Dare To Run (The Sons of Steel Row #1)(59)

My heart twisted. He’d been shot at and almost killed, and all he cared about was that I was almost collateral damage. What even was that? “We need to stop the bleeding.”

“Hence the needle,” he said dryly. “Chris will be here soon. I’ll be fine. It’s a through-and-through, and it only skimmed my arm, really. A couple of stitches and I’ll be back on my feet. Probably could do without, but I don’t want to risk infection.”

I choked back the bile rising in my throat and continued unbuttoning his shirt. It was taking longer than it should have, as my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. “How do you know all this?”

“Because this isn’t the first time I’ve been shot, darlin’.” He dropped his head back on the couch and closed his eyes. “And it won’t be the last.”

“That’s just—” Lovely. I bit my tongue and undid the last button. “Sit up. Let’s get this off you.”

He sat up. I slowly lowered his shirt off his good arm and carefully peeled it back over his injured one. He hissed through his teeth when it stuck to his skin. “Son of a f*cking bitch.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” I murmured, finally getting it off him. There wasn’t a whole lot of new blood, because it had clotted up a bit. “Did you get hit when you threw me against the wall?”

“No. I think it was after.” He glanced at me, his gaze shadowed. “When I found them.”

I rolled the shirt up in a ball. “And you think Scotty sent these guys after you?”

“Yep, no doubt.” He smirked. “So much for that lunch date with him, I guess. Good thing I filled up on eggs.”

“Lucas.”

“What?” he asked, blinking. “I just complimented your cooking.”

I threw the shirt aside. Anger pumped through my veins, but it wasn’t alone. It mingled with fear. So much fear. Knowing I’d almost lost him . . . Yeah, that scared me more than anything else could have. He could have died, and he was cracking jokes and acting as if it didn’t matter at all. It did.

He mattered, damn it.

“Stop acting like you’re not upset by this by making jokes. Your brother just tried to have you killed.” I knelt next to him on the couch and cupped his face, swallowing back the furious words trying to escape. He didn’t look at me. “I know that has to hurt. I know you’re upset. And that’s okay.”

He growled under his breath. “And what will being upset accomplish? How will that keep us alive?”

“It won’t.” I climbed onto his lap, straddling him. He didn’t move, but the jaw in his muscle flexed. “And that’s okay, too.”

He let out a harsh laugh. “Everything is okay, according to you.”

“That’s because it is.” I ran my thumb over his lower lip. “That’s because it can be.”

He finally looked at me, and what I saw in his eyes . . . I would never forget it. Not in a million years. The cold, hard reality of what had happened, and what he would soon have to do, was all there for me to see. “Heidi.”

“Shh. I know.”

Leaning in, I pressed my lips to his, keeping the kiss gentle. It wasn’t meant to initiate sex. It was an act of comfort—the only act I knew that would show him without words that I cared. He needed to know that I didn’t regret last night, or us, at all. I didn’t know why he’d jumped to that conclusion earlier, but he had. And it had obviously upset him.

If he ever doubted anything, it shouldn’t be my feelings for him. I loved him, and nothing he did or said would change that. I loved how selflessly he took care of those he considered under his protection. I loved the undying hope he had that his brother was a good man, even though I feared it might get him killed. I didn’t love him despite his flaws—I loved him with them. Who he was. Who I was. We just worked.

And he needed to know that much, at least.

Pulling back, I framed his face with my hands again and smiled down at him even though it hurt to smile at him when he looked so lost. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

“No. It’s not.” Something inside of him seemed to break. I saw it. Felt it. “It’s really f*cking not.”

But it could be. I was starting to come around to his line of thinking. Except he’d wanted me to run, to be safe. I wanted him to run. To stick to the original plan. I wouldn’t go with him, because there was only one passport, and he needed to get the heck out of this country. If he stopped worrying about me, he could run. He could live. “I want you to—”

The door opened. “Okay, where’s the—?” Chris paused midstep, a brow raised. He took in our positions, me on top of Lucas, holding his face, and didn’t look too happy. “Am I interrupting something?”

“No,” Lucas said, the emotion I’d seen earlier gone in an instant. “Heidi here was just being a doll and taking care of me.”

“I see that,” Chris said dryly. “Don’t expect me to straddle you like that. You’re not my type.”

“The hell I’m not,” Lucas said, smirking.

I rolled my eyes and climbed off him. “I’ll get you some whiskey.”

“Thanks, doll,” Chris said.

“It’s not for you,” I snapped. “It’s for him.”