Trusting Love (25 page)

“I think it’s up for conversation,” she said. “Just like that hard-on you are poking me with is up for debate… I mean outside of anal, you must have another thing we can talk about trying out of those millions.”

The horses suddenly set up a commotion and Rowdy went wild. Robert froze, halfway to kissing his way into moving that conversation into reality.

“That’s not normal, is it?” he asked, lifting his head to scan the room.

“No, no it’s not but—”

He moved. Instincts too strong to ignore pushed him up to his feet and her with him. He grabbed his boots, carried them and her to the bedroom, set her down and shut the door careful not to make a sound. “Get dressed, Kris.”

She stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

“Please, just get dressed.”

She nodded silently then whispered, “Okay.” Her dark eyes were too big in her small face, but she obeyed. “Your clothes are there,” she added gesturing to the top of her dresser. She’d cleaned and mended his shirt and pants he noticed. He didn’t say anything, too focused on shoving them on and tugging his shirt over his head while he listened for anything else out of the ordinary. After he was dressed, he turned to where she’d gone inside her closest. “Stay here for one minute, but be ready to move.”

From her closet he heard her make a sound, then she came out, tugging her long hair out of her shirt and nodded. “Okay.”

The minute it took them to get out of the main living room and dressed had been a minute they didn’t have. The timer was on and he knew it.

He turned, tugged the door open and went back into the room, pulling the knife off the counter to use in case he needed it, but he wasn’t planning on leaving Kris alone long enough to do more than look outside. He ducked down under the level of the kitchen window, silently crossed to the door and put his back to the wall. Sure enough, there, along the corner of the barn, near where Kris had piled the most snow, he spotted tracks. New, muddy tracks where they’d only left snowy footprints.

Ten seconds later he was back in the room and found Kris holding a shotgun almost as big as her and two boxes of shells. “I have this,” she said.

“Good. I’ll need it. You hold onto it for now, and follow me. Where’s the flash drive from my pocket?”

“There, on the dresser, right by the lamp.”

He found it, pocketed it and kissed her quickly. “Be brave and do what I say. I’m sorry to bring this on you, but we have minutes and that’s all we have to get out of this.”

“My Jeep. It’s in the barn.”

“I know, we head for that, but for right now, we go out of this room and I’ll lead us around to the side of the barn. Under no circumstance do you leave my side. If I say run, do it. We head straight to the woods, circle around and come in from the back of the barn.”

“Rowdy.”

The one word stopped him but he nodded. “We get Rowdy easy enough. He’s done his part. For that, he’s bought us some time and he comes too.”

“Of course he does!” She sounded outraged so he nodded again and lifted the window. He was out and over, dropping in the new snow seconds later. Kris came out head first right after him, or tried to, but the shotgun got in her way. He caught her around the waist and set her on her feet, inhaling her sweet scent. “We stay together. No matter what,” he said, meeting her eyes to see the fear she was trying to hide.

She bit her lip but nodded. “Here you take this,” she said, handing him the shotgun. “I loaded it, but the safety is on. It shoots high and to the right.”

He didn’t ask her how she knew that, but he took it, and turned to make a path to the trees, expecting shots at any time.

Things had gone wrong. If someone was here for him, and it looked that way, they knew who he was, and what he was doing, and worse, where Kris lived. Sonya, maybe. But if it’d been her, he doubted he’d be walking now. Moments before, he’d been out of his mind in the middle of the best sex of his life and no way would he have known it was coming. Sonya didn’t warn her targets, didn’t make them linger if she’d been assigned an assassination, so what had she wanted at the senators? Information? She had the same intel he had.

Rowdy met them in the trees, quietly bounding over the deep snow. With a quick word from Kris he settled down to their rear, his ruff up but he didn’t race off barking either.

“Keep him quiet.”

“I will,” she whispered. “Who is it, Robert, the men that shot you?”

“Let’s hope not, okay? Just follow my lead.” The barn was in sight but no one was outside that he could see. He didn’t spot a vehicle either but he did see footprints in the snowy driveway, some of them hitting the mud Sam’s plough had unearthed and leaving a clear trail for him to follow. The sloppy work could explain why he was still breathing. But who was the visitor? Friend or foe?

He hunched down against an old fir tree near the barn and watched the cabin closely. Kris settled next to him. Rowdy sat but got up to stand right after, too anxious to do more than whine once until Kris quieted him.

“What are we doing?” she asked.

“If someone is here, they probably aren’t alone. I have to see how many others there are.”

“How would they know you were here, if you didn’t know you were here?”

He turned to catch her eye and smiled. “You’re damn smart, Kris. Anyone ever tell you that?”

She blushed but smiled. “No, but I think you’re just trying to make me feel better about ruining the moment.”

“Darling, my instincts are warning me and when they do, I listen.” He scanned the area around them but couldn’t make out anything that would indicate someone was near.

“Did they warn you when you were shot?” she asked softly.

He turned back at her quiet words, but saw sadness in her eyes, not sarcasm. “No, they didn’t. This time they are, so we listen, okay?”

“Okay.”

He heard a sound to their left and glanced towards the barn. A man stood there, as if he’d just walked out. Rowdy growled but Kris quieted him immediately. They both heard him clearly say he’d found no one, and he’d checked the house once, but he’d do it again. Kris’ eyes widened and she gripped his arm. They had been lucky. The couch sat in a spot in the house out of the way of any windows and with them both lying down, no one doing a quick scan through the windows would have seen them.

“It’s okay. While we sneaked out, he was in the barn no doubt. The good news is I don’t know the guy.”

“Why is that good news?” she asked with a cute frown marring her brow.

“Because it won’t matter that I kill him,” he told her using his thumb to rub her forehead clear of her worry.

She blinked and took his hand in hers. “They want your flash drive? And it has something to do with the drugs that make you volatile and ill?”

He nodded, impressed by her all over again.

She shrugged and turned to narrow her eyes at the guy. “The gun shoots high, don’t forget.”

“Darling, I’m not killing him now, but if I need to, I want you to understand why.”

“I do,” she said quickly then exhaled with a long-suffering look directed at him. “Robert, don’t you think I’d know you had a reason to take another person’s life?” she whispered fiercely. “I know you much better than you think.”

“No, you know what I’ve shown you, nothing more.”

She narrowed her eyes on him this time and hissed with a frustrated curse word in Spanish under her breath. “That’s not true. I pay attention. I know you,” she said angrily. “Now, either get me out of the cold and into the Jeep, or shoot the man, for all I care. But don’t tell me I don’t know you. I know you better than I think you know yourself, Robert McNeil.”

She jerked her arm out of his grip and eyed him like she was looking for some excuse to lay into him again. If he could, he would have kissed her. Instead, he turned to the man at the barn and spotted him moving off towards the house. That was all he needed.
They
needed.

“Come on, we’ll argue in the Jeep.”

“I don’t argue,” she sniffed. “If someone needs me to tell them the obvious, I tell them.”

Robert snorted at that but he’d not got to his age without knowing when to keep his mouth shut. She followed him quietly. Rowdy was silent at their heels as if the dog knew they had to be careful.

They reached the side of the barn, and he stopped to examine the snow. He didn’t see another set of tracks, but they could have someone up in a tree, or on the slight rise behind her cabin. He crossed his finger over his lips for silence and motioned for her to follow him. The horses were quiet now. From their stall, he heard the kittens rustling around, but no other sounds.

The barn had a large set of back doors just like the front but he’d never opened them and had assumed they didn’t open because they were ancient. They were also located up against a tree line and now had over six feet of snow outside of them. The back doors were an obvious no go. That left the front. He’d have to start the Jeep, get them out and try to make certain the man in the house didn’t shoot them, the tyres, or have another man down the road ready to do the same.

He’d do better to let Kris drive off, he decided. She’d be safer if he hung back and took care of this by himself. No one would shoot her, but they might take her into custody.

Just thinking the words in his head shot that idea out of the water.

“Get in the Jeep, we have very little time.”

She nodded and raced to the passenger side and opened the door without being told he’d drive.
The
woman was too smart
. He got in and watched her shut her door as soon as Rowdy had bounded in. The dog settled in the back seat with a whine.

“Shhh, Rowdy,” Kristen whispered. The dog lay down on the seat, his head facing them and his paws over the edge, clearly unhappy but obeying her.

“Good, now here, take this and shoot anything that shoots at you,” he told her.

“I don’t know about that, but I can scare them,” she said, taking the gun and rolling her window down.

“Just wait until we need it, but make a lot of noise and they’ll never know,” he said. “Does this thing work?”

“Of course it does!”

She sounded so offended he cut off praying that it would start the first time, and turned the key. It started with a roar of the engine that made him wince.

“Well, it’s a bit loud,” she whispered.

He rammed it into gear, blessing Kristen for having backed it into the barn, and floored it.

They narrowly missed the snow pile they’d made along the packed in area around the front of the barn. They tore up the snow and they hit the side of the high rise along the drive Sam had left. With a rapid fight with the Jeep he won the thing back on track right when the man inside the cabin raced onto the porch, gun up but not firing.

A second later Robert knew why.

Two SUVs faced him at the end of the driveway. Both big vehicles were parked so they were blocking the way, with only an impossibly small gap between them. But the dumbasses had also angled them pointing downhill like a half-open gate.

“Hold on,” he advised Kristen. “Seatbelt, too.” He shifted gears and hit the floor with the gas pedal.

“Oh God, if you wreck my Jeep—” Kristen’s threat was cut off because she curled her arms over her head and braced a boot on the glovebox as they impacted. He strong-armed her in place, twisted the wheel one-handed and ploughed through the road block with a horrible sound of metal on metal, but they made it through.

“Shoot those tyres, Kris.”

She uncurled, looked at him, behind them, then turned in her seat and aimed the shotgun out of the window. She shot off two rounds. Men dived for cover behind them—none of them were members of any team he’d ever served on, he noted. Until out of the side of his vision, Walters raced around the back of an SUV and into sight. Walters raised his gun and Robert tugged her back inside just as a gunshot cracked the back windshield.

“That man shot at me!” she told him then nearly scared the piss out of him by leaning out of the window and shooting back the way they had come.

“Kris!”

She ignored his call and leaned her entire upper body outside, scaring him so badly he almost lost control. He hauled her back by her jeans. She must have bumped her head on the door frame because she grabbed her head with one hand and glared at him but at least she sat down.

“Ouch! That hurt. What— Robert!” She scooted back in her seat and screamed right when he faced the front again and narrowly missed driving off the road. He fought the Jeep back on the snowy road and heard the sound of vehicles catching up behind them.

“Oh, God you need to watch the road!” Kris yelled.

“Don’t lean out like that—”

“You’re being unreasonable. I’m a good shot. I can hit their tyres. Trust me,” she tacked on with a small frown as if he was being impossible when he glanced at her. She motioned for him to pay attention to where he was driving again. He switched his focus back front and centre. The woman was insane. She wanted to lean out into the wind while he swerved to avoid being shot at and he was unreasonable?

“Now, let me do this. I’m a good shot. Okay?” she said.

He took a chance and looked at her again long enough to see she was seriously asking him if she could lean out of the window and shoot at the men chasing them.

“Robert!”

He fixed his eyes back on the road and glanced in the rear-view window. “Okay, but I hold onto your damn jeans and if they fire back you’re inside.” They slid on black ice but he managed to handle it, and get them down the next turn before the SUVs came into sight again.

“I want both your hands on that wheel. If you drop me on my head, I’m not going to like it,” she muttered while she grabbed a blue and grey stocking cap from the back seat and shoved it on. She looked so damn adorable his heart hurt, but he couldn’t find an argument that was logical enough to stop her from leaning out of the window.

“So, agreed? No more grabs and hands on wheel.”

“As long as they don’t fire back, but those men are professionals, Kris. I’m not chancing you over that.”

She took that in good enough and finally ceded his point with a little nod. “Okay, deal. But don’t break my head pulling me back in. It’s still ringing from you banging it on the window in your panic.”