Page 34 of Her Tempting Protector

“Nope, get down and hand it to me, and I’ll trade you the twenty dollars for it. That, and safe passage.”

“I’m a man of my word,” the leader sounded offended.

“This is a bad situation. It is my task to worry about my woman. I must be careful,” Cullen shrugged.

That seemed to get through and the leader told the man with the water to get down and make the trade. All Carys could think about was how heavy the gun was, and how she needed them to hurry up.

“Thank you,” Cullen said formally when they concluded their deal.

The leader bowed his head and Cullen did the same. He walked slowly back to the truck. When he got into the driver’s seat, he didn’t even move the money. He just sat on it, dumped the jug of water at her feet, took the offered keys from Carys, started the truck, and pulled away from them. She saw them staying where they were in the sideview mirror.

“Thank God, my arm was getting ready to drop this thing.” Carys started to pull the gun back into the car.

“Stop! You need to keep it trained on them until they’re out of sight.”

The muscles in her arm were burning, she didn’t know if it was physically possible. “Cullen,” she started.

“You can do it, I know you can.”

“I’m glad you do,” she muttered. Her triceps dug deep into the side of the car, her forearm felt like it was going to fall off and the gun trembled in her hand.

“Cullen, I’m going to drop the gun.”

“No, you’re not. You’re Carys Adams, you get the job done no matter what.”

“I know who I am,” she bit out. “That’s why I’m telling you I’m at my limit. Drive faster.” She started counting seconds in her head.

“Just one more minute, Carys,” he urged. “Almost there, Darlin’. You’ve got this.”

She fought back tears and held on tighter to the pistol. She heard Adam’s snuffle over the car’s engine, as if he was encouraging her too.

The gun started to slip.

“Done!” Cullen shouted.

She gripped tighter, stopping the fall of the gun, and moved her aching arm back into the car. She deployed the safety and carefully placed the gun next to the jug of water at her feet. The sob of relief took her by surprise. Cullen wrapped his hand underneath her braid and squeezed her neck. It felt wonderful.

“You did good.”

She cuddled Adam close to her breast, needing all the intimacy she could get.

“Were they going to shoot us?” she finally asked.

“I’m not sure,” Cullen said. “I’m still not sure that they won’t follow us even though they were initially going in the other direction. The only thing that gives me hope is that it looked like they were in a hurry to go the other way.”

“Where do you think they were going?”

“My guess is Alshbarga. Kane said that there is a build-up going on down there.”

She nodded, too tired to do much else, but still, she looked over the seat to check on Shada. Her ebony skin had taken on a pallor that did not look good. “Cullen, when can we stop?”

“I need to put a few more kilometers between them and us before I feel good about stopping.”

“We could just end up running into someone else. We need to stop. I need to check her vitals and make sure the saline is still getting to her. She doesn’t look good. Can’t you pull off into the trees?”

Cullen looked over at her, she could see the determination on his face.

“As soon as I see a good spot, I’ll pull off,” he promised her.