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She didn’t listen.
She ran toward the lake, moving quickly enough that he wasn’t all that concerned about her being injured.
He scrambled down the rest of the slope, racing across pebbly earth. She was yards ahead of him, illuminated by moonlight as she waded into the water and dove below its surface.
If he didn’t get her out, she’d die there, the cold stealing her strength and her life before she even knew it was happening.
He moved along the shore, his light dancing across the dark lake. She’d gone down, and she hadn’t come back up, but he could see the small ripples on the surface of the water, subtle signs that she was moving beneath it. He shrugged out of his coat, his handgun zipped into an interior pocket, unbuttoned the dress shirt he’d worn to John’s funeral and dropped that on top of it.
He waited until she surfaced, her head popping up as she gulped for air.
That was it. All the opportunity he needed.
He waded into the frigid water and went after her.
TWO (#uab3fe9cb-a13a-55a5-9e5f-780296644adb)
The water was freezing.
That wasn’t something Trinity had been thinking about when she’d decided she could swim to the lights that glimmered on the far shore. Houses. Businesses. People. She was thinking about the water temperature now. She was also thinking about how far the opposite shore really was. Farther than it looked. She was a good swimmer, but the cold was already affecting her muscles, and her movements were sluggish and slow.
She could turn back, but he was there—the man who’d been standing on the slope, shining his light down at her.
She didn’t know who he was.
She didn’t want to know.
She just wanted to escape him, find some place to hunker down and think through her options. She’d have to swim parallel to the shore and find a safe place to exit the lake. Preferably before hypothermia set in. At the rate things were going, that wouldn’t be long. She was already shivering, her teeth chattering.
Make a plan. Stick to the plan.
That was one of Chance’s mottos.
The problem was that he’d never explained what to do if the plan wasn’t working out. Probably because his plans always worked out.
Trinity’s? Not so much.
Look at her relationship with Dale. She’d had it all planned out. The two years of dating. The year-long engagement. The happily-ever-after.
Only, two years had turned into three and there’d been no sign of dating ever becoming anything more. That had made her worry that maybe Dale wasn’t as committed to forever as she was.
Turned out, he wasn’t.
It also turned out that she would have realized that long before the three-year mark if she hadn’t been so committed to her poorly conceived plan.
This plan? The one that had her swimming across the lake to safety? It was just as bad.
She glanced back at the shore. She was a few hundred yards from it. No sign of the guy who’d been chasing her. He’d probably realized she was going to die without any help from him. Maybe he was sitting in the shadows of the trees, waiting for her to drown and make his job easier.
She gritted her teeth to keep them from knocking together. There had to be a place that was safer than the beach, an area of thick foliage and deep shadows, but her eyes didn’t seem to be working well and her arms didn’t seem to want to paddle. Her legs felt heavy and she wanted to close her eyes and float for just long enough to regain her strength.
If she did, she’d die.
She was still coherent enough to realize that, but it wouldn’t be long and her brain would slow as much as her body had. She turned toward the beach, desperate to get out of the water before that happened. All thoughts of the man and the danger he represented were gone. She had more immediate things to worry about. Like freezing to death or drowning or—
An arm wrapped around her, and she was yanked back against a hard body, her arms pinned at her sides. She tried to scream, but all that emerged was a quiet squeak. Tried to fight, but she was trapped by a steel-like arm and her own weakness.
She kicked backward, trying to free herself.
“Stop,” a man growled.
But she kicked again, the icy water splashing up into her face.
“You want us both to drown?” he asked, dragging her closer to his body. They were heading toward the shore. She could feel that, and she knew the exact moment his feet touched the lake bottom, because he hefted her up like a sack of potatoes, tossing her over his shoulder in a fireman carry that forced every bit of air from her lungs.
She should have kept fighting, but the wind was howling, and she was freezing, her body trembling so violently, she thought she might shake into pieces.
Seconds later she was lowered to her feet. Gently. Surprising since she figured the guy was about to kill her.
“That was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen anyone do,” he said.
“Not as stupid as firing a gun at an innocent person,” she retorted.
“Equally stupid acts, lady. One will get you killed. The other could kill someone else,” he growled, grabbing a coat from the ground and pulling a handgun from somewhere inside it.
Her blood went as cold as her body was, and she took a step back.
“Relax,” he muttered. “If I’d wanted to hurt you, it would have been done already. It’s not like you’re in any shape to fight.”
“I could fight if I needed to.” Maybe.
“Hopefully, you won’t have to put that to the test.” He checked the safety on the gun, tucked it into the waistband of his pants and tossed the coat around her shoulders.
It was still warm from his body, and she wanted to pull it over her soaked hair and huddle under it until some of the warmth seeped into her. She was afraid if she did, she’d close her eyes and wake up locked in a basement somewhere.
Or, worse, not wake up at all.
“Maybe you should think about that next time you decide to fire a shot and then chase a person through the woods. Not many people are going to take kindly to that, and most of them are going to do exactly what I did and—”
“I wasn’t the one who fired the gun, and I wasn’t chasing you anywhere.” He lifted what looked like a white dress shirt, shook it out and pulled it on.
Unlike her, he’d been thinking before he’d dived into the lake.
His pants were soaked, but his shirt wasn’t.
She, on the other hand, was still shaking with cold, her wet clothes clinging to her skin. “Look, it’s freezing. How about we just call it a night? You go your way. I go mine. No harm, no foul.”
“That,” he murmured, “is a matter of opinion.”
“What’s that supposed to...?” Her voice trailed off because the moonlight was falling straight onto his face, and she knew him. Knew of him, anyway. Mason Gains. The guy she’d traveled six-hundred miles to see.
“To mean?” he finished her question as he tugged the coat closed and buttoned the top three buttons, his knuckles brushing her chin and her jaw as he turned the collar up around her ears. “It means that you’re trespassing, and I’ve called the police. They’ll be very interested in hearing your story.”
“My story is simple. I came to find you, and you chased me through the woods with a gun.”
“I already told you, it wasn’t me.”
“Someone chased me. I fell.” And she’d hit her head. The cold had stolen most of the pain, but she could feel it again, pulsing just above her right ear. She touched the area, felt warm blood.
“You’re bleeding,” he commented, and she wanted to say something sarcastic, because she was cold, she was scared and she was in pain.
She didn’t think that would win her any points, so she kept her mouth shut.
He sighed. “Come on. Let’s go back. The police should be at the house by now.”
“Good. Maybe they can find the guys who were shooting at me.”
“How many?” he asked, taking her arm and leading her along the shore. They weren’t heading the way they’d come. That was probably for the best. She didn’t think she could climb up what she hadn’t been able to climb down.
“At least two.”
“Did you see them?”
“No. I was too busy running for my life to stop and get a description of the people who were trying to kill me.”
Oops.
There she went with the sarcasm.
“Glad you’ve kept your sense of humor,” Mason muttered, stepping between towering pine trees, his grip on her arm firm.
She knew he was trying to keep her from running. She couldn’t say she blamed him, but she didn’t like it.
“No need to hold on to me,” she said, pulling her arm from his grasp. “I’ve got no idea where we are and no idea how to get to civilization from here. In other words, I have absolutely nowhere to go, so I’m not going anywhere but wherever you’re heading.”
“Thanks for the information. Now, I’ll give you some. If you run, I’ll catch you,” he replied. “So, how about you save us both the effort and don’t do it?”
“I already told you, I’m not planning on running.” Especially not now when the guy she’d been looking for was just a few inches away.
They hadn’t gotten off to a good start.
She could fix that, clear things up, explain all the reasons why he should hear what she had to say and listen to her reasons for being there.
They were moving steadily uphill, heading—she presumed—back toward Mason’s house. She expected him to ask more questions. She actually hoped he would. She just needed an opening, and she could explain the situation with Henry, tell Mason all about the young athlete, his cancer diagnosis and his upcoming surgery.
But Mason seemed content to stay silent.
She did the same, the sound of police sirens a constant reminder that she was running out of time. For all she knew, she’d be arrested as soon as she reached Mason’s house. She’d be tossed in jail for trespassing, and she’d never get an opportunity to say what she needed to.
She couldn’t let that happened.
She’d promised Bryn she’d give it her best. Walking mutely through the forest with the man who could help Henry? That wasn’t it.
“I’m Trinity Miller,” she said, her voice a little too loud.
Nothing.
Not even a hitch in his stride.
“I have a friend—”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“Don’t I?” He turned abruptly, stopping short in the middle of the path. It was too dark to see his expression, but Trinity was certain he wasn’t smiling. “You have a friend who needs money, or an uncle who needs help, or you know a good charity I could donate money to.”
“Not even close.”
“Then why are you here?”
“My friend’s son has cancer. He’s going to have his leg amputat—”
“No,” he repeated and started walking again, his long legs eating up the ground so quickly she had to jog to keep up.
“You haven’t even heard me out.”
“I heard enough to say no.”
“I drove six hundred miles!” she protested, her teeth chattering on the last word.
She did not want to fail at this. She didn’t want to have to call Bryn to tell her that she’d blown their chance.
“I’m sorry you wasted your time.” He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded irritated.
“Look—” she began.
Somewhere to their right, a branch broke.
Mason grabbed her wrist, yanking her close to his side.
“What—”
“Quiet,” he whispered, his lips close to her ear. “I’m going to see who that is. You stay here.”
“We need to stay together,” she whispered back.
“It’s not up for discussion.” He pulled her off the path and dragged her into thick undergrowth. “Do. Not. Move.”
