Page 186 of Our Little Secret

She wouldn’t think that way.

She just had to keep running along the shoreline, her frantic mind whirling as she raced toward the northern point where the ocean crept into the bay.

“Brooke!” he yelled and she glanced back once to see him, not fifty feet behind, lagging, hauling the heavy axe with him.

Not since their last struggle on the deck of theMedusahad she wanted a gun, but now she would give anything for Neal’s little pistol that, according to Elijah, he still had hidden on his boat.

Keep running, she told herself, angling back toward the dunes, searching for a light, any sign of life. But the few houses on this side of the island were dark. Unoccupied. Of no help.

Where was the break in the vegetation of the dunes? Where?

Did it even exist any longer?

She was breathing hard, her lungs tight from the cold.

Her blood was pumping fast.

She felt the area where she’d tweaked her ankle, but it was solid, holding her up, the pain minimal compared to the harsh, gut-wrenching fear curdling through her blood.

Run, run, run.

“Brooke!” he yelled again. “Stop!”

No way. No effin’ way.

The lack of visibility made finding anything impossible, but she cut up to the dunes again and ran through the grass and clumps of Scotch broom, all covered in ice and snow. If she could outrun him and get to the main road . . .

“Brooke!”

He was so close.

She couldn’t see him in the whiteout but kept running inland . . . and noticed the house. Dark and uninhabited, it rose on the dunes, a large deck stretched from sliding doors facing the ocean.

She took a chance, running across the deck, her tracks leading to the front of the house and the road, and then she slid behind a hedgerow and waited. Shivering. Squinting. Freezing. She slid the knife into the waistband of her jeans and held the poker like a baseball bat. When he rounded the corner—

A sharp bark threw her off.

Shep?

The dog dashed toward her.

No!

With a roar, Elijah appeared, springing from the curtain of snow, the axe high over his head, blood pouring from his soaked sweater.

Brooke didn’t think twice.

She rounded on him, both hands on the poker, and he went down with a thud.

The axe fell away, buried in the deep snow.

Shuddering, Brooke watched as the life slowly seeped out of him.

“You—you’re mine,” he whispered hoarsely, blood bubbling from his lips.

“Never,” she vowed. “Never. You asked me once how far I’d go for something I wanted. Now you know.”

EPILOGUE