Allison Brennan - Sudden Death

Jack didn’t move.

“My hand! Dammit, Art, she shot me!” the first knifeman was sitting against the wall, his T-shirt, now bloody, wrapped around his wrist.

“You’re lucky you still have a hand,” Megan snapped.

Hans said, “I have a warrant to take Mr. Kincaid into protective custody as a material witness.” He handed it to the police chief. “I’ve also contacted the Rangers who said you hadn’t informed them about Lawrence Bartle-ton’s murder, which I believe is standard procedure. They’ll be here first thing in the morning to assist in the investigation.”

“Standard procedure my ass,” Perez said. “There’s no mandate to call in the Rangers or the sheriff.”

“But they should have been informed of the homicide,” Hans said, not backing down. “And because this is connected to an ongoing federal investigation, I’ll be talking to the U.S. attorney and the state D.A. about jurisdiction.”

Perez clearly wanted to argue. Megan watched the veins in his neck throb. Rubbing her head, she felt an intense headache coming on. She was still shaking, but she had her wits about her.

In the end, Perez didn’t say anything as the four of them walked out of the jail, through the lobby, and outside. The night breeze felt like heaven as Megan took off her blazer. Distant lightning lit the sky, followed by the roll of thunder.

“Sit,” Jack told her, pushing her into the back of the Jeep in which Father Francis had picked them up at the airstrip. He slid in next to her.

The priest turned the ignition as Hans got in the passenger seat.

“What the fuck happened, Meg?” Hans turned to her as the Jeep sped away. “What were you doing in the jail cell? I told you to wait until I got the warrant.”

“I heard a fight.” She took a deep breath. “Do you have water in here?”

Jack reached into the small back storage of the Jeep and retrieved a water bottle. “It’s warm.”

“I don’t care.” She tried to unscrew the cap. “Damn.”

“Your strength will come back.” He took the plastic bottle, opened the top, and handed it back to her. “Drink slow or you’ll throw up.”

She sipped. “You’ve been Tasered?”

“Once or twice.”

“Why were you arrested?” Megan asked. Focusing on questions and answers kept her mind off the pain that made every nerve in her body throb.

“Perez thought I was breaking into Scout’s house.”

“Were you?”

“He didn’t catch me.”

“You did.” Megan couldn’t believe it. She felt like some sort of rebel, breaking a criminal out of prison.

“Would you like me to lie to you?”

“Why were those men trying to kill you? Don’t they disarm prisoners before they put them in jail?”

“They weren’t prisoners. They were Carlos Hernandez’s goons.”

“Who?”

“Carlos is a midlevel drug runner I pissed off.”

“Where are we going?” Megan asked, looking at the scenery passing by. “Isn’t that the church?”

“I’m taking you out to Jack’s place. It’s in the county, more private.”

“I need to file a report,” Megan said. “I discharged my weapon, and then-”

Hans interrupted, “I’ll file the report. I’m the senior agent.”

She felt belittled somehow, and Hans wasn’t looking at her. What had she done wrong? She’d followed protocols-okay, she didn’t wait for him, but she had reason to believe the life of a civilian, a potential witness, was in danger, she had to act. Hans would have done the same thing. Hell, he had trained her at Quantico; he would have been the first through the door had he been in her position.

“Hans, I didn’t do anything wrong.”

He pivoted and stared at her. “You nearly got killed.”

“It wasn’t that bad-”

“Dammit, Megan.” He turned away from her again.

Hans was upset, but so was she. She didn’t understand why he was treating her like this, why he sounded so angry. A life had been in danger, she acted. That was Megan’s job. Perez’s comment about being barefoot and in the kitchen made her tense again. Hans wasn’t like that; he’d never treated her differently because she was a woman. At Quantico he demanded as much from her as from the men. He didn’t let her slack off, and he respected her. Or so she’d thought.

She wished it was just her and Hans right now so she could get him to tell her why he was so upset. He’d been the closest thing to a father to her after her dad died….

She was shivering. The air was warm, electric with the pending storm. She couldn’t stop shaking and didn’t know why she was so cold.

Jack reached over and rubbed her shoulders. “The tension isn’t going to help you get over the shock. We have a twenty-minute drive. Relax, close your eyes. Let it go.”

Relax? How could she relax with Hans angry at her? With Jack Kincaid sitting so close to her she could smell the soap he’d used in the shower. She felt the heat radiating off his body. His thigh pressed against hers in the small Jeep. She wanted to move away from him-she wanted to move closer. Put her head on his broad shoulder. His body was rock hard-all muscle, no fat. His face-dark, eyes probing, a day’s growth of beard making him look even more dangerous. When he saw her looking at him, he winked. She turned her head and frowned.

Jack Kincaid’s presence was overwhelming. Smart, sexy, confident. Too damn sure of himself. He’d almost gotten killed, and he was sitting here in the back of the Jeep, his arm draped over the back of her seat, as if nothing had happened-nothing too unusual anyway. She blamed her strange reaction to him on weakness- she’d been hit with a bolt of electricity. She absently rubbed her shoulder where the probes penetrated her skin.

Her problem was she liked confident men. She liked the smart guys. No, she told herself, Jack Kincaid was beyond confident. He was arrogant. Cocky.

He shifted in his seat and pulled the edge of her blouse from her neck. “You’ll have a nasty bruise,” he said, inspecting the punctures. “But you’ll be back in action after a good meal and a night’s sleep.”

Attentive and sexy.

Don’t think about him.

“You’re shaking.” Reaching into a box in the back, he pulled out a wool blanket. “Not a satin sheet, but it’ll do the job.” He wrapped it around her body, touched her hands. “Damn, Blondie, your hands are like ice cubes.”

He brought her hands to his mouth and blew into them, then rubbed them in his large, very warm hands.

It was hard, impossible, to ignore Jack Kincaid when he was blowing hot air into her hands, when their bodies rubbed against each other as the Jeep bounced over the rough road. She tried to scoot away, but with every jolt of the Jeep, she was pushed back against him. He wrapped an arm around her and stuffed her hands into his leather bomber jacket. God, he was hot. Literally. A furnace …

She pulled her hands out as if they burned; he grabbed them again, turning stiffly in his seat, a faint grunt in his chest. Megan remembered his injuries. She’d been thinking about Jack the man, instead of Jack the victim. What was wrong with her?

She pulled one hand from his grasp and pushed up his chin, inspecting the cut. “They went for your throat.” That ticked her off. Someone needed to answer for the attack on Jack Kincaid. “It doesn’t look too deep.”

“It’s not.”

She tore a small piece from her blouse, poured some of the water from her bottle onto it, and dabbed away the dried blood. She then wiped the blood from his face. His jaw tightened.

“Sorry,” she said.

“It’s not you, Blondie.”

Blondie. “We weren’t formally introduced. Megan Elliott.”