Page 51 of Moon's Promise

“You’ve been watching too many movies. I get enough funding to hire three deputies, bullets, and an occasional uniform. The nearest SWAT team is thirty minutes away. Besides, I have a better idea.”

Hearing a shuffle of footsteps, Larissa pressed her hand to her mouth, terrified.

“On the count of three, I want you to shuffle over here, next to me.”

Nodding, she prepared herself.

“One … two … three.”

Larissa shuffled over the rocky ground to Knox’s Bronco, holding her screams back when a barrage of bullets hit their vehicles.

“Fuck,” Knox hissed, hunkering back down.

“What?” she gasped.

“They took out my motor. They knew what I was going to do.”

Larissa looked at him blankly. “What were you going to do?”

Knox looked at her like she had marbles for brain neurons. “Get the hell out of here and let others deal with this shitshow when they get here.”

As his Bronco was blocking her Jeep, their only option left was to try to make it to the trees. On foot, she would become a liability.

“You should go; get to the woods. You don’t happen to have another gun in your car, do you? I could cover you.”

Knox’s eyebrows rose. “You expect me to leave you here to face them alone?”

“There’s no sense in both of us dying,” she replied practically, even though she was terrified.

“Do you know how to fire a gun?”

“I do.” She nodded. “My dad taught all three of his daughters how to shoot a gun. Do you have another?”

“In the back of the Bronco.”

“I can climb inside—”

Knox was already shaking his head. “Look at the seats in the front—they’re torn to ribbons. You wouldn’t make it to the back seat.”

“I could try.”

Knox suddenly raised his gun to fire next to her.

Shaking, Larissa turned her head to find a man lying on the ground next the Bronco’s bumper.

“I told you, you wouldn’t have made it.”

“I see that,” she whispered hoarsely.

The dead man’s blank stare was directly in front of her.

Hopelessness filled her. How many times had her sisters warned her that she reacted without thinking? Hadn’t having sex with Moon a big enough wakeup call? No, she came running out here, placing herself and the baby in danger. All she’d had to do was call the sheriff and let him handle it. Instead, she was going to die.

Knox looked at her curiously when she started to bow her head. “What are you doing?”

“Taking your suggestion—I’m going to pray.” Larissa pressed her hand over the tiny child she was carrying. “Psalm 18:2. ‘The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in Whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”

When she raised her head, she saw Knox studying the group of trees behind them.

---