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She heard that. Sound came back with a sort of whoosh.

His hands ran over her. Checking her neck, her arms, her torso.

Her own right hand rose to search for her hearing aid. Still there. Loose, but there. She quickly adjusted it. “Did…did lightning strike?” That roar of thunder had seemed to come from right behind her. Rain pelted down on her. Mostly onto Hunter as he covered her, but the rain rolled off him and onto her.

“Shelby! Shelby!” Jonah’s shaking voice. He dropped to his knees beside her. “My God.” His eyes were huge. His cheeks wet from the rain. “My God…if you’d still been in that SUV…”

The SUV?

Hunter’s fingers ran over her legs. “What hurts, baby? Where is the pain?”

She…she shoved up. Looked over Hunter’s shoulder. Ignored the rain. Her jaw dropped at the sight that met her eyes. Hunter’s SUV had flames sputtering from all of its broken windows. That made zero sense. A lightning strike that hit the vehicle wouldn’t do all that, would it?

“Shelby.” Hunter caught her chin. Forced her to look at him. “Where are you hurt?”

“I-I’m not…”

“Your arm is bleeding again. Dammit.”

She’d tucked a fresh bandage onto her arm before leaving the hotel, and, he was right, she was bleeding from the gunshot graze again.

“What in the hell happened?” A shout. Gabriel’s voice.

Hunter locked his jaw. “Call for backup,” he ordered Jonah.

“What happened?” Gabriel stumbled to a halt near them. “Your vehicle is on freaking fire!”

Hunter kept his fingers around Shelby’s chin. “Are you hurt anywhere else? Anywhere but your arm?”

She didn’t even feel pain in her arm. “No.” But…his SUV was on fire. “Did lightning hit it?”

“No.” Bitten off. Angry. Hunter stood up and lifted her in his arms, pulling her against his chest as he held her. “I think it was a fucking bomb.”

What? No, no, he was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Why would someone bomb his car?

And…

And I was in the SUV. If I hadn’t gotten impatient, frustrated, I would have been in the SUV. When it exploded. “Hunter…” Fear.

“We’re getting cover, now.” His grip tightened around her as he raced toward the house.

Gabriel jumped into his path. “What are you doing? Where are you going? You can’t go in there⁠—”

“Someone just blew up my ride, asshole. It’s not safe out here. We all need to get the hell inside. I am getting Shelby to cover. You can either get out of my way, or I will roll right over you. The choice is yours.”

One of Shelby’s arms looped around Hunter’s neck. She saw the widening of Gabriel’s eyes. Realized the exact moment when he seemed to understand that maybe outside wasn’t the safest place to be right then. “Come on,” Gabriel growled. “But we stay in the den, got it? No damn searches.”

They raced inside his house. Gabriel first. Then Hunter, carrying her, and finally, Jonah. Jonah slammed the door shut even as he gripped his phone close to his face. “Yes, yes, I need backup!” Jonah shouted into the phone. “Out at the old Shiloh estate. There’s fire—get the firefighters here, STAT, and, shit, call in a bomb squad. Yes, I said the damn bomb squad. I know exactly what I⁠—”

Hunter lowered her onto the couch. He knelt in front of her. “Shelby.”

She’d started to shake.

Okay, so…she’d thought the attack in New Orleans was random. Maybe a stray bullet. Or, at least, she’d been able to tell herself it was a stray.

But this time…

There was nothing random about Hunter’s car exploding. “Someone is trying to kill me.”