Morgan felt the energy burst through his body a second before he pushed her to the ground.
“Down!”
He shoved her under a table and covered her body with his an instant before a gunshot erupted above her head.
CHAPTER TWO
Jack Cole curled his body protectively over Morgan’s tiny female form and used the
small iron table to shield her as another shot rang out. People around them screamed
and scrambled away in the melee. He swore as she trembled violently beneath him.
Damn it! Revenge was so close, and now this? He couldn’t fuck his enemy’s woman
until she screamed his name if she was dead.
Fury rattled through him, but the fact someone was trying to thwart his revenge
wasn’t the only reason. Nope, he was downright pissed that some asshole had filled such
a small but vibrant woman with complete terror.
Admittedly, he’d lured Morgan here to use her, but never to physically hurt her. Just
the opposite. He would find out what made her tick and fulfill every one of her fantasies
until her body hummed with satisfaction.
Until she no longer had any interest in Brandon Ross and left the son of a bitch.
The jackoff currently at the other end of the gun, however, had other ideas, like
planting a bullet between her eyes.
Another shudder went through Morgan. She held in a cry. Jack hugged her tighter,
shoving her right against the iron table. Saving her was instinct. An occupational hazard.
A necessity. Brandon Ross had earned this revenge three years ago, and Jack planned to
deliver him humiliation in spades. He wasn’t about to let Morgan die.
“I’ll get you out of here safely.” He whispered the vow in her ear.
His churning gut demanded he draw his .38 and return fire. But there were too many
people around to take that risk. And he sensed it would scare the hell out of Morgan.
She was already terrified, damn it. She smiled pretty for the camera for a living, not
dodged bullets.
When the waiter had delivered the letter to their table and he’d seen the sweet flush
drain from her face, leaving behind chalk-white shock as half-dead rose petals spilled
into her hands, he’d smelled her fear. After catching a glint of gunmetal in the sunlight
on a roof across the street…Jack’d had no doubt what would happen next.
He hated to be right about shit like this.
Glancing at the chair Morgan had occupied moments ago, he saw the discolored
gouges left by unforgiving bullets. He swore again.
Beneath him, Morgan tried to sit up. Jack held her in place.
“Stay down!”
“I need to go. Run. H—hide.”
A quick glance over the table at the rooftop across the street showed their shooter
had fled. Either that, or come in for a closer shot during the chaos. That meant they were
easy targets and he had to get Morgan out of this open area fast.
“I’ll get you to safety,” Jack emphasized, dragging Morgan to her feet. “Are you
hurt?”
She shoved the hat back over her head and tightened the scarf beneath, which
covered her hair. “No.”
“Then let’s run!”
He grabbed her small, cold hand in his. Engulfed it. Damn, she was tiny, much
smaller than a powerful name like Morgan implied.
Taking off as fast as his legs would carry him, Jack tugged Morgan behind him,
ducking behind upturned tables when the shots rang out again. He dragged her behind
the cover of the café’s coffee bar, then pulled her around the corner of the building,
silently urging her to keep up. She did, clutching her hat against her head with her spare
hand. Jack looked beyond Morgan with a frown. No way to tell if the shooter was
following in this crowd, but he assumed so. Better safe than dead.
“Where are we going?”
Jack didn’t answer; he was too busy improvising a plan in his head. In silence, he
pulled her up streets, down alleys. More gun shots rang out. A bullet whizzed past his
ear, and he swore. If this son of a bitch harmed a hair on Morgan’s head, Jack was going
to enjoy beating him senseless with his bare hands.
Ducking into a busy store, they narrowly avoided crashing into an elderly woman.
Stepping aside so the scowling grandma and her walker could pass cost them precious
seconds.
As soon as the path cleared, he took Morgan’s small hand in his again and tugged,
forcing her to run again. Out the back of the store, down a narrow walkway, into a
darkening alley. Thank God he knew this town as well as the shape of his own face.
Another series of staccato blasts sounded again, this time in front of the store they’d
just exited.
Shit!
“Run faster, cher.”
Panting, sweating, she merely nodded. And picked up the pace.
At the far end of an alley, they came to a metal door with scarred black paint and red