Page 37 of Hunted

She swallowed hard, bit back the flood of words that wanted to escape. Words of comfort that would do little good anyway. She clenched her jaw, closed her eyes. “I don’t suppose you thought to buy plastic flatware, did you?”

When she opened her eyes again she saw his shoulders sag in relief, heard the breath escape him in a long sigh. “Yeah. I hate plasticware.” He reached past her again, scraping open another drawer to reveal a handful of stainless set of silverware. “I grabbed a couple of plates and coffee mugs too. No bowls though. Guess we make do.”

“Guess so.”

Lexi left off the topic of his sons, and Romano was grateful, because it was harder with her. He still hadn’t figured out why that was, but when Lexi started poking at his wounds, he couldn’t stop himself from cooperating, answering her questions, opening up to her and letting her in. He didn’t like that power she seemed to have over him. To make him talk about it, to invade his darkness with her light.

He didn’t discuss his family with anyone. They were sacred, and that was that.

He looked at Lexi whenever she wasn’t looking at him—which wasn’t often—and tried to figure out what it was about her that made him forget his own rules. But there were no answers in her soft brown eyes, or in the way she managed to shovel beef stew into her mouth like a half-starved person, while still looking graceful and feminine. Didn’t make a damn bit of sense.

And then her eyes caught his in the act of staring, but they were wide, startled. She swallowed hard and said, “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Shh!” She held up a hand, tilted her head to one side.

Romano listened, and in a second he heard it, too. The distinct sound of footfalls in the wet snow. His muscles tensed, and before he was aware of moving, his gun was in his hand. Lexi moved only enough to crank a window very slightly open.

The sounds came more clearly then. Closer. A few steps, then silence, then a few more steps. Someone was creeping up on them.

Romano looked into her eyes. Big mistake. She was terrified, and it made a lump come into his throat. Made his stomach clench. “Don’t be scared, Lexi, you’ll get your heart going again.” His thoughts should have been on other things. Like surviving a sneak attack, not comforting a scared woman. “I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you. Promise.”

Stupid, making promises he knew damned well he might not be able to keep. And she wasn’t much better, because she actually looked as if those words eased her mind. As if she believed him, trusted him to protect her.

Sure, just like Wendy and my sons did once.

He closed his eyes to block out thoughts like that. This was no place for them. Slowly he got up, reaching to douse the lights so he wouldn’t be perfectly silhouetted when they opened the door. “Put on my jacket, just in case you have to run.”

He heard the denim brushing over her as she complied. Then she was beside him, near the door. “I’ll step out first,” he told her. “You come out behind me, but as soon as your feet hit the ground, slip around behind the camper. I’m pretty sure there’s only one of them. If anything happens to me, run down toward town. Okay?”

“No.”

He froze with his hand on the doorknob, turned to study the shape of her face in the shadows.

“I’m not going anywhere if something happens to you. You might … need me.”

Those two words, need me, came out on a trembling breath. Unsteady. As if they were inordinately important.

Oh, great, something more about her for his mind to insist on analyzing while he knew he ought to be planning this mission. Just what he needed.

“If I tell you to run, you’d damn well better run,” he told her. He thought she nodded, but wasn’t sure. The footfalls drew nearer, got louder.

Romano flung the camper door open and lunged through it, landing in the deep snow with his gun leveled at where the sounds had come from. And at that moment, the storm clouds skittered away from the full moon, giving him a clear glimpse of the intruder as it leapt away. A white-tailed deer with antlers that resembled a coat rack.

He was still trying to unclench his muscles when Lexi’s laughter came through the crisp cold air like the clearest bell ringing from the steeple of a country church.

He turned, battling a sheepish grin of his own that refused to be contained. “Oh, so you think that’s funny?”

She stood in front of the camper, nodding hard. “Of course not,” she managed to say. “I’m just overcome with gratitude that you saved me from that killer buck.”

Romano stuffed the gun into the waistband of his jeans to free his hands. Then he scooped up a snowball and let her have it. Splat! Dead center of her forehead.

Her laughter came to an abrupt stop about the time his began in earnest. “Why you …”

She squatted to arm herself for retaliation, but he ran before she could launch the first volley. He got pegged twice in the back as he ducked behind the camper. Then he jumped out again and got her in the chest.

She fired three at him, one after the other, and he took one in the face before he had a chance to weave out of the line of fire.

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