gunman cornered and are taking him down. You okay?”
Clint stared at the people scattering around him, their signs and banners strewn across the grass like so much trash, the woman beneath him shivering and shaken and bleeding, and answered truthfully. “No. I need EMTs out here stat! Tara Crumb’s been hit.”
Sirens wailed from the squad cars now circling the area and the crowd was yelling and screaming, but all Clint could focus on was the fact that this was all his fault. He’d allowed himself to get distracted by Tara and their conversation and he’d failed to spot the shooter in time.
My fault. My failure.
Again.
2
“Jesus, what a mess,” Levon said. It was two days after the rally and they were still going through the initial damage reports—though this time from the comfort of their office. “That all went downhill fast.”
“No shit,” Noah confirmed, looking over his shoulder at the computer screen. “They were lucky no one was seriously hurt.”
Lucky was right. Clint sat at his desk in the Southern Soldiers of Fortune offices and stared down at his empty desktop, doing his best not to cringe. Mess was right too, even if he felt bad enough as it was without having his buddies and coworkers rub his face in it. His world was spinning out of control after the chaos of the shooting and injury of his target.
Dammit. This was all his fault.
“Daddy, look!” Ashley called from where she was playing in the hall. Without a nanny to watch her, he’d had no choice but to bring his daughter in to work today. She pointed at the white Lego structure in front of her. “I made a wind turbine!”
Where the hell she’d learned to do that, or even learned what a wind turbine was, he had no idea, but she was a smart kid. Way smarter than him and probably too smart for her own good at that age. To say he’d had his hands full the past few days trying to handle her and everything else on his own would be an understatement.
“You figure out how that gunman got so close yet?” Levon called over to him, snapping Clint’s attention back to his job, where it should have been all the time. The fact he’d gotten distracted, again, only made him feel even worse.
“Any update on Tara Crumb’s condition?” Noah asked, before Clint had a chance to answer the first question. He loved the guys like brothers. He and Noah had served together, started the business together—and while Levon had joined them later, beginning as just a new hire, he’d done so much for the business that he was practically a partner at this point, not to mention an amazing friend. He and Noah were closer to Clint than just about anyone else on the planet and working together to make the business successful had been a dream come true, but man. There were times, like now, when he’d like to tell them both to back the fuck off.
He sighed and sat forward, resting his elbows on his desk and raking his hands through his hair before scowling down at the copy of the police report Noah had just slid onto his desk. “As far as I know, Tara Crumb is fine. It was just a flesh wound.” Thank God. “She was treated and released from the ER the same day.”
Knowing that, however, didn’t make him feel any better about his failure.
When there was no response from the guys, Clint darted a quick glance their way to find them both watching him with a mix of wariness and worry.
Shit.
He got it. If he was in their position, he’d be worried too. Hell, he was worried. Clint was usually the go-to guy in the office. The rock. He had a control complex, nerves of steel, and eyes that missed absolutely nothing. Usually.
Right now, though, it felt like he was standing in quicksand trying to balance a bus on his head.
It all came down to the fact that he’d screwed up. He should have been in place earlier at the rally. Should have been more aware. Should have had his attention directed to his surroundings, instead of drooling over his target. Basically, he should have had his shit together.
Maybe that way, no one would have gotten hurt. And sure, there had been no serious injuries, but still. He should have been on his game.
“You know what you need?” Levon said, squaring his shoulders like he was ready for a fight as