His Baby Bonus

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Gracie ran for all she was worth, her marshal close on her heels, firing back.

Pow! Pow! Pow!

Pa-ching! Pa-ching! Pa-ching! Pa-ching!

In the car, heart pounding, Gracie hunched down in her seat.

Seconds later, Beau hopped in beside her, slamming his door and starting the engine simultaneously.

“You okay?” he asked, revving the engine, throwing a rooster tail of gravel up behind them as he sped from the lot.

Afraid she couldn’t speak past the wall of terrified tears blocking her throat, she nodded.

Pa-ching! Pa-ching!

“Beau! They’re following! Hurry!”

“I’m doin’ the best I can, darlin’. Put on your seat belt. I’d do it for you, but…”

Yeah, she could see he was kind of busy.

He careened onto a side street.

Seconds later, made a sharp right.

“Dammit,” he mumbled. “They’re still back there.”

“At least they’re not shooting.”

Pa-ching!

“You were saying?”

“ON THE BRIGHT SIDE,” Gracie said with a weak chuckle thirty minutes later, her breathing just now slow enough that she could speak without hyperventilating. “At least we lost my ex-husband’s associates.”

Stopped on the shoulder of a dirt road winding through forest so thick they might as well have been in a tunnel, her marshal thumped his forehead against the steering wheel. “Unfortunately with my cell not having a signal, we’ve also lost ourselves.”

“Hey—you were the one driving. All I did was sit here screaming.”

He’d had his eyes closed, but opened one long enough to glare at her. “Thanks.”

Making the mistake of gazing out her window, Gracie found the woods looking tall, dark and spooky—like one of those Bigfoot documentaries on The Travel Channel. Primeval ferns lined the road, and the only sound aside from a faint whoosh high in the Douglas fir, western red hemlock and Sitka spruce was the occasional rapid-fire hammer of a woodpecker somewhere in the gloom.

Far off thunder rumbled.

Gracie shivered.

Goose bumps covered her forearms, which then made her have to pee. Bad.

Not a good thing considering there wasn’t a rest area, gas station or McDonald’s anywhere in sight.

“I really have to go to the bathroom,” she said.

This time, Marshal Beau didn’t even open one eye. He just sat there. Stone silent. Like the moss-covered boulders on the side of the road.

A sprinkle of fat raindrops hit the windshield, only worsening her need to pee.

“I’m not kidding,” she said. “I’ve reeaally got to go. I’m sure this is too much information, but the baby’s sitting on my bladder. I can only hold it for like twenty more seconds—tops.”

Still nothing.

“Are you even listening to me?” She gave his shoulder a nudge. After which, he grunted before reaching for his side, revealing a dark, sticky substance all over the back of his navy marshal’s jacket. It was on the seat, too. Smudging the black leather.

Hands to her mouth, she shook her head.

Had he been shot?

But when?

How could she not have noticed? He hadn’t been bawling with pain or anything. He’d just driven her to safety, all the while he’d been sitting there bleeding to…No.

No bleeding to death in such an already creepy location. Especially when it was her fault he’d been shot. The whole time she’d been running from him, convinced he was only lying to get her back to Portland to testify, he’d been telling the truth—that she, and her baby—were in danger.

The thought all at once made her hot, queasy and a little light-headed. But then she looked at the brave man beside her who’d saved her life, and asked, “What’s wrong with you? How can you just calmly be sitting there when you’ve been shot? Help me get your jacket off so I can see how badly you’re hurt.”

“I’m fine,” he said, wincing while she slipped off his windbreaker. It had been chilly that morning outside the motel, but she’d suspected he’d put it on more to hide his shoulder-holstered gun than because he’d been cold. Beneath the jacket was a shamrock-green T-shirt touting the Santa Clara Lucky Clovers, the right side of which was covered in a dark stain.

Getting a woozy Beau out of the driver’s seat and around the front of the car was no easy feat.

Sucking her lower lip, she gingerly raised his shirt over his head to find a bloody mess. But thankfully it looked like the bullet had only grazed him. Nevertheless, his poor, bruised skin resembled a tenderized flank steak.

“How bad is it?” he asked in a scratchy voice.

“If we can manage to prevent it from getting infected long enough to get you to a doctor, odds are you’ll survive. Got any bottled water?”

He nodded. “In the back.”

“Okay. Looks like the bleeding’s long since stopped, so let’s get you washed up and laying down on the passenger side. Guzzle that water, and we’ll find the nearest town and a doctor.”

“W-what about you?”

“What about me? I’m not shot.”

“You going to run again?”

“Give me some credit, Beau. You could’ve been killed protecting me. Yes, more than anything in the world, I want to attend the Culinary Olympics, but not at the cost of someone’s life.” Especially not his. What he’d done for her might all be in a day’s work for him, but…

She was suddenly so overcome with emotion, she couldn’t even think, just gaze at him like some dopey starstruck teen. It felt as if only just now had she really, truly seen him. His darkly handsome, whisker-stubbled profile and eyes as deeply brown as the forest around them.