Page 28 of A Secret Crush Valentine's

He pocketed the thought in a corner of his mind where it couldn’t bother him and kept walking, his hand in Julia’s.

Forty feet.

All of a sudden, she froze in her tracks. Her eyes snapped open wide, and she stared at him. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Her breathing was growing more ragged by the second. “The ice. It…” She lowered her gaze to the ice. It was still completely solid, not a single crack in sight. “Oh.”

“There’s nothing wrong,” he assured her as they continued walking. “You’re fine. We’re almost there.”

Thirty feet left.

He glanced around them. There was no hint of anyone following them. The only signs of life were the trees in the distance. That was good. It meant the Collectors were still far behind. Then again, he hadn’t noticed them earlier until he andJulia had been surrounded. He gave their surroundings another careful scan.

Twenty feet.

“We’re almost there.”

To his surprise, she doubled her pace, rushing for the shore. He moved after her, his hand still in hers. Seconds later, they reached the shore. She stood in the snow, panting, her eyes wide as though she couldn’t believe what they’d just done.

“We’re here,” Damon said, breaking the near silence. “I told you…”

Before he could finish his statement, she threw her arms around him, hugging him so tightly she almost broke a rib. He ran his fingers through her red hair and drew a shuddering breath. In a way, they had just accomplished something. A part of their past that had gone awry had been righted.

They’d crossed the lake. And they both were still alive—and dry.

When she lifted her head from his chest, he wanted to kiss her, to hell with the consequences. He smiled down at her, and perhaps he was simply giving in to delusion, but he could swear he saw her face inch closer to his. His lips parted, waiting for the kiss that was like a plate of food to a starving man.

But it never came. Because Julia wasn’t smiling at him. The look she gave him as she slowly pulled herself away from him was nothing less than scathing.

She was angry. But why? His mind backtracked rapidly. Of course. The Collectors. They’d been attacked, and he still hadn’t bothered to explain what was really going on. Damon swallowed. The longer he kept it from her, the worse things would turn out for him when she found out.

Ifshe ever found out.

“Julia,” he started, “there’s something I want to tell you—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she snapped, taking a step backward. “Just… leave me alone.”

And with that, she walked off toward the trees.

***

Damon wasn’t very good at following orders. For one thing, he hadn’t done as Grim Jim had ordered. If he had, Julia would be sitting in the Ice Melter’s cave along with his other living treasures. But here she was, storming off in the snow ahead of him and insisting that he leave her alone.

He had no intention of following that order. Not for anyone or anything.

I should have told her about the Collectors,he thought, giving himself a mental kick.

That was why she was so mad at him. This was on him.

He jogged after her. “Look, Julia. I’m really sorry. I should have told you—”

She ground to a halt so abruptly that he nearly ran into her. She fixed him with a fierce, blue-eyed glare. If looks could kill, he would be lying dead at the bottom of the nearest lake. Even that would be preferable to her frosty gaze.

For a moment, he simply stared back at her, unsure whether it would be wiser to keep talking or keep his mouth shut. A moment later, he chose the former. “I didn’t want to tell you—”

“You’re a jerk, Damon McLaurent, you know that?” she snapped. “A big, stupid, annoying jerk who can’t even—aargh!”

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