“You’ve been avoiding me for a week, and now you can’t wait sixty seconds to clear the room?” Ro thrust away from the table and stood, wobbling slightly. “You’ve got to scare a five year old girl and a woman who is trying to claw her way back from being terrified of men? Smooth, Conan. Real smooth.”
Graham paced, gripping the back of his neck with both hands. “How did you convince him? That’s all I want to know. How in the fuck did you convince a man you’ve known for a goddamn second to desert everything that matters to him? To turn his back on his home and the men who’ve fought beside him—bled for him? That’s all I want to know. Then I’ll let you go on your merry way to live happily fucking ever after together.”
“What are you talking about?” Graham dismissed Ro’s confused tone.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. You’re better than that. You’re so fucking good that you forced my best friend to choose, and let me tell you, he didn’t fucking choose me.”
“You’re speaking English, but I don’t have a clue what you’re saying.”
“Don’t you fucking lie to me, woman!” Graham roared, and he thought he heard a whimper.
Rowan backed up toward the wall, and Graham scarcely noticed her unsteadiness and rapid, shallow breaths.
He crossed the room and got in her face, gripping her by the upper arms and pressing her against the wall. She flinched, and he barely restrained himself from shaking her. “Tell me what you said to him,” he demanded. “And why the hell didn’t you say it to me? Am I just not good enough for you either?” His voice broke on the last words.
The metallic sound of a round being chambered accompanied the quiet voice that said, “Let go of her and step away, or I swear to God this bullet will end you.”
Graham jerked his gaze over his shoulder to see Lia leveling a shaking M1911 at him. “Do it now,” she said.
Graham released Rowan’s shoulders and stepped away, lifting his hands in the universal gesture for “Don’t shoot.” With the shape they’d found her in, and her habit of pulling weapons on him, Graham figured Lia had to be at least a little, if not a lot, unstable. With the torment he was feeling at that moment, he didn’t particularly care if she decided to pull the trigger, but there was no way he’d trust her not to shoot Rowan by accident. Even if Graham wanted to shake the living crap out of her, he’d never willingly expose Ro to danger. He might be able to live knowing that she and Zach were happy and making a life together without him, but he didn’t think he could live in a world where she didn’t exist.
Beside him, Rowan trembled and slumped against the wall. Her knees gave way, and she dropped, landing in a heap on the floor. Lia’s eyes went wide, and her finger moved to the trigger.
Torn between grabbing Rowan and neutralizing the threat, he hesitated. His training took over, and he surged toward Lia, intent on knocking the barrel of the gun away from its aim at Rowan and twisting her wrist to force her to drop it. But his split second of indecision meant that Lia was pulling the trigger just as he rushed her. The explosion of the shot at close range was deafening. Graham felt a sickening punch to his left oblique.
Fuck, that hurt.
He dragged Lia down and dropped to his knees, the gun thudding to the floor beside them. A scream pierced through the low buzz in his ears as Graham shoved the gun behind away, and Lia scuttled backward toward the kitchen. He touched his burning lower left side, and his hand came away red. He covered the wound with both hands, trying to staunch the steady flow of blood. He stumbled to his feet, heading for Rowan and praying to God she hadn’t been hit.
Ro’s brain had been moving at turtle speed all day. She attributed it to the pounding in her temples that made it nearly impossible to concentrate, even on something as simple as coloring with Grace. And then Graham launched into a tirade that was beyond Ro’s current capacity for comprehension. When he’d pushed her against the wall, he hadn’t gripped her arms tightly, despite the anger that had been emanating from him. She'd started to feel woozy, her knees had gone weak, and she hadn't been able to stop her ungraceful slide down the wall. Lia had looked like a virago, bent on protecting her, even though Ro didn’t need protection from Graham. Even in his pissed off state, Ro had no fear that he’d hurt her. And then it had all unraveled, each motion seemingly exaggerated as Ro took them in: Graham’s lunge, the flash of fear in Lia’s eyes, Graham’s swipe to the barrel of the gun, the muscles in Lia’s hand flexing, and then the discharge of the pistol. Ro screamed when Graham fell to his knees.
“Graham!”
“Oh God. Oh God. Oh God,” Lia chanted, awkwardly crawling backward away from Graham and the gun.
Ro snapped out of her haze long enough to croak, “Get Beau. Go.”
Lia disappeared into the kitchen, and Ro heard the back door slam shut behind her. Graham was coming toward her. The red trail in his wake reminded her of watching her dad almost bleed out days before.