Page 118 of Lesson In Forgiveness

“Don’t start lying now, little tiger,” he admonished.

The truth was, she wasn’t. What he’d done might seem like a small, insignificant blip hardly worth kicking up a fuss over, but for her, there were giant claw marks raking through her heart. She couldn’t handle the depth of feeling he’d awoken in her; years of being dead inside left her unprepared for the harsh reality of this.

Opening her eyes, she blinked away the sheen of tears and the horrible burning. Indulging in a weak moment left her vulnerable to attack, and there were too many enemies sticking targets on her back for her to lose focus.

“Don’t forget what I am,” she whispered, fighting the battle to keep her voice even. “This is exactly what I was born to be. Alone. Live alone, kill alone, die alone. When this is over and I’ve taken down Donaghue, don’t come looking for me. I won’t be here.”

Denial throbbed through the line; Tabitha ended the call before it drowned her.

Hitting the wheel did nothing but bruise her fists. The bite of pain was cathartic, helping to ground her. Maybe leaving was a good thing, the smart thing to do when a man gained too much control over her. She didn’t know where she’d go, how many miles she needed to put between them before she could go to ground and heal, but it was necessary.

Because she’d spent far too long talking to him, Tabitha started the SUV and pulled out onto the street. She honestly didn’t trust him not to sic a retrieval team on her, and she’d compromised her position.

For two hours, she cruised around the city with one eye on her mirrors, checking for a tail, while the other side of her brain scanned vehicles and sidewalks for anyone resembling her targets.

A futile endeavor in a place where the population came in at just under a million people.

Still, it beat twiddling her thumbs while she wished fervently for a sign.

When she got bored, she opted to change tactics. After a brief visit to a gas station, she headed for the highway, something in her gut directing her to what should have been her new home. Her stomach tightened, knotting as the miles fell by the wayside and Serenity grew closer.

Feeling sick, Tabitha brought up Elias’s number and called it.

No answer.

Reaching his voicemail, she ended the call and tried Evander instead.

No answer.

It didn’t mean anything, she told herself. She checked the time; it was early evening and there were a few hours of daylight left. They could be out on the site with no cell service, they might be fucking the hell out of their adorable wife; there were several possible scenarios where both men were unable to be reached at the same time.

The knots swelled and constricted in her belly as she turned off the highway onto the road leading to the resort. No one followed her, but her skin was crawling with anticipation. Her fingers twitched on the wheel, eager to reach for her gun, but everything was quiet.

Too quiet, even for the peace of such a rural area.

Going with instinct, she dumped her SUV into a small clearing off the road which, judging by the tire treads, was an informal break area for the truck drivers responsible for hauling deliveries to the construction site.

She sat for a second, envisioning the road ahead and estimating she had a good mile hike to reach the new house Evander had built for his family, set in the slight valley beneath the club. Some of that hike offered cover through trees and the occasional boulder, but a large percentage left her unprotected.

Sliding out of the SUV, she snicked the door quietly shut. Out here, noises echoed in the weirdest ways. Checking and adjusting her blades, she tucked the Beretta at the small of her back, using her waistband as a holster; she preferred the knives for a quick, clean kill, but a gun came in handy for backup.

As a precaution, she switched her phone to silent.

Tabitha hoped all of this was just an overreaction. Maybe her emotions were strung too tight thanks to Grit; maybe she was just fucking hormonal and too damn sensitive to her surroundings. Regardless, she wasn’t so screwed up she couldn’t approach and assess the situation like a professional.

A roll of her head on her neck, a quick stretch to loosen muscles and get her adrenaline pumping, and she was ready.

Boots scrunching on the rough surface of the road, she darted over it and picked a path already carved through the underbrush by some kind of animal. Keeping her head down—she was aware of how her hair stood out like a beacon—she followed a combination of the wildlife paths and her own sense of direction, veering off here and there when her gut warned her she was off track.

It certainly would’ve been faster to approach using the road; it also would’ve been a clean death if the enemy was in place and watching for anyone coming to the rescue. A sniper with any pride in his job could hit his target from the half-mile marker, and she’d never see the bullet coming.

She reminded herself of that as she waded through knee-high grass and ducked behind boulders twice her size to gauge her bearings. Her skin crawled with heat and sweat, and a small army of bugs that obviously viewed her as an all-they-could-eat buffet.

By the time she reached the small pond situated beneath Evander’s home, there weren’t enough curse words left to describe how stupid she was going to feel if this turned out to be a false alarm. She suppose brushing up on her survival skills never hurt, but so help her, if she found a single goddamn tick on her body, she’d shoot the bloodsucker off whatever part of her it was attached to without hesitation.

The hike took longer than she’d anticipated; the sun was tipping slowly toward the horizon, casting long shadows. The darker it got, the more she’d stand out, with her head being the primary target.

Staying low to the ground, she crept to the edge of the pond where the water had receded with the heat. Plunging her fingers in, she scooped up handfuls of thick, cloying mud and liberally plastered her hair with it, concealing every inch of white blond. When she was sure her hair wouldn’t give her away, she lathered her face and neck too, completing her transition into a mud monster.

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