Evidence of Passion (Shadow Agents #7)(47)
Author: Cynthia Eden

But his body started to sag against her. “Dylan?” Rachel whispered.

He fell back. She staggered beneath his weight and slid down with him.

The sunlight fell on him, showing that it wasn’t just water that soaked him. It was blood. “No.” She put her hands on him and tried to apply pressure to the wound. “Noelle, help me!”

The profiler ran toward her. Rachel heard the other woman, talking on her phone, demanding help.

But who would come? The EOD was gone.

“Don’t do this to me, Dylan,” Rachel begged him. Her gun was on the dock, near her knees. Her hands were hard on his wounds. “You stay with me, you got that? You stay with me.”

His eyelids flickered. She saw the darkness of his gaze for a moment. It fixed on her.

“Love…” he rasped.

“I love you,” Rachel told him, leaning close, desperate now. “And you’re going to be with me for fifty more years, got it? This isn’t the end. You’re a SEAL. SEALs are tough—”

His breath heaved out.

Noelle’s hands joined Rachel’s. They both put pressure on the wound. “The bullet tore right through him,” Noelle said, voice ragged.

Rachel felt as if the bullet had torn through her. “You’re the good guy,” she said to Dylan, remembering their first meeting. “You promised to keep me safe. Keep that promise. You have to stay with me. That’s the only way. You have to make sure that I’m safe—”

Because without him, Rachel thought she’d be lost.

His eyes tried to focus on her. “Safe…”

She nodded, too aware that tears were sliding down her cheeks.

“Hate…when you…cry…” he whispered.

“Dylan—”

His eyes widened. He was looking right over her shoulder. With a sudden strength that stunned her, Dylan pushed Rachel and Noelle back. She followed his gaze and saw that—

Kenneth stood on the dock, dripping water. His lip was bleeding, and a snarl twisted his mouth. His eyes were on Dylan. “I’ll finish you!”

Kenneth leaped forward.

Dylan staggered to his knees. He was trying to shove Rachel behind him as he still attempted to protect her.

Only it was her turn to protect him.

She lifted her gun. Aimed.

Fired.

Kenneth stared at her with wide, stunned eyes. He glanced down. “Such…fighter…” His legs buckled.

Then his face slammed into the dock.

Rachel wrapped her arms around Dylan. “Now it’s over.”

Sirens screamed in the night.

Dylan shuddered against her.

“Hold on just a little longer,” she told him. “Please…”

His hand lifted. Found hers. He had to be in agony but he said, “For you…always…”

Tires squealed. Doors slammed. Rachel looked over and saw what looked like a mini-army of vehicles in the harbor’s lot.

Familiar vehicles. Those black SUVs were favored by one particular D.C. group.

The EOD.

Mercer jumped from the first vehicle. Mercer?

Rachel shook her head and held tighter to Dylan.

“We’ve got an injured agent! Get him a medic now!” Mercer thundered even as he ran to the dock.

He paused for just a second next to Kenneth’s body. He bent, checked for a pulse. Disgust tightened his lips. “You got off easy,” he muttered and he left the dead man.

Two medics swarmed Dylan. They took him from Rachel and loaded him onto a stretcher.

Mercer grabbed her hand. “I heard it all, Agent Mancini.”

She shook her head. “How are you even here? The blast—”

“We were already out of the EOD when I got your call. I just didn’t have time to tell you before the whole place went to hell.” His jaw locked. “I remembered what Noelle said, about you being the thing the guy cared about the most, and he was so hell-bent on getting you out of there…”

She barely heard him. Rachel couldn’t take her eyes off Dylan and the medics. They were taking Dylan away.

“When my instincts scream at me, you can believe that I listen to them.” He moved, shifting his stance so that he blocked her view of Dylan. “My instincts about you and Agent Foxx were dead-on from the beginning.”

She could only shake her head. She didn’t even know what instincts the guy was talking about.

“I knew right from the start that Dylan Foxx would be willing to die to keep you safe.”

She spared a glance for Kenneth’s still body. And I killed for him. Her gaze went back to the person who mattered. She eased a bit to the side of Mercer so that she could clearly see Dylan.

The medics were about to take him away. “Sorry, Mercer, but he’s not leaving without me.” She raced to keep up with them as they left the dock.

Dylan was still conscious. She saw that as she neared him. He was injured so badly, but he still reached out to her.

She caught his hand. Held tight.

“This won’t…hold me back…for long…”

His words seemed to be a warning.

“When they…stitch me up…”

The medics loaded him into an ambulance.

“I get to…savor you…”

Her heart jerked in surprise. He hadn’t just said—

He had.

“Takes more than this…to stop me…”

Yes, it did. Then, right in the middle of a nightmare, Rachel found herself laughing.

She knew then—Dylan was going to be just fine.

And so was she.

* * *

THE CABIN WAS SECLUDED, far away from any prying eyes. It sat at the top of the mountain, seemingly in the middle of the clouds. When Dylan stepped on the balcony, he inhaled a deep gulp of fresh air—and he thought about how quickly his life had changed.

He’d gotten out of the hospital after two days. Two damn long days. Rachel had been there to see him, staying close, because he needed her close by.

Mercer had been at the hospital, too. The boss had come in to update him on the EOD’s efforts to apprehend the others who’d helped Kenneth bomb the EOD.

For now, Dylan wasn’t working that particular case. He was on leave.

The door slid open behind him.

And I’m with Rachel.

He turned and glanced back at her. There would be no interruptions up here. No danger. No threats.

Just him. Just her. The way he wanted it to be.

Dylan lifted his hand toward her. Rachel smiled at him, a sweet, slow smile that started with the curve of her lips and ended with a gleam in her eyes.

She came to him with soft steps, and her fingers locked with his.

The cabin was his, an escape that he’d built years ago because he hadn’t wanted his life to be only about blood and death. Rachel was the only woman he’d ever brought there.