hoped Abbie had done the same. He braced himself for the shot.
It came all right.
The bullet blasted through the night air, the sound tearing through him. Mason took aim and returned fire. The gunman ducked just in time, and Mason’s shot slammed into the tree and sent a spray of splinters everywhere.
And that’s when it hit Mason. The gunman hadn’t fired at him.
But at Abbie.
Mason glanced over his shoulder to make sure she was okay. She seemed to be. She had stayed put on the ground with her hands covering her head. Good. But her hands wouldn’t stop a bullet.
What the devil was going on?
First the fire, now this. It wasn’t the first time danger had come to the ranch, but it was a first attack on one of his employees.
An employee who had plenty of questions to answer.
After Mason took care of this gunman, he would ask Abbie those questions. First, he wanted this shooter alive to answer some, too, but he had no trouble taking this guy out if it came down to it.
Mason kept watch on the spot where he’d last seen the gunman, and he lifted his head slightly so he could have a better chance of hearing any kind of movement. He heard some all right.
Footsteps.
Mason cursed. The gunman was running.
Escaping.
Mason fired another shot into the trees and hoped it would cause the guy to stop. It didn’t. Once the sound of the blast cleared, Mason heard the footsteps again and knew the shooter was headed for the fence. He would make it there, too, because it wasn’t that far away, and once he scaled it, he could disappear into the woods.
That wouldn’t give Mason those answers he wanted.
Mason got to a crouching position and watched the fence, hoping that he would be able to see the shooter and wound him enough to make him stop. But when the sound of the footsteps stopped, the guy was nowhere in sight.
“Don’t get up,” Mason barked to Abbie.
But that’s exactly what he did. He kept his gun ready, but he started running and made a beeline to the fence. Mason ran as fast as he could. However, it wasn’t fast enough. He heard the gunman drop to the other side of the fence.
Mason considered climbing the fence and going after him. That’s what the rancher in him wanted to do anyway. But his cop’s training and instincts reminded him that that would be a quick way to get himself killed.
Maybe Abbie, too.
The gunman could be there waiting for Mason to appear and could shoot him, and then go after Abbie. His brothers and some of the ranch hands were no doubt on the way to help, but they might not arrive in time to save her.
So Mason waited and stewed. Whoever had set that fire and shot at Abbie would pay for this.
When he was certain they weren’t about to be gunned down, Mason stood. He kept his attention and gun on the fence and backed his way to Abbie.
“Let’s get out of here,” he ordered.
Mason didn’t have to tell her twice. She sprang to her bare feet and started toward the ranch—backward, as Mason was doing.
“Why did he try to kill you?” he asked her without taking his attention off the fence.
Abbie didn’t jump to deny it, but she didn’t volunteer anything either. She was definitely hesitating, and Mason didn’t like that.
“Why?” he pressed.
“I’m in the Federal Witness Protection Program,” she finally said.
Of all the things Mason had expected to hear, that wasn’t on his list. But his list now included a whole barnyard of questions.
“Who’s the gunman?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Mason couldn’t help it. He cursed again. “And you thought it was okay to bring this kind of danger to the ranch without warning anyone? Someone other than you could have been killed tonight.”
He knew that sounded gruff. Insensitive even. But no one had ever accused him of putting sensitivity first. Still, he felt…something. Something he cursed, too. Because Mason hated the fear in Abbie’s voice. Hated even more the vulnerability he saw in her eyes.
Oh, man.
This was a damsel-in-distress reaction. He could face down a cold-blooded killer and not flinch. But a woman in pain was something he had a hard time stomaching. Especially this woman.
He blamed that on the flimsy gown. And cursed again.
“I need details,” he demanded. “Why are you in witness protection, and why would someone want you dead?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but before she could say anything, Mason heard Grayson call out to them. “Are you two okay?”
Mason was, but Abbie looked ready to keel over. “We’re not hurt,” he shouted to his brother. Because the gunman was probably long gone, Mason turned in Grayson’s direction so he could get to him faster. “The guy shot at Abbie.”
“Abbie?” Grayson questioned. Like the other half dozen or so ranch hands with him, he was armed.
“She’s the new cutting-horse trainer I hired,” Mason explained. “And she’s in witness protection.”
The news seemed to surprise Grayson as much as it had him.
“I don’t know who tried to kill me,” Abbie volunteered.
Her voice wasn’t just shaky, it was all breath and nerves. She let out a small yelp when she stumbled. Probably landed on a rock, because there were plenty enough to step on. That did it. Mason put his gun in the back waist of his jeans and scooped her up. He didn’t forget that it was the second time tonight he’d had her in his arms—and neither circumstance had been very good.
Too bad she felt good.
She smelled good, too, even though he could pick up traces of the smoke. Her scent, the feel of her, stirred things he had no intentions of feeling, so he told those feelings to back off. Way off. He wasn’t going there with Abbie.
Then he looked down at her. Saw the shiny tears in her eyes. Heard the slight hitch in her breath when she tried to choke back those tears.
“I’ve been in witness protection for twenty-one years,” she whispered.
Mason did the math. If he remembered correctly, Abbie was thirty-two. That meant she’d entered the program at age eleven. A kid.
“And nothing like this has ever happened to you?” Grayson asked, sounding a little too much like a hard-nosed cop for Mason’s liking.
That was a big red flag, because Mason remembered that it was a question he should have asked. No. He should have demanded. He forced himself to remember that he was a deputy sheriff and that Abbie had put them all in danger.
Still, he felt that twinge of something he rarely felt. Or rarely acknowledged anyway.
Sympathy.
He’d rather feel actual pain.
“Years ago, someone tried to kill me,” Abbie answered. And she paused for a long time. “Not long after my mom and I entered witness protection, someone fired shots at me.” Another pause. “They killed my mother.”
Oh, hell.
Nothing could have stopped that slam of sympathy. Nothing.
Mason and his brother exchanged glances, and Mason knew there’d be more questions. Had to be. Grayson would need to investigate the fire and shooting. One of them would also need to contact the U.S. Marshals