Page 44 of No Sweet Goodbyes

“Holy shit.” Linc breathes deeply as I snap open the case. “When did you get a Ruger Creedmoor?” He whistles. “Is that a Vortex Viper scope?”

I run a loving hand over my baby and bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud. “It is. Dad got me the HT for Christmas, and I got the 6.5 Creedmoor when I competed in a target shoot last year. I needed something a little heavier than the hunting rifle I got in high school.”

“Emma,” Ian Keller says from the sidelines. “Do you want to get married?” Dom growls low in his throat from where he is putting together his tactical weapon. “I’m not even kidding. If you can handle that gun, I would get down on a knee right here and pop the question. Of course, my fiancée might have a problem with it. But I swear she’ll come around when she sees you shoot.”

“Don’t make me shoot you.” Linc shoves his friend in the arm. “And if I don’t kill you, we both know that Chloe will drive a nail through your stomach if you cross her.”

Once my baby is all put together and I’ve sighted her in, I wait for Dom to finish his adjustments.

Remy’s taken a step up to stand by the others, and he’s watching us with a strange expression on his face. “There’s no way she’s going to beat him.” He shakes his head. “I’ve seen Dom make almost impossible shots.”

“I’m not sure,” Linc mutters, questioning himself for the first time since this whole day started. “I don’t think you know what my dad did in the service. If he trained with her while we were gone, there’s no telling how good she is.” He leans over. “You’re hiding some pretty dark secrets, little sister. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“Nothing you should be surprised by,” I say. “I’ve never been the one to hide my superpowers. But you know I never back down from a challenge.”

With that, I leave my baby set up and lean over Dom’s table. “How many yards, do you think?”

He looks up at me with a strange expression on his face but doesn’t answer. Instead, he leans forward and presses his lips to my cheek softly. “You’re full of surprises, Emma Hayes. Enough to drive me absolutely crazy. But don’t think for a second that I’m going to take it easy on you.”

“Okay.” I smile at him. “Let’s call it two thousand yards?”

Some couples flirt like normal people, but I don’t think Dom and I are normal. And I like our version a whole lot more than I would if it were normal flirting.

“Dom?” I question. “You’re not afraid of shooting against me, are you?”

“No.” He grunts almost mutely. “I’m not afraid. But you can’t hold it against me when I win.” From the look on his face, he absolutely doesn’t believe that I can make a shot at two thousand yards.

I can, and I do.

He doesn’t stand a chance.

15

DOM

She beat me. Technically speaking, we both hit the target. But Emma? She hits it at a complete bullseye, at two thousand yards. An almost impossible shot for a regular person. I should have known that there is absolutely nothing normal about Emma.

“I think I’m in love,” Ian whispers loudly as we all sit around a table at Mama’s place. “Not romantic love, but the platonic kind that won’t have Chloe killing me in my sleep. Did you know she could shoot like that?”

Linc shakes his head. “No. I mean, Dad was a sniper in the service. That’s why he didn’t become a cop when he got out. He used to say that he spent too much time with a gun so he wanted to spend time with the firefighters where it was easy. I thought he was joking when he used to say that he could shoot a penny on the broad side of a barn. But he had to be the one to teach Emma because there’s no way anyone else had the skill to teach her how to do it in this area. Shit, I wish he was the one who trained me, but he said me and Danny were too temperamental.”

They all glance over at me, expecting me to be angry or upset, but it’s the opposite.

Seeing Emma’s face light up as she talked about her rifle, and then watching her take a shot that would make most grown men piss themselves, turned me on more than I’ll ever admit.

“You can’t have her,” I tell Ian belatedly. “She doesn’t belong to anyone but herself.”

Every set of eyes at the table turns to me, and I see the moment that I really have Linc’s approval. He stares hard while he tries to decide if I mean it. But when he does, he slaps me on the shoulder.

“Good man.” He smiles. “He’s right, you know. Emma would probably cut someone’s liver out if they said she belonged to them.”

“Not their liver,” the woman herself chimes up from the counter, where she holds a massive tray of food that my mom made as she carries it out from the kitchen. “Maybe the kidney. You have two of those, so you can lose one and still survive pretty easily.”

“She’s bloodthirsty, a better shot than Dom, and she’s beautiful.” Ian clutches his heart. “Linc, man. Why did you hide her away forever?”

Emma rolls her eyes at his joke and slaps him upside the head. “Watch it, or I’ll sic Dom on you while you’re sleeping.”

“He’s not that scary.” Ian surveys me like he actually thinks I will be his opponent. “I bet I could take him. But Chloe? She’d gut me like a fish if she thought for a second that I seriously considered flirting with someone else.” He sighs romantically. “God, I love my girl.”

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