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“You’re going into the street!”
Yeah, he was. “Someone has to see if he’s dead or alive.” But Beau already had a feeling in his gut about that answer. He’d caught sight of the unnatural angle of the man’s neck. Seen the blood pooling around his head.
Beau rushed toward the prone figure in the road. His teeth clenched even as he wrenched out his phone and used the light to better check the man. Broken doll. Yeah, that was how he looked. So many broken bones. And a whole lot of blood. Beau knelt next to the kid. Put his hand on the guy’s throat and wasn’t a bit surprised not to find a pulse.
The siren—now sirens—grew louder. He heard voices and knew some of her neighbors were coming out. People always liked to gape at a tragedy.
Beau began to pat down the dead man.
“What are you doing?” Avalon’s low whisper.
He cut his gaze back to her. She was on the very edge of her property. On the grass. Not the road. Points for her. Beau didn’t answer. He did pull out the man’s wallet and snap a pic of the ID. Right before the first patrol car roared to the scene, he shoved the wallet back into place and rose to his feet.
“He’s dead?” Avalon asked.
“Better him than you.”
She flinched. Right. That had been brutal and cold. But that was who Beau was. Brutal and cold to his very core. But inside the cold wall of ice that surrounded him, a fire raged. One hotter than the flames burning in her home.
Someone sent that bastard after Avalon. Then that same someone had been waiting outside. The second SOB had set the fire. Had killed the kid before he could talk to Beau.
Beau stalked to Avalon. The lights from the police cruisers lit up the scene. A fire truck came racing down the road. He didn’t even know who’d called the firefighters. Maybe a neighbor? But their response time was fucking fantastic.
“Anyone else inside?” A bark that came from either a cop or a firefighter. He didn’t look away from Avalon in order to see who had fired out the question. In that instance, with her face lit with the swirling lights, with her eyes so stark and afraid, he couldn’t look away from her.
“No one!” Avalon’s answer. “No one else is inside!” One hand clutched the laptop against her chest, but her other hand flew out and pressed to Beau’s chest. Voice lower, she told him, “You saved my life.”
“There’s a dead man in the road!” Beau called out. But he was sure the cops had already noticed the body. If he could have looked away from Avalon, maybe he would have even seen them checking the vic.
Attacker turned vic.
“How were you even here?” Avalon shook her head. “How did you know what was happening?”
Yeah. Two very interesting, pertinent questions. Questions that the cops would probably ask, too. No one would buy that he’d just been out for a random stroll in her neighborhood. And him saying that he’d followed her home from the bar probably wouldn’t go over so well.
His history with the cops wasn’t so grand.
Beau leaned toward her. His lips brushed over her ear. “You told me to meet you here.” His mouth skimmed the shell of her ear.
She shivered.
Over her shoulder, he saw the firefighters racing inside her home. He hoped like hell that they could put out the flames and save the place. For her.
“I-I didn’t tell you…”
“You told me,” he repeated, and maybe he did deliberately skim her ear with his mouth that time. It took all of his self-control not to grab her, toss her over his shoulder again, and get them the hell away from that scene.
She’s not safe. Avalon is being hunted. And every single protective instinct he possessed—and his protective instincts were always in overdrive when it came to her—screamed a stark warning at him.
Danger chased her again.
“You told me to come here,” Beau rasped. “And that’s what you tell the cops. I was walking up the sidewalk when I saw the shadows upstairs. I realized someone was in the house with you.”
Her hand fisted on his shirtfront. “You followed me.”
Was that a thread of fear in her voice?
She was right to be afraid of him. Most people were. He eased back and stared into her eyes. “I would never hurt you.”
