Page 17

SEVENTEEN

EMILY

Those six words are all the encouragement Ryder needs, and he moves toward me like he did when he pretended to kiss me in front of Malcolm. But this time, it’s not just for show, and my legs tremble as his face nears mine. I expect him to go straight in for a kiss, and my lips are ready, eager, but instead, he takes a loose curl in his fingers, tucking it gently behind my ear.

“Emily,” he says, his voice gruff. He lowers his face to press a kiss to my collarbone, one hand gently gripping the back of my head, and I swear to God that I will die if he doesn’t kiss me soon.

“If we do this,” he says, kissing my neck, and then my jaw, and then pulling me forward so that I’m in his lap, “it can’t be because we’re in a life-or-death scenario. I don’t want you to want me because I might be your last chance to get off. So if that’s what this is to you, tell me now.”

“It’s not,” I say, wrapping an arm around his neck and leaning into his chest. “It’s not, it’s not, it’s not.”

“Good.” He runs his hands up my back, kneading the sore muscles under my T-shirt, and then down to my ass. “Because I’ve been wanting to do this since you yelled at me on the ferry.”

“I didn’t yell at you,” I protest, but I forget the rest of what I was going to say, because Ryder finally has mercy on me and presses his mouth to mine, and suddenly I don’t care that my legs aren’t shaved and my curls are a mess and my body is rife with exhaustion. I don’t even care that there’s an insanely valuable diamond burning a hole in the bottom of my backpack. Because there’s only him, and there’s only me, and there’s only us together, his strong hands on my waist and my mouth on his mouth and—

I pull away from him when a low-pitched rumbling sound interrupts our impassioned bliss.

“What was that?” I ask in a whisper. “That sound?”

He blinks like he has no clue what I’m talking about. “Huh?”

I shush him when I hear it again, and then I leap up and run toward the window, grabbing my binoculars on the way.

Ryder follows closely behind me, one hand on the small of my back as I peer out toward Lake Superior.

“It’s a speedboat,” I say, squinting at the approaching vessel. “Ryder, it’s a boat! Someone’s coming to help us! We’re saved!”

“Fuck yeah!” He pumps the air with his fist and sweeps me off my feet, twirling me around in the dark, dank room before setting me down again. His eyes glint with mischief as he smiles at me. “I suppose this means we don’t have time to—”

“Ryder!” I hiss, swatting his arm playfully, but he only shrugs.

“Just kidding. Sort of.” He motions for my binoculars. “Mind if I take a look? I need to capture every detail I can for my Cover of Darkness screenplay.”

I laugh, handing the binoculars over, and I wrap my arms around him from behind as he peers out the window. I’m exhausted and hungry and my ankle hurts like no other, but we’re almost out of here. We’re almost safe. And we’re one step closer to being someplace where we can kiss and touch and caress each other without interruption.

Except, apparently, we’re not.

“Hey, Emily,” he says, a note of worry in his voice, “are the park rangers usually armed?”

“Armed?” I ask. “Huh?”

I grab my binoculars back rudely and stare out onto the water, my pulse racing. The boat, probably a minute or less out from the shore, has picked up speed, and I squint as I try to make out the three men aboard. There’s a scowling guy in a beanie—which, hey, I wouldn’t be thrilled if I were a park ranger and had to interrupt my sleep to go rescue two idiots from a tower—a dark-haired man with a mustache, and a grim-faced dude with a buzzcut. The kicker is that all three have firearms clipped to their waistbands, and I watch, my stomach clenching, as the dark-haired guy pulls out a knife the size of Ryder’s arm.

“Ohmiiiigod,” I say, jumping back from the window. “Machete! One of those guys has a fucking machete .”

“Maybe the rangers use machetes to cut down trees,” Ryder says hopefully, clearly clinging to some shred of hope. “You know, to clear their paths or whatever.”

“Those are not the fucking rangers,” I tell him, my voice barely a squeak as the boat nears the shore. “Killian’s men got our message. We need to get the hell out of here, now.”

“For fuck’s sake,” he seethes, grabbing my pack from the ground, “if I get cockblocked by a henchman one more time—”

“Ryder, move!” I insist, my heart pounding.

He grabs my hand and flings open the door leading toward the stairwell, and I gasp as we spot the men jumping off the boat and hurrying ashore. There’s no way we can make it down the stairs without being shot at, much less seen, and my throat goes dry as I realize that we’re trapped.

“This way,” Ryder says, pulling me away from the door. He grabs my flashlight and uses it to smash the back window, covering his head to block the shards of glass.

“What are you doing?” I ask, suddenly dizzy as I realize just how far we off the ground we are. “There’s only one set of stairs—”

“Forget the stairs.” His tone is blunt, urgent. “We’re climbing down.”

“We’re climbing down the tower?” I ask, breathless. “Listen, I’m not sure what Indiana Jones –style stunts you think I’m capable of, but we can’t just parkour our way out of this!”

“Fine. Then I’ll climb down first and catch you.”

“Catch me?” I repeat, panic turning my voice shrill. “Surely you don’t expect me to jump —”

“I expect you to trust me.” Ryder’s voice is calm, steady, even in the midst of Operation Cover of Darkness going very, very wrong, and he gives my hand a reassuring squeeze. “I promised to protect you, Emily Edwards, and protect you I will.”

His voice is gruff, determined, like he thinks he’s Jason Statham in a high-stakes action movie, and I watch as he climbs through the window and steps cautiously out onto a narrow steel platform. My head spinning, I peek out the broken window to survey the scene and very much wish I hadn’t. We’re even higher up than I remember, and without access to the stairs, the only way someone could make it safely to the ground would be to jump from the platform to the metal beam one story below and then somehow repeat that three more times without losing their foothold and crashing to their death.

I flinch as Ryder drops my pack to the ground, where it lands with a sickening thud.

“Now, I need you to stay calm,” he says, glancing back at me. “Because we’re gonna Cirque du Soleil it.”

The wave of nausea that comes over me is anything but calm, and I suck in my breath.

“That has got to be the single worst sentence I’ve ever heard.”

“I’ll climb down first, and when I say jump, you jump,” he directs. “I will catch you.”

“But what if you don’t?” I ask, my voice trembling. “What if you don’t, and I break my neck or hit my head or at the very least break both legs so that I can’t run from—”

“Stop.” Ryder leans forward to touch his forehead to mine, placing his hands on either side of my face. “I will catch you.”

There’s no time to say more, and I watch, terrified, as he takes a deep breath and prepares to jump to the next beam.

“Be careful, please,” I plead, curling my hands into such tight fists that I’m certain I’ll draw blood.

I hold my breath as he lowers himself off the platform, holding on to the steel lattice for literal dear life. Then, his jaw clenched, he grunts and leaps downward, landing on the narrow scaffolding with surprising athleticism.

“See?” he calls to me. “Not so bad.”

But it is bad, very bad, because when I glance back toward the lake, I see the henchmen rushing toward the tower, guns at the ready.

“They’re almost here,” I say in terror, and Ryder grunts and jumps again.

This time, his landing is shaky, and I swear that if we get out of this alive, I’m never leaving the ground again.

The henchmen are so close now that I can hear their voices in the not-so-distant distance, and I utter a silent prayer as Ryder makes his third dangerous jump. When he slips on the last beam, stopping his fall only by grabbing hold of the scaffolding with one hand, I have to cover my mouth with my hand to stop myself from crying out. It’s Cirque du Soleil with all the danger and none of the fun—or the kill switches—and my heart pounds like it’s going to burst out of my chest.

Finally, Ryder makes his final jump to the ground, where he tumbles onto the grass and hurries to his feet. My terror mounts as I hear the clang of boots against metal and realize that the henchmen have reached the stairs. They’ll be here in seconds, and if I don’t jump, there’s not a chance in hell we make it out of here.

Then again, if I do jump, there’s a chance I won’t make it out of here anyway.

Ryder waves his arms wildly at me, indicating that it’s go time, but my feet are frozen in place. I shut my eyes, trying to focus, but all I see are broken bones and fractured skulls and blinding, unremitting pain. Gritting my teeth, I open my eyes and shake my head at Ryder, because no matter how desperately I know I need to jump, I can’t do it. I, the woman who has an extra smoke detector in her kitchen and actually studied the evacuation safety map on the door of every hotel room she’s ever stayed in, cannot jump to my possible death.

But Ryder, his expression calm, believing, only nods at me.

I will catch you , he mouths, motioning a catch with his arms. I will catch you . And then he places one hand against his chest, against the knot of skin and bone and muscle beneath which his heart beats.

I will catch you , he mouths again, and as the henchmen’s footsteps get closer and the Lake Superior wind howls and every terrible injury I’ve ever treated in the ER flashes through my mind, I clench my fists and force myself to keep my eyes open and look only at Ryder, at his steady gaze and beating heart and waiting arms. And then, against all reason and logic and everything I know about fall prevention protocols, I suck in my breath and jump.