Page 68 of Unlikely Guardian

It was on the tip of Lilly’s tongue to tell her that she had already lost Megan, but the slash of movement from the corner of her eye had her looking up. At Klein.

Once again, he had the gun pointed at her.

“If you move, Detective Lawrence, I’ll kill her.”

Normally those words would have terrified her beyond belief, but this time they didn’t have the effect that Klein had probably intended.

Why?

Because Lilly heard Megan. Her baby was not only awake, she had begun to cry, and those cries were quickly turning to sobs.

Lilly made eye contact with Jason. Mere seconds. To let him know this was about to end. He gave a crisp nod.

Her cue.

Or at least Lilly made it her cue. She ignored her limp muscles and pulled back her leg. She focused all her energy and rammed her foot into Klein’s thigh.

Klein reacted all right. He howled in pain. But that didn’t stop him from re-aiming his gun. Jason yelled for her to move, but she couldn’t, and everything seemed to crawl in slow motion. She heard the sound, like someone blowing out a candle, and felt the sensation of pressure against the right side of her head. It didn’t stay merely a sensation.

It quickly turned to pain.

And Lilly realized she’d been shot.

She dropped back onto the floor. Around her, there was a flurry of motion. Jason cursed and grabbed Klein, knocking the man’s gun away. Jason seemed enraged, and he landed a hard fist in Klein’s face.

Klein went down like a rock.

Jason didn’t stop there. He snatched up his Glock and aimed it right at him.

“Move and I’ll kill you.” That was all Jason said. All he had to say. Because anyone who heard the threat knew that he meant it.

Lilly wanted to help Jason. She wanted to make sure that neither Erica nor Klein had managed to regain control of one of the weapons. She also wanted to thank Jason for saving her life.

But she couldn’t do any of those things.

The dizziness came with a vengeance. The room began to spin out of control, and though she was aware that Jason was speaking, she couldn’t understand what he was saying. Worse, she knew she was losing consciousness. Lilly fought it.

But she lost.

Because she had no choice, she shut her eyes and the darkness came again.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Jason had already said at least a thousands prayers for Lilly, but he added another one before he opened the door to her hospital room. He braced himself for the worst, and he hoped for the best.

He got the best.

There she was, not in bed, but sitting on the edge of it, dangling her bare feet off the side. She had a small white bandage on her forehead. That was it. No bruises. No other indication that Klein’s bullet had come much too close to killing her.

Things had not seemed so promising during the frantic ambulance ride from his house to the hospital. Then, Lilly hadn’t been conscious, and she was losing blood from the head wound. In those moments, Jason would have bargained with anything or anybody just to have her safe.

“You’re here.” She smiled at him.

That smile warmed the bitter cold that had seeped into his body. “I’m here.”

Because he didn’t trust his legs to move, he stood there a moment and savored the view. “The doctor said the bullet didn’t do any serious damage, just a graze, and that you were going to be okay.”

Lilly gave him a contemplative look. “You didn’t believe him?”

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