LITMIR.BIZ

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What good would a bush do him? It wouldn’t stop a bullet. Please, Lord, don’t let another man get shot because of me.

      The sheriff’s deputy hunched behind his cruiser, his gun pointed at the garage as he barked orders into the radio on his shoulder.

      The garage door rumbled open, accompanied by the roar of an engine.

      Cole darted closer.

      “Look out,” the deputy shouted as a motorcycle blasted from the garage and screamed away.

      A deafening explosion blew out the windows of the house, rocking the ambulance.

      “Cole!” Sherri shoved open the side door and sprang to the ground. Shielding her face from falling debris with her arm, she scanned the area she’d last seen him, except the explosion could have thrown him anywhere. Smoke stung her eyes as she silently pleaded with God to let her find him.

      “There!” Dan jumped to the ground behind her and pointed to a dark shape on the far side of the driveway.

      She sprinted toward him and scooped her arms under his armpits to pull him away from the fire.

      “Through here.” Dan helped her pull him through a scraggly section of hedge into the next yard, where she instantly dropped to her knees at his side.

      “Cole, talk to me. Cole!”

      The deputy ordered emerging neighbors back into their houses between demands into his radio for fire trucks and someone to catch the man on the motorcycle. “Is he okay?”

      Sweat slicked her trembling hands. “I don’t know. He’s not responding.” She forced herself to take deep breaths. Oh, God, I can’t have a panic attack. Not here. Not now.

      “Try a sternal rub,” Dan ordered before dashing back to the ambulance.

      Cole moaned at the pressure, but didn’t open his eyes or answer her.

      “Cole, tell me where you hurt.”

      Dan dropped the trauma bag beside her. “Anything?”

      “He responded to pain, but isn’t talking.” Sherri checked his airway. “Airway clear.” She slid her fingertips to his wrist as Dan pulled out a stethoscope. “Pulse a hundred twenty and strong.”

      She palpated his stomach and was rewarded with another groan. “Abdomen soft, no internals, yet. Cole, can you hear me?”

      “He’s got decreased breath sounds on the left side. Could be looking at a collapsed lung.”

      “How bad is that?” A kid skidded to his knees beside her.

      Sherri’s breath stalled in her throat. “Eddie? What are you—?”

      Dan surged to his feet. “You again?” He grabbed Eddie’s collar and hauled him away from her. “You made the call. Didn’t you?”

      Sherri’s heart jumped to her throat. Eddie had set her up?

      Dan shoved him up against the side of the cruiser. “What kind of sick—?”

      “Hey, what are you doing?” The deputy rushed toward them.

      “This punk attacked my partner yesterday trying to get drugs,” Dan growled. “He’s got to be behind this crank call, too.”

      “I’m not,” Eddie cried. “You’ve gotta believe me!”

      Disturbingly, Cole didn’t react to Dan’s accusations, didn’t even open his eyes.

      The deputy snapped open his handcuff pouch. “This true, ma’am?”

      Ignoring the question, she raised Cole’s left eyelid. “Cole, are you with me?”

      Both eyes blinked open and a slow smile curved his lips. “Hi,” he said softly, then sheer panic swept over his face.

      “Cole? Dan, forget the kid. I need you here.” She struggled to tamp down the alarm edging into her voice. “Cole, what’s wrong?”

      Dan shoved Eddie at the deputy. “Keep him away from her.”

      “I didn’t do anything,” the kid bellowed. “I need to stay with my brother.”

      Cole rolled to his side and tried to push himself up. “Let him go. He didn’t—” His voice cut out on a frown.

      “You need to lie still.” Sherri exchanged a worried glance with Dan as he caught Cole’s shoulder and compelled him to stay put.

      Cole’s gaze shifted to her lips, his forehead wrinkling. “I can’t hear.” He pressed the heel of his hand to his temple, his gaze bouncing from her to the commotion around them. “I can’t hear anything.”

      She leaned over him so he’d see the reassurance in her face and maybe read her lips. “You need to lie still so we can help you.” She flicked her penlight over his eyes. “Pupils round and reactive.”

      His gaze darted back to his brother.

      She laid her palm on his pounding chest and waited until he looked at her, her own heart galloping at how vulnerable he looked lying there. “Eddie’s fine.” She stuffed down the silly disappointment that Cole hadn’t been here for her as she’d first supposed.

      “He’s got a contusion on the side of the head,” Dan reported. “No bleeding or fluid from the ears. Check for broken bones.”

      Mentally cataloging the serious injuries they could still be looking at, she continued her palpitations, her fingers trembling. “Breathe,” she coached. He’d only been here because he’d been following his brother, not her. She wasn’t to blame.

      Not this time.

      Below his hipbone, Sherri’s fingers pressed into something hard. Probing it, she felt the distinctive shape of a prescription bottle. Glancing up, she found Eddie’s gaze fixed on her hands and swallowed the bile rising in her throat. They’d been buying drugs?

      Cole’s hand locked on her wrist. “Please, don’t,” he whispered, a soul-deep pain shadowing his eyes.

      Disappointment clutched her chest. He must’ve followed his brother here, confiscated the drugs Eddie had just bought. He wasn’t helping Eddie by covering for him. But just like the silly teenager who’d have agreed to anything if it’d meant Cole would notice her, she couldn’t say no. Was ignoring what she found the same as lying? Her heart seesawed in her chest, her gaze fixed on Cole’s. His brother had held a knife to her throat. Only an idiot would keep this to herself. Eddie was a danger to himself and anyone who came between him and a fix.

      “You find something?” Dan’s voice cut into her thoughts.

      She held Cole’s gaze for a long moment. She couldn’t not keep his secret. Not after he’d just saved her hide. No matter why he’d really been here. She tugged her wrist free of Cole’s grasp and quickly palpated the rest of his leg. “No broken bones.”

      “Okay, our gurney’s toast. I’ll bring the ambulance around. We need to get it out of the way of the fire trucks anyway.”

      “I can walk,” Cole said, his hearing apparently returning. He tried pushing himself to a sitting position with a frustrated groan.

      She cupped his elbow to help him. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad’s the pain?”

      “Three,” he said through gritted teeth.

      She rolled her eyes. “I’ll give you some meds anyway, tough guy.”

      “Thank you,” he murmured.

      Warmth surged through her and with it the memory of the last time he’d thanked her for nursing his wounds. His soft kiss. Her first. And the hug that neither of them had seemed to want to end. She’d relived that moment too many times to count in the seven years since. She blinked away the memory, cleared her throat. “Just doing my

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