Nicole Helm - Wyoming Cowboy Sniper

But he was already striding out of his office. He made it not even halfway down the hall before he heard footsteps behind him.

He whirled on Vanessa. “I told you—”

“Was that a gun? We should call someone! Why are you running toward it?”

He didn’t have time to explain, but she could call. “Go back to my office, lock the door from the inside and dial 911. Tell them you heard two shots fired in the lobby. One employee inside, not sure about customers. Go.”

He nudged her back toward the office.

“Aren’t you coming with me?”

“I have to make sure Adele—”

Two masked men slammed through the door from the bank lobby. It was a robbery. Possibly the stupidest of all crimes in this day and age. Surely Adele had hit the alarm and these two men would be caught before they even tried to leave.

Dylan glanced down at the assault rifles they each carried. Unless they’d shot her first. He felt the horror move through him, but quickly pushed it aside. Compartmentalized and assessed the situation.

Two armed robbers in front of him. The Carson woman, pregnant with his baby, behind him.

And he’d thought it was going to be your average Monday.

Vanessa tried to think, but unfamiliar panic tickled the back of her throat. Masked men with guns. She’d faced a lot of bad crap in her life, but this was a first. Fear had turned her body to lead.

“Office,” Dylan said under his breath. He didn’t look back at her, just ordered her to move.

But she couldn’t. She was rooted to the spot by a mind-numbing panic that barely allowed her to suck in a breath. The guns. She wasn’t usually rendered useless by the sight of guns. She’d shot her fair share, sometimes even carried one, and had been in the presence of them her whole life.

But these were so big, and they looked more military than recreational. She was sure she and Dylan were dead where they stood, and all the fight she was so certain she had in spades deserted her.

“Who are you?” one of the men demanded, gesturing his gun toward her. “Supposed to be one,” he muttered to the other man. “Boss promised us it’d be one.”

“What have you done to Adele?” Dylan asked.

Dylan’s calmness was downright creepy. He didn’t shake or seem panicked. Vanessa managed to keep a decent mask of not freaking out on the outside, but Dylan didn’t seem to be acting. Easily, he stepped toward the two men, even as they aimed their guns at him.

Vanessa tried to swallow down the labored breathing that threatened to make too much noise in the quiet hall. She tried to move, but her body was still lead weight.

“Put the guns down and we’ll make sure this ends well for everyone,” Dylan said, still moving toward them, even as their fingers curled around the triggers. “Now, what have you done with my employee?”

Vanessa couldn’t catch a breath. She and Dylan were going to die here in this hallway. Not just them, but their baby too. Her balance swayed and she had to squeeze her eyes shut and lean against the wall to find it again.

“Take them both?” one man asked the other.

The other seemed to consider it. “Only set up for one.”

“Tricky business. Shoot her?”

Some awful sound escaped her throat, and she couldn’t open her eyes or breathe. She was going to die. Her baby was going to die. Dylan was going to die.

Fight. You have to fight.

“Boss’s got space. Rather take them both than get any blood on our hands till we know we can get away with it.”

“Wasn’t supposed to be two here. Boss’s fault if we have to kill her.”

Vanessa opened her eyes. She was still unaccountably dizzy, but she had to fight. For her baby. For herself. Dylan . “Are you seriously discussing whether or not to kill someone in front of said someone? What kind of criminals are you?” Vanessa demanded.

“Yeah, we’ll take her,” the bigger one sneered.

“Over my dead body,” Dylan seethed, moving forward.

“I can arrange that,” the sneering man said, jabbing the barrel of his gun right into Dylan’s chest.

Vanessa went cold all over, even as she couldn’t work out why Dylan was trying to save her . Just the baby, she supposed. Her teeth were chattering now, and she berated herself for being such a coward, but that didn’t help give her the strength to push off the wall. To do anything. She could only stand here, shaking, falling apart, wondering why everything was spinning around her.

Except Dylan’s profile. Something clicked off in his expression. It wasn’t fear that overtook him, even though this huge, monstrous weapon was pressed to his heart. It was...determination.

“You should leave her. She’s pregnant. You don’t want to mess with that. I’m the son of the bank president. Think of the ransom you could ask for. You don’t need her, and you don’t need to hurt her.” Then Dylan did the damnedest thing. He smiled.

“Dylan,” Vanessa managed. The hallway seemed to be getting dim, and she thought maybe she was going to throw up. She tried to say something, warn somebody that it wasn’t going to be pretty. But the world was moving. The walls. The floor.

“Pregnant, eh?” One of the men eyed her and she had to close her eyes again. She had to think of the baby. If she could get her brain to stop being a jumbled mess, get the panic to stop freezing her, she could barricade herself in Dylan’s office and call 911.

These men would be able to shoot through the glass door though. She’d left her cell phone in her car. Did Dylan have his on him? He seemed like the type who wouldn’t be parted from it. She opened her eyes, trying to study his pants to see if there was the hint of a phone in his pocket.

“She’s a liability,” Dylan said, still so damn calm while she was shaking. Had the lights gone out? Everything seemed so dark. “Any harm you cause her would come back on you tenfold. It’s one thing to kidnap and demand ransom, another to harm a woman and her unborn child.”

“Only if we get caught,” the other man said, his smile going so wide half his mouth was hidden behind his black face mask.

Vanessa thought she could all but read Dylan’s thoughts from the simple murderous expression he gave the man: oh, you’ll be caught .

She’d never given Dylan much credit for bravery or having a backbone, but watching him face down two goons with giant guns, she realized she had to reassess her opinion of him.

“We need to get going. We should have been gone ten minutes ago. Stick to the plan, or the boss—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” The man holding the gun to Dylan’s chest pushed him with it. “You’re coming with us.” He gestured toward the back door Dylan had led her through not that long ago. Dylan started moving toward it, the gun now to his back.

He didn’t even look at her as he passed.

“We can’t leave her, pregnant or not. She’s seen too much. We have to take her with us. Come on, little girl.”

The man not pushing Dylan reached out for her, but she flinched away. She wanted to deck him, but she couldn’t manage to move her arms. She couldn’t move , period. Bile rose in her throat.

“I’m going to...” But the room was something like black, and she wasn’t on her feet anymore. Then something crashed against her head and painful stars burst in her vision, but it wasn’t light. She heard Dylan say her name, but she couldn’t seem to do anything but stay still—and then float away.

* * *

DYLAN’S FACE THROBBED in time with his heavy beating heart. He should have been able to fight them off, but he’d been trying to get to Vanessa to make sure she was all right.