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“You come here looking for your whore?” Hank sneered.
“He’s talking about Karah,” Piper said. “Not me.”
Coop didn’t ask any questions. He was a pressure player, and it was fourth-and-goal with seconds left on the clock. “Drop the gun,” he said, his lips barely moving.
“Why should I?” The gun jabbed deeper into Piper’s temple. “I’m going to punish her. She left me and came running to you with her skirt over her head.”
“You got a dirty mind,” Coop said. “Karah’s nothing to me.”
“You’re a liar! Just like she is.”
“I’ve got no reason to lie to you.” Coop was cool, easy, except for the intense watchfulness in his eyes and the muscle ticking at the corner of his jaw.
With no warning, the pressure on Piper’s head disappeared, and Hank jammed the gun back into Jada’s temple. Jada whimpered as he dug the barrel deeper. “I was gonna blow Karah’s head off, but that’s not bad enough. I’m gonna hurt her where it’ll hurt the most.” He threw the back of his arm over Jada’s throat. “I’m gonna blow her kid’s head off first.”
Jada gagged. Her body convulsed.
A trickle of perspiration slithered between Piper’s breasts. Her skin was clammy, her heart pounding. “Why do you think Coop and Karah were lovers?” She needed to talk. Say something. Anything. “Coop’s my lover. Coop and I have been lovers forever. We’re more than lovers. We’re in love.” She talked on. Stalling for time. Distracting him from the gun digging into Jada’s head. “He doesn’t even like Karah. He laughs about her behind her back.”
“You liar.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Coop move. Slowly. A quarter step to the left. She kept talking. “You know what a loser she is. You know that more than anybody. She doesn’t even take care of Jada. Her own daughter. That’s why I stay with her. Because Karah hates her own daughter.” Coop took another step. Teamwork. Teamwork. “How could you still care abo
ut a woman like that? She said she never wanted to be a mother. That Jada’s holding her back. Keeping her from being free.”
A strangled, howling sob came from the bottom of Jada’s soul. Hank jerked, and Coop went airborne. That long, lean body extended. He dove. And threw the greatest man-to-man block of his career. A crushing, illegal block that hit at the knees and shook the room.
Piper grabbed Jada and fell on top of her, shielding the girl with her own body as the gun went off.
21
Piper folded her body over Jada’s to keep her safe. She was afraid to raise her head and expose any part of Jada to harm. The nightmare seconds dragged by. Was Coop dead? Let it be Hank who’d taken the bullet. Or the wall. Or the floor. Anything but Coop. He had to stay alive. He had to stay alive because she loved him—loved him with all her heart—and because she had to protect Jada and because he had to finish the job she couldn’t.
Coop, be alive.
A garbled woman’s scream. Not her own. Not Jada’s. Karah.
“You bitch!” Hank’s howl of outrage chilled Piper to the bone.
A fierce obscenity from Coop.
He was alive.
Jada’s body heaved beneath Piper. Where was the gun? Piper had to get the gun. She turned her head.
Coop had Hank trapped on the floor. There was blood.
Piper reared off Jada and dove for the gun. As she came to her knees with the weapon in both hands, she saw Karah standing just inside the door, her mouth an oval of horror. Piper shouted at her to call the police.
What happened next was short and brutal. Coop hauled Hank up by the throat and slammed him into the wall. He beat him until Hank collapsed unconscious to the floor.
Jada grabbed her Nerf gun. With sobs racking her body, she rushed toward Hank and fired at his crumpled figure. One foam bullet after another.
Piper saw the blood smear on the wall first and then, seconds later, she saw something far worse. A crimson rose blooming through the wool of Coop’s jacket.
***
The EMTs had to block her from climbing into the ambulance with him. She jumped in her car and followed, not thinking about speed limits but only about what parts of him that bullet might have hit. When they reached the ER, she refused to leave him alone for even a moment.
