Cody Walker's Woman

The seconds ticked away. Then the man’s left hand slid away from Keira’s mouth, across her breast, and under her arm. Cody could see the expression on the man’s face change the instant he felt the lump beneath Keira’s arm, could see the fear change to triumph, and then to frustration when he realized the angle of the holster containing Keira’s gun wouldn’t allow him to remove it with his left hand...not from behind Keira. Exactly as Cody had already known.

“Damn!” the man muttered. He backed away from Cody, dragging Keira with him, obviously wanting the safety of distance between them before attempting anything more. The man came to an abrupt stop thirty feet away and stared at Cody for a breathless minute. But Cody’s passive stance must have convinced the stranger he was no threat, not without a gun. Slowly, his eyes never leaving Cody’s face, the man shifted his own gun to his left hand, pointing it threateningly toward Cody. His right arm came around Keira, stretching awkwardly for the gun beneath her left arm.

“Now!” Cody shouted, and as if they’d rehearsed it in advance Keira jabbed her left elbow behind her, tearing herself away from the man’s grasp and swinging around behind him, her right hand reaching for her Glock.

Cody hit the ground in a controlled roll, simultaneously reaching for the knife in his boot. The stranger fired, but with the gun in his left hand the shot went wide. Before he could shift the gun back into his right hand, a flash of silver was winging its way through the air faster than the eye could follow, thudding into the brachial plexus region of the man’s left shoulder—precisely where Cody had been aiming.

The bearded stranger staggered back, the gun dropping helplessly from his suddenly nerveless left hand as he fell to his knees, his right hand scrabbling futilely at the blade embedded in his body. Then he pitched forward.

Her own gun drawn, Keira scooped up the stranger’s gun, then whirled to confront him. But Cody was there before her. Only then did Cody allow his rage to sweep aside every other consideration. He ruthlessly flipped the man over on to his back and put a knee on his chest, then dragged the knife out and held the blade to the man’s throat. Adrenaline pulsed through his body. A savage desire to slit the throat of the scum who had dared to hold a gun to Keira’s head swept through him, and he fought it until his muscles screamed.

Keira put a hand on his arm. “No,” she said breathlessly.

“You okay?” he asked her roughly without taking his eyes off the bearded face below him. The man was still breathing, but now that the blade had been withdrawn, blood seeped slowly high up on his left shoulder, staining the long-sleeved flannel shirt he wore. And his breath rasped in his throat. “Don’t even think of moving,” Cody told him in a voice like death.

“I’m fine,” Keira said. As if she knew the impulse he was fighting, she said, “Don’t, Cody. I’m fine.” She didn’t say anything more, just holstered her own weapon and moved quickly toward the porch to retrieve Cody’s Glock. She held it out to him with her left hand, her right hand still holding the stranger’s gun.

Dare to move, Cody told the man in his mind as he changed the hand holding the knife to allow him to holster his gun with his right hand. Come on, you son of a bitch, he urged silently. Give me a reason. But the man didn’t even twitch a muscle.

“We need an ambulance,” Keira said after a minute, reaching for her cell phone. “We don’t want him to die.”

Yes, we do, Cody thought, but he didn’t voice it because in the rational part of his brain he knew she was right. They needed this guy alive—able to answer questions—more than the short-lived satisfaction his death would give Cody. But that didn’t mean it was easy. Not by a long shot.

Cody’s jaw clenched. It’s my fault, he told himself ruthlessly. I should have expected something like this. I should have been on my guard. He’d let himself be distracted for those few minutes when he was talking to Keira, and she had almost paid the price of his carelessness.

How did he get here? Cody wondered. He couldn’t have driven up after they had—no way the man could have gotten past the FBI agents at the base of the driveway, and besides, he or Keira would have heard a vehicle drive up and been alerted to his presence. He must have come through the woods before we arrived and was waiting his chance. That’s the only possibility.