Page 19 of Taking Care of the Target

He shook his head. “I’m okay. We need to go before they come back.”

Dread seized her. “You think they’ll come back?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to stick around and find out.” He pushed to his feet, extended a hand, and helped pull her up. Glass slid off her, falling to the ground in an oddly happy tinkling noise. Her knees wobbled, and Vince wrapped an arm around her, steadying her against his firm chest.

She wanted to sink into his embrace and have a breakdown, but it’d have to wait. “I’m okay,” she said, despite the fact that nothing could be farther from the truth. The outline of her apartment complex stood dark against the skyline, a couple checkerboard squares of light glowing from the lit-up apartments. “That’s my building up ahead.”

“Can you walk?” Vince asked as he took in her bloody knees.

She nodded, and he took hold of her hand. They rushed toward her building, not running, but with his longer strides, she had to half-run to keep up. His hawk-like gaze constantly scanned the area while she glanced around like a paranoid lunatic—it turned out she wasn’t so paranoid after all.

By the time they made it to the building, the shooting pain in her knees and palms had turned to a demanding throb. Her bad hip and formerly good one didn’t feel so great either. Management locked the lobby doors after ten, so you had to either have a key or be buzzed inside. A quick tug on the handle confirmed it was locked, so she quickly dug out her keys, the metal jingling together when her hands shook. She tried to push them into the keyhole and missed. “Damn it.”

Vince wrapped his hand over hers. “Here, let me.”

He unlocked the door and put his hand on the small of her back. Earlier tonight it’d given her butterflies, but right now it gave her the sense of security she needed to force her feet into motion instead of give in to the urge to drop to the ground and cry. As much as she hated to admit it, she obviously wasn’t cool under pressure.

The lobby was deserted, the way it often was during the later hours. In light of their bloody, frazzled appearance, that was probably for the best. She pushed the up button to the elevator repeatedly, unable to stop until it arrived.

The creak of the cables and her shaky breaths filled the air as they rode up to her floor. The doors opened with abing—another too cheerful noise. Her hands continued to tremble, so she gave her keys to Vince and put her palm on her door, wincing at the contact. “This is me.”

As soon as they were inside, she locked the door and held the deadbolt in place for a couple of seconds, like that’d somehow make her safer. The she turned to Vince, who was eyeing her evenly, like he was waiting for her to fall apart.

She slid her glasses up her nose and then pulled them off and looked them over. “Wow. They didn’t break.”

Vince glanced at them. “They’re pink.”

A tiny ray of sunshine broke through her holy-shit-what-just-happened train of thought. “Yeah. That’s why I got them.” She put them back on, Vince’s features sharpening. “So…Someone shot at us.”

He nodded.

She ran a hand through her hair and more shards of glass came lose. “I felt like someone was watching me all week, but I never thought…” She bit her lip, then glanced at Vince. If he hadn’t been with her, she’d be lying on the sidewalk now, riddled with bullet holes. Not just bloody and hurt, but dead, no doubt about it. “How’d you react so fast?”

“I noticed the car slowing down and saw the gun right before they started shooting.”

“That was terrifying,” she said as if it weren’t obvious. Talk about understatement of the year. “What do we do now? Call the cops?”

Vince gently took both of her hands, turned them palm up, and frowned at the raw skin. “Let’s clean up first. Make sure you’re really okay.”

“I’ll grab my first-aid kit.” Cassie headed into the bathroom. Her reflection greeted her, pale, freaked-out, and blinking like there might be tears coming. She gripped both sides of the sink and squeezed her eyes closed. She clenched her jaw against the sob that wanted to escape and let out one long breath. Two. Three…

It was the same thing she’d done when Dad had bad days. Having a breakdown in front of him would’ve been bad for morale, so she’d flee to the bathroom to collect herself.

When she got to ten, she opened her medicine cabinet and grabbed supplies. She also snagged two washrags on her way out of the room.

Vince seemed so huge standing in her kitchen, his six-foot-plus frame bringing him within inches of the hanging light fixture. The tenderness in his expression as he watched her approach made her want to cry—just when she’d thought she’d gotten control of herself, too. Every emotion going through her was amplified by the extra adrenaline, and jumping from terrified to longing to being grateful she’d somehow survived made her head spin.

She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Where does it hurt?”

“You first,” he said, taking the kit and washrags from her and setting them by the sink. He wrapped his hands around her hips and boosted her onto the counter. Then he wet the washrag and cleaned out the cuts on her knees and hands. The warm water stung her raw skin, and she hissed despite her best attempts to downplay her wounds.

Her heartbeats scattered at every brush of his fingertips, even the ones that sent pricks of pain in their wake. He pressed two giant Band-Aids to her knees and asked if she wanted him to wrap her hands.

“No, they’ll be okay.” She kicked off the counter. “Let me take care of you now.” She flashed him a smile. “I’m afraid I can’t boost you up.”

He gave a low laugh that made heat pool in her belly. “I’m fine.”

“Come on, you don’t have to play tough.”

---