why would she do that?
Really, for all he’d done for her that morning, bandaging her cuts and dropping everything else on his morning schedule, she ought to have shown him a little appreciation. “I wish the bomb hadn’t gone off at all. I wish there’d been no bomb. But since there was, and since you were the recipient, intended or not, we’ve got to put you under guard.”
“I don’t see why.”
“Someone may be trying to kill you. That car that pulled away may have been the bomber, waiting to see if his efforts worked. If so, he knows you’re still alive. Given the risks he’s taken so far, there’s no reason to think he isn’t going to try again.”
Ava blinked at him. “I don’t have time for this. I have work to do.”
“So do I. The longer I argue with you, the further I fall behind. Let me make some phone calls and we’ll see what we can do to keep you safe until we sort this out.”
Theresa Covington, the palace household manager, answered his phone call. He inquired about an available room among the palace-wall apartments and was relieved that Theresa was able to reserve an apartment for Ava. “Thank you, Theresa. Have a lovely day.” He closed the call with the household manager and smiled at Ava.
She scowled at him. “What?”
“I’ll drive you to your apartment so you can pack a bag.”
“I’m not staying among your guards.”
“You’ll have your own apartment. There are guards also staying in the palace-wall apartments. Theresa told me you stayed in one when you first arrived in Lydia, before you found your own place.” Jason stepped past her down the hall, poking his head into the switchboard room to tell Oliver where he was going.
Ava followed him, still frowning. “I don’t appreciate this loss of my freedom. I have an important job to do.”
In spite of her protests, she followed him to the royal garages.
Jason chose a bulletproof vehicle. Only the new limousines, ordered since the insurgent ambush the previous summer, had armor plating, and he couldn’t justify driving the wedding planner in a limo. The bulletproof sedan should be more than adequate for a quick trip to Ava’s apartment.
Fortunately Ava’s place wasn’t far from the palace complex, and the drive passed in silence. Jason would have fumed at the woman’s rudeness, except that he’d seen that glimmer of fear in her eyes, that wounded little girl who’d peeked out when she thought no one was looking, and he began to wonder if she wasn’t picking fights with him on purpose. Perhaps her anger was a ruse to distract him from something deeper. But what?
Jason parked in front of Ava’s building, just across the street from her door. “Wait for me to walk you in,” he told her as he put the car in Park and turned off the engine.
But to his chagrin, the woman ignored him, stepping out as he pulled the keys from the ignition and opened the driver’s side door. Ava quickly rounded the front of the vehicle and glanced up and down the empty street before darting across toward her door.
Jason saw it all in a single glance—Ava’s unsteady, injured trot across the two empty traffic lanes; the charcoal-gray Volkswagen Jetta that pulled out from the curb just over a block away the moment Ava turned her attention from looking both ways to walking; and the squeal of tires that betrayed the VW’s sudden acceleration.
Jason leaped into action, shouting at Ava to hurry as he ran toward her. She was already in progress crossing the street. The car approached in the same lane he’d been driving in, on the side of the street opposite her apartment. If she hurried, she’d be out of the way in time.
But even as Jason bounded toward her, he glimpsed the car swerving toward them, into the other lane. Ava was hobbling far too slowly in her three-inch heels. She’d never make it.
With only half a second to act, Jason scooped an arm around Ava’s waist and leaped with her toward the curb. He had her nearly to the sidewalk when the Jetta, oblivious of the curb or the neat little flower patch in front of Ava’s apartment, swerved onto the sidewalk, knocking his legs out from under him and sending his back smashing into the windshield and side mirror.
It was a glancing blow, but the force was enough to send them both airborne for several feet. Jason tightened his arms around Ava, tucking her head into the relative safety of his chest as they hit the sidewalk and rolled.
He looked for the car, fearful the vehicle might swing around and take a second pass. The two of them were high up on the sidewalk now, nearly against the steps of Ava’s building, but the curb hadn’t stopped the car before, and if it decided to pin them to the concrete steps, not even his embrace would shield the wedding planner from injury.
To his relief, he saw the Jetta disappear over the rim of the hill, speeding away. Unfortunately, given the distance, he couldn’t make out the plate number.
Jason turned his attention to Ava next. “Are you okay?” He had her still tucked tight against him, but pulled back just far enough so he could see her face.
One red-nailed hand clutched his shirt. She blinked up at him. “What was that?”
Even more disheveled than after her last brush with death, the wedding planner didn’t look at all her usual prickly, put-together self. Jason felt his heart twist with sympathy. “That,” he groaned as he rolled onto his back in preparation for sitting up, “is proof that whoever bombed your car this morning is targeting you specifically.”
* * *
Ava pinched her eyes shut and held tight to Captain Selini’s shirt. She didn’t like the man—couldn’t stand him most days—but right now she’d have gladly buried her face against his shoulder and sobbed.
The captain spoke rapidly into his earpiece, instructing his dispatcher to send men in a car. But his words came in shallow gasps and his face turned deep red as he struggled to breathe.
“Are you okay?” Ava asked in a whisper, scrutinizing his features as she awaited his response. Had the car simply knocked the wind from his lungs, or was he seriously injured?
Her conscience stabbed her. If she’d waited to cross the street with him as he’d said, would they still have been hit? The car had struck him directly and thrown him hard against the cement. What if he died because she hadn’t listened?
It occurred to Ava as she stared at his face that the captain wasn’t as old as she’d assumed him to be, in spite of the early gray that flecked his hair. For all the times she’d argued with him, she’d never bothered to look at him closely—part of her personal policy against getting close to any person in any way. But now as she watched him from inches away, she realized he was hardly any older than she was.
Jason Selini groaned as he sucked in a breath.
Ava rolled onto her side, out of his way as he struggled to sit up. “Can I help you?” she asked, extending one hand, realizing only when she saw that her hands were empty that she’d left the plans for Princess Anastasia’s wedding in the car. Suddenly the plans didn’t seem so important. The captain appeared to be in real pain.
“Is your back broken?”
Jason
