a rock. On instinct, Jack grabbed Hatcher and pulled them both to the wooden floor. Pain exploded in Jack’s right side, but he wasn’t certain of the cause just yet. He fought through a wave of dizziness as Cooper tore out of the front door to investigate. Rye crawled to Jack’s side. “Are you all right?”
“What was that?” Hatcher barked, shifting from his position on the floor to better see the window.
“Don’t move, you idiot,” Jack said, grimacing as he grabbed at Hatcher. His entire body was on fire, a searing pain in each cell.
“Let me see if you’re hurt,” Rye said to Jack. “You’re sweating.”
Jack didn’t want to answer just yet. He knew what the hot burning sensation all throughout his body meant. “Hatcher, you hurt?”
“Merely sore from where you slammed me into the ground. Was that a damn gunshot?”
Jack met Rye’s worried gaze. “See that everyone gets to safety.”
“What about you?” Rye looked away, down toward Jack’s legs. “Jesus, is that blood?”
And that was when everything turned black.
Chapter Twenty-One
Justine raced up the steps of the Bond Street house, her mind whirling. She was not a worst-case scenario person, but panic had overruled her ability to calmly rationalize.
Shot.
Jack had been shot.
Rye hadn’t said much when he found her, only that Jack had been shot and she should come right away. The older man looked as if he’d aged a decade since she saw him last, which showed how worried he was for Jack. He’d driven her here quickly, during which time she’d nearly gnawed off four fingernails. The not knowing was an awful black pit inside her chest. Jack could be maimed or dead, for all she knew.
Please, let him live.
He wasn’t a terrible man. Underneath that fancy suit beat the heart of a caring and gentle soul. A man who loved and lived fiercely.
A man with whom she had fallen in love.
It was the only way to explain her sheer terror at the thought of losing him. In a very short time he’d come to mean everything to her. His sly smiles, the rough tone he used when he forgot himself. The way he saw her as no one else ever had.
I think you are a woman who gives much of herself to others without considering what she wants most.
You are the smartest and bravest woman I’ve ever met.
I’ll kill any man who even looks at you funny.
I’m going to come if you keep doing that.
Quick snippets of their time together, every dirty and sweet thing he’d ever said to her, played through her head. She did not want to lose him, not when she’d just found him.
She didn’t pause on the landing. Instead, she ran to Jack’s bedroom, intent on seeing him. Cooper stood outside the closed door, blood on his shirtfront. Justine tried not to stare at the stain or think about what that blood meant. He shifted to block her from entering. “Miss, the surgeon’s in there now. You cannot go in.”
A surgeon who could be using leeches or dirty hands on Jack. “I must go in. I’ve seen enough blood not to be frightened of it, and I need to ensure everything’s clean and sterilized. Please.”
Cooper shook his head. “That’s Dr. Moore in there. He’s the house surgeon at Bellevue.”
Justine’s jaw nearly fell open. This was no random sawbones working on Jack. Moore had recently been lauded for removing the appendix of the mayor’s wife—a dangerous operation the woman had easily survived. How on earth had Jack managed to get Dr. Moore here at a moment’s notice? She pushed that aside to contemplate later. “What happened? Is Jack all right?”
“He was shot at the brewery. Bullet clipped him on his right side. He lost a lot of blood. We don’t know yet how he’s doing. He fainted before we got him here.”
He lost a lot of blood. The words took up all the space in her brain, preventing her from thinking about anything else. She could hear the sound of her heartbeat, an eerie echo of sheer terror that she’d never experienced before. He fainted. That invincible charmer had fainted.
“Here, now. Why don’t you take a moment, miss?” Rye arrived at her side with an armchair, gesturing for her to sit down.
She shook herself. What was she doing, wringing her hands like a hysterical fictional character? This was real life and, while she wasn’t a medical professional, she’d witnessed several procedures and nursed many patients back to health. There were things to ready, supplies