“We’re fine,” he called. “Git after him.”
Connor turned in the direction he pointed and waved for the men behind him to follow. One of them stayed behind to check on the security guard and ran to fetch a doctor.
Wincing, Hugh pushed himself up and cradled Hermione in his arms. His thigh and back throbbed with pain where he’d taken two of Jameson’s bullets. At least the one in his thigh was only oozing rather than spurting the blood. No arterial damage then.
Most importantly, the wee lass was unharmed. Her safety was all that mattered.
Nay, there was another life in the balance.
Jameson was wrong in thinking Hugh’s death would solve all his problems. He wasn’t even aware another stood in the way of everything he wanted. It chilled Hugh to the bone what Jameson might do if he found out. He was already maddened to the point of folly. If he knew Claire carried Hugh’s seed…
All of it came down to that. A wee bairn deep within his bonny Sorcha’s belly. For all the evil he’d already done, his unborn babe was what Jameson truly sought to stop.
A new generation.
Hugh’s child was the key to it all. He’d known the truth from the moment he’d solved Donell’s puzzling game.
All the players put in place. Only his bairn hadn’t yet been played. Hopefully they could get through this without that happening.
“Mummy!”
Scarlett burst through the door. Hermione started bawling and kicked out of his hold. Sizzling pain engulfed him as she ran to her mother. Scarlett dropped to her knees and caught her daughter in her arms. She cuddled her close, soothed her but her anxious gaze was on him.
“Are you badly hurt?”
“Nay, Scarlett.”
Truth or lie, he didn’t know, but it didn’t matter.
Tears welled and trailed in the path of those dried on her cheeks. She rocked Hermione against her breast and kissed her forehead, but her eyes were all for him.
“Thank God.” Her voice broke to a whisper. “I couldn’t bear to lose you.”
“Hermione’s fine, lass.”
“I was talking about you.”
The admission brought a poignant ache to his heart.
Perhaps Claire was correct and Scarlett did care more than she let on.
Scarlett
“What were ye thinking, lass?”
Scarlett’s shoulder warmed with the weight of Laird’s hand, though she hardly registered it. She rocked a weeping Hermione in her arms with tender care that contradicted her motherly urge to smother her in her embrace and never let her go.
Yet she couldn’t look away from Hugh. She sat there on the sidewalk with her back against the building. Dumbstruck. She’d never known such terror in her life as she had upstairs. Thinking one of her daughters might already be dead. Afraid the other would die. Not knowing which one to go to.
Thank God Hugh took after Jameson before he’d gotten away with Hermione. His blood was hers too, however. What would she have done if he’d died in place of one of her girls?
Hugh.
A pair of medics were staunching the blood flow before they moved him. The security guard Tyrone hired had already been carted away.
Tyrone.
She had done this. All of this. If she hadn’t insisted they come back to her time, none of it would have happened. Or if she’d just stayed put at the hotel. But in either case, her precious baby would have died.
