Cindy Gerard - [Bodyguards 04]

by Over the Line

  “Sit,” he said, when she headed for the embankment. “Let’s just sit a minute, okay?”

  He was dressed again, wearing his T-shirt and jeans and tugging on his boots when she turned to look at him. His expression was sober as he sat in the sand, his knees raised, his forearms draped across them, his hands clasped.

  She almost felt sorry for him as she eased down on a thick stump he’d pulled up for her to sit on. Might have reached down and smoothed the worry off his brow if she wasn’t so wary of what came next.

  “You know,” he finally began, “you know this can’t go anywhere.”

  Her heart sank. And her disappointment sent her anger simmering to life again.

  “This,” she repeated. “What is this exactly? You say we have to talk about this. This can’t go anywhere. Spell it out for me, would you please, because I want to make certain I know exactly what this is.”

  “Now you’re being obtuse,” he said with a weary sigh.

  “Obtuse? Oh my, that’s a big word for a country boy. And you’re pointing that finger the wrong way. You’re the one who’s obtuse. And dull witted. And thickheaded. And . . . and stupid and slow.”

  He tipped his head back, looked at the night sky, and blew out a breath through puffed cheeks. “Don’t hold back. Tell me what you really think.”

  She snorted. He wanted to hear it? Fine. “I already told you what I think. I think you’re a coward. I think you’re so afraid there’s something good going on between us that you’re determined to shoot it down before we have a chance to figure out what’s happening.”

  “What’s happening,” he countered grimly, “is that I can’t look at you without wanting to rip your clothes off and lay you down on the closest flat surface.”

  “And this is bad because?”

  “Jesus, Janey.” He clenched his hands together, glanced toward the sky like he was appealing for patience before pinning her with a hard look. “You know why it’s bad. I’m supposed to be taking care of you.”

  “You took care of me just fine,” she said, hurting even more and feeling nasty with it.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “This is what I know,” she said, deciding to risk it all. “I know that when I’m with you, I feel . . . alive. And I’m not just talking about the sex. I’m talking about how you make me feel. As a person.”

  He looked up at her, his blue eyes troubled and curious and, if she read him right, a little bit hopeful.

  “Why do you have to make this so hard?” She knew it came out sounding like a plea. She didn’t care. She was past pride. “It doesn’t have to be. Can’t we just let things take their course? See if what we’re feeling isn’t something worth hanging on to?”

  “What we’re feeling?” he repeated with a weary frown. “Janey, you can’t possibly know what you’re feeling right now. You’ve got a convicted stalker terrorizing you. Your mother has been murdered and we still don’t have a bead on who did it—only a million dollars as a probable reason why but no clue who knows about it.”

  He shifted so he could look directly at her. “Your life is one big, ugly, dangerous puzzle with a million missing pieces. How can you know what you’re feeling other than shock and fear and uncertainty?”

  “Look, Dr. Freud, my life—regardless of stalkers and murders and mysteries—is always one big sloppy mess. Concerts, photo shoots, celeb appearances . . . hell. Pick something. It’s probably on the agenda. Give me some credit here. You think I can’t sort the dimes from the dollars? You think, after six years of organized chaos, that I haven’t learned to cope? Can’t see what’s good for me?

  “It’s called compartmentalizing,” she added, trying to drive her point home. “It’s called multitasking. And I’m damn good at it.”

  When he looked unconvinced, she shook her head. “You’re the one who can’t get a handle on your feelings, Baby Blue. Don’t lay that trip on me.”

  He blinked. Blinked again. “What’d you call me?”

  She scowled at him. “What? When?”

  “Just now. Baby Blue, was it?”

  She rolled her eyes, gave a dismissive shrug. “Yeah. So what? You called me a brat. Earlier,” she clarified when his puzzled look intensified.

  “Well, you called me Opie.”

  “Oh for God’s sake. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, frowning. “I haven’t figured it out yet. I haven’t figured any of this out.”

  She stood, brushed off her butt. “Tell you what. When you do, we’ll have another little chat . . . about . . . this. We can even talk about that if you want to,” she said sourly. “Until then, I don’t want to talk about this again. I just want to—”

  She jumped, startled when a ping of a sound had the sand a few feet away flying in a showering spray.

  “What the—”

  The sand flew again. So close to her feet this time that it stung.

  “Jesus.” He scrambled to his feet, grabbed her arm, and pushed her behind him. “Some crazy sonofabitch is shooting.

  “Hey, dickhead!” he yelled into the dark. “There are people down here. Do your target practice somewhere else.”

  A rapid succession of pings zipped into the night, making the earth jump and dirt spray all around them.

  “Shit! Crazy bastard must be drunk. Come on. We’re getting out of here.”

  He grabbed her hand and ran, pulling her along behind him. Her heart pounded like crazy as he tugged her up the steep embankment like their lives depended on it. It wasn’t until she felt a warm, sticky wetness seep between their joined hands that it really hit home that their lives did depend on getting out of the line of fire.

  Blood.

  Blood ran down his arm like a river.

  “You’ve been hit,” she cried.

  “Get in the car.” He shoved her through the driver’s door, then piled in behind her.

  She scrambled over the center console, banged her knee on the gearshift, and fell face-first onto the floor. She was in the process of righting herself when he turned the key, revved the motor, and shoved the Mustang into gear. Tires squealed and gravel shot in a rooster tail behind them as he floored the accelerator and tore down the gravel road.

  “You okay?” he asked as she turned herself around so her bare butt was on the floorboard. She lifted her hand to grip the passenger seat—and met with more blood. Not warm this time. It was cold. Cold blood.

  She jerked her hand away and stared.

  There, in the middle of the pristine white upholstery, two tiny, lifeless hearts lay in the middle of a bloodred cloth.

  19

  Grimm.” Jase pounded the steering wheel as they flew down the gravel road, kicking up dust in their wake. “How in the hell did he find us here?”

  Beside him, Janey scooped up the cloth with the hearts and chucked them out the window. “You’re bleeding,” she said for about the tenth time.

  For the tenth time, he told her he was fine, yet she got busy trying to rip a piece of the pink ruffle from her skirt to use as a bandage.

  “Forget about that.” He glanced in the rearview mirror and spotted headlights bearing down on them. “And buckle up. We’ve got company.”

  She twisted around in the seat and saw the lights. “Oh, God.”

  “Buckle up,” he repeated in a cold, steely voice, and laid on the gas.

  The Mustang responded, roaring down the gravel road like the muscle machine it was, all 360 horses running at checkered-flag speed.

  He’d like nothing better than to face off with the sick bastard—and he would. But not yet. Not until he had the advantage. He couldn’t risk something happening to Janey until he did.

  Behind them, the headlights closed in. Jase braked, whipped the Mustang around a curve, and damn near spun into the ditch when the car fishtailed.

  He gunned it, righted them, and glanced at the tach needle as it spun to the top of the dial.

  He swore after anot
her quick glance in the rearview mirror confirmed his fears. “He’s gaining on us.”

  Janey, bless her, had to be good and scared, but she didn’t scream, didn’t cry, when he came to another four-corner crossroad and took the corner on two wheels.

  He cut the lights. That finally made her gasp.

  “It’s okay. I know these roads. Grimm doesn’t. And there’s enough moonlight that I can see where I’m going. Hang on.”

  They sailed up over a rise, caught some air before all four wheels kissed the gravel again. He headed for the county park just a few miles up the road.

  “I’m going to try to ditch him in the woods,” he told her when he swung hard left and headed up the road to Clear Creek Recreation Center.

  The forest was thickest at the opening to the park. He took advantage of the dark and his knowledge of the snowmobile trails he used to ride every winter. He headed straight for the Shimmac Trail. It was winding and narrow and, if he remembered right, had several little tributary routes closed in tight with scrub brush and sumac.

  Still running without headlights, he turned onto the trail, drove for a quarter of a mile or so, then stopped and backed into an opening in the undergrowth just big enough to shelter the Mustang.

  Then he cut the motor. And listened.

  In the far distance, he could hear the engine of what he suspected was an SUV. Far enough distant to know that Grimm had lost them but hadn’t given up.

  Jase drew his first deep breath since the first shot was fired. “You okay?”

  Janey stared straight ahead, one hand clamped on the dash, one on the console between them. “I’d pee my pants if I had any on.”

  Christ. That was so not the picture he needed right now.

  But then she looked at him, all small and wild-eyed. “That was supposed to cut the tension.” She gave him her gamest smile.

  He groaned as much as laughed. “Mission accomplished.”

  He followed her gaze to his arm. A thick trail of blood ran down his right biceps in a slow, steady trickle.

  “It’s just a flesh wound,” he assured her after checking it, even though the adrenaline had let down enough that it was starting to burn like hell.

  “Call me crazy, but in my mind ‘just’ isn’t a good fit in the same sentence with ‘flesh’ and ‘wound.’ My God. You’re bleeding like crazy.”

  Not that much really, but when she went back to work on her skirt, getting nowhere on her attempt to rip the ruffle off for a bandage while he fished in his jeans for his pocketknife.

  “Try this.” He handed her the knife, then had second thoughts when she held out trembling fingers. “Never mind. I’ll do it.”

  He set the knife to the pink cotton and made the first slice. She was able to pull the ruffle off after that, so he sat in silence as she busied herself bandaging his arm with it.

  “Shh.” He lifted a finger to his mouth when the sound of an engine grow closer. Then he saw the headlights bouncing down the trail in their direction.

  He reached under the seat for his gun.

  Gone. Fuck.

  The bastard must have taken it when he planted the hearts. That only left one option.

  “Hang on. We’re going to turn the tables on this creep.”

  The car drew closer. Jase was confident the Mustang was well hidden. Ninety percent confident anyway. Still his hands were sweating on the wheel when a late-model four-wheel-drive SUV idled slowly by.

  “He didn’t see us.” She sounded breathless with relief.

  “Nope. But the sonofabitch is gonna see us now.”

  He turned the key and slammed the Mustang into gear. They roared up out of the thicket and burst back onto the snowmobile trail—right on the tail of the SUV.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Letting him know that two can play this game.”

  He hit the lights, flooding the back of the vehicle like a spotlight. After a moment of shock on Grimm’s part, the SUV took off.

  Jase stuck to his taillights like white on rice. “There’s a pen in the glove box. Get the license number.”

  “Got it.” She scribbled frantically on the back of her hand. “Now what?” she asked as they bounced along the uneven path.

  “Now we hope I can bump him hard enough that he’ll run off the road.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “As a heart attack,” he said, just as the SUV reached one of the access roads. Leaving a trail of dust, his tires spun off the shoulder into the gravel and he sped off down the blacktop.

  “And the race is on.” Jase put the hammer down and they roared onto the road in hot pursuit.

  “Would now be a good time to point out that you don’t have a gun?”

  “There you go. Looking on the downside.”

  Speaking of guns. Jase saw the flash of fire just as it registered that Grimm had stuck the barrel of one out the driver’s window.

  “Get down!” He shoved Janey’s head below dash level.

  One of his headlights went dark; glass fragments flew against the windshield and a tire blew. He slammed on the brakes, fighting to keep the Mustang under control as the SUV sped off, dust hanging in its wake like a jet trail.

  Finally, Jase managed to ease the car to a stop. Engine idling, he shifted into park and turned to Janey. “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head, raked her hair away from her face, then shook her head again. “Fine. I’m . . . fine.”

  Yeah. She was fine all right, Jase thought as the dust settled and the SUV’s taillights gradually faded to small pink dots. As fine as any woman could be after someone had just tried to kill her.

  Bastard shot out a tire.” Jase climbed back into the Mustang after inspecting the damage. “We’ve got to get out of here before he decides to come back.”

  Janey thought that was a damn fine idea. Would have said so if she hadn’t looked up. Headlights. Bearing down. Fast.

  “Too late,” she said, transfixed by the twin yellow gold and glowing lights heading toward them.

  Baby Blue swore and shoved the Mustang into reverse. He cranked the wheel hard right, shifted back to drive, and headed back down the road and away from the rapidly on-coming car.

  “What are the chances it’s not him?” She twisted in the seat and looked over her shoulder.

  “Same as me winning the lottery,” Jase said, eyes dead ahead.

  “I think he’s gaining on us.”

  “We can’t outrun him. Not on three tires.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I can’t lead him back to my parents.” He glanced in the rearview again. She didn’t have to turn around to know what he saw. Grimm wasn’t more than a football field away.

  “And it’s time I call this asshole out. He’s obviously done playing around. He means business now.”

  They took a corner on two good wheels.

  Jase glanced around at the hilly terrain cast in night shadows by a low-hanging moon. “Can you run in those shoes?”

  Her sandals were little more than flat soles and a few crisscrosses of leather. The Italian designer hadn’t had running in mind when he’d crafted them. She hadn’t had running for her life in mind when she’d put them on.

  The headlights grew even closer.

  “I can run.” She’d run barefoot over broken glass if she had to.

  “We’re near the Cochran Caves,” he said as they raced along on the blown-out tire; the stench of burned rubber permeated the air.

  “Caves?” Oh, God. Caves meant dark and damp and bats. Bats. Ever since she was a little girl and a bat had found its way into their trailer, she’d had an unnatural and unreasonable fear of bats.

  She swallowed back an “ohmygod” that would have come out as a scream. He didn’t need hysterics. And she needed a drink.

  “We used to play in the caves when we were kids. I think I can still find my way through them. You up for it?”

  Janey closed her eyes, swallowed thickly, and managed a
nod. “Yeah. I . . . I can do it.”

  God, help me do it.

  “If there were any other way—if I could get you out of the mix—I would.”

  She actually found herself laughing. “Out of the mix? My God. I’m the reason you’re hurt and your life is in danger. I am the mix.”

  “Okay. Here’s the plan. When I stop, you haul ass out of the car.”

  “And then what?”

  He roared up the hill, battling to keep the crippled Mustang out of the ditch. “Then we run like hell.”

  He glanced around, like he was looking for a landmark, then slammed on the brakes and skidded to the side of the road. “Now,” he said, unbuckling as he killed the motor.

  Janey followed his lead, then took his hand. When they cleared the car, she did as she was told. She ran like hell, far too aware that Grimm would catch up with the Mustang in seconds.

  Has to be adrenaline, she thought as she and Jase raced up a grass and limestone hillside. That’s the only way she could keep up with him. Adrenaline and the knowledge that Grimm had pulled up behind the Mustang.

  She heard a car door slam. And she kept running, kept her hand clasped in Baby Blue’s.

  The sharp crack of a rifle shot ripped into the night. The limestone at their feet exploded. She gasped as shards of rock peppered her ankle. The pain was instant and biting and she almost went down.

  Baby Blue kept running, pulling her along when she stumbled, zigzagging his way up the side of a hill that grew steeper and rockier.

  Just when she thought she couldn’t go any farther, the limestone at shoulder level detonated. He jerked her up against him, made a shield of his body, and pressed her into the side of an outcropping of stone and tree roots.

  She’d hardly drawn a breath when he was on the move again, scrambling higher, dragging her around a curve in the hillside—and into the deepest, most absolute dark she’d ever known.

  “How do you do with dark?” Baby Blue whispered beside her.

  “Love it. Can’t get enough of it,” she lied, and tried to keep her teeth from chattering.

  “That scared, huh?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “You just hang on to me.”

  Like epoxy.

  She could see exactly nothing. Nothing as he took her hands, maneuvered her behind him, then wrapped her arms around his waist. “I know these caves, Janey. That’s all you need to think about. Just trust me. When I take a step, you take a step. Just like dancing, okay?”