Page 111 of Ford

She might not ever be a Rescue Swimmer, but she had the grit to at least qualify. She’d helped him find his sister, and that was enough.

More, she’d lived just fine by herself for a decade, not needing Ford or any other man to rescue her. Protect her. Get her home safely.

She had a life waiting for her back at home. One that included a brother who needed her.

Ford released RJ, and Scarlett stood up. “I’m going to check on the train,” she said, his partner on this op.

Then she headed up the stairs toward the platform.

The sun was just barely denting the east, the lights casting an eerie pallor of gray and black over the train yard. Quiet, dark trains on tracks sat in wait. Overhead, a light buzzed. Not quite 0400, perhaps. According to the schedule she’d checked, the train to Petropavl on the border of Kazakhstan left just after four. She turned, and in the distance, she barely made out the pinpricks of lights slicing through the darkness.

The breeze slicked up, and she wrapped her hands around herself. Shivered.

“You’re a pretty thing to be lost in Siberia, aren’t you?”

She froze.

Turned.

Swallowed hard as the man she’d seen in the hotel, the blond with the clubbed ears, gray suit, and obsidian eyes, reached out and grabbed her by the throat.

It happened so fast, she didn’t have time to scream, to get a hand up to stop him. His thumb pressed into the well of her throat even as she grabbed his wrist.

Ford!

Except he was below with his sister, and she couldn’t depend on him to show up every time, despite what he said.

“Thank you,” Blondie said, yanking her close, breathing a haze of vodka into her ear. “I’d lost the trail.”

For a split second, she was again fifteen. Alone in her bedroom as Gary pressed her against the wall.

Only, this time her brain didn’t go blank, void of her self-defense training. The Navy had taught her to stay cool. Keep her wits.

Made her who she was today.

She drove her knee up with everything inside her.

Connected.

He grunted and loosened his grip. She turned his wrist out, broke away, and then she hit him hard in the jaw with her open palm.

He stumbled back, just a step, but it was enough for her to put her foot in his chest.

It knocked him away and she turned to run.

Except—the tracks cordoned off her escape.

She whirled back around, stymied, and her breath caught.

Ford had come barreling up the stairs, took two steps toward the man, and leaped at him.

Blondie turned and landed his fist into Ford’s solar plexus.

Ford made a terrible sound, his breath whuffing out. His knees buckled.

Behind him, RJ breached the entrance and screamed.

Blondie sent his fist into Ford’s face, dazed him.

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