He pulled Natalie close, adrenaline shooting through his veins. The saboteur, it had to be. “Power outage.”
“How?” She moved toward the research room’s door and reached for the knob.
“Not how, who.” He moved ahead of her, standing between her and the door. “Stay in here and keep the door locked.”
Pulling her close, he lowered his mouth to her soft lips. There wasn’t time to tell her everything else he wanted to say, but he was never good with words that didn’t come from a script anyway. All he could give her was himself and pray like hell it was enough. He ended the kiss and sprinted out of the room, determined to find the asshole fucking with the brewery before he could do more damage—or worse, hurt Natalie.
Shadows filled most of the brewery floor. As he hustled toward the electric panel to throw on the lights, a human–shaped shadow peeled away from the gloom.
He saw the flash before he heard the gun’s crack.
The bullet tore through his upper arm, knocking him off his feet. Falling backward, his head hit the concrete hard and bounced twice before an inky blackness fell.
Chapter Fourteen
Natalie grabbed an empty beer growler from the shelf and ran out into the dark before the gunshot finished echoing. She had to get to Sean before whoever was out there got him, if she wasn’t already too late.
Adrenaline shot through her veins as she hurried as fast as she could through the brewery. The fermentation tanks, brew kettles, and tall stacks of malt and barley loomed high, casting shadows in the soft–red emergency lighting that spanned most of the concrete floor. Visibility for shit, she slowed her pace, searching for Sean in the darkness.
Her pulse pounded in her ears, almost as loud as her panicked breathing. A staticky white noise buzzed in her head and her lungs pinched closed as the panic attack hit with thunderous effect. The sudden lack of oxygen knocked her to her knees. She hit the concrete floor, pain jolting up from her kneecaps, and she cried out. Unable to get more than a sip of air into her lungs at a time, her chest burned.
“You weren’t supposed to be here, but it looks like I’m the lucky one tonight.” Low and mean, the voice stabbed its way through the static blaring in Natalie’s head. “Get up or I’ll just shoot you here.”
A foot slammed into her side and she winced. Fighting against the blackness, she didn’t reach for the pearls. She didn’t have to. A vision of Sean out there somewhere, needing her help, brought light back to darkness and oxygen into her lungs. She wouldn’t let the anxiety win if that meant losing Sean.
“Come on,” the voice ordered. “I don’t have all night.”
Gritting her teeth, Natalie pressed her hands to the cool concrete and pushed herself up. Once upright, she took a good
look at her attacker—and realized she had no fucking clue who it was. “Who are you?”
The woman had golden–blonde hair arranged in a complicated updo that would make a Miss America contestant jealous. Her makeup was flawless and she wore head–to–toe black, like a cartoon version of a cat burglar. “Joni Brennan. I believe you know my husband.”
Shock cut through the panic eating away at the edges of her vision. “You’re Carl’s wife?”
“The one and only.” Joni raised an all–steel .357 Magnum with a three–inch barrel and aimed it right at Natalie’s head.
Her heart almost stopped in her chest. “Where’s Sean?”
“Start moving and I’ll take you to him.” Joni clicked off the gun’s safety. “Gotta tell you though, he’s probably not worth it. Look at me. I bet all my chips on that son of a bitch Carl, and I lost. Big. It turns out my parents were right. I didn’t marry a man with potential. I hitched my wagon to a mean drunk with illusions of grandeur. I became a laughingstock.” She shoved the gun in Natalie’s back and pushed her forward. “You of all people should understand the horror of that. You’re a Sweet, after all.”
Refusing to surrender to the anxiety still eating away at the back of her brain, Natalie took a step forward and then another. If she could keep Joni talking, the other woman might get comfortable enough to let down her guard. It wasn’t much, but it was the only plan Natalie could come up with on short notice.
“What does that have to do with the brewery?”
“Everything,” the woman snarled. “The Sweet Salvation Brewery was supposed to be ours.” She pushed Natalie around a corner. “Instead, you three bitches come along and steal it right from under us. Owning this brewery and making it a success would have shown my family and the rest of this town that they were wrong.”
Natalie tripped over something solid at her feet. Desperate to stay upright, she grabbed the first thing her flailing arms encountered: Clyde’s workbench. Her knees cracked against the concrete floor but the move kept her from falling straight down.
That’s when she saw it. Saw him. The red emergency lighting outlined Sean’s motionless body at her feet.
The world came to a standstill as an entire lifetime of what if and now never will be ran through her mind. She’d come to Salvation to solve the problem of Natalie and find her own happily ever after. And for a minute, she had. She hated Sean’s lies, but after hearing his explanation understood why he’d done it. He’d been fighting for control just as much as she had. What had he said? That she hated change she couldn’t control? Well, she sure as hell hadn’t been able to control her feelings for Sean. She’d fallen in love and now it was too late. Every part of her ached with regret.
Then Sean’s chest rose with a shaky breath and she nearly sank to the floor with relief.
When they got out of this alive, she was going to kill him for running into the brewery as though he had a stunt double around the corner to take the hits.
“Come on, klutz,” Joni ordered.