Wincing, Rocky staggered back a step. Obviously, the gunshot wound was giving him some pain, and pain didn’t go well with logical thought.
“The cruiser,” Rocky shouted. “Get it now, or I’ll start putting bullets in Jamie. While I’m at it, I’ll send some shots at Cullen and you. I might get real lucky and finish you both off.”
Even with Rocky’s stagger, Cullen still didn’t have a shot so Leigh sent a quick text to Vance to have him bring the cruiser around. She had no intention of letting Rocky get in with Jamie, but with all the maneuvering around that would take, it would increase their chances of one of them getting that clean shot.
She heard the movement behind her and thought it was Vance. Still, she pivoted in case Rocky was working with a partner. So did Cullen. And they saw Jeb walking toward them.
“Get back,” Leigh warned him.
But Jeb kept on walking, and he wasn’t using anything for cover. He was out in the open, and he had his hands lifted, maybe in surrender, maybe to show Rocky he wasn’t armed.
“You don’t want to do this, Rocky,” Jeb said, his voice as calm as a lake. “You’re scaring the boy. Let Jamie go, and we can talk this out.”
“I got no choice,” Rocky argued. “You understand that.” There was nothing calm about his voice. Every word had a sharp, raw edge to it.
Leigh wanted to curse her father for doing this. For putting himself in the direct line of fire. But if she went into the yard to drag him back, it could get them both killed.
“I understand. But you’ve got choices,” Jeb argued back. “You can drop your gun and let Jamie go.”
“No!” Rocky shouted, and he volleyed wild-eyed glances from Jeb to her to Cullen. “I can’t go to jail.” He tapped the badge he still had clipped to the waist of his jeans. “You know what they do to cops in jail.”
Jeb nodded. “I know, but you could be placed in solitary confinement—”
“I don’t want to talk to you,” Rocky interrupted, and this time the edges were even sharper. The man was losing it. “Leigh’s the one who messed this up. She shouldn’t be the sheriff. I should be.”
But he stopped, and he didn’t say anything else. She wondered if what he’d said had just sunk in. He was a killer, and there was no way he should be sheriff. He’d broken the very laws he’d sworn to uphold. Yes, the first—Alexa’s murder—had no doubt been committed in the heat of the moment, but everything else since had been calculated.
So was what Leigh was about to do.
It was a risk, but she didn’t want Rocky killing Jeb because he didn’t want to hear what her father had to say. Leigh stepped out, took aim at Rocky.
“You have no right to wear that badge,” she said, staring him right in the eyes.
With his gun trained on Rocky, Cullen stood, too, moving to Jeb’s other side. Leigh wanted to yell at him for doing that. Especially since she figured that Rocky would indeed try to kill Cullen. But she knew he was feeling the same thing she was. Neither of them wanted the other to die. She could include Jeb in that, too.
“Don’t you dare take a bullet for me,” she snapped, aiming that at both Jeb and Cullen.
She might as well have been talking to the air though because she knew both of them would. Because they loved her.
Leigh stared at Rocky. “Put down your gun now.”
Again, Rocky staggered back just a little, and Jamie made a strangled sound. Maybe because he thought this was all about to come to a head and that he’d die. And he might. Leigh couldn’t make any guarantees that any of them would make it out of this alive.
“Do the right thing, Rocky,” Jeb said.
Just as all hell broke loose.
The gunshot tore through the air. And also tore right into Rocky’s leg. It took Leigh a moment to figure out where the shot had come from, but then she spotted Bowen. He was belly-down on the ground behind the truck, and he’d been the one to put another bullet in Rocky.
Rocky howled in pain, cursed and shoved Jamie forward. In the same motion, he brought up his gun.
Taking aim at Leigh.