He Can Fall (She Can... #4.5)(9)

What the fuck?

Why was this stranger chasing Mia through the woods with a gun? What kind of animal would try to shoot a child?

Sean didn’t pause to find out.

He struck out on a line to intercept Mia. Running with more grace but less speed than her pursuer, Mia darted off the trail like a rabbit. Smart kid. She couldn’t outpace his longer legs and had the best chance of losing him off the path, where his inexperience and larger size would slow him.

Sean reached out from behind a tree trunk, cupping one hand over the little girl’s mouth to stifle any surprised scream. She kicked hard and sank her teeth into his palm.

“Shh,” Sean whispered in her ear. “It’s Sean. I won’t let him hurt you.”

Mia went still. Shaking his bruised hand, Sean set her down and put a forefinger to his lips.

She leaned close to his ear and breathed, “Some men broke into the inn. They shot Tanner. I ran away.”

Amanda.

Rage and fear charged through Sean’s body. If one of them touched his wife…You are not helping her.

He’d seen plenty of men die, some women and children too, but nothing had ever threatened to render him useless with sheer panic like the thought of a man hurting Amanda. He couldn’t contemplate worse happening. He willed the rage to cool. Ice is what he needed in his veins.

“How many men?”

Mia held up four fingers.

Sean pointed to a stand of evergreens. The first few feet aboveground were clear. Above that, branches interlocked in a thick shield of pine needles. “Run that way, into the thicket.”

She took off, her Uggs sending tufts of powder flying as she disappeared into the foliage. He brushed her tracks from the snow with a dead branch, then turned his attention back to the city guy crashing through the trees. Sean circled around, his boots silenced by the snow.

Soft cursing and the snap of twigs underfoot signaled the approach of her pursuer. Sean hunkered down behind a fat tree trunk and waited. The man passed the tree. Sean hurled a rock into the trees fifty feet away. A cardinal flew out of the underbrush. The thug ran toward the shrubs the bird vacated.

As the guy passed him, Sean jumped out of his cover. He slipped one arm around the man’s neck and snaked his forearm under the guy’s chin. Yanking the shooter to his chest, Sean locked him in a choke hold. “Drop the gun.”

He didn’t. Instead, the idiot twisted. He struggled to raise the barrel high enough to shoot Sean in the head. Sean blocked the motion with an elbow. Then he applied pressure to the guy’s windpipe. His body weight sagged.

“OK, you win.” Wheezing, the man dropped the gun. It hit the ground with a muffled thud, disappearing into the snow.

Sean removed his forearm from the side of his neck. The man swayed. Still at his back, Sean held him upright by the collar. With a slight movement, the man’s hand slipped to his pocket. He pulled a knife and tried to whirl into an attack. Sean snapped his neck before he could spin around. The soft crack echoed in the thin, dry air.

The body sank to the snow, and Sean let it drop without remorse. Had Mia seen?

Of course, it might have been preferable to question the scumbag before killing him, but the death wouldn’t keep Sean up at night. Adrenaline used to give him a reflex-sharpening buzz, but ten years out of the military and two children later, it overloaded his civilian veins and turned his stomach.

After years of dangerous missions, he’d started to crave the rush that accompanied high risk. Amanda had been only one of the reasons he’d left the military. The other had been the fear that he wouldn’t be able to return to a normal life, that the urge to seek that adrenaline high would follow him home. When he started anticipating dangerous missions like a ten-year-old looked forward to Christmas, he started to worry in earnest. Like any addiction, quitting cold turkey had seemed like the best option. He wasn’t a wishy-washy man. Do it or don’t do it was more his speed. He’d met Amanda the day after he’d left the army, as if destiny had slapped him on the back for making the right decision.

Sean looked down at the first man he’d killed in ten years. As he thought about the child hiding in the underbrush, instead of the expected adrenaline high, nausea coated the back of his throat. Obviously, he wasn’t the same man he’d been all those years ago, which was a good thing. Killing could be necessary, but it should never be easy.

He relieved the gunman of a .38 semiautomatic. Checking the load, Sean held back a curse. The magazine was empty, and so were the scumbag’s pockets. There was one bullet in the chamber. At least the switchblade was sharp. Sean pocketed the weapons.

Grabbing the shoulders, he dragged the body toward a low, dense evergreen. With his foot, he rolled the limp form into the underbrush. Then he picked up the fallen bough and smoothed out the snow in front of the burial place. When he was satisfied that the disturbance wasn’t easy to spot, Sean scanned the woods for the little girl.

“Mia?” he called in a quiet voice. Belatedly, he checked his clothes for blood and rubbed a spot on his sleeve with a handful of snow.

Foliage rustled. A small head poked out. Big eyes locked on Sean. “Is he dead?”

Good, she hadn’t seen. But her abrupt question was too blunt. Little Mia wasn’t as simple as she appeared. No doubt her former life with her father had accustomed her to violence. Her direct question deserved a direct answer.