Page 10 of Jagged Little Pieces

“Why are you busting my balls here?” Goose demands.

Austen glances up from where she texts on her phone and frowns at the bickering women. When her gaze flashes to me, I can see from her expression how I twist her up inside. Austen’s face hides nothing, inspiring me to trust my feelings for her. This chick won’t reject me. There’ll be no laughing at a biker wanting to win her rich-girl heart.

“You brought trouble into Austen’s life,” Coco replies, meeting Goose’s angry flirting with her own.

The blonde is cute and feisty. She reminds me of those casino-cocktail waitresses always flirting to make extra tips. I can imagine Coco seducing plenty of men out of their hard-earned cash. Meanwhile, Austen is a shy goddess, seeming overwhelmed by how crazy she already makes me.

“No, we were nice enough to warn you about the trouble in her life,” Goose says and pokes her finger in Coco’s face. “We could have stayed home and let her deal with shit. Hell, I don’t know why we didn’t.”

Goose knows exactly why we didn’t. That’s also why she just stands at the open door despite knowing we have a target on us. She’s hoping the ranch hands are nearby and planning to make their move. I see her hand resting at the small of her back, where a weapon is strapped.

“I’ve warned my mom and sister, just in case,” Austen tells me and shoves her phone in her purse.

Without thinking, I brush my fingers across Austen’s cheek. I need to test these feelings. My heart hurts at how Austen isn’t already mine. Touching her feels like a no-brainer.

Austen’s eyes widen as if startled by the affection. A smile dances along her lips, teasing me with possibilities and making me feel like an asshole. Because despite my feelings for her, I’ve essentially set her up as bait.

Now, out of the corner of my eye, I catch Goose tugging her weapon free.

“I’m sorry,” I say and yank her down to the ground.

Goose shoves Coco back, sending the blonde on her ass. The woman’s rage-filled holler is cut short by Goose’s firing pistol.

Through the front window, I see the men coming. Goose’s shot hits one of them in the belly. With no way to maneuver past her at the door, I fire through the clinic’s front windows and get lucky with a solid chest shot. Two of them have gone down quickly.

But the remaining asshole opens fire with an AR-15, shattering the clinic’s remaining front windows. I drop to the ground as Goose ducks back into the building. Coco squeals and crawls behind the front desk. Austen remains frozen in her spot. As our gazes meet, I realize she’s waiting for me to tell her what to do.

“Get in the back and away from the windows,” I say while reloading.

Austen finally scrambles behind the front desk as bullets fly overhead. The asshole keeps firing until he needs to reload. That’s when gun shots ring out from around the building’s corner, and we learn there’s a second group.

Goose shoots in the direction of the new assholes, silencing their gunfire. The asshole with the Ak-15 is nearly done reloading. I’m not sure we’ll survive another onslaught from the weapon. The earlier bullets turned the front of the clinic into Swiss cheese.

I stand and take aim. He looks up to start firing just as I pull my trigger. I see the exact moment when he realizes he’s fucked. My bullet tears through his face, splattering his brains on Austen’s nearby SUV.

As he drops, the other men remain silent. Goose signals she’s going to check, but I wave off her impatience. I fear they’re waiting for her head to pop out to take the shot.

We shimmy backward on the ground until we’re behind the front counter. Coco and Austen are gone. I frown down a hallway, praying they haven’t run out the back door.

I text a quick message to Ruin while waiting to see if the second group will come blasting through the front door.

Rather than a gunman, a bottle of vodka crashes down on the floor. Then, a second one flies through the destroyed front windows and smashes on the ground.

“Can you get a shot?” I ask Goose as I peek out from behind the counter.

“No,” she grunts and backs up toward a hallway. “They’re going to burn us out.”

I follow her lead, disappearing down a dark hallway as a third Molotov cocktail sets the front lobby on fire. We hurry toward the lighted room at the back. Glancing upward, I think I notice sprinklers.

Goose grabs for Coco and orders, “We’ve got to go.”

“They’re going to be waiting for us,” Coco insists.

Austen ignores them both as she sedates and cages two cats in the otherwise empty kennel. When I touch her shoulder, Austen surprises me by shrugging off my attempt to get her to leave.

“I have to take them,” she mutters, revealing an unexpected temper.

“We’ve got to get moving,” Goose says as smoke floods the hallway.

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