Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Can - By Kat Martin Page 0,49

into the night, the men who guarded the east exit, a burly Asian the size of a house and a man of mixed heritage with angular cheekbones and jet-black eyes.

She couldn’t see Troy. She had no idea where he’d gone, but she spotted Sam walking off toward the parking area.

Claire kicked off her heels and started after him, wishing to God Ben were there, afraid to call out to him. Afraid to call out to Sam for fear Bridger would hear her.

She stifled a scream as an arm locked around her neck and she was jerked backward against a man’s hard chest.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

She knew the voice, knew Troy had found her. She trembled, tried to speak, but there wasn’t a drop of moisture in her mouth. His hold tightened, and he started dragging her back into the shadows along the side of the barn.

“I asked you a question, bitch.”

She swallowed, managed to force out the words. “I—I came after Sam.”

He spun her around to face him. “Who brought you?”

“I came...came by myself.”

“That’s a goddamn lie.” He cracked the back of his hand across her cheek, knocking her into the wall. Claire cried out when he dragged her up and hit her again. The world spun and for a moment she thought she was going to faint. She stared up at Troy, saw the hard look on his face and screamed as loud as she could.

Fourteen

Where the hell is she? Ben scanned the crowd in the area where Claire should have been waiting. No sign of her. Worry slid through him. He’d left Hutchins at the beer stand, afraid to leave Claire alone any longer, but when he got back, she was gone.

His chest felt tight. Unless someone forced her to leave, she had spotted Bridger and Sam and was following them.

Christ.

He’d come in through the west door. No sign of them there. The toilets were on the east side. Ben shouldered his way through the crowd, moving fast in that direction.

At Claire’s high-pitched scream, a shot of adrenaline hit him, jolting him into action, and he shot through the open east door. Her white blouse made her easy to spot in the moonlit shadows at the side of the barn, struggling with a man who pressed her against the wall.

“Let me go!” she demanded.

“Shut up, bitch! You brought this on yourself!”

Right height, right build. He turned and Ben recognized him as the man in the photo with Laura. Troy Bridger. Clamping his jaw against the anger pumping through him, Ben lunged toward Bridger, grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around, went into SEAL combat mode and pounded him with a left jab-right combination, smashed an elbow into Bridger’s face, splitting his cheek wide-open and drawing blood.

“Sam’s gone to the truck!” Claire shouted and started running toward the lot. “I’m going after him!”

He got a quick glimpse of her, saw that her cheek was bruised and her lip was bleeding, before Bridger swung a blow that Ben blocked. Thinking of Claire’s battered face, a shot of fury tore threw him. Ben took great pleasure in elbow-striking Bridger again, then bringing the bastard down with a fist to the back of his head and a knee to the belly.

Bridger hit the ground and didn’t get up.

Much as he wanted to finish the man where he lay, he started after Claire, who raced ahead of him toward the parking lot. He’d only made it a couple of steps when a gunshot cracked and pain tore into his side. The bullet spun him around and he went down, dropping onto a knee.

Heavy caliber, he figured. Enough to do some damage.

Pain ripped through him as he reached for the weapon at his back. Blood poured out of a wound below his ribs and his hand was slick with it, making it hard to hold the butt of the pistol. Through rapidly blurring vision, he saw Bridger stagger to his feet. Hutchins raced up beside him, shoving a big semi-auto into the back of his pants, and both men took off running, passing Claire, who had turned and was racing back in Ben’s direction.

She grabbed him as he swayed to his feet. “Oh, my God, Ben, he shot you! How...how bad are you hurt?”

Every instinct told him to go after his son, but he was losing a lot of blood. “Help me get to the car.” He should have figured on Hutchins showing up. Stupid. He’d been sidetracked by