Page 112 of Promised to the Cowboy

For one second, I don’t understand.

Then sunlight flashes across the canopy. Jacob’s helicopter.

My father brings it down between Voss’s aircraft and the open end of the runway.

Rotor wash explodes across the field. Grass flattens. Dirt lifts in sheets. Men throw up their arms and turn away.

The plane can’t move forward. Can’t take off. Can’t go anywhere without driving straight into the aircraft hovering in its path.

The man who spent thirty years flying away has come back to block the enemy.

Through the canopy, I see my father. He’s looking directly at me. For one impossible second, neither of us looks away.

Then Evie screams my name.

I turn.

Falcon is behind her. Fucker must have come around the far side of the truck while everybody was distracted by the helicopter. He has one arm around her shoulders, and he’s holding a black device in his other hand with two metal prongs.

A taser.

But he’s not aiming at Evie.

He’s aiming at me.

“Falcon,” I say.

His face is wrecked. “I couldn’t put her on the plane.” A pause. “But I can’t let you stop him either. I’m sorry.”

Then he fires.

The prongs hit me high in the chest. For one bright second, every muscle in my body locks. Pain hits fast, white and total, ripping through my ribs and down both arms, turning my hands into fists I can’t open.

My knees hit the ground.

Somewhere, Evie is screaming.

The current stops. My body doesn’t. My heart stutters hard enough that I feel it strike the inside of my chest. Once. Twice. Then too fast. Every beat lands on top of the one before it.

I try to breathe. Nothing comes. The field tilts sideways.

Evie drives an elbow into Falcon’s face and tears free.

Good girl.

She runs toward me.

Ethan reaches Falcon first. He hits him low, both of them crashing against the side of the truck. The taser skids away through the grass. Wire comes from the other direction with a sound that does not belong to any man I know, grabs Falcon by the front of his vest, and slams him against the ground.

I see it in broken pieces.

Daniel shouting.

Our men closing around Voss’s contractors.

Caleb limping hard across the field with his rifle raised.

The helicopter settling through its own wash.