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his shotgun and snapped off two return shots that blasted off the rocks and got the guy’s head down even as his mind revved with the sickening realization that the damned Shadow Militia hadn’t ghosted after all…and he had led his protectee straight into an ambush.
    Worse, if the guy moved and Jack didn’t notice, the only thing between her and a bullet was his body. He had her crowded up against the rock. Their legs were tangled, his chest was pressed to her back and he could feel the pound of her heart and the heave of her ribs as she gasped for air.
    “Don’t panic,” he said, bracketing the words with twomore shots and a reload. “I’ve got you.” His hand was itching to reach for his phone, but he didn’t make the grab because they were out of cell range and far away from backup. Which meant he needed her to stay calm and help him out. “Keep breathing. In and out. You got it?”
    She whipped her head around and stared wildly up at him, her eyes huge and dark in her face. But he could see her struggling against the fear, see the growing determination as she nodded. “I got—”
    Crack—crack—crack! The trio of shots hammered into the stone, breaking off a piece and sending something burning across Jack’s upper arm. “Son of a—” he hissed.
    Tori’s face went stricken and she choked off a scream as she grabbed him and tried to drag him away from the point of impact. “You’re hurt!”
    “Barely.” It was little more than a scratch really, and there would be far worse in store if he didn’t do something drastic, because they were pinned down in a weaker position. Catching Tori’s hands, he eased her back against the rock. “Stay,” he growled, “and I mean it. Don’t move. Just keep your head down.”
    “Where—” She clamped her lips together, pale but resolute as she followed his gaze to the track he would need to take to reach the gunman, and winced. He could get to the rocks the guy was hiding behind—he would have to get there—but it meant crossing nearly a hundred yards of open space. “You’ll be a sitting duck.”
    “You’re right.” And the fact that she recognized it argued for some basic proficiency with a gun. He hoped. “Take this.” He yanked his pistol, thumbed off the safety and handed it over. “When I say the word, put four bullets into those rocks up there. Space them out a little and don’tworry about aiming, it’s just cover fire. Just don’t point it at me, okay?”
    She took the weapon, surprised the hell out of him by checking it with practiced ease, though her hands shook, and looked back up at him. “Only four?”
    “Save the others in case I’m not the one who comes back for you.” He didn’t have time to sugarcoat it, punctuated by the crack-crack of two more shots.
    The last of the color drained from her face, but she nodded and tightened her grip on the pistol. “Make sure you are, okay?”
    He slid his hand up her arm to the back of her neck and squeezed in a gesture that suddenly felt more intimate than he’d intended it to. “Will do.”
    Then, before he could think about all the ways this could go very wrong very fast, he popped his head around the stone, pounded two more shots into the rocks where the bastard was hiding, and then took off, staying low, moving fast, and keeping as much cover between him and the shooter as he could.
    A bullet slammed into a nearby tree trunk with a fleshy, splintering noise. He ducked, dodged, snapped off a shot, saw that he was about to hit open ground and shouted, “Tori, now!”
    The first shot rang out almost immediately from behind him and kicked up the gravel below the gunman’s position. He didn’t look to see where the second and third hit, just took off running in a jackrabbit zigzag across the open ground. His feet skidded on the loose, sandy gravel, his body burned with the anticipation of the next shot, and the rocky cover up ahead looked farther away with every step he took. But