Page 63 of Out of the Shadows

“I’m fine, B. I swear.”

Shaking her head, she closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip. But it still trembled.

His chest squeezed, and everything inside him stilled.

Oh, hell no.

Not giving a shit about who was watching them, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly against him, dropping his lips to the top of her head. “I’m okay, honey. I promise.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Bean spotted Gavin across the room, and her heart stopped. Completely. Her breath locked painfully in her chest, and her vision blurred with unshed tears.

Hearing he’d been shot had nearly given her a heart attack. With the comms open, she’d heard everything, so she knew he was fine. He’d just been grazed and the bullet hadn’t hit anything of significance. It was a flesh wound that had required a handful of stitches. But she’d needed to see him for herself, see with her own eyes that he was okay. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough work in the world to distract her from watching the seconds and minutes tick by ever so slowly. To top it off, her team was so damn efficient that they’d not only started the frame-by-frame video analysis, but also handled the work of getting the dead shooter’s picture into their various facial-rec programs.

Bean had been fine all afternoon. A little anxious and worried? Yes. As the evening had worn on, she’d grown more impatient for sure, but she’d still been fine.

Until she’d laid eyes on him.

So. Much. Blood.

She’d thought she’d be relieved to see him. And she was. But she’d belatedly realized she wasn’t prepared. Not at all.

The enormous amounts of dried blood on his shirt had been like a sucker punch to the gut. He stood before her, and she couldn’t look away. The white bandage covering his injury stood out in sharp contrast to the darkened bloodstains on his torn sleeve.

Her heart was threatening to claw its way out of her chest, and she slammed her eyes shut, but the bloody image remained.

He’d been shot.Shot!

Gavin wrapped his arms around her, and she nearly burst into tears.

“I’m okay, honey. I promise.”

“You’re not supposed to get hurt,” she whispered into his chest.

While they’d been speeding through Seattle with some stranger shooting at them, Bean hadn’t been worried. Not one bit. One, they’d been in an armored vehicle. Two, she trusted Carmichael’s driving ability and her own skills to get them through the congested city. And three, Gavin had been with them.

In her mind, he was invincible. But now, seeing the dried blood, his torn shirt, and his bandaged shoulder... It was a chilling reminder that the man wasn’t, in fact, invincible. He was just as susceptible to a bullet as the next person.

And that terrified her beyond words.

Hugging him tighter, Bean breathed him in, catching his familiar cedar and pine scent under the antiseptic smell. He ran his right hand up and down her spine while he clutched her close with his left.

“I’m okay,” he kept murmuring, but neither her heart nor her head were convinced. He’d been shot. Seeing him with her own eyes, seeing how close his wound was to his chest. Ahandful of inches to the left, and it would have been an entirely different story...

Her lungs seized and a shiver tore violently through her. Holy shit, it was too much.

“Please don’t cry, B.”

She gasped and glanced up, not realizing she’d lost the battle with her tears. Sniffing loudly, she embraced the fear that was surging through her and jabbed him in the chest with her finger. “Don’t youeverget shot again!”

He had the nerve to chuckle.Chuckle.

“I’m serious, Gavin Frazier.” She jabbed him again. “You don’t get to get shot. Ever. Freaking. Again.”

He grabbed her finger and brought it to his lips. “I’ll do my best.”

She shook her head. “You have to promise me.” Her voice cracked on the last two words, and more tears spilled down her cheek.

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