Running the Risk
Page 29
“Keeps getting better and better,” she groused.
She raised her sleeve, hit a button on her watch, and waited as the tiny electronic marvel calculated her location and gave her directions to the coordinates Micah had loaded into it fourteen months ago.
He alone had known her secrets and done everything he could to protect her from her mistakes. He’d done it selflessly, not realizing the price he’d have to pay. She angrily swiped at another tear.
She needed to get her shit together.
A hawk’s cry pierced the air, and she glanced skyward. Soft, bitterly cold flakes fell on her cheeks. She’d be in heaven if she were twenty years younger. She’d make snow angels and snowballs. She’d make slushies and snowmen, really live it up like she had back in Vermont. But she wasn’t six, and right now this looked like a frozen version of hell.
She patted the dented hood of the Honda. “You were a good car. I appreciate all you’ve done.”
With one last glance at the car, she blew out a rough breath and turned away from the road, heading just into the edge of the forest. One minute she was walking on snow-covered dirt; the next she was slipping on snow-covered pine needles. Uphill she trod, passing boulders as she put one foot in front of the other.
Her feet were like ice blocks. She wiggled her toes experimentally, wishing she’d thought to purchase warming packets. Her breath sawed in and out of her lungs. It was a loud sound in an otherwise silent forest. She laid a hand on her chest, pressing as if she could make her heart settle just by that action. It pounded so hard she had to stop, sit down, and catch her breath. She’d not been the same since the poisoning.
The snow fell heavier, coasting to the ground with a whisper that spoke of all things not related to warmth. She rubbed her eyes, wincing when the roughness of her driving gloves scraped her cheek.
Night was upon her, and as she sat there trying to determine if she should just make camp, a strange knowing slid down her spine. Someone, or something, was watching her.
The knowledge she’d become prey settled in her mind even as it danced on her skin. She allowed her gaze to go unfocused, searching her periphery for signs of any movement. If it was a wild animal, she could only hope she had time to shoot. She lowered her hand, reaching for her sidearm. A branch snapped, and the shushing of falling snow reverberated like a bomb in the sudden silence.
Nina couldn’t shake the sudden feeling that branch snapping had been intentional.
She stood and turned in a complete circle as she withdrew her gun. She backed up, her back hitting a tree, and she went still, waiting.
The feeling persisted, but nothing jumped out or made a sound. If it were a bear, she’d hear its grunting and chuffing. A wolf would be too silent to anticipate. Maybe she was just paranoid?
Surely it wasn’t a person. This place was entirely too isolated to have people running around in a threatening blizzard.
She picked up her go bag and secured the strap onto her shoulder. She turned, keeping her gun out, and then she walked again.
Periodically, she’d stop and listen, but upon hearing nothing, she kept on. One foot in front of the other. Then the canopy emptied of birds. A screech, a caw, and they were airborne, lifting as one into a darkening sky. It startled her so much that she instinctively picked up speed—her walk nearly a run now.
She was tired though, and as a small hill gave way in front of her, she miscalculated her steps and slipped on a rock. Then she was down, rolling and tumbling along a snowbank before she landed heavily against a boulder.
“Oomph!” Her breath left her, her back slapping against the rock and sending pain down her spine.
From somewhere behind her, another twig snapped. She was being hunted. And still the damn snow fell. She rolled to her side and pushed to her knees, tiny frozen crystals pelting her from a darkening sky. She was so cold. And now her back hurt.
One more twig snapped, and with it, her tentative hold on anger. She searched for her gun and located it about ten feet to her left. She hadn’t survived poisoning to die in this forsaken wilderness.
Snow crunched beneath heavy steps, and Nina knew that whoever, or whatever, was chasing her was too close for her to make it to her weapon.
She threw back her head to scream at the sky, to curse the enormity of this task she’d set for herself, and stopped when the barrel of a gun pressed against her temple.
Her eyes shifted sideways as she prayed. She needed retribution. Micah deserved redemption, and by God, she was going to get it for them both. It would damn well not end this way.
Then the smell of the ocean permeated her senses. The ocean was hundreds of miles away. Micah’s smell had always reminded her of the ocean—salt, sand, and sweet air. It was as if she’d conjured him.
But it wasn’t possible. She must’ve hit her head in the fall, because surely she’d lost her mind. He was buried in the only Christian cemetery in Beirut.
The gun didn’t move, the air didn’t shift, and the damn snow sure didn’t stop falling. Tingles shot up her spine now, replacing the pain with a bittersweet ache. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard.
But in that second, as the steel of the gun pressed into her temple, Nina swore everything in her calmed. The peace she’d not had in fourteen months stole over her as she looked up and up and up into eyes so blue that they were the color of a cloudless sky at midday.
The refrain repeated: it just wasn’t possible.
And then he spoke.
“Who the hell are you, and what are you doing on my property?”
About the Author
Lea Griffith has been reading romance novels since a young age. She cut her teeth on the greats: Judith McNaught, Kathleen Woodiwiss, and Julie Garwood. She still consumes every romance book she can put her hands on, and now she writes her own compelling romantic suspense. Lea lives with her husband and three teenage daughters in rural Georgia.
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Former SAS officer and BKI operator Christian Watson has fought for his life before. Doing it with the beautiful, bossy former CIA operative Emily Scott in tow is another matter entirely.
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“Vivid and charming.”
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