Or at least, she refused to be stupid enough to assume she wouldn’t be.
Tremors shook her body, and she clutched Haydn’s prosthetic leg in her right hand. It’d worked to get her loose from the man, give Brandon the opening he needed. But she might need to use it again. Or maybe she couldn’t make herself let it go. She wasn’t sure.
There’d been a gun to her head. The whole logical thought process thing was limited at the moment.
“Sophie.” Brandon’s voice came to her low, soft, warm.
He hadn’t sounded human a few moments ago. She’d never heard him that way. He’d been cold, sarcastic. His words had cut the air, devoid of any caring. He’d told her once, after he’d come back into her life, that he’d become good at compartmentalizing.
What he’d meant was that he’d taken everything human, everything that made him Brandon, and shut it away.
She’d seen him, heard him, and desperately looked for some hint of the Brandon she knew in the man who’d stood facing her. And she hadn’t been able to see him. Instead, she’d had to believe he was still in there somewhere.
“Sophie. Are you hurt?” Leaves crunched as he kneeled next to her. He still hadn’t touched her.
She was relieved he didn’t. Not because she didn’t want him to, but because she couldn’t stop shaking. “You’re back.”
A pause. “I wouldn’t have left you.”
Funny. It was as if they’d gone right back to the conversation they’d been having before guns and fire and people had interrupted them.
She shook her head. “I’m not bleeding. Haydn is. He needs help.”
“Let me see.” Brandon took hold of her shoulder then, and gently eased her away from the big dog. She moved, but she kept her left hand pressed against the spot where she could feel hot blood seeping out. “Keep a look out ahead of us. Don’t look over your shoulder.”
The man behind them might be dead then. She’d never seen a fresh corpse. Hadn’t ever thought about Brandon as a man who’d killed someone. The idea of a man defending his country had been a lot easier to hold in her mind than the reality a few feet away from her.
She was grateful. She was also still trying to grasp what was going on around her while it all happened too fast.
Haydn was still breathing. When Brandon pressed against the GSD’s shoulder, Haydn whined. “We’re going to need light to see how bad this is. You’ve got pressure on the one spot, but I can’t tell if the bullet exited somewhere. He could be bleeding from an exit wound.”
Her heart dropped into her stomach and both of them churned. “We need to get him to an animal hospital.”
Brandon turned his face to her, meeting her gaze. His hazel eyes were still hard and fierce. “There are two more men out there. I can’t carry him and keep you safe.”
He was making a decision. Just like that. This might not be the first time he’d had to leave someone behind to save someone else.
It was the right thing to do. But it shouldn’t be for her.
“I’ll hide here.” She could do that. It was a valid alternative. She could stay out of the way. “You can take him to get help and come back for me.”
“No.” Brandon reached for her.
She leaned away. She wouldn’t leave Haydn here. “He’s dying. Don’t let him die…for me.”
The last words came out whispered, and she hated herself for crying, for wasting time arguing with him. She’d become somebody she didn’t recognize anymore. She could not remember a time when she had ever endangered them by questioning Brandon’s judgment when urgent matters were at hand. When it came to emergencies, she’d always believed a person should listen to authorities and firemen and Brandon. They were trained, had the expertise and the skills to make a difference.
But right now, this was happening because of her. She was going to have to live with the sight of Haydn burned into her mind. The warmth of his blood was always going to be against her palms.
“Don’t let him die for nothing.” Brandon’s rebuke stung.
He wasn’t wrong.
She didn’t fight more as he cupped his hand under her elbow and helped her to her feet. Her ankle hurt, but she gritted her teeth and put weight on it anyway. If he couldn’t carry Haydn, he couldn’t carry her.
He waited until she was steady, then he stepped in front of her. “Stay with me. Be ready to find cover if I tell you to.”
“I’ll do my best.” She pitched her voice low, quiet, like his.
This was what it took. She wanted to live through this. And she didn’t want him hurt, too, because of her. She couldn’t make him safe, didn’t have a gun to help provide cover for him or whatever a real partner could do. Even if he’d given her a weapon, she didn’t know how to shoot it.