The rightness of it poured through him, settling deep in his bones. Tory was his woman. She and Ivy were his family. He’d been a fool not to see it a long time ago.
He was a little over halfway back to the house when he spotted a lone rider coming from the other direction, riding at a fast clip across the grass. He recognized the size and shape, knew that fiery red hair. She was riding like the wind, in perfect rhythm with the animal beneath her. A feeling of pride slipped through him.
Another feeling arose, this one deep and frightening. Something was wrong. Tory needed him or she wouldn’t be out there.
Josh tugged the brim of his hat down, dug his heels into the sides of the buckskin, and the horse leaped forward. The gelding ran full tilt across the open grassland, flinging mud from its hooves.
Tory spotted him, turned the sorrel, and raced toward him. They met near a dense copse of trees along the bank of a pond and both of them drew rein. The buckskin slid to a halt and so did the sorrel, the animals dancing and blowing, still high from their run.
“Josh! Thank God, I found you!”
“What is it? What’s going on?”
“Taggart called. There were two men—two terrorists, Josh, not just one. The man who killed Coy is still out there.”
The words solidified in his brain. Pete had been killed with a pistol. A rifle shot had killed Coy. His anxiety seeped into the buckskin and the horse sidestepped beneath him. At the same instant a muffled thud sliced the air and a searing pain burned into his chest.
“Josh!”
“Get down!” Jerking his rifle from its scabbard as he leaped off the horse, he launched himself at Tory the instant her feet hit the ground and both of them went down.
Pain shot up his arm and his hat went flying. The horses bolted, scattered. Ignoring the blood soaking his shirt just inches away from his heart, he hauled Tory behind the trunk of a big oak tree and settled her on the ground out of the line of fire.
“Oh, my God, you’re hit!” As he crouched beside her, Tory dragged his rain poncho over his head. She unbuttoned his shirt with shaking hands and he could hear her rapid breathing. “We need to stop the bleeding. Oh, God, Josh.”
It was meant to be a heart shot. If Thor hadn’t moved . . . He looked down to see that the bullet had torn through the flesh on his upper left chest but had missed a rib and continued on through. “It’s not as bad as it could have been.”
“It’s him—oh, my God, it’s the terrorist.”
He nodded. One thing he knew. The shooter was no amateur. Not firing a sniper rifle with a sound suppressor.
“We need . . . need to put pressure on the wound,” Tory said, her voice shaking. The bullet had hit on his left side and gouged through the flesh beneath his arm. The shot hadn’t broken any ribs, but he was hurting like a mother-grabber and losing a lot of blood.
He didn’t have time to worry about it. He needed to end this bastard. Now.
Propping his elbow on the ground, he rested the rifle stock in his palm, gritted his teeth against the burning pain, and sighted through the scope, scanning side to side through the trees until he spotted movement three hundred yards away.
Hidden deep among the foliage, the shooter, heavily camouflaged among the thick green leaves, would have been impossible for any but a trained eye to see.
He glanced back to see Tory whipping off her lightweight rain jacket, then unbuttoning the soft cotton blouse she wore underneath. She tore the fabric into pieces, made a pad, reached beneath him, and stuffed the fabric into the wound.
“I wish there was more I could do.”
“It’s fine.” Josh sighted down the barrel as Tory pulled her lightweight jacket back on over her lacy white bra and he couldn’t resist a quick glance at her pretty breasts.
He checked his quarry through the powerful Sightron scope on the .308. The sniper lay deep in his nest, ready for the first mistake Josh made.
His stomach clenched to think the man had to have been watching the house, must have seen Josh ride out and followed. He shifted and blood dripped onto the leaves beneath him. If he lost too much, he’d be useless.
Taking careful aim down the barrel, he waited. A sniper was trained to hold a position for hours if he had to. With the blood he was losing, he didn’t have that kind of time.
Come on, you bastard. Through the crosshairs, he watched a cluster of leaves tremble and caught a glimpse of the shooter’s face. Josh pulled the trigger, the shot echoed, but the target shifted at the exact wrong moment and the bullet whizzed harmlessly out of sight.
Another muffled thud sounded in return, the bullet slamming into the tree trunk just inches from his head. The guy was good.
“Stay here. I need to find a better angle.” Smearing a handful of mud on his cheeks and across his forehead, he slid down into the wet green grass and disappeared into the heavy shrubs and foliage at the edge of the pond.
He didn’t need to get any closer to the target. He just needed to find a line of sight that exposed the shooter to a single well-placed shot.
