Dade. Delores Fossen

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      Dressed in his usual black jeans, black shirt and equally black Stetson, Mason made his way toward the estate. Not with Grayson’s speed, authority or concern. Mason always looked as if he were stalking something. Or headed to a funeral.

      “You’re hurt,” Grayson said, and he used his head to motion to the medics so they’d hurry to Dade. Grayson also kept his gun trained on the man sprawled out on the porch.

      The dead man.

      Dade had managed to take the guy out, but not before the SOB had fired a shot into Dade’s arm. Talk about a rookie mistake, and he hadn’t been a rookie in fourteen years, not since he’d joined the Silver Creek sheriff’s department on his twenty-first birthday. Considering that being a cop was his one-and-only desire in life, he always seemed to be screwing it up.

      Like now, for instance.

      The gunman who could have given them answers was as dead as a doornail. Added to that, Dade had nearly let Kayla Brennan be gunned down, her bodyguard had been shot, or worse, and the jagged slice on his arm from the bullet graze was hurting like hell.

      Grayson stooped down and put his fingers to the gunman’s neck. “He’s dead.”

      Yeah. No surprise there. “You need to check on Kayla’s bodyguard,” Dade let his brother know. He would do it himself, but he wanted a chance to catch his breath and get ahead of the pain.

      “Kayla?” Grayson questioned, standing upright. He aimed a questioning glare at Dade, and Dade knew why. Kayla was way too personal to call someone who might be responsible for a family member’s death.

      Grayson was right, and Dade silently cursed that, too. He was a sucker for a damsel in distress, and while he wasn’t sure about the damsel part, Kayla was definitely in distress.

      And so was her baby.

      With his glare morphing into a disgusted scowl, Grayson flipped on the lights and walked past him and into the foyer where Kayla was kneeling down next to Kenneth.

      “He’s still breathing,” Kayla announced, and that sent two of the medics scurrying in the bodyguard’s direction.

      One medic, however, Carrie Collins, a leggy brunette in snug green scrubs made a beeline toward Dade.

      “I’m okay,” Dade tried to tell her, but she latched onto his arm to examine it.

      “I’ll decide if you’re okay or not,” Carrie answered.

      Like Kayla, there was way too much concern in her voice and expression. In this case, though, Dade knew why. Carrie and he had once been lovers, but that wasn’t just water under the bridge. The water had dried up nearly a year ago. Too bad Carrie didn’t always remember that.

      “You need stitches,” Carrie mumbled, her forehead bunching up. “And probably a tetanus shot.”

      But Dade tuned her out and put his attention on Kayla, Grayson and the unconscious bodyguard. Grayson caught onto Kayla and moved her away from the man so the medics could get to work, but it was obvious Kayla had tried to help her employee. Her hands and dress were covered with blood.

      Kayla looked down at her palms, which were shaking almost violently, and she shuddered. Now that the lights were back on, Dade also saw the tears well up in her eyes.

      Dade’s feet seemed to have a mind of their own because he started toward her. So did Mason. Mason grunted and glanced down at Dade’s arm.

      “You scratched yourself,” Mason remarked with zero sympathy in his tone. “Don’t expect me to do the paperwork for this goat rope.”

      It was just what Dade needed to hear. Sarcasm without sympathy. He knew his brother loved him. Well, Dade was pretty sure of that anyway. But Mason wasn’t the sort to cut anyone any slack.

      Unlike Kayla. Blinking back tears, she made her way toward Dade with her attention fixed on him. “I thought you’d been killed.”

      Dade was aware that both his brothers were watching and listening. “No. You didn’t get lucky this time.”

      She flinched as if he’d slapped her, but quickly regained her composure. “Lucky?” she challenged. “Right. Well, let’s just say I’m grateful you did your job and put yourself in front of bullets for me.” Her voice trailed off to a whisper. “Thank you, Dade.”

      Dade was one-hundred-percent positive that his brother hadn’t missed the way his given name had just purred right off her sympathetic rose-tinged lips. Or maybe the purring and the sympathy were his imagination.

      Oh, man.

      Kayla was going to be trouble with a capital T.

      “I have to check on my baby,” she let them know.

      Dade snagged her by the arm. “Have the nanny and Robbie stay in the bathroom, okay? This might not be over.”

      As expected, the fear returned to her eyes. She swallowed hard, nodded and raced up the stairs.

      “I’ll need to question you when you come back down,” Grayson called out to her.

      Without looking back, she gave another shaky nod.

      Dade wanted to hit himself in his fire-burning arm just to get his mind off this asinine need to comfort and to play nice with the one woman he shouldn’t want to comfort or play nice with.

      The three of them watched her make her way up the stairs, and Dade waited for the lecture from his brothers. A lecture that would no doubt include a reminder to think with his brain and not with what was behind the zipper of his Wranglers. But the lecture didn’t come.

      Not verbally anyway.

      Grayson stepped away to give the medics some instructions, and then he took out his phone to call the county medical examiner, something Dade should have already thought to do.

      “Did the dead guy give you any warning before he started shooting?” Mason asked.

      Dade shook his head. “Kayla …” He considered calling her Ms. Brennan, but heck, the damage had already been done. “She refused protective custody, and I was on my way back to town when I figured out something was wrong. The guy opened fire before I could get back inside.”

      Mason stayed quiet a moment, but his forehead bunched up. “She refused our help.” It wasn’t a question. Mason sort of growled it out in a disapproving way.

      Dade shrugged and then winced when that sent another shot of fire through his arm. “Understandable. She doesn’t trust us. Just like we don’t trust her.”

      Mason made a sound, one of his grunts that could have meant anything. Or nothing at all. “I’ll keep watch outside. We don’t need any more of Charles Brennan’s henchmen showing up here tonight.”

      No, they didn’t. And it could happen all right. Dade figured there was no way Brennan was going to let Kayla get anywhere near a witness stand.

      “I need to clean that wound,” Carrie let him know.

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