Javier singing her praises and from what Clint himself heard around the hospital about her, he already knew that she was a good nurse. But now he knew how good, that she could put aside her hatred of him for concern for his health.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“We need to get you to the ER,” she said. “You need stitches and a tetanus shot.”
“I’m fine,” he said.
He wasn’t worried about himself. He was worried about her, that he might have put her in more danger by bringing her here. He’d made a promise to her brother, and this one he would not break.
But when he noticed shadows near the building, he realized that the choice might not be left up to him. There were people out there moving within those shadows.
He had made damn certain the shooters from her apartment hadn’t followed them. But they wouldn’t have had to follow them. They could have followed any one of the other bodyguards back here from collecting the person he or she had been assigned to protect. Other Payne Protection SUVs were already parked in the lot.
Luther hadn’t ordered a hit on everyone for tonight. Just Rosie.
But Luther was such a control freak that he would probably have some of his people watching his other potential victims, so he would know where they were when he was ready to take them out. And if Luther had learned the Payne Protection Agency was guarding them, he could have figured out where they would all meet up.
And if he had figured it out, he had to be laughing his ass off that they’d made it so easy for him to take out all his victims in one place.
Maybe he was just being paranoid and giving Luther way too much credit. But he knew the drug dealer too well to ever underestimate him again. Luther Mills was always at least one step ahead of everyone else. Usually more. That was how he had avoided prosecution for so many years.
No. Clint would not make the mistake of underestimating him ever again. The last time he had, someone had died. Rosie’s brother.
A curse slipped out, and Clint reached for the keys still dangling from the ignition.
“What?” Rosie asked, her eyes widening with fear. “What’s wrong?”
Just as Clint started up the SUV again, those shadows moved away from the building toward his vehicle. He could drive over one or two of them—but not all of them.
Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, he reached for his weapon as he pushed Rosie below the windows. “Get down!” he told her.
He would do his best to protect her. But the guilt that always weighed on his shoulders now reminded him that his best had not been good enough for Javier.
“Put down the gun!” Parker shouted as he pulled open the driver’s door of the SUV. He was not going to get shot in front of his own damn agency. And definitely not by a member of his team.
“Damn it!” Clint cursed him. “I nearly shot you. Why the hell were you all sneaking up on me?”
Parker was not alone. “You were sitting out here for a while,” he said. And he and some of the other guards—ones he’d borrowed from his brothers’ agencies to secure the perimeter during their meeting—had grown concerned. And maybe with good reason. “We thought something was wrong.”
As Clint slid his weapon back into his holster, a grimace crossed his face with the movement. He was hurt.
“What the hell happened?” Parker asked.
Clint had warned him that he was the last man the witness would want to protect her. Apparently, Parker should have listened to him.
The witness answered before Clint could. “He threw us out a third-story window,” she said.
Maybe Clint was the one Parker should have been worried about. “What?” he asked.
She had to be lying, maybe trying to get her bodyguard in trouble.
“We were being shot at,” Clint explained. “When you all started creeping up on us, I thought the shooters might have followed us here.”
“Not with the way you were driving,” the brunette remarked. From her disparaging tone, it was clear that Clint had not exaggerated how Rosie Mendez felt about him.
“Are you hurt?” Parker asked her.
She shook her head. “No. But he needs stitches and a tetanus shot.” Despite her hostility toward her bodyguard, there was concern in her voice. There was also knowledge; the hospital badge dangling from the pocket of her scrubs identified her as a registered emergency medicine nurse.
“I’m fine,” Clint said, but as he slid out from beneath the steering wheel, he flinched again. He was not fine. But he was clearly focused on protecting the witness regardless of his injury and her resentment of him. He pushed past Parker and the other bodyguards to open the passenger’s door.
“You need to go to the hospital,” she told him, and she stayed seated as if she intended to go with him.
“The chief of the River City Police Department is waiting to talk to you and the others,” Parker said. And he felt a rush of pride that that man was his stepfather. His mother had married a good man this time. “I’ll have someone else take Clint to the ER.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Clint stated albeit through gritted teeth. “I am fine. I can do my job.”
Parker sighed. “I can’t argue that—not after you saved her from getting shot and made sure you weren’t followed getting here.”
Yes. He had chosen his team well. Too well to lose any of them. And one of them was already hurt, no matter how damn fine he swore he was.
He’d known when he’d accepted this assignment from the chief that it would be dangerous. But he’d had no idea that the danger would start almost immediately.
* * *
Heat rushed to Rosie’s face. She must have sounded ungrateful to the bodyguards who’d gathered around the SUV. Clint Quarters had saved her from getting shot, and instead of thanking him, all she’d done was complain.
But it was easier for Rosie to complain about Clint than to be grateful to him. She just couldn’t do it.
Not after what he’d cost her. And no matter how many times he might save her life, he could never bring back the life lost because of him.
Javier...
She had no intention of going along with his being her bodyguard. That was the reason she walked into the Payne Protection Agency with him and the others. She intended to tell the chief of police exactly what he could do with his protection.
Not that she could deny that she needed it. What had happened to that young officer who’d escorted her home? Had Luther really gotten to him?
