Rod had to be here by now, didn’t he? It seemed like so long ago that she’d called him. At this point, he was her only hope. Sheriff Cooper hadn’t arrived and probably wasn’t coming. He was letting Gary take care of her. After it was all over, they’d decide who to put forward for her job.
“That’s it.” Victory rang in Gary’s voice as she began to wiggle her pants down over her hips. “How does it feel to know that denying me all those years was only putting off the inevitable?”
Distantly, Sophia imagined him going home to her mother after this and getting into their shower to wash her blood off his skin. Imagined him climbing into bed. Imagined her mother turning to take him in her arms. And felt as if she might throw up. Or maybe the nausea came from all the times he’d had to hit her to get this far….
“Now the panties,” he coaxed. But Sophia couldn’t do it. She lay without moving, staring mutely up at him.
Surprisingly, he didn’t hit her. He was too busy taking off his belt and undoing his pants. “This is what you’ve been missing,” he said proudly, exposing himself.
Sophia knew she had two choices. She could allow her revulsion to get the best of her. Or she could use his sick desires against him.
Determined to survive at all costs, she smiled and motioned for him to lie down beside her. It was almost impossible to suppress her gag reflex when she put her mouth on his, but then the will to survive and her preoccupation with reaching some sort of tool she could use as a weapon took over, and she was able to divorce her mind from her body. She even moaned and was gratified when he moaned in return. He was falling for it, the stupid bastard.
The barrel of the gun cut into her temple, but he was getting so worked up that he wasn’t holding it very steady. Praying he wouldn’t shoot her by accident, she groped through the hay and the dirt, searching for the pitchfork she’d noticed earlier. Pretending she was as carried away as he was, she writhed and rolled and moaned—and found it.
“See? This isn’t bad, is it?” he murmured. “God, you taste good….”
She had a hand on one tine of the pitchfork, but he wasn’t watching the gun. She was beginning to believe she might be able to get hold of it. If she grabbed it, twisted and fired simultaneously it could all be over….
Did she want to take that risk? Any sudden movement and he might squeeze the trigger before she could push the muzzle away. But he was trying to remove her panties, and she knew, even if she got hold of the pitchfork, she couldn’t use it while she was lying on her back. She wouldn’t have enough leverage. Which meant she had no other option.
Arching into him, she groaned and, when he glanced up to see her face, to revel in her supposed enjoyment, she made her move.
It happened so fast, she wasn’t sure she had the gun at the proper angle. But she grabbed it—and fired.
Rod had never experienced anything worse than hearing that gun go off—or seeing Sophia lying on that dirt floor with her clothes askew and her face streaked with blood and tears when he opened the door of the tackle shed. It reminded him of the helplessness he’d felt whenever his mother was hurt. He couldn’t decide whether to gather her to him and comfort her or kill the man who’d caused her harm.
And then it occurred to him that he could do both, if he started with the man. But maybe he wasn’t thinking straight. The room was spinning. “Rod?”
He heard Sophia’s worried voice but refused to take his eyes off Gary. “Get up,” he told him. No way would he shoot someone who was lying on the ground. But Gary couldn’t get up. He was rolling around, shrieking in pain. He was the one who’d been shot, not Sophia. The bullet had gone right through his face. Blood streamed down both cheeks, but the bullet had been far from fatal, which meant he wasn’t hurt enough.
Rod fired his own weapon, purposely hitting the wall just above Gary’s head. Then he fired again and again, inching closer with each bullet to provoke maximum fear. “Pull up your pants,” he snarled.
Gary scrambled to obey, but Rod wanted to shoot him, anyway. He might have, if not for Sophia. Having repaired her clothing, she was trying to take his weapon. “Rod, give me the gun.”
Rod’s head pounded in rhythm with the pulsing in his leg. “I should kill this ass**le right here.”
“No. I want him to stand trial. And so do you. We’re cops, remember?”
“Did he do it? Did he get away with—”
“No. I shot him before he could. And I’m okay. Do you hear me? I’m fine. He’ll stand trial. For that and a lot of other things.”
Rod pictured Gary in prison and felt some of the terrible anger dissipate. “Yeah, maybe going to prison will show him what it feels like to get raped.”
“You’re going to pass out. We need to get you some help. Give me the gun,” she repeated, and he let her take his firearm and pull him into her arms.
The sun was streaming through the window of the hospital room when Rod began to stir. The doctors had removed the bullet lodged against the bone above his knee and given him a blood transfusion. He’d been asleep ever since. They’d examined Sophia, too, and put some antiseptic on her cuts, but they hadn’t felt the need to keep her overnight. She’d stayed to be with Rod.
“Hey, what are you doing clear over there?” he mumbled sleepily.
She offered him a tired smile. “Worrying about you.”
“You’ve been sitting in that chair all night?”
“Since we got here. But that was only about six hours ago. And you were in surgery for an hour of that.”
“You didn’t have to worry. I can survive anything.”
The humor in his voice relieved a lot of her tension. The doctors had told her he’d be okay. Now she believed it.
Shifting carefully to one side of the bed, he patted the spot next to him, and she got up to join him there. His arm went around her as she climbed in and settled against him.
“What happened to Gary?” he asked, toying with her hair.
The warmth of his body enveloped her, making her happy in a love-drunk way. “You don’t remember?”
“I remember wanting to shoot him. Did I?”
“No,” she said with a laugh. “I called Grant and he took care of the rest. Gary and James are in the hospital in Tucson, under police guard. Leonard’s dead.”
“So…did I shoot Leonard instead?”
“That was me.”