They had to be here soon, right? One of the other people in the park must’ve called them by now.
Rhys pushed me down and behind a large tree.
“Wait here and do not move until I give the okay,” he ordered. “Most of all, don’t let anyone see you.”
My heart rate spiked. “Where are you going?”
“Someone has to stop him.”
A cold sweat broke out over my body. He couldn’t possibly be saying what I thought he was saying.
“It doesn’t have to be you. The police—”
“It’ll be too late by the time they get here.” Rhys looked grimmer than I’d ever seen him. “Don’t. Move.”
And he was gone.
I watched in horror as Rhys crossed the wide-open expanse of grass toward the shooter, who had his gun aimed at someone on the ground. A bench blocked my view of who the victim was, but when I crouched lower, I could see beneath the bench, and my horror doubled.
It wasn’t one person. It was two. A man and, judging by the size of the person next to him, a child.
Now I knew why Rhys had that expression on his face before he left.
Who would target a child?
I pressed my fist to my mouth, fighting the urge to throw up. Less than an hour ago, I’d been teasing Rhys over bread and wine and thinking of all the things I still needed to pack before we left for New York. Now, I was hiding behind a tree in a random park, watching my bodyguard run toward possible death.
Rhys was an experienced soldier and guard, but he was still human, and humans died. One minute, they were there. The next, they were gone, leaving behind nothing more than an empty, lifeless shell of the person they used to be.
“Sweetheart, I’m afraid I have bad news.” My grandfather’s eyes looked bloodshot, and I clutched my stuffed giraffe to my chest, fear spiraling through my body. My grandfather never cried. “It’s your father. There’s been an accident.”
I blinked away the memory in time to see the man on the ground turn his head a fraction of an inch. He’d spotted Rhys sneaking up behind the shooter.
Unfortunately, the small motion was enough to tip off the gunman, who spun around and fired a third shot at the same time Rhys discharged his gun.
A cry left my mouth.
Rhys. Shot. Rhys. Shot.
The words cycled through my brain like the world’s most horrifying mantra.
The shooter crumpled to the ground. Rhys staggered, but he remained standing.
In the distance, police sirens wailed.
The entire scene, from the first shot to now, had played out in less than ten minutes, but terror had a way of stretching time out until each second contained an eternity.
Dinner felt like years ago. Graduation might as well have happened in another lifetime.
Instinct propelled me to my feet, and I ran toward Rhys, my heart in my throat. Please be okay.
When I reached him, he’d disarmed the gunman, who lay bleeding and moaning on the ground. A few feet away, the man the shooter had been targeting also lay bleeding, his face pale beneath the moonlight. The child, a boy who looked about seven or eight, knelt by his side, his eyes huge and terrified as he stared at me and Rhys.
“What the hell are you doing?” Rhys bit out when he saw me.
I scanned him frantically for injuries, but he was standing and talking and grumpy as ever, so he couldn’t be too hurt.
The boy, on the other hand, needed reassuring.
I ignored Rhys’s question for now and crouched until I was eye level with the boy.
“It’s okay,” I said gently. I didn’t move any closer, not wanting to spook him further. “We won’t hurt you.”
He clutched what I assumed was his father’s arm tighter. “Is my dad going to die?” he asked in a small voice.
A clog of emotion formed in my throat. He was around my age when my dad died, and—
Stop. This isn’t about you. Focus on the moment.
“The doctors will be here soon, and they’ll fix him right up.” I hoped. The man was fading in and out of consciousness, and blood oozed around him, staining the boy’s sneakers.
Technically, the EMTs were coming, not doctors, but I wasn’t about to explain the distinction to a traumatized kid. “Doctors” sounded more reassuring.
Rhys knelt next to me. “She’s right. The doctors know what they’re doing.” He spoke in a soothing voice I’d never heard from him before, and something squeezed my chest. Hard. “We’ll stay with you until they get here. How does that sound?”
The boy’s lower lip wobbled, but he nodded. “Okay.”
Before we could say anything else, a bright light shone on us, and a voice blared through the park.
“Police! Put your hands up!”
RHYS
Questions. Medical checkups. More questions, plus a few claps on the back for being a “hero.”
The next hour tested my patience as nothing had before…except for the damned woman in front of me.
“I told you to stay put. It was a simple instruction, princess,” I growled. The sight of her running toward me while the shooter was still out in the open had sent more panic crashing through me than having a gun pointed at my face.
It didn’t matter that I’d disarmed the shooter. What if he had a second gun I’d missed?
Terror raked its claws down my spine.
I could handle getting shot. I couldn’t handle Bridget getting hurt.
“You were shot, Mr. Larsen.” She crossed her arms over her chest. I sat in the back of an open ambulance while she stood before me, stubborn as ever. “You’d already neutralized the gunman, and I thought you were going to die.”
Her voice wobbled at the end, and my anger dissipated.
Other than my Navy buddies, I couldn’t remember the last time anyone really cared about whether I lived or died. But Bridget did, for some unknown reason, and it wasn’t just because I was her bodyguard. I saw it in her eyes and heard it in the faint waver of her usually cool, crisp voice.
And I’d be damned if the knowledge didn’t hit me harder than a bullet to the chest.
“I’m fine. Bullet grazed me, is all. Didn’t even go under the skin.” The EMTs had bandaged me up, and I’d be good as new in two or three weeks.
The shooter had been surprised and fired using instinct, not aim. A quick dodge and I’d escaped what would’ve been a much nastier wound to my shoulder.
The police had hauled him into medical custody. They were still investigating what happened, but from what I’d gathered, the shooter had deliberately targeted the kid’s father. Something about a business deal gone wrong and bankruptcy. The shooter had been high as a kite, to the point where he hadn’t cared about exacting his revenge in a park full of people.
Thankfully, he’d also been so high he kept rambling about how the kid’s father had done him wrong instead of shooting to kill.
The ambulances had taken the kid and his father away a while ago. The father had suffered heavy blood loss, but he’d stabilized and would pull through. The kid was okay too. Traumatized, but alive. I’d made it a point to check on him before they left.
Thank God.
“You were bleeding.” Bridget brushed her fingers over the bandaged wound, her touch searing straight through the gauze into my bones.