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“Both are about fifty feet from the waterline at high tide,” Dawson said. “There’s no way anyone would see them, even if they drove their boat by at a snail’s pace.”

“Probably not,” Audra said, pulling out her cell phone.

Dawson moved closer to her. “Stay right next to me, okay?”

“I hear you. Loud and clear.” She glanced toward the sky. Dark clouds covered the moon, giving way to the sun. She tiptoed through the door, and her heart pulsed like a firecracker going off in the center of her throat. “Are those… bundles of cocaine?”

“It sure is.” Dawson whipped off his headgear and snagged his radio. “Chumrunner, this isWatchdog. Do you read me?”

“This isChumrunner. Go ahead,” Fletcher’s voice crackled over the two-way.

Dawson pointed to the far corner of the hut where a crate hung open.

She inched closer and peered inside.

Guns.

“Jesus,” she whispered.

What the hell had they stumbled onto?

A sharp pain filled her skull and rattled her teeth. It vibrated from the back of her head, down her spine, and to her toes. Her legs wobbled, and she crashed to her knees onto the wood floor.

“What the…”

Was that Dawson’s voice?

Thud. Crackle. Smack.

Nausea circled her gut. It twisted and turned while the searing torture that throttled her brain made it impossible to see.

She opened her mouth, but no words formed. They fell off her tongue as if she were tumbling out of an airplane and free-falling without a parachute.

And then the world went black.

* * *

“What the…”Instinctively, Dawson raised his right hand, stopping the blow to his temple. He ignored the sharp pain rippling across his fingertips and down his wrist caused by metal smacking against his skin.

He reached with his left hand for the weapon tucked in his back holster, but his assailant beat him to it.

“Not so fast.” Benson Massey, of all idiots.

Dawson would never live this one down.

And it was made worse by James Huber smacking Audra on the backside of her skull seconds before. The crack had filled his ears as if he’d had a front-row seat to a horror show.

Dawson’s jaw hardened. James would pay for that one. Not that Dawson was a possessive man, and Audra certainly wasn’t anyone’s property, but he’d become…attached.

Damn redheads.

He scanned the hut. One way in, but Eliot had to be around here somewhere. Those two city slickers were attached at the hips.

Three to two odds. Not bad. Only he had no idea how badly hurt Audra was. For now, she wasn’t much help as her head bobbed downward, and she moaned.

A hot rage soared through his veins. He hadn’t felt that in a long while, and it reminded him he was still a man who knew how to care for another human. It also tugged at his heart in a way that he knew would crush it into tiny little pieces.

However, he had to push that into a little box in the corner of his mind and focus on what he could do, and that was assess the situation. Assumptions were dangerous, but there was always one that you had to make in these situations—there were always more bad guys.