Something slammed against her. She squeezed the trigger as she fell to the ground, but her shot went wide.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
She shoved herself up from the floor, bringing up her gun again, then froze.
There was no one to shoot. Her father’s body was draped across the desk, blood dripping from his hair. His gun lay on the rug beside his desk where it must have fallen when he was shot. Beau. He must have shoved her out of the way and shot her father.
She whirled around. He wasn’t there. “Beau? Beau?”
A low groan had her looking down. There, just past one of the wing chairs, he was on his side, his face contorted in pain.
“Oh my God. No, Beau.” She threw her pistol down and ran to him, dropping to her knees and turning his face toward her with shaking hands.
Jeremy, her father’s housekeeper, ran into the office. “What’s happening? What’s going on?”
“Call 911,” she told him. “We need an ambulance and police. Hurry.”
His eyes widened as he looked past her.
“Jeremy, call 911. Now!”
He whirled around and ran out of the office.
“Beau?” She ran her hands up and down his chest, searching for injuries. There, a small hole in his shirt. A bullet hole. Her entire body began to shake.
He blinked and looked up at her. Before she could say anything else, he shoved her down on the floor and brought his pistol up, aiming toward the desk.
“Your aim was true,” she whispered. “He’s gone. It’s over.”
He lowered his pistol and struggled to sit up.
“Don’t,” she pleaded. “You’ve been shot. Jeremy’s calling for an ambulance.”
“I don’t need one.” He tore open his shirt. “I put a Kevlar vest on beneath my shirt so your father wouldn’t know I was wearing one when I confronted him. Hurts like a son of a gun, but I’m okay.” His expression turned from pain to fury. “Remind me to yell at you later for almost getting yourself killed. Right now I need to check on your brothers.”
He shoved himself to his feet, then stopped her when she tried to go with him.
“Don’t. Let me do it. Please, Sierra. Wait right here and let me check them first. Okay?”
She swallowed, closing her eyes when Beau bent down to check Rafael for a pulse.
“Please, please, please,” she whispered, not even sure what she was asking for. She’d seen the blood, the carnage. She knew what to expect. But part of her refused to believe it. She clung toa tiny glimmer of hope that at least one of her brothers was still alive.
Until Beau returned, his face pale, and pulled her into his arms.
Her knees buckled. He scooped her up and strode out of the office with her in his arms, quietly sobbing against his chest.
Chapter Twenty
Sierra rubbed her arms up and down her coat sleeves as she looked down at the hard ground. November had roared into Mystic Lake like a freight train, bringing frigid temperatures not usually seen until mid-January. The cold winds had swept across the Smokies, sweeping away much of the fading fall foliage and the leaf-peeper tourists who’d been swarming across the area. Unfortunately, the colder temperatures hadn’t managed to chase away the more obnoxious types in town—reporters. But even they were beginning to give up their quest to pressure Sierra into answering their unending questions about her family and everything that had happened. Not because of the weather, because of Beau. He was tenacious in his protectiveness of her.
He’d been nothing short of wonderful, keeping the media away as much as possible whenever the two of them were in town. And moving Sierra up the mountain to his secluded cabin to give her even more privacy, with the perk of being with him as well, which she would have thoroughly enjoyed at any other time.
Simply getting up every day had seemed like an impossible task at first. But Beau refused to let her sulk and give up on life. He wouldn’t let her sleep all day and wallow. He got her up, carried her into the shower if she wouldn’t walk on her own. Dressed her. Fed her. Held her for hours on end as she cried against him. She’d cursed him in English and Spanish. He’d simply kissed her and held her some more.
Little by little, she’d come alive again. Now, months later, she was coping. Happy even, as far as being with Beau. It was wonderful having him around every day. And the stress of being her father’s daughter, stress she hadn’t even realized she’d had, was lifted now. She was just an ordinary person who no longer had to make excuses for her family.
But that didn’t mean she didn’t miss them. She was learning to move on, but she’d never get over the loss. Instead, she had to figure out a new normal. Because life without her family would never be the same as it once had been. That was both good and bad. These days, because of Beau, more good than bad.
