rush of water that began filling the interior of the car the instant metal met water.
Hailey’s head hit the window with a crack. Shane’s neck snapped forward and back. Even as he was
shaking the haze from his mind, Hailey was unstrapping her seat belt and working his free. “We
have to get out of this water. Now.”
He smelled the stench of stagnant water. Didn’t waste time arguing, not when she was so obviously
making perfect sense. He tried the door, but it wouldn’t open.
The engine was now waterlogged, and as the car sank, water spilled in until it was waist deep. He
kicked at the automatic window that wouldn’t open, then pulled his gun from his shoulder holster.
“Watch your eyes.”
Water gurgled around them as he turned away and fired once, breaking the glass and kicking out the
rest with his foot. Warm liquid rushed in on a gush. He managed one deep breath and grabbed Hailey’s hand before the water was over their heads.
They swam up—at least he hoped it was up. The slough was deeper than he’d thought, and so damn
cloudy from silt and debris he couldn’t see two inches in front of his face. Just when he was sure
they were going the wrong way, they broke the surface.
He gasped in a breath as Hailey let go of his hand and moved toward the shore. And that’s when he
felt something brush his leg.
“Get out of the water!” Hailey yelled.
But it was already too late. Whatever had touched his leg clamped on tight and pulled.
“Shane!”
He was under the water before the pain in his lower left leg even registered. But when it did—shot
up his leg like a firestorm—and he realized what had a hold of him, he let instinct rule. He kicked
with his free leg, and when that didn’t do shit to free him, he aimed the gun still in his hand at the
SOB he couldn’t see. Then said one quick prayer he wasn’t about to shoot his own foot off and
fired.
His lungs burned. He felt pressure and release on his leg. The instant he was free he swam with everything he had left as he fought the panic rising in his chest.
Hailey was running back into the water as he reached the shore. “Shane!”
Water splashed around him as she skidded to a halt. “Oh God, Shane.” She wrapped her arms under
his and pulled him far enough onto the shore so they were out of reach of any lazy gators hiding in
the tall reeds. A feeding frenzy erupted in the center of the slough, splashing and snapping and the
sounds of jaws clamping shut tight.
He fell back against the ground and worked to get air into his blazing lungs. Hailey tore the denim
on his left leg up to his knee. “You’re bleeding.”
He still had a death grip on his gun, and he lifted his head just enough to get a good look at the
damage. His shoe was gone. His jeans were ripped and frayed. Crimson blood ran down his calf all
the way to his toes, which he couldn’t feel. But at least they were still there.
Okay, no way that shit just happened.
Hailey whipped off the light sweater she’d changed into on the plane and dabbed at his leg until
they both saw the four evenly spaced puncture wounds where the fucker’s teeth had sunk in.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered. Then louder, “Okay. The skin’s not torn badly. That’s good. It’s not
that bad. You’re okay. See? You’re okay,” she said again as if saying it enough would help convince
her of that fact.
His leg hurt like a son of a bitch, but to keep from freaking out about the fact he’d just been attacked by a frickin’ gator, he pushed the pain aside and focused on her. Wet hair hung around her
face. Water slid down her cheek to drip over her shoulders and the white cami she’d worn beneath
her sweater. A small cut oozed blood where she’d cracked her head against the glass of the car.
He gripped her hand to stop her frantic search for more wounds. Then held on tight until she looked
up at him. “Hailey. I’m fine. Stop.”
Fear reflected deeply in her blue eyes. Fear for him, he realized.
“I’m okay,” he said again.
She stared at him just long enough to make his heart rate kick up, and not from nearly being the
evening snack.
“Jesus, Shane.” Her eyes slid closed.
Oh, man, but he really loved how she said his name. Wanted to hear her say it again. In his bed.
Naked beneath him. Over and over again.
“I never liked those shoes much anyway.”
Her eyes popped open, and she stared at him like he’d lost his ever-lovin’ mind. Then she laughed.
A nervous, relieved sound that vibrated through every cell in his body.
Addendum. He wanted her screaming his name.
He was seriously screwed if after very nearly being eaten alive, all he could think about was how
sexy she looked and how badly he wanted to touch her.
To keep from doing just that, he refocused on what had just happened. “Hailey, somebody shot—”
“Do you see it?” They both froze at the voice yelling from across the slough.
Hailey hit him in the chest with the full force of her weight before he saw her move. One minute he
was sitting on the ground, the next they were rolling down a slight embankment into tall reeds and
bushes that scraped against this legs and arms.
He hit the dirt with a thud. Rocks and twigs stabbed into his back and shoulders. Hailey landed flat
on top of him, then whispered, “Shh” in his ear.
He didn’t dare move. One, because he could barely think, let alone breathe, and two, because as
soon as his head stopped spinning he had a sudden flash of being very nearly eaten alive moments
before and realized he had no idea what else was hiding in these reeds besides them.
He’d lost his gun as they’d rolled, not that it would be much use now after being thoroughly waterlogged. While a Glock could be fired underwater, a whole host of bad things could have happened,
like the damn thing exploding in his hand or the blast leaving him deaf as a door since underwater
firings were four times louder than those on land. He’d seriously lucked out, but he wasn’t testing
fate one more time. As it was, his ears were slightly ringing, making it hard to hear the voices
yelling around them, but one thing got through: there were two people out there looking for them,
most likely the same ones who’d shot out their tires and now hoped he and Hailey were gator bait.
“I don’t see anything,” one voice yelled from across the slough. Male. Deep. “It went in here, didn’t
it?”
“Yeah,” the other answered. This one female. “Look. The gators have something down there.”
Shane thought he heard water splashing but couldn’t be sure. But when he looked up, he couldn’t
have cared less. Hailey was frozen above him, head tipped slightly to the side so she could hear better, eyes intent on peering through the reeds. She was beautiful, even soaking wet and dripping
things he didn’t want to think about. Calm and collected. Thinking when his brain seemed to be
shorting out.
His blood warmed as he stared up at her, and suddenly he was keenly aware of the way she was lying full on top of him, locked tight from knee to shoulder. How full and lush her breasts were, pushing into his chest with just the right pressure. How flat her stomach was, how her hips seemed the
perfect size to fit with his. And every time she breathed, his pulse quickened, his skin tingled and
blood shot straight to his groin.
Do you really think she needs you to save her? Look at her.
Okay, he’d obviously lost some serious blood in that gator attack. That or he was in shock. Because
no matter what he did, he couldn’t get his brain to focus on anything besides her. Not the pain in his
leg or the two dipshits out in the brush searching for them or the fact he was growing hard beneath
her and really should think about something else to kill his erection before she realized what was
happening and freaked a little herself.
Footsteps came closer to their hiding place. Hailey sucked in a breath and held it. He tried like hell
not to move, even though—shit, she had to feel that thing now.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the male voice asked.
“I thought I heard something.”
Silence.
Against him, Hailey’s heartbeat picked up and pounded like wildfire in her chest.
He looked to the side without moving his head, and saw female boots not five feet from where they
lay hidden. Screw the whole gun-possibly-exploding-in-your-hand scenario. He’d give his left nut
for his Glock right now.
“Well?” the man asked.
“I don’t know. Must have been gators. Or a snake.”
Lovely. Snakes. If that didn’t kill the mood, nothing did.
“There’s no way she survived that crash. Those gators are going nuts over there.”
The woman pivoted around and began walking away. “I told you not to shoot out the tires. If the
bronze was in that car—”
“It wasn’t,” the man snapped. “Just relax.”
“Relax? How do you expect me to relax? If she’s dead we won’t ever get that damn statue.”
“I already have it.”
“What?” the woman asked. “How?”
“Did you really think I was going to leave it there?”
Silence. Then, “Okay, but don’t you think three dead Roarkes in the same month are going to draw
suspicion?”
“Not for us.” Irritation coated the man’s words. “The fewer Roarkes around to get in our way, the
better. Now quit stressing. As far as I’m concerned, the dumb bitch got what she deserved.”
Shane’s chest grew cold. Just that fast.
He grasped Hailey’s arms and pushed. Startled, her gaze shot to his, and as if she could read his
mind, her hand clamped over his mouth with stunning force and she locked her legs around his hips
to keep him still. His blood was a roar in his head, his only thought the need to extract some longawaited vengeance on the POS mere feet from them. But then he focused on her wide, cobalt blue
eyes, and like an antidote to his rage, the pleading he saw there got through. Brought him down.
Made him remember where he was and with whom.
She held on to him as the footsteps disappeared. An engine turned over somewhere in the trees,
roared to life, then faded in the Everglades.
When nothing but the sounds of splashing water and cicadas chirping nearby met their ears, she finally pushed off him and moved back to sit on her feet. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you? How’s your
leg?”
He pushed up slowly, his emotions a tumble of things he didn’t want to think about or remember or,
shit, even acknowledge. “Fine. Who the hell was that?”
She recoiled at his harsh tone, but he didn’t flinch. Dammit, this was why he shouldn’t be here. The
past and the present were intermixing for him.
“I’m not sure,” she said.
He pushed aside his fucked-up emotions and focused on her. On the fact she’d gone still as stone
when that woman had nearly been on top of them. And the fact right this minute she was staring
straight into his eyes.
She was lying. In Wisconsin, anytime she’d evaded his questions she’d looked at him head-on, but
when she’d finally told him the truth on the flight down here, she hadn’t been able to make eye contact. Which meant one thing: she’d recognized one of those two voices. Or maybe both. And she
wasn’t about to tell him because she’d known he was ready to tear the guy’s throat out with his bare
hands.
She didn’t trust him. Not to protect her. And that royally pissed him off.
“We can’t go back to Graham’s,” she said. “I don’t want him in the middle of this.”
“And what if he’s already in the middle of it?”
“He wasn’t,” she responded as if it were fact. “He cares less about RR than I do.”
Shane wasn’t so sure of that. And it was just a little too coincidental that they’d been ambushed
right after leaving her uncle’s place.
“Either way,” she went on, “we need to get out of here so you can have that bite looked at.”
“No hospitals.” He refused to let those sexy blue eyes pull him under when she looked up. His brain
was working now, and he wasn’t about to get distracted again. Couldn’t protect her? Like hell he
couldn’t. “An animal bite will get reported. Last thing we want is my name in the system because
it’ll lead CPD right back to you.”
“Right. Yeah. I hadn’t thought of that.” She glanced down at her knees as if contemplating her options. “I think I know someone who can help us. It’ll be a bit of a drive, though.”
“How long?”
“An hour and a half?”
“I can make it.”
She nodded, pulled her waterlogged cell from her pocket. “Damn. It’s dead. Can you walk?”
“Gonna have to, aren’t I?”
He ignored the regret in her eyes. Ignored the little stab in his chest when she looked at him like that
or the way it made him wish he’d met her a year ago, before his world had turned to shit. “There’s
another house about a quarter mile away. We can get a ride there.”
“Fine, let’s go. I’ve had enough of the fucking Everglades to last me the rest of my life.”
He pushed to his feet—one bare, one in a soaking wet Nike—and focused on the pain in his leg as
he picked his way across the ground behind her. That, at least, was real. And just what he deserved.
Not some fantasy he didn’t have any right daydreaming about.
He was working up a good case of ticked off. And she wasn’t exactly sure why.
Though Shane’s surly attitude irritated her to no end, Hailey cut the guy some slack. If she’d been
bitten by an alligator, then pushed down a hill and pinned beneath someone while rocks and branches and bugs and other things she didn’t want to think about stabbed into her back, she’d be in a pretty foul mood right now, too. Not to mention the fact he had no idea where they were heading, or