Page 26 of Lone Star Witness

Slade kept his attention pinned to her. “And the bone he picks with you could lead to an attack. With gunfire. With you possibly getting hurt or worse. Or with you having a full-blown panic attack.”

She’d already considered all of that. Every crappy bit of it. The panic attack was always on her radar. Always stalking her like some demon hitchhiker from the deepest level of hell. It was relentless. Ready to strike at any moment.

And Marise was tired of catering to the greedy bastard.

“It’s a pisser needing to do the right thing and worrying that you’ll royally screw it up because of old baggage,” she muttered.

He nodded, leaned in and touched his forehead to hers. “Your old baggage has solid roots. You saw and experienced too much shit.”

“So did you,” she was quick to point out. “And you don’t have panic attacks.”

“No. I just stew in my own juices while it eats away at me.”

The confession hit her right in the gut. Hell. She didn’t want this for him. For either of them. They’d just been doing their jobs.

Jobs they’d failed at that one time.

But one time was all it took.

The images came, avalanching toward her. The stench of blood. The heat. The bleached-out sand rubbing her skin raw.

And the bodies.

So many of them.

Slade’s team of Combat Rescue Officers, CROs, and some combat medics, including her, had arrived on the scene in time. They’d been in place to get the survivors to a waiting Pave Hawk chopper. Then, it’d gone to hell in a handbasket with another attack.

No survivors after that.

Some more casualties, too, with one of the combat medics and a CRO.

Marise couldn’t fight off the images of Slade and her being pinned down. With the sounds of the fight all around them. Him, trying to shield her, and her trying to do the same to him. That had gone on for more than an hour. Sixty-plus minutes of time where the images, sights and sounds had imprinted on every part of her body.

But Slade had imprinted, too.

He’d been there with her. Had stopped her from totally losing it. Had anchored her so she could live. Then, she’d had to return the favor when he’d gotten hit, and she’d used her medical training to save him.

Marise latched onto that now.

Not the shitstorm. Not the hellish sixty-plus minutes. But the ending of it.

“I didn’t panic after the attack,” she said, and Marise knew he understood what she was talking about.

Not Sonny shooting at them. But the other attack that’d happened thousands of miles from here.

“You didn’t,” he verified. “You ended up stitching up my side then.” He managed a slight smile. “And my ass.”

“Your fine, superior ass,” she qualified. She enjoyed the flutter in her stomach from the light moment, but it didn’t last. “I think if I’m in a situation like that again, I won’t panic.”

Maybe that was wishful thinking, but Marise wanted to hold onto the belief that if it came down to it, she, too, could be a hero.

“Who knows, I might get the chance to stitch your other ass cheek,” she managed to say.

He did that almost smile thing again and continued to look at her as if trying to figure out what to say or do to keep her safe. There was nothing he could do that wasn’t already being done. If Sonny was hellbent on coming after her, then it didn’t matter where she was, he would find a way to get to her.

She reached out and touched his mouth. Just a brush of her fingertips over his lips. “I would kiss you now—and God, I need some TLC kind of kiss—but you and I both know it wouldn’t stay in the TLC wheelhouse.”

His nod was quick. “Is that a threat or a promise?”

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