Under Threat B.J. Daniels (best free novels txt) 📖

you got when you desperately wanted to fix a situation, and couldn’t.

He could sit here and fool around trying to find the information he wanted, but that probably wasn’t the best use of his time right now. Not if he wanted to put Natalie at ease.

Since when is putting Natalie at ease your concern?

He ignored the commentary of his brain and pushed back the chair. “I can do more searching later, but for right now we need to use what little light we have left.”

She looked over at him, her eyebrows drawing together. “What do we need light for?”

“I’m going to teach you to shoot.”

Natalie blinked at Vaughn. She didn’t know what to say to that. It certainly wasn’t what she had expected. But she hadn’t known what to expect when it came to Vaughn.

She thought he’d be angrier about her not mentioning her sister’s case. She thought he’d shut her down and out while he went to work trying to find information out about this Victor Callihan. She kind of wanted him to do that, but Vaughn didn’t do anything half-assed or foolishly, so she knew there was a rhyme or a reason to him teaching her to shoot.

She couldn’t decide if she wanted to know said rhyme or reason. She wasn’t sure she wanted to learn to shoot. She wasn’t sure what she wanted, except an hour to have a good cry.

“We don’t have too much time, so I can only show you the basics, but it wouldn’t hurt for you to have an idea.”

“Oh. Oh. Okay.” What else was there to say?

“I’ll get my extra ammunition, and then we’ll go outside and get started.”

“And you think we’ll be safe out there?” They were inside with the windows closed, and so far he’d only let her go outside as a shadow to him. But he frowned at her, as though the question were silly.

For the first time, she wondered how old he was, considering the little lines bracketing his mouth. Actually she was starting to wonder a lot of things about him. Things that she should absolutely not wonder about the man investigating a case that might have to do with her sister. Things she definitely shouldn’t be wondering about the man who was keeping her safe.

“I don’t suggest things that aren’t safe, Ms. Torres. Remember that.”

He turned and disappeared down the hallway, presumably to get that extra ammunition he spoke of. She noticed he tended to stick with “Ms. Torres” when he was irritated with her. But when he was a little soft, or a little nice, which apparently he could be—shock of all shocks—he would call her Natalie.

She definitely way, way too much liked the way her first name sounded in his rough-and-tumble, no-nonsense drawl.

She really had to get herself together before she learned how to shoot a gun.

There had been a time in her life, directly after Gabby’s disappearance, when she had jumped at every little thing and considered getting a gun. Even knowing her sister’s disappearance was probably random, she hadn’t felt safe. But in the end, the idea of carrying around a gun hadn’t made her feel any safer. In fact, the idea of carrying anything that deadly when she was that jumpy only made her more nervous. So she’d never learned how to shoot and she’d never owned a gun.

But something about Vaughn was...reassuring almost. She trusted him to teach her. And teach her well. Obviously he knew what he was doing with a gun, as frequently as he reached for his.

That didn’t even scare her. They were in a dangerous situation, and it had only ever felt comforting that he reached for his weapon when startled. Truth be told, nothing about Vaughn scared her. Except that nothing about him scared her. Yes, that part was a little too scary. How easily it was to trust him and listen to him and follow his orders.

She blew out a breath as he returned. He carried a box and a little black bag, and strode toward the door with his usual laser focus.

“All right. Follow me.”

“Do you always express things as an order? You could ask. You could say please.”

“I’m doing you a favor. I don’t need to say please, and I certainly don’t need to ask permission. You can follow me and learn how to shoot a gun. Or you can stay here. I really don’t care which one.”

She doubted that he didn’t care, but she managed not to say that. Instead, she followed him outside and around the back of the house. She couldn’t imagine there being much more than twenty or thirty minutes left of light, but Vaughn seemed determined to see this through.

“We’re not going to worry about hitting some little target. We’re just going to work with the basics of aiming and shooting.”

He set the bag down and opened it, pulling out big glasses she assumed were safety related. He handed her the glasses and two little orange foam things. When she looked at them skeptically, he sighed.

“They’re earplugs. You pinch the end, and you put it in your ear. It’ll keep the gun noise from bothering you.”

“Right.”

“Now, I’m going to explain everything before we put in the earplugs, and then I’ll position you the way you need to be standing and holding the gun. Understood?”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” she said sarcastically, because if she was sarcastic she wouldn’t overthink the phrase “position you.”

He rolled his eyes, clearly not amused by her. But that was okay, because she was amused enough for both of them.

Vaughn pulled his weapon from the holster at his hip. He began to explain the different components to her, the sights, the trigger. What kind of kick to expect and how to aim. She couldn’t begin to understand all the jargon or keep up with the different things. He went too fast.

“Are you following along?”

She hated to admit it to him, and herself, but his speed wasn’t the issue. Oral instruction had never been easy