The guy’s knee came up, catching Davis in the jaw. His head snapped back and pain shot down from the base of his neck. Impressive training but Davis’s was better. He rammed his elbow into the side of the guy’s head and heard a sharp crack.
With the attacker off balance and reeling, Davis connected with a punch to the stomach, then one to the jaw. The guy went down hard on his knees, yelling. The gun flew across the room before spinning under the coffee table.
Davis scrambled, but the other guy wasn’t going down easy. He dropped and crawled on his elbows and knees. Blood dripped on the floor from his split lip.
Knowing it was going to hurt like hell, Davis did a jumping dive, landing on the attacker and sending a knee plowing into his back. The guy howled in pain as his head tipped back and he bared his teeth.
Davis didn’t wait. He threw his upper body out, ignoring the tearing he felt along his injured ribs, and reached out his hand. The pain smacked him hard enough to close his eyes, but he forced them open again. He couldn’t stop. Hesitating meant death for Lara and that was not going to happen on Davis’s watch.
Just as he collected his strength and shimmied closer to the weapon, the attacker grabbed his leg. Twisting and sucker punches to the back of the knee came before Davis could brace for the attack. A shocking agony spiraled through him and his breaths came in rushed pants, but he refused to give up.
His fingers brushed against the metal. A few more inches and he’d have it. To get leverage, he balanced a hand against the floor and lifted his sore body up. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Lara move. She sneaked up behind the men as they fought, carrying the heavy glass lamp that usually sat on the small table right near the double window at the front of the house. The same one she had bought right after they’d put an offer on the town house and he now used to hold his discarded keys each day.
Sensing something, or maybe reading the not-so-secret approach in Davis’s eyes, the guy whipped around. He kicked out as he lunged for Lara. In panic, she jumped to the side and threw the lamp. It missed the attacker by a few inches but it gave Davis the diversion he needed. Stretching those last few inches, he grabbed the gun and wrenched around again.
He concentrated, blocking out everything—Lara and the pain shaking through him—to hit that target and nothing else. “Hey!”
The guy pivoted and his eyes went wide. With a roar of fury, he made a final leap for the gun.
Davis didn’t hesitate. A crack split through the wrestling sounds of the room. Lara’s surprised inhalation followed the guy slumping over on his side, pinning one of Davis’s legs underneath.
Blood pooled, seeping into the small carpet. The room, ringing with activity a second ago, fell deadly quiet.
Davis kicked the guy off him then climbed to his knees. He pressed his free hand to the guy’s neck, checking for a pulse. Next came a quick search of the attacker’s pockets for some sort of identification. Davis peeked up at Lara, standing a few feet away with her hands over her mouth.
“Is he dead?” she whispered through her fingers.
The thump of a pulse grew faint then slipped away as Davis checked. “Yeah.”
Her gaze searched the room, over the newspapers stacked on the edge of the couch and the four coffee mugs lined up across the coffee table. “Call an ambulance.”
“Too late.” With an arm wrapped around his ribs, Davis stumbled to his feet.
Out of the line of sight of the window, he crept around the family room and pulled her out of range at the same time. With his back to the door’s edge, he scanned the outside for another gunman. Last thing Davis needed was another attacker blindsiding them.
When he turned back around he saw Lara watching his every move. Time to get her attention off what may be a second burst of gunfire. “Is this the guy who attacked you?”
“I don’t know.” She didn’t even look at the downed attacker.
Davis reached out to her but it was as if she didn’t even see the gesture. Her body closed in on itself as she put her hands on her shoulders, swinging her body from side to side and nibbling on her bottom lip. All while she carefully avoided looking at him or the guy on the floor.
The ache inside Davis was no longer about the death match. It was for her. For the sadness he saw pulling at her face and the tiny tremors that moved through her from the second she’d walked in the door and into his arms.
He was all too familiar with death on the job. She interviewed and wrote reports. She was normal. This was a nightmare, complete with splashes of blood and a body. “I know this is hard.”
Her gaze went to the attacker then bounced back up again. “No.”
“What?”
“It’s not him. This is a different guy.”
Now, that was a load of bad news. Davis exhaled as he tried to juggle all the questions in his mind. Rapid firing them at her would only shut her down. They had enough history for him to know she didn’t react well to the interrogation thing, even if it was well-meaning. “Have you ever seen him before?”
“Definitely not.”
Because she still avoided looking at the man in question, Davis tried again. “Are you sure?”
Her hands dropped to her sides as her cheeks flushed. “How can you stay so calm?”
The look was not a mystery. Just like always, anger slowly replaced the other emotions clashing inside her. Lashing out was her natural reaction.
If they had ten extra minutes to do this dance, he’d probably welcome anything that took her away from being scared, but right now he needed her to focus so he could get her out of there.
“Practice.” He glanced through the house and out the back door right before he did another visual sweep of the front. Next he turned to the clock above his fireplace and calculated the lead time they’d need if this guy had a partner.
“That’s your response?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
Good. He could handle that reaction. “I was being honest.”
She snorted as she stepped around the downed attacker and came closer to Davis. “Right.”
Yeah, she’d definitely shifted to the anger phase. He’d seen it coming. He welcomed it but he also knew he’d have to sit down soon.
He had taken a huge body blow and all that scrambling had knocked something loose inside him. His breathing hovered at the wheezing point. Fearing the damaged rib had slipped from aching to broken, he walked, partly doubled over, to the edge of the couch.
The color left her cheeks as quickly as it had come. “Davis?”
“I need a second.” He had to think. Somehow his work life had once again intruded on her safety. She didn’t even know about the guy who’d threatened her a few months ago and ended up in the morgue. That guy learned the hard way not to come after the woman of a former Defense Intelligence Agency agent turned private-security expert.
Before Davis could blink, she was at his side. Her hand went to his hair and her eyes filled with concern. “Oh, my…your stomach is black-and-blue. We need to get you to a hospital.”
He hissed a sharp breath through his teeth when she tried to wedge her shoulder under his armpit and get him to his feet. “Whoa, honey.”
“I’ll call 9-1-1.”
He caught her around the waist before she could race through the room looking for a phone. Even through the thin shirt, he could feel the heat of her skin and his fingers tightened.
His temperature spiked as his gaze lingered over her breasts. He justified the need rumbling through him by thinking about the adrenaline aftermath. Never mind that he’d never