Page 3 of Lone Star Protector

She swallowed hard, and since she looked ready to drop where she stood, he reached out to stop her from falling. No falling though. In a move that surprised him, Caroline whipped out a knife in a leather case from the pocket of her cargo pants. A big assed knife that she unsheathed in a blink. She held it up so the afternoon sunlight glinted off the eight-inch blade.

“He’s coming here for me?” she asked, her voice a little wobbly.

Again, Nash had to nod, and it crushed him to confirm that. Crushed him even more to see the fear that put in her eyes.

“Bodie escaped late last night when he was in the infirmary,” Nash explained. He’d spare her the details of how Bodie had throat-punched a male nurse and used the nurse’s ID and vehicle to get away. “The last sighting was from a traffic camera on the Interstate. He took the exit to your place.”

Of course, that exit was a good ten miles from Caroline’s house, but there was that whole “off the beaten path” thing. Caroline’s wasn’t near a city where Bodie could blend in and disappear. There were no nearby stores or places for him to get supplies and regroup. There’d be only one reason for Bodie to use that route.

To come after Caroline again.

To try to do what he’d nearly managed when she’d been just eighteen.

To try to kill her.

He’d come damn close the first time, leaving her with eleven stab wounds and in a puddle of her own blood. The only reason she’d lived was because her dorm mate had come home early from a date and had walked in on the carnage. The date, a football player on scholarship, had been with the roommate, and he’d managed to knock Bodie unconscious so he could then be arrested.

And so Caroline could be taken to the hospital.

Where she’d stayed for three months, four days, and sixteen hours.

Time when Nash had done a lot praying that she would recover. Time he’d also spent cursing his so-called brother.

“Did my mother send you?” she asked. But Caroline waved that off. “Of course, she sent you. So, what do we do? Do we just wait for him to show up?”

The answer to that was yes. But again, he didn’t spell it out. “If he comes, I will bury him.”

Nash hadn’t meant to use the tone of a cold-blooded killer, but he hadn’t been able to yank back his gut reaction.

Caroline had an odd reaction, too. She smiled. It wasn’t a big one, and it was laced with nerves. But it was there all right.

“You’ll bury him if I don’t beat you to it,” she assured him. “I’m not a defenseless eighteen-year-old girl any longer. I’m a thirty-six-year-old woman with a black belt in Taekwondo who’s had extensive training in hand-to-hand combat, firearms, and these.”

She held up the knife again, and in a move that stunned him, she turned and hurled it toward a wood target that had been fixed to the wall. The target had the outline of a man painted on it, and her knife speared it right in the area where the heart would be.

“I’ll cut him to ribbons if he gets near me,” she added, going to the knife and yanking it out so she could re-sheath it.

Nash had a bittersweet reaction. He was glad Caroline could defend herself. So damn glad that she hadn’t let the attack beat her down. But he hated she had lost a part of herself that she’d never get back.

Hated even more that her world had just turned upside down.

Again.

He had to tell her that they needed to go inside, just in case Bodie had managed to get his hand on a gun and was at this moment taking aim at her. And Nash knew Bodie was a good shot, too. That’d come from being raised in a compound with preppers and survivalists as parents and neighbors. Like Nash and his other two brothers, Bodie had learned to hunt and shoot before he’d gotten out of elementary school.

Nash was about to get her moving inside when the sound shot through the barn. His first thought was that it was gunfire. But it wasn’t.

He looked past her shoulder to see the concrete floor covered with glass. Caroline groaned, muttered some profanity under her breath, and went closer to look down at the mess.

“This is what happens when a piece cools too fast.” Caroline sighed, and then did more cursing. “I was about to get it in an annealing oven when you banged on the door.”

“What was it before it broke?” he asked, closing the door behind him and locking it. It was seriously hot in the studio, but it was better to risk heat exhaustion than a bullet to the head.

“A tropical ocean wave at sunrise. A commissioned piece,” Caroline added in a mutter.

Nash would never admit it to her, but he’d done some research on her and knew her commissioned art earned her a six-figure-plus living. And from what he could see of the glistening shards of blue, green, and gold, this creation would have been up to her usual beautiful standards.

Like some of the other pieces in the room.

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