Rancher's Hostage Rescue. Beth Cornelison

of cash at the older teller. “Ones?” He leaned across the counter and smacked the woman’s face with the money.

      The woman gasped and pressed her hand to her cheek as she staggered back from the counter. Lilly tensed, hot anger flaring in her gut.

      “Do you think this is a game?” he shouted at the teller. “That I did all this for ones?” Then a movement or noise must have caught his attention, because he whirled around, swinging his weapon toward the lobby. “Stay down! Hands out where I can see ’em!”

      A ripple of murmurs and gasps rose from the customers and employees hunkered on the floor. Lilly cut a glance toward Dave.

      Helen’s ex had a glacial stare pinned on the robber. Although he was mostly flat on the floor, one hand was still out of sight, under the injured security guard, presumably tending to the man’s wound.

      Then Dave’s gaze flicked to Lilly’s and locked. Softened with concern and questions. Her heart gave a soft bump, and an odd warmth spread inside her. Dave’s concern for her made her feel less alone, less frightened.

      But a moment later, Dave returned a steely glare to the robber, who’d finished grabbing up the bagged money and stuffing her purse with bills. The thug backed toward the door, making his getaway.

      Knowing that some punk was able to come in here, shoot people and take what wasn’t his, then waltz out again, offended Lilly on a deep, cellular level. Rage flared in her core like a blacksmith’s furnace. She wanted to launch herself at the man and claw his eyes. Wanted to scream in his face the way he’d—

      A man from the street entered the bank, walking blindly into the robbery. The thief spun around. Panicked. Fired toward the new customer. Lilly jolted, stunned.

      The man from the street grabbed his side, then turned and ran out.

      Screams filled the bank lobby as the robber fired again toward a desk where a secretary had crawled to hide. When the robber aimed his weapon at the front counter of the bank, Lilly rolled toward a stuffed chair in the waiting area outside the loan offices.

      Two more shots rang out. Different weapon. Different pitch to the blasts.

      Shaking, she peered out from behind the chair. The robber was hunched forward, his shooting arm limp. Spitting out a curse, his booty clutched in his left hand, the robber scuttled toward the exit. Another shot boomed from the new weapon, shattering a glass partition at the bank entrance. And then...silence. As if everyone in the bank was holding their breath, uncertain. Was it over?

      Lilly sat up slowly, trembling, her mind reeling, her heart slamming against her ribs. A groan, a sudden movement near the fallen guard, drew her attention. Dave had surged to his feet, a gun in his hand, and he jogged, limping, toward the door where the robber had fled. The expression he wore was determined. Murderous.

      * * *

      He’d kill the sonofabitch, Dave swore, gritting his back teeth in pain as he rushed out of the bank. Given a clear shot, he would stop that bank-robbing cretin from maiming innocent bystanders, assaulting old ladies and killing security guards ever again. But his bum leg slowed him down. He didn’t make it to the parking lot before the robber had climbed into a rusty sedan and was racing onto the main road through town. Dave knew better than to fire at a moving vehicle on a city street. Too many drivers shared the road, too many people had poked their heads out of nearby businesses, likely having heard the gunfire.

      Growling under his breath, he lowered the revolver he’d taken off Deputy Hanover, and raised a hand to rub his face. He stopped when the blood on his palm caught his eye. A sick feeling swelled in his gut. He’d tried to help the fallen guard, but the older man had died even as Dave tended him. He’d had his hand on the man’s chest and felt the slow drub of his heart stop.

      “Dave!”

      He faced Lilly as she stepped out of the bank, warily eyeing the parking lot and the gun still in his hand. He sighed heavily. “He got away.”

      Even to his own ears, he sounded defeated. Could he have stopped the robbery? He’d known Deputy Hanover had a revolver on his belt, but for better or worse, he’d made aiding the wounded man his priority.

      “Did he hurt you?” he asked Lilly.

      She shook her head. “Just scared me.” She blew out a tremulous breath. “I’ve never had a gun pointed at my head before. So not fun.”

      He twisted his mouth in wry agreement. “No.”

      Her gaze dipped to the red staining his hands. “Is any of that blood yours?”

      “No. It’s Deputy Hanover’s.” Dave furrowed his brow, felt a knot of emotion tighten his throat. “He didn’t make it.” The answer scraped from his throat, as rough as sandpaper.

      “No, he didn’t,” she said. “I checked on him before I came out here. I’m sorry.”

      Regret poured through him. He’d weighed his options, tried to balance the risk of agitating the robber and drawing more fire on innocents against the possibility of putting an end to the crime in progress. When the scumbag had shot at Gill Carver and his cell phone, he’d made his choice to act. But he’d had to work to get the weapon out from under the dead security guard’s hip without drawing attention.

      Too little, too late.

      That had become a theme with him. Forget roads. He was paving entire interstates to hell with all his useless good intentions.

      The whine of a siren filtered through the rattling thoughts and recriminations in his brain.

      “We should go back inside.” Lilly touched his arm. “You don’t want to be standing out here with that gun when the cops arrive.”

      His cheek twitched in a weak grin. “True that.”

      Dave followed Lilly back into the bank, his leg throbbing from the recent abuse of diving to the floor, crawling around and attempting to run with his full weight on it. Inside, the other customers and personnel of the bank were huddled in clusters. One group tended to Gill Carver, the man whose hand had been shot, and that was the direction Lilly went first. Another group surrounded the branch manager, who held a phone to his ear, and a few women were comforting the younger teller, who seemed to be hyperventilating. Someone had draped their coat over the fallen security guard, covering his wound and face.

      Dave laid the revolver on the ground next to Hanover, nudging the weapon out of sight with his toe. He grabbed a bunch of facial tissues from a box on a secretary’s desk, along with a squirt of hand sanitizer, and cleaned as much blood from his hands as he could. Drying his palms on the seat of his jeans, he headed over to Rose Charmand, who sat in one of the lobby chairs with another woman crouched beside her.

      She gave him a wobbly smile as he approached. “Well, that was a bit more excitement than I’d expected for today.”

      Dave kneeled, grunting in pain, and took Rose’s hand. “Are you all right? I saw him hit you.”

      “With a stack of money,” she added and gave a hooting laugh. “That’s one I can cross off my bucket list!” She held up a finger, gnarled with arthritis, and added, “No, wait. Not getting slapped with money. Rolling naked in money. That’s what’s on my bucket list.”

      Dave flashed her a grin while trying fervently not to picture the septuagenarian doing anything naked. He squeezed her hand. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

      From the corner of his eye, he saw Lilly approach and squat beside Rose’s chair, next to the other woman. Rose acknowledged Lilly with a smile. “Oh, good. You made it. I called this meeting today to discuss the future of the kingdom. Who will reign when I’m gone?”

      Dave arched an eyebrow. “How hard did he hit your head?”

      The woman next to her chuckled. “Can’t blame a concussion for that craziness. That’s typical Rose. Best evidence yet that she’s fine.”

      “Are