Page 76 of Single Mom's Bodyguards
Stupid concussion. My head throbs in a slow, ugly pulse. I steady my breath, leave the bag where it is, and move. If he planted one, it’ll be where damage and drama meet—a load-bearing point, something efficient like his movements.
Front door.
I follow the drive’s curve on instinct, staying in the hedge shadow, every footfall placed just in case he didn’t leave. My blood trail is obnoxious—dark drops on pale gravel—but I don’t have a spare hand to deal with it. The security light on the portico paints the steps in soft gold. Pretty. The kind of pretty rich people think means safe.
At the base of the front stairs, tucked under the lip of the lowest riser, a box that isn’t ours. Matte casing, taped edges, a wire where a wire shouldn’t be, just out of sight if you’re not crawling. A rookie would have walked past it twice.
I crouch again, left arm screaming, head swimming, and look without touching. Someone got close to my charge and knelt where I’m kneeling and glued death to wood like it was an errand.
Rage spikes, bright and clean.
I will do what I was taught and what I’ve done before when lives were stacked on my hands. Take its teeth, then its tongue, then its voice. Take its power away piece by piece until it’s just a box again.
Blood slicks my fingers. Slippery, unreliable. I wipe my palm on my shirt, press again, work slower. My breath stays even. My heart does not. Twice I stop and wait out the dizzy buzz behind my eyes, twice I continue because stopping is not an option.
The night contracts to what’s under my hands. The smell is adhesive and dust and copper. Somewhere behind me, a palm frond ticks against stone. In the distance, a plane climbs into the sky and hums away.
The bomb is defused.
I sag, just a fraction. Sweat slides down my back in a cold sheet.
I sit there another beat with my palm braced on the step, counting to eight because that number has saved me more than once. Then I gather the components into the crook of my good arm. Evidence.
I don’t want to tell Bailey someone wanted to blow her up. I don’t want to show her my wounds. I don’t want any of this to have happened, because I know what it means.
She’s going to have to change her mind about David’s life, and I know that’ll bother her. If she tells me to kill him, it will haunt her for the rest of her days. But I won’t do it without her permission.
No matter how much I want to save her from that guilt.
Bailey has to make the call. One way or another.
Headlights trail down the driveway, pausing at the gate. Sean’s truck. Good. Maybe he can help me get inside, ’cause the world is getting kind of dark.
25
BAILEY
At first,all I see is red.
Sean comes through the front door with Huck half leaning on him, and for a second I think my body forgets how to exist. Huck is huge, bent and bleeding.
The blood is everywhere. It streaks down his arm, soaks his shirt, splatters Sean’s sleeve. My chest caves in. My ears ring. For one awful second I think I’m going to faint, and I hate myself for it, because he’s the injured one, not me.
I shove forward anyway, almost tripping over my own feet in the rush to reach him. “What—what happened?” My voice comes out high, too sharp. I reach for Huck without knowing where to touch. He’s too broad, too solid, and still, all I see is red.
“Relax, sweetheart,” Huck grits out, even as Sean lowers him toward the couch. His voice is steady in that infuriating way, as if he doesn’t have blood soaking through to the bone. “It’s nothing. Just a flesh wound.”
“A flesh wound? You’re—God, you’re bleeding all over?—”
“I’ve bled worse,” he says, as if that’s supposed to soothe me. He even manages a half smile, but it’s tight at the corners, and his skin has gone pale beneath the lamplight.
Sean doesn’t smile. His jaw is clenched, his eyes sharp as razors. He eases Huck down, already tearing the sleeve wider with his free hand. “Sit. Don’t argue.”
Wesley barrels in a second later, a first aid kit in his arms. “Move,” he snaps, dropping hard to his knees by Huck’s side. Gauze and tape spill out in neat, practiced motions.
I hover, useless, my pulse battering my ribs. “Tell me what happened.”
Huck closes his eyes for a beat, exhales like this is all boring. “Found someone in the hedges. Big guy. Knew how to fight.”
