Page 51 of On the Chase
She just couldn’t figure out why he’d collapsed. She kept the gun steady, pointing it at his chest, and tried to make her brain work again.
“What just happened?” There was a strong note of hysteria in her voice, but she couldn’t blame herself. The guy had fallen down before she’d shot him. Had he fainted? Had she really shot him, but just hadn’t heard the noise or seen the flash or smelled the gunpowder or felt the recoil? No. She hadn’t shot him.
“Very nice,” Tio said, and Grace glanced at him, confused. He wasn’t looking at her, though, but at a spot twenty feet above the unconscious man.
Grace followed his gaze to see Ty’s grinning face peering over a protruding ledge. “What’d you do?”
“Dropped a rock on his head.” He sounded surprisingly calm about it.
“Oh.” In contrast, her voice was shaky. “Nice aim.”
“Thanks.” He grinned at her.
“Titus.” Jules didn’t sound calm, either. “You will climb down off that rock, and you will make your way back to us very carefully, and then you are grounded for the next five years.”
Although he obeyed quickly, he was still smiling as he made his way toward them.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Jules said, her voice getting higher and faster with each word. Her Southern drawl thickened until it was hard to understand what she was saying. “I can’t believe you hung over a cliff and dropped a rock on a man! What if you’d fallen? What if you’d missed? What if Grace hadn’t done that insane thing and gotten his gun, and he’d shot you? What if—” Her words ended abruptly as she yanked him into a hug. “If you ever scare me like that again, I am going to kill you myself, understand?”
From the way hisyescame out as a breathless grunt, Grace figured that Jules was squeezing him very, very tightly. Tio and Dee joined the hug, and a white-faced Sam hovered close by, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“Hey, everyone?” Grace said, her eyes still locked on the unconscious man. “A little help would be nice.”
“Oh!” Jules and the kids ended their family hug and hurried over. “Sorry!”
“I’ve got this.” Tio started toward the immobile form while pulling his belt free of the loops, but Jules caught him by the back of the shirt.
“No.”
Sam silently took Tio’s belt from his hand and moved to roll the man over onto his stomach. When Jules made a sound of protest, her brother ignored her and quickly secured the guy’s feet together. Tio tossed him both shoelaces, and Sam caught them before using both to tie the man’s wrists. Once the stranger was secure, Sam moved back to stand by his siblings.
“What should we do with the gun?” Grace asked. Now that the man was unarmed, unconscious, and restrained, her adrenaline was leaking away, leaving her arms shaky.
“Give it to me.” Jules’s voice was confident, but her face showed just how terrified she was as she reached toward the gun. Grace happily relinquished the weapon. Now that the immediacy was over, she was realizing just how gun ignorant she was. The only two times she’d ever touched a gun, she’d grabbed them away from guys who wanted to shoot her. It was a habit she really needed to stop. Once Jules took the gun and Grace’s hands were empty again, she felt like a huge weight had been lifted off her mind, too.
Jules stared at the dull black weapon in her hands before cranking her arm back and hurling the gun over the cliff. In the following silence, they heard a slightclankas it landed on the rocks far below.
“Was that wise?” Tio asked.
Jules propped her fists on her hips. “I don’t care if it was. He held that gun on us. He could’ve killed y’all!” Her voice got higher and higher as she flung the words at them. Grace understood Jules’s hatred for the gun, but she also felt vulnerable without the weapon. The man was tied up and unconscious, but she still felt like he was a huge threat.
A flash of something in Grace’s peripheral vision made her spin around, cursing herself for not keeping guard. She took a stumbling step back before she recognized Hugh, and relief crashed through her. He and Lexi charged up the trail, with Theo and Viggy close behind. They took the scene in with a glance, Hugh’s frantic gaze raking Grace up and down, and then immediately headed toward the stranger. Theo checked the man’s pulse as Hugh patted him down.
“Just him?” Hugh was using his rare serious tone. He hadn’t looked away from Grace for more than a second or two at a time.
“Yes.” Her voice came out scratchy. “That we’ve seen, at least.”
“T-t-there’s at l-least one m-more. Th-there were th-th-three,” Sam said, his gaze scanning the area as if he was expecting more men to come charging from around a rock. Grace didn’t blame him. She did the same thing as she moved closer to Hugh, who stood, meeting her halfway and pulling her into his arms. His hug was hard, almost bruising, but she didn’t complain. It felt amazing.
“I’m okay,” she said, answering his unspoken question.
Without releasing her, he turned to look at Theo. “Cuffs?”
“Good thing Otto carries two sets.” Pulling them from a case on his belt, Theo secured the stranger’s hands behind his back.
“We found the other two,” Theo belatedly told Sam, who relaxed slightly. “What happened?”
Everyone except for Theo and Hugh looked at Grace and then Ty, who gave a modest shrug.
