Not that he had many options. Since leaving the US Marshals, he worked alone, although he had a few old contacts he could call if he got in a jam.
But he’d never gotten into anything he hadn’t been able to get out of, except Lillian. Something had happened when he’d been seeing her; he’d felt like he was going under and that he’d never break free to the surface again.
But that was before he’d learned about her arrest and had finally been able to see her clearly. Figuratively, at least. Literally, he could barely see her now. She was just a shadow beside him, except for her silvery blond hair. That would be like a beacon drawing the gunmen toward them. He needed to find a place to hide her.
The pungent odor of pines reached his nose. And for the first time in a long time, he let in a memory from his childhood—one of hiding beneath the pines in his backyard. It was what he’d been hiding from that he blocked from rushing back. He had to stay focused right now.
He crouched low and tugged Lillian down beside him. She moved slowly, though—almost too slowly. Once she was on the ground next to him, he pulled back the low boughs of the nearest pine tree and, leaning close, whispered in her ear, “Crawl under there.”
She shivered. It was colder here—in the darkness of the woods—and damp near the ground. She might have hesitated just because she was cold, but when another twig snapped nearby, she froze entirely.
Jake reached out to push her under the bough and as he touched her waist, he felt a jolt. It wasn’t tiny like he remembered. It was swollen over her distended belly. As he slid his hand over that belly, he felt another jolt as a little foot kicked him.
She was pregnant.
He’d had questions for her before, but now he had only one: Is it mine?
But he couldn’t ask that. He couldn’t ask anything because the brush was rustling, twigs snapping, and he knew the men were closing in on them. He had to lead them away from Lillian, especially now that he knew there was no way she could outrun those men.
“Stay here,” he whispered. “I’ll come back when it’s safe.”
If he survived...
But he had to survive now. If he didn’t, there was no way she’d escape those men on her own.
* * *
Safe for whom?
It wasn’t safe for Lillian, not now that Jake had felt her belly. He knew she was pregnant. Did he realize the baby was his?
Maybe not.
She hoped not.
Not that she expected him to take any responsibility for their baby. He hadn’t taken any responsibility when he’d used her to apprehend her dad and oldest brother.
He hadn’t cared then that he’d broken her heart. He’d only cared about collecting his bounty for apprehending the fugitives.
How high was the price on her head now?
Maybe those other men weren’t Tom Kuipers’s minions. Maybe they were bounty hunters like Jake, and like Jake, they were ruthless enough to use whatever means necessary to apprehend her.
At least he’d only taken her heart. The way these guys had fired into the cottage and then tried to run them off the road, they seemed determined to take her life.
“Over here!” someone shouted.
“You’ve got the woman?” another called out.
And she tensed, worried that her hiding place had been discovered.
“I don’t see her,” the first voice replied, “but I saw the man run that way. She’s probably with him.”
She heard the snap and crack of twigs and branches as the men chased after Jake. He’d led them away from her. And away from where the vehicles had been left.
He’d told her to stay put and wait for his return. But there were a lot of men after him. There was no guarantee that he would return.
Pain clenched her heart at the thought of him getting hurt. Or worse...
How could she still care so much after the way he’d treated her? After the way he’d acted since seeing her again? He seemed angry with her, like he was somehow the victim when she was the one he’d used.
And the one that Tom Kuipers had framed.
But Jake hadn’t given her a chance to explain that she wasn’t guilty of those charges—not that they’d had a chance to talk yet. Maybe she shouldn’t have thrown open the passenger’s door and ran. But her instincts had been screaming at her to escape, not just the men but Jake, as well.
Maybe Jake more than the men. She hadn’t wanted him to see that she was pregnant. She hadn’t wanted him to know that he was going to be a father. She hadn’t believed that a man as heartless as he had proven to be could be a loving father to a child.
Her baby kicked again, and she knew why she cared about Jake despite how much he’d hurt her. Because even though she had every reason to hate him, she loved the baby Jake had given her. She hadn’t planned for him or her. But Lillian was very happy that she was pregnant.
And she wanted her baby to be safe and secure. Lillian needed to get her and her unborn child the hell out of there. Holding her breath, she listened and waited until the rustling of brush faded far into the distance.
Then she crawled from beneath those low-lying pine boughs and pushed herself up from the ground to her feet again. She moved more quietly now, following the path beaten down through the brush back to where the truck was parked. She’d thought she had been running for so long, but she hadn’t gone that great a distance from the vehicle. It was as if she’d been running in quicksand.
She moved faster now as she approached the truck. Running around the front, she reached for the driver’s door. But before she opened it, she remembered the dome light flashing on and alerting the men in the van to where they had stopped. She shouldn’t have done that.
But she had been almost as anxious to escape Jake as she was those men, maybe even more so now. She peered through the driver’s window and saw no keys dangling from the ignition. Her hands were shaking too badly right now for her to try to hot-wire the truck, if she could even remember how Dave had showed her to do it.
She glanced toward the road. The white van was visible through the trees, parked on the shoulder where the two-track road began.
Had the men blocked their escape?
She probably wouldn’t be able to drive around that van even if she was able to start the truck before the men returned. Were they all chasing Jake through the woods? Was the van sitting empty?
Realizing it might be her best option to escape, she crouched low and used the brush for cover as she moved toward the road and the van. The front window, which had shattered like a spiderweb, lay crumpled on the hood, as if someone had shoved it out so they could see through it. But she saw no one sitting behind the steering wheel. Since the van was on the road and clear of the trees, the moon shone inside it, illuminating the front.
Lillian
