LITMIR.BIZ

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I don’t need your brand of help, thank you very much.” She moved cautiously toward the door, skillfully alternating her focus between him and Martinez. “Your keys,” she said to Martinez when she reached the door.

      He shrugged as if he didn’t understand, his olive skin a good deal paler than when he arrived.

      “Your car keys. Give me your car keys,” she ground out impatiently.

      “Okay, lady, just stay cool. My brother is going to kill me. That Explorer’s brand new.” Martinez reached for his pocket with his right hand.

      “Wait! Hold your hands up high and turn all the way around,” Nicole instructed curtly.

      Martinez glanced uneasily at Ian. Ian nodded for him to do as she said. Martinez turned around slowly, his hands held high. The form-fitting muscle shirt, which he wore tucked into his jeans left no doubt that the man was unarmed. Ian swore silently. He should have warned Martinez to be fully prepared. Not that it would have done any good since Ian obviously had been ill-prepared himself.

      “Now give me those keys—with your left hand,” Nicole ordered.

      Martinez complied without hesitation.

      Nicole reached behind her and opened the door. “Nobody moves until I’m out of here. Nobody.” She allowed Ian one final look before she stepped across the threshold and slammed the door behind her.

      Ian hissed a four-letter word. How in the hell had he fallen for that old trick?

      “Hey man, are we going after her or what?” Martinez asked uncertainly.

      “Go out the back. See if you can get around behind her to cut her off,” Ian told him roughly as he stormed across the room. Dammit, the woman was going to get herself killed. She knew better. Nicole knew the code of survival and protection. So far she had done nothing but act like a frightened civilian, breaking every rule.

      Ian cursed again when he stepped into the early-morning sun. Fortunately it was Saturday and his neighbors would likely still be in bed at this hour. He quickly scanned the seemingly deserted street. But his neighbors weren’t the concern at the moment. He shook his head in disgust. Nicole was a damned open target standing there fumbling with Martinez’s keys. His gut clenched.

      “At this rate you won’t make it very far, Nicole.” Ian took the steps two at a time.

      Nicole’s head jerked up. Instantly, she focused a bead on him with her left hand, while continuing to try and manipulate the keys with her right. “Stop right there, Michaels.”

      “I suppose you’re going to shoot me if I don’t.”

      Her head came up again. Ian smiled when her resolve visibly faltered. “I didn’t think so,” he concluded aloud, his supreme annoyance making his voice sound more lethal than he had intended.

      He walked right up to her, the muzzle of the Glock pressed into his chest. “Give me the weapon.”

      “No way. I don’t need any help,” she said tightly, her eyes suspiciously bright. “I decided last night that I wasn’t going to involve anyone else in my problems.”

      “Was that before or after we made love?” Ian held her gaze. His entire being reacted to the uncharacteristic fear he saw in her eyes.

      “It’ll be better this way.” She drew in a shaky breath, but firmed her grip on the Glock. “Now get the hell away from me, Michaels. People are dropping like flies around me. First my director, then Daniels.”

      “No.”

      “Now who’s being the fool?” Lowering her weapon, Nicole jerked the vehicle door open and slid behind the wheel. “Goodbye, Ian.”

      Without warning, glass shattered, the sound echoing in the otherwise quiet street. Fragments from the truck window sprayed in Ian’s direction. Simultaneously, something propelled him back a step, the impact and burn clicking an instant recognition in his brain and sending him diving for cover. Thankfully Nicole was in the vehicle. He hoped like hell she stayed put. Ian hit the ground. A stab of pain knifed through his left shoulder and radiated down his arm.

      The squeal of tires and the roar of an engine pierced the still morning air. Then the report of Ian’s Glock, three shots in rapid succession, echoed. Nicole was returning fire. Ian swore savagely and pushed to his feet. Nicole whipped around and quickly surveyed him.

      “Where are you hit?” Worry traced lines across her face, her gaze darted back to his left shoulder. “Damn,” she breathed. Gingerly she pushed his jacket away to view the damage.

      “It’s nothing.”

      She gave him a look. “Yeah, right.”

      Ian gritted his teeth when she unbuttoned his shirt partway and pulled it from the wound. He winced inwardly. “I am now fully convinced that you’re trying to get yourself killed, Nicole. Why didn’t you stay in the truck?”

      “Shut up, Michaels.” She grimaced. “You need a doctor.”

      “I got a partial on the license plate,” Martinez reported breathlessly as he skidded to a stop next to Nicole.

      “We have to get Ian to a hospital.” She tugged him toward the passenger-side door of Martinez’s borrowed truck as she spoke.

      Ian manacled her right wrist and halted her forward movement. “I’ll take this.” Before she could protest he relieved her of the Glock, then tucked it into his waistband beneath his jacket. “And don’t even think about leaving my sight.”

      “Fine,” she snapped, her eyes shooting daggers at him. “As long as you get in the damned vehicle.”

      Martinez quickly brushed the glass from the driver’s seat and dropped behind the wheel. “My brother is definitely going to kill me,” he muttered.

      “Drive, Martinez,” Nicole ordered as she slid in next to him, “or he won’t get the chance.”

      Chapter Two

      Blood…

      Oh God.

      Nauseated and feeling more than a little faint, Nicole stared down at her bloodstained hands. This was by no means her first time to exchange gunfire with a hostile, nor was it her first up-close encounter with spilled blood.

      But this was Ian’s blood.

      The hospital’s medicinal smell didn’t help. Nicole swiped her palms against the baggy gray sweatshirt she wore. She squeezed her hands into tight fists and dropped them to her sides. Moistening her dry lips and careful not to make eye contact, she slowly lifted her gaze to the man seated on the examining table. He sat on the very edge, poised, intent, as if anticipating the need to make a tactical move at any given moment. His torn and bloody shirt lay on the exam table behind him, the damaged suit jacket next to it. Nicole closed her eyes against the panic that still threatened to suffocate her each time she relived those few seconds between the sound of the gunshot and the moment she confirmed with her own eyes that Ian wasn’t mortally wounded.

      The sound of Ian’s smoky voice as he answered some question the doctor asked dragged Nicole back to the here and now. Young and obviously nervous, the doctor pulled another suture through the nasty wound on Ian’s shoulder. He kept muttering something about the injury looking like a gunshot wound to him. Poor guy, Nicole thought to herself, he had to be an intern. Otherwise Martinez would never have had him even half believing that idiotic story about Ian’s falling into a window.

      Ignoring the doctor’s concerns, Ian did nothing to lessen the thick tension. His dark, brooding presence would unnerve a war-zone veteran. He had refused the offer of pain medication, and, in that arrogant, dangerous tone of his, had ordered the doctor to do what he had to do as quickly as possible. The wound wasn’t so bad, Nicole told herself again. Just a nasty slash through skin and muscle. Had the angle been slightly different Ian might be in surgery now—or worse.

      Shuddering

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