lawn with its meandering stone path, park benches, birdhouses and fragrant rose border was magnificent in sunlight, inspiring a slow pace and self-contemplation. Now it seemed peppered with armed mines and much too exposed.
Three deputies had already died trying to keep her safe. The thought that Gray might be next terrified her.
“He’ll see us. We won’t make it.” The imagined infrared dot of the assassin’s scope burned her back.
“Walk in the park, hon.” He flashed her teeth, but the false smile didn’t fool her. He removed his shirt and dropped it behind a rock. His tanned skin blended in better with the darkness of the approaching storm, even with the rain giving it sheen. “Like the quarry parties. Think of it as racing the park ranger to the gate.”
“Not exactly the same.” The park ranger hadn’t pointed a gun at them, and even if he had, he would have shot to miss.
“We’ll give him the smallest target possible and take a path he can’t anticipate.”
“Right.” Everything in her screamed to stay in the relative security of the shadows. Don’t move. Stay. Just a bit longer. Just until she could dig a little deeper for her last scrap of courage. “Why you? Your firm could’ve sent someone else.”
“I figured that by now you’d need a familiar face.”
She did. Desperately. She gazed at the face that had given her countless sleepless nights, at the face she’d been looking for in crowds for more years than she cared to admit, at the face that could still jolt her heart like a double shot of espresso. He’d come to her when it would surely have been easier to let someone else take the job. Had he forgiven her?
He squeezed her upper arm. His chin jerked toward the convent that seemed a hundred miles away. “Come on, Abbie. Let’s make a run for it.”
Right. “If you remember correctly, I was never much of a sprinter.”
“That’s all right. I’ve got you covered.”
And even as they crouched at the edge of the woods waiting, he did. The firm planes of his body curved over hers. The breadth of his shoulders stretched across hers. The hard weight of his arm was armored plate around her. Her awareness of his heat and his scent and his steely determination to protect her hurt with its acuteness. After thirteen years, shouldn’t she have moved on? Oh, no, not homebody Abbie. She hung on to things that did her no good. Like a magnum of champagne, just one touch and her mind uncorked with all her unfulfilled childhood fantasies starring Gray. But being around Gray had always been like that—a combination of confusion and longing she’d never quite known how to handle.
“Ready?” he asked.
And just like that the fantasy popped. The man Rafe had hired to silence her was somewhere out there in the fog and storm. He was real and he was after her. Not Gray, not side trips into fantasyland could take away the fact that she was a target. For all she knew, the assassin was standing right there beside her, laughing silently, waiting for her to move. Deal with it, Abbie.
Throat too tight to speak, she nodded.
“Stick close.” Not that Gray was giving her a choice. Hands hard on her shoulders, he plunged them into open space and steered her into a zigzag path toward the kitchen door of the convent. She pumped her arms and legs hard until her lungs burned and every muscle shrieked from the assault.
To their right a shape rose and darkened against the fog, then disappeared again. Something whizzed by her ear and plunked into the pole holding the multiapartment birdhouse. Martins exploded out and scattered like buckshot.
Rafe’s assassin was shooting at them. She was going to die. Rafe was going to win. She wasn’t ready to die. She hadn’t even figured out the basics—like what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. For sure it wasn’t running. Or hiding.
Gray cursed as he pressed the armor of his body closer to hers and shifted directions, practically lifting her off her feet. “Faster!”
She was nothing more than a rag doll at the mercy of her protector and her hunter. A bank of tears dammed her throat. Her legs were moving, but she could no longer feel them. Rafe had promised to destroy all she cared for. He’d poisoned her existence. He’d raped the mill and Echo Falls. He’d killed her father.
Another bullet screamed past her, blasting rose petals on the path. She stumbled. Gray held her up. She couldn’t see a thing. Not the convent lights. Not the ground at her feet. Not even the end of her own nose. The dam of tears broke and spilled.
You won’t ever be free from me, Abrielle. Rafe’s laughter echoed in her mind. I won’t ever let you go. I’ll be in your dreams and in your nightmares. I’ll follow you wherever you go.
“Hang on, Abbie. We’re almost there.”
Gray’s voice and Gray’s push shoved her back into the chase.
Life and death. The line was thinner than she’d ever imagined.
If Rafe knew about Gray, he would destroy him. Rafe reveled in exploiting weaknesses to his best advantage.
She couldn’t allow Gray deeper into this mess. Not unless she wanted to lose him, too.
GRAY SHOVED ABBIE THROUGH the convent’s kitchen door and barred the heavy wood door behind them. His Glock wasn’t a match for a sniper’s rifle, and he doubted the good sisters packed heat. Would the shooter dare to violate the sanctuary of a convent? Would he kill defenseless nuns to get to Abbie?
When the local marina hadn’t had any rentals available, the daily multi-island ferry ride had seemed safe enough. An open target was usually riskier than fading into a crowd. But now it was clear he’d messed up. He had to get Abbie off this bull’s-eye target and behind Seekers, Inc.’s thick walls as soon as possible.
At their noisy entrance, Sister Bertrice, who was standing at the counter, gasped and whirled around, brandishing a knife like a sword. A spatter of strawberry juice plopped onto the dark gray of her skirt.
“What happened to you?” she asked, clutching the silver cross dangling at her neck with her free hand. She took in the bits of twigs and dirt that clung to Abbie’s shoulder-length honey-brown hair and the mud that streaked her jeans and white blouse.
“Nothing,” Abbie said, but the compulsive wringing of her hands gave away her anxiety.
“You look as if the devil was after you.” Sister Bertrice dropped the knife on the cutting board and rushed to Abbie’s side. “Are you all right?”
She ushered Abbie to a backless bench, polished by years of use, and skewered him with a look of accusation.
“I’m fine,” Abbie said, tripping slightly over the toe of her sneaker as she sat down at the table. “Really. I think I’ll just go to bed.”
She started to rise again, but Gray caged her in. “Someone shot at Abbie.”
“Shot at?” Sister Bertrice crossed herself and hugged Abbie. “How can that be?”
“Is there any way to get off this island tonight?” Gray asked. Mercer was somewhere in Connecticut, thanks to Gray’s reluctance to have a witness when he first caught up to
