From the woods, bullets sprayed the rock. Quinn yanked her down, igniting a sharper pain in her ankle. She would have fallen off the rock but he caught her and pulled her away from the pile of boulders to find cover in a group of trees.
She gasped for breath. “I didn’t think they were that close, but they obviously weren’t far behind.” Maybe her action was a good thing, after all, because they would have been caught off guard if the thugs sneaked up on them.
“We need to get out of here.” He gestured for her to climb on his back.
“Wait. What about your pack? You left it up on the rock.”
“It isn’t worth a life. Yours or mine. Now let’s move it.” He almost sounded like a drill sergeant.
After a glance at the sky and the search helicopter that obviously hadn’t seen them, she once again climbed onto his back, defeat threatening to overwhelm her soul.
He adjusted her arms around him. “I thought we’d put enough distance between us. We never should have stopped for so long.”
“It’s my fault. I should have listened. I just... I’m so sorry. I... I want to go home.”
To Stevie and Dad.
“I know. And I’ll get you there unharmed if you’ll follow my instructions.”
She felt duly scolded.
If it weren’t for Quinn finding her to begin with, she’d be done for. He had to keep up a grueling pace now because of her. Because she’d drawn that unwanted attention he’d spoken of, despite his warning. How utterly disappointing that the searchers hadn’t seen her. Noticed gunfire. Had they gotten to Jayce in time to rescue him? If so, then the searchers would be aware of the danger to themselves and also the danger Bree was in every second she remained in this wilderness.
In the meantime, she couldn’t do anything except hold on to him, and...well, she could pray. Bree sent up a hundred heartfelt silent prayers for Quinn, for Stevie and Dad, Jayce and his family. And for herself—that she would make it home to her family.
And Lord, maybe You could help Quinn. Help him be able to have a family of his own someday. To love and cherish a wife and have kids, if that’s what he wants. But I can’t stand to see him like this—unwilling to let himself commit or love.
Quinn’s pace began to slow. She knew he was suffering for her. “Let’s stop,” she said. “Surely we’re far enough ahead that we can rest.” Better yet if they lost those jerks completely. Why had they continued to follow so long and hard? It seemed crazy that they could even track them in the dark, especially after Quinn scaled the ridge.
“We’re only a couple of miles out from the edge of town,” he rasped. “I can make it.”
He continued over rocks and roots, thick groups of massive ferns and soft pine needles. Stepped into a small brook as he crossed, and kept going. Through the trees, she could see the woods thinned out into a meadow and on the other side of that meadow, a road. He let her slide off his back and steadied her.
“I would drop you off at your house if I could. But it’s too dangerous for you to be seen with me.”
“The men after me have already seen me with you. What you mean is you don’t want to be seen.”
He blew out a heavy breath and tugged a cell phone from his pocket.
She stepped back and onto her throbbing ankle. What? She couldn’t believe it. “You had a cell phone this whole time? We could have called for help earlier. We could have let them know where we were so the helicopter could rescue us.”
His blue-gray eyes turned dark and piercing, letting her know just how much he didn’t like the accusing tone in her voice. “No. We couldn’t. You know there’s no signal back there. Here, closer to town, I get a signal.”
She didn’t feel like backing down. “I think we could have tried.”
There. Like it or not, he knew how she felt about it. She could have been trying while she piggybacked. Something.
“We couldn’t wait around to be rescued while we were being hunted. Besides, there’s no sense in putting anyone else in the line of fire when I could get you safely back. And here you are.” He handed the cell over to her. “Call someone to come and get you. I’ll wait and watch to make sure you’re picked up unharmed.”
She squeezed the phone in her sweaty palm, but didn’t make the call. Putting a little weight on her ankle, she tried it. It was getting better. Not as bad of a sprain as she thought. So she moved in closer to Quinn.
He grabbed her. “Be careful.”
Was that him just wanting her to be cautious on her ankle, or a warning to keep her distance from him?
“No, it’s okay. It’s getting better. Maybe I could have—”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You couldn’t have trekked through the wilderness on that.”
She wasn’t sure what she was doing getting this close to him. Interesting that he didn’t step away. Her heart beat an entirely new rhythm as she drew even closer. It was probably a bad idea, but she couldn’t help herself. She might never see him again. She might never know if he survived facing off with the hit men after him or found a way to fix what was wrong with his life. And with the knowledge that his life was in danger, Bree could hardly breathe.
She had to try. “Please, Quinn. Don’t do this. Let me put you in protective custody.” And wouldn’t it be nice if she was the one to watch over him? No. Don’t even go there. And no, it wouldn’t be nice. Great. She was arguing with herself.
He grinned. How she’d always loved that grin. “Nice try, Bree. You know why I can’t.”
“Not really. I know what you’ve told me, but I think it’s just your excuse to stay in hiding. To keep people at a distance. To keep me at a distance.” Had she really just said that? Bold of her.
He leaned in closer. Close enough to kiss her. Once again, her lungs stilled, but she didn’t need oxygen.
She needed Quinn. Did he understand just how much? She didn’t understand it herself, because she would never let herself love him—he would only leave. He was leaving now.
“Quinn...”
“I won’t put you in danger, more than I already have.” His voice was husky.
Her heart tumbled. “I don’t want you to disappear again.”
He gripped her hands and pressed them against his chest, his heart. “If there were any other way, then I wouldn’t have hidden in the first place. I’ve already told you that someone within the DEA is dirty and news that I’m here could get back to the wrong person. That would definitely put me in danger, but could be even more dangerous for you. Some seriously bad people might suspect you know something about me.”
“What could I possibly know?” What wasn’t he telling her? “Who is it?”
“I have my suspicions, but I can’t prove anything yet. Promise me that you won’t give me up. Promise me you’ll tell the sheriff you were alone in making your way back.”
“I don’t know, Quinn. I’m a deputy. That would be wrong. I would be hiding the truth about what happened out there.”
“No, you’d only be hiding the fact that I helped you escape.” He released her and stepped back. “If not for me, then do it for Stevie. Don’t put him in danger. If the men after me find out about my connection to you, that I...”
“That you what?”
“That I care about you, then they could target you because of that.”
Her pulse ratcheted up. He cared about her? She let that idea slide away for now. But more to the point, if what Quinn said was true, then telling the truth could put Stevie and Dad in danger. Still... “What about the fact that those guys are already trying to kill me because of what happened on the river?”
“Low-level people in the organization know they ran into a couple of deputies, that’s all. They chased you to cover their tracks. Some of them know that a man helped you. Right now, I’m not sure they even know it was me—the man they were originally coming for.
But as for you, they won’t mess with you now, Bree. I assure you, they’ll let that go. Once you’re back in town, they will have lost their opportunity to hide what happened on the river. But if they find out it was me who helped you and learn about your connection to me, then all bets are off. I don’t want to risk that. Or confirm to them that I’m even here.”
Uncertainty hovered in his gaze. She had a feeling there was something more to this story. Something he was hiding.
“All right. For Stevie.” Without question, Dad’s and Stevie’s lives were worth it. And Quinn’s, too. If her keeping his presence a secret would save his life, then she had no choice. But the truth and the fact she’d kept this information from her boss, the sheriff, would come out eventually and she could kiss her promotion goodbye, if not her job.
With a slight limp, she turned away from him. Punched in the number and got Dispatch, and recognized the voice on the other end. Relief swelled inside. “Mel, it’s me, Deputy Carrington.”
“Bree! Are you okay? Where are you?”
“I’m on the edge of town, but I hurt my ankle and I’m going to need a ride.” She gave Mel her location, then ended the call.
She handed the cell back.
That grin again. “Keep it, Bree. You can tell them you couldn’t get a signal before now, which is true.”
She searched the ground, looked at the road in the distance where she’d soon see help arriving, anything but Quinn’s handsome, scruffy face. She felt his eyes on her, so she lifted her gaze to meet his. And asked the question burning inside. A question that she had no business asking because, really, she already knew the answer. “Will I see you again?”
Sirens rang out in the distance. “They’re for you,” he said.
Without answering, he backed away from her until he was hidden in the trees.
A deputy’s vehicle drove down the road and then turned in to the grassy meadow, going as far as it could toward her. She marched forward, with the limp, as best she could. She’d wanted to help him. To protect him. Deep inside she knew that Quinn could protect himself better than anyone else.
* * *
He edged deeper into the woods so he wouldn’t be spotted and could flee if necessary. He hated doing this to her. Leaving her again. Hated making her keep him out of her report, but he saw no other way.
From a distance, Quinn watched more than one sheriff’s department vehicle fly down the road and slow along the meadow, Sheriff Garrison himself included. An ambulance slowed and parked on the shoulder.
He smiled to himself, pushing past the pain of knowing he wouldn’t see her again. Bree was getting a big welcome back. They might have even assumed her dead, but now they had beautiful bright-eyed Bree Carrington back. She’d made it out alive and would be hailed a hero.
As she spoke to the lawmen around her, Quinn hoped she wouldn’t give him away. He was putting an awful lot of faith in her. He hadn’t been completely honest with her. Hadn’t told her the full scope of the danger to him. He’d just said enough to ensure she didn’t put her own family at risk.
Please, don’t tell them, Bree. Remember why it’s important to keep my presence to yourself.
Any minute now, he half expected to see her point in his direction and then several heads would turn to look. Would he run and hide like a criminal? He wasn’t, but the deputies wouldn’t know that until it was much too late for him.
Quinn wasn’t exactly sure what he would do if they started marching in his direction. He hadn’t expected to be in this position with Bree. When it appeared she’d kept his presence a secret, he relaxed and leaned against a tree, while at the same time remaining aware of his surroundings.
The brutal men after him couldn’t afford to come this close to town and the law. That could put their entire mission at jeopardy. That meant it was relatively safe for him to stay here, as long as he remained out of sight of the authorities.
Bree’s hair fell over her shoulder as an EMT finished wrapping her ankle, and by the interaction, it appeared she refused a ride to the hospital. She gently eased from the back of the ambulance and instead she climbed into the sheriff’s vehicle. Quinn chuckled. The sheriff would have to wipe the mud out, but the man was probably too glad to see his deputy safe and alive to care about the mud just yet.
Well, that was that. Time to turn his attention back to his immediate problem. He made his way deeper into the woods and back the direction from which they’d come. Maybe he could retrieve his backpack. Maybe not. Just because he’d left Bree with the law didn’t mean the men had stopped hunting him. Eventually they might even figure out he was the one who had assisted the deputy to safety.
He would have to leave Coldwater Bay and find a different place to hide while he figured out how to end this. But he found it hard to focus on his future plans with images of Bree’s warm green eyes spinning in his mind. Her red hair, though mud-caked for the most part, spilling over her shoulder. How she felt in his arms when he’d comforted her.
It would take a long time to sweep those images from his mind and heart.
She had asked if she would ever see him again. He hadn’t given her an answer because he didn’t have one. He’d always left before, but he just didn’t want to think of this as the last time he’d see her. Still, when he was with her, she only reminded him of all he could have had but wasn’t capable of having.
Would that ever change? Could he change? He didn’t think so.
Maybe she wouldn’t see him, but he would see her. He couldn’t leave until he’d made sure she was truly all right, and that nobody was going to come after her to get to him.
That was his greatest fear.
He brandished his weapon as he continued his hike through the woods, every sense attuned to his surroundings. He wouldn’t be surprised if he ran into someone who wanted to kill him. Or rather, torture him for information. Maybe take him back. Maybe that was the only way out of this. To face off with Michael Jones—tell him that he was after the wrong person. That Michael had been played.
Another undercover agent had ratted Quinn out because Quinn was too close to discovering what the dirty agent was really up to.
As he hiked, he reached in his pocket for the picture of Bree that he always carried with him. It wasn’t there.
His heart skidded. Wait. Had he put that in his pack?
Oh no. No, no, no, no.
Would the men have cared about going through his gear pack if they came upon it? With as much stealth as he could muster, he made his way back to the place where he’d sat with Bree on the boulder, much too cozy for comfort.
The pack was gone.
He gritted his teeth.
They would find the picture of her. They would know she was important to him.
SEVEN
On the ride to Bree’s house, the sheriff told her that Jayce was going to be okay and he’d been the one to let them know where to search for her. The sheriff explained that he had just come back to town to coordinate and bump up their search efforts when he got the call that she was back and okay. The search team had been called off. Another kind of team was preparing to go back in.
Bree immediately thought of Quinn, but her attention shifted to her home as the sheriff steered into the driveway. Bree stepped from Sheriff Garrison’s vehicle—stumbled, more like—and caught Stevie up in her arms. He’d run out of the house. Dad lingered near the front door as though he was afraid to believe his eyes.
“I can’t carry you, sweetie.”
Steve’s little boy, her nephew and ward, stared up at her with his big brown eyes. Then he took her all in, including her wrapped ankle. “You got hurt, didn’t you?”
“I sprained my ankle.”
“Is that why you couldn’t make it to the party and we had to wait?”
Bree smiled and ran her hand through his tangled brown hair. She glanced up at Dad,
who’d made it out onto the lawn and shaken the sheriff’s hand. Bree wasn’t sure what Dad had told Stevie so he wouldn’t be scared.
Her dad stepped over to them and lifted the boy in his arms. “See, I told you she’d come back. She had something important happen at work.”
“And she hurt her ankle,” Stevie said. “I don’t like your job, Aunt Bree, if it makes you hurt your ankle.”
She forced a smile and ignored the look she was getting from her father, who didn’t like her job, either. Now she wouldn’t hear the end of it. But not yet.
Instead he pulled her into a fatherly hug and whispered in her ear, “I’m so glad you’re back.” She could swear she heard tears in his voice to join her own.
“Me, too, Dad. Me, too.”
He released her. “Let’s get you inside to rest that ankle.”
Sheriff Garrison squeezed her shoulder. “You take as much time as you need. We’ll talk more about everything as soon as you’re ready.”
She nodded. She’d already told him a version of what had happened. The version without Quinn. The idea that she’d done all of that on her own made her sound like some sort of wilderness survival guide. A hero. And she certainly didn’t feel like one, but she wouldn’t let that overshadow this moment.
Inside her home, she showered and cleaned up, grateful for the painkillers that made her forget about her ankle. After a long nap, she opened her eyes to see Stevie sitting on the floor watching her.
“Hey, sweetie.” She yawned. Was this a dream? Was she still in the woods being hunted?
Was Quinn still with her?
Stevie crawled up onto the bed with her. “Me and Grandpa made you brownies. He said we have to save the cake. It’s in the freezer.”
She laughed. It felt good to be home and free and safe and with her loved ones. All she had to do now was keep it that way. Keep them safe. She ruffled his hair. “Okay. I know what you want.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. You want to talk about rescheduling the party.”
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