Page 60 of Light My Fire

She pulled the trigger.

The gun recoiled hard, the sound ricocheting through the trees, rebounding back to her as the smell of gunpowder reeked the air.

March fell back, writhing in the dirt, bleeding from a wound in the center of his chest.

Tucker scrambled away from him. Got to his feet.

Shaking, she held the gun on March in case he moved.

“Stevie,” Tucker said, breathing hard. “You okay?”

She nodded, then felt his hands on her shoulders.

She met his eyes. So brown. Soft in hers. Holding her.

“You followed me,” she said, more of a mumble than words.

“You just saved my life.”

She glanced at March. He’d stopped struggling, his body still. “I think I killed him.”

Tucker drew her face back to his, his hand on her cheek. “He killed a lot of people. And he would have killed you.” His gaze went to the hot spot on her forehead. “And he hurt you.”

He wore a bruise on his temple, dirt on his face, a look in his eyes that made her want to stay right here, not move.

“Alone is not better,” she said softly.

“No. It’s not,” he said, and a smile lifted. He might have leaned down to kiss her if she hadn’t heard voices. She looked past him to Skye, who had gotten to her feet.

“Over here!” Skye said, waving, and in a moment a man appeared wearing the blue jacket of a US marshal.

Newt Kennedy. And right behind him, another man from her office—Blake Warner. Newt knelt next to her father, yanking out his radio.

Blake ran over to her, his brown eyes assessing her. “You okay?”

She looked at Tucker, then back to Blake. Mid-thirties, dark-skinned and built like a linebacker, from the Midwest somewhere.

“Yes. But Eugene March is dead.”

Blake glanced at March. “Yeah. Good shot.”

Stevie still trembled deep in her bones. And Tucker must have figured it out because he squeezed her hand.

She squeezed his back.

Then she went over to her father. Newt was calling in a medical extraction as Blake checked her father’s vitals.

“It’s a through and through,” he said, moving him to check.

“I’m fine,” her father said, groaning.

“Don’t be stupid, Dad,” Stevie said. “You’re shot.”

“Yeah, but you’re alive.” He smiled up at her. “That’s all that matters.”

Heat slicked her eyes as she bent next to him. “Dad. Why did you escape?”

“Why do you think, Punk? Because I knew you’d go after him. And I…I can’t stop myself.”

---