NINE
You gotta be fucking kiddingme.
Ryan bit back a growl of rage and pain as he rolled off Candace and grabbed her arm to drag her behind cover, his right hand slick already with blood as he clutched the rifle.
She scrambled up onto her hands and knees, crawling beside him while blood ran down the length of his right arm.He’d served a total of six combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, managed to avoid any bullet holes throughout all of them, but he wound up getting shot at a fucking resort inMontana?
Fuck this.
People were still screaming and running all over the place.Someone was still out there shooting at them.
Ignoring the pain, focused on getting them to safety, he shoved to his hands and knees, dragged Candace up, and took off in a running crouch, her hand clutched tightly in his left one.Bullets slammed into the rock wall a few feet beside him, sending up a spray of razor-sharp shards.
“Go, go,” he urged her, flinging her in front of him toward safety.
Two strides from the corner of the building ahead of them, another shot splintered the air.Candace flinched and clapped a hand to her side an instant before she disappeared from view.
His heart shot into his throat.He dove around the corner just as more bullets punched into the fieldstone wall behind him where he had been only a split second before.
The instant he hit the ground, a hand grabbed him and hauled him the rest of the way behind cover.He rolled over to find Cam bending over him.
“You hit?”the PJ said over the chaotic noise and confusion around them.
Ryan didn’t answer, his only concern finding his wife.Turning onto his left side, he pushed up and scanned frantically for her.
She was crouched down against the stone foundation of the building, her face pale, a stream of blood trickling through her fingers as she pressed a hand to her upper left side and his anger evaporated as raw fear punched through him.“Candace.”
Her dark gaze met his, wide and startled.“I’m okay,” she blurted.
No, she wasn’t.He was already rolling to his feet, rushing for her.“She’s hit.”
“So are you,” Cam said, clamping a hand on his good shoulder and shoving him back down.“Stay the hell put so I can take a look.”
He wrenched away and opened his mouth to tell his buddy to fuck off, but Erin was already crawling her way to Candace.“I’ve got her.”She took Candace by the shoulders, saying something he couldn’t hear.Fuck, how bad was she hit?
Ryan shoved Cam away and rolled to his feet.His wife was fucking bleeding, he didn’t care about himself.
Cam let him go but followed close behind.Whoever was out there shooting was quiet now, but that didn’t mean the threat was over.Ryan crouched next to Candace, set a hand on her shoulder and cupped the side of her face with the other, the burn of his wound barely registering beneath his alarm.
Her dark brown eyes were dazed, glazed with pain.“Baby...”
“No, I’m fine,” she insisted, the words choppy, her breath coming in gasps.“I’m breathing okay and I can move my arm.I don’t think it hit anything serious.What about you?”She ran her free hand down his right arm.
“I’m good.”The bullet wound stung like someone had poured fucking battery acid into it, but he could still move his arm so he figured it wasn’t broken, even if parts of it had gone numb and some of his muscles were weak.
He rubbed her back with his left hand, feeling helpless.God, if he’d even for one moment thought there might be a threat waiting for them outside, he never would have exited the building that way.
