style="font-size:15px;"> Nor did he trust himself with her heart.
This night was turning into pure torture. She couldn’t do this anymore. After holding tight to Quinn’s back, locked in one position with no opportunity to shift or reposition, her body ached as if she’d been riding a horse for hours. She couldn’t see where they were going and feared at any moment a bullet would burrow into her back. She knew that Quinn tried to be careful, but small branches slapped her cheeks and arms from time to time. She kept her eyes closed to protect them, but there was nothing much she could do for the rest of her. And bugs—she had to have acquired a spider or beetle or two during their trek. Just the thought of creepy-crawlers had goose bumps rising on her flesh.
Of course, Quinn was going through far worse. So how did she explain that she needed to rest? Their lives were far more important than her need to ease her aches and pains.
Except she simply couldn’t hold on anymore.
As if reading her mind, Quinn slowed down, then stopped and nearly stumbled. He leaned over to allow her to slip off. She stepped on her ankle then fell. He caught her before she hit the ground and held her steady.
“Are you okay?”
“I forgot about my ankle. I’m good.” She reached for the nearest tree trunk to prop herself against. She could stand with something to lean on as long as she didn’t use her injured ankle. The pain had been forgotten, but the throbbing came back strong now. She stretched her back and arms, surprised at how stiff she was.
Then she took in their surroundings. She thought Quinn had stopped from sheer exhaustion, but now it appeared there was more to it. The trees were thick around them but in this spot, they had thinned out, allowing moonlight through in the moments when fast-moving clouds weren’t drifting by. Vines and ferns grew up and around what she thought might be a structure against the side of an incline. A ridge, maybe.
It was beautiful. Like some kind of fairyland. She must be beyond exhausted to be thinking like that now.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“It’s my home. At least, it has been for the last six months.”
“Oh.” Wow. “Isn’t this a wilderness area?” As a deputy who worked near national parks in the county, she understood that a wilderness area was federally owned land, meant to remain undeveloped without structures or improvements or habitation. Hmm.
“Don’t worry. We’re right on the edge of the wilderness, but this is private property—it’s a friend’s deer lease. He hunts here during deer hunting season. It’s about as far as you can get from civilization with a camper.”
Oh, now she saw it. A camper was hidden beneath the vines and greenery—well, silvery in the moonlight. “How did he get this camper up here? There aren’t even any roads.”
“None that you can easily see. That’s why I like it.” Quinn glanced through the woods. “Let’s take this conversation inside. Get fueled, hydrated and rested. I don’t know how long we have.”
Quinn assisted her forward, moving vines out of the way until she could make out an actual door. Then she recognized the camper as a small Casita travel trailer. He’d lived here for the last six months?
She definitely wanted to know why.
Inside the camper, he turned on a light, dimming it enough that it would be imperceptible from outside. Electricity and water would be an issue up here but obviously Quinn had that all figured out.
Something crawled over her arm. She yelped and slapped her arm free of the insect.
She glanced around the small space—were they any spiders or rodents?—and rubbed her tired arms. The place was much neater than she would have expected of a guy living alone.
He busied himself at the small kitchen. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“You were expecting the place to be trashed out.”
Yeah, well, she’d known him as a teenager. He was no different from her brother... Oh. She wished she hadn’t thought of Steve, because it brought that same image to mind—Quinn holding her dead brother, his friend. The utter remorse on his face. Tears surged in her eyes. And for the first time, she thought about Quinn’s expression as he carried Steve, the devastation he must have felt. Bree had only ever been concerned about Dad and Stevie, and her own loss. Somehow, that now seemed selfish of her.
She pushed the image far from her and tried to calm her nerves. Her muscles ached and she needed to rest—but like Quinn said, they didn’t know how long they had. If those men tracked them here, then they’d have to run again.
She wanted to believe that they’d stop looking, but a persistent sense of unease told her she wasn’t safe. Not yet. Bree couldn’t fathom what had happened on the river, or this night of running. Who would have thought they would try so hard to kill her?
Give it up already.
She was so exhausted, all she could think about was closing her eyes, and she hadn’t been the one trekking through the woods with the weight of another person on his back for half the night.
She eyed the small bed on the far side—where Quinn would sleep. She was fine with the sofa on this side. But wait. What was she thinking? She wasn’t going to stay long enough for that. Bree could sleep for a thousand years, but not until she was safe at home and Stevie was in her arms. And Dad knew that she was all right.
Now. How did she get there?
Bree realized Quinn was waiting for her to reply to his comment about her expecting the place to be a mess. “Oh, yeah, I was, actually. You were really sloppy.”
“These days, I have to keep it perfectly clean or I’d go crazy. I couldn’t function. Plus, I need to be able to flee at any moment and don’t want to have to search for stuff.”
Flee at any moment? Now that got her attention. She sat up and blinked, hoping she could keep her eyes open.
What was going on? She wanted answers from Quinn, but first she had some explaining to do herself.
He handed her a tall glass of water he must haul up here in plastic jugs. How else could he get it?
As she drank, he guzzled down his own and watched her over the rim of his glass. His blue-gray eyes stared at her. Eyes she used to look into all dreamily. That was before reality hit her hard—Quinn would leave her again. And again.
She still couldn’t get over the fact that Quinn had rescued her. She could remember the moment of surprise mixed with relief at seeing a friendly face, then with anger all over again, the way she always felt around him these days, at the way he’d left her—with a dead brother to remember him by. And yet now that he was here, her heart warmed to see him—she’d missed him so much. At the same time, she had never wanted to see him again.
She had mixed emotions when it came to this man—no
