Page 130 of Cowboy Heat

I realize my breathing has taken a turn for the worse. Adrenaline rushes through me, making the scrapes and bruises and pain dull for a bit. Probably because my brain knows a thing or two about what has to happen next, and it’s getting me prepared. Or at least, trying to.

Does Beau feel the same? Is his heartbeat galloping and his palms sweating? Surely, he can’t be calm.

Then again, Beau Montgomery has a way with handling trouble.

Right now, he shakes his head.

He’s giving Alice a look that I’m sure glad not to be receiving.

“You and I know you won’t let us leave here, Alice,” he says. “Don’t insult us by lying about it.”

A lot things happen.

Beau nods.

Someone yells “now” off behind me.

There’s a gunshot, somewhere else.

Beau moves quick, but not to me. To my left.

A little hand takes mine and tugs down with all the force of a twelve-year old boy.

I hit Micah, and we both go to the ground.

A second later, someone else is with us, over us.

Alice yells something.

Another shot goes off.

Alice screams. Someone else is yelling in the distance, and all I can do is wrap my arms around Micah like I can shield him from the chaos and the knife Alice had meant for me.

It’s only after that chaos quiets that I realize the person being my shield is none other than Beau.

“Are you okay?” He’s made a cage around me and Micah on the ground. He looks down with a blanket of concern.

“I-I think so.”

“Micah?” he asks.

Micah’s on his side beneath my weight, but he nods.

“I am too.”

His voice wavers, but it’s good to hear him say it.

Beau must feel the same way.

He smiles.

“Good,” he says. “That’s good.”

Against the backdrop of the dark clouds above Blue Lolita, I see Beau’s eyes close in relief.

I won’t know it for a bit, but Alice Dean is dead, shot by one of the two people who showed up just in the nick of time to help us.

But Alice’s knife? Well, she meant that for me even if it was the last thing she did.