by Sylvie Kurtz
“We will.” He tugged on her hand, breaking her paralysis. “One step at a time. Like old times.”
Like the time when she couldn’t run one more step at track practice and he’d fallen back to her pace and joked until she’d forgotten the cramp in her side. His no-worries tone, the warmth of his hand holding hers, the solidness of his body pressed against hers almost had her believing this could be just another training session.
How easily she’d fallen back into the old roles. Him watching out for her, her letting him. Except this time there was no smile to seal the lie that everything was okay. His vigilant scanning and cautious movements erased all delusions this was anything but a hunt and they were the prey.
Trailing behind him, camouflaged in his jacket, she was once again his kid sister’s best friend, one of the girls he continually had to get out of trouble. Then she’d wanted his attention. Now his taking charge was making her feel small and helpless.
Just like her father’s well-meaning control.
Just like Rafe’s manipulations.
Just like WITSEC.
With Gray it was supposed to be different.
Comfortable. Easy. Safe.
At the edge of the woods Gray paused. His breath puffed close to her ear as he took in the obstacle before them. In the creep of fog and darkness the ground continued to slope gently toward the darker mass that was the convent. Like an invitation an irregular patchwork of fog-blurred lights burned at some of the windows. Between her and Gray and the granite walls of the building was a wide expanse with nothing but open space. The manicured lawn with its meandering stone path, park benches, birdhouses and fragrant rose border was magnificent in sunlight, inspiring a slow pace and self-contemplation. Now it seemed peppered with armed mines and much too exposed.
Three deputies had already died trying to keep her safe. The thought that Gray might be next terrified her.
“He’ll see us. We won’t make it.” The imagined infrared dot of the assassin’s scope burned her back.
“Walk in the park, hon.” He flashed her teeth, but the false smile didn’t fool her. He removed his shirt and dropped it behind a rock. His tanned skin blended in better with the darkness of the approaching storm, even with the rain giving it sheen. “Like the quarry parties. Think of it as racing the park ranger to the gate.”
“Not exactly the same.” The park ranger hadn’t pointed a gun at them, and even if he had, he would have shot to miss.
“We’ll give him the smallest target possible and take a path he can’t anticipate.”
“Right.” Everything in her screamed to stay in the relative security of the shadows. Don’t move. Stay. Just a bit longer. Just until she could dig a little deeper for her last scrap of courage. “Why you? Your firm could’ve sent someone else.”
“I figured that by now you’d need a familiar face.”
She did. Desperately. She gazed at the face that had given her countless sleepless nights, at the face she’d been looking for in crowds for more years than she cared to admit, at the face that could still jolt her heart like a double shot of espresso. He’d come to her when it would surely have been easier to let someone else take the job. Had he forgiven her?
He squeezed her upper arm. His chin jerked toward the convent that seemed a hundred miles away. “Come on, Abbie. Let’s make a run for it.”
Right. “If you remember correctly, I was never much of a sprinter.”
“That’s all right. I’ve got you covered.”
And even as they crouched at the edge of the woods waiting, he did. The firm planes of his body curved over hers. The breadth of his shoulders stretched across hers. The hard weight of his arm was armored plate around her. Her awareness of his heat and his scent and his steely determination to protect her hurt with its acuteness. After thirteen years, shouldn’t she have moved on? Oh, no, not homebody Abbie. She hung on to things that did her no good. Like a magnum of champagne, just one touch and her mind uncorked with all her unfulfilled childhood fantasies starring Gray. But being around Gray had always been like that—a combination of confusion and longing she’d never quite known how to handle.
“Ready?” he asked.
And just like that the fantasy popped. The man Rafe had hired to silence her was somewhere out there in the fog and storm. He was real and he was after her. Not Gray, not side trips into fantasyland could take away the fact that she was a target. For all she knew, the assassin was standing right there beside her, laughing silently, waiting for her to move. Deal with it, Abbie.
Throat too tight to speak, she nodded.
“Stick close.” Not that Gray was giving her a choice. Hands hard on her shoulders, he plunged them into open space and steered her into a zigzag path toward the kitchen door of the convent. She pumped her arms and legs hard until her lungs burned and every muscle shrieked from the assault.
To their right a shape rose and darkened against the fog, then disappeared again. Something whizzed by her ear and plunked into the pole holding the multiapartment birdhouse. Martins exploded out and scattered like buckshot.
Rafe’s assassin was shooting at them. She was going to die. Rafe was going to win. She wasn’t ready to die. She hadn’t even figured out the basics—like what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. For sure it wasn’t running. Or hiding.
Gray cursed as he pressed the armor of his body closer to hers and shifted directions, practically lifting her off her feet. “Faster!”
She was nothing more than a rag doll at the mercy of her protector and her hunter. A bank of tears dammed her throat. Her legs were moving, but she could no longer feel them. Rafe had promised to destroy all she cared for. He’d poisoned her existence. He’d raped the mill and Echo Falls. He’d killed her father.
Another bullet screamed past her, blasting rose petals on the path. She stumbled. Gray held her up. She couldn’t see a thing. Not the convent lights. Not the ground at her feet. Not even the end of her own nose. The dam of tears broke and spilled.
You won’t ever be free from me, Abrielle. Rafe’s laughter echoed in her mind. I won’t ever let you go. I’ll be in your dreams and in your nightmares. I’ll follow you wherever you go.
“Hang on, Abbie. We’re almost there.”
Gray’s voice and Gray’s push shoved her back into the chase.
Life and death. The line was thinner than she’d ever imagined.
If Rafe knew about Gray, he would destroy him. Rafe reveled in exploiting weaknesses to his best advantage.
She couldn’t allow Gray deeper into this mess. Not unless she wanted to lose him, too.
GRAY SHOVED ABBIE THROUGH the convent’s kitchen door and barred the heavy wood door behind them. His Glock wasn’t a match for a sniper’s rifle, and he doubted the good sisters packed heat. Would the shooter dare to violate the sanctuary of a convent? Would he kill defenseless nuns to get to Abbie?
When the local marina hadn’t had any rentals available, the daily multi-island ferry ride had seemed safe enough. An open target was usually riskier than fading into a crowd. But now it was clear he’d messed up. He had to get Abbie off this bull’s-eye target and behind Seekers, Inc.’s thick walls as soon as possible.
At their noisy entrance, Sister Bertrice, who was standing at the counter, gasped and whirled around, brandishing a knife like a sword. A spatter of strawberry juice plopped onto the dark gray of her skirt.
“What happened to you?” she asked, clutching the silver cross dangling at her neck with her free hand. She took in the bits of twigs and dirt that clung to Abbie’s shoulder-length honey-brown hair and the mud that streaked her jeans and white blouse.
“Nothing,” Abbie said, but the compulsive wringing of her hands gave away her anxiety.
“You look as if the devil was after you.” Sister Bertrice dropped the knife on the cutting board and rushed to Abbie’s side. “Are you all right?”
She ushered Abbie to a backless bench, polished by years of use, and skewered him with
a look of accusation.
“I’m fine,” Abbie said, tripping slightly over the toe of her sneaker as she sat down at the table. “Really. I think I’ll just go to bed.”
She started to rise again, but Gray caged her in. “Someone shot at Abbie.”
“Shot at?” Sister Bertrice crossed herself and hugged Abbie. “How can that be?”
“Is there any way to get off this island tonight?” Gray asked. Mercer was somewhere in Connecticut, thanks to Gray’s reluctance to have a witness when he first caught up to Abbie. The rest of the team was just as far and time was of the essence.
Eyes pinched with worry, Sister Bertrice said, “The ferry comes only once a day. You won’t be able to leave until tomorrow afternoon.”
Unacceptable. Clothed in Steeltex, Vanderveer’s hired gun was essentially invisible and able to move as he pleased. He’d be watching and waiting for Abbie to move. For another chance to earn his pay.
The homey aromas of dinner’s home-baked bread fresh out of the oven, vegetable ragout bubbling on the stove and strawberry shortcake scented the air, but the cold granite walls reeked of primitive defenses easily breached. “What if you had an emergency?”
“Then we can call a medevac helicopter, but this doesn’t qualify.”
“Why not? It’s a matter of life or death.”
Sister Bertrice’s white dandelion puff of hair swayed with the shaking of her head. “They answer only medical emergencies.”
“Whoever shot at Abbie is still out there.” Gray paced the span of the double-wide arched kitchen door leading to the outside, more to keep Abbie in than to keep anyone out. Her body was tensed for flight. Her gaze kept darting to the door. He didn’t like the pallor of her skin, the dazed look in her eyes or her stubborn insistence that she was fine when her body betrayed her shock at the near miss.
Seeing her again had been a shock to his system—like jumping into ice-cold water—and had knocked him for a loop. But he could not let his teenage infatuation with her get in the way of doing his job.
“Have any new guests arrived since Abbie got here?” Identifying the shooter would make keeping Abbie safe that much easier.
“Other than Abbie, you’re our only arrival this week. Do you think there’s a danger to any of our other guests?”
“No, the shooter is after Abbie.”
“What can we do?” Sister Bertrice clutched her cross as if it would provide her inspiration. He’d leave the prayers to her and rely on a solid plan of action.
Vanderveer couldn’t have bought every cop in the country. Though Gray couldn’t pull jurisdiction, he could get the USMS to, if it came to that. First he’d try the cooperative route. He’d explain the situation to the locals, then hitch a ride back to the mainland. “We’ll have to call the local cops.”
“Gray, no! I can’t go back into protective custody.” Arms wrapped around her middle as if she were in pain, Abbie turned to Sister Bertrice. “If you hadn’t told him where I was, I’d still be safe.”
“If I hadn’t told him, dear, you might be dead.”
Abbie blinked as if to hold back tears and made a small sound low in her throat that made him want to wrap her into his arms and promise her a happy ending. She’d always been a sucker for happy endings.
“Your young man is right, Abbie. This is too big. You can’t handle this alone. You have to trust someone. I wouldn’t have sent him after you if I hadn’t remembered him from your seventh birthday party, when you got hit with the piñata bat. He’s the one who held a napkin to your temple until your father could whisk you off to get stitches. He has your best interests at heart.” She patted Abbie’s hand with obvious affection. “I’ll go place that call now.”
Abbie hung on to the lapels of his jacket that was still draped over her shoulders. The gold feather earrings hanging from her lobes shivered. Her eyes beseeched him. “I can’t go back, Gray. I can’t just sit there and wait for the next shot through the window.”
He crouched beside her and reached for a hand. It was cold in his—as cold as the diamond-and-topaz ring on her finger. He rubbed her fingers to bring back warmth and tried to ignore the kick-in-the-gut need touching her brought. “Seekers is as safe a place as there is. It’s outfitted with the latest security technology. It’s a damned fortress. No one will be able to get to you there.”
“Except Rafe. You don’t know him. He’s a manipulator. He’ll use you to get to me, and you won’t even know it until it’s too late.”
“Is that what happened to your father?”
She pressed her lips into a thin line and nodded.
He didn’t like the mechanical stiffness of her body or the flat look in her eyes. She tried to pull her hand free. He hung on to it, needing to keep that small connection between them. “A bully has power only as long as people believe in his vision.”
“My point exactly.”
Eyes burning with fervor, she leaned forward and her scent of almonds and honey teased him. He’d thought the distance of years had made him immune to her power to dazzle him. But there it was, fizzing through his veins like a shook-up can of soda. “If you testify, you destroy his make-believe world. Without that power he loses everything.”
“You don’t get it.”
“He’s just a man, Abbie, not some sort of superhero.”
“He owns me.”
Gray pounded a fist against the tabletop. “Nobody owns anybody.” Especially not a bully.
She turned her face away from him. The same living-dead expression she’d worn after her mother had died cloaked her face. He hadn’t known how to reach her then, and the same kind of bewilderment rippled through him now. His golden girl should glow with happiness, not have the weight of sadness dull the light in her eyes. “Abbie.”
Her restless fingers knitted themselves with the hem of his jacket. “I know I have to testify. My father used to tell me that with privilege came responsibility. He owned the mill, but he was responsible for the well-being of the people who worked for him. He believed that if he took care of his people, they would return his loyalty.”
“I read about the fire. About his keeping his employees on the payroll while the mill was rebuilt.” Her father’s selfless actions had turned him into a hero. And a hero’s image was a tough one to uphold.
“To keep his promise he had to take on a partner. When George Vanderveer died, Rafe inherited his father’s options in the mill. Without Rafe’s money Dad couldn’t have bid successfully on the Steeltex project, and the mill desperately needed to win that contract. I owe Dad. I owe the employees who trusted him.” She turned to look at him, her eyes an open window to the knock-out-drag-down brawl between her fears and her duty. “But don’t you see? As long as Rafe is alive, he can get to me.”
“Not if we destroy him.” For her he’d conquer the world. She had to know that.
“How exactly do you plan on doing that? He’s already in jail, Gray. What will a life sentence do to him? He’ll still have his pack of goons to send after me. Even if Massachusetts had a death penalty, what would it do to him? He’d still have years of appeals to torture me. After he’s convicted, he’ll be even more desperate for revenge. I won’t ever be safe.”
Gray plucked a piece of twig from her hair and tucked a soft dark gold strand behind her ear, catching the tip of his finger on the chain around her neck. “I took care of Trevor Osborn when he was stalking you.”
The gold flecks in her eyes whirled as she touched the bump on the bridge of his nose. “He broke your nose.”
“And when that dog had you treed when you trespassed at the apple orchard,” he said, his voice rustier than he’d expected. “I got him away from you.”
Her gaze slid down to his calf, where the zigzag-scar souvenir of that battle resided. “He tore your jeans to shreds.”
It was worth every rip of denim and skin to have Abbie fuss over him once the mutt had hightailed it back to the farmhouse. The way she’d clung to his arm all the way back
to the mansion had had him preening peacock-proud for days.
Don’t go there, Gray. His brain frantically fired warning messages. The past wasn’t someplace he wanted to get stuck. He’d worked too hard to free himself from the bonds of Echo Falls to get trapped there. “Good thing I’ve got a tough hide.”
“Not tough enough for Rafe. He has no conscience.”
“Bullies rarely do.” Gray had to remember all the hard-learned lessons beaten into him in that snake pit of a town.
“It’s not the same, Gray. We’re not in high school anymore. He’ll kill you to get to me.”
A frown rucked her forehead, and he had to stop himself from ironing it out. No, they weren’t in high school anymore. They’d moved on. Abbie to her career and him to his. In spite of her situation, she still belonged in a world of light and color. She’d always be his golden girl, but he was the wrong kind of man for a woman like her. He saw that now. She needed someone who could share Echo Falls and the mill and all the responsibilities that went with privilege and position. And he needed to keep showing bullies the error of their ways. Raphael Vanderveer was next up on the slate. “Failure is not an option.”
Not then. Not now.
There was no need to revisit old patterns of emotions they’d both outgrown.
“Four people have already died because of me. Three deputies and my father.”
“And you’re thinking that because of that you should go it alone until the trial?”
She gave a small nod and her voice dipped into a featherlight whisper. “I have to.”
His brave, foolish girl. Her willingness to sacrifice herself for the things she held dear was one of the qualities he’d admired about Abbie. But her sacrifice wasn’t acceptable. Protecting Abbie was his job. Getting her to Seekers was his job. Seeing her make it in one piece to testify was his job. “It’s out of your hands. There’s too much at stake.”
The squish of Sister Bertrice’s soft-soled shoes returned. “Because of the weather, the police can’t come until morning.”