the curve, some on the road, some cutting over the field toward her, toward the house. Marty, in her uniform, trotted along with the rest.
“Watch out, they have guns!” Ames shouted to Jake and the others, but then noticed several of the people rounding the curve in the road had guns or rifles too.
Nick leaped off the porch and sprinted toward her.
Les lay on his back, clutching his leg and screaming. Duffy got to his feet unsteadily. He still held the gun.
Gopher aimed a shotgun. “Drop it, scumbag.” Before Duffy could move, Gopher’s gun boomed.
“Sonofabitch!” Duffy screamed. The pistol flew out of his hand as he stumbled backward and fell.
Ames’s head spun and her stomach lurched. Nobody is supposed to die. But Duffy was still cursing loud enough to be heard over Les’s whimpering.
“It’s only eight-shot,” Gopher called. “I been dove hunting.”
Before Ames could react to any of this, decide whether she should run or stay put or get the hell out of Gopher’s way before he filled her with buckshot, Nick plowed into her. His arms went around her, and he literally swept her off her feet and into a crushing hug.
“You okay?”
“Yes. No. You’re killing me,” she wheezed. “Let go.”
He put her back on her feet and loosened his hold but still held her tight, and she liked that—a lot—despite the ache in her shoulder from being used in a tug-of-war between the two fighting idiots.
“What happened in the house?” she asked.
“Bert got what he came for. He and Phil were fighting over who’d take possession of it when the yelling and shooting started. Bert’s a smart guy. He didn’t stick around to have a shootout with local law enforcement. He took off out back.”
“Good. Maybe Bobby Brown will catch him then.”
Nick looked confused. “The rapper?”
“No, the deputy. I saw him running along with Jake toward the back of the house.”
Before Ames could add any more, another pair of arms seized her. Marty, smelling of fry grease and cinnamon buns, hugged her from behind. “Are you all right? Oh my God, Ames, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me what was going on. We tell each other everything!”
Trust Marty to immediately move from friendly caring to a why’d-you-leave-me-out-of-the-loop? complaint.
Marty ended the sandwich hug and stood back. “Jake told us everything, and we believed him ’cause that scary guy—not this guy.” She spared a glance at Nick. “Another, different one—had just left the diner. So Gopher and me and some of the other early risers who were already there for breakfast all came to check on you.”
“With guns. In the dark. You could’ve all been shot.”
“Well, Bobby sure couldn’t handle it alone. He’s just one man, and these are professional criminals, Jake says. Jeez, Ames, don’t be ungrateful.”
“I’m not. Thank you.” She reached out to take Marty’s hand, and suddenly Nick was letting her go and jogging toward the house.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“Around back to check on the deputy and Jake. They might need my help.”
Gopher and Dennis had the two goons facedown in the gravel and were trussing their hands behind their back with rope. Ames fleetingly wondered how they’d managed to come so prepared, but then she trotted past them and caught up with Nick at the corner of the house.
She ran after him and grabbed his arm. “Don’t you dare. You’re going to walk right into a gunfight and get yourself killed. Let Bobby handle it. He’s really not that bad at his job, and he’s got Jake for backup. You stay with me. I’m serious.”
For a moment, Nick resisted her grip, no doubt determined to do the macho-male thing and assume no one could handle anything without him. But then he stopped trying to pull away from her. “I can’t believe this. All these townspeople popping up out of nowhere. It’s crazy.”
“It’s Arnesdale. Everybody’s always up in your business, but sometimes that turns out to be a really good thing.”
All of a sudden, Ames’s legs buckled. The adrenaline she’d been operating on seemed to evaporate from her system, leaving her weak and jittery. I could have been killed. Nick could have been killed. Any one of the gang from the diner could have been killed. Killed! As in “shot through the heart”, and not in a song-lyric kind of way.
Nick caught her as she slipped toward the ground. “Whoa! Are you all right? Were you hit?” He started patting her all over, searching for a hidden wound.
“Just noodle legs. Let me catch my breath