Page 115 of But For You

“Okay,” he sighed and motioned with his fingers. “We’ll come running in a heartbeat, Mr. Harcourt.”

“Call me Jory.”

An hour later, we drove in silence toward the warehouse district.

“Would you please talk to me?” Sam demanded.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I’m wearing a wire, Marshal; I don’t think right now is the appropriate time to be asking me questions.”

He growled at me.

I crossed my arms.

“Why are you mad at me?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said snidely. “What could it be?”

I read it on his face when he got it, the heavy sigh before he turned to me.

“It was nothing.”

“Your boss seemed to think that a man trying to kill you was, in fact, not nothing.”

“Yeah, but⁠—”

“This is just like you and Rico having to shoot your way out of something. This is like you going to work every day and taking your life in your hands and then coming home like nothing happened and asking me what we’re having for dinner.”

“Jor—”

“You killed a man tonight, Sam, because of me, and⁠—”

“Listen,” he said, grabbing hold of my chin and yanking it sideways so he could see my face. “I shot that man because he had turned and fired on me. I was terrified of hitting you, but I was not letting him put you in that car. But for anyone else in that same situation, I would have fired as well—do you understand? You being there did not change the use of deadly force. Do you get it?”

I tugged free and leaned back. “Yes, Marshal, I got it. Anyone there, and you would have acted the exact same way. I hear you loud and clear.”

We rode in silence.

“You’re not listening at all,” he muttered under his breath.

“I would be listening, but you never say anything. You need to tell me what’s—” I reminded myself I was wearing a wire. “Never mind.”

The car finally stopped close to the docks, and I saw a light halfway down a small pier on the left. The driver, Mr. Morelos, got out first, and I was about to follow when Sam grabbed my wrist tight and dragged me off my seat and into his lap.

“What are you doing?” I whispered, facing him.

He fisted one hand in my hair, wrapped the other around my throat, and tipped my head back. That quickly, that easily, I was at his mercy.

“I will kill anyone who ever tries to hurt you—is that clear?”

My eyes met his, and I saw the heat there, the possessiveness, and understood. I listened.

“You’re thinking I feel guilty about that man you killed, but I don’t.”

He let me go, and I put my hands on his chest, straddling his thighs.

“If the man had thrown down his gun and put up his hands, you wouldn’t have killed him. You think you might have because the guy’s intention was to take me with him, but, Sam, you would never hurt an unarmed man.”

His hands went to my hair, pushing it back from my face.