The Fugitive

by Nichole Severn

  “Don’t talk to me like we’re friends.” His heavy steps echoed loud behind her. The sun had gone down behind the mountains, making the dangerous tone in his voice that much more terrifying. The slide of steel against her spine kept her moving. Twenty feet, maybe less, until they left the safety of the trees. “My head is still bleeding.”

  She was out of time. She couldn’t go to prison. She could run again, but he was so much stronger than she was, faster, bigger. Raleigh slowed. His dark, rich scent still lodged in her lungs. Outdoors and man. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that comforting smell until just now. She dug her nails into her palms against the truth. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed him. They were nearing the edge of the tree line. He’d parked his truck straight ahead. The second he put her in that vehicle, it was over. She had to tell him the truth. She had to make him believe her. “Beckett, there’s something I have to tell—”

  A gunshot exploded from the trailhead, echoing off the mountains at their back.

  Fire burned along the edge of her neck as strong hands ripped her off the trail and into the trees. In the span of a single breath, Beckett shoved them behind a large fir. Protecting her? Raleigh clamped a hand over the wound as he drew his weapon.

  Beckett released the magazine from the gun, checked it, then slammed it back into place. Just as he’d taught her when he’d insisted she needed to learn how to handle a weapon. He spun, facing her. Rough calluses tugged at her skin as he forced her hand out of the way and studied her wound. “How bad is it?”

  Her heart jerked behind her rib cage as his fingers brushed against the oversensitized skin of her throat. That almost sounded like concern in his voice. But she knew better. He’d protect her because she was a fugitive whose file had come across his desk. He’d get her back into federal custody, even if he had to shoot his way out of here to do it. She was a job. Nothing more. Anything they had together had been destroyed the moment he’d turned his back on her after her arrest. Bright blue eyes locked on her, and her blood heated in an instant. She hissed as the salt in his skin aggravated the bullet’s burn on her neck and pulled back. “It’s a graze. I’m fine.”

  “Good.” Beckett turned his back to her, all that concern that’d warmed her from the inside turning to ice. “Then you know the drill. Stay behind me, and don’t even think about running again.”

  “Exactly where am I supposed to go?” she asked.

  A short burst of laughter shook his shoulders. “Didn’t stop you from trying a few minutes ago.”

  Another bullet ripped through the tree at her right, and she flinched away as fear took control. Her fingers tightened in his shirt, the cuffs cutting into the soft tissue of her inner wrists. They had to get out of here. Raleigh patted him on the shoulder. “Where are your handcuff keys?”

  “US Marshals Service! Put your weapon down, get on your knees and put your hands behind your head!” Beckett pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. The shadow disappeared from the edge of the trees, but Raleigh wasn’t naive enough to believe the shooter had suddenly grown a conscience and backed down. Calvin’s disappearance couldn’t be coincidence, and neither was the fact someone had come for her minutes after Beckett showed up. He’d been followed. And he’d led a killer straight to her. “The cuffs stay on. You’re not getting away from me again.”

  She focused on the slight bulge beneath his lower pant leg. Screw the cuffs. She wasn’t going to die out here. She had too much to lose. Hiking up Beckett’s pant leg, she unholstered the small revolver he kept strapped to his ankle and fired three shots toward the shooter.

  Beckett twisted around. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Giving us a fighting chance.” She left the cover of trees along the trail, positioning herself as a smaller target, and backed farther into the woods. They’d have to find another way out. Whoever’d shot at them had them pinned down, and they knew it. If Beckett wanted to get her into federal custody, he’d have to do things her way. “I know these woods better than anyone. If you want to get out of here alive, you’ll do exactly as I say. Unless your oversize ego won’t let me save your life.”

  He stepped out from behind the massive fir he’d shoved her behind when the bullets had started flying, gun raised at the entrance to the trail. “I don’t trust criminals.”

  Air lodged in her lungs. Was that what this was all about? Why he hadn’t come to see her in county lockup. Why he hadn’t returned her dozens of calls once she’d been arrested. She’d taken a risk revealing the pieces of her past she’d shared with him, her need to have someone to rely on when so many others—family, friends—had up and disappeared from her life. She’d trusted him, believed the promise he’d made to stick by her side, no matter what happened. But, in the end, he’d been exactly like the rest of them. Unreliable. Self-righteous.

  Her heart thundered in her chest as she studied his broad shoulders. She didn’t have to see those light eyes to sense the disgust surging through him, and her stomach twisted with nausea. He’d spent over a decade chasing fugitives for the Marshals Service, experiencing firsthand how evil people could be. She sucked in a shaky breath. Was that how he saw her now? As one of the bad guys?

  Four more rounds exploded through the trees and hurled her back into the moment. Raleigh returned fire until the gun clicked empty. She tossed his backup weapon. Wouldn’t do them a damn bit of good in these woods. She’d stashed go bags all over this mountainside, including the one she’d hidden a few yards away. Except there was no extra ammunition for Beckett’s revolver. She drowned the hurt that’d been bottling inside for the hundredth time and pulled him deeper off the trail. “I don’t think you have a choice.”

  Needles and leaves scratched at her skin as they ran into the trees. Another gunshot rang loud in her ears but arced wide. The sun had set behind the mountain. There was no way their attacker could spot them now, but hiking through the woods in the middle of the night brought on its own set of problems. She had to get to the first supply bag she’d buried before the shooter caught up with them.

  No pressure.

  Beckett’s strong grip wrapped around her arm and pulled her into his chest. She planted the sides of her hands above his heart for balance, and heat surged into her neck and face at the contact. Hard muscle shifted beneath her fingers, his breath light on her skin, and suddenly the weeks—months—since she’d last touched him disappeared. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “I’m sorry—I thought we were concerned about the gunman shooting at us.” Only the outline of his shadow and the feel of his heartbeat beneath her palm registered in the darkness. Too close. Too real. Too painful. The small life growing inside her fluttered, and it took every ounce of strength she had not to smooth her palm over her stomach in assurance. Raleigh pressed away and wrenched out of his grip. “We need to keep moving.”

  A small click preceded the beam of a flashlight from behind, but she kept pushing one foot in front of the other. He’d come prepared with a flashlight. Always the Boy Scout. “Whatever you’re planning, it won’t work.”

  She slowed, the weight of his attention, even in the dark, a physical pressure along her spine. Insects quieted, a light breeze rustling the dead foliage at her feet. Temperatures had already started to drop, but the emotional pain she’d ignored earlier bubbled to the surface. “All I’m planning to do, Beckett, is survive.” She faced him, raising her hands against the brightness of the flashlight. “Because in case you’ve forgotten, the only person I told about the missing donation funds is presumably dead, and someone just tried to shoot us.”

  “I’m supposed to believe those two situations are linked? Hell, for all I know, that could’ve been an accomplice getting even when you took off with the money.” He lowered the flashlight to his side, his weapon still unholstered. Would he shoot her? After everything they’d been through, had her arrest really brought her so low in his eyes?
“You’re one of the most intelligent women I’ve come across, Raleigh. You could’ve set up this entire charade to insert yourself back in my life, planning to get a US marshal on your side of things, but it won’t work. You and I are done. Pretending you’re in danger isn’t going to change that.”

  Guess that answered her question. He’d made up his mind about their future the moment Portland Police Bureau had put the cuffs on her, and there was nothing she could do to change it. Fine. Raleigh swallowed the rejection charging up her throat and leveled her chin with the ground. He wanted the truth? She’d give him more truth than he could handle. “I’m pregnant, Beckett. With your baby.”

  “What?” The flashlight beam shook in his hand, his voice barely audible over the breeze sweeping through the woods.

  “You can accuse me of whatever you want. Embezzlement, orchestrating Calvin’s death, planning some elaborate scenario in which I play the damsel in distress to get your protection. I don’t care.” Lie. What they’d had... It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Raleigh rolled her shoulders back, then closed in on him, the fury tearing through her uncontrollable. “The only thing that matters to me is clearing my name so I can give this baby the life they deserve.”

  He didn’t answer. Didn’t even move.

  She turned her back on him, forcing herself deeper into the forest. “And I’m not going to let you stop me.”

  Chapter Two

  Impossible. It was another manipulation, a poison meant to get into his head and force him to reconsider his assignment. He’d learned fairly young to spot a con a mile off, thanks to his father. Raleigh’s attempt to get him to sympathize wouldn’t play out like she wanted. They’d been intimate, sure, but they’d been careful—each and every time. “I think you’ll say just about anything to keep from paying for what you’ve done, to not answer for how many people you hurt.”

  Her retreat slowed up ahead, until she stopped cold. She lowered the back of her head onto her shoulders. Almost in defeat, but Beckett knew better. He knew her, and there wasn’t a single bone in this woman’s all-too-familiar body that would accept failure. She’d helped build an entire foundation from the ground up dedicated to lowering pregnancy mortality rates throughout the world. She was driven, ambitious and had her eyes on only one goal the entire time they’d been together: to succeed.

  She faced him, that mesmerizing gaze meeting his in the dim beam from his flashlight, and right then, he could only kick himself for underestimating her in the first place. He should’ve known better than to fall for the victim play all those months ago, but if there was one thing he hated more than the criminals who thought they were above the law, it was finding out about the people they hurt along the way. He wouldn’t let her or any one of them get away with breaking the law. No matter how much the hollowness in his chest wanted her claims to be true, wanted what they’d had to be true, she wasn’t who he’d believed. Raleigh took a step toward him, then another.

  He’d cuffed her wrists in front of her, but that didn’t detract from the gut-wrenching sway of her hips as she closed the distance between them. Mere inches separated them when she stopped, every cell in his body in tune to her slightest movement, the smallest change in her expression. Just as he’d always been. “Left back pocket.”

  “Your confession in there? Because that’s the only thing I’m interested in.” Annoyance deepened the distinct lines between her brows, and he couldn’t help but revel in the fact he’d managed to break through that curated exterior.

  “Yeah. I carry it around in case you were the one assigned to arrest me and drag me back to the feds.” The cuffs rattled as Raleigh rubbed her thumb beneath the metal. Crystallized puffs of air formed in front of that perfect mouth of hers as the temperature dropped, but he wouldn’t feel the least bit sorry she hadn’t thought to grab a coat when she’d tried to outrun him. She stepped into him. “You want to know what I think?”

  Four months should’ve been enough to shut down the automatic spike in his blood pressure when she got this close, and that reaction left him more unbalanced than he wanted to admit. “Not really.”

  “I think you’re so set on making me the enemy, Beckett, you’ve blinded yourself to anything that might prove I’m innocent.” She maneuvered her wrists to one side and dug deep into the back left pocket of her jeans. Her flannel shirt contoured to the shape of her body in the dim light, and for a second, he could’ve sworn there was a slight curve around the front of her hips that hadn’t been there before. She pulled a piece of folded paper free, setting it against his chest with both hands before shoving away from him. “Is that the kind of marshal you really want to be?”

  The accusation hit exactly where she’d intended and threatened to knock him back on his heels. He slid his hand over the thin, glossy paper as she turned away from him and hiked back up the small rise. Deviating course to a large tree off to the right, she collapsed to her knees and used both hands to start digging at the base, but Beckett couldn’t move. Couldn’t think.

  After everything she’d done, she had the guts to question his integrity? He’d spent the past decade chasing down the worst this country had to offer, fugitives exactly like her, in an effort to prove the tree he’d fallen from hadn’t corrupted his core. Suspects lied to him on a daily basis, ran to keep him from uncovering their secrets and played mind games any chance they got to convince him he had the wrong guy. He wasn’t blind. He saw them for exactly what they were, and no amount of manipulation from Raleigh or anyone else would change his outlook as long as he wore this badge. One way or another, he was bringing her in to answer for her crimes. Just as Beckett’s father would answer for his when he caught up with him.

  Gravity seemed to increase its effect on his shoulders as he unfolded the black-and-white photo. Air stuck halfway up his throat. He studied the gray blurred shape against the dark background under the flashlight beam, could almost count the individual fingers on one hand of the fetus lying horizontally across the sonogram. No. This wasn’t... Couldn’t be.

  His heart beat hard at the base of his throat as she sauntered back toward him. A dark backpack hung from her grip in his peripheral vision, but he couldn’t take his attention off the delicate paper photo in his hand. Raleigh’s name, the date and time were stamped in the upper right-hand corner, below that the name of the OB-GYN practice that’d provided the ultrasound. Twenty weeks, a little over five months. She might not have known she was pregnant when she’d been arrested, but now the truth was clearer than ever. Along with the arrow pointing directly at three small white lines between the baby’s legs. His gut jerked. “You’re having a girl.”

  “We’re having a girl.” She slid dirt-stained fingers over his wrist.

  Heat exploded through him at the contact. His fingers ached to crumple the sonogram in his hand, but he forced himself to breathe evenly, to think this through. She was pregnant, with his child, but that didn’t mean a damn in the eyes of the law. His stomach soured. Now they were tied together for life. He held up the sonogram between his index and middle fingers. “What exactly was the plan here? Show me this and I’d suddenly want to use my Marshal status to prove you’re not the one who took that money? You keep this on you in case I was the one assigned to your recovery?”

  “I don’t... What do you mean?” Shock smoothed her expression, her mouth parting. Hell, she was good. Perfect at playing any role she needed to get under his skin. Those compelling green eyes narrowed on him, and somehow a shiver settled under his skin as though she’d physically touched him. Raleigh snatched the sonogram from him, the pack she carried in her other hand dragging her cuffed wrists in front of her. The tendons between her neck and shoulders flexed as she stepped away. “You think me getting pregnant was planned? That I had an ulterior motive to keep you in my life in case I was charged with fraud and embezzlement?”

  “It’s amazing how far criminals will go out of their way to prove t
hey’re innocent,” he said.

  The sun had already gone down. Cold worked under his clothing, his fingers aching against the metal of his flashlight. They’d have to camp here tonight. No point in getting themselves lost in the middle of the woods when the shooter was still out there. “We’ll rest here tonight. Give me your hands.”

  “I’m not a criminal.” Her tone almost sounded as though she’d convinced herself as she offered her wrists.

  Instant sensation of familiarity arched through him. Leading her to the nearest tree small enough to get her arms wrapped around, Beckett unpocketed the handcuff key and released one of the cuffs, then wound her arms around the tree. The cuff clicked back into place. “Tell that to your aunt, Raleigh.”

  Her hold on that legendary control slipped. Her eyes widened, her sharp inhalation cutting through the silence around them.

  “You didn’t think I’d find out about that, did you? I have to admit, it took me calling in a lot of favors to have those records unsealed, but in the end—” he turned to collect the pack she’d dug out of the ground, then faced her “—I know exactly who you are, Raleigh Wilde. You’re a killer, a thief, and there’s nothing you can do or say to convince me you’re not exactly like the rest of the fugitives I’m assigned to hunt. Guilty.”

  “Then I guess there’s nothing left for us to talk about, is there?” she asked.

  How he’d been so blinded during the time they’d been together he had to attribute to the fact she’d done everything she could to hide her past from him. And she’d done a damn fine job. She’d fooled him and everyone else around her. He should’ve known the whirlwind romance he’d instantly been sucked into had only been the first step of her plan. Now she’d ensured he wouldn’t be able to walk away after turning her over to the feds. Not with her pregnant with his baby.