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“Okay?”
“I’ll take you back into town,” he continued, as ifokayhad been a whole explanation instead of a word. As if he was rendering judgment.
And Everly panicked.
She threw herself forward, hurtling toward the wall of his chest and not really caring when he snagged her in midhurtle, holding her away from him with his impossibly hard hands wrapped tight around her biceps.
“Please,” she said urgently. “Please, Blue. I don’t know what I’m going to do if you don’t help me.”
“Everly.”
She stopped. Her eyes were burning, and she realized the tears she’d been holding back had tipped over at last. And worse, he was staring at the wetness she could feel sliding down her cheeks.
Scowling at it, to be precise.
“Please,” she begged him. Again.
Because there was pride and there was hope and then there was this. She was all too familiar with this. Sheer desperation.
“First,” he said, something dark in his voice that matched the scowl but not that gleam in his eyes, “don’t throw yourself at me again unless someone is shooting at you and you need cover.”
She sniffled. “Great. Thanks for that addition to my nightmares.”
“Second—” And his voice seemed more intense then. Darker. Or maybe that was just the look in his eyes that she couldn’t quite read, no matter how it seemed to connect to something low in her belly. “Don’t cry.”
She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she washolding. Then she wiped at her cheeks, and he seemed to take a long, long while to let go of her.
“Sorry,” Everly muttered. Though she wasn’t. He was lucky she wasn’t sobbing herself into a puddle at his feet.
“Third, I already told you I was going to help you, and when I make promises, I keep them.”
That felt like a vow and, more, as if he were still holding on to her. When he wasn’t. Everly felt something too much like giddy and told herself that it was the brightness all around her when it should have been dark. The road still inside her, messing her up after all those hundreds and thousands of miles.
That it had nothing to do with her pulse. Her heart. Her disbelief that she’d finally found him and that he wasthis. His own personal army. The only person in the world—she was sure of it—who could help her.
“I’m taking you into town because you can’t stay here,” he was saying. “This isn’t a public place.”
That was a perfect opportunity to wrench her gaze away from the tractor beam of his. To take a few breaths and try to compose herself. She blinked at the cabin behind them and the lodge farther down, which was really just a sprawling series of interconnected cabins a lot like this one, rambling along the rocky shore. She could see smoke coming from deeper in the forest, higher up the side of the mountain, suggesting there were even more cabins tucked away, out of sight.
As secret bat caves for mysterious superheroes went, she had to admit that Fool’s Cove was pretty spectacular. Remote, inaccessible, and stunning all at once.
“Exactly what kind of place is this?”
His mouth curved, and it made her warm. “You don’t ask questions. I do.” Blue jerked his chin toward the cabin, but he was still giving her that half smile, and Everly had the dazed thought that she would follow him anywhere if he asked. Or even if he didn’t. “Get your shoes, Cinderella. It’s time to go.”
Five
She had cried.
Blue could defend himself against all comers, and had. Often. A knife. A gun. A guerrilla attack. This or that army in any given hellhole, whatever. He’d been there, done that. He had a collection of medals no sane man wanted to earn and a whole lot more scars for his trouble, and he was pretty much fine with that.
He was a hard man to rattle.
But let a few tears roll down Everly Campbell’s pretty face in the middle of a dark blue Alaskan summer night and he was at a loss, apparently. Blue did not appreciate uncertainty. That was not how he operated. That was not who he was.Uncertaintyveered a little too close tohelplessness,and he didn’t tolerate that crap. In the world he’d tried his best to save upon occasion, sure, but not in himself. Not ever.
And yet she’d cried, and worse, it had been obvious itwasn’t any kind of game. It was real. Real emotion. Real panic. Real desperation, written all over her, right there in front of him.
He hadn’t known what to do, and he’dreallyhated that. It made him edgy. Restless.