Page 28 of Stranded with the SEAL

One, two, three!

Olivia blew out her candle and spun around, the room thrown into darkness. She dropped to the ground and crawled to the bed, making her way around it by feel and wishing her eyes would adjust so she could see. Sure enough, her hand closed around the barrel of a baseball bat.

A noise came from the other room and she tiptoed down the hall, bat at the ready. She forced her fear to disconnect from her body. Her eyes adjusted to the lack of light and she rounded the corner into the living room.

The front door was open several inches, the sound of freezing rain falling outside like white noise. Olivia pulled the bat back over her shoulder and prepared to fight for her life.

18

Trevor roundedthe corner into the drive, and the cabin came into view. Olivia had done as he asked, letting the fire go out so there was no sign of their presence, and he felt his shoulders relax.

There was something nice about coming back to her. He liked the way she’d confronted him when she thought he’d drugged her, and the way she’d felt in his arms when they kissed. He wanted to fight with her again and do some more kissing, maybe even at the same time.

He stashed the snowmobile inside the garage, then looked up at the still-swirling snow. The blizzard would be their cover, erasing their tracks and wiping the slate clean overnight.

Keeping them safe.

And alone together.

He chastised himself for his thoughts about Olivia. Whoever Gallant had been talking to was expecting the henchman back at Steele’s mansion tonight. Whether Gallant returned on foot, injured from his fall off the cliff, or didn’t return at all, that meant Hawk and Olivia had just inched one step closer to Steele’s inner circle.

That should keep Hawk from thinking about Olivia’s sweet body, but it didn’t. He reached for the handle on the door of the house and found it ajar.

Hawk instantly went on alert, pulling out his knife as his mind raced to assess the situation. Gallant couldn’t have gotten here before him, if he had survived the fall, which meant someone else was at the cabin.

He flashed back to the man on the walkie-talkie.

You and Johnson.

Johnson!

Damn it, there was more than one of Steele’s men running around Warsaw Mountain, and Hawk had left Olivia alone.

He kicked open the door.

Something solid and heavy crashed into the wall beside him. He reached for it, recognizing the wooden barrel of a baseball bat and sliding down it to find his attacker’s hands, quickly capturing them with his own.

They struggled, and Trevor recognized Olivia’s all-too familiar scent. He used her hands to pull her toward him. “It’s me.” She continued to fight him. “It’s me, Olivia!”

She stopped wrestling. “Trevor?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, God.” She fell into his arms, wrapping herself tightly around his torso. “I was so scared,” she sobbed. “Someone was outside the window and I didn’t know what was happening and all I could think to do was grab the baseball bat.”

“Which window?”

“The back bedroom.”

He took off along the side of the house, his knife at the ready, and rounded the corner. Sure enough, fresh snowmobile tracks came close to the back bedroom window. His eyes scanned the horizon and the forest that bordered the house on three sides, but he saw nothing unusual.

He continued around the house. The tracks could very well be Gallant's. Not enough snow had fallen to completely bury anything since then, but they could also be freshly made by someone else.

Like Johnson.

He went back inside. “There are no new tracks out there. Just the ones from before.”

“Oh, gosh. I’m such an idiot.” She hung her head. “I thought I was going to die and you would come back and find my body.”