Free Fight By The Team (Team Fear Book 2) by Cindy Skaggs Page A

pillow behind her back to keep the wound elevated. “But I could branch out; help you start a Barry the Bastard bonfire later.”
    “Sounds like a plan. We had a barn fire here last year.”
    “So I heard. Maybe fires are your specialty.”
    “Wasn’t me. I think Barry started it.”
    The runt from campus had lit her barn on fire? That was more than a bad breakup. Rose grabbed her boots and yanked them from her feet.
    “You cut off my boots and I will haunt you.”
    “We don’t do that.” He let his eyes show a humor he didn’t feel. Color drained from her cheeks, leaving her skin a sickly grey. “The ER likes to cut off your clothes. I think they get kickbacks from the clothing industry.”
    Fowler grabbed the medic bag and setup on the opposite end of the couch. “Field dressing or are we stitching her up?”
    “How much time do we have?”
    “Ryder’s on the hunt. The bastard won’t get anywhere near here. We’ve got time.”
    That gave him time to assess, something he’d wanted but couldn’t do until they were secure. “Compression.” Rose warned Debi before he put a clean dressing and pressure over the wound.
    Debi hissed breath between her teeth. “What happened? I thought we set a trap?”
    “We did.” Fowler pulled a medicine bottle and syringe from the kit. “The guy on your tail set the bomb and hightailed it up the hill. We were right on his ass when he blew it. Took him down.”
    “Then how the fuck did he get off a shot?” Rose scrubbed his hands in the kitchen sink. He glared at Fowler from across the room.
    “Wasn’t him.” Fowler injected Debi with a painkiller. “What’s your pain level?”
    “Fifteen.”
    “One a scale of one to ten.”
    She grimaced. “My answer remains the same.”
    “Lucky it wasn’t me doing the shooting. You’d be dead.”
    “You didn’t kill the soldier in the car behind us.”
    “I had orders. We needed information.” Fowler drew liquid into the syringe. “Which is why his partner took him out.”
    “There were two?” Her words started to slur.
    Rose shook clean water from his hands. “We went over this once, sweetheart. Keep up. Bad guy one hightailed it up the cliff when Fowler shot him. Bad guy two shot him so we wouldn’t capture him.”
    “The second guy killed the first guy.” Her eyes alternated between wide open and long blinks. “To shut him up. You think he would have talked?”
    They were good at their job. “He’d have talked,” Rose said. There was no end to the pressure they’d exert to get the information they needed. Rose grabbed the Celox applicator from the kit. The blood-clotting agent stemmed blood loss.
    Fowler frowned as he finished the story. “What I don’t understand is how Echo Two took out Echo One with a damn-near perfect shot, but managed to miss Rose’s big ass in the truck and hit Debi instead.”
    “Distance. Rapid movement. Not everyone has your skills.” Rose frowned down. Her color hadn’t improved and her face was pinched in pain. “How’s the pain?”
    “I think it’s gone down. To a fourteen.”
    He rubbed her good hand so he didn’t jostle the wounded side. “We got you covered, sweetheart. You’ll be feeling no pain before we get to the end of the story.”
    “Promise?”
    “Oh, yeah. Saved the good stuff for you.”
    “Top shelf, huh?”
    Rose laughed. “Proximo 1800. Only the best.” He glanced over Debi to meet Fowler’s gaze. “We can stabilize and slow the blood loss, but she needs a surgeon. Doctor at the least. Help me get her patched up, and then we need transport.”
    Fowler tossed the morphine back in the med kit. “Echo had a man on surveillance here at the ranch. They must have been communicating, because the second man was moving to intercept when the bomb went off.”
    Rose prepped the Celox. The plunger distributed blood-clotting agent into gunshot wounds, which saved lives and limbs. Fowler peeled back the compress so Rose could work. The wound flooded with