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The force of the blast sent Declan flying backward against the pavement. The breath was knocked from his lungs and for a moment he couldn’t draw in any air. Smoke filled the area around them, and pain reverberated through his body. After a few seconds his military survival instincts, along with a healthy dose of adrenaline, kicked in and he rolled over and belly crawled toward Tess, who was sprawled on the ground just a few feet away.
“Tess! Are you all right?”
She let out a low moan and lifted a hand to her head. “Hurts,” she whispered.
“Stay down,” he ordered, covering her body with his as much as possible. He had no way of knowing if the explosion was only a precursor to more violence or not, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
Not when Tess’s life was at stake.
“What happened?” she asked, her voice muffled against his chest.
“Another bomb,” he said grimly, watching the SWAT members that were still on the scene disperse and cover the area, rifles held ready. He craned his neck in order to see behind him. A small fire still burned near the maple tree where Tess had seen the guy in the green ball cap.
Had that dude been the perp who’d set the bomb? Most likely, although Declan couldn’t afford to ignore the possibility of the guy being nothing more than a curious onlooker, either. He’d try to keep an open mind even though the stranger was currently the best lead they had.
“I can’t breathe,” Tess gasped, pushing against his chest.
“Sorry.” He shifted a bit so that he wasn’t quite crushing her, but he wasn’t willing to move away completely until he knew the area was clear.
“Deck, are you and Tess all right?” Caleb asked, coming over to kneel beside them.
“I think we’re okay. Are you sure the area is secure?” He was only slightly reassured that he hadn’t heard the sound of gunfire.
“So far there’s no sign of anyone or any other devices,” Caleb told him. “We need to get you both out of here, though. How badly are you hurt? We have an ambulance on the way.”
Declan pushed himself upright but hovered protectively over Tess. “I’m fine,” he assured Caleb. “Tess, where do you hurt?”
“Everywhere,” she admitted with a grimace. She struggled to sit upright, and Declan eased his arm around her shoulders to offer support. The way she leaned heavily against him made him realize she might be hurt worse than he suspected.
“Take it easy,” he murmured. “Did you hit your head?”
Tess put her hand to the back of her head. “Yes, I might have blacked out for a moment or two. I can feel a lump, but there doesn’t seem to be any bleeding.”
Declan battled back a wave of fury. That had been way too close. Tess could have been seriously injured by the blast. And this latest turn of events only convinced him more that she was the specific target.
“Come on, let’s get her to safety,” Caleb urged.
Declan was totally on board with that plan. He helped get Tess up and on her feet and with Caleb’s assistance, walked her over to the back of the van where Nate had opened the doors for them.
“Sit down, Tess,” he instructed. “Do you have a first aid kit handy?” he asked Nate. “She could use an ice pack.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m sure you have a few bumps and bruises, too.”
He did, but that was a by-product of his job. Tess was a fourth grade schoolteacher, and he was fairly certain she wasn’t accustomed to being thrown off her feet by a bomb.
Nate handed him the ice pack and he quickly twisted the bag to activate the coolant inside and gently pressed it against the back of Tess’s head. Despite her earlier protest, she put her hand back there to help hold the ice pack in place.
“Just relax, I’ll hold it for you,” he told her.
“Did you notice that both your SUV and Tess’s car were damaged by the explosion?” Caleb asked in a low tone. “The maple tree was knocked over, too.”
“Yeah, I did. And I don’t believe in coincidences. I need to get Tess someplace safe.”
“I’m not going anywhere without my brother,” she said, joining the conversation.
“I know, we’ll take him with us,” Declan promised.
The wailing sound of a siren indicated the local authorities and the ambulance were getting closer. He appreciated the additional backup, but at the same time, he wanted nothing more than for Tess to get the medical care she needed and then to get her out of there.
Before the bomber made yet another attempt on Tess’s life.
* * *
Ignoring the pounding inside her head wasn’t easy, but Tess knew that was the only way she could avoid going to the hospital. She stared down at her trembling fingers, and did her best to remain calm even though she was still reeling from being so close to the explosion.
Dear Lord, thank You for keeping me and Declan safe from harm. And please watch over Bobby, too. Amen.
“Tess? Is something wrong?”
Declan’s concern was touching, but she knew that she couldn’t keep leaning on him for support like this. They were just temporary allies. As soon as he had her safely tucked away, she knew that he’d go back to his SWAT team, leaving her and Bobby alone.
“I’m fine, but I’m anxious to see my brother.”
“First we need the EMTs to check you out...you said yourself that you blacked out for a minute.”
“I said I may have blacked out for a minute, or it could be that my brain simply shut down for a moment, from the shock of the explosion.” She didn’t appreciate his using her own words against her. “It’s not like I find myself in harm’s way like this very often.”
“I know, but you could have a concussion. Give me a little more time here, okay?”
As if she had a choice. The only reason she wasn’t pushing the issue right now was that Bobby was in school, surrounded by teachers and dozens of kids. He’d be fine there until she could get there to pick him up. At least she was fairly certain he’d be fine.
She winced at the shrillness of the siren as the ambulance pulled up. Within moments two EMTs had taken up residence on either side of her.
“Anyone else injured?” one of them asked.
“No, just Tess. She has a lump on the back of her head,” Declan said, removing the ice pack so they could examine her.
“We were both knocked off our feet,” Tess felt compelled to point out. “You should check him for injuries, too.”
“I’m not hurt,” Declan said firmly.
Stubborn man, she thought, as the EMTs poked and prodded at her. They took a set of vital signs and asked her dozens of questions to make sure her brain hadn’t been knocked off-kilter. She scowled, knowing there was a very good chance that Declan had a bump on the back of his head, too.
“We should take her to Trinity Medical Center to have a CT scan of her brain, just to make sure there’s no internal bleeding,” the EMT on her right said.
“Okay,” Declan agreed.
“No, I don’t want to go to the hospital.” She glared at Declan, trying to get him to drop the idea. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“There’s no need to be nervous,” Declan told her. “CT scans don’t hurt and we’ll still have time afterward to pick up your brother.”
There was that commanding tone again, and just hearing it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Why did so many men like to give orders? Why did everything have to be done their way? “Have you ever been to the E.R. at Trinity?” she asked in exasperation. “Getting cleared could take hours and be a complete waste of time. I’m not going, end of discussion.”
Declan wasn’t happy with her decision, and neither were the two EMTs.
“You’ll have to sign a release form,” the guy on her left informed her. He placed a metal clipboard in her lap and handed her a pen. “Sign here,” he instructed. “This means you can’t come after us if you suffer a massive head bleed later.”
She sensed he was trying to scare her with that comment, so she ignored it, signed her name and handed the clipboard back to him.
“Do you have another ice pack in there? This one is already getting warm,” Declan said. “I’d like to try to keep the swelling down.”
“Sure.” The EMT took a prefilled ice pack out of his kit and gave it to him. Once again, Declan applied it to the lump on the back of her head.
She was tempted to tell him to use the ice pack on himself, but held her tongue. No sense in antagonizing Declan now, not until they’d picked up Bobby from school.
And by then, she’d be glad to see the last of Declan Shaw for a while.
* * *
“Hey, Deck, you need to come over here and see this.”
Declan glanced over at Caleb and nodded. “Sure. Nate, will you keep an eye on Tess for a few minutes?”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Tess muttered.
“No problem,” the other man said.
Declan wished there was a way to force Tess to go to the hospital, but since she signed herself out of the EMTs’ care, he didn’t think there was much more he could do. Her stubbornness might have been cute if it wasn’t so annoying.
He headed over to where Caleb waited. Together they canvassed the scene of the explosion. The fire had been doused by the members of his team, but the burned-out area looked awful, especially with the maple tree being uprooted by the force of the blast.
“I think the center of the explosion was in this area here,” Caleb said, pointing to the blackened area. “The perp must have covered it with leaves and branches or we would have seen it.”
Declan nodded thoughtfully, agreeing with Caleb’s assessment. “We went right past this area to chase the guy with the green baseball cap.”
“I know. It’s possible he set the bomb and then took off running,” Caleb mused. “But he took a chance...what if we had caught him and brought him back this way? He risked blowing himself up at that point.”
“I know, but we still need to find that guy, which would be much easier to do if we had a face shot.”
“Nate is going to work on enhancing the image, so maybe we’ll at least be able to get a hair color as an identifier.”
Declan scowled. Knowing the guy’s hair color wouldn’t help them much. “All right. Anything else here that might give us a clue?”
Caleb shook his head. “Not yet. We’ll keep looking, but right now it’s appearing to be more of a crime of opportunity than a planned attack.”
“Putting the bomb under Tess’s desk seems to have been a definite plan, but I’m not so sure that the custard stand or the minimart bombings were thought out the same way. Who is this creep and why does he like setting off bombs?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll find him.” Caleb’s tone radiated confidence.
Declan wished he could say the same. Oh, he knew they’d find the guy eventually, but how many other casualties would there be before that happened?
“I’m going to drive Tess over to the high school to pick up her brother,” he told Caleb. “I’ll be in touch later.”
“Sounds good.”
Declan crossed over to his boss and arranged for a different vehicle to use for a couple of hours. Griff handed over a set of keys and he took them gratefully before heading back over to Tess, happy to see she was standing up under her own power.
“Are you finally ready to go?” she asked.
“Yeah, the boss gave us his wheels to use. Right over here,” he said, heading toward one of the other SUVs on the scene.
“How on earth do you tell them apart?” she asked when he opened the door for her.
“No big secret, we go by the license plate numbers.” He closed the passenger door and then went around and slid into the driver’s seat. “We’ll pick up your brother and get you both settled into a hotel, okay?”
“Okay.” Tess seemed resigned to spending the next hour or so in his company, and if he was interested in some sort of relationship, his ego might have been bruised by her lack of enthusiasm.
But he had no intention of getting personally involved, especially not with a woman like Tess Collins. She was the type who would want a family, and that wasn’t for him. His father had been an angry drunk, lashing out with his fists if Declan didn’t move fast enough. He knew exactly what genes were in his DNA, and he wasn’t about to tempt fate.
Besides, ten years ago, after he’d rescued her from that jerk of a prom date, all he could think of was kissing her, but instead she’d told him she’d pray for him. Really? Not that he didn’t appreciate her intent, but still, what did he know about church and prayer?
Not one thing.
And he really had no interest in finding out. Caleb might have joined the church thanks to his wife Noelle’s influence, but Declan wasn’t about to follow along.
Tess didn’t say much as he drove into the parking lot of Greenland High, but he noticed she scanned the cars as if looking for someone. “What kind of car does Bobby drive?” he asked as he parked in the visitor lot.
“A used blue GMC truck. It’s about ten years old.”
Declan filed that information away for future reference. They walked up to the front entrance and stepped inside the school. Tess headed for the office and he followed, thinking about all the time he’d spent in the principal’s office back when he was a student. Not some of his fonder memories, that’s for sure.
“Hi, Mrs. Beckstrom, I need to see Bobby Collins,” Tess said.
“There’s a bit of a family emergency,” he added, when Mrs. Beckstrom frowned, obviously put out at taking a student out of class in the middle of the day.
The secretary took one look at his uniform and nodded her agreement. “Of course. I’ll see if I can find him.”
But when the secretary returned a few minutes later, she wasn’t smiling. “I’m sorry but Bobby isn’t in the cafeteria. He must have left the campus for lunch. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until he returns.”
“All right, what time does his next class start?” Tess asked.
“Twelve-fifteen. He has the early lunch period.”
“Would you please call my cell number if he returns before we get back?” Declan asked. He took out one of his cards and handed it to her.
“All right,” the secretary agreed.
“Thank you,” Tess said before turning away.
