Delores Fossen - One Night Standoff

That gave him a jolt of breath he needed. “Well, you damn well should expect something.”

Lenora eased back, her attention fixed to him. “Obviously, you’re not pleased about this—”

“Only because I didn’t see it coming.”

“Yes.” And she repeated that. “It caught me off guard, too. We used protection, but something must have gone wrong.”

Obviously.

He pulled in a couple of quick breaths and hoped it’d clear his head. He needed to think. To say the right thing.

Whatever that was.

A baby!

He’d never planned on being a father. Never. And this was a shock that made him speechless.

She looked up. Their gazes connected. But then Lenora looked away again. Not at the coffee this time, but rather out the window.

“Is that the black truck you saw?” Her attention was on something over his shoulder.

Clayton turned in that direction and saw the truck. Yeah. It was the same one. It was creeping along Main Street, going past the diner.

Unlike before, the window on the passenger’s side was halfway down. There didn’t appear to be anyone seated there, only the person behind the steering wheel. Clayton couldn’t see the guy’s face.

But he saw the gun.

“Get down!” Clayton shouted to Lenora and everyone else in the diner.

He reached beneath his jacket to draw his Glock, but it was already too late. The bullet blasted through the window.

Clayton felt the sharp pain in the side of his head, and even over the blast, he heard Lenora yell. He tried to move. Tried to return fire and protect her, but he felt himself falling.

And everything around him turned cold and gray.

Chapter Two

Lenora’s heart slammed against her chest, and she snatched up the Glock that dropped from Clayton’s hand and onto the table. She saw the blood, no way to miss that.

No way to avoid that punch of adrenaline, either.

That fear.

Oh, God.

Clayton had been shot.

That was her first thought, quickly followed by the realization that this could all be her fault. But she shoved those things aside because every second counted now.

“Call an ambulance!” Lenora yelled out to no one in particular.

She couldn’t let this guy get off another shot. She had to stop him, or he could kill Clayton, her and anyone who was unlucky enough to be near them.

Lenora took aim at the truck.

And she fired.

The shot blistered through the air, but it was practically drowned out by the screams and shouts from the other diners. Lenora couldn’t be sure, but she thought she managed to shoot the guy in the arm. She took aim again, but the driver hit the accelerator, and with the tires squealing against the wet asphalt, he fishtailed away.

She scrambled across the table, catching Clayton as he slumped to the side. There was even more blood now. And it wasn’t in a good place, either.

He’d been shot in the head.

No. This couldn’t be happening.

With her heartbeat pounding in her ears and her hands shaking, Lenora kept watch to make sure the shooter didn’t return for a second round. She couldn’t risk that.

She jerked the scarf from around her neck and lightly pressed it to Clayton’s wound. She couldn’t add too much pressure, because it might embed the bullet even deeper. It might even kill him.

If he wasn’t dead already.

“Clayton?” She choked back a sob and tilted back his head a little. No response, so she pressed her fingers to his neck.

He was alive.

Thank God.

But he needed a doctor immediately.

“Get that ambulance here,” she shouted, though she figured it was already on the way. Still, it couldn’t arrive soon enough, because every second counted now.

A dozen thoughts went through her mind. None of them good. It had only been two months since her friend Jill had been gunned down just like this. Right in front of her. In front of Clayton, too. This had to have a different ending than that shooting.

Somehow, someway, Clayton had to survive this.

“Clayton?” she repeated. “Can you hear me?”

He turned his head toward her, and his lips moved, too. He mumbled something that Lenora couldn’t understand, so she put her ear closer to his mouth.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

That seemed to get his attention, and he tried to open his eyes. “The baby.” The two words didn’t have any sound, but she was pretty sure that’s what he was trying to say.

The baby.

The reason for this visit. Lenora had dreaded coming here. Telling him. And had braced herself for his reaction. But now she had a different reason to dread why she’d decided to tell him.

If she hadn’t come here, this might not have happened.

From the corner of her eye, she saw the movement of the man approaching and nearly lifted the gun again before she realized it was Marshal Harlan McKinney. With his own gun drawn and holding his cell to his ear, he raced across the street toward the diner and had to dodge a car that nearly plowed right into him.

“Get here now!” Harlan shouted into his phone.

“The driver of that black truck,” Lenora managed to say. “He shot Clayton.”

“I saw it from the window,” Harlan mumbled, and he practically pushed her aside so he could take hold of his foster brother. The fear was right there, in his eyes and in every part of his body.

“Hold on, Clayton,” Harlan said. “The ambulance should be here any minute.” His gaze flashed to her. “Why’d this happen?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Then guess!” Harlan insisted. “Because I want to know why my brother was shot.”

But Lenora didn’t even get a chance to speculate.

Or lie.

She heard a welcome sound. The ambulance sirens wailed from up the street, and it didn’t take long for the vehicle to screech to a stop directly in front of the diner. Two medics got out and came rushing toward them.

Harlan and she stepped back out of the way, and Lenora watched. Prayed. And tried to keep it together. In addition to the flashbacks and the fear crawling through her, she thought she might throw up.

Bad timing.

She’d had few symptoms of the pregnancy, and she didn’t want to be queasy now when so much was at stake.

“Marshal Caldwell?” one of the medics said to Clayton.

Still no response.

“Clayton?” Harlan tried.

And this time Lenora saw his eyelids flutter and open just slightly. Clayton’s coffee-colored eyes were unfocused, glazed, but he turned them in his brother’s direction.

“You’ll be okay,” Harlan assured him.

Lenora prayed that was true.

Clayton mumbled something. Or rather he tried, but like before Lenora couldn’t hear what he said. The medics moved in front of her, easing Clayton onto the gurney, and they hurried to the ambulance with him.

Lenora moved, too. She didn’t want to lose sight of him, and apparently neither did Harlan, because he latched on to her arm and dragged her into the back of the ambulance with him. He didn’t ask them for permission to ride.

The ambulance sped away from the diner, and Harlan and she watched as the medics took Clayton’s vitals.

“You returned fire,” Harlan said and held out his hand. “I’ll need Clayton’s gun.”

For a moment Lenora had forgotten that she was still clutching it. She had to force her hand to open, and she gave the Glock to him.

“Not a smart thing to do,” Harlan snarled. “Discharging a firearm in a crowd.”

“There weren’t any bystanders in my line of sight,” she blurted out, wishing that she hadn’t, because it brought Harlan’s attention directly to her.

“Why did you come to see Clayton?” he demanded.

The truth would only lead to more questions, and she didn’t want to be interrogated by this particular marshal. “Two months ago, my friend was murdered. I wanted to know if there’d been any new developments. I wanted to make sure her killer would stay in jail.”