Instead of keeping watch on that take-charge thing he had going, she shut her eyes. Yes, he was the marshal and she was the protected witness. That didn’t mean she had to be helpless, did it?
She heard the gunman’s ragged breathing. Felt the squeeze of his arm, still holding her waist tight.
The weight of his arm rested on her shoulder and tugged it down. She wanted to shake it off. Not helpful. She needed to get out of his grip instead, move away from being between Noah and the target he wanted to hit. She couldn’t turn to the left—he’d just hold on tighter. She needed to spin right. Into the arm holding her.
Amy opened her eyes. She motioned to the right with her gaze, and then she moved. Turned to the inside of his arm. It shifted with his surprise. Amy moved to the side, so the back of her shoulder faced Noah. Body out of the way. She did it fast enough that Noah used those few seconds before the gunman realized what was happening.
A shot cracked through the room. The noise was deafening in the small space.
Amy’s entire body flinched. She shoved the gunman’s arm away, praying she didn’t get shot in the back of the head for her trouble.
He let go. His hand fell away and he hit the floor behind her.
Dead.
Noah grabbed Amy’s hand. “Come on.” He grabbed the gunman’s weapon and tugged her to the door. “We have to get out of here before someone who heard that shot shows up.”
She nodded, hardly able to process everything.
Yes, he’d saved her life. He’d also taken a life. His job. Was it supposed to hit her like this?
“You okay?”
They were at the door now. She nodded, even though tears rolled down her face. Beside the door were snowshoes, stacked upright. “Let’s take these.” They could cut across the snow and make it to the road, avoiding anyone else that might be out there looking for them.
She handed him a pair, not acknowledging the look on his face. She had to push aside emotion and face the next step. The next heartbeat, the next breath. That was all. Just stick with the basics. Keep her head together. Don’t get caught in that undertow, the residual effects of the panic attack causing everything to be so close to the surface.
Noah led the way outside where they put snowshoes on. “If we need to run, can we do it in these?”
“You have to be careful, but you should be able to run.”
“Do you want this gun?”
She looked down at the weapon in his hand, the gunman’s weapon. After a second of debate she took it, hit the button to slide the clip out. It was nearly empty. Because the gunman had shot at her when they’d been back at her cabin? She shoved it back in and pulled back the slide.
Noah said, “Okay, let’s go.”
He set off. She wanted him to take her hand again, but she couldn’t rely on him to support her. She had to stand by herself. All those things she’d believed she could do. Now she was actually having to do them. Self-defense. Weapons training.
Running.
No one out for a jog ever believed it was only training for the next time they had to run for their life.
Except her.
Noah scanned the area as he walked. “I saw two of them take off on a snowmobile. One is dead back there, and the other is unconscious.”
“He’ll probably wake up and come after us, right?” She glanced back at the hunting cabin and shuddered. Not just because of the man lying on the floor by the door. She never wanted to be anywhere near that place after everything that had happened in there.
The marshals wouldn’t ever let her come back to this area, anyway. They would relocate her. A new name. A new life.
Noah said, “All the more reason to pick up the pace.”
Amy followed him, her mind full of the knowledge that every step she took might be her last.
Her brother was coming for her.
The snowshoes were awkward, but Noah couldn’t deny they made better progress across the mountainside, through the trees and two-feet-deep snow, a whole lot faster with them than without. Both of them would have had wet pant legs, and they’d be even more cold now.
“Is that a car up ahead?”
He took a few more steps, trying to see what she’d been referring to. Despite the markings denoting it as a county sheriff’s vehicle, he said, “Wait here for a second.” Then he did a half walk, half run in snowshoes to the side of the highway, where a sheriff’s department vehicle waited.
Just the small SUV. No occupant.
“Okay.” He waved her over.
Tension sat like a knot in his stomach. Like a bad case of food poisoning.
They had to get help.
Noah’s whole body was covered in a sheen of sweat. He felt like he’d run his usual morning routine of six miles, but all of it uphill. He estimated they’d maybe walked three miles, if that. It felt so much farther with the extra exertion of wading through Colorado winter in snowshoes.
He blew out a breath. Amy came over to him. She was maybe a little winded but didn’t seem any worse for their…workout. That sounded a whole lot better than running for their lives.
“Where is the sheriff?”
Noah looked around. Then he walked across the hard-packed snow on the road to circle the SUV. The snowshoes didn’t help when the snow was matted down like ice, but if he took them off and more gunmen came, how would he get them back on? Mostly he figured he’d regret it if he took them off and he’d probably regret leaving them on.
Useful, but not exactly user-friendly.
Noah tugged on the driver’s door handle. “It’s unlocked.” He saw the state of the interior. “Not good.”
“What is it?”
He lifted a hand. “Stay over there.” He wanted her to have at least a chance of cover to hide behind, and she was closer to the trees on that side of the vehicle.
“What is it?” Her tone was different this time, heavy with a hint of what he’d seen when she’d opened her eyes. Right before she’d twisted out of the gunman’s arms. The determination inside her, not just to do the right thing but also to pull her weight. To treat this like a partnership, and not like he was the marshal and she was the witness.
Noah wouldn’t let anyone else make that shift. Amy? He trusted her. She did what he needed her to. She followed orders. She also showed him that vulnerable side he wanted to take care of.
“Noah.”
“There’s blood on the seat.”
“How much?”
She really wanted the answer to that? “Enough he’s light-headed, but hopefully still alive.”
She twisted around to look at the area. “Do you think he’s here somewhere, hurt?”
“Whoever injured him took the time to shut the door after they got him out of the SUV.”
“So they dragged him off and left him in the snow to bleed out and die? Or he was already dead?”
Was she angling for a job as a detective? “When we find him, or whoever hurt him, we can ask them.” He took a step back. If the sheriff—or whoever had shown up—left the