Page 34 of Critical Doubt

Every instinct he had told him to run.

He moved back into the kitchen. "Get out," he told Savannah.

"What?" she asked in surprise.

"Get out," he yelled again. He grabbed her arm and shoved her through the kitchen door leading into the side yard. They were two steps away from the house when an explosion lifted them up and flung them across the grass in a fiery blast of heat and sound.

Chapter Eight

Savannah feltan enormous weight on her back. Her ears were ringing, her eyes were watering, her body felt like it was on fire.Was she on fire?Smoke filled her nose and lungs as she tried to breathe. She could hear an enormous wave of sound coming from behind her.

As she moved, the weight rolled off her and she stared at Ryker's very still body in shock and horror. She crawled toward him as pieces of plaster and wood fell off her. She could still feel the heat, but the fire was consuming the house, and while she'd probably been hit by some burning embers, she was not on fire.

"Ryker," she yelled, her own voice reverberating in her head as her ears painfully adapted to more sound. When he didn't move, she pressed her fingers to the side of his neck, overwhelmingly relieved when she felt a faint pulse.

"Ryker." She put her hands on his arms, giving him a little shake. Then she leaned forward and put her mouth next to his ear. "Wake up." She prayed that he wasn't slipping away, but his breath barely moved his chest, and there was blood on his shirt. "Please," she begged, feeling a rush of fear as she stared at his face.

His hair was almost white from the specks of plaster and there were small cuts across his cheeks. Every day seemed to bring him more pain, more injury, and her heart ached for him. It wasn't until just this second that she let herself admit how much she liked him—how much she'd always liked him. She'd told him that she'd moved on and left their night in the past, but that hadn't been true. She'd dreamed about him. She'd imagined meeting him again. She'd relived the time they'd spent together so many times.

"Ryker," she said again, and then she impulsively covered his mouth with hers, wanting to give him warmth, breath, comfort, and life.

He suddenly shifted, his lips parting beneath hers.

She pulled back as his eyes flew open, and their gazes caught.

"Savannah," he murmured. "Did you just kiss me?"

"I was trying to see if you were alive."

He stared back at her with his dark-brown eyes. "Let me check." He lifted his hand and put it around the back of her neck, pulling her back in for another kiss, one that he was now completely present for, one that went way out of her comfort zone—into passion, desire, sex. All of her memories came rushing back. She'd thought she'd imagined how good they'd been together, but it was even better than she remembered.

She wanted to keep on kissing him, but the distant sound of sirens brought her head up. "Someone must have called 911." She moved back as he sat up, his gaze moving to the house.

"That was a hell of a blast," he said.

"How did you know it was coming?"

"I heard a ticking sound behind the dryer. I don't know if it was a bomb or a timer or what."

"Then this was deliberate." She frowned, letting that fact sink in.

"Yes. For once, my ears were my friend." His gaze narrowed with concern. "There's blood on your forehead."

"Is there?" She put a hand to her temple, suddenly feeling the sting, and seeing the wet drops of blood on her fingers. But there didn't appear to be too much, and it wasn't dripping down her face, so hopefully that was a good thing. "You're bleeding, too, on your arm," she said.

He glanced down at the shirt sleeve that had been ripped away, exposing a couple of cuts. "If this is the worst of it, I'm fine. I'm more concerned about your head. Are you dizzy?"

"A little, but that might be partly due to what just happened between us."

A faint smile crossed his lips as a gleam entered his eyes. "Yeah, that was something."

"How can you be smiling right now? We almost died."

"But we didn't. And I got you to kiss me again."

"I was trying to make sure you were breathing. We should go out front," she added as the sirens got louder. She got to her feet and Ryker did the same. He swung his arm around her shoulders, and she couldn't bring herself to push him away. She liked the feel of his body next to hers, especially now, after they'd come so close to dying.

They had barely reached the front of the house when the fire truck pulled up.

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