Jenna Kernan - Native Born

Cassidy jerked her attention back to her assignment. How she hated the outdoor venues. There were just an endless number of places to secure.

A woman wearing a cropped T-shirt reached into her purse. Cassidy leaned forward for a better look as Clyne lifted his voice, decrying the carelessness with which Obella Chemicals had released the toxic mix into their water. The woman lifted a silver cylinder from her bag and for one heart-stopping moment Cassidy thought it was the barrel of a gun. She reached under her blazer, gripping her pistol as the woman fumbled with a white cord. She plugged the cord into her cell phone and the other end into the cylinder. A charger, Cassidy realized and relaxed.

That was when the three-foot-tall vase of sunflowers beside the podium exploded.

“Shots!” she shouted, and took down her assignment, diving on Clyne’s back as other agents moved before the line of dignitaries on the stage, making a human shield.

Griffin Lipmann, the representative from Obella Chemicals, hit the stage unassisted. His personal security force sprang before him an instant later, hustling him off the stage.

Her weight pitched Clyne forward, but he kept his balance, spinning toward her and then hitting the second flower arrangement before toppling backward onto the stage with her sprawled on top of him. She pushed off his torso and drew her weapon.

He tried to sit up.

She pressed a hand into his chest.

“Down!” she ordered, ignoring the firm body beneath her as she lifted her weapon and rolled to a kneeling position.

Two more agents stepped before them. Below the stage the audience members screamed and many turned to run.

“What’s happening?” Clyne asked.

She didn’t know. It could have been a shooter or some kid with a slingshot.

“Up,” she snapped. “That way.”

Cassidy followed the plan, tugging Clyne up and guiding him off the back of the stage, pushing him before her. He was two steps down the staircase and she had reached the top step when something struck her in the back. It felt like someone hit her with a Louisville Slugger right below her left shoulder blade. The impact was so strong that it pitched her forward onto Clyne Cosen’s back. He staggered. Then he grabbed both her forearms and kept running, making for the cover of the side entrance of the waterfront hotel. Cassidy tried and failed to draw a breath. The blow had knocked the wind right out of her and all she could manage was a wheezing sound.

He carried her along like a monkey on his back, never slowing as he stretched his long legs into a full-out run that made the wind whistle in her ears. Those Apache moccasins he wore were tearing up the ground faster than any cross trainers she’d ever owned. Local law enforcement held open the door. Cassidy glanced backward as they charged into the corridor.

The crowd erupted into chaos as men and women scrambled to clear the riverfront park that had turned into a shooting gallery. A bullet struck the building beside the exit and a chunk of concrete flew into the air. The officer holding the door moved to cover as Clyne grasped the closing door and hurtled inside.

Cassidy peered over his shoulder as the striped wallpaper and heavily painted desert scenes flashed past. She wanted to tell him to put her down or to make for the safe room. But she still hadn’t succeeded in drawing a breath and now feared she was going to faint.

Finally he slowed, moving to the wall and swinging her around as if she were a dance partner instead of a rag doll. He made her feel small by comparison. Clyne Cosen had to be six-four in his flat footwear.

He lowered her to the ground in an alcove beside one of the restrooms. She slumped against the wall. Only then did she regain her breath. It came in a tortured gasp. Her eyes watered but she could see he’d gone pale.

Dignitaries and FBI agents rushed past them toward the rendezvous point. Cassidy still gripped her pistol.

“I think I’m hit,” she said.

Clyne pulled off her blazer, sticking his finger through a hole in the back as he did so.

“Damn, that was Armani,” she said.

“The shooter?” he asked.

She shook her head. Clearly Councillor Cosen did not know fashion. He dropped the blazer in her lap and she stroked the gray pinstripe like a sick cat. Then she holstered her weapon.

He expertly unclipped her shoulder holster and she grasped his wrist.

“Don’t touch the gun,” she said.

He met her scowl for scowl.

“Fine. You do it.” He lifted his hands as if he was surrendering to her custody.

She did and the motion made her wince, but she managed to slip out of her holster and draw it down into her lap. When she finished she was trembling and sweat glistened on her skin.

Cosen tugged her blouse from the waistband of her slacks. A moment later she heard a rending sound as he tore her pristine white blouse straight down the center of her back. Then he leaned her forward to drag her blouse down off both shoulders so they puddled at her wrists. She now sat in only her slacks, practical shoes, body armor and her turquoise lace bra.

She flushed the color of ripe strawberries, a hazard of those with fair skin and felt her face heat as his eyebrows lifted. He hesitated only a moment and muttered something that sounded like “none of the guys in my unit wore lace.”

She felt the pressure of his hand on her back.

“Perforation,” he said, pressing on the sore place on her back. “Got you here.”

She bit her lip to keep from whimpering. More people ran past in the corridor but she could see only trousers and dark shoes.

“Get me up,” she said.

He ignored her, splaying a hand over her chest and pitching her forward like a ventriloquist’s dummy. A moment later his other hand slipped under her vest at the back, rooting around.

“Vest is distorted right over your heart,” he said. He released a long breath. “Didn’t penetrate,” he said. His hand stroked her back, skimming over her bra and out from beneath her vest. “No blood. Your vest caught it.”

He eased her back until she leaned against the wall. He was propped on one knee as he looked down at her, his eyes were the color of polished mahogany.

“Still need a hospital,” he said.

She flapped her arms, now decorated with what was left of her Ann Taylor white blouse. He’d torn the collar right off the back as if he were tearing tissue paper.

She tried for a full breath and didn’t make it.

“Hurts like hell, doesn’t it?” he asked.

It did.

How did he know that?

But then she remembered. Clyne Cosen was a former US marine. His jacket didn’t mention that he had taken lead.

His smile held and she felt herself drawn in. Three words from his character profile bounced around in her head like a Ping-Pong ball dropped on concrete.

Charismatic.

Charming.

Persuasive.

“Took one here and here.” He pointed to his stomach and ribs. Making them part of an elite club, she supposed. The two of them. Only she was the one struggling with her breathing.

“A vest saved my life once before.”

She didn’t understand. He hadn’t been hit. She’d kept him from that, protecting him like she was in the secret service and he was the president.

“Before?” she asked.

He pressed his open palm over her middle, his fingers splayed over her abdomen and she swore she could feel his touch even through the body armor. He met her stare.

“Agent Walker, you just saved my life.”

Chapter Two

“You can thank me later,” Cassidy said. The bullet meant for Cosen had struck her in the back. She’d done her job, acted like a human shield and was trying very hard not to feel pissed about it.

Who wanted him dead? she wondered.