Page 104 of The Cowgirl's Secret Love
He glanced at Zach.
His friend shook his head, pointing toward the river. “I’ll be damned.”
Out from the nearby cluster of trees, Karen Coleman stepped cautiously toward them, a rifle in her hand and a steely look in her eyes as she made her way forward.
Finn met her at the fence line, stopping en route to remove the gun from Brandon’s proximity.
“Good shot,” he told her.
She raised a brow and answered without a trace of irony. “He looked like he needed shooting.”
A comment which for some reason struck Finn as absolutely hysterical.
Behind him were two men in need of medical help, but in front of him was the woman he loved, who had been willing, and able, to put a bullet in someone for his sake.
He brought her over the fence and into his arms.
23
The next hours passed in a blur, and Finn’s hand in hers was the only thing that kept Karen centered.
It wasn’t even the shock of having shot a man. There had been a gun pointed at Finn, and Brandon’s obviously increasing stress had made that move a given.
It was everythingelse. The interrupted trail ride, chasing down the wildies. Finding out Zach had been shot—
Thankfully, it was only a surface wound. It had only taken a couple minutes for Julia to bandage him up. “You’ll have a nice scar, but it shouldn’t affect your range of motion.”
She took care of Brandon’s calf wound as well, and the EMT had been perhaps not quite as gentle in her caregiving as Karen had seen her with other patients.
Now Brandon sat on a chair in Cody’s office, being watched closely by their foreman as they waited the arrival of yet another visitor.
Another visitor who wasn’t the RCMP, which added more confusion on top of the rest of it.
“You sure we don’t have to call the police?” Not that Karen wanted a record or any of the rest of it, but contacting the authorities just seemed the thing to do after shooting a man.
Well, technicallytwomen, since Brandon had shot Zach as well.
“Alan said not to, and considering who did what to whom, we’ll just wait until we hear what he has to say for right now.” Finn pressed a kiss to her temple and poured more tea in her cup. “Relax.”
It wasn’t as if everybody knew, either. Right now, Julia, Zach, and Finn knew she’d taken the shot. The rest of them assumed Brandon had been injured with his own gun during the wrestling match. Finn had not gone out of his way to correct the assumption.
Karen’s friends and family had gone home after everyone had returned from the wilderness and the mares had been led back to the barn.
Now she, Finn, and Zach waited in her living room for their bigshot lawyer to arrive.
“You know this is weird, right?” Karen told the two of them pointedly. “Most people don’t have this kind of relationship with a lawyer.”
“You mean the type where the man hops on a private plane in the middle of the night to come deal with dicey situations?” Zach lifted his glass in the air, the bandage on his shoulder pushing against the fabric of his T-shirt. “Welcome to the family.”
“I should be drinking what you’re having and not this tea,” Karen muttered.
Finn offered his glass. “All yours if you want.”
“I need my head about me in case this lawyer of yours expects me to be coherent.” She stole a sip before she handed the glass back, though.
Once the burn of liquor faded, she cuddled up against him. The room went slightly hazy as her eyes drooped. Finn and Zach continued to talk softly while the fire crackled in the stove.
She must’ve fallen asleep, dropping after the adrenaline rush, because the next thing she knew, there was light on the horizon and someone rattling around in the kitchen.
