LITMIR.BIZ

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if he completely released her, she might injure herself as she tried to get away from him. So he continued to hold her wrists.

      “Don’t move,” he cautioned her. As wounded as she was, she shouldn’t risk causing more damage to her battered body.

      But she ignored his advice and struggled even harder, thrashing about inside the trunk. Maybe she couldn’t hear him over the blare of that damn car alarm. But like her, it was growing weaker—probably either as the battery ran down or was damaged from the water flooding the engine, which had already died.

      Now he just had to make sure that the bride didn’t.

      “You’re hurt,” he told her—in case she hadn’t noticed the blood that had stained her dress and made her long hair wet and sticky.

      She had lost so much blood that some had even pooled in the trunk beneath her. She needed medical attention as soon as possible. Or he wasn’t sure that she would survive.

      “You need to hold still,” he advised her, “until I get help for you.”

      But to get help, he would have to put away his gun and take out his cell. He glanced around to see if the driver of the Mercedes had returned. The towering trees cast shadows throughout the woods and onto the gravel road—making the time of day appear closer to night than midafternoon.

      The driver could have circled back around—could even now be sneaking up behind them. Dalton peered around—over his shoulder and into the woods, checking for any movement. Sunlight glinted within the trees.

      Off a gun?

      Or maybe it was a beer can that some teenagers or a hunter had tossed into the woods.

      Dalton had spent his life on the streets; he knew what dangers he would face there. He had no idea what lurked out here—where it was so remote. He couldn’t see anyone, yet the skin tingled between his shoulder blades. He felt as though he was being watched. Maybe being out of his element was what made him so uneasy—made him reluctant to put away his weapon.

      But Dalton had no choice. He had to get help for the battered bride. She had already lost so much blood—maybe too much to survive.

      “You’re going to be okay.” Because he had told so many over the years, lies came easily to him now. But maybe he wasn’t lying; he wasn’t a doctor. He had no way of knowing how gravely she was injured, so maybe she would be okay. “But you need to calm down. You need to trust me.”

      Because of all those lies he’d told and all those old friends from the gang that he had betrayed and arrested, few people trusted him anymore. Certainly no one who knew him.

      But he was a stranger to her. Maybe that was why she stopped struggling. Or maybe she was just too weak from all that blood loss.

      So he released her wrists, then holstered his weapon and pulled out his cell. But the phone screen blinked out a warning: no signal.

      He cursed. He couldn’t leave her here while he drove around until his phone had a signal again. She might not survive until he returned. Either her injury might claim her life or the man who’d put her in the trunk might return for her.

      Dare Dalton try to move her? To carry her to his SUV and drive her to a hospital? Hell, he didn’t even know where a hospital was in this area.

      Maybe she wasn’t as weak as he’d thought, though, because she drew in an unsteady breath and then tried again to climb out of the trunk. He put a hand on her shoulder to hold her still, though he probably hadn’t had to bother. The weight of the blood-soaked dress was already holding down her body.

      “You have to take it easy,” he warned her. “You have a head injury.” At least that looked to be where her blood was coming from. Had she been shot?

      In his experience, most of the people he had found in trunks had been shot, execution-style, in the base of the skull. But all of those people had died. If she had a bullet in her head, and he moved her...

      She would probably die, too. But if he didn’t move her, she still might die. There was too much blood.

      She lifted one of her hands and touched her head. Her beautiful face contorted with pain and she jerked her hand back. Staring down at her fingers, which were stained with her own blood, she gasped.

      “Do you know what happened?” he asked. Maybe she could tell him if she’d been shot.

      But from the dazed and glassy look in her pale gray eyes, she appeared to be in shock. Or maybe it was the injury that had her so groggy and weak.

      “Noooo...” she murmured.

      Wouldn’t she remember being shot? He remembered every time that he had been shot.

      “Maybe you were struck over the head,” he suggested.

      She could have a concussion—some blunt-force trauma that was making her bleed so much. Dalton had seen that kind of injury a lot, too, over the years.

      Or she could have been shot from behind, so that she hadn’t realized what was happening to her—until it was too late. Until the bullet had been fired into her head.

      Gravel scattered across the road, small stones skittering past him and into the water in the gully. Then metal clicked as a gun cocked. And Dalton realized that the same thing had just happened to him. Someone had sneaked up behind him to take him by surprise.

      The damn driver must have circled back around—returning to reclaim his victim. To make sure that she was dead and couldn’t identify him.

      Her eyes widened with shock and fear. Either she could see the man over his shoulder, or she must have heard the gun cocking, too.

      Dalton shifted his body slightly, so that he stood between her and the danger. If the man wanted to kill her, he would have to kill Dalton first.

      He reached for his holster again—for his gun. But he wouldn’t be able to draw it fast enough to save himself from getting shot. But maybe he could get off a shot himself and save her.

       Chapter Three

      The man had drawn his gun again. But she wasn’t afraid of him this time. She was afraid for him. A shadow had fallen across the road behind him. And that soft click of metal must have been another gun, already cocking...

      The bullet would hit the man first—before it hit her. He had positioned himself so that it would. He had positioned himself to protect her.

      Maybe he wasn’t who or what she’d thought he was. Maybe he wasn’t the person who had hurt her. Maybe he wasn’t a monster. But how had he found her?

      “Who are you?” she whispered. But she wasn’t asking for just his name.

      “FBI,” he identified himself—not to her but to whoever had come up behind him. “Put down your weapon...”

      A man uttered a ragged sigh of relief. “Agent Reyes, I couldn’t tell if that was you or not...from behind...and in a tux...but of course you were at the wedding...” The man’s sigh became a gasp as he peered around the FBI agent and saw her in the trunk. “Is that the bride?”

      “No,” the agent replied. “Not the bride from the wedding I was at anyway. I don’t know who she is. I found her in the car we were pursuing.”

      Unlike the agent who wore a tuxedo, this man was wearing a vaguely familiar-looking uniform. It was tan and drab like the dust coating the car, but he had a badge pinned to his chest. He was also a law enforcement officer.

      She breathed a slight sigh of relief. Maybe she had been rescued—if only she remembered from what...

      “Where’s the driver?” the state trooper asked. He was shorter and heavier than the agent—with no hair discernible beneath the cap of his hat.

      The FBI agent gestured

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