Jameson (In the Company of Snipers #22) - Irish Winters Page 0,50
only got five shots left in this one.”
Without looking at her, of course, he handed over another pistol, grip first. An extra magazine came next. “Ready now?”
“Y-y-yes,” she stuttered as she slipped her secondary pistol into her waistband. “H-how many this time?”
“Nine or ten. Big guys. All of them. That’ll be good for us. Big guys make wider targets. Take your shirt off. Cover your mouth and eyes with it. Try not to breathe.”
He’d no sooner said that when a smoking canister rolled down the steps. Fighting her fear, Maddie ripped her shirt off, just like he’d ordered. She’d be half-naked, but hopefully, she’d stay alive. She barely had enough time to wad it into a fluffy ball and slap it over her mouth, before tear gas filled the small, stuffy room.
Even with her makeshift mask, she choked and reached for Jameson, but he was gone. Tenney had the grace of a dancer and the stone-cold accuracy of a killer. He’d moved with lightning reflexes, like one of those crazy-fast parkour athletes who ran up walls and bounced off ceilings. He wasn’t anywhere, but then he was everywhere. Shooting. Forcing her face first to the floor. Holding a hard hand in the middle of her back while he fired over her head, again and again. Each time, the kickback radiated down his arm to her body.
Maddie panicked. There was too much noise and mayhem, but not enough air! She couldn’t think! Couldn’t see. So much smoke! Her eyes and nose stung and watered. She couldn’t catch a decent breath because of the excess fluid in her throat. Didn’t want to breathe when she did. Her lungs quit working. Her bare breasts, now pressed flat to the rough concrete floor, hurt. She was dying!
Suddenly, the noise stopped. Jameson lifted her into his arms, and he was carrying her upstairs. But she was a miserable snotty mess. Worse, she hadn’t fired a single shot to help him, and she was half-dressed. And oh, yes. She was still the loser her dad always said she was.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Jameson chided as he settled her on his knee with one arm around her. “Your dad’s an idiot.”
“But, but, but…” she sputtered, embarrassed she might’ve said that last part out loud.
“Losers quit, and that’s not what you did tonight, Maddie,” he said as he poured water over her face. “Sounds to me like he’s the real loser and a bully. Your dad quit on you, didn’t he?”
The rush of cool water instantly soothed, but didn’t completely wash the effects of the tear gas away. She was still choking and snotting, but she could see they were at the kitchen sink, and Jameson was scooping water from the running faucet over her face Something warm and wonderful blossomed in her chest for the first time ever, and it wasn’t tear gas.
“Yes,” she admitted weakly, wishing she had a blanket or something to cover up with. “Every day of my life.”
“Asshole,” Jameson muttered. “Real men don’t denigrate children. Any children! They build them up, and they teach them how to have confidence in this shitty world. To stand tall and walk proud. They provide positive reinforcement, and they always have their kid’s back. They’re proud of them every single damned day.”
Not all men. “W-was your dad? Proud of you? Every day?”
“You bet. Want to meet him? He and Mom are expecting me for dinner this Sunday. They’ll adore you. Come with me.”
Maddie shook her head, feeling embarrassed and vulnerable. Exposed and naked and, well, snotty. Yet the sensation of Jameson leaning over her was so, so nice. Even there in the dark, with her eyes burning and watering too much for her to see, she could feel the capable, strong male leaning over her. Sheltering her. That all by itself was a really nice, really new feeling. It’d be better to have her shirt back, and she wished she didn’t look this awful. But then, what difference did it make? He couldn’t see her. “My hair. I must look like—”
“Like an angel,” Jameson murmured. “Maddie, are you…? My God, you are.”
He cocked his head more sharply then. He had one hand on her bare shoulder, the other on her rib cage. She hadn’t had time to tell him how she’d stopped Mr. Vlad’s gunshot wound from bleeding. That she’d lost track of her shirt in the scary confusion downstairs. That she was naked from the waist up. But he knew now.