Birthright

cops.”
    He eased open the back door, scanned the dark. “Lock it,” he repeated, then slipped out.
    She thought about it for about five seconds, then streaked through the house, bolted into the bathroom to grab her own version of a weapon. A can of insect repellent.
    She was out the front door barely a minute after Jake was out the back.
    She kept low, peering into the dark, measuring the shadows as she strained to hear any whisper of movement over the cicadas. It wasn’t until she was off the lawn and into the trees that she cursed herself for not stopping to get shoes as Jake had done.
    But despite the rocky terrain, she wasn’t going back for them.
    It slowed her progress, but she had a good bead on where she’d seen that figure standing in the trees. From the direction Jake had taken, they’d come up on whoever was watching the house on either side. Flank him, she thought, biting back a hiss as another rock jabbed the bare arch of her foot.
    One of those jerks—Austin or Jimmy again—she figured, pausing to listen, listen hard. Or someone like them. The type that spray-painted insults on a car. Probably waiting until the house was dark and quiet so they could sneak up and screw with another of the cars, or pitch a rock through a window.
    She heard an owl hoot, a pair of mournful notes. In the distance a dog was barking in incessant yips. The creek gurgled to her right, and the tireless cicadas sang as though life depended on it.
    And something else, something larger, crept in the shadows.
    She eased back from a sliver of moonlight, thumbed off the cap on the can.
    She started to shift when she heard a sudden storm of movement to the left, back toward the house. Even as she braced to spring forward and give chase, a gunshot exploded.
    Everything stilled in its echo—the barking, the humming of insects, the mournful owl. In those seconds of stillness, her own heart stopped.
    It came back in a panicked leap, filling her throat, exploding out of her as she shouted for Jake. She ran, sprinting over rocks and roots. Her fear and focus were so complete she didn’t hear the movement behind her until it was too late.
    As she started to whirl around, to defend, to attack, the force of a blow sent her flying headlong into the trunk of a tree.
    She felt the shocking flash of pain, tasted blood, then tumbled into the dark.
    M ore terrified by hearing Callie scream his name than by the gunshot, Jake reversed directions. He raced toward the sound of Callie’s voice, ducking low-hanging branches, slapping at the spiny briars that clogged the woods.
    When he saw her, crumpled in a sprinkle of moonlight, his legs all but dissolved.
    He dropped to his knees, and his hands were shaking as he reached down to check the pulse in her throat.
    “Callie. Oh God.” He hauled her into his lap, brushing at her hair. There was blood on her face, seeping from a nasty scratch over her forehead. But her pulse was strong, and his searching hands found no other injury.
    “Okay, baby. You’re okay.” He rocked her, holding tight until he could battle back that instant and primal terror. “Come on, wake up now. Damnit. I ought to knock you out myself.”
    He pressed his lips to hers and, steadier, picked her up. As he carried her through the woods toward the house, his foot kicked the can of insect repellent.
    All he could do was grit his teeth and keep going.
    She began to stir as he reached the steps. He glanced down, saw her eyelids beginning to flutter.
    “You may want to stay out cold, Dunbrook, until I calm down.”
    She heard his voice, but the words were nothing but mush in her brain. She moved her head, then let out a moan as pain radiated from her crown to her toes.
    “Hurts,” she mumbled.
    “Yeah, I bet it does.” He had to shift her, to open the door. Since his temper was starting to claw through the concern, he didn’t feel any sympathy when she moaned again at the jarring.
    “What happened?”
    “My deduction is you ran into a tree with your head. No doubt the tree got the worst of it.”
    “Oh, ouch.” She lifted a hand, touched the focal point of pain gingerly, then saw the mists closing in again when her fingers came back red and wet.
    “Don’t you pass out again. Don’t you do it.” He carried her back to the kitchen, set her down on the counter. “Sit where I put you, breathe slow. I’m going to get something to deal with that granite skull of yours.”
    She let her head rest back against a