“I don’t know.” Archer sped up to cover the remaining distance a little faster. The closer he got, the clearer the heap on the ground became. And when he pulled up behind the BMW to park, he realized it wasn’t a heap at all.
Cassie!
“No!” He shoved the truck into park, not waiting for the damn thing to stop rocking before shoving open his door and jumping out. He took off in a dead sprint toward who he now realized was the woman he loved.
She was on the ground. Eyes closed. The front of her coat covered in blood.
Oh, god!
Lucky’s frantic voice barely registered as it hollered at him through his truck’s speakers, but Archer didn’t dare stop. He was too busy racing to Cassie. Too busy praying with all he had that she was still alive.
That he wasn’t too late.
Please, God. Please let her still be with me! I just found her. You can’t take her from me. Please!
As he ran, he noticed another motionless body lying on the other side of Montgomery’s mounded grave. Barbara Montgomery was lying next to her son’s headstone with a fresh gunshot wound at the side of her head.
A small pistol lay in the dirt mere inches from the dead woman’s limp, open hand.
Ah, Christ.
Archer finally,finallyreached Cassie. Dropping to his knees in the grass beside her, he did the quickest triage of his fucking life.
“Ah, god.” Archer groaned as an indescribable pain grabbed hold of his frantically beating heart and squeezed.
There was so much blood. So much, it took him precious seconds to even find the source. When he did, his entire soul threatened to implode.
She’d been shot. Cassie had been shot. Twice. Once in the lower left abdomen, and again in the soft flesh just below her left clavicle.
Her heart. That Montgomery bitch had taken that second shot because she’d been aiming at Cassie’s heart.
It was one of the biggest, most generous and loving hearts he’d ever known. And as Archer pressed his hand to the side of Cassie’s neck, he held his breath and waited, praying that same amazing, beautiful heart was still beating.
Tires squealed in the distance, but Archer leaned in closer in his effort to concentrate. At first, he was certain he'd lost her. And for that one brief moment in time, Archer wanted to die, too. But then…
There!
Hope seared through his tortured veins as he felt the slight pattering of slow, erratic beat.
She’s still alive!
But for how long was the question.
“How bad?”
He spared a glance toward where he’d parked, and when he saw Lucky’s frantic face racing toward him, he hollered back, “Two gun shot wounds to the torso! One upper, one lower.”
“Fuck!” Lucky immediately got on the phone to call for help.
But Cassie didn’t have time to wait for an ambulance.
“Help me get her in the truck!” He stood and gently scooped her into his arms.
“You don’t want to wait for an?—”
“No time!”
The two men raced as fast as they could across the cool grass. Lucky pulled open Archer’s truck’s back passenger door and helped him ease her limp form onto the smooth leather seat.