Page 8 of Tate
He drew in a breath. “Maybe.” He touched her face, ever so gently. “He hit you.”
She nodded, her eyes filling.
One of the white shirts was hauling him out past them. Tate tensed, glancing up at him. “You’re going to pay for that.”
Slava’s spittle landed on the floor next to Tate. “You come to town again, and I won’t just hit her. Or you.”
Tate’s jaw tightened and Glo froze. This was because Tate had come with them to Vegas? Because he was trying to protect them?
Knox knelt next to them. “Who is he, Tate?” The man had lost his Stetson but hadn’t a scratch, otherwise, on him. Except maybe for bruised knuckles.
Oh, the Marshall men were tough and handsome, with those square jaws, eyes that seemed to look right into a woman’s soul. While Knox’s dark brown hair was threaded with the finest shades of red in the sunlight, Tate’s dark brown hair was laced with glints of gold, his beard hazed with a richness when he let it grow, his blue eyes holding a mystery that she very much wanted to solve.
He would still be handsome, maybe more rakishly so, with a broken nose.
“Old score,” Tate muttered.
“I think you’re even.”
Tate made a face.
“He was sent here tokillyou, wasn’t he?” Glo’s voice emerged in a whisper of horror.
Tate drew in a breath, and even Knox looked away as Tate nodded.
Oh, she knew it. Apparently, she had a type.
The kind of men who didn’t care what trouble—or death—might be waiting for them. Who turned their face to it and charged ahead.
The kind of men who died for what they believed in.
The kind of men who would break her heart.
No, oh no…
Tate turned to Knox. “Thanks, bro.”
“We need to get you to a hospital.”
Tate met Glo’s eyes, touching her face ever so softly. “I’m sorry, Glo. I…I never meant for you to get hurt.”
Maybe not, but apparently that was how all her love stories ended.
Because yes, this was really, really going to hurt.
2
Tate would probably never admit how close he came to dying.
To beingbeaten to death.
But one look at his chart of injuries had Glo nauseous. Two broken ribs, internal bleeding that included losing his spleen, and his throat was so swollen that the EMTs had to put a breathing tube down it to keep it from closing. Never mind the bruises that covered his body, his puffy purpled eye, complete with eight stitches dissecting the brow, and the splint that protected his nose, recently set. His dislocated shoulder had been stabilized, his arm in an immovable sling, and he’d slept most of the last six hours.
Just the tiny squeeze of his hand in hers convinced her that he might live. That he knew she was there.
It made her want to weep every time.
And settled deep in her gut the fear that if he woke and she wasn’t here…
