Ryan was eyeing Dayne as if she’d finally lost her mind. He’d just started in her direction when she caught a sunspot off a roof nearly a hundred yards away. Knowing she had less than a second to react, she squirmed out of Jace’s grip and lurched in Ryan’s direction. Her hand caught the cuff of his jeans. She wrapped her fingers firmly around his ankle and yanked his legs out from under him.
Ryan crashed to the ground as the second bullet buried itself in a game only inches away from where he’d been standing moments before.
“Jace! Get a move on!” she ordered.
Ryan suddenly seemed to realize what was going on. He threw himself at his brother’s prone form. “Why isn’t he moving?”
It had only just occurred to Dayne to wonder the same thing. The possibilities weren’t nice to think about. There were so many reasons she didn’t want Jace dead yet, and not all of them were business related.
She needed time, at least two or three minutes to try and figure out what was going on. She needed cover. There was only one obvious way to do it.
“What are you doing, Dayne?”
Ignoring Ryan’s panicky tone, she pulled out her Sig and aimed in a ninety-degree arc out the front door. Despite the evil connotations surrounding her job, she wasn’t a monster. She didn’t actually want to kill a tourist as a diversion. So because what goes up must come down, the ninety-degree angle would keep the velocity of her bullet from being lethal when it found its mark outside somewhere.
As she’d hoped, the unmistakable crack of her pistol in the enclosed store created instant chaos. Just to make certain she created a large enough window of time, Dayne added a lusty scream of her own.
“He’s got a gun!” she wailed at the top of her lungs.
The arcade exploded like an anthill on picnic day. Kids and parents ran screaming out the doors, the attendant huffing along behind them.
Ryan fixed his wide-eyed stare on her. “What are you doing?”
“Shut up and help me roll him over.”
She could already see a red stain spreading across the back of Jace’s white T-shirt. It seemed to originate from his left shoulder. When she and Ryan managed to roll him onto his back, she could see a nasty swelling on his forehead as well.
“Is he dead?” Ryan asked fearfully.
“Don’t be silly. If it were that easy to kill him, I’d have done it years ago.”
Her bravado went only as far as her words. She had very little time. And there was no way she and Ryan were going to be able to carry Jace’s body out of the park if she couldn’t get him to come around.
“Jace?” Dayne spoke in a calm, but forceful voice.
“Why isn’t he waking up?”
She slapped him smartly across the face. It pained her to pummel him when he was unable to defend himself, but she needed him awake and she needed it now.
Jace blinked experimentally. Obviously, he wasn’t dead. The excruciating pain radiating from his shoulder told him that much. Ryan’s pale face slowly slid into focus before he felt Dayne probing his wound.
“Hey, welcome back,” she said in a clipped voice. “You’ve got a through and through, left shoulder. But I need you to get moving.”
Her high-handed attitude would’ve annoyed the hell out of him under normal circumstances. But somewhere in his foggy brain he remembered the events that had happened only minutes before.
Jace didn’t want to move. He wanted to throw up. His head was pounding like a freight train, but he sucked in a deep breath and lurched into action.
“Where’s the shooter?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“I caught a gleam on the roof of the theater about a hundred yards away.” Dayne gestured toward the right of the doorway.
“Did I hear another gunshot?”
She didn’t even try to hide her grin. “That was me. I needed a minute.”
“He know we’re still here?”
“Hard to say.”
Jace plowed through the fog in his brain. “I know I lost those tails before I even headed out here.”
“You had company on the way over and didn’t think to mention it?” she asked.
“Too late to worry about it now. Which way?”
“I’m not sure. But there’s not a lot of ways to make an exit.”
“All right, I’ll take Ryan and go left.”
“No.”
No?
She was going to argue with him now?
“Look Jace, I know this place. You’re going to have to trust me.”
He was too groggy to fight, so he had no choice but to rely on her. God knew she’d had enough opportunities to take Ryan and run, but she hadn’t.
“Whatever.”
Dayne looked relieved. He realized she’d expected him to put up a fuss. Somewhere in the back of his brain he found that funny. It said a lot about the way things were between them.
“I need you to go right and draw his attention. I’m going to take Ryan and go left.”
“Where’s your ride?” he managed. His tongue felt like a wad of cotton in his mouth.
“All the way at the back of the park, in the employee lot.”
“How do I get there?”
“Forget it, Jace. The shape you’re in, you’d end up lying in the middle of the sidewalk somewhere. After Ryan and I are clear, double back left and meet me in the rear of Miss Kitty’s Saloon.”
He wondered at first if his fuzzy mind had just fabricated that order. But her face was set and he was in no position to protest. He wasn’t even altogether certain he could create a diversion without getting himself shot again in the process.
She nibbled her lower lip. “I need to know if you can do this for me, Jace.”
Unable to articulate, he nodded. The nodding was worse. He felt like a bobble head doll; head too big for his body, wavering about like a free weight.
Her lithe body was warm where she pressed it against him, bolstering his strength and helping him gain his feet. He glanced down and realized she’d used a strip of material from her loose flannel shirt to bind his shoulder. Though the gesture was touching, he could already feel his blood seeping through the wrapping.
“I don’t want you to go, Jace,” Ryan’s voice was on the verge of a whine.
Jace wrapped his right arm around his little brother and squeezed as mightily as he could. “You’ll be safe with Dayne. She’s too damn stubborn to let anything happen to either of you.”
A smile twitched at the corners of her full lips. “You got a weapon?”
“Do I ever run around without one?”
Her mouth thinned and he saw a muscle jump in her jaw. “Just lay low until I get back to you, all right?”
He tried not to bristle at the naked command in her voice. It wasn’t like he had any other choice, but a man had his pride. Jace hated taking orders, especially from Dayne.
The courtyard was almost empty when he headed for the doorway. He’d half expected to see a few security personnel. Screaming was a normal occurrence in a place like this, as were adrenaline-induced hallucinations. He could hardly blame the rent-a-cops for taking their time when there were no dead bodies and no obvious crime.
From the corner of his eye, Jace could see the telltale gleam of a weapon in the waning sunlight of the fall afternoon. Keeping his movements carefully measured, he slipped from the arcade entrance to a copse of nearby trees. Though partially hidden, he’d made certain to give the sniper a broad view of him exiting. As anticipated, the sound of a bullet scraping across tree bark before thudding ominously into the mulch at his feet was followed by a muffled rifle report.
Dayne took hold of Ryan’s arm with one hand, and her Sig with the other. As soon as Jace exposed his profile, she took off, Ryan trailing like a rag doll. She cut a zigzag pattern around trees, between paths, up onto a park bench and over the low fence behind it.
She couldn’t have planned a better situation. The Tommy G. Robertson railroad station was less than 35 yards away, and she could see the muted black and gold engine coming to a hissing stop at that moment.
“When I say, we’re going to break for the train, Ryan. Got it?”
“The train?” he wheezed, ducking behind a flowering bush.
“I’m going to put you on. I want you to stay on until either Jace or I come and get you.”
“But…”
“Don’t argue with me, Ryan. Just do it.”
His wide blue eyes opened just a fraction wider. She felt bad for him. None of it was his fault. Who could blame him for being related to Jace? It wasn’t as if he were responsible for his genetics.
The waiting passengers were settling into their seats when she made her break. She kept expecting to hear a shot, but there was nothing. That was almost worse. What if it meant they’d already managed to down Jace?
“Go!” Dayne growled as she hurled Ryan over the white barrier fence.
Fortunately, the railroad attendants were too busy flirting with each other to notice one little boy climbing into the rear car before settling low into the last seat. She waited an interminable four seconds for the train to emit a massive cloud of clinging steam before chugging out of the station. Each one was agony. She kept expecting the shot, to see a bullet shatter the fiberglass hull of the train car or bury itself inside Ryan. But nothing happened and she began to wonder if someone was playing games with them.
It was dim and quiet inside Miss Kitty’s costume storage area. Jace could hear laughs mingled with tinny piano music coming from the dance hall on the other side of the door. The air was thick with dust and the scent of old fabric.
He wedged his big body between two enormous racks overflowing with Wild West costumes. It was a tight fit for his shoulders, but he gained a little extra room by sinking to the plank wood floor.
He was honestly shocked that he’d managed to make it all the way to the saloon without being shot again. He knew his athleticism was considerably handicapped by the shoulder wound. The fact that he’d been able to avoid the shooter worried him.
The most important detail was to figure out who the target was. Herrera had mentioned a contract on Dayne, but the possibility existed that Yuri was trying to smear Jace off the map in retaliation for his brother Kiryll’s assassination. Jace had decided from the beginning that Ryan’s kidnapping was designed to draw him into the open. There was no other possible reason to bother with the kid otherwise. Messing with Ryan had also involved the local authorities. And while they were more of an annoyance than a problem, it was still more publicity than these people usually liked to attract.
“Jace?”
Dayne’s husky whisper was accompanied by a view of her worried face peeking through the racks of clothing.
“I’m here.”
“You okay?”
“I’m still alive.”
She pushed all the way through. “I’ll consider that a bonus, then.”
“Who is this guy after?” Jace asked quietly.
She didn’t answer at first. Instead, she leaned down and ripped what was left of his T-shirt off. Shoving it into the farthest corner of the room beneath another rack of clothing, she began carefully probing the back of his shoulder.
He tried to focus on the problem, the pain, anything but the way it felt to have her palms grazing his skin. It had always fascinated him that she could live the life she did and still have such soft hands.
“It’s hard to tell what this guy wants, Jace.”
He sighed. “Your contract or my history?”
“Honestly, I don’t think we’re supposed to be dead…yet.”
“What?”
“Think about it. You were a sitting duck out there and he didn’t even wing you. I expected you to at least get a graze out of that.”
“Thanks.”
“Seriously, I’m not saying we aren’t in danger. But I think they’re trying to keep us off balance. It feels a little like being herded. Don’t you think?”
He had to admire the clarity of her brain. She had a viable point. Then he noticed she was alone. “Where’s Ryan?”
“He’s fine. I stashed him on the steam engine.”
“You what?”
“In fact, we really need to get a move on because we’ve got to grab him on our way out of here. Can you keep moving?”
Jace was really in no position to rail at her for her actions. He was as dependent on her as Ryan was, for the time being.
“You’ve stopped bleeding,” she said.
“I can’t run around out there shirtless.”
She slanted him a teasing smile. “To think I was looking forward to that.”
Was she serious?
A baggy, homespun cotton shirt hit him in the face. Jace arched an eyebrow and lurched to his feet using the racks on either side of him for support. He’d never been fond of the lace front look, but it wasn’t as if he had much choice in the matter. He could hardly expect to find many costumes that would fit a guy his size.
“Wow, that’s a drop dead sexy look for you.”
“Glad you’re noticing my desirability. Now can we get Ryan and get out of here?”
Something about the twinkle in her gray eyes made him wonder if she weren’t enjoying herself a little too much. Dayne had always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie. He was well aware that she didn’t lead an assassin’s life because she liked to be bored. But he could hardly afford to take extra chances just for kicks anymore. He had Ryan to think of.
Chapter Ten
Jace’s face seemed stuck in that introspective expression. Dayne had seen him relax half a dozen times since they’d met up, only to sober almost immediately. But she had no time to sit around and reflect on how guardianship had changed him. She had to keep thinking four steps ahead and get them all out of there alive with all parts present and functioning.
“You think he’s changed position?” She stole a glance around the large tree that was nicely hiding her valuable body parts. They were now waiting for the train to appear around the bend.
“He’s had plenty of time.”
“I don’t think he saw me put Ryan on the train.”
“Unless you were right earlier when you said he isn’t trying to kill us.”
“Terrific. Shall I just waltz up there and collect your brother?”
He chose not to respond to her smart-ass remark. She didn’t care. She was busy trying to decide how best to get Ryan off the moving train. Although it would’ve been a lot simpler to get him when the train made a stop, it would’ve been a longer trek to her truck.