Darkness Of Truth (An FBI/Romance Thriller~ Book 6) (16 page)

“Okay Cowboy
.” Elizabeth knew her husband. This was his typical defense mechanism when he was wounded. He went cold and retreated, protecting his heart. Something happened between the men in her absence. Seriously? She was gone for less than ten minutes.

T
he three headed to the Denali, jumping in and snapping into seatbelts. Callen sat in the back, giving his brother space, hoping they could fix this. It wasn’t lost on him that during the drive, Elizabeth took Ethan’s hand in hers, trying to offer him reassurance. It was as if they had some unspoken ability to soothe the other person without saying a word. Normally she’d reach back and touch his leg, connecting the three of them.

Obviously, he was on her shit list
now too.

Damn it!

Pulling up to the small rundown cabin, they all exited the vehicle. There were cars on blocks and abandoned toys all over the yard. At one time a family obviously lived there. While the destitute manner didn’t faze Ethan and Callen, it bothered Elizabeth. The three had very different childhoods growing up. Hers was filled with love, a big house and happiness. Theirs was filled with poverty and sadness.

“I’ll take the back,” Callen offered, trotting around the house
to make sure the suspect didn’t escape.

Elizabeth and Ethan walked up onto the porch and knocked on the door, looking around. The house was in really bad shape, and she was having a hard time believing anyone was living there.

Then she heard it.

Wind
chimes.

She
focused on the ones hanging from the porch roof, and they weren’t moving but the sound continued. Then there was the wave of awareness, and Ethan must have sensed it too.

“Elizabeth, move!” he yelled, pulling her towards him
at the last second, as the blast ripped past them. Both were caught off-guard as they toppled over the edge of the porch, landing with a thud on the concrete.

There were three more shot gun blasts.

Callen heard the sound of gunfire. Everything in him died as he raced around the side of the cabin to his family. There were two more shots hitting the house above him followed by silence.

“Elizabeth! Ethan!” he yelled, waiting for an answer. Crawling towards the porch, he found them. There was blood and two prone bodies. His woman was
sprawled over his brother’s frame.

When she looked up at him, gun drawn he relaxed only marginally.

“Callen cover us,” she shouted, placing her gun on the ground as she patted her husband’s face. Then she saw the blood and began checking his body. “Come on, Ethan! Don’t do this to me!” she pleaded, checking him for bullet wounds. When she found none, her heart started beating again. The burn had begun in her arm, and she knew why.

It was her blood.

When Blackhawk moaned, her stomach stopped twisting in fear. Callen crawled over to them and flipped a picnic table to its side to offer them both a shield.

“Is he okay?” H
e couldn’t breathe as his brother lay motionless on the ground.

“I think he hit
his head. We landed pretty hard on the concrete. He took the brunt of the force with his body.”

Callen stared at the blood soaking the sleeve of her shirt. “You’re shot!”

“I’m grazed on arm, or I cut it going over the rail. It’s fine,” she answered, stroking Ethan’s face. “Come on Cowboy. Open those sexy eyes of yours. I need you to wake up for me. We’re pinned here and need you to snap out of it.”

Ethan could hear his wife,
as he struggled to fight his way through the fog. Damn his head hurt! Opening his eyes, he tried to focus on the two sets of eyes above him. One pair was icy blue and the other brown. Both sets were filled with nothing but worry and concern.

“What happened?” he mumbled, only to have his wife kiss him hard on the mouth.

“You scared the hell out of me!” she stated, keeping him still. “Don’t move! Anything broken?” she inquired, running her hands down his body.

“Nothing’s broken.”

“What happened?” questioned Callen.

“We were knocking on the door, and I heard wind chimes,” she said, running her fingers over Ethan’s ribs to make sure he wasn’t seriously hurt. “I looked up and there wasn’t any wind.”

Callen didn't get it.

“It’s a granddad thing,” she said, simply.

“I heard them too,” muttered Blackhawk, struggling to sit up. “Then I could feel something was off.”

“Your brother saved my damn life,” she whispered, kissing him again. “That gunshot would have hit me in the back if he didn’t grab me and pull me towards him.”

Callen should have felt better, but instead he was feeling worse. The man he had recently hurt with his words just saved Elizabeth and his child’s life. “We need to look at your arm, Lyzee,” Callen stated.

That g
rabbed Ethan’s attention.  “You’re hurt?” he opened his eyes and finally noticed the blood. “Holy shit, you got shot!”

She started laughing
, pushing up her sleeve. “I’m grazed and that’s it. We need to get back to the Denali and take Ethan to the ER.”

“I’m fine!” he stated, exuberantly. “But we do need to go get you looked at. You landed on top of me, and the baby was squished between us.”

Now Callen began panicking again. “Is the baby okay?”

Elizabeth could feel him moving. “He’s fine. I landed on Ethan’s lower body. There was room for EJ. We’re good.”

“I’ll drive us to the ER.” Callen wasn’t letting her out of it.

She shrugged
, knowing how to win this war. “Okay, but then your brother is losing his gun and badge until he can be recertified. That’s twenty four hours, boys. I was grazed in my left arm, and I’ll be back out in the field in minutes after getting a bandage. ”

Both men looked at each other. They knew she had a point. G
oing to the ER meant one thing -official paperwork and one less armed person keeping her safe.

“Will you let Doctor Leonard
check you both out?” Callen pleaded. It would be the best he could probably get at that moment.

“I will,” offered Elizabeth.

“Okay.” Ethan wasn’t happy about it, but he wasn’t willing to lose his badge and gun while a maniac was shooting at his wife.

Callen holstered his
weapon. “I’m running for the Denali. I’ll pull it around; you both get in the back.” Before they could say anything, he was gone.

“You really okay?” asked Blackhawk
, pulling her against his body and kissing her forehead. Automatically, his hand went to her belly.

“Yeah, thank you for saving us, Ethan.”

Suddenly, all the anger he’d been feeling had evaporated. He could have lost Elizabeth and his nephew in one shot. Sometimes things happened for a reason. They survived, and he had his perspective back again.

“Anything for you,
Baby,” he whispered, his head pounding like three drums.

Callen pulled up beside the picnic table and the back door opened. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he
shouted, watching them climb in and tearing out of there like a maniac. Not because of the man that might be hiding in the woods, but because he wanted his family to be checked out by their ME.

Ironically, if his brother had been slower
or off his game, the ME still would have been checking out Elizabeth.

Just in a body bag
and at a crime scene.

Julian and Tori made it back to the cabin, stabled the horses and rushed to the police station to meet up with the rest of the team. They sat down in autopsy with the two doctors, listening to the update on the victims.

When they heard the voices coming down the hall they both looked over at the door and their mouths hung open.

“Oh my God!” Tori exclaimed
, staring at the state of the three of them. “What happened?”

Elizabeth hopped up on the table and immediately Doctor Leonard
was at her side. “I need you to check the baby, my arm and Ethan’s head. I think he has a concussion.”

“Whoa! We need an explanation on this one,” Chris said, digging for a stethoscope in his bag.

She laid back, sucking up the audience as she lifted her shirt. “We went to talk to the ‘poacher’ suspect and someone took shots at us from the trees. Ethan and I took a header off the porch onto the concrete.”

“You landed on the baby?” Ch
ris questioned, listening through his stethoscope.

“No, Ethan landed on the bottom and took all the weight. The baby was tucked between us.” Elizabeth was worried about her child, or she wouldn’t be sitting here getting herself checked out.

“Do you feel any movement inside?”

“Yeah, he’s pissed
and stirred up like a hornets nest.”

Chris pressed on her bump and felt around for the baby. “He’s right here,” he said, touching her stomach above her bellybutton.

Tony Magnus spoke up. “Maybe you should let the father feel,” he offered, trying to get the men to make some motion to give away what he was dying to know.

When
they didn’t move, he cursed at being foiled again.

Elizabeth grinned. “Goodbye Tony!” she booted him out of the room.

The man objected. “Why does Julian get to stay while you take off your shirt?”

“Because Julian isn’t trying to find out who the baby daddy is to win the office pool, and if he turns around and looks, Tori is going to kick his ass.”

“Yes, I am.” Tori reiterated.

Tony muttered
, slamming the door behind him.

Chris looked down at her face. “Do you want
the father to feel him?” he offered, nodding over to the men.

“I trust Julian and Tori,” she said, glancing over at Callen. “Want to feel your son, Cal?” Elizabeth offered.

Immediately, he was at her side. Chris took his hand in his and pressed on her stomach in just the right spot, until his eyes lit up.

“That’s my boy?” His eyes filled with tears and they threatened to fall at any moment. “Ethan, come here and feel this,” he whispered, enthralled by the feel of the little life beneath her skin. At first
, he didn’t think his brother would join them, but he did.

Chris took his hand and pressed in another location. “There’s the baby.”

Even Ethan’s eyes filled with emotion. Some of it was because it wasn’t his child, but mostly because he was already in love with little EJ.

Julian and Tori watched the three of them grinning. Honestly,
she expected Ethan to be the father of the child, but now they saw it didn’t really matter. The love on his face said it all.

The baby was just as much his
.

“Okay, now Ethan on the other
table and lay flat. I’m going to check you next. Elizabeth take off your shirt.”

“Please check Ethan first. It’s just a flesh wound. He hit his head pretty damn hard.” Elizabeth was worried about him.

Chris did what she asked, simply because she wouldn’t stop nagging until he did it. With a light, he shined it in his eyes. “Did he black out?”

“He was out for about two minutes,” she offered, getting a dirty look from her husband. “Sucks doesn’t it?” she said, laughing at him. It was usually her that was getting ratted out to the ME.

Doctor Leonard had little choice. “You know I’m not supposed to let you back out in the field for twenty four hours, Ethan,” he added, feeling his head and finding a lump on the back.

“I’ll willingly stay in.”

“What?”
Elizabeth nearly fell off the table.

“Unlike you,
Lyzee, I’m willing to admit when I’m injured. My head is killing me,” he said, closing his eyes.

“I’ll give you some pain killers, and then you can crash in the office for a while,” Chris offered.

She stared at him open mouthed. “Are you okay, Ethan?” Now she was crossing to him and staring down into his eyes, nothing but concern on her face.

“What’s left to do today?”

“I was going to swing by the sheriff’s office and find out if there were any missing person’s reports, and then head out for something to eat. I have to feed the baby.”

He glanced over at his brother. “Make sure she’s safe.”

Callen nodded, feeling guilty that his brother was once more putting space between them. “I’ll drive her back to the house to get her a change of clothes.”

“There’s some in the Denali. I keep spares
, because she’s a menace to clothing and men.”

“You have spare men in the Denali for me? Ethan, that’s so sweet of you,” she replied, grinning. Before he could comment back, she leaned down and kissed him long and slow. Breaking away the laughter started. “Wow, this is how it feels to be the one standing over the person
being kissed in autopsy. Today’s just a really bizarre day.”

Ethan
laughed as his heart lightening a little bit. “Look at her arm, Doc.” He took the pain killer and closed his eyes trying to block out the light and the sound.