Page 62 of Love At Peace

She nodded once at me and grinned. “Nobody messes with my friends,” she declared.

Mine neither.

I gripped the armrest tightly, holding on for the reckless race out there. With every mile we passed, my hope flared a little higher that this would be the end of David controlling my life to be a long episode of fear.

And with every mile we passed, my worry about the man I loved grew faster as well.

Nance and I weren’t members of the law enforcement. Her husband’s gun didn’t give us permission to interfere. But so long as I had to consider that Roarke was in danger, I damn well wasn’t running away from fighting back now.

Chapter 24

Roarke

“Gavin, look out!”

It was too late to warn my friend away. He rode his horse up close, coming to the fight. It wasn’t my horse that I worried about returning then getting hurt. It was Gavin.

David’s shot went awry, though, and from the way Gavin slouched to the side on the saddle, I could tell he was hit on the side.

“Gavin!” I held David back, forcing his arm up and away from the direction of where Gavin had fallen to the ground.

He groaned, making noise as he rolled from the drop. I wanted to assume making sounds meant he wasn’t dying, but I had no clue. I couldn’t tell with the few yards between us.

All I knew for a fact was that David wouldn’t shoot him again. He wouldn’t shoot me, either. Until my last breath, I’d fight this asshole in self-defense and in defense of my friend.

Over and over, David laid his finger on the trigger though. Shots fired one after the other, but I lost count in the thick of the fear and anger controlling me.

He had to run out of bullets sooner or later. But when?

I kept his arm back, aiming the gun away from us. It was a fight to the death, it seemed. Baring his teeth like an animal, scowling with so many deep creases on his tan face, and heaving fast breaths like a wild beast, David neared insanity with his drive to kill me.

“Gavin!” I had to know if he was all right. Fighting back David prevented me from checking on my friend, and I struggled to focus on knocking this asshole out and being done with him.

“Hold on now,” he said, groaning as he got up onto his knees. I couldn’t look at him for long, not while keeping David back and trying to get his gun out of his hand, but I was no longer alone in that effort.

Gavin grimaced, holding his hand to his side where his shirt turned red. He raised a gun at David. “Drop it.”

We didn’t ride with guns. We weren’t supposed to be armed, not unless there was a concern about wolves and other wildlife getting too close. Gavin had to have heard the gunshots on the call with me, then rode back to get a gun. If he’d done that, more help would have to be coming soon.

“Fuck you!” David fought harder, one last time to point the gun at me, but his shot didn’t come near us. Instead, it went off to the side, near the trees.

A woman screamed.

I turned my head while punching David, who was distracted by the scream.

Nevaeh was running closer, horror on her face. Behind her, a slim strip of orange was barely visible.

“Get down!” I yelled.

She, of course, didn’t listen, running toward us faster. “Don’t hurt him!” she screamed, begging.

I wasn’t in the mood to figure out if she was trying to warn her lover not to hurt me, of if she was pleading with me not to harm David. It didn’t matter. He was out of bullets now. We both realized it with the clicking of the trigger, and I reacted.

I rammed my fist under his chin, snapping his head back so he slumped to the hard earth. His arms fell down, and the gun was out of his hand.

Moaning and reaching up to his head, he retreated into pain. “You...asshole...” he muttered. “She was supposed to be mine.”

He wasn’t talking about Nevaeh, but she heard him. As she dropped to her knees to help Gavin compress his wound, she growled at his comment. “Oh, you still want her? You still want Heather? Huh?” She raised one hand streaked with blood. “Well, fuck you, David!”