but—”
“You don’t have to be crude. I’m used to being around more refined men.”
He snorted. “Oh, so let me see, all of the sudden, your convicted murderer, drug-dealing, scum of a husband is a great guy because he—”
Pa-ching!
“Shit!” he hollered, roughly grabbing her upper arm. “Get down.”
“Why? What was that?”
“A bullet. Attached to a gun with a silencer. Come on.” Crouching behind shrubs, he pushed her in front of him, then pulled a gun from a shoulder holster and started firing.
Pow! Pow! Pow!
“Oh my God, oh my God…” Gracie chanted the phrase over and over. “I didn’t think any of this was real. That you were somehow just making it all up to get your way, but—”
“Please,” he said, lacing the fingers of their cuffed hands, then giving her a squeeze. “Keep it together for me a little while longer.”
“I can’t, I can’t, I—”
He kissed her. Hard. Fast. “You have to. Come on.”
Pa-ching! Pa-ching!
“See that black SUV?” He pointed five cabins down.
“You kissed me,” she said, fingertips to her lips.
He shook his head.
“Y-yes, yes, you did.”
Pa-ching! Pa-ching! Pa-ching!
“For cryin’ out loud, woman, it was just a kiss. It was the only way I could think to get your attention.”
“You could’ve just slapped me,” she hissed, still reeling from the shocking pleasure of him pressing his lips to hers.
“You’d have rather I—”
Pa-ching!
“W-what about the SUV?” she asked.
He fished for something from his front jeans pocket, then pulled out a tiny key. “If I let you loose, promise to do the smart thing and run for that car?”
Pa-ching! Pa-ching!
She swallowed hard and nodded.
He unlocked the cuffs, and even though their hands were free, he squeezed her fingers again. “On three,” he said.
She nodded.
“One…Two…Go!”
Gracie ran for all she was worth, her marshal close on her heels, firing back.
Pow! Pow! Pow!
Pa-ching! Pa-ching! Pa-ching! Pa-ching!
In the car, heart pounding, Gracie hunched down in her seat.
Seconds later, Beau hopped in beside her, slamming his door and starting the engine simultaneously.
“You okay?” he asked, revving the engine, throwing a rooster tail of gravel up behind them as he sped from the lot.
Afraid she couldn’t speak past the wall of terrified tears blocking her throat, she nodded.
Pa-ching! Pa-ching!
“Beau! They’re following! Hurry!”
“I’m doin’ the best I can, darlin’. Put on your seat belt. I’d do it for you, but…”
Yeah, she could see he was kind of busy.
He careened onto a side street.
Seconds later, made a sharp right.
“Dammit,” he mumbled. “They’re still back there.”
“At least they’re not shooting.”
Pa-ching!
“You were saying?”
“ON THE BRIGHT SIDE,” Gracie said with a weak chuckle thirty minutes later, her breathing just now slow enough that she could speak without hyperventilating. “At least we lost my ex-husband’s associates.”
Stopped on the shoulder of a dirt road winding through forest so thick they might as well have been in a tunnel, her marshal thumped his forehead against the steering wheel. “Unfortunately with my cell not having a signal, we’ve also lost ourselves.”
“Hey—you were the one driving. All I did was sit here screaming.”
He’d had his eyes closed, but opened one long enough to glare at her. “Thanks.”
Making the mistake of gazing out her window, Gracie found the woods looking tall, dark and spooky—like one of those Bigfoot documentaries on The Travel Channel. Primeval ferns lined the road, and the only sound aside from a faint whoosh high in the Douglas fir, western red hemlock and Sitka spruce was the occasional rapid-fire hammer of a woodpecker somewhere in the gloom.
Far off thunder rumbled.
Gracie shivered.
Goose bumps covered her forearms, which then made her have to pee. Bad.
Not a good thing considering there wasn’t a rest area, gas station or McDonald’s anywhere in sight.
“I really have to go to the bathroom,” she said.
This time, Marshal Beau didn’t even open one eye. He just sat there. Stone silent. Like the moss-covered boulders on the side of the road.
A sprinkle of fat raindrops hit the windshield, only worsening her need to pee.
“I’m not kidding,” she said. “I’ve reeaally got to go. I’m sure this is too much information, but the baby’s sitting on my bladder. I can only hold it for like twenty more seconds—tops.”
Still nothing.
“Are you even listening to me?” She gave his shoulder a nudge. After which, he grunted before reaching for his side, revealing a dark, sticky substance all over the back of his navy marshal’s jacket. It was on the seat, too. Smudging the black leather.
Hands to her mouth, she shook her head.
Had he been shot?
But when?
How could she not have noticed? He hadn’t been bawling with pain or anything. He’d just driven her to safety, all the while he’d been sitting there bleeding to…No.
No bleeding to death in such an already creepy location. Especially when it was her fault he’d been shot. The whole time she’d been running from him, convinced he
