by Addison Fox
A quick glance down at her soiled clothing had her sighing. She wanted to think the lack of a shower and some lingering bruises had been the reason for interrupting their sexy moments, but maybe it was something more.
The lack of a shower was a convenient excuse, but that’s all it was. An excuse.
Perhaps the real problem was that having sex with Max would have consequences. Such as acknowledging the feelings she had for him ran far deeper than she ever wanted to admit.
* * *
Alex stroked the gun in his lap, the barrel still warm from his early morning run-in with the property owner. His leg throbbed, and his makeshift stitches, while neat and even, were his own handiwork. Baldwin’s intent had clearly been his knee, but the bullet had missed bone, instead nicking a sizeable ball of flesh out of his calf. It might have left him with greater mobility, but the damn wound burned like the fires of hell.
With a practicality born of years of self-control, Alex shrugged it off, well aware he’d soon have his revenge. The wound would heal. And he’d make Baldwin regret the fact he wasn’t a better freaking shot.
A mistake Alex hadn’t made with the farmer.
Alex had convinced Lange they needed to do a sweep of the area, but he’d almost overlooked the Rolling Acres farm. At the last minute he’d remembered from their initial tour of the region that there was a property about two miles away from the compound. The farm was modest, with limited production, and he’d have forgotten it if not for Lange’s pronouncement that he’d lost Baldwin and Violet heading west. A quick review of the area online and he’d remembered the property.
He’d also done some additional digging on Baldwin. While he believed in living and dying by the sword, he believed even more strongly in the benefits of knowledge. And his homework on Baldwin had been extensive. Their opponent was ex-military, Army Corps of Engineers, before opening his architectural firm a few years prior. While his ostensible skills were around architectural and structural stability, the man had spent time on active duty. Which meant he had enough survival training to know how to handle himself when things got rough.
Baldwin he’d expected, but Violet Richardson was a surprise.
She was a hellcat. He’d give her that. Those dark green eyes and lithe body were sexy as hell, and he’d looked forward to spending time with her. There was nothing he enjoyed more than a worthy opponent, and the defiance in her gaze had given him all the clues he needed that she would be a rather enjoyable sparring partner.
Where he was more concerned, Alex admitted to himself, was the Duke’s increasing instability. The man had proven himself an admirable leader, which made the past few days that much more concerning. Lange was devastated over his wife. His desire for the Renaissance Stones hadn’t diminished, but his acquisition of the first on the same day his stepson spirited his wife away to safety had set off a strange sort of distraction that, at times, seemed to border slightly on madness.
Was it possible Diana Graystone had crept in and demolished the man’s defenses?
Alex had emigrated from Germany in the last decade, and his father’s old friend was already married when he arrived. He’d never believed Tripp Lange put anything above his goals and ambitions—a perspective Alex respected beyond measure—yet the last days had suggested otherwise.
He knew it wasn’t his place to act without authority, but he’d not dealt with this version of Lange before. The man had been inconsolable last night, stumbling into the house with his eyes streaming tears, his ranting troubled and disjointed.
Diana. The rubies. Violet Richardson. He’d muttered about all three in an endless litany of frustration and deep-seated ire.
For the first time, Alex had to admit, Lange’s fear had been evident, oozing from the man like a poison. It had pained him see his mentor and leader in that state, but those moments of madness had given him all he needed.
From here on out, he’d act on his own.
It was the only way.
And once he’d proven himself—and once his leader was more stable—they’d renegotiate his terms of service.
* * *
Max searched the barn before slipping out the back door. He’d had the last-minute hope he might have overlooked an old cell phone or ancient landline the night before, but a quick look through of the small structure had confirmed otherwise.
What he had managed to acquire, though, was baggage.
Despite his best efforts and most reasonable voice—one that lacked any grumpy notes—he’d acquired a stubborn woman who refused to listen to reason.
Hell, she was still battered and bruised, and she wanted to walk miles to get to help.
At the mental image of the large, mottled bruise on her stomach, he ground his heel into the dirt. The thud of the barn door slamming from his hand echoed in the morning air, and he quickly checked himself. They’d made it this far. He’d be damned if he alerted anyone now.
“Max!” Protesting the noise, Violet’s quiet hiss resounded through the early morning air.
“I know.” He slung his pack up and reached for her, forcing the image to the back of his mind. “Your feet will be okay in those gloves again?”
“They’re fine. Let’s go.”
Just as with Lange’s property, they had to cross a large field before they could find the additional shelter of trees and the dry creek bed. He and Violet had lingered a bit too long, and it was a wonder the house hadn’t risen yet to check on the horses.
The thought stuck with him as they crossed the length of the property, jangling in his mind like a siren.
“What is it?”
“The farmhouse. There’s something—” He broke off, acknowledging the concern was silly. They’d avoided detection, and besides, it was still early. They needed to keep moving.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, not nothing. What’s bothering you?”
Max glanced back toward the farmhouse that stood proudly in the distance. “It’s after six. The sun’s up. Where’s the farmer?”
“Sleeping in.”
“Yeah, right. On a summer morning?”
“Well.” Violet hesitated. “Should we go check on him?”
“I’ll go—”
She held up a hand before he could say anything else, so it was a surprise when her gentle tone matched the soft glow of her green gaze. “What if something really is wrong? I’d rather be with you than waiting out here alone.”
“Let’s go check.”
They crossed back the way they’d come, and Max couldn’t quite shake the growing sense of dread. He trusted that feeling and knew it had served him well in his years on active duty. Farmers woke early, and the fact their farmer hadn’t risen while they were hiding on his property was a problem.
Max slipped his gun from the holster. “Front or back door?”
“Let’s take our chances at the back.” Even with her gloved feet, Violet kept pace right beside him. They started with the back door but quickly moved on when the door wouldn’t budge and they saw no sign of life through the windows.
Stepping off the back deck, they edged the house, peeking into each window they passed before rounding to the front of the house and the longer porch that ran the width of the home.
The subtle tingles that suggested something was wrong had turned into a full-on conflagration, and Max forced even, steady breaths through his nose as they continued their methodical search. He kept Violet between his body and the road as they climbed the stairs, then remained behind her as she checked each window.
Where was the farmer? And if something had happened to him, how had he and Violet escaped detection in the barn loft?
Violet saw the body a split second before he did. She muffled her quick scream almost immediately, the hard slap of her hand to
her mouth echoing like a gunshot.
“There. He’s in there.”
Max held his position behind her but leaned forward, pressing against her back so he could get a better view. Sun dappled the window, and it was only when he shifted against the glare that he saw the evidence he’d feared on their walk back to the house.
A large body lay sprawled beside an old living room couch, one bullet hole piercing the man’s forehead.
On a hard whimper, Violet turned into his arms and pressed her face into his chest. “Max. Oh, no. No.”
He held her, giving her a moment to adjust as he gently walked them several feet down the porch and away from the window. “Shhh. Shhh now.”
Violet pressed her hands to his chest but didn’t fully step out of his arms. “What is this?”
“Sadly, a gut instinct proven correct.”
“It’s madness. Wherever Lange goes, he creates destruction and death.” Violet shook her head before tentatively turning back toward the house. “That man did nothing, absolutely nothing, and look how he’s paid. If we’d only picked somewhere else.”
Max shut down that line of thinking as fast as it began. “You can feel compassion and anger and sadness, but not guilt. We didn’t do this.”
His words had been harsher than he’d intended, but he was pleased to see them hit their mark.
She slipped from his arms, standing taller. “We are going to stop this. All that’s come before is nothing. Charlie and Robert and Lilah’s ex, Steven. They knew what they were getting into. They chose to live by greed and their own inner evil. But this man was an innocent.”
Several thoughts had brewed as they searched the house, but one began to clang louder now that they’d discovered the body.
How had he and Violet escaped detection? If Lange knew enough to find the farmer, he’d have known enough to come looking for them, yet they’d been unharmed, seemingly undetected while hidden up in the loft.
A hard frisson of awareness skated down his spine, curling at the base in a tight knot. “We need to go. Now.”
“Where?”
“Right back the way we came.”
“What? Why—”
Max grabbed her arm and pushed her toward the porch steps. The unease that had kept him company throughout their walk to the farmhouse morphed into something stronger, coalescing like concrete in his stomach.
Something was very, very wrong.
Max pressed Violet down the stairs, then reached for her hand as they were back on the front lawn. “Move!”
A light ping registered a second before the house exploded at their backs.
Chapter 8
Heat seared Violet’s back, simultaneously burning even as it blew her several feet from the house. Violet belatedly heard Max’s screams, but they were muted in the roar of the fire. She stumbled, the ground practically quaking beneath her, before a firm hand grabbed her upper arm, steadying her.
“Are you okay?”
The sweep of the fire consumed the air around them, but she was still able to read lips and quickly answered yes, punctuating her point with a nod.
And then they ran.
The wall of fire grew hotter, and again, Violet could only wonder at how loud it all was.
Or was that her heartbeat throbbing in her ears?
Their legs ate up the ground, and she and Max pushed as much distance between themselves and the burning farmhouse as they could. The hot Texas air that was normally so stifling in August was practically breezy compared with the conflagration behind them.
Soot and ash clogged her nose, a filthy counterpoint to the rampaging wall of heat.
And still they ran.
The same woods that had hidden them the previous night beckoned, and Max pulled her forward, over the broad expanse of the farmer’s fields. Violet abstractly registered the dry soil as it flew up under their feet but kept on moving, desperately drawing air around the thick, lingering mess that clogged her throat and eyes.
So much dust and soot.
Her lungs squeezed and a hard cough gripped her, enough that she stumbled to a stop, tugging on Max’s hand to slow him down.
“We have to keep moving.”
“Can’t breathe.” She bent at the waist, struggling to gather breath.
“Violet. I’m sorry, but we have to keep on.” Max dragged at the heavy backpack he wore, dropping it to the ground before he fisted his T-shirt, pulling it off over his head. “Wrap this around your mouth and nose. It’s not ideal, but it’ll do until we get some more distance.”
Violet took the shirt, still warm from his body, and nearly had it up to her face when she caught sight of a car in the distance. The fire still raged from the rapidly disintegrating house, but it was the black sedan bumping sharply over the ground that caught her attention.
“He’s—” She broke off as Max grabbed her hand before bending down for his pack.
“It won’t be much farther. He can’t follow us easily into the woods.”
She lifted his shirt to her nose, covering her breaths from the worst of the fire, and began moving once more. Although she wasn’t fond of her daily trips to the gym, she offered up a small prayer of thanks for the conditioning and followed behind Max.
They zigzagged through increasing brush, the ground growing rockier as the landscape altered. The trees were still some distance away, but the change beneath her feet offered some solace they might have a shot at disappearing.
She risked a glance at Max, his hard form pumping beside her. Sweat glistened off his skin, and the hard curve of his shoulder moved in time with the motion of his body. A hard shot of awareness pooled in her stomach when her gaze drifted over the tribal tattoo that painted his biceps, and she cursed herself for the moment of awareness.
So not the right time or place to notice, girlfriend.
The distinctive echo of a gunshot only reinforced the thought, the bullet whizzing mere inches from their position, and Violet refocused on her feet. One foot in front of the other. Step by step.
A hard lance of pain lit up her chest, the exertion and lack of clean oxygen coalescing in her lungs like a hard knot. She stumbled and tugged hard on Max’s hand, dragging them both into her staggering fall. As she tumbled forward, trying to catch her footing, another gunshot flew past them, embedding itself in the hard ground with an explosion of dust and clods of hard-packed earth.
Max’s arms came around her waist and pulled her close. They fell into a roll to the ground. She hung on to him, the press of his body catching nearly all the force of the unforgiving ground. The moment they came to a stop, he moved on, rolling to his feet with his gun in hand.
“Wait for my mark!” Max hollered the words as he lined up his shot.
The car was still about twenty yards away from them, stopped in the middle of the field, with Alex visible in the open driver’s window. Max wasted no time and fired off three rounds.
The shots lit up the morning air, and Violet watched as each pierced various points of the car.
Windshield.
Driver’s window.
Gas tank.
Alex had ducked along with the bullet that struck the windshield, but it was the hit to the back of his car that had the man scrambling from the vehicle.
“Now! Keep moving.”
Violet followed Max’s lead, back on her feet and racing beside him when a thick horn lit up the early morning air.
Max never slowed, but he shifted direction, moving them in the path of the oncoming sound. “The train. That’s our ticket out of here.”
Her lungs burned in pain, every breath a painful wheeze, but Violet kept pace. She would not burden him any further, and she refused to relent.
They’d come too far.
The heavy clack o
f the train grew louder as it trundled down the tracks, several cargo cars evident in the early morning sunlight. Max tugged on her hand, running them parallel to the tracks as he searched for the proper train car.
When each one that passed was closed up tight as a drum, the adrenaline that had carried her through the last several minutes began to wane.
They’d come so far. Too far to end up empty-handed.
Max uttered a string of hard curses when another gunshot flew their way, again going wide. He dragged her farther, their run now a combination of outpacing Alex and searching for a miracle.
The hard-packed dirt of the field gave way to a scattered patch of rocks where the land morphed from private property to professionally maintained train tracks, and it was only when another shot rang out that their miracle appeared.
The back of the train cleared a small curve, and as it righted itself, Violet saw the open cargo door.
“Max! There!”
The renewed burst of energy gripped her, and she forced herself forward. Salvation was in sight, and they needed to time it just right. This would be their only chance.
“You know how to do this?” Max shouted over the roar of the train as he tossed his pack up through the open train car door.
“Not really.”
“Stick with me, Richardson.” The grim determination that had filled his features made way for a wide smile. “And don’t be mad when I squeeze your ass.”
Without waiting for her reply, he bent and juggled her into his arms, one palm flat on her rear while the other covered her thigh. That promised squeeze was more of a firm push, and then she was flying up and over the bed of the open boxcar. Her feet hit the metal floor, and she staggered forward several steps before righting herself.
And turned to nothing but empty air.
* * *
Another gunshot rang out, and Max toyed with stopping and simply ending Alex there, but he couldn’t leave Violet. So he kept his attention on the train car, running alongside until he caught the small ladder that hung from the side of the vehicle. With a hard push off his feet, he swung up to grab the ladder, his fingers fumbling against the slippery metal.
