Lincoln cleared his throat. “Sorry to break up the reunion, but there’s still a bunch of guys out front with Aiden. We need to get out of here, now.”
Lincoln headed up the stairwell first, gun drawn.
“Stay behind me,” Jaxson said, leading me up the stairs. Like his shadow, I clung to him. The men gave one another signals. He nodded for me to follow. Each step they took was silent, absent as if they never were here.
Shouts from the basement erupted. The two men downstairs had woken up.
“We need to move, now!” Jaxson grabbed my arm and pulled me to run with him as he led me out the back door and into the forest.
“Where’s your truck?” I’d heard a car door earlier, not long before Jaxson had come down and rescued me.
We kept running through the forest with no end in sight. I glanced over my shoulder. Men in black suits with guns were trailing behind us.
“Way too far.” His hand clutched mine, a lifeline. He pulled me through the forest. I wasn’t out of shape. Ordinarily, I could have run miles without a hitch, but I’d been assaulted twice today and survived an accident in an ambulance. It wasn’t my best day.
He pulled me tight against a tree, his body pressed against mine, protecting me. Bullets whizzed by our heads. I froze, frightened. The sound of a gunshot rippled through my body, forcing the adrenaline to rear its ugly head. I trembled but found solace in the warmth of Jaxson’s body pressing me tight against the rough bark. His embrace was firm, protective, and warm. His touch strong while his attention was entirely on keeping me safe.
Lincoln found a tree for cover. Mason did the same.
“We can’t keep running,” Jaxson said. He wasn’t talking to me.
Lincoln, Mason, and Jaxson began firing their weapons at the men in suits with guns.
“Who are they?” They didn’t look like the C.I.A. They weren’t the same grungy bastard types who had attacked me at the resort or burned down my cabin and abducted me for money.
“Bounty hunters,” Jaxson said.
My hands pulled him closer, willing him to do whatever he needed to do to save me. He wasn’t joking. These were men on a mission to kill. “Since when do bounty hunters wear suits.” I tried to make a joke. Probably bad timing as he pressed himself entirely against me, his face in mine, taking cover as bullets rained around us.
His forehead leaned against mine. My fingers tugged at his jacket. I shivered, the coat he loaned me long since discarded.
“You’re freezing, shit.” Jaxson tried making himself as small as possible, not to let his limbs extend from beyond the cover of the tree trunk. He slipped off his coat and put it around my shoulders. “You need this more than I do.” His eyes twinkled with that charm that only Jaxson had. He was a hero in every sense of the word.
“You’re going to be cold,” I said, attempting to reason with him why I shouldn’t take his spare coat since I’d already taken possession of his last jacket, and that hadn’t ended well for his clothes.
Aiden and Mason fired off shots at the men. The sound of gunfire coming at us seemed to diminish. Were the men dead, injured, or out of bullets?
“I’ll be fine,” he scoffed. “Now, stay here. Don’t move.” Jaxson raised his gun again, firing off several more shots before silence ensued.
Was it over? I trembled against the trunk of the tree, warmer as I slid my arms into his coat but unable to move. Too afraid the men played dead. What if they were waiting for us to move, to sneak out from hiding and shoot me?
“All clear!” Aiden shouted from where the bullets had been flying from earlier.
“Don’t move,” Jaxson said.
Wordlessly, I nodded. I could handle not moving. I was good at that, especially right now when my body wasn’t cooperating. Even if I wanted to walk, I didn’t think myself capable. The trunk of the tree held me up. My weight pressed tight. I let my fingers graze over the wood, memorizing every detail, the texture against the pads of my fingertips—anything to take my mind off what had just transpired.
Jaxson poked his head out, his hands on my hips as Mason and Aiden tracked through the forest back toward the cabin where the gunshots had gone off from.
“All clear,” Mason said.
Jaxson didn’t so much as release his hold or move away like I thought he might. He held me, kept me protected. Was he worried it wasn’t over? Did he think I couldn’t look after myself?
Jaxson’s jaw was tight, square, and clenched. “We left those two goons tied up. It probably won’t be long until they want their revenge. Boys like that don’t appreciate losing.”
“Great,” I muttered under my breath.
“They got their revenge and then some. They need a body bag,” Aiden said, pointing at both men laying in a pool of their own blood on the snow-covered ground.