Rafe watched in horror as the window exploded. He lunged for her, and wrapped his arms around her waist. Rafe rolled to the left, covering her with his own body. He'd been in Africa long enough to recognize the sounds of gunfire striking the brick and glass of his home.

Rafe kept Jillian covered until it stopped, until he heard the sounds of tires squealing off in the distance.

He did not move until he was sure the shooters were gone. He kept her covered with his own body until he heard his cousin yelling his name and pounding on the front door.

Chance didn't wait for the lock. His cousin used the key he had and came barreling in. Jillian was clinging to Rafe, and Rafe scooped her up off the floor. "Are you hit?"

"No. Just glass. What was that?" She pressed her hand over a slice on her arm. But Rafe could see the blood welling beneath it. There were cuts on her body. Glass in her hair. The white shirt was rapidly turning scarlet.

Were any of her injuries significant? He looked at his cousin. "First aid kit, under the bathroom sink."

Rafe kept one hand on Jillian, and stretched the other arm out until he could grab the nearest kitchen drawer. He pulled out a handful of towels. "Sweetheart, we need to get the bleeding stopped. Where first?"

"Someone shot at us, didn't they?" Light brown eyes stared up at him as the reality of what had happened started to sink in. She was shaking beneath his hands.

Was she going to fall apart now? Jillian? She was the strongest woman he knew. She wouldn't fall apart.

"Yes. They did. Let's get the bleeding stopped and then we'll find them. We'll let Chance and Elliot have them. How does that sound?"

Chance returned in time to hear that. "How is she, Rafe? We had no clue she was even over here. Kevin's out of town, with Syd. We thought Jillian must've gone home with Lacy or Ari last night. We didn't realize she was here."

"I stayed here, Chance. Obviously." Some of her natural sarcasm was returning. Some of the shaking had subsided. Not much, but enough that he didn't think she was going to fall to pieces as he held her. Rafe covered the worst wound in her arm with a clean dish towel then wrapped medical tape around the arm.

They really had no choice. He could not attend to every laceration adequately with just a small first aid kit. Each wound would have to be flushed to make certain that glass didn't remain inside. A small sliver of glass could do all sorts of damage to a body if it went deeper than just the epidermal layer. And that was just if infection didn't set in. He could not do that fast enough to stop any bleeding.

He would have to get her to the ER. He looked at his cousin. "I'm taking her to the hospital now. You have Elliot's men meet us there."

"I'm getting over to Brynna. Houghton's security guard is with her now. We’ll take my car. Just in case someone tampered with yours." Chance sent him a significant look that told Rafe the two of them would be talking when this was over.

When Jillian was safe and taken care of. Protected. If she hadn’t moved away from the window when she had...

"I'm going to wrap her in a blanket, get her to the car." A sudden thought occurred to him. He didn’t want her exposed. "Chance, you're sure the shooters are gone?"

"We sent a second guard to block the road. No one else is getting in. Let's get Jillian to the hospital; we’ll talk when it's taking care of."

"I am a sister-in-law, Chance, not an it."

Jillian looked up at Rafe with resignation in her eyes.

They both knew exactly what was going to happen the instant he got her into the ER. The instant they said where she had been when the attack happened.

Any chance they had of secrecy—privacy—had just ended. Rafe found that he didn’t give a flying rat’s ass what anyone anywhere thought about him and Jillian. He’d shout it to the damned planets if he had to. Jillian was with him. He was damned proud of that fact. And he knew it.

What he didn’t know was how she felt about it.