d never win that argument, not with the enemy’s open declaration of war and Zack’s dander up.
She lifted her chin and stared him in the eye. “I can be packed in two.” With that, she retrieved another magazine from the gun safe, removed her family pictures from the mantle and marched to her bedroom. What a gal.
Zack went back to packing, but Shelby was the problem. Tears rained all over that bossy façade of hers.
“We don’t have time for this.” Zack nodded his chin at her. He’d already stowed the laptop and computer equipment in their respective bags, and his cell phone was clamped between his ear and shoulder to notify Mark. “Get her ready to roll or I will.”
“I’ve got it handled.” Gabe flipped the chair next to Shelby backwards to sit and face her. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, and he understood. The ambush was one of those come to Jesus meetings, when a guy’s whole perspective gets changed, whether he’s ready for it or not. Gabe had seen it happen plenty overseas. Being shot at tended to shake a person up.
Until now, Shelby had believed in law and order. Truth. Justice. All that crap. She’d thought all she needed to do was call the police and they’d run to her rescue. That honest, hard-working citizens didn’t need to protect themselves. Yeah. All that crap.
He laid a hand over her trembling fingers. The woman breathed hard, her eyes wide, the pupils big and black. Shelby was well on her way to coming undone.
“Hey,” he said softly. “We need to move. Come on. I’ll help you pack.”
Wordlessly, she lifted out of her chair, but froze again. He tugged her into her room and stuffed everything he could find into her roller bag while she stood, white knuckled at the door. “Anything I’m missing?”
She shook her head, still not meeting his eyes.
He crossed the room to her, the roller bag trailing behind him. Gabe lifted her glasses out of his collar and set them on her nose. “These will help.”
The poor thing didn’t seem to notice. She gulped, still shaking so hard she could barely stand still.
He cupped her chin to get her to look at him. “Hey. Settle down. We’ve got work to do.”
She flung herself at him, her arms wrapped around his waist and the rest of her squeezing him like her life depended on it. “They blew up my car. They really wanted to kill me. Me.”
He dropped the suitcase handle and wrapped her up good and tight against his chest. “Yes, but you’re safe now. Stop thinking about it.”
“You saved me.” Her body vibrated with adrenaline, her face pressed into his shirt.
There was no sense sugarcoating what she’d done. “That’s why there are rules. Zack and I can’t keep you safe if you don’t follow orders. We shouldn’t have humored Kelsey by staying here in the first place. This house was never safe or smart.”
Shelby pressed closer, burrowing against him as if she wanted to crawl inside his body and hide if she could. Her tears spilled onto his shirt, warming his skin. “You saved me.”
“And now we have to leave,” he said firmly. “You need to listen up.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Yes, it is.” He cupped her chin to draw her face upward, needing Shelby to open those eyes behind the smudged lenses and re-engage. “Kelsey needs you. You’re still alive, and I’d like to keep it that way. Are you working with us or against us?”
Shelby lifted her gaze, blinking through her tears, but hot damn. The strangest thing happened. “Do you have an extra gun?” she asked.
A smile tweaked his lips. Hell, it tweaked his whole face. “That’s my girl.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Gabe was right. Kelsey needed her, although it seemed the other way around as they made their getaway in his Land Rover. Kelsey dragged a small roller bag behind her with two pillows and a navy-blue travel blanket strapped to the top of it with a red bungee cord. Shelby hurried to keep up.
Gabe knelt on all fours, peering under his SUV. The sight of his butt on display, his head down and his knees slightly spread should’ve done more for her libido than it did. Tears sprang to her eyes instead.
Mom was wrong. Guys in cammies who played with guns were good men, too. They knew things most people didn’t, and the world wasn’t safe. Any minute now the police would be there, but they’d still arrive too late to change what had happened.
“What’s he looking for?”
“More bombs,” Kelsey answered.
Shelby shivered. Gabe could’ve died today. It would’ve been my fault.
Sirens screamed in the distance. It wouldn’t take long. By the time the police arrived, the Stewarts’ home would be empty. According to Gabe, Mark Houston would arrive in time to pick up the pieces and deal with the authorities. That was his job. Hers was to accompany Kelsey and do what she was told.
She took the seat behind the passenger seat, mostly to avoid Zack. He couldn’t see her if she sat behind him. Kelsey sat with her in the back seat, directly behind the driver’s seat.
Her dogs were loaded in the rear of Gabe’s Land Rover, a wire partition between them and the passenger seat. Shelby was almost glad to see them, but she’d rather have a gun like everyone else. The need to defend herself had surfaced with a powerful vengeance. No one would shoot at her again and get away with it.
Gabe said he’d give her one, but he hadn’t. For now, his and Zack’s guns were holstered, but darn. Both guys had gone straight after the shooters. Not once had they hesitated or flinched. She’d never witnessed a display of bravery before. It literally overwhelmed her.
She couldn’t get warm enough, despite the summer sun shining through her window. The memory of Gabe’s hard body stretched over hers on the front lawn lifted goose bumps up the back of her neck. Her nipples hardened at the thought of him in that very intimate position on top of her.
Excitement was a powerful aphrodisiac, but the awful reality of what could’ve happened stilled her physical reaction. He’d been pumped full of blood, every inch of him hard as a rock and taut with rage. He’d fired round after round, ready to protect her. To die for her. But she’d heard the thunder in his chest. She’d felt it beneath her fingertips. He’d turned primitive and deadly, but he’d been scared, too. All because of me. I did that to him. I put everyone at risk.
Zack opened the front passenger door and ducked his head inside, still not looking at her. “Change of plans, Kels. You’re coming with me. Get your bag. Bring the dogs, too.”
Ouch. That hurt. Apparently, he’d decided Kelsey wasn’t safe in the same vehicle with her?
Gabe opened his driver side door and climbed in. “I’m not a chauffeur, Shelby. Come up front and ride shotgun.”
She unfastened her belt but waited for Zack to leave before she changed seats.
“You know a place we can hunker down?” he asked, his strong hand clutching the seat back.
Gabe (In the Company of Snipers Book 8) Page 23