The engine growled to life, and everything inside her released. She pulled the vehicle out of Park and maneuvered beyond the patch of pines as best she could before aiming the SUV toward the main road. Dirt kicked up alongside the vehicle on either side of them as she sped away from the ranch, away from Emily. Beckett’s head swung toward the passenger-side window, but she didn’t need to see his face to know he was running out of time. His shirt and jeans were already soaked through, and there were only so many pints of blood he could lose before he hit the point of no return. Raleigh floored the accelerator, Oregon countryside blurring through the side windows. The nearest hospital was at least fifty miles from here, but Beckett had said he knew of a combat medic. Someone he trusted.
She slid one hand across her abdomen, patches of dried blood starching her borrowed sweater. Bringing Beckett to a former combat medic, a marshal—someone she didn’t know—would expose her, put her at risk. Was that the Reed he’d been telling her to find? Raleigh slid her attention to the bloodied man in the passenger seat. She’d have to take the chance. She’d have to trust him. “This baby deserves to know her daddy, Beckett, so I’m not letting you off that easy. If you’re not going to hang on for me, do it for her.”
The shooter’s phone slid from one side of the middle console to the other as Raleigh took the turn onto the national forest road 21. The cell Beckett had given her had been crushed when she’d jumped from the car before it’d exploded, but there was a chance she could recover the SIM card. Gravity pulled at every cell in her body. Her eyes were heavier than a few minutes before as adrenaline drained from her veins, but she couldn’t stop. One hand on the wheel, she tugged his phone from her back pocket. The screen was broken, sharp edges digging into her skin, but from what she could tell, the side of the phone hadn’t been damaged all that much. She might be able to save the data card. Eyes on the road, she carefully and slowly pried the small green chip free and replaced Emily’s with Beckett’s. The screen lit up, and something inside of her threatened to break.
It’d worked.
But… A pitiful moan of defeat escaped her mouth. Her thumb hovered above the ten-button configuration of numbers. The phone was asking for a password. Beckett’s password. Neither the facial recognition nor the touch identification would work until he’d entered the six-digit code since she’d transferred the SIM card. Damn it. She had to think.
Most people used the same passwords across devices and accounts. There had to be a code he frequently used, something easy to remember. She just had to remember any instances she’d seen him use it. Only, if she entered the wrong code three times, his entire contact list, along with any other data on the phone, would be erased, and she’d have no idea how to reach the person he’d called Reed. If that was even his contact’s real name. Locking her jaw against the pain, Raleigh tugged on the wheel as the road curved around. They’d almost reached the Paulina Lake Campground. From there, she could either head south on the national forest road 500 or keep heading west, but she had no idea where this Reed person was, where he lived, if he could help them at all, and she wouldn’t know any of that until she was able to get into Beckett’s contact list.
Her blood pressure spiked. He’d already lost too much blood. How much longer before his body decided to shut down for good? “Okay. Six digits. Birthday?”
Using her thumb, she punched in the numbers for his birthday into the phone, but the passcode reset. Wrong sequence. Too easy. She had two tries left before the phone locked her out permanently and erased all the data on the SIM card. The split off ahead was coming up too fast, and Raleigh pressed her foot onto the brake pedal. “Beckett, I need you to wake up. I can’t get into the phone without your password.”
No response.
“Come on!” She forced herself to breathe as the main sign for the campground slid into view. She’d have to stop. She’d have to risk a few more minutes Beckett didn’t have. The gunshot wound in his shoulder, the injury to his thigh… This was all her fault. She’d brought him into this mess, and she had no idea if she was going to be able to get him out of it. “Okay. You can do this, Wilde. You can do this.”
She tried his mother’s birthday next, but the small bubbles at the top of the screen reset again.
Nausea swirled in her stomach. They weren’t going to make it. At least, not to the former combat medic. She’d have to take him to a public hospital. She’d have to risk being arrested a second time, never seeing her daughter once the birth was over, but if it’d save his life, she’d do it. For him.
Her gaze slipped to his empty shoulder holster and a flash of memory lit across her mind. That was it. It had to be. His gun safe. He’d kept it under his side of the bed when they’d been together. It’d had an electronic lock with a six-digit passcode, which… She inhaled on a shaky breath. Which had been the day they’d met. Raleigh pulled the vehicle off to the side of the road, her heart in her throat. He wouldn’t have kept the same digits. Not after everything that’d happened between them, but she didn’t have a whole lot of other options either. Most people didn’t change their passcodes over time. Too hard to remember when habit had already rewired the neural pathways in their brains, but that didn’t mean his hatred for her—for what she’d been accused of—wouldn’t break that habit. Her hand shook as she entered the date, her lungs fighting for a full breath.
The screen went black.
CHAPTER NINE
“Gotta hand it to you, Foster. When you’re trying to piss someone off, you go for the knockout,” a familiar voice said. “It’s amazing you’re still alive. Thanks to me.”
Beckett slid back into consciousness breath by slow, agonizing breath. Waves of soft light cascaded over the pale wood paneling overhead, one side of his body cold from the floor-to-ceiling windows stretching along one wall. He shot upright on the modern sofa—the kind with angles rather than cushions—automatically searching the space as his nervous system vaulted into his fight-or-flight response. He’d recognized the voice, but the man perched in one of those ridiculous wicker satellite chairs looked as though he’d aged years in the span of only a few days. Or maybe Beckett was superimposing what he felt like over the marshal who’d obviously saved his life. But where did that leave Raleigh? If she’d brought him here, she’d put herself at risk for arrest. “Reed.”
“Yes?” Finnick Reed, former combat medical specialist turned US marshal, clutched a bag of cookies in one hand, rooting through the contents until he found one good enough for his particular tastes. Blue eyes lightened with the help of the firelight dancing on the television screen built into the side of a kitchen island across the room. Despite everything he’d seen, everything he’d been through, the ex-soldier fit perfectly with the stainless-steel, modern feel of the cabin.
Beckett’s head pounded as he settled back against the awkward, uncomfortable sofa. Stars peppered the night sky through the windows. How long had he been out? Bits and pieces filtered through the haze clouding his memories. The barn, Raleigh leading them into the woods. Emily Cline’s eyes widening seconds before she hit the ground. All of it fought for his focus as he listened for movement throughout the rest of the house. No movement. No sign of her. He clutched the edges of the sofa, his clothing stiff with patches of blood. “Where’s Raleigh?”
“You mean the fugitive you told to contact me to save your life so you could put not only your entire career with the Marshals on the line but mine, as well?” Reed dived his hand into the bag for another cookie, crumbs catching in the clean-cut beard around his jaw and mouth. “That Raleigh?”
Blistering rage exploded through him while the deputy sat there as if nothing in the world mattered but those damn cookies. “If you handed her over to the feds, I swear to spend the rest of my life—”
“Relax, Foster. You trusted me for a reason.” Reed tossed the bag onto the coffee table between them, mouthing something that looked a whole lot like “wow�
� as he leaned forward. “She’s on the bed upstairs asleep. The woman could barely stand on her own, let alone carry your sorry hide up those stairs by herself, but she stood by you until I gave her doctor’s orders to rest after a transfusion of her own. You’ve only been unconscious for four hours.” Reed motioned to the other end of the sofa, where the barest of impressions dipped in the cushion. “I hit my elbow on the doorjamb bringing your unconscious body inside my house, if you care to know.”
“I don’t.” She’d stayed with him despite the shrapnel injury in her side. Always putting others first, even at the cost of her own life. Hell, if he hadn’t sent her running, she wouldn’t have even been near that car when it’d exploded. The shooter had done enough research to look into Beckett’s background. He should’ve known Emily Cline had just as easy a way into the seized property records. Or her partner did. Beckett rubbed at his eyes as the throbbing in his head echoed behind his ears. “How is she?”
He couldn’t ask about the baby. As much as he trusted the deputy, that information was Raleigh’s to share, and he doubted she’d let her pregnancy slip. Especially to someone she didn’t know.
“Not in cuffs,” Reed said.
“You know what I meant.” Aside from the jokes and the constant sarcasm, Finnick Reed had watched Beckett’s back enough times to earn his trust. A groan worked through his chest as he shifted his position on the couch. His shirt and jeans had been ripped to expose the stained gauze over both wounds.
“She didn’t lose as much blood as you did, but she wouldn’t let me patch her until I was able to get your bleeding under control and your vitals stable. Studied every move I made until I sewed in the last stitch like she was waiting for me to make a mistake. Something tells me I don’t want to know what would’ve happened if I had.” Reed stretched. His vintage-wash T-shirt emblazoned with a superhero logo rode higher. As if Reed was some modern-day, real-life hero—to himself and any woman who happened to be passing through his life. Who wore a threadbare T-shirt with formal trousers? Finnick Reed. That was who. The deputy stood, making his way around the black glossy kitchen island toward the refrigerator. He pulled two water bottles from the shelves and retraced his steps to hand Beckett one. “Both of you are damn lucky I answered the phone, and that I happen to keep stores of blood in my freezer instead of tater tots. Drink up. The headache is only going to get worse.”
Beckett didn’t give a damn about his headache right then, but he took the water anyway. The cold penetrated through the plastic straight down to bone, kept him grounded. There were only two things that mattered right now. Raleigh and their baby, and the danger closing in on them both, but he couldn’t risk moving them until Raleigh had a chance to recover from the fight with Emily Cline. Unscrewing the cap to the bottle, Beckett took a long swig. “You could’ve turned us both in, saved yourself a whole lot of trouble.”
“Now, where’s the fun in that?” A smile tugged at one corner of Reed’s mouth, deepening the laugh lines on either side of a nose that’d been broken one too many times. “Gotta tell you, having a woman like that show up on my doorstep in the middle of the night, not my worst day. Could’ve done without the blood on my couch, though. Next time remember it’s supposed to stay on the inside of your body.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.” Beckett wiped a thin layer of crusted blood onto his jeans from his hand. Hell, they were ruined anyway. “Give us until sunrise. Nobody has to know we were ever here.”
Reed set his water bottle on the coffee table, untouched. Overgrown light brown hair lost its shape as the former combat medic interlocked his fingers between his knees. “Is it worth your career, Foster? What you’re doing here. Is it worth risking everything you believe in, and the people who’ve watched your back all these years? Because I read her file. I saw the prosecution’s case. Everything—all the evidence—led back to her.” The deputy pointed his index finger at him as he stood, his shadow casting across Beckett’s knees. “So whatever you have in mind, you better do it fast. The longer you wait to bring her in, the worse it’ll get. Not just for you. For all of us.”
Beckett twisted his grip around the water bottle, the plastic cracking. He put most of his weight into his uninjured leg, shoved to his feet and stretched out one hand. “Thanks for the help, Reed.”
“Glad there was still time I could.” Reed shook his hand, then headed for the front door. He pulled a deep tan trench coat from off the rack near the alarm panel and slid his arms into each sleeve. “You owe me a new couch, and one keep-my-name-out-of-a-crime-scene-report card.”
Damn it. Emily Cline’s body. Sooner or later, he’d have to answer for that, considering the shooter had taken his service weapon off him and Raleigh’s prints would be discovered on the weapon that killed her former assistant. Their prints and DNA were all over that ranch. It wouldn’t be hard for forensics to place them at the scene, but it looked like Reed had bought them some time. “You got it.”
A burst of cold air slithered into the new holes in his clothes as Reed closed the door behind him. Within seconds, the growl of an outdated, muscled engine filled the cabin and headlights flashed. Beckett didn’t wait around to watch the deputy make his way down the mountain through the windows. Not when every instinct he owned was begging him to search her out. He headed for the thick black handrail off one side of the kitchen leading up to the next level. The same color of sleek wood paneling followed him up the stairs and rounded the wide expanse of the master bedroom. A large queen-size bed took up most of the space in the center of the room, a minimalistic rack with hangers off to one side. Matching nightstands with lamps, light carpet, modern art hanging above the bed tied in the modern but rustic theme, and in the center of it all, the woman who made it all disappear.
Raleigh lay on one side, faced away from him. Long damp hair spread across the dark gray pillowcase. The clothes she’d been wearing were discarded on the floor, spots of bright red blood so stark against the white fabric of her undershirt, and his gut clenched. She’d stayed with him, watched over him, as Reed had worked to keep him from bleeding out, even at the risk of injuring herself further. That drive of hers, the one that pushed her to be the best, to get the job done, that had built her into the woman he’d fallen in love with all those months ago, kept her from seeing the consequences of putting everyone but herself first. She could’ve died out there. They could’ve lost the baby, but she was the reason he was standing here. She was the reason he hadn’t given up hope.
“Stop standing there and get in the bed.” Her sleep-coated voice sent heat through his veins. She rolled onto her opposite shoulder, hypnotizing green eyes settling on him, and the past two days slid to the back of his mind.
“There’s plenty of room on the floor.” Exhaustion dug into his muscles as he slipped off his boots and tossed his destroyed pants onto the floor, her gaze following his every move. Pressure built behind his chest, but not the same kind as when they’d been facing off against a professional killer. No, this was something deeper, more exposing. They’d been through hell together, and he guessed that made them more alike than he’d originally believed.
“Your chivalry is going to tear your stitches.” She maneuvered back onto her side, the outline of the same gauze and tape Reed patched him with visible through the oversize superhero T-shirt she’d donned. “Besides, we’re adults. I think we can keep our hands to ourselves.”
It wasn’t her hands he was worried about. After everything they’d been through at the ranch, he wanted nothing more than to hold her against him, to make sure she was real and this wasn’t some nightmare he couldn’t wake up from. Medical tape pulled at the hairs across his thigh, stinging. He went for the folded clothes on the bottom shelf of the clothing rack. He and Reed weren’t the same size, but close enough to make the two-people-one-bed situation a little less awkward. Pain arced through him as he shoved both feet into a pair of sweats meant for someone less bulky tha
n he was and threaded his arms into another one of Reed’s superhero tees. He approached the bed, locking on the exhausted, intelligent woman under the sheets. “Enjoying the show?”
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen the show, I’ve got to enjoy it while I can get it.” Her laugh lit up the parts of him that hurt the most as he slipped between the warm sheets. Within seconds, he’d forgotten all about the pain as Raleigh pressed her back against his chest, a perfect fit against him. “Don’t move a muscle, Marshal Foster.”
Beckett rested his cheek against the crown of her head and closed his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”
* * *
SHE TRACED THE OUTLINE of the gauze taped to his shoulder through the soft T-shirt he’d borrowed. His chest rose and fell in easy rhythms as morning sunlight pierced through the edges of the curtains. Nothing like before when she’d found him unconscious in that barn fighting for breath. He was warm and rough, and she didn’t dare stir for fear of ruining this perfect moment. They’d survived. Somehow. He’d protected her when every second leading up to right now she’d doubted his promise, doubted he would keep his word, but he’d been there. Made sure they’d made it off that ranch alive.
Grazing his split bottom lip with her thumb, she gave in to the explosive memories of that gut-wrenching kiss they’d shared before the bullets had started flying. She could still taste him. His underlying flavor of peppermint and wildness, but that kiss had been more than pure physical desire. It’d been a hit to the invisible barriers she’d been building all her life, the distance she’d put between her and everyone around her. The cracks had started spreading when they’d been together for those short few months, but after her arrest they had filled with a clear ice she hadn’t let anyone break through. Only now… Now for the first time, she felt herself trying to break down that barrier, break through the distrust and hurt. He might’ve originally defended her as some part of that moral code of his or out of obligation to their baby, but he’d still saved her life. He’d still kept his word to be there for her, even when he’d had the chance to leave her behind, and the numbness from that destructive black hole inside that’d always felt unwanted—unloved—eased a bit. Her insides warmed as she settled her chin against his uninjured shoulder and studied the movement behind his closed eyelids. “How long have you been pretending to be asleep?”
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