Shadow Hawk

21

BEFORE ABBY COULD DRAW A breath into her compressed lungs, the heavy weight was lifted off of her, and she was yanked into a pair of strong, warm arms.

Trembling arms.

“Jesus, Abby.” Hawk pulled back only enough to look down into her face.

“Hey,” she told him. “Good shot.”

“It wasn’t me, it was Logan.” He gulped for air. “Tell me you did not just say you love me when I had a gun pointed at your head.”

She smiled as her eyes filled. She couldn’t help it. “I did.”

His eyes went misty, and he hauled her back into his arms.

She let him squeeze the air out of her because that was where she needed to be, in his arms, tight, face plastered into the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent, feeling as if she’d just come home for the first time in her life. They might have both been victims, but no longer. They had survived, because they were stronger together. “Is Gaines-”

“I don’t know.” He palmed her head in his hands and held her face to his throat. “Are you-”

“Fine,” she promised. “Callen-”

“Logan’s got her, she’s coming around.” They both turned.

Logan was holding onto Callen the same way Hawk was holding onto Abby, but Callen was shaking her head. “I’m fine, he got me from behind, knocked me out cold, but I’m good now.” She managed to pull the tape recorder out from beneath her shirt. “Like me and the Energizer Bunny, this kept going.”

From behind the SUV, Tibbs, Thomas and Wayne appeared, running.

“About time,” Hawk said.

Tibbs held out his hand for the recorder. “Can I see that?”

Callen handed it over, and Tibbs tucked it away, nodding to first Logan, and then to Hawk, who visibly tensed.

But Tibbs didn’t shoot him, didn’t handcuff him, didn’t do anything but let out a slow nod of approval. “Should have trusted me, Hawk. I’m not stupid enough to believe you’d leave incriminating evidence lying around your house. Luckily I was only half a step behind you.”

Thomas and Wayne crouched at Gaines’s side and turned him over. “Still breathing,” Thomas noted.

Wayne radioed for the ambulance. “He’s not going to thank us.”

Logan hadn’t taken his eyes off Callen. “He could have killed you. I’ll never forgive myself for-”

“But he didn’t kill me. And you’re still alive, too,” she pointed out. “So now that no one’s dying today, maybe we can make plans, and do things right.”

Logan looked shaken to the core, and as if he’d been hit by a bus. In a good way. “You mean we didn’t do things right before?”

Callen smiled. “Well, you not being hooked up to any machines will be a bonus.”

“True.” He snagged her close, pulled her into his lap and just sat there. “Except I’m too tired to move.”

“Don’t worry. I have enough energy to keep us both moving.”

Hawk tipped his head down to Abby, not looking nearly as ready to joke as Logan and Callen.

“You climbed a tree for me,” Abby marveled. “A really tall pine tree.”

“Thanks for noticing.” He ran a hand down her hair, cupping her jaw. He couldn’t stop looking at her.

“I’m really okay you know.”

“Good.” He sank all the way to the ground, holding her tight to him. “That’s good, because I’m not.”

“What? Did you get hurt?” Panicked, she ran her hands over his chest, his face, his arms, until he caught them in his.

“No, listen. I love you back, Abby. So much I don’t even know what to do with it all.”

She stared up into the face of the man she’d given herself over to so completely. “Really?”

“God, yes.”

She felt so much joy she could hardly breathe. “Well, I have some ideas on what to do with it.”

“I knew you would,” he said fiercely, and beneath the setting sun, he kissed her to show that maybe he had a few ideas of his own.