truck’s this way,” Reed said.
Blue hoped “this way” was close, because the armed idiots wouldn’t be far behind. They ran, a lot faster than Blue’s body wanted to run, and while they were midstride, the deputy took out his keypad and used it to open a silver truck.
“Stay ahead of me,” Blue warned Rayanne. She didn’t argue, thank goodness, and she held her hand protectively over her belly.
The moment they made it to the truck, Blue threw open the door and pushed Rayanne inside. Reed and he quickly followed, but Reed had barely managed to get the engine started when the gunmen bolted from the exit.
The three pivoted around, looking for them, and it didn’t take them long to spot the truck. The goon in the lead took aim.
Fired.
Just as Reed peeled out of the parking lot.
The deputy thankfully didn’t waste any time getting them the heck out of there. Blue spun in the seat, ready to return fire. Well, as ready as he could be considering he was dizzy as all get-out.
But he didn’t have a shot, anyway.
It was too big a risk that he might hit someone other than the snake who’d just tried to kill him—again.
Reed practically flew out of the parking lot, and Blue heard and saw the cruiser then. Rayanne’s brothers, no doubt. Maybe they’d be able to catch these dirt wads so that Blue could question them. Or beat them senseless for this stunt they’d just pulled.
“I don’t think they’re following us,” Reed said, his attention volleying between the road and the parking lot. He reholstered his gun and took out his phone. Probably to call his boss, the sheriff, to let him know what was going on.
“Please tell me this jogged your memory,” Rayanne mumbled through clenched teeth.
Blue had to shake his head. Man, that hurt, too.
However, his vision wasn’t so blurry now that he couldn’t see how pale Rayanne was. And that her hands were trembling. He’d worked with her on several cases and had never seen her like this.
But then, he’d never seen her pregnant, either.
It still wasn’t a good time to think about it. Not with those gunmen so close. However, Blue just couldn’t shove it aside.
“You must hate me,” Blue said, keeping watch around them in case those goons surfaced.
Her gaze whipped toward him, her eyes narrowed more than just a bit. “You’re right about that. I do.”
He wanted to think she was exaggerating, but he doubted she was. After all, he’d just endangered her life twice in a very short period of time. Then there was that part about sleeping with her and then running out on her without so much as a thank you, ma’am.
“I’ll get to the bottom of this,” Blue assured her, but judging from another of Rayanne’s huffs, it was no reassurance at all. Of course, she didn’t have a lot of reasons to trust him.
So Blue went in a different direction. One that he hoped would be common ground for them. “I need a truce, only until this mess in my head settles down, and I can figure out what’s going on.”
She certainly didn’t agree.
He looked at her stomach again. “And I need you to be checked out by the doctor. All that running couldn’t have been good for you and the baby.”
“The running wasn’t a problem. The doctor said I could keep up my workouts.” Her mouth tightened as if she’d told him more than she meant to.
Still, it didn’t matter. He’d call the doc first chance he got and have Rayanne checked out, because that hadn’t been just a workout session.
“I’m not the one who needs to see the doctor,” she mumbled, and she threw down the visor so Blue could get a glimpse at himself in the vanity mirror.
He was pale, beads of sweat dotted his face, and he didn’t look like an ATF agent ready to take down some killers. He looked like a man who’d just had surgery.
“I’m okay,” he lied.
He probably wasn’t even 50 percent yet, but he didn’t have the luxury of recovering when there were gunmen out there who wanted to make his injuries even worse than they already were.
“I filled Cooper in,” Reed said when he finished his call. “He’s the sheriff and Rayanne’s brother,” he added to Blue. “Cooper wants us to wait at the sheriff’s office while he and the others go after those men.”
It was a good plan. Well, a safe one, anyway, for Rayanne. Blue hoped her brother would be able to catch them, but if the men hadn’t followed Reed, then they’d probably already hightailed it out of town so they could regroup.
And come after him again.
Reed pulled his truck into the parking lot of the sheriff’s office, and even though Blue didn’t see anyone suspicious lurking around the building, he got Rayanne inside as quickly as possible. However, with the exception of a woman working at the front desk, the place seemed deserted, and that put him on edge again.
“We need to lock up,” Blue told the deputy.
But Reed was already doing that. He obviously knew that they were vulnerable to another attack. Rayanne knew it, too, because she snatched her gun from him. At first he thought she’d done that just because she was upset that he’d taken it from her, but Blue realized he was wobbling.
Ah, heck.
“You need to sit down,” Rayanne snapped, and she slid her arm around his waist, leading him into one of the offices. Sheriff Cooper McKinnon’s nameplate was on the wall next to the door.
Disgusted with himself, Blue shook his head. “I should be the one protecting and taking care of you.”
That earned him a predictable eye roll from her. “I’m pregnant, not incompetent.”
Rayanne practically dumped him into a chair, then shut the door. Locked it, too, before she went to the window to make a cop’s sweeping glance of the parking lot. No doubt checking to make sure those gunmen weren’t lurking around out there.
Blue intended to do the same, but first he needed a gun. Since they were in the sheriff’s office, he figured it wouldn’t be hard to find one of those, and he started his search in the desk drawers.
Thankfully, the drawers were within reach, which meant he didn’t have to stand up just yet. He really needed a moment or two to catch his breath and try to settle the tornado going on in his head.
Blue finally located a Smith & Wesson. Some extra ammo, too, which he crammed into his jeans pocket before he joined her at the window. He’d barely had time to get in place when there was a sharp knock at the door.
“We got another problem,” Reed announced.
Rayanne hurried to the door, threw it open, and yeah, Blue could tell from the deputy’s expression that something else
