“Stay alive, Rose,” he whispered, silently praying that she would survive.
Barnaby was too focused on Rose to give any thought to dealing with her captors, but his colleagues had no such issue. They focused on the men who had actually had the audacity to kidnap her.
“They have to stop to get pick her up,” Reg declared with relish. He looked at Barnaby. “Boss?”
Barnaby nodded.
Reg withdrew his gun, hunkered low over his saddle, and took aim. Without breaking stride, he fired. His merciless smile turned hard when he watched his first victim fall off his horse and slide lifelessly to the ground.
Careful to avoid the rider who was now carrying Rose again, Barnaby picked off another target. He watched dispassionately as a spray of blood exploded into the air around his victim who hung lifelessly off the saddle of his terrified horse as it raced into the distance.
One by one the men from the Star Elite worked together to pick off each rider in turn until Chadwick’s one remaining man, the man carrying Rose, was all alone.
“I’ll do it,” Ryan shouted with relish. Slamming his horse to a stop, he lifted his hand and stood high in the stirrups. Taking aim, he carefully squeezed off one single shot. The loud retort of the gun startled a flock of birds out of the trees but nobody paid them the slightest bit of attention. Everyone was focused on the woman who, released by her now deceased captor, slid slowly and painfully to the ground.
“Damn it, Rose,” Barnaby growled as he raced to her. Throwing himself off his horse, he fell to his knees beside her prone body. “Rose? Rose? Wake up for me.”
His concern grew when she didn’t move. Easing her cloak away from her face, he cursed when he saw the tight binding cutting into her mouth. Using his knife to cut it away, he peered down into her pale features, willing her to open her eyes and say something sarcastic.
“Come on, Rose, you can’t go to sleep now,” he drawled trying for a lighter tone. His worry deepened when he received no response. Forcing himself to remain calm, he called upon every second of his training and began to assess her for injuries.
“Is she hurt?” Reg demanded as he dismounted and kicked the lifeless body of her captor out of the way.
“I don’t know. I can’t see any injuries but that was one hell of a fall,” Barnaby murmured absently as he began to pat her down.
“She has had a knock to the head.” Ben pointed to the matted blood tangling her hair. “It must have been a hard knock as well.”
“It will be a bloody miracle if she hasn’t broken anything after that fall,” Reg snorted. “Sorry boss,” he added when Barnaby threw him a dire look.
Being more familiar with her than the rest of the men, Barnaby continued to run his hands over her to check for injuries.
Rose felt sick. Her stomach, her ribs, her sides, and her back all ached fiercely, but nowhere near as badly as her head. Someone was pounding mercilessly on it. At least, that is what it felt like. She tried to open her eyes but it was incredibly difficult. Her head was going to explode she was sure of it. The discomfort did little to ease the dull throbbing behind her eyes. She was only faintly aware of someone having a conversation far above her but couldn’t quite make out what was said. What she did know, and understand, was that Barnaby was there. She didn’t know how or why it affected her so, but it was wonderful to hear his voice.
Suddenly, she remembered what had happened. Someone had hit her at the back of the head but it hadn’t been Barnaby. He had gone – somewhere. She couldn’t quite remember where. At one point she had been riding somewhere but something was wrong. She just couldn’t quite make out what, but then nothing could be wrong because Barnaby was there. Nothing made sense, and she knew it wouldn’t until she could ask Barnaby about it.
“That had better be your horse patting me down, Barnaby,” she whispered, aware of hands sliding slowly and gently along the length of her thigh.
“Thank God you are alright,” Barnaby muttered, resting a hand on her back. “Can you roll over?”
“I am bruised, not dead,” she muttered.
Barnaby shook his head in disbelief but grinned. Even after nearly being killed - again - she was cheeking him, but he didn’t care one bit. In fact, he was immensely relieved by it because it meant that she didn’t have any injuries she couldn’t recover from.
“If you can bring yourself to break your rest, we need to get you out of here,” he murmured teasingly.
Rose slowly turned her head to glare at him. “Oh, like I would take a nap right here in the middle of-” She frowned and glanced around them and only then realised that they weren’t alone. Her stomach dipped at the sight of the tall men standing around her.
“It’s alright. These are the friends of mine I was telling you about earlier,” Barnaby assured her.
Rose didn’t quite know what to say. It was highly unusual to greet anyone while lying flat on her back in the middle of a field. Unfortunately, when she tried to turn her head to look at them pain exploded in the back of her head again.
“Barnaby,” she whispered, rolling over while clutching her head. “It hurts.”
“I know, sweetheart,” Barnaby murmured, using the tender endearment instinctively without even realising it. “You have a lump on the back of the head.”
“They tried to get me to go deeper into the woods but I wouldn’t go with them so I think they knocked me out,” she replied dully.
“Do you think you can stand up? We need to get out of here, Rose. While I think we have managed to take down several of Chadwick’s men, I don’t think they are the only ones in the area. There are more of them,” a strange man said.