What felt like a lifetime stretched between nothingness and then a beat.
Her pulse.
James wanted more confirmation. He sidestepped any modesty and placed his large hand spread out against her chest.
He held his breath again.
Then felt hers go out.
If James wasn’t currently forming a human cage around the woman, he would have let relief wring him out. Instead, he gave the deputy’s body a cursory look.
There were no protruding bones or obvious and alarming injuries as far as he could tell. Her clothes had seen better days, and she was somehow missing a shoe, but there wasn’t anything that spelled immediate issues.
Well, other than the fact that she was out cold.
And they were in a pit in the ground of a burning building.
Then there was the wholemen with gunsbusiness.
Had they been in the blast or far enough away like them that they had survived?
James was seized by a coughing fit. He kept Rose tight against him until it passed.
She had said backup was on the way but he couldn’t just sit and wait for them.
James winced into that pain he couldn’t exactly pinpoint and slowly pulled them both to their feet. Rose definitely wasn’t faking her condition. She was a rag doll in his arms as he stood to his full height. He stepped on debris and over clutter, holding Rose againsthim like a groom ready to walk his bride through their bedroom door.
Flames and heat and smoke and pain danced around them.
Holding her was easy. Getting out might be a different story.
James took one quick look down at the slack face resting against his chest.
Wildcard Rose Little looked relaxed, peaceful even.
“I can’t defend you and I can’t leave you.”
James nodded and spoke his resolve, even though he and the woman he was holding couldn’t hear his words.
“Don’t worry. I’m not about to leave you either.”
Chapter Four
Rose didn’t wake up until the next day. To be more exact, she didn’t wake up until early the next morning. So early that the darkness outside of the hospital window threw her for a moment.
Not as much as the overwhelming pain that went through her head the moment her brain seemed to connect the dots around her.
Beeping machines. Something in her arm. A bed. Not her clothes.
Hospital.
She wasn’t dead.
She was in the hospital.
Rose didn’t have the time to take comfort in that fact before nausea bowled her over. She might have realized where she was but that didn’t mean she was fully oriented. She jolted up, covered her mouth and looked over the side toward the window, hoping that there was a trash can to catch what was about to happen.
There wasn’t.
