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LIAM HAD NO idea where the flying bubble wrap came from but he didn’t waste a second. He pulled his gun from his holster and put two rounds into Gustaf before he escaped from under the plastic roll. In an ideal world, he’d have taken him into custody and handed him over to the authorities. He’d never lived in an ideal world, and he’d be damned if he’d take a chance with the guy somehow managing to get away and get his hands on Andy.No fucking way.
“Are you okay?” came a voice from the loft.
“Andy?”
“Are you shot?” She peered over the edge of the loft and his heart squeezed tight at the fear in her eyes.
“I’m not shot, baby. He is. Can you get down?” He needed to touch her, to make sure she was okay.
She inched toward the edge of the loft and for a moment, he worried she’d try to climb down that way. Shock made people do strange things.
“Go to the ladder. I’ll meet you outside.” He waited until she backed away from the edge before he nudged Gustaf with his foot.
One of his rounds had gone into the man’s skull, and his lifeless eyes stared at the ceiling. The animal wasn’t going to hurt anyone else ever again. Liam ran outside and around the shed, positioning himself at the bottom of the ladder so he could catch her if she slipped. She climbed down so fast it was as if she’d managed to manipulate gravity and then she was in his arms and he stopped thinking about anything but holding her. He ran his hands over her back and felt the tremors running through her.
“You’re shaking.” He didn’t wait for her reply; he simply scooped her up in his arms and started for the house.
“Your leg...”
“Will be fine,” he said. It would take more than some achy muscles to get him to put her down.
“What about the guy...Gustaf?”
When she said the name, she shuddered, and he squeezed her tighter, needing her to feel safe with him.
“He’s dead. My team will be here in a couple of hours to take care of everything.” He’d managed to hit the call button before he’d tossed his phone away. Knowing the team from Southerland Security was on the way had been the only thing that kept him from losing his mind when Gustaf started talking about Andy. Regardless of what happened to Liam, he knew Emerson would make sure she and the others were safe.
She pressed her face to his chest and his heart started to soften. With every step he took, more of his walls crumbled away and Andy wove herself into his heart. She had a way of making everything around her better, more beautiful. Maybe her powers extended to him.
“Passable diversion, huh?” she said when they were in sight of the house.
Crap, she heard everything. He’d said whatever he could think of to make Gustaf think she wasn’t important to him. It hadn’t fooled him but what if she believed it? Maybe it was for the best. His life would always be complicated, and he couldn’t stand the idea of bringing that messiness into her world. It would be better for her if he left with the rest of the team when they got there.Walk away and leave Andy in her peaceable kingdom.The thought hit him like a punch to the solar plexus and he stumbled, barely catching himself before they fell.
She wriggled in his arms, and he had to set her down, but he couldn’t make himself let go. Not when the thought of leaving was so close to the surface of his mind.
“I was lying,” he said, needing to have that bit of truth between them.
She tipped her face up to meet him and the sunlight turned her eyes from hazel to a greener gold.
“I know. You love me.” She said the words with the same matter-of-fact tone she’d used when she was explaining to him the way soap making worked, as if it were a universal truth. The words that shook loose the last of his walls.
I love Andy. He held the thought for a moment, the denial on the tip of his tongue. He couldn’t bring himself to lie to her. Not that she was likely to believe it anyway.
“What were you doing in the shed?” he asked, veering off into safer territory.
“You needed me to save you.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, twining her fingers in his hair.
He had to work to keep from kissing her. It would be the easiest thing in the world to lean down and lose himself in the taste of her.
“I told you to stay in the barn.”
“What on God’s green earth led you to believe I’d follow your orders?” she said and then she hit him with an eyeroll that would have done a teenager proud. Or Millie. “I can see you running through all the reasons we don’t belong together, starting with your life is too dangerous.”
“It is. You could have been killed, Andy. And who knows what would have happened to all the people who depend on you? My job isn’t going to get easier.” For the first time since he started with Southerland Security, he wondered if he could leave it to do something else. Pick something safer.
“The first year I lived here, I almost rolled the tractor. It was just dumb luck I didn’t. My mother died of cancer at fifty-six, and I had a cousin who got hit by a car at sixteen. Nobody gets a guarantee. It’s taken three years for Millie to teach me that. I’ve spent a long time running from the things I want and trying to make up for the mistakes I’ve made. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life, however long it is, doing that. Are you in or are you gonna chicken out?”
