Page 53 of Under Fire in Big Sky

She didn’t bother trying to get a license plate. She simply ran to Eli.

He was sitting up, coughing, gagging, and trying to suck in air at the same time.

Nausea roiled inside, welling up from the pit of her stomach. “Are you okay?” Frantically, she checked his head, face, neck, and the rest of him. No blood. No scrapes. No shrapnel hit him.

“Yeah, yeah.”

If he’d gotten closer to the truck, he might not have been.

Ignoring the knot in her chest, she helped him ease up onto his feet, ushered him away from the raging heat of the wreckage to the staircase, and made him sit.

Foul-smelling black smoke gushed upward from the twisted metal and still-hot fire. A couple of room doors opened. Someone gasped. Another cursed.

Taking out her phone to call 911 and next Trujillo, she studied Eli’s face. A thin line of blood snaked down his temple to his cheek. The knot in her chest tightened.

She looked closer at him and found the source. A cut along his hairline. She touched it and he winced. The nick was superficial, and she drew a deep breath of relief.

“This was the proof,” she said, almost to herself.

“Proof? What are you talking about?”

She took out the note card and handed it to him. “That Shepherd had the power to kill us, if he wanted.” She glanced at the remains of his truck.

They could’ve been inside when it detonated. It was a close call. Too close.

Resting his forearms on his thighs, he hung his head. “Don’t say it. Please, don’t.”

“I have to go tomorrow.”

Eli sighed. “No, you don’t. Let Lauren and the FBI handle it. We could take a trip. To Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Tahiti, anywhere you like, and talk. About us the way you want.”

If Eli Easton was resorting to bribery, he must truly be desperate.

But she wasn’t foolish enough to take the bait. They’d end up in whichever location, in bed, making love, eating, fighting, having fun, and making love again. But making no headway.

Their pattern was nothing if not consistent.

She caressed his cheek. “When have you ever known me to give up on anything?” Or anyone.

“Never. I haven’t backed down from a fight before either, but this is different.”

Not to her. “I need to hear what Shepherd has to say.” It was the reason they were both alive.

“You’re not going alone. I’m calling in the rest of IPS tonight.”

“That’s fine, but we don’t tell law enforcement about the card. I don’t want the severe consequences to mean a bomb in Trujillo’s car.”

“You keeping Trujillo out of the loop is nothing new. But IPS goes with you. If Shepherd wants you, he has to go through me to get to you.”

And that was precisely what she was afraid of. This mission, her mission, that she pushed him into taking was endangering him, not the other way around. Now he wasn’t going to back off unless she did.

Olivia needed to see this through and somehow do everything in her power to keep Eli safe.

Chapter Twelve

“No concussion, sir,” the paramedic said. “If you experience any severe headaches, dizziness, light sensitivity, blurred vision—”

“I’m familiar with the symptoms,” Eli said. He’d gotten a concussion once on a deployment and had been around buddies that had suffered them as well.