A Laird to Hold by Angeline Fortin (free children's ebooks online .TXT) 📕

the nurse’s mouth, he waited to feel her breath. The entirety of his medical knowledge.

“I’ve got her.” A woman in scrubs nudged him out of the way and pressed two fingers to Willa’s neck.

“She’s alive,” Rhys told the nurse and turned to Scarlett, cuddling her bairn in her arms. “I’m going after Hugh.”

Rhys tripped down the hall. Ahead of him, he could see Claire and Emmy bent over Tyrone, their hands compressed against his bloody chest.

“Help us, Rhys,” Emmy called to him. “We can’t move. Get a doctor, quick.”

Rhys glanced to the door Hugh had run through and back to her, conflicted.

“He’ll get her,” Claire assured him, though her trembling hands betrayed her confidence. “Please help.”

Holding his shoulder, Rhys jogged back to the nursery where most of the medical staff hovered. He grabbed the first medically inclined person he found and sent them to help Emmy.

“Are you hurt, too?”

Rhys looked down at the nurse attending Willa, her visage swam before his eyes. The corner of his mouth quirked up. “’Tis just a scratch, lass.”

Her lips twisted wryly. “Let’s get some gurneys in here!”

“Rhys!” Scarlett was beside him, still clutching her bairn to her chest. Grief engraved deep lines on her bonny face. Tears stained her cheeks and she shook like an autumn leaf. “Are you badly hurt?”

“I’ll be fine, Scar,” he assured her. “Are ye?”

Her eyes glazed over again and she shook her head without explanation. Instead, she kissed him and handed him the baby. “Take care of her. I must find Hermione.”

Rhys caressed his niece’s downy head, thankful for the lives that had been spared.

However, someone else was going to have to die.

Hugh

Hugh trailed Hermione’s screams for her mother as they bounced off the concrete walls of the stairwell. The clatter of each step against the metal stairs echoed along with them. There was but a single flight down. He would catch up easily enough. Jameson wouldn’t be able to outrun him with a toddler under his arm.

But what then?

Jameson was armed and he was not. Hugh couldn’t risk Hermione’s safety by attacking. Nor could he let the madman get away with her as a hostage.

How wrong he’d been. He’d underestimated Jameson’s wrath, his insane conviction to wipe the stain of him from the face of the earth.

Now innocents had suffered because of him. He couldn’t let anyone else be hurt.

“Let her go, Jameson,” Hugh yelled over the stair rail. A drop of blood fell from his brow and he wiped a hand across the burning gash at his temple. It hurt like hell but it wouldn’t match the pain Laird would heap upon him if he let anything happen to Hermione.

No answer from below, but Hugh hadn’t expected one. He ran down the alternating flights, catching a glimpse of Jameson at each turn. Hermione wailed like the hounds of hell were upon her. Not as panicked, but piercing enough to burst an eardrum. Hugh could hear Jameson’s curses when she paused to take a breath.

Good lass, he thought. Keep him distracted.

A boom of a door. Then silence but for Hugh’s breaths as he rounded the last corner and sprinted out the door in pursuit. Jameson ran down another hall with the toddler under one arm. He fired over his shoulder and screams of alarm sounded from the pharmacy as Hugh ran after him. Another door opened and a flash of sunlight emblazoned the tile floors.

“What the fuck?”

The exclamation reached him just before he ran out the door coming up short at the sight of Jameson holding Hermione in front of him, his arm tight around her middle.

What cowardice to use the toddler as a shield!

Jameson’s gun was pointed at another man who’d taken an aggressive stance, holding his own weapon in both hands and aiming at Jameson.

 “Who are ye?” Hugh demanded.

“Security,” the man told him without turning his head. “Halliday hired me to guard Ms. Thomas.”

“Ye’re pointing a gun at her bluidy daughter!” Hugh spat out. “Put it down.”

“No, sir!”

A showdown, both men ready to fire. Jameson’s weapon wavered between Hugh and the guard. “Back off!”

“Ye’ve already proven ye’re nae mon,” Hugh sneered. “But this?”

He stalked forward but stopped again when Jameson pressed the muzzle of his gun to Hermione’s temple. His thinning hair stood out from his head, blood trickled down his neck and from a trio of scratches bisecting his cheek. His eyes wild with hatred and desperation. There was no predicting what he would do next.

The child whimpered, fear in her teary eyes. “Uncle Hugh,” she howled and reached for him.

“Shh, sweeting.” Hugh held his hand out to stop her. “All is well. Just hold still.”

All his life he’d been a reasonable man. He’d lived among the most brilliant philosophers in history, debated with rational consideration. All of it fled in the face of Hermione’s fear. His blood boiled with the primitive passion of his ancestors. He longed to spill the entrails of the man before him.

“This course of action will get ye nowhere.” Hugh fisted his hands at his sides, holding himself in check lest the fire of hatred and fury consume his good sense. “Let the bairn go ‘ere the manhunt is turned upon ye.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Jameson snarled and pointed the gun at Hugh. “It won’t happen. It might have just been back in the cage for you before, but things have changed, haven’t they? I’ll have your blood.”

But he didn’t fire. Jameson was smart enough to know it would give the security guard a split second to act. Hermione’s safety was the only thing between him and certain death.

“Killing the lass will no’ help ye. She’s nothing in this.”

“No? I couldn’t be sure. Getting