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3
LORNA
I was panting, terrified, my brain still trying to catch up. Just a few minutes ago, I’d been relaxing in the SUV. Now the driver was dead and people were trying to kidnap us, kidnap my son—
The walls of the alley flashed past us as we ran. Buildings painted bright pink, yellow, and white. Graffiti. Garbage bags. And all around us, the shouts of the men hunting us.
With one hand, I pulled Cody protectively to my side. He’d gone sheet white, his eyes huge. He was in shock or something close to it and the fact I couldn’t make him safe made me feel more powerless than I’d ever felt in my life.
My other hand was pressed against the only person who could maybe keep us safe.
JD advanced down the alley fast but cautious, gun up and eyes everywhere. I’d seen people move like that on TV, in green-tinted news reports about soldiers raiding terrorist strongholds in the dead of night. And JD had taken out those gunmen like it had been nothing. Was he a cop? Military?
JD suddenly twisted and there were two loud bangs, like firecrackers going off right in my ears. When I peeked around JD, I saw a body on the ground up ahead.
We kept moving. The sun was baking me but my skin was icy with fear. I could hear my own shuddering breaths and Cody’s shaky gasps but JD was almost silent: under my hand, I could feel his slow breathing. How is he so calm?!
Up ahead, the alley curved. As we neared the corner, JD stopped and held up his hand. We froze.
JD put his finger to his lips and I heard voices coming from around the corner. The gunmen were ahead of us. JD looked back the way we’d come. More voices. They were behind us, too. I saw JD silently curse under his breath.
He leaned in close to me. I felt warm fingers move my hair out of the way and then he spoke, his lips almost brushing my ear. Even in a whisper, that deep, Texan growl was strong and rough as granite, and despite everything, I felt my whole body come to attention, a puppet with its strings drawn tight. “We’re gonna have to hide. Wait ‘till both of them have passed.” He looked around, then pointed to a parked truck. “Under there.”
He towed me by the hand over to the truck and then motioned for Cody to slide underneath first. Cody lay down on his belly and scrambled under.
Then it was my turn. I got down on my stomach and awkwardly shuffled under until I was pressed up against Cody. There really wasn’t a lot of room: my lips were only an inch from the ground and I could sense the underside of the truck claustrophobically close above my head. The voices of the gunmen were getting closer. I quickly beckoned JD in.
He slid in next to me, his muscled chest and shoulders barely squeezing into the narrow space. His body formed a reassuring barrier between us and the alley where the gunmen would pass. He’d put Cody in the safest place, up against the wall, and himself in the most dangerous one, and that spoke volumes about the sort of man he was.
We all went still. But in the quiet that followed, I heard the rasp of panicked, frantic breathing. I turned and looked at Cody. His face was deathly white and his eyes were huge. I understood: this was all just too much. But the gunmen were going to hear him. I tried rubbing Cody’s back but he just stared back at me, heaving for air. And the gunmen were getting closer and closer: I could hear their boots on the dirt, now.
Then JD reached over my back and put a massive hand between Cody’s shoulder blades. He spoke in a low voice and each word felt like a rock, warmed by the Texas sun, strong enough that they built a wall that could hold back anything. “You’re gonna be okay, kid. I’m not gonna let anybody hurt you.”
On the last two words, JD’s eyes flicked to cover me, too, and…I believed him. Maybe it was those eyes, so clear and blue that there was no place for bullshit. I nodded and Cody gave an uncertain little nod, too. His breathing slowed and quietened. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it in mine, proud of him. And then—
I caught my breath as a big, warm hand closed around mine and Cody’s. JD squeezed gently and nodded to me and a hot bomb went off in my chest. I stared at our joined hands. It was insane, but...
It was the first time I hadn’t felt alone, since Cody’s dad left.
I looked across at JD and, for a split second, I saw that pain again, so raw and terrible I just wanted to throw my arms around him. Then that stoic mask returned.
