Page 80 of The Last Dance You Saved
His stare burrowed into me. I wanted to tell him I loved him. I wanted to tell him nothing was going to take me away, but my tongue locked to the roof of my mouth. Now wasn’t the time. It would sound as ridiculous as it had when I’d talked to Gemma.
I eased off Rafe’s lap and finished cleaning and wrapping his arm.
The entire time, his gaze was pinned to the office door, nearly coming out of his skin at every sound while he waited for his daughter. When Mila had run away from me that day, when she’d disappeared from sight, I’d been overcome with panic, unable to see how to protect her and knowing she was facing the danger alone because I’d failed. And even though Mila wasn’t my child, I still loved her with all of me. I still knew the rage and guilt and terror he was feeling.
When the front door finally crashed open, he jerked to his feet, pushing me behind him just in case it wasn’t his team and his family.
“Dad!” Fallon’s voice echoed through the hall, and his shoulders dropped in relief.
She came sprinting into the office, eyes wild, braids bouncing behind her. She barreled into him, wrapping her arms around him and holding on tight. Her shoulders shook with sobs as she clung to him.
“I thought you were dead,” her voice cracked. “I thought I’d lost you too!”
When I met Rafe’s eyes over her head, his were filled with the same unshed tears as mine. He kissed her temple and held her tight. “I’m not going anywhere, Ducky. I’m here. You aren’t going to lose me.”
She stepped back and pummeled his chest with her fists. “You aren’t bulletproof.” When she saw the bandage on his arm, she gasped. “You’re shot! Oh my God, why aren’t you at the hospital?”
“It’s just a graze,” he insisted, pulling her back into his arms. “Sadie already took care of me.”
Noah and Lauren came into the room, trailed by Lorenzo and Parker. The rest of the wedding party stood in the hallway beyond them in various stages of fear, anger, and dishevelment.
“What the fuck is going on?” Lorenzo demanded, back rigid, fury pouring from him.
“You tell me,” Rafe growled, setting Fallon aside and stepping forward as if to protect us all from my cousin.
The terror of the gunshots was slowly easing away, but in its place, a new fear rose inside me. Had we escaped the gunshots only to let the wolf in the front door?
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed, and he didn’t back away. Instead, he moved closer to Rafe. “You think this was me? That I’d ruin Marielle’s wedding by taking a potshot at you that I could have taken any time I wanted when you were in Vegas?”
It was like watching two bucks go at it in the wild as they stood almost toe to toe. Feral and fierce and both equally determined to protect what was theirs.
What surprised me was that I believed Lorenzo. That even after everything Rafe had told me about being stabbed, I could believe him. But he was right. I couldn’t see him hiring a gunman to take Rafe out in the middle of the wedding. Not when he’d treated his cousin with such love and affection all day.
“As far as I’m aware, nothing like this has happened at the ranch or in Rivers until you showed up, bringing your damn criminal activities with you,” Rafe insisted.
Lorenzo scoffed, and the two men stared each other down, waiting to see who would make the first move. My heart thudded in my chest as the tension in the air grew, and I eased closer to Rafe, unsure what I would do but determined to somehow help.
From behind Lorenzo, Nicky stepped forward. “Puzo, what the hell is this?”
Lorenzo didn’t break his glare with Rafe, and instead, it was Lauren who spoke, hurrying toward the wedding couple. “I’m so sorry this happened. So sorry your evening was ruined in this way. Everyone is safe here in the house, and if you could please just give us a moment to figure everything out, I promise we’ll do everything we can to fix it.” She waved a hand toward the sitting room across the hall. “Let’s go in here, and I’ll have drinks brought in while I arrange for the dinner to be moved from the marquee to our dining room.”
“Lorenzo?” Marielle’s voice was uncertain, her dark eyes sad, and her carefully arranged brown hair tousled and out of place.
My cousin finally looked away from Rafe to take in Marielle’s worried expression. “Go with Lauren. I’ll take care of this.”
She hesitated but then let Lauren take her arm, leading her and the rest of the wedding party into the sitting room.
“I had nothing to do with this,” Lorenzo insisted again. I was astonished when he was the one to back away, to put space between him and Rafe. But his next words proved he hadn’t dropped the fight. “ButIwon’t stand idly by whilemyfamily is in danger.”
The insinuation Rafe had let this happen took the worry and fear inside me and layered it with my own rage. I stepped out from behind Rafe’s broad shoulders, pointed a finger, and said, “If you think for even one second—"
“Someone tell me what the hell is going on!” Lauren demanded as she rushed back inside and shut the office doors behind her. Silence and tension flipped through the air, but no one said anything. She looked at Rafe and asked, “Did Jim and his men catch whomever this was?”
“He’s still out there looking,” Parker answered just as Rafe demanded, “Have you heard from Adam?”
Lauren paled. “He wouldn’t do this… He wouldn’t risk hurting me or Fallon…” But I could see the doubts filtering through her, and maybe her mind had gone to the same place mine had—to the person in her room with a pillow pressed to her face.
“If he killed Spence, why wouldn’t he kill Dad?” Fallon said scathingly. “He wants all of you out of the way so he can get his hands on the ranch. He wanted me to sign over half of it. He would probably have offed me too.”
