Page 35 of Jacking Jill

Well, at least Jack now knew what would happen once they connected the dots.

It was nice to be wanted.

Even if you were wanted dead.

Jack crouched low in the snow, going down on one knee, keeping his body behind a snow-blanketed boulder while scanning the scanty bit of forest segment-by-segment, making sure his gun and his gaze moved in lockstep, his finger half-squeezing the trigger.

No movement.

No sound.

Diego was in there, waiting to draw Jack closer. Diego’s first shot from the trees would give away his location, and so the guy wanted to be damn sure of that first shot before taking it.

Or maybe Diego’s waiting to see if Carmine’s thugs will see me with a gun and just take me out themselves, Jack thought as he completed his scan of the front line of trees and prepared to move closer. Behind him Carmine’s guards were pulling up in two black Range Rovers, and that woman who’d been screaming was now wailing, calling Bobby’s name over and over again like a stuck record.

Then suddenly Jack heard a different woman’s voice.

And it was calling a different man’s name.

“Jack!” came Jill’s panicked voice from that crashed black Mercedes. “Jack!”

Jack froze mid-crouch, his body only half shielded by the boulder he’d been using for cover. Immediately he felt the exposure, realized he’d lost focus again. The realization came a snap-second before Diego’s gun roared from the dark tree-cover, and Jack cursed himself as he got his body back behind the boulder just in time. Diego’s bullet slammed into the snow-covered rock, sending splinters of stone up in the air.

Jack stayed down, resisting the temptation to return fire. Diego wouldn’t be in the same spot from where he’d fired, and Jack’s gun would only draw the attention of Carmine’s thugs, who may or may not be aware of this ambush, which felt more improvised than planned.

Now Jack’s mind flicked back to the chilling realization that Jill had been in the car with Bobby and Nina! Yeah, she was alive and her voice sounded strong, if panicked. She hadn’t been hit by a stray bullet or hurt badly in the crash, but if Jack had been exposed as a Darkwater man hunting Diego and possibly Romeo Carmine and Kay Steffen, what did that make Jill?

An accomplice to be put down?

A hostage to be held?

A threat to be silenced?

Romeo Carmine might certainly think so.

“Shit,” Jack growled under his breath when he heard Jill’s voice again, this time low and hushed, like she was trying to comfort Nina. “Damn it.”

He needed to go to Jill. She was in danger and she didn’t even know it. If Romeo Carmine had told Diego to kill Jack, then Jill was not safe going back to that mansion. Within seconds these guards would get the order to bring Jill back with them. And if Bobby Carmine was dead, this whole thing was going to get real bad, real fucking fast.

Jack leaned back against the boulder as the snow gathered on his shoulders. He glanced at Jill’s red Honda stopped haphazardly in the middle of the road. The driver’s-side window was shattered and the windscreen was badly webbed from Diego’s bullets, but the engine-block hadn’t been hit and the car would run just fine.

Behind him Jack could hear movement in the dark trees. Diego was getting away. Within seconds he’d be through to the clearing on the other side of the narrow tree-line. He almost certainly had a truck parked there.

Jack could catch up with him if he moved now. Once Jack got to the woods, the trees which had given Diego cover would also protect Jack.

And a Delta man like Jack was at home amongst the dark trees. This was a match-up made in heaven, Jack thought as that addictively familiar thrill of battle rippled through the coils of rigid muscle lining his hard body.

But Jack didn’t move. He couldn’t move. He stayed in place, stuck in limbo, like suddenly he wasn’t sure what the mission was anymore, wasn’t even sure what he was anymore.

You’re hers, came the whisper from somewhere in his body. That’s what you are. You’re hers.

Her guardian.

Her protector.

Her man.

The thoughts roared through his head like thunder, and Jack almost shouted out loud to clear his swirling mind. But the only thing clear was that Jill was in danger, and she’d be in even more danger if Jack went into those woods and killed Diego.

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