Burden (12 page)

Keegan drew his gun, thumbed the safety off and fired a shot. Tree bark splintered, but the yelp from Stan meant the bullet had found some skin at least.

Not enough to keep the IA detective from firing two more rounds at the window. They were pinned in a burning house, their only means of escape blocked by a man who felt he had no other options.

“I don’t suppose…” Brennan doubled over in a coughing fit, “…you have a s-secret passageway?”

They both put the wet rags to their faces and tried to breathe as normally as they could. Keegan’s vision blurred so much the room was beginning to waver. The heat grew steadily unbearable. They were going to burn to death before they even had a chance to grow old together.

Keegan took hold of Brennan’s hand and pulled him to the floor. He had the wherewithal to remember that heat and smoke rose, and they should stay as low as possible. The ceiling was already clouded by thick, gray smoke. There was a small window above the shower, but he doubted either one of them would fit through it, let alone survive climbing out with someone shooting at them.

Which left running through hell to get out.

The bedroom door exploded open, and the silhouette of a man filled the doorway. Keegan slammed into Brennan and covered his body, ready to die for the man he was already in love with.

Brennan’s chin smacked into the hardwood floor. Blood flooded his mouth, and his chest felt as if an elephant had fallen on him.

“Hello, boys.”

The voice rang with familiarity. He knew that voice. Had heard it hundreds of times.

“If you don’t get off each other now, we’ll never make it out of here alive, and trust me, I need you alive.”

Tommy. Thomas Greenwood. Another detective. “Keegan, move.” When he finally got his head out from underneath Keegan’s arm, he found the two men with their guns trained on each other. “Tommy?”

“It’s me, Brennan. Wanna call off your guard dog? We don’t have much longer before we’re all trapped in this crematory.”

“You’ll excuse me if I don’t believe you’re here to take us out of this hellhole alive,” Keegan said sarcastically.

“Keegan, he’s a f-friend.”

“Just like the friend outside?”

“Difference is, I was sent to kill your new lover and conveniently missed both times. Stan was only supposed to be ferreting information. Yet he’s the one shooting at his
partner
. You mind moving your ass now? I need Brennan’s testimony to get me out of this fucking mess alive too.”

Brennan bucked beneath Keegan. “If we don’t at least get outside, we won’t have any chance, Keegan.”

“Fine. Put your gun down.”

Tommy laughed. “I’ll put it in my pocket for now. We’re about to have a shootout at the Monroe corral, so I’ll keep it handy if it’s all the same to you.”

Keegan edged off Brennan, and they both got to their feet, the haze of smoke and heat bearing down on them. “
How
do we get out of here?” Brennan suddenly stopped and cocked his head. The blare of sirens sounded in the distance. “I think the cavalry has arrived.”

“No time to stay in here, though. Come on, there’s a partial path if we stick to the wall.” Tommy led them out the door into the hallway, where there was about a two-foot opening between the flames and the wall. He stopped on the threshold and glanced at both Brennan’s and Keegan’s naked chests. “Might wanna run really fast.”

Brennan’s lungs burned with a fierceness he didn’t think he’d ever felt before, and another surge of coughing nearly brought him to his knees. Keegan grabbed hold of his hand, an anchor. A lifeline. He took it, and together they sprinted through the hall of hell, the flames licking at their skin, trying to boil them from the outside in. The dash seemed interminable, and his bare feet felt blistered by the time they reached an already scorched front door. It had been kicked open by Tommy and the inferno put temporarily out by an extinguisher that had been exhausted before he’d made it to the hallway.

The three of them burst from the opening, the fresh air a crush of relief to Brennan’s aching chest, causing a renewed spasm of hacking from them all.

And Stan was still out here. Waiting for them to burn. Or had he run with the sound of sirens in the distance? They were much closer now. Red and blue lights bounced off the houses surrounding them, and neighbors had set up camps on their porches to gawk.

Brennan tugged at Keegan, who knelt on the ground purging the smoke from his lungs. “We have to get Stan.”

Keegan nodded.

“You just can’t fucking die, can you?”

Brennan whipped around to find Stan behind him, a gun trained on his forehead.

“Noooo—” Keegan’s scream drowned out the fire truck sirens in Brennan’s ears. How Keegan managed it, Brennan didn’t know, but a crack of gunfire pierced the air as the wind was knocked from his chest.

A second later another crack sounded, followed immediately by a grunt.

Keegan didn’t move. He lay on top of Brennan, his body dead weight across Brennan’s abdomen, a sticky wetness coating Brennan’s hands where they were trapped between their bodies.

“Keegan?”

Nothing.

“Fuck.
Keegan
,” he shouted, and pushed with all he had in him, trying to roll the man he’d somehow fallen in love with off him. Brennan turned his head to where Stan had stood. Now he lay on the ground, and sightless eyes stared back at him. The eyes of a man he’d once trusted with his life. The eyes of the man who’d tried to kill him more than once.

Cars squealed to a stop in the street, sirens echoed through the neighborhood and a roar overtook his ears. Keegan was suddenly lifted off him and laid on his back. His shoulder and chest gleamed red in the lights, and his eyes were closed. Men and women surrounded them, hands reached for him, pulling him back. There was shouting and the spray of water, and all Brennan could hear was the pounding of his own heart as Keegan lay there.

Lifeless.

Shot.

“Breathe.” Someone put a mask over his nose and mouth, and the rush of oxygen made him cough so hard he thought he’d throw up.

Medics rolled Keegan onto a stretcher and then lifted him onto a gurney. Brennan searched the street and lawn for Tommy but couldn’t find him anywhere. The fire had broken through the roof and cackled at the firefighters doing their best to put out the beast.

Brennan hacked again, doubling over with the pain. His knees gave out, and he hit the pavement hard, but felt nothing. Nothing but the sheer agony of losing Keegan when he’d just found him. The medics were rushing toward the ambulance, which told Brennan Keegan was bad. Hands beneath his armpits gently tugged him upright.

“We’re going to the hospital now.”

Brennan shook his head and pointed at Keegan. Beyond speaking capability, it was the best he could do.

“He’s going too. You could have some serious smoke inhalation, buddy.”

“Brennan, don’t worry about Keegan, I’ll stay with him.” The voice made Brennan look up, right into the face of Keegan’s friend from the café. “He’s a tough bastard. He ain’t going anywhere.”

Another round of lung-heaving did Brennan in. His head swam, and he found himself lying down on a gurney without knowing how he’d gotten there. A poke in his arm didn’t even faze him.

Tommy. Tommy had been the man behind the black hoodie. He’d shot at him. Missed. As if Tommy ever missed a shot. Brennan knew Tommy from the squad. He’d been part of the investigation into the sex-slave ring he’d been working. He’d been a man Brennan had once considered a friend.

His investigation a year ago had led to all this. Keegan’s house burning down and Keegan getting shot trying to protect Brennan.

If he lost Keegan, he’d never forgive himself.

The ambulance went black.

Chapter Fourteen

Keegan woke to beeps and a feeling like his arm had been ripped off. His head pounded, his lungs burned with every breath, and his nose tickled where air poured into his nostrils from some tube. He reached up to pluck it out when his hand was caught and brought back down.

“Don’t touch it.” Brennan’s voice, rough and crackly, was heaven to his ears, and Keegan smiled.

“Your partner shot me.” The whisper tore at his throat.

Brennan rubbed the inside of Keegan’s wrist with his thumb. “
Ex-partner.
But yes. And if Tommy hadn’t k-killed him, I would have somehow.”

“My heeeero.” He coughed, which sent a shard of white-hot pain down his arm. Keegan grimaced, and Brennan scooped up a handheld button and gestured to it.

“Morphine?”

“Oh yeah.”

“You scared the piss outta me when you didn’t get up,” Brennan murmured.

Keegan searched Brennan’s face, studying the man he’d come to care for so much in such a short time.

“You were about to be shot in front of me. What’d you want me to do?”

He owed Tommy his life, both their lives, because if he hadn’t killed Stan, Stan probably would have taken them both out. Still, Tommy had gone after Brennan, deluded ideals or not. If Brennan hadn’t moved that day at the café or if the bomb had had a secondary switch on it…it didn’t bear thinking. “Where
is
Tommy anyway?”

Brennan shrugged. “Don’t know. He called me this m-morning. He’s going to t-testify against the ring. Probably go into W-witness Protection after.”

“So he gets away with participating in a sex ring.”

The breath Brennan blew out caressed Keegan’s cheek. “You know how the system works.”

Keegan sighed. Yeah. He knew how the system worked. Sometimes it sucked balls. He guessed he had to be happy with taking down a major inside operation and that Stan had waited so long to take Brennan out. If he’d done something sooner, Keegan would never have met Brennan.

He took hold of Brennan’s hand and squeezed. His fucking eyelids were getting heavy already, and the sweet oblivion of the morphine was making his limbs numb. He didn’t want to go to sleep. He wanted to go home, get naked and get into his bed with Brennan. Hell, he really just wanted to get into Brennan.

Hmm… The morphine must have messed with his dick because he couldn’t even feel it twitch.

His eyes flew open. He glanced down his body at the sheet not tented above his groin. Fuck. “I’m not… Please tell me…”

Brennan snorted above him. “The bullet went through your shoulder, Keegan, not your spine. Your dick is just fine.”

“Jesus.” Keegan swallowed and settled into the pillow. His eyes wouldn’t stay open. “Lay with me.” He tugged on Brennan’s hand and heard the squeak of the bedrail going down, and then the mattress dipped as Brennan slid up next to his good side and put his hand on Keegan’s belly.

“Nurses’ll kill me.” Brennan settled his head into the crook of Keegan’s good shoulder.

Had he been able to prevent his arms from feeling like they were floating away, he would have gripped the back of Brennan’s shirt to keep him there forever.

“S’ what. Be here waiter. When I’s up.”

Brennan smiled at Keegan’s drug-slurred speech. The man was high as a kite.

Keegan sighed then and his body relaxed. “Love ooh, Brenny.”

Brennan’s breath caught. Was Keegan aware of what he’d said or was it the drugs talking?

A few seconds later he decided it didn’t matter because he felt the same way. He wasn’t sure how it had happened so quickly, but he knew it was the truth. There’d be time later to let the man know he’d never be allowed to use Aunt Caroline’s nickname for him in his presence again.

“I love you too, Keegan.”

About the Author

Annmarie McKenna lives with her husband and five kids in the Midwest. Throw in a dog and a cat and she’s well over her limit for the average family. Luckily, writing fantasies has proven to be an excellent way to de-stress from her daily life of being a cleaning woman, chauffeur, cook and mom. Okay, cleaning woman—not so much. She leaves that to her hubby. Now if only she could figure out how to de-stress her kids, she’d be all set.

To learn more about Annmarie, please visit
www.annmariemckenna.com
or her tries-to-keep-up-with-it-but-rarely-succeeds blog,
annmariemckenna.blogspot.com
. She’d love to hear from you. Send her an email to
[email protected]
.

Look for these titles by Annmarie McKenna

Now Available:

Mate

Seeing Eye Mate

Checkmate

Finding Strength

Two Sighted

The Strength of Three

Between a Ridge and a Hard Place

Bridging the Gap

To the Max

Fantasmagorical

Court Appointed

Tooth and Claw

Blackmailed

Look What Santa Brought

Jackson knows he needs protection from a stalker, but the last thing he wants is to want his bodyguard.

Court Appointed

© 2008 Annmarie McKenna

A
Serving Love
Story

After receiving several suspicious “gifts”, His Honor Jackson Benedict is assigned an agent for protection. He’d be fine with a bodyguard…if he was anyone but the man who enters his courtroom looking hotter than any man has a right to look. Thank God Jackson’s robe hides his interest.

Trey London is more than happy that Jackson has practically been handed to him on a silver platter. If his job requires he stay close to one of the country’s youngest federal judges, it’s no skin off his back. The closer the better, actually.

But someone else is getting closer, too, and when the gifts turn into attacks, Trey is forced to trade his status of new lover for that of protector. He’s not about to let anyone come between him and his judge.

Warning, this title contains the following: explicit, nekkid, sometimes robed, m/m judge on bodyguard sex, and graphic language.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Court Appointed: