Capture Me

by Amber Thielman

  “I almost couldn’t do it,” she said. “I’ve held the lives of so many people in my hands, Logan, but I almost couldn’t do it for you.” She took a shaky breath. “You weren’t some stranger I just met, some name I just learned. If you would have died, I—” Her words faltered as a sob welled in her throat. “I can't believe it,” she said. “I can't believe that cop shot you.”

  “Oh, I can,” Logan said. “I’m merely surprised they didn’t shoot me earlier.”

  “You’re crazy,” Kass said. “You’re a crazy man, Logan Ryder.”

  He shifted slightly, wishing they could up that dose of morphine in his IV. “Did they get her?”

  “Yes,” she smiled, the first true smile he'd seen in a while. “They got her. You should have seen her screaming as they took her in.”

  She sat up, still holding his hand, but suddenly she looked uncertain, and he felt a twinge of fear. What would come of this now? Their little adventure was over—now she was free of him, and he was free of Laurel. She could go, go home to Lakewood, and never have to see his face or think of his name again. She could continue living her life as she had been before that night she'd picked him up in the rain. Maybe she would leave Ryan—maybe she wouldn't. Either way, it hurt him to think of never seeing her again. No, it didn't just hurt. It killed him.

  “What is it?” he asked. She looked away from him, shamefully, and he reached for her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Don't run away from me,” he said. “What's wrong?”

  “Ryan is here,” she said. “He and Abby flew in after I called her. They're in the waiting room. They have no idea about any of this.”

  The sound of her fiancé's name made his stomach hurt. He swallowed, wondering what would happen now. It wasn't right for him to assume that she'd stay with him now—thinking of Ryan and seeing him were two very different things. For all Logan knew, she had seen Ryan and realized how much she'd missed him. Logan would be nothing to her anymore—he would merely be the man that kidnapped her and took her on a bizarre adventure. She would go home with Ryan now, and Logan would probably go back to jail, and Kass and Ryan would continue their life in Washington. They would get married, just like they'd planned, and eventually, she'd have children with him. Logan Ryder would be a memory to her. Only a memory.

  “I understand,” he said. “You should go to him.”

  He didn't want to understand, but he did. He didn't want her to go to him, but he knew it wasn’t up to him. Logan saw someone in Kass he knew Ryan did not. When Logan looked at her, he saw an angel, a saint. He knew when she was angry or uncertain. He knew her fake laugh from her real one and could tell when her smile was sincere. Did Ryan? Did Ryan know those things? Did he care about those things?

  “Logan, I'm not sure what to do now.” She seemed uncomfortable, as if she would have rather avoided bringing it up. She looked back at him. Her eyes sparked vibrant with tears, drawing him in. Only Kass could cry and still make him want her even more. “What happens now? With us?”

  When she looked away again, he wished he had the strength to take her chin in his fingers again and force her to talk to him. There was a moment of silence. He closed his eyes for a second and then opened them, lifting his free hand to lay theirs gently on his chest.

  “I’m in trouble, Kass. Big trouble. The police already probably spoke to you, and I don’t know what’s going to happen from here, okay? I could go back to prison for a very long time, and I can’t force you to be a part of that.”

  “Don’t be stupid.” She wiped a tear from her cheek and shook her head. “Nothing is determined for sure yet. The judge might go easy on you.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Logan said humorlessly. He shook the thought aside and squeezed Kass’s hand. He didn't have to say anything; the way his eyes scanned her face and the smile tugged at the corner of his mouth implied an unspoken understanding between them, a moment of love and desire and passion—nothing had to be said. “Whatever happens to me Kass, I know one thing is for certain, and it’s that I choose you.”

  “And I choose you,” she said. “I choose you and everything that you are. I choose you and that stupid dog. I choose us.”

  Logan closed his eyes and drew Kass into him. He could feel her shaking as she cried, but he knew it was not with fear or anxiety or anguish. He rested his lips next to her ear, squeezing her tight, her soft hair against his cheek.

  “Kass,” he said. “I hope you know that I would walk five hundred miles, and I would walk five hundred more.” She giggled then, wiping the tears from her face as she met his eyes with her own. He kissed her forehead. Her skin was warm against his lips.

  “Just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door.”

  THE END

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  Capture Me on Amazon

  Covering the Quarterback Sneak Peek

  “Let’s try this again, shall we?” I was trying my best to be pleasant with him, but my smile felt forced, and my jaw clenched uncomfortably. There was roughly a ninety-nine percent chance he wouldn’t notice, though, because guys like Jackson Tate couldn’t see past the mirror.

  “We can try this as many times as you want to, but my answer to that question isn’t changing,” Jackson said. He sat down across from me in the empty office, tossing that stupid football from hand to hand as though his life depended on it.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Fine.”

  I sighed and bent my head to the side, popping the tension from my neck. The urge to punch him in the face was both overwhelming and mighty appealing, but I knew if I could control my distaste for Jackson Tate long enough to write this stupid article, then talking to Gavin about turning it over to someone else would be that much easier. Hopefully, in due time, I’d be free and clear of any more interaction with him.

  “Nice sweatshirt,” Jackson said as I rifled through papers. I paused, glancing down at the Coexist symbol on my chest.

  “You like the hoodie, or you like my boobs?” I asked, and then slapped one hand over my mouth in horror. “I’m so sorry,” I said before Jackson could respond. “I was only thinking it. I didn’t mean to say it.” Sweat was accumulating in all the worst places on my body by now, and I was almost positive that at this point my face was as red as the tacky wall paint behind us.

  “Honesty is the best policy, right?” Jackson said.

  “I have no filter,” I told him. I was beyond flustered now, on the verge of losing it, and I feared what was about to happen next. It was like driving a car, seeing a brick wall in the distance, and realizing the brakes had failed.

  “Okay,” Jackson said. He nodded like everything was chill, like being stuck in a cramped office with a crazy reporter chick was nothing out of the ordinary.

  “Well, I mean, I do have a filter, but it doesn’t work,” I continued. Why I chose to keep my mouth open and let the words flow was beyond me. Almost everything was. “Alex says my filter broke off and got left behind years ago, right along with my confidence and fashion sense.” I paused to take a breath. “She was kidding, of course, but it’s true.”

  “Okay.”

  “Evidently you know it’s true since you pointed out my jacket. No one in their right mind would compliment it without being sarcastic, and I only know this because three years ago I snagged it on a barbed wire fence—don’t ask—and the tear in the sleeve keeps expanding. Since it’s my favorite piece of clothing, I can’t throw it away even though Alex tried to donate it to a homeless shelter once. They wouldn’t take it, though.” I ran out of breath. I actually ran out of breath and had to stop talking so I could inhale before I passed out. Jackson was staring intently at me, as though he were listening, and that just made it worse.

  “Oh my God,” I muttered. I pulled my pad and pen from my backpack and started the voice recorder on my phone. Something was seriously wrong with me, even more than it usually was. Jackson was still watching me, his expression neu
tral now, unreadable, as if he was waiting for me to crack like an eggshell. Or mentally debating on whether to bolt; not that I could blame him if he did.

  “Tell me about high school,” I said. My voice cracked slightly, but I found that if I didn’t look directly at him, I could speak a little easier. “Did you play ball all throughout school?”

  “You know I did,” Jackson said. I finally gathered the courage to look at him, surprised that he even remembered my existence in high school. At that moment, I also found myself wondering if he recalled the bubble gum incident and the incessant teasing I endured from him and his posse.

  “You’re right; I do know that,” I said. My tone was even now; the insecurities vanished. Flashes of Jackson and his buddies laughing at me in the school hallway flooded my head, and suddenly Jackson wasn’t as intimidating as he had seemed only moments ago. I cleared my throat, straightened up in my chair, and crossed my legs, resting my hands in my lap.

  “I do know that,” I repeated. “But Seattle is a big city, and there’s a chance that the rest of the population doesn’t know that. And for some reason, they might just care. So just answer the question. Please.”

  I didn’t know if it was my sudden change in demeanor, or if it was something he didn’t even notice, but he finally answered.

  “I’ve played ball for as long as I can remember,” Jackson said. “It’s my life.”

  “You’re on a full-ride football scholarship, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s your undergraduate?”

  “Undecided,” Jackson said, and I got the fleeting impression that he was full of shit, but I didn’t care enough to pester him about it.

  “How many hours a week are you involved in football practice and games?”

  “Too many,” he said and cracked a brief smile.

  “But you enjoy it.”

  “Most of the time.”

  “So, sometimes you don’t?” I asked.

  “Um--”

  “Do you even like who you are?”

  The question caught him off guard, I could tell. Even I was a little bit surprised that it had come out of my mouth. Not that I had successfully held anything back so far; why start now?

  “Is that one of your interview questions?” he said after a moment of silence. I looked down at my notepad, only because I couldn’t continue to look at him.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We’ll move on.”

  “No,” Jackson said. “I don’t think we’ll move on yet.” He stared at me, eyes searching my face for an explanation, one I wasn’t sure I had. I cleared my throat and sat back in the chair, biting my lip.

  “Fine. You don’t want to move on yet? Okay. Answer the question: do you even like who you are?”

  “How is that relevant to football?”

  “Maybe it is, and maybe it’s not, but I’m the one asking the questions here, not you, and you wanted to talk about it. So talk.”

  Jackson’s expression didn’t change. He continued to look at me, wheels turning in his head, the muscles in his jaw tensing and releasing.

  “I like who I am when I’m playing football,” he said finally. “The game gives me something to do, someone to be. Without it I’m--”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Without it you’re nothing.”

  This time, Jackson looked away from me and at the floor. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. We both knew what he was thinking.

  “Are you going to print that?” he asked after a few moments of silence.

  “Not if you don’t want me to.”

  “I don’t want you to.”

  “Okay.”

  When we finished with the interview, avoiding anything too personal so I wouldn’t screw up my assignment, I stood and offered my hand. Jackson took it awkwardly, hesitantly, as though still expecting I would kick him in the junk, or something. There was an unexpected warmth to his touch, and I could feel the rough callouses from football etched in the lines of his hand. I pulled away as a tingle of anticipation traveled through me . . .

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  Covering the Quarterback . . .

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  Acknowledgments

  There are so many people involved in not only the making of this book, but the formation of my entire writing career. There’s not enough time in the world to thank every person individually, but please know that I treasure you.

  To my mom: thank you for being my best friend and my biggest supporter from the moment I put the pen to paper until I finally released a book fourteen years later.

  To my husband, for knowing that this day would come before I did. Your unwavering faith in my ability got me where I am today, and I look forward to the rest of our lives together, taking the world by storm. I love you.

  Special thanks to my family, on both sides, for supporting me through every challenge and all the turmoil, and for sharing my posts and talking me up to their friends. I love you all so much. (And to my brother, one of my best friends, because he’d give me crap for not mentioning him.)

  To my cover designer Nancy Colbert Hardy and my editor Evan Matyas of Chimera Editing: obviously this would not be a book worth selling without you. Thank you.

  To Jami Nord, who is so many things at once I can’t even begin to list them; my guru, my editor, my friend, my guide. I will forever be your loyal Minion.

  And to my son, Aidyn, for all the hours I had to let you play by yourself so I could work. You’re the reason I do what I do and am who I am.

  About the Author

  Amber Thielman is an avid reader and writer of sexy romance books, always shaken up with a little darkness and suspense. She wrote her first 20-page novel when she was 13, and she’s been hooked ever since. Amber loves scary movies, autumn, and has an undying love for pumpkin-flavored anything. When she’s not writing, she enjoys riding her horse Reno, traveling, and spending time with her husband, their son Aidyn, their dogs (Willow & Max), and cat Simba in Southeast Idaho.

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