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She was too stiff when she stopped moving. Pale and fragile-looking, to his mind. But there was a kind of grim acceptance in the way she stared at that fence. It ate at him.
“I can climb it.”
“Because if you can’t, I can—”
“I said I can climb it.”
And then she did. Not particularly gracefully. Not fast or with any skill. She looked like what she was—a scared woman climbing over a city fence in the middle of the night because she had to. Because she’d decided she would, and so she did.
Blue waited where he was, making sure no one was coming up behind them. But when she reached the top of the fence and threw her leg over, she let out a long, shaky breath, and he found himself looking at her instead of keeping watch.
“You okay?”
She didn’t quite smile. Her mouth looked too soft and too vulnerable for that, and Blue’s problem was that all he could think about, then, was tasting her all over again. Getting his mouth on her and who cared where they were or how much danger they were in?
He was even more pissed than he had been before, because whoever was chasing her had ruined that, too. He could have woken up with her. He could have taken his time. He could have—
“I’m okay,” she said, snapping him back to this alley. This moment. And the things he should have been doing that weren’t fantasizing about getting his hands on her again. “I’m alive, right?”
And for a moment she looked more than simplyalive. The security light from the building behind hers made her strawberry blond hair look like some kind of halo. And it made Blue feel alive in ways he couldn’t explain to himself.
As if she’d flipped a switch in him. One he hadn’t known was there.
One he didn’t like knowing was there, especiallywhen he felt lit up, a lot like that impossible red halo and her soft mouth as she looked down at him. Then swung her leg over and climbed down the other side.
Leaving him... outside himself and out of sorts and not at all okay with pretty much anything.
He was almost glad he had concrete things to think about. Getting her away and to safety. Figuring out what hornet’s nest he’d kicked and how to find it again, with an exterminator this time. Then removing himself from the Chicago area and all these damned ghosts before it was too late.
Whatevertoo latemeant. He shoved that to the side, too.
Then shoved his gun in his shoulder holster so he could run and flip himself over the fence. He landed in a crouch, then grabbed his bag with one hand and her with his other.
He wasn’t thinking about the way her fingers laced with his or the fire that raced in him at even so little contact, because that was unacceptable. Unacceptable in every way, and yet he took a moment to let the heat really settle in him.
Because her mouth was so soft and her eyes were so big and he was a sucker for her in ways he was afraid to list, even in his own head.
And then they ran.
This was the girl who’d complained about potentially having to climb five flights of stairs, but she didn’t complain tonight. Everly gripped his hand and ran beside him, her breath ragged and loud, but she didn’t slow down. She didn’t stop. She followed him out the other side of the alley to the street behind hers and across threemore blocks before he finally led her to the SUV, which he moved to a new spot in the neighborhood every day. Just for the possibility of an occasion like this.
He bundled her into the passenger seat, then circled around, looking for potential danger in every shadow—but there was nothing there. Just the relative quiet of a city night. They were three blocks away from her building, and there was still no sign of whoever had thrown that crap through her window.
Something worse than temper cracked in him at that, but it still wasn’t time to take that on. Not when they were exposed like this.
There was all the time in the world to get pissed about the intentions of asswipes, Blue thought as he climbed behind the wheel and fired up the engine, but not while Everly was out on the streets. Unsafe and unprotected.
“We need to find a safe house,” he said tersely as he pulled the SUV out of its parking spot and gunned it down the street. “And then we need to reassess this situation.”
She didn’t say anything. One minute dragged by. Then another. He slid her a probing sort of glance as he turned the corner, but he couldn’t see any obvious issues. She was sitting gamely enough in the seat next to him. Not shaking. Not crying. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap. She was maybe too quiet after everything that had happened tonight, but that was the only indication that something might be amiss.
“Are you all right?”
Everly laughed. It was a wild, jagged sound. She clapped her hands over her mouth, as if the sound had shocked her.
She stared at him over the tops of her hands, and then dropped them slowly. “I’m sorry. That feels inappropriate, but the truth is, I can’t really tell.”
“Don’t lose your shit now, baby,” Blue said in a low voice as he circled the next block, making sure the sedan in his rearview mirror wasn’t tailing him. “I know it’s tempting to fall apart, but this is the time to keep it together.”