I broke through with a gasp and a hacking cough. Sawyer was there, already reaching down to help drag her limp body onto the dock. Then he reached a hand down for me, hauling me out. I rolled to my back, gasping for only a couple of seconds before reaching for Madden.
She lay still and so very pale, eyes closed. Her hair was plastered across her face. I gently shoved it back and bent over her. “Madden. Baby, wake up. Come on, cariño, you’ve gotta wake up.”
I pressed shaking fingers against her throat and almost sobbed with relief when I felt the flutter of a pulse. She was alive.
Only then did I look back up the dock.
Carson stood on the deck of a boat, casting off with one hand while holding Daniel at gunpoint with the other. Daniel’s own weapon remained steady, his training evident in the way he didn’t so much as flinch. Neither did Ford’s from where he stood flanking the other side, his body coiled and ready.
“Carson,” Ford warned, his voice carrying across the water with lethal calm.
“Shoot his fucking engine!” I shouted, my voice raw from swallowing half the harbor. “Stop him!”
“I’m not going—“ Carson’s body suddenly jerked, his eyes going wide with shock. Red bloomed across his chest, and he collapsed to the deck just as a sound like thunder rolled across the water from the direction of the ocean.
He’d been shot, and not by one of us.
Sniper.
My mind raced through the implications even as my body remained frozen, half-crouched over Madden.
“Boat.” Sawyer pointed out on the water where a lone watercraft bobbed in the distance, probably near to 750 meters out. “There.”
Daniel was already on the radio to alert the Coast Guard, his Louisiana drawl clipped and professional as he rattled off coordinates and a situation report. But I suspected whoever the fuck had taken that shot would be long gone by the time they managed to mobilize. Ford didn’t hesitate—he took a running leap and managed to land on Carson’s boat with the same athletic grace that had landed him a track scholarship back in college.
I turned back to Madden, checking her pulse and breathing again. Her eyelids began to flutter, and I squeezed her hand in mine. “That’s it. That’s my girl. Come on back to me now.”
Out on the water, Carson’s boat had already floated halfway to the sound by the time Ford straightened and shook his head.
Carson was dead.
I couldn’t think about that just now because Madden’s eyes finally opened, blinking blearily into mine.
“Rios?”
“Hey, cariño.” I didn’t have to force the smile of relief to my face.
She frowned. “You’re all wet.”
“I am. So are you.”
From somewhere up the road, sirens began to wail.
“Gave us a scare, there,” Sawyer told her.
Those long-lashed eyes only blinked as she tried to make sense of that. I gently pulled her into my chest. “It’s okay. We just need to get you checked out at the clinic.”
“Again?” she croaked. “Maybe that’s where we ought to be paying rent.”
On a rough laugh, I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We’ll talk about that.”
Her eyes must’ve cleared enough to see beyond me because she tried to straighten. “Carson! He’s the one who set the fire on the boat. He?—”
“Is dead,” I finished. “It’s over.”
At least for now.
On a long exhale, she slumped against me. “Good. Maybe we can take that vacation you talked about.”
