Redemption River

by Lindsay Cross

  “Evie, I’m sorry.” Hunter fought to keep his voice cool. Calm. Gentle. When all he could do was think about killing Marcus.

  “Please, honey. I shouldn’t have yelled. I know that. Please don’t be mad. I just need you to talk to me. Tell me the truth. Tell me what happened.”

  Evie’s gaze dropped to his hands and Hunter realized he’d squeezed harder with each word. He forced his fingers to loosen their grip, but he didn’t let go. He knew she would run if he did.

  “I told you. It’s nothing.” She kept her gaze down, avoiding him.

  “Evie…” A light appeared in his peripheral vision and he yanked his gaze to the right. Headlights. With a set of four-bar lights across the top.

  Shit.

  “Evie, get dressed. Someone’s coming.” Hunter dropped her arms and grabbed his jeans.

  Evie hurriedly yanked on her shirt and grabbed her jeans. “Oh my God. That’s Brown.”

  The truck was coming in fast. He must have come back, saw her flooded house, and kept going. A large trail of dust was visible even in the dark.

  Hunter pulled on his boots. “Are you sure?”

  The truck moved at high speed, the tires spinning around the last curve before the straight stretch leading to where he and Evie stood. In not much time at all, the vehicle would be right on top of them.

  “Yes. That’s his truck.” Evie buttoned her jeans and yanked on her boots.

  Hunter grabbed the backpack and Evie’s hand and took off down the side of the levee, away from the river. Their fire and blanket might as well be a beacon; there was no way Brown hadn’t seen them.

  Tall grass slapped Hunter’s jeans and a flock of moths exploded out of the weeds as Evie and Hunter ran through them. The truck squalled to a stop and gravel flew. Crunched. Hunter and Evie broke into the tree line paralleling the levee.

  A door slammed. Then another one. “Evangeline Videl, you’d better get back here.”

  Hunter ignored Brown’s shout and continued to run. The trees grew thick, the vines and underbrush thicker. Razor vines slashed at his chest and jeans.

  “Look here, Sheriff. The lady left us her underwear. Think she’s trying to tell us something?” Another voice Hunter didn’t recognize, but he would bet money it was one of the shithead deputies he’d seen at the bar.

  “Oh no,” Evie gasped behind him.

  “Ignore them. Keep moving,” Hunter commanded, and then cut left, making sure to vary their trail. He knew these woods. This levee. He was pretty sure they were only about a mile from Silo Farm.

  “I saw ‘em run down here. Look, here are their tracks,” the strange voice said.

  “Good,” Brown said, his voice pitched low. “Hunter, I know you’re out there too. Surrender yourself and we won’t hurt the girl.”

  Hunter pulled Evie to a stop, positioned her against a wide tree trunk, and listened. Leaves crunched about a hundred yards behind them. He indicated for Evie to keep still and leaned to the side, scanning the woods. He didn’t have to look hard. Two flashlight beams stood out clearly through the trees.

  “Last chance, James. I know you’re out there. I know you have our girl. You should know we have guns. And spotlights. And we will find you.” Brown continued his forward progress, walking blind, headed in the opposite direction.

  They needed to move, now, if they wanted to elude the sheriff and his deputy.

  *

  Evie’s breath sawed in and out of her chest, feeling like shards of glass ripping up and down her throat. Was she really this out of shape? Geez, perhaps a work out regimen would be worth getting up early for after all. Searing pain shot through her left side and she slapped her hand over the area. “Cramp.”

  Hunter grabbed her arm and yanked her forward. “Move it.”

  As much as she wanted to fall to the ground and curl into a ball, she complied. The one thing stronger than the pain was her need to survive.

  “I’d like to keep my arm in its socket,” she snapped. Great. Sarcasm. She needed Hunter to live. After all, it wasn’t like she’d taken Survival 101. The closest she ever got to real hiking was a long walk up the stairs to the Wharf. And even then she had a freaking rail for support.

  Now all she had was two-hundred pounds of raw strength and determination pulling her forward like the little engine that could—on steroids.

  “Then you should keep your mouth shut and keep your attention focused on running.” Hunter pulled harder.

  Evie leaped to keep up. The heat stole what little oxygen supply she had available. Mud sucked her boots down and caked on an extra ten pounds, easy. Whatever water she’d managed to consume earlier had sweated out hours ago. If it weren’t for the ninety percent humidity, she would have shriveled up like a dried cornhusk.

  A branch slapped her in the face and she sucked in a breath at the sting. Tree, one. Evie, zero.

  They kept up a steady run, weaving in and out of the tall pines and ash trees. Evie ducked and dodged, trying to mimic Hunter’s moves, but the lack of light combined with their fast pace ensured she hit every possible limb. Thorns and rough foliage snagged her skin and jeans. The moon peeked out every few minutes, casting a spare amount of light on the densely packed leaves and mud beneath their feet.

  A sharp retort sounded from behind them and Evie heard a shrill whine buzz past her ear.

  “Shit.” Hunter yanked her to the ground and threw his massive body over hers.

  “Was that what I think it was?” Evie struggled for calm, but her tone was sharp.

  “Hush.” Hunter covered her mouth with his hand, inadvertently shoving dirt between her lips.

  She tried to give him her go-to-hell face, but her heart was too busy trying to pound its way out of her chest. Her blood thumped in her ears so loudly she was surprised the entire forest didn’t echo with the force of it.

  Hunter shoved her backpack under a thicket and flattened even more on top of her, shifting so that his chest was smashing her into the soft earth and his hips nestled between her spread legs. He was crushing her. And instead of getting angry, she could only focus on how well he fit between her thighs.

  She’d lost it. She needed to get with it. She was running for her life, through the woods in the dark, and yet she was busy panting after Hunter. No wonder the dumb blondes always ended up dead in movies.

  A limb snapped and Hunter’s head jerked up. Her heart stopped. That’s when she heard it. Two men, breathing hard, no more than ten feet away.

  “I swear they went this way. Can’t miss that blonde hair out here.”

  Evie’s eyes widened and she tried to cover her hair. There was no mistaking that back woods voice. Roger Clemens, Brown’s top deputy, a man known for his tracking skills. Hunter kept her arms pinned and shook his head for her to be still.

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Why hadn’t she covered her hair? Put mud in it or something?

  “Shut up, dumb ass. You wanna let them know where we are?” Brown’s harsh whisper grated across her skin.

  The pair stopped a few feet away. Evie held her breathe. She could see their boots beneath the thicket separating them. Fear crawled through her veins. She should be at home. Curled up one the couch with Rooster and a movie.

  Not here. Not in this horror show.

  “You hear anything?” Roger said.

  Brown gave no response. The night bugs went silent, no longer providing the small camouflage of sound.

  Her lungs burned. She couldn’t hold her breath much longer. Something crashed through the woods in the distance.

  “Marcus wants Evie alive. Don’t shoot unless you’re sure it’s not her. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Roger said. The men took off left, perpendicular to their previous direction. And, more importantly, away from Hunter and Evie.

  Once they were too far to hear, Evie expelled her breath and choked for air. Hunter stood and pulled her to her feet. “We have to run. It’s our only chance. I want you to stay right behind me. If we can get to Silo Farm
s, we can wire a truck and get to town.”

  “Silo Farms shut down years ago,” Evie said.

  Hunter gave her a dark look. “Our other option is to hide in the woods and pray my brother miraculously figures out we’re being chased, then finds us in the middle of nowhere before Brown and Roger do.”

  Well when he put it so sweetly. “I just wanted you to know.”

  “Got it. Now are you going to trust me to get us out of here alive or do you have a better plan?”

  “Did a stick wedge in your ass or something?” After everything she’d been through in the last twenty-four hours, the last thing she needed was his attitude.

  Hunter’s jaw clenched. “The only thing wedged in my ass is you. Believe me.”

  “I thought you military guys were supposed to have that whole knight-in-shining-armor thing going for you. You know, rescuing damsels in distress, and all that.” Evie looked up at him through her mud-encrusted lashes. Temptress she was not. Hillbilly queen—definitely.

  Hunter grabbed her arms and yanked her to him. Electricity sizzled between them. “Damsels in distress don’t smell like stale dirt. And they also don’t sass their heroes.”

  “Yeah, what else, Lancelot?”

  “They reward their heroes with a kiss.” Hunter’s words shocked her into silence a second before he crushed his lips to hers. Evie fought to hold on to her logic. Fought hard. Then his tongue slipped between her lips and her logic went on a trip to wonderland.

  Her nipples tightened against his chest and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down for more. Just a little taste. That’s all she needed. Just a taste.

  *

  The fear he’d seen in Evie’s eyes while they were lying silent on the ground, inches from discovery and death, had once again awakened his need to protect her. To shelter her. To rescue her. He was freaking Lancelot reincarnated.

  Now he felt her lips and the moist heat of her tongue and he wanted to strip her down and back her up to the nearest tree. But he couldn’t.

  Hunter broke the kiss even though his dick was waging a battle to bust through the zipper of his pants. He took a step back. He had to get them to safety. If it were just him, he would circle back and take out the bad guys. But Evie was vulnerable. And she was the target.

  “I know you can’t keep your hands off me, but we gotta get out of here,” Hunter said.

  Evie punched his arm and he couldn’t hold back a grin. “You kissed me,” she said.

  “Your come-fuck-me look was calling my name, sweetheart.”

  “You…you…”

  “Angel?” Hunter supplied, enjoying the angry flush spreading across her cheeks.

  “Devil.”

  “Yours to command.”

  Evie rolled her eyes. “You have any idea which direction we need to go?”

  “I can track a man though the desert without a compass. I’m pretty sure I can navigate us through these woods.”

  “Prove it.” Evie turned and took a step. A stick snapped and Hunter grabbed her around the waist before she could move again. Her shoulder had caught a small tree limb. No big deal. Unless you were being tracked. Animals broke tree limbs all the time, but much lower to the ground. The branch Evie had snapped was chest level.

  The flashlights arched in their direction and they dropped to the ground again. Evie’s breathing was coming quick and harsh. He needed to calm her down. He wrapped his arms around her and rubbed her back in soothing circles.

  His hand brushed her scar. He stiffened but forced himself to relax. The anger he’d felt earlier rose again, faster than the flooded river. Only now, he had an outlet.

  He kept his gaze locked on the lights. They had stopped moving and were pointed at the ground now. Evie trembled but quieted.

  The lights flickered off and plunged them into total darkness. No one made a sound. No animals. No insects. The night creatures stayed away from the new predators.

  He and Evie lay in the mud behind three hardwoods growing close together. The trees’ slightly raised trunks and close proximity provided cover. For now.

  Hunter had to stash Evie somewhere safe. Then maybe it was time to go hunting.

  He leaned in close to her ear. Her sweet and spicy scent filled his senses. “Listen, I need you to hide. I don’t think we have much of a chance at getting away on foot now. The only option is for me to get them before they can get us.”

  Evie shook her head immediately, bumping the underside of his chin in the process. “Shh. It’ll be okay. I know what I’m doing.” Hunter rolled and studied their surroundings. Other than the clump of trees, an empty space extended behind them for at least ten feet. Then more trees. No bushes. They had inadvertently landed in the best spot to hide.

  Hunter rose, keeping his body in line with the middle tree. Careful not to make a sound, he shrugged off the backpack and passed it down to Evie. Using hand gestures, he indicated for her to follow his lead and began scooping up dirt and mud and rubbing it on the backpack. The bright yellow pack might as well have been a beacon. Once they were done camouflaging the pack, his gaze drew to her white tank top. If the backpack had been a beacon, then her shirt might as well have been a flashing neon sign.

  He scooped up more dirt and scrubbed it on her shirt, stopping to savor the weight of her breasts in his palms. Evie scowled. He shrugged and offered no excuse.

  When he was satisfied she had sufficient camouflage, he pushed her back into the cover of the trees. Her vulnerable, scared gaze tugged at him, but he knew the best way of protecting her was to go on the offense.

  Staying in a crouch, Hunter crept forward through the woods. His gun was tucked safely in his jeans; his hands were free and at the ready.

  Once he’d gotten far enough, he stopped and listened. The absence of sound in front of him was as telling as if his prey had started dancing a jig. Hunter closed his eyes and listened. The wind shuffled through the trees, rattling leaves softly in the night. Bullfrogs croaked and cicadas chirped.

  Then he heard it. The unmistakable sound of a watch alarm, followed by a barely discernible curse. Forest survival lesson number one: turn off all watch and cell phone alarms. Hunter smiled in the darkness. He set free the beast that had been pacing within him since Brown’s visit last night, the one that was frothing at the mouth after seeing the brand on Evie’s hip.

  It was time for one of the government’s top assassins to get to work.

  26

  Hunter had left her alone. In the dark. With a mad man bent on his very own killing spree.

  Evie squatted in the darkness and clutched the backpack to her chest. Her legs were like spaghetti noodles. They wouldn’t support her if she tried to stand, but the rest of her body was tense to the point of shattering.

  Her palms started to sweat. She gripped the backpack tighter.

  The silence and darkness were weighing on her.

  She tried to tune her ear in to every minute sound within range, straining so hard she nearly jumped out of her skin when Brown shouted again.

  “Evie, remember that old family video we watched together last night? The one with your dad? If you don’t get your ass out here right now, we’re going to do the same thing to your mother.”

  Fear jackhammered her heart. She squeezed her eyes shut, slammed her teeth together, and fought back a sob. A low groan fought its way up her throat, but she clamped her lips together.

  Not her mother. Maxine might have gone behind her back to try and wrest control of the MRG, but she and C.W. were all the family Evie had left.

  “Come on, girl. I ain’t got all night. You got about ten seconds to show yourself or I’m leaving.” Brown’s voice bounced off the trees around her, making it sound creepier and deadlier than usual.

  She wanted so desperately to defend herself against this maniac, but she didn’t have a weapon. Hunter. She needed to trust Hunter to take care of this.

  “Tell you what, you give up now, and I won’t even kill your new boy toy.�
��

  Did they have Hunter? Fear threatened to engulf her. If they had captured him, there was no hope left. They would kill him and Maxine and everyone who was important to her.

  Her heart pumped furiously and her palms turned cold despite the thousand-degree heat. Maybe it was time to turn herself in. Marcus wanted her alive.

  Evie’s muscles bunched as she eased a trembling hand to the ground to push herself up. Her fingers squished in mud. She commanded her body to move, to rise. But she might as well have sprouted roots from the soles of her boots and taken anchor in the ground. Her body was paralyzed with fear.

  Her senses went into overdrive, as if to compensate for her body’s failure to move, and her hearing suddenly turned sharp and acute. But the main thing she picked up on was silence. No one spoke. No whippoorwills sang. No bullfrogs croaked. Nothing.

  A breeze ruffled the leaves around her, but to her sensitive ears, it sounded more like glass shattering than a gentle rustle.

  She looked left and right, too scared to break cover to look behind her. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness and she could make out certain shapes. Distinguish the difference between trees and leaves.

  Something tall and skinny directly to her right shifted sideways. Her heart jumped and she jerked back, slamming her head into the tree. The wind died down.

  The logical part of her brain made a timid step forward and informed her the moving object was a sapling bending in the wind. But her heart continued its marathon race anyway.

  Her mouth went as dry as the desert sand. And despite the fact she’d prayed for weeks for the rain to stop, she fervently wished for water.

  A limb snapped near her and her entire body went cold. Her heart skidded to a stop so fast pain slammed into her ribcage and she clutched desperately at the backpack.

  Another limb snapped and her heart jumpstarted. Blood flooded to her neck and face, taking any remaining heat from her hands and feet with it. Evie scrunched smaller. Too bad she didn’t have a shrinking potion like Alice in Wonderland.

  She heard a strange swoosh followed by a gurgling sound. Then the once silent night filled with violence. More leaves crackled, followed by what sounded like a whole herd of deer galloping through the forest. A man screamed. There was a grunt. A crash. Cursing.