“Sounds good to me.” Jagger turned and dumped the rest of his coffee down the drain. “Let me grab my boots, and I’ll be ready to roll.”
“I’ll go ahead and start the car so it can be warming up.”
Teamwork makes the dream work.
He smiled to himself as he went in search of his shoes. If memory served, he’d left them downstairs, by the front door. As he headed that way, Talia went upstairs, presumably to get her keys.
By the time his boots were laced and tied, the sexy Homeland agent had joined him. She frowned when he opened the door and stood to the side.
“It didn’t start.” Her gaze was locked in on her car.
Trying again, Talia pointed the key fob in her hand and pressed her thumb to the button that should have fired up the engine. When it failed once more, Jagger held out his palm.
“Can I try?”
She looked skeptical but handed him her keys. “Knock yourself out.” The jean-clad woman crossed her arms at her chest and waited.
With a smirk, Jagger stepped past her to get a bit closer to her car. He pushed the button. The engine sounded as though it was trying to turn over.
“I think your battery might be dead.” He glanced back at her from over a shoulder before pushing the button one last time.
Talia’s gorgeous face was the last thing Jagger saw before a wave of heat and flames sent them both flying through the air.
“Jagger!”Natalia screamed his name. Almost instantly, she was thrown into a painful coughing fit.
Her car was completely engulfed in flames where it had been parked the night before. But it was the man lying still in the grass several yards from where she lay that had her heart racing with fear.
“Jagger!” she shouted for him again, pushing herself up to her knees. A wave of dizziness caused her to pause, but she powered through and rose to her feet.
Her vision was blurred, and her headache was back, but luckily, Natalia had landed on a thick bed of short, sort-of-soft bushes. She was pretty sure that was blood running past her left eye, but right now, that was the least of her worries.
Several nearby cars blared from their alarms having been set off, and a handful of neighbors had come out of their townhomes to gawk at the horrific scene.
Glass crunched beneath Natalia’s feet as she ran across the small patch of yard connected to her side of the building. A quick glance around revealed every window on the front of her townhome had shattered.
“Jagger!” she said his name again as she fell to her knees beside him. With a hand to his chest and two fingers to his neck, she held her breath and waited to see if he was still alive.
Tears filled her eyes when she felt his heart beating against her palm. It felt strong, just like the man lying before her. But the blood oozing from a nasty gash at the side of his head sounded an immediate alarm.
At the very least, he was concussed. Worst case, he’d suffered some sort of irreversible damage. The latter was an option Natalia refused to accept.
Not him. Please, God. Not him.
“Hold on, Jag.” She grabbed her phone, which by some miracle, only had a small crack in its screen. Dialing nine-one-one, she told him, “Help is coming. Just hang on, okay?”
When the operator answered on the second ring, Natalia quickly relayed the address and nature of her emergency. “Please hurry,” she begged before ending the call to give all her attention to Jagger.
A low moan reverberated from deep inside his chest, and his brow furrowed with a frown. “Tal…ia.” He attempted to utter her name.
The man had been blown several feet into the air, and until this very moment, he’d shown no signs of awareness. But the second he was able to speak, his first thought had been about her?
Jagger’s words from the night before replayed through her frantic mind…
There’s a helluva lot more between us than one night of amazing sex. I know it. And you know it, too.
Before that, he’d literally promised to do everything in his power to keep her safe. But she was fine.Hewas the one who’d been knocked clear unconscious. Because of her.
It was my car that blew up. I was the target, not him.
