Page 56 of Waiting For A Girl Like You
“That doesn’t mean anything!” she spat out, close to becoming hysterical. “Not a damn thing!”
Extracting himself from her death hold, the kayak sloshed about under them. “It means I can arrest him.”
“How? You’re not a fucking agent anymore,” she snapped. “And how are you going to get over there? Swim? If your gun gets wet, it won’t work.”
“Yes, it will.” He went for the side, arching up on his feet to slip right off into the water. “Now, call Rowan.”
He would do it, and she wouldn’t be able to stop him. Always the hero, the drive to do what was right would override any argument, and Liam would swim right over there and try to capture both men.
But in her mind, the entire scenario showed him failing and dying for his efforts. It showed her how he would sneak onto the shore to ambush Emmett and Bruce, but at the same time expose himself and essentially lose the upper hand.
“No, I will not!”
Her shout bounced around the silence, sending all manner of birds catapulting into the sky. The cranes fishing near them fluttered past with the rest of the avian army, ghosts hovering low over the green foam until hitting the tree line to rise higher.
With wide eyes, Liam froze, half in and half out of the boat, his head snapping toward Bruce and Emmett.
“Do not move,” he breathed.
Never one to listen, Jamison turned her head at an achingly slow pace, heart pounding as she peeked at the shore.
Emmett was watching the cranes scatter into the sky, but Bruce… Bruce had a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun and was staring straight at the batch of cypress trees they were hiding behind.
She pressed her lips together, holding her breath as if he could hear it. The way sound carried over the water, even a whisper might betray them.
They stayed in their positions for what felt like an eternity, and then, surprising them, Bruce broke out into a wide grin. “Come here,” he shouted, glancing back at the shack. “You’ve got to see this.”
For one horrible second, Jamison thought he was speaking to them. But Bruce turned to shout in the opposite direction, waving an arm.
“Look at these birds. There are hundreds of them.”
A third man emerged from the shack. Tall and lean, he had sandy brown hair and a face that could be described as handsome. On his shoulders sat a little girl. She pointed at the birds flying overhead, her expression sweet and happy.
Jamison’s blood turned to ice, her lungs collapsing inward.
Madison.
Bubbly, beautiful, and the apple of Claudia’s eye, Madison.
Liam dropped into a sitting position in the kayak as if the air had been knocked from his chest. “Oh my God.”
Her hand searched blindly for his and squeezed it with white-knuckled urgency. “Why is Claudia’s fiancé—and her daughter—with Bruce?”
“I don’t…” Liam’s face lost all its color. “I don’t know.”
Her heart pounded with such force she thought it might burst. The roar in her ears drowned out everything else, and dark spots freckled her vision.
And then came the whispering.
Carried on the wind, it warned her not to linger, and the closer it came, the more she felt as if she might truly vomit. It was just like the night Michael Sinclair came to Haven House. The night he tried to take her, and the shadows in the forest whispered their warnings.
But then it got so much worse.
The whispering grew louder, telling her they shouldn’t be here. Demanding that theygo. Leave. Don’t look back.
Unable to tear her eyes from the shore, she watched Madison squeal with laughter, pointing to the sky as Parker played along, naming the birds. He looked relaxed and obviously not threatened by Bruce and Emmett.
The whispering grew sharper. Louder. A shriek in her mind, clawing at her sanity.
