Page 2 of Crossfire Creek Vengeance

Nope. The asshole could be watching.

Waiting.

He reached for his radio clipped to his belt. Dead. Banged up in the crash, and yeah, he’d been right about the now broken radio cutting in his side. So he went for his phone in his pocket instead.

A twig snapped behind him.

Deacon spun, instincts firing, muscles coiling despite the pain, and instead of taking out his phone, he used both hands to grip his gun. He braced for a second attack, but the figure stepping toward him wasn’t the sniper.

It was someone he’d know anywhere.

Tall. Lean. Moving with the lethal grace of someone trained to slip in and out of danger like smoke.

Jessa Creed.

Hell. He hadn’t seen her in six months, not since her mother’s funeral, and he doubted she was here by accident.

For just a heartbeat, she froze when their eyes met. She looked very much like the kick-ass private security operative that she now was at Creed Response. The watery moonlight framed her, dark hair pulled back, tactical pack slung across her shoulder, her expression a razor’s edge between shock and something he didn’t dare name.

All right, he named it.

That old heat. The lust. The chemistry. Yeah, it had a lot of different labels, but it boiled down to one gut-punching fact. His body wanted Jessa. Always had. Always would.

Even now.

That was a good thing, he decided. He must not be hurt too bad if he could still remember this fire he had with Jessa.

“Deacon.” Her voice cut through the darkness, low and breathless. “You’re hurt.”

He was, but he had a more pressing concern. “What the hell are you doing here?” he rasped.

“Apparently, saving you,” she muttered. Not exactly a cocky tone. More like on a heavy sigh coated with a massive amount of concern.

With her attention firing all around them, looking for threats, she came closer, and her hands began to scan his injuries.

“What are you doing here?” he repeated, and by God, he needed that answer right now.

Because he didn’t want to have even a sliver of thought that she’d had anything to do with the shots that’d sent him hurling off the road.

But the sliver was already there.

Of course, it was. They had been lovers. Hell, they’d been in love. But now what was left were some really shitty memories and a whole bunch of bad blood.

Oh, and that lust.

Couldn’t forget about that.

“I got a tip from an informant,” she said, tearing open a field dressing that she grabbed from her pack. She made another sweeping glance around them. “You’re bleeding.”

Deacon had his own look around as he clamped his hand over hers to stop her from tending to him. “What informant?”

Their gazes slammed together. And held. And kept on holding for some snail-crawling moments.

Jessa was the first to look away.

“An informant in San Antonio, a hacker who lives on the dark web. He contacted me about a half hour ago and told me someone had targeted you for a kill,” she finally said. She moved his hand off hers and got to work on wrapping a bandage around the gash on his arm. “Right here, tonight, at this very spot. And that if I was to save you, I’d better get here fast.”

His pulse thudded, and he tried to wrap his head around that. “Meaning what? Was I the target or were you?” Because it occurred to him that the informant could have lured her here.