He returned fire. To his right someone went down. He ran forward, one objective in mind: find Matt. He saw Vahalik dive in through a window, roll and come up ready to fire. Air brushed past Alec’s neck and he knew it was a bullet. Something slammed into him, robbing him of breath. He staggered and crashed into a wall but shoved himself away and kept going, leaping over a card table that lay kicked on its side, getting briefly tangled in a folding chair that came flying out of nowhere.
People were yelling on every side. Ahead he saw a man shoulder open an interior door and duck out of sight. Alec went after him. Just before he reached the doorway, he heard, “Kill the brat. Do it. That’s the order.”
And he heard a second voice, rising. “What are you talking about? Jesus, they’ve got us.”
On a burst of adrenaline and fear, he flung himself through the opening as someone yelled, “Then I’ll do it,” and a gun barked twice.
Too late, slammed through his head. Goddamn it, I’m too late.
A weak overhead light let him see the man who swung toward him already shooting. Alec pulled the trigger, once, twice, again, feeling only savage satisfaction as the man reeled back, then fell heavily.
Another man was sprawled half over a cot that had collapsed at one end. He was bleeding, groaning, his body covering the slight form of a boy.
Alec advanced ready to fire. The man turned his head and his eyes met Alec’s.
“Don’t shoot.”
“Let me see your weapon.”
“Dropped,” he moaned.
Alec looked, saw it half beneath the cot and stepped close enough to kick it out of sight. “Get off the boy.”
With a guttural sound, the guy rolled and thudded to the packed-earth floor. Matt lay curled on his side, duct tape over his mouth and wrapping his wrists and ankles. The sling was gone. Surrounded by fading bruises, his eyes were wide and panicked, aware.
Not dead.
Blood soaked his shirt, though, and streaked his cheek.
No more gunshots behind him, Alec noticed with the very small part of his attention not taken up by the wounded man on the ground and the boy, who hadn’t moved.
Swearing viciously, Alec yanked the man’s arms behind him and cuffed them, then fell on his knees beside the cot.
“Matt. Damn it, Matt, where are you hit?”
The kid made a muffled sound. Alec holstered his SIG and, in a quick, ruthless movement, ripped the tape from Matt’s face. The boy whimpered, then whispered, “You came. I knew you’d come. How did you find me?”
“Where are you hurt?” Alec repeated. He pulled up the bloody shirt, searching for wounds on Matt’s skinny body.
“I’m okay. I’m okay.”
The blood wasn’t his. The knowledge sank in. Matt was alive. Unhurt. Alec sagged.
“I need a knife,” he said hoarsely.
“I’ve got one,” said a voice behind him.
It was Sergeant Renner. He pulled a knife with a six-inch blade from an ankle sheath and neatly sliced the duct tape binding Matt’s ankles and wrists.
With a cry, the boy flung himself at Alec, who gathered him into his arms and tried to hide his tears.
It was a while before he could stumble to his feet to carry Matt out.
* * *
“WE’VE GOT TWO WOUNDED,” McAllister reported. He stood by the open back door of Vahalik’s SUV. “Carson Tucker and Dunlap. Tucker’s hurt the worst. Gut shot. He’s not looking good.”
Alec, crouched on the floor in front of Matt, turned his upper body to look at Colin. “What about the other side?”
“Two dead, including the one you shot in the tack room. Jane and Renner are arguing about who took out the other one.” There was a wryness in his tone. He’d also noticed the tension between those two. “Three wounded. One got tackled and cuffed but is okay except for a bump on his head. The worst is the guy you rolled off Matt.” Colin paused. “He’s one of the sheriff’s deputies, the detective.”
“He saved my life,” Matt said. He sounded half excited, half scared shitless. “When that other guy burst in and yelled that about killing me, he threw himself over me. I think he was going to shoot the other guy, too, but then you came in.”
“You get to know them?” Alec asked him.
“You mean, like names or anything?” Matt huddled in the space blanket Alec had found in the back of the Yukon. “Mostly they didn’t talk to me. I heard them sometimes, but I didn’t know who went with what name. Until, like, everything started, I hadn’t seen the one who saved me.”
He wasn’t the one who picked Matt up in the first place, then.
“Okay. Damn. I’ve got to call your mom.”
Alec started peeling off the vest and only then noticed that he hurt like hell. He swore a couple of times, and Colin, who had started to turn away, swung back.
“What?”
“Nothing serious,” Alec growled. “I think I must have been clipped by a bullet. Help me with this damn thing.”
Colin eased it off. “Huh. Maybe in your back.”
“Uncle Alec?” Matt whispered.
“The vest stopped it,” he said. “It’s just a bruise.”
“Hold still. I’ll take a look,” Colin said.
Alec let him pull up his shirt. He doubted Colin could see much with only the dome light, but unerring fingers found what experience told him would be an ugly bruise. Alec winced.
“Might be a broken rib, too.”
“Could be worse.” Kneeling, he was able to extract his phone from an inside pocket. The screen lit up as he scrolled to his last call.
Julia answered on the first ring. “Alec?” she said frantically.
“We’ve got him, Julia. It went fine. Matt’s here and not hurt.”
“Oh, my God,” she said. “Oh, my God.”
“You want to talk to him?”
“Wait!” she cried.
Alec stopped in the act of extending the phone and brought it back to his mouth. “Yeah?”
“You’re all right, too?”
“I’m fine,” he assured her. “I’m going to send Matt to the hospital to get checked out, though. Can you meet him there? I need to stick around.”
He should also call Sheriff Eugene Brock, who, whether he’d had a clue what was going on or not, wouldn’t be a happy man. There wasn’t any way he could sweep this under the rug. Alec guessed Sheriff Brock’s chances of reelection had just gone south.
Weariness swept over him as he half listened to Matt excitedly talking to his mother. God, he thought, I’m getting too old for this kind of thing. Yeah, it was past time he’d taken a desk job. He almost laughed. Next time Julia worried about whether he’d get bored as chief of ABPD, he could definitely reassure her that his interest in any future action and adventure was nonexistent.
Matt thrust the phone at him. “Why do I have to go? I’m fine! Can’t I stay with you?” he pleaded.
“Do you have any idea how scared your mother has been? I think she needs to see you for herself.” Alec’s mouth crooked. “And after you get medically cleared, I’ll bet she’d like to feed you.”
“Um...I am kind of hungry.” He was always hungry. “They gave me a hamburger, but it was, I don’t know, hours ago.”
“I need to keep an eye on the cleanup here,” Alec explained. “It’s not going to be an easy scene to secure.” Understatement. Eventually they’d figure out how many rounds each individual had fired and who had shot whom, but it was going to be a job. What he cared most about was Tucker and Dunlap—and the guy who had shielded a thirteen-year-old boy with his own body. In doing that, he’d redeemed all of his sins in Alec’s eyes. He’d be glad to go to court and say so.
He left Matt briefly and persuaded one of his own officers, who was itching t
o follow Dunlap to the hospital, to take Matt, as well.
“His mother will be waiting for him in the E.R.,” he promised.
Then he walked past the aid car and the gurney being loaded to go back into the barn and start doing his job.
* * *
MATT HAD BEEN SUBDUED while a doctor checked him out, but they’d barely left the E.R. when he started talking.
“Uncle Alec was shot, too.”
Julia, walking beside him, stopped dead. “What?”
“Yeah. Captain McAllister said he probably has a broken rib.”
Hardly aware of Nell and Liana, both of whom had come—in fact, Nell had driven them here—and were now listening almost as anxiously as she was, Julia could only say stupidly, “But he said he was fine.” Oh, dear God, she was going to cry now, of all times.
“He had one of those police vests on. It stopped the bullet. But I could tell it must have hurt anyway.”
Something like a laugh escaped Julia. In horror, she covered her mouth with her hand. She was going to fall apart. Thank heavens Alec wasn’t here to see. But Nell suddenly had an arm around her, and she was saying, “Matt, the car’s right there. You and your sister get in.”
He went, Liana chattering with him, and Julia stood there in the middle of the parking lot, shaking. “What is wrong with me? They’re all right. They’re both all right.”
“Nothing’s wrong with you. They almost weren’t all right, and you know that. Of course you’re reacting.”
Julia looked into the other woman’s warm brown eyes. “Do you ever get used to this?”
Nell gave a funny laugh that held no more humor than Julia’s had. “I don’t know. I haven’t even known Colin for a year! You’ve known Alec a lot longer. And wasn’t your husband Special Forces?”
“Yes, but when he was gone I didn’t know where he was or what he was doing. Some of the time he’d come back and tell me it had only been a training exercise, so I never knew when to really get scared.”
Nell nodded. “I have a librarian friend whose son was a freshman in college last year. She said she’d quit worrying about him because she didn’t know what he was doing or whether he was out late. It wasn’t like before, when she lay in bed listening for him to come home.”
“It’s like that,” Julia agreed, “except then Josh was killed, and, oh, I’m so glad Alec isn’t still a street cop.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” Nell made a face. “Our two men are supposed to be in charge, waiting safely behind the lines while sending their troops out to do the dangerous stuff.”
“Right,” Julia said.
And now they both did laugh, really laugh, until Julia began to cry again with relief.
* * *
A LIGHT SHONE through Julia’s front window. The relief Alec felt was huge. If she and the kids had gone to bed, he’d have done the same—but he wanted to see Julia with an intensity he’d never felt before.
He thanked Colin, who had given him a lift from the hospital, where they had both gone to check on the condition of the two wounded officers and he himself had been X-rayed, and climbed stiffly out. As the SUV drove away, Alec walked up to Julia’s door and knocked lightly, not wanting to wake the kids if they were asleep.
She opened it instantly and reached a hand out to draw him in. “Oh, Alec! Thank goodness. I thought you’d never get home.”
Home. Her side of the duplex. No, wherever she was.
He looked past her, glad to see that the only light was here in the living room.
“I’m filthy,” he said, “but I had to see you.”
Her eyes were luminous. Were those tears? “You lied to me.”
“I lied?”
“Matt says you got shot.”
“Yeah, but I wore a vest. I’m just bruised.”
No more talking, he decided. He ended the conversation by pulling her into his arms and kissing her. He gave her everything, and the kiss exploded. They spun in place, him lifting her, the two of them straining together in a desperate attempt to meld their bodies. She whispered his name when he let her breathe. He might have been saying hers, but wasn’t positive the sounds coming out of his mouth were anything that coherent. He held on to enough consciousness to know he couldn’t lay her on the floor here, bury himself in her, but, oh, God, he wanted to.
“Next door?” he managed to get out.
“Yes,” she gasped as his mouth traveled down her throat. Then, “No.”
“What?” He lifted his head, stunned by her refusal.
“I want you to stay here,” she said.
His brain had to be working slowly. “You don’t want to leave the kids.”
She shook her head fiercely. “You slept with me last night. We don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”
“Last night was different,” he said slowly.
“No, it wasn’t. I want to wake up with you tomorrow, Alec.” Color ran high on her face, but her chin had a determined tilt, too. “Will you marry me? Soon?”
He groaned. “You mean that?”
“Yes.” She swallowed. “If you meant it when you said you loved me.”
“You know I did,” he said, low and ragged. “I do.”
“Then?”
It would be easy to think she was asking out of gratitude. But Alec discovered he didn’t believe that. She’d told him often enough, in different ways, that she loved him. No matter what.
“Of course I’ll marry you,” he said, shaken to the core.
She blinked hard, sniffed and said, “Then why don’t you take a shower? I’ll make you something to eat and, well, then we can go to bed.”
His body was primed for her now, but enough blood had returned to his head for him to remember that he had to stink, and he probably had blood on him somewhere, and damned if he wasn’t starved. And maybe most of all he loved the idea of them doing normal things—him taking a shower in her bathroom, the two of them talking quietly while he ate, then walking hand in hand into the bedroom, where they would not only make love, but sleep tangled together and wake together in the morning. He wanted all of that, not just the sex part.
“That’d be good,” he said, “but I’d better go next door and get some clean clothes.”
“Hurry.” Julia pressed her mouth to his.
He sank into the kiss, only for a minute. Hurry? “That’s safe to say,” he told her.
* * *
JULIA WATCHED ALEC devour a huge sandwich, thinking how unreal it felt having him here late at night like this, knowing they were going to bed together—and how right it felt, too.
She could see how exhausted he was, but guessed he was still wired, too. A bruise darkened one cheekbone. He’d shaved after his shower out of consideration for her, although she’d found she liked him with stubble, too. He had looked dangerous when he first came in the door, wearing black, hair unkempt, jaw heavily shadowed. Sexy.
“Matt’s changed,” she told him. “Growing up, I guess. He said two of the officers who came to rescue him were hurt. He’s really worried about them. I hope...” Her voice lurched. “Neither of them are going to die, are they?”
Alec shook his head. “One had a bullet graze his head. Bled like a—” He apparently changed his mind about what he was going to say. “Looked worse than it was. The other guy took a round just below his vest. Those can be bad, but they cleaned him up in surgery and they’re optimistic. I just came from the hospital.”
“Oh, thank heavens. Matt feels like this is all his fault. He says he was stupid to go with that police officer, that you’d told him he wasn’t going to be charged for stealing your Tahoe, but the deputy claimed there was a warrant and he had to take him in.”
“That’s what the guy said?”
She nodded.
; “And I wasn’t available for Matt to call.”
“Which isn’t your fault.” She aimed a stern look at him. “Don’t you start.”
She loved his smile, and never more than now, when it started in his eyes long before his mouth curved.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Julia nudged a plate holding a generous piece of coffee cake in front of him. He picked up the fork, but didn’t take a bite. Instead he kept looking at her.
“You know I have to go back to L.A.”
Nerves balled in her stomach. “Do they even know what happened?”
“Now they do. We arrested four men tonight. Two of them are talking. We’ll trace this back to Perez and he’ll be in even deeper shit. But that’ll take time, and he’s already on trial. Conspiracy to commit murder is good enough for me right now.”
“Me, too,” she agreed. She hadn’t let herself think about it tonight, but of course she’d known he would have to go. She took a deep breath. “I don’t suppose we can get married first.”
He smiled at her again, the heat in his eyes enough to sear her. “Yeah. Things are still dragging on down there. Let’s see what we have to do to pull it off before I go. If you’re sure that’s what you want.”
She reached out for his free hand. “That’s what I want.”
Somehow his face was more serious than she’d expected, though. “We got lucky tonight, Julia. I don’t know how much Matt told you.”
She searched his face, wondering what he was really trying to tell her. “I know that one of the men guarding him took a couple of bullets meant for Matt.”
“If not for him, I’d have been too late.”
“And you’re going to beat yourself up over it.”
His look startled her with its savagery. “Wouldn’t you?”
She had to be honest. “Thinking about how close he came terrifies me. It feels like I’m standing in the open door of an airplane, not wearing a parachute, looking down and knowing I’m half a step from plummeting toward my death. But I’ll get over it, because he is home safe.”
He stared at her from those dark, dark eyes and said nothing.
Julia finished. “Alec, I know you well enough to be sure you did everything you could. Maybe you couldn’t save him without some luck, too, but you did. It’s over.”
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