the well-established neighborhood Dallas lived in. His house was a 1930s brick bungalow on a double lot just yards from the park. He had a mail slot in the front door, large shrubs blocking the view of the side yards. If she ran fast enough and timed it right, she could be up on his porch, sliding the plastic bag into his house, before the people behind her made it off the path.
If...
That was what scared her. She’d been running for years. She knew how to pace herself, and she knew how to go all out for the finish line. But something could go wrong. Life had taught her that early, and it had taught her well.
She sprinted off the trail and around a small pond, the sun lingering below the horizon, the water glass-like in its stillness. She reached the paved path, ran between old houses that had probably been built long before the park existed, turned onto the road that cut through Dallas’s neighborhood. She glanced back as she reached the edge of Dallas’s yard. The road was empty. Just as she’d known it would be.
Go, go, go!
Her brain shouted the command to her tired legs. She’d been running at her top speed for too long, trying to keep far enough ahead to finish what she’d begun. Now she was tired, but she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t quit. She unzipped her pocket as she ran, yanking the bag out with trembling hands. If she were cutting a gemstone, she’d have taken a deep breath, tried to still the shaking before she continued, but she didn’t have time to calm her nerves.
Dallas’s porch light was off. Just like always. One light shone through a window in the upper level. Also just like always. No Christmas lights or decorations. She’d noticed that. Even though all his neighbors had them. Everything was just the way it had been every morning for as long as she’d been running past his place. But something felt off today, the air edged with electricity. She reached the porch stairs, the bag in her hand, her heart beating frantically.
Her watch beeped a warning. One minute gone. She’d practiced this. She knew exactly how long she had before her pursuers arrived, but she’d set her watch anyway. Always thinking ahead. Always planning. Always trying to control things. Josh had told her that hundreds of times. It hadn’t been a compliment. Those things had caused conflict in her marriage, but they’d also gotten her through really difficult situations.
Hurry, hurry, hurry!
She darted to the door, shoved the bag through the mail slot and ran back the way she’d come, lungs heaving, sweat cold on her forehead and cheeks. She glanced back at the path. Still nothing. She was almost in the clear. She just had to keep moving.
Across the road, a dark shadow moved out from behind an old tree. Her heart thumped, one hard terrible jolt of acknowledgment. They’d been a step ahead of her after all, and now they knew that she’d tried to pass information to someone.
“What were you doing?” the man said.
Fear shivered through her, made her legs tremble so much she had to stop. Right at the edge of the yard. Nothing separating her from him but a few feet of paved road.
“Back off, buddy.” She bit the words out, making sure they dripped with confidence.
“What were you doing?” he asked again, his tone conversational rather than accusatory.
“Running.” Her watch beeped again, and she jumped.
Two minutes gone.
Not that it mattered. She’d been caught, and now she had to escape.
She dodged to the left, but he must have anticipated the move, because he was there, blocking her path. Taller by nearly a foot. Muscular. Quick.
She’d grown up fighting. She could still fight when she needed to.
She swung hard with a right hook.
He grabbed her wrist, pulling her arm down with so little effort she knew she’d never escape him.
Not before his buddies made it to her place, found a way in and took her son.
She swung again. This time with her left fist, wildly. She had no plan but to free herself. She connected with his shoulder and heard him mutter something before he pulled her right arm up behind her back. Almost to the point of pain—but not quite.
She stepped toward him, using her body as a weapon, her shoulder aimed for his solar plexus as her watch beeped again.
* * *
Dallas Morgan didn’t know who the woman was. He didn’t know what she wanted. He did know that she’d been running past his house every morning for three weeks. He’d seen her on his security monitor, racing along so close to his front yard that the camera, which had been set up to turn on when there was movement at the edge of the grass, caught her grainy image. Twice she’d jogged to his porch and back, always looking at her watch while she did it. The watch that was beeping.
A warning?
He glanced at the front of his house, expecting an explosion, a fire, something that would make any one of his enemies very happy. And he did have enemies, most of them in foreign countries or in prison. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t get to him—maybe the scrawny runner was working for one of them.
“Cool it!” he commanded as she tried to hook a leg around his, pull him off balance and free herself.
“Let me go,” she growled, wrestling against his hold. His instinct was to do what she’d asked. She was shorter, lighter and weaker than he was, and from the age of twelve on, he’d been taught good manners, good morals and fair rules of combat.
Those things flew out the window when it came to protecting family or staying alive. He tightened his grip. Not enough to be painful, but enough to make her think long and hard about continuing the fight.
“Tell me why you’ve been running by my place every morning for three weeks, and I will,” he said, and she stiffened.
“Dallas?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I...am.”
“Because you didn’t expect to be caught?”
“Because things don’t usually turn out that great for me.”
“Me being out here is great?” He released his hold and took a step back, trying to see her face in the predawn light. Gaunt. Deep hollows beneath high cheekbones. Dark shadows beneath light-colored eyes. That was about all he could see.
“It’s better than the alternative.”
“Which is?”
“I put something through the mail slot. That will explain.”
She started jogging, heading away from the house. He could have let her go, but there was something about her that worried him, a kind of desperate energy he often saw in clients who were looking for help.
He snagged the back of her running vest, pulling her to a stop. “Save me a trip to the house. Tell me now.”
“I’m Carly Rose,” she said, as if the name should mean something to him.
“If
