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Ed ran for the doorway but Ben’s bullet caught him in the back. Another from either Joel or Connor brought him down in a dead sprawl. Colin had a longer job getting to safety. With Ed gone, Colin’s shield disappeared but he kept firing even as he yelled.

The booming sounds came from every direction. Ben tried to pivot around the box as he shot. He had to get Jocelyn to safety. She’d thrown her upper body over Sharon and for a second Ben thought she’d been hit.

He reached her right as he felt a burning across his neck. That fast his vision blurred. His grip failed him right as his legs gave out. With one last lunge, he snagged Jocelyn’s arm and brought her to the floor. She fought him but he rolled her under the table, giving her the best protection in the room.

He scrambled away, trying to draw attention to himself. Shifting, he put his knees under him, thinking to get up and catch Colin before he snuck away, but the room flipped on him. The last image he had was of a shadow looming in the doorway.

Then his head hit the floor.

* * *

J
OCELYN
DUCKED
UNDER
the table. She wasn’t quite sure how she got there. Pieces of memories ran through her mind. Ben grabbed her. Sharon...poor Sharon. Even now Jocelyn could hear her shouting and begging to get out of the box.

Jocelyn peeked up through her arms and saw Colin make a final desperate run for the doorway as a bullet hit his thigh and Connor yelled at him to stop. Blood ran and a burning smell filled the room. Jocelyn blinked and saw boots. Her gaze traveled up until she reached Willoughby’s face. He stood there in full riot gear. When Colin made a final lunge, Willoughby cracked him in the head with the end of his gun.

He glanced around at the wreckage. Blood and broken supplies everywhere. “Someone going to tell me what’s going on?”

Connor stepped up carefully. One foot at a time, gun still raised. “How did you get here in time?”

“Was watching at the bank and followed you here.” Willoughby nodded in Joel’s direction. “Then I got a call from him and all I could hear was someone talking about money and the shooting started. We were a few hallways away and I followed the noises to here.”

“This is the one time it’s good someone else drove, since being followed helped,” Joel said as his shoulders eased and he abandoned battle mode.

“Okay.” Connor blew out a long breath. “Good thinking, Joel.”

Willoughby motioned behind him. “Got my men with me.”

Jocelyn watched the police officers file in behind Willoughby in the doorway. He’d brought everyone. He rushed in to help and she didn’t know what to make of that. At some point she’d have to apologize for assuming he was with Gary. It was an old reflex tied to the uniform.

“He’s the one?” Willoughby used the toe of his boot to nudge Ed’s unmoving arm.

Connor nodded. “Him and Gary Taub, who’s back at the bank. Dead.”

“A few of my men are there.” Willoughby waved his men in. “Secure this scene, too. Everyone you see moving in here is clear.”

Jocelyn struggled to her feet, still unable to believe Willoughby, the jerk who threw his weight around, had ridden in at the last minute to contain the situation. She looked at Sharon, who nodded and mouthed that she was okay.

Jocelyn didn’t agree. “Sharon needs an ambulance.”

“Please help her,” Kent said.

Jocelyn noticed the blood on Connor’s face from what looked like a nick across his cheek and the shot to Kent’s wrist. He held it but didn’t complain. In the end the desk jockey had turned out to be quite the savior for his wife.

She turned around to smile at her own savior. “Ben, are you—”

Connor was already moving. He dropped to his knees at the far end of the box, right in the corner. “Ben’s down. We need an ambulance.”

It was as if someone flicked a switch. Police officers came into the room. Willoughby got on his radio as sirens rang out in the distance.

Her mind went blank. Sounds were muffled and everyone seemed to move in slow motion. She saw Joel’s mouth as he cried out and slid in next to Ben. But the walls closed in on her. She stared at Ben’s still body and the blood covering Connor’s hand as he pressed it against Ben’s neck.

“No, no...no...” She didn’t know she’d said the words until she pushed Joel out of the way and shoved in next to Ben. He was so still, his skin almost gray.

The room whirled to life again.

She was not losing him. Not now that she’d found him and had fallen so hard and so deeply that she couldn’t figure out how to separate herself from him.

Without thinking, she whipped her shirt off, leaving only a thin tank top on. She rolled the material into a ball and pressed it against Ben’s neck. Blood soaked the material and covered her hand. Still, she pushed and ground, using all her strength to stanch the flow of blood.

Dipping down, she listened for breathing, tried to watch his chest rise. Nothing happened and her frantic search for a pulse turned up only the weakest flicker. “You will not die on me.”

She wanted everything with this man. She would not watch the life seep out of him.

One of his eyes opened. A haze covered it and she doubted he could even see her. She grabbed for his hand with her free one. “I’m here, Ben.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t talk.”

“It meant everything that you trusted me.” His head lulled to the side. “I’m sorry it ended like this.”

His eyes rolled back into his head and panic tore at her insides.

“I hate your job. I refuse to deal with the danger and fear.” The words flowed out of her. She barely knew what she was saying. She just knew the fear infected her like a poison and she wanted it out. “No more, Ben. Do you hear me?”

But he couldn’t. He was unconscious and deathly still. Seeing him like that filled her with a fury that kicked around her insides and had her doubling over in pain. Her muscles shook as she fought to hold him steady. She couldn’t tip his head back for CPR, so she put her fingers against his jaw and lowered it.

The position wasn’t perfect but she didn’t have a choice. “Joel, hold this tight against his throat and do not let go for any reason.”

Joel nodded as they shifted positions.

Connor shouted in the background to the people slipping in and out of the room. “We need an ambulance now. Get it here.”

Willoughby helped Kent sit down and lifted Sharon out of the box. The chaos raged on but Jocelyn’s focus stayed on the CPR count and watching Ben’s chest for any signs of life. Her arms ached and her heart hammered hard enough for her to feel it in every limb.

“Jocelyn, he’s not—”

She didn’t even spare Joel a glance. “He will live. I will not walk away until I know he’s okay.”

And he had to be okay.

Chapter Sixteen

Ben heard shouting in his head. Male voices, then Jocelyn’s. They screamed at him as a rush of what sounded like water beat against the inside of his brain. He wanted to fight against it. Find quiet. But Jocelyn... He ran toward her.

His eyes popped open and confusion settled in. Lights came into focus above him and he could make out the tiny dots in the ceiling tiles. He heard the beep of machines and smelled the antiseptic. He tried to move his head but something held his neck still, and even that small twitch had pain thundering against his skull.

He took it all in. Every piece, including the pale blue walls and the railings on the bed. He was in a hospital.

His eyes finally focused and instead of seeing the woman he wanted, he saw blond hair and scruff. Davis.

“Where’s Jocelyn?” Ben ground his back teeth together and lifted a shoulder off the mattress.

“Hold on there.” Davis held a hand against Ben’s chest. “She’s fine.”

“She and Joel went to bug your doctors.” Connor’s head appeared above Ben. “Apparently she’s not happy with how long it’s taking you to wake up.”

“You staying there or do I have to punch you to keep you down?” When Ben gave a small nod, Davis sat in the chair next to the bed. “You look terrible, by the way.”

“I can always count on you for reassuring words.” Ben tried to laugh but something in his neck pulled and yanked, sending a headache spinning through his brain. He lifted his hand and felt a thick bandage. He remembered the burning sensation. “Did I get shot in the neck?”

Davis nodded. “Yep. Kind of lame. You’re supposed to duck.”

“This from the job when you were too busy hiding in your house to help.” Seeing Davis’s mouth flatten, Ben felt a pang of guilt the second he made the joke.

“Not by choice.”

“I wanted Lara safe,” Connor said.

Davis shook his head. “For the record, I’m not riding a desk for the next seven months.”

“Understood.”

Ben wanted to run a hand over his face. That battled with his need to shut his eyes. He’d get to that as soon as he laid eyes on Jocelyn. He just had to see for himself she was fine. The idea of her hunting down doctors eased some of the anxiety knocking around inside him, but a guy had to check these things out for himself.

“Women,” he said under his breath, knowing this group would understand the sentiment.

“You got problems with one?” Connor asked with amusement in his voice.

The memories tore into him. He went from blank to having a full-motion picture of the gunfire in his head. She stood in the middle of the shooting, protecting Sharon. Threw her body over Sharon and ignored her own safety.

Jocelyn had begged him not to die, then cursed him and his job. Every horrible second spooled out in front of him and he felt helpless to calm it all down.

“This was too close.” He whispered it more in his head, not realizing he’d said it out loud until Connor agreed.

“But she did great. Kept you alive long enough to get you help. We owe her.”

No, they didn’t understand. They were praising her. Even now, Connor told Davis stories about all she’d done and how she stood up to him.

Ben listened but the same warning kept flashing in his mind. He broke into the cheering session. “She shouldn’t have had to do any of it.”

Connor frowned. “Gary was after her. You were the bodyguard.”

“And next time I’ll bring the danger to her door. And the time after that.” The fear. That was what he remembered the most. Her dropped mouth and pale lips. The panic that had her eyes darting as yet another man leveled a gun at her head. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

The hollowed-out feeling in his stomach wouldn’t go away. Jocelyn in danger qualified as the one thing he could not handle. Gunfire, chases, his blowhard father, the wrath that went along with dismantling the NCIS...those were rough circumstances, but livable. Seeing someone put Jocelyn in a box... He closed his eyes as his mind rebelled and his stomach churned at the idea.

“It doesn’t have to be like that,” Connor said in a low voice.

“Where’s your wife? Jana, why isn’t she here?” Ben winced but he had to ask.

Connor’s face went blank, as if all the life leached out of it. “Visiting her—”

“We all know that’s not true. Something happened. Likely something about the intense work we do drove you guys apart.”

Connor wrapped his hands around the bed railings tight enough for his knuckles to turn white. “Maybe you should stop talking like you know about my personal life.”

“That’s enough,” Davis said.

“Tell me I’m wrong, Connor.” When Davis tried to talk again, Ben turned on him, too. “And you’re twisted up trying to protect your pregnant wife. You both know what I’m talking about.”

Davis put a palm flat against the top of Ben’s pillow, and the mattress dipped. “But she is my wife. We worked through the danger stuff and we’re together.”

“It’s so much.” Waves of exhaustion pummeled Ben. “The stuff with the NCIS isn’t dying down. My father won’t even speak to me. How do I bring a woman into that? How do I ask a woman who has known violence and survived it to wade back into it with me?”

“She is not weak.” Connor punctuated each word.

She was anything but. Ben had known that from the beginning. Her strength was part of the reason he was falling so hard, so fast. “I know that.”

Davis answered, “Then give her a chance to see if she can handle your life. Don’t push her away.”

Ben couldn’t move his head or block the pain out. “Right, do that and have our lives get more entwined and then, what, I pick her broken body up out of an alley?”

“Ben, come on.” Davis pushed off from the bed and stood up straight again. “That’s not going to happen.”

“You can’t promise that.” Man, Ben wanted him to. He wanted a guarantee that Jocelyn would be okay. He wanted to know he’d never be the one to put her in a position where fear gripped her.

“I wouldn’t be married and having a kid if I didn’t believe it.”

“I care about this woman. Really care.” Those weren’t words he said easily and they didn’t even touch the full load of what he felt for Jocelyn. “Like, I don’t even understand how I can be falling for her this hard.”

Davis rolled his eyes. “Then let her in.”

“How can I ask her to take a chance on me?”

* * *

T
HE
MAN
WAS
LUCKY
he was confined to a hospital bed or she might just march right over there and smack him. Jocelyn couldn’t believe the nonsense he was spewing. Sweet on one level, but frustrating on every other. Did he actually think after everything they’d gone through, after he stuck by her when she was being hunted, that she would walk away?

Men.

“You should be asking me that question, not them.” She walked into the room, keeping her arms wrapped around her stomach.

She was so stupidly happy to see him awake and breathing that she wanted to crawl up there with him and throw her arms around him, but he had to get his head out of his butt first. If he planned to go all martyr on her, she would fight him every step of the way.

“I want you safe,” he said, ignoring the friends standing on either side of him and watching only her.

“Which, in your mind, can only mean not being near you.” Never mind that she wasn’t in danger because of him. “Well, I would remind you that you’re the one who did the chasing. You asked me out. I said no, and you kept coming back.”

Davis smiled at that.

Between the colorless skin and drawn expression, Ben looked ten seconds away from passing out. “There are people who think being near me is a death wish. My track record isn’t good.”

Her heart broke a little for him. She cursed his stubborn father and everyone else who dumped their insecurities on Ben.

She used all her control to stand in that spot rather than go to him. “I don’t see you that way. Not me. Not your team. No one in this room.”

“What if you’re all wrong?”

“So you live a celibate life from now on? How realistic is that.” Now that they’d slept together, she knew there was no way. He didn’t hold back in the bedroom. No way could he deny himself.

And he better not unleash all that passion on anyone but her.

He gave a quick glance at his friends but they didn’t move. “I want you somewhere safe.”

“Why don’t you let me decide where I go and who I’m with?”

“Jocelyn, I’m—”

She leaned in with a hand behind her ear. “What, are you sorry?”

“Don’t do this.”

She ignored how his voice grew louder. “You better at least be sorry for the right thing.”

Color flooded his cheeks. “Meaning what?”

Anger
. Good, she could handle anger. Indifference would kill them.

All those fears of being on the wrong end of violence had held her back. With Ben, something inside her had broken free. That shield she clenched in front of her had crumbled. She needed his to do the same.

“Don’t you get it, Ben? You should be sorry for nearly bleeding out in my arms and wasting your last bit of energy on giving me the ‘it’s been swell but we’re over’ speech.” The memories zoomed through her, taking her voice louder with every word. “Who does that? What kind of man puts his girlfriend through that?”

Davis shook his head. “Oh, dude.”

She pointed at him. “Exactly. Davis gets it.”

“Girlfriend?” Ben tried to sit up straighter but the bandage limited his movements and the wound had him wincing.

Knowing he was in pain took the edge off her anger. Her frustration came both from seeing him rushed away in an ambulance and hearing him talk about walking away from her for good. She didn’t want to deal with either ever again.

“Yes, Ben. I don’t sleep around. I barely date.”

“I know that.”

She could only assume his stubbornness made him blind. “Then you know I risked everything on you.”

His intense gaze didn’t leave her face. “Because you were in danger.”

“No, because I want to be with you, talk to you, sleep with you.” Careful not to hit the bed, she stepped in when Connor moved back. She slid her thigh on the mattress next to his legs and stopped there even though she ached to get closer. “All of it and all the time.”

He picked up her hand and played with her fingers. “All the violence.”

“Goes with your job. I won’t lie. That’s not easy for me. It scares me to death.” When he gave her a pained frown, she rushed to finish her point. “But I also get that you have friends and people who watch out for you and that you’re careful. You don’t take stupid risks.”

Davis cleared his throat. “He’s usually on his game, though he’s not doing so well here.”

“You begged for a date.” She ignored Connor’s laugh and Ben’s scowl. “You were relentless and now you want out? No. I’m not giving you a choice. You wanted me? Well, now I want you back.”

“You do?”

“I might even love you a little, which we’re not going to talk about now, certainly not with company listening in, but the one thing I am not doing is leaving you.” The truth sat out there now and she couldn’t call it back. She didn’t even want to. After everything they’d been through, he deserved to know the truth.

“I like her,” Davis said.

Connor nodded. “She fits in with the other women in the group.”

Davis made a sound like a hum. “And it wouldn’t be bad to have a nurse on staff.”

Ben didn’t even spare them a glance. He kept his attention on her as he slipped his fingers through hers and held on tight. “Both of you get out.”

“Maybe we’re watching out for her,” Connor said.

She didn’t break eye contact either. Couldn’t. “I can handle Ben on my own.”

“Yeah, I think you can.” Connor patted Ben on the shoulder. “We’ll find Joel and Pax and come back later.”

Davis laughed. “Much later.”

Ben barely waited until the door closed behind his friends. “Love?”

She knew he’d grab on to that one word. Other men, no. They’d ignore it and try to work around it. Not Ben. She said l
ove,
and excitement flared in his eyes. “A little and it’s just at the beginning stages, so don’t kill it by being a moron.”

He tugged her closer. “Come here.”

“Oh, now you get bossy.” She put her hands on either side of his shoulders. “I’ll tolerate that, since you’ve been shot and stabbed and who knows what else. But as your nurse, I would suggest you be careful.”

“I’m taking my bossiness cues from you.” He tried to lift his head and hissed instead.

She took pity on him and leaned in closer, letting her lips skim over his. “Honestly, you could use a clue or two.”

“I’m sorry,” he said when they broke apart again.

“For?” And this was a test. If he didn’t get it right...well, she wasn’t going anywhere. But she didn’t want to fight with him, either. “And do not say putting me in danger or anything like that.”

“How about for trying to push you away?”

She kissed him again. Short and sweet but enough for the desired connection. “Better.”

“I want you safe and am willing to do whatever that takes.” His hand brushed up and down her thigh. “But I’m also not stupid. When a woman like you throws around the
L
word, a man listens.”

The words knocked down the rest of her protective wall. This man, this amazing man who carried a gun and could probably scale buildings if he wanted to, meant everything. “Are you sure?”

“That falling thing.” He toyed with the end of her hair. “The love—”

She put her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Little bit and at the beginning.”

He pushed those fingers farther apart. “Me, too.”

Her heart jumped. “Really?”

“Why do you think I’m so desperate to lock you away where my job and this life can’t touch you?”

“I lived for months and months being afraid.” Talking about her life back then stole something from her, but she needed him to understand. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“After what happened to you and how you had to fight...all the attacks over the last week...how is that possible?”

Hearing him rendered almost speechless was just about the most flattering, attractive thing ever. The idea she could knock this controlled man off his game made her smile. “I think it had something to do with seeing a policeman step up and do the right thing.”