Page 57 of Louisiana Protector

He finally reached her and pulled her into his arms.

She clung to him, her arms tight around his neck as she wept. “Johnny, take me home. Please take me home to Danny and Gramps.”

“I’ve got an ambulance coming,” Beau said as he caught up to them. “She needs to be thoroughly checked out before she goes anywhere.”

“I agree,” Johnny replied. He gently stepped back from her but kept an arm around her slender shoulders.

“It was Jean-Luc,” she said.

“Where is he now?” Beau asked.

She shot a frantic look behind her, back at the swampland. “He’s somewhere in there.”

At that moment a shot rang out, and a searing pain exploded in Johnny’s shoulder.

Jean-Luc stepped out of the brush, and all the officers raised their guns.

“Drop your weapon, Jean-Luc,” Beau yelled. “Drop the gun right now.”

Johnny froze, afraid to move with Mimi until the threat was eliminated. He knew he’d been shot. He wasn’t sure how bad it might be, although the pain nearly stole his breath away. Thankfully, he didn’t think any of the officers or Mimi knew he’d been hurt, and he wasn’t about to tell her right now. He just wanted to get her someplace safe and sound as quickly as possible.

“I’ll drop it once I have Mimi and I can drive away with her,” Jean-Luc replied.

“That’s not going to happen,” Beau yelled back.

“You make it happen,” Jean-Luc replied. “She belongs to me.”

Johnny held his arm around her back. She trembled like a leaf in a windstorm.

“Don’t make things worse than they already are,” Beau returned. “Just put your weapon down now, and we can talk about your options.”

Apparently, Jean-Luc was in no mood to talk. He raised his gun, and at the same time Beau fired his weapon. A cry of pain followed, and the officers all rushed forward.

It was only then that Johnny walked with Mimi toward the road where an ambulance had just pulled up. When they reached the ambulance, the paramedics took Mimi inside. Hopefully she didn’t have any serious injuries.

Johnny looked back toward the swamp where Jean-Luc was in handcuffs and had an obvious leg wound. Johnny released a deep sigh. The bad guy had been arrested, and the fair maiden had been saved. Thank God it had turned out this way. It could have all gone so very wrong.

It took only a few minutes for Mimi to be thoroughly checked out and her wounds to be cleaned. All of them were fairly superficial. Thank God she’d suffered no gunshot wounds.

“Uh… I might need them to check me out, too,” Johnny said when she climbed out of the ambulance.

“Why? What’s wrong?” she asked.

“In the chaos, I caught a bullet in my back,” he replied.

Her eyes widened. “Oh, Johnny,” she exclaimed in horror. “I didn’t know you’d been hurt. You need to go with the ambulance and get to a hospital as soon as possible.” Her eyes filled with tears. “You have to be okay, Johnny.”

“I’ll be fine, Mimi,” he replied, even though he was half breathless and in terrible pain.

“Give me your keys. Somebody will drive your truck back so you don’t have to worry about anything. I’ll be at the hospital as soon as I can,” she said, more tears falling from her eyes.

“The keys are in my truck,” he replied even as the paramedic began to strip his shirt off him.

“Go,” she said to the ambulance driver. “And please take good care of him.”

The door was closed, and the ambulance pulled away. As the paramedic tended to him, Johnny closed his eyes and released a sigh of relief.

Mimi would be safe now. She didn’t have to be afraid any longer. She could go back to work and live her regular life. He just wished he knew where he fit into it.