Page 46 of Defending You

“Him, I trust. But anybody listening… Look.” His voice lowered to a conciliatory tone. “We need to throw those thugs off our tail.” He reached out as if to touch her, but she backed away.

“I know. That’s why?—”

His arm dropped. “If they’re watching, if they’re anywhere in town, they might see your dad’s hired car. It’s not worth it.”

“That’s absurd. It’s just a car. How would they?—?”

“How did they find us at the train station?” He no longer sounded placating but irritated. “How did they find us outside the airfield? How do they keep finding us?”

“Not because my dad told them!” Her voice was too loud, especially for a library.

“I don’t distrust him. He’s probably got a bunker under his office.”

A safe room big enough for the whole family, complete with iron walls and its own ventilation system.

“If your dad were coming with a team,” Asher continued, “then maybe I’d wait. But he didn’t say that, right? Just that he’d send a car? Maybe it’ll be driven by a pro, but we both know your enemies always come with a lot of firepower.”

A few months before, Cici might have argued. Dad’s drivers were always hulking guards, trained and ready. But the one Dad had trusted most had been killed back in the spring when their car was ambushed. Mom and Brooklynn had been terrorized. A child had been kidnapped.

And Shadow Cove and Dad’s security detail were far from here, so who knew who he’d tasked with picking her and Asher up.

“I know it stinks,” Asher said. “Believe me, I’d love to ride back to Maine on leather seats in an air-conditioned car, but it’s possible those thugs picked up on your phone call. They have a lot of equipment and a lot of manpower. If they heard our plan, they’ll be looking for us to leave here in twenty minutes. Since I don’t know how they keep finding us, I have to assume no communication is safe. Which means we have to be gone before then.”

“On foot? Or?—?”

“We’ll go out the back door.”

Not an answer, she noticed. “And then what?”

“We’ll probably have to steal?—”

“We’re finally safe, and you want to play Grand Theft Auto again?”

“We need to do something they don’t expect.” A muscle ticked in his cheek. He was losing patience with her, that was obvious enough. “That meansnotdoing what we said we’d do.”

“You should have told me. I’m in this, too, you know. My life’s on the line too.”

“I’m very aware of that, Cici.” His eyes darkened, his brows lowering. “It’s why I’m here, to keep you alive. And I don’t plan to gamble in the hope that your father’s driver can get us to safety.”

She crossed her arms. “Instead, you’re adding one more felony to my future rap sheet.”

“Better a rap sheet than a toe tag.” He slung his duffel over his shoulder. “Let’s go, and try to keep your voice down.”

She wanted to argue. She wanted to stay right there in that safe and air-conditioned library until her daddy rescuedher from all this craziness. She was hungry and irritated and…scared.

She snatched her purse. “You’re insufferable, all ‘Ooh, I’m a SEAL, trust my gut.’ Your gut’s gonna land us in prison.”

“And your mouth’s gonna get us caught.” His eyes dipped to her lips and held there a beat too long.

Her body warmed under his regard. He was mad at her, and she wasn’t feeling all fuzzy and warm toward him, either. But that didn’t lessen the zing of attraction between them—a zing he must’ve felt, too, the way his cheeks reddened.

He headed for the door, not looking back. “Move.”

She followed, cursing bossy ex-SEALs and their felonious fetishes.

The library’s quiet halls felt too serene for the chaos in her chest. They slipped out a side exit—no alarms, fortunately—and cut across a side street, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows.

Asher led her down a residential road as if he had a plan.