Page 18 of Critical Mass
The hull scraped the bottom with a sickening sound.
Then they were through, drifting into water barely deep enough to stay afloat.
He prayed he’d made the right choice.
CHAPTER
NINE
Behind them,Hudson heard shouting, then a grinding crunch as their pursuers hit the sandbar at full speed.
More shouting—angry this time, frustrated.
The men chasing them were stuck.
Hudson didn’t waste time celebrating. Instead, he lowered the motor back into the water and restarted the engine, keeping the throttle low as he navigated through the shallow channels.
The depth finder showed eighteen inches under the hull in places. One wrong turn and he and Natalie would be stranded too.
Natalie had collapsed against the side of the boat, her arms wrapped around herself, shivering violently. In the faint moonlight breaking through the clouds, her face was pale as death, her eyes wide with shock.
“Natalie,” he said. “We’re okay. They can’t follow us through here.”
She didn’t respond, didn’t even look at him.
She just stared at nothing, her entire body trembling.
His heart lurched into his throat.
He should have stopped things before they got this far. But now it was too late.
All he could do was try to keep her safe.
Natalie’s mind felt like static—white noise where coherent thoughts should be.
The boat had slowed. That much she could process.
The engine was quieter now, a low purr instead of that desperate scream.
Her body still shook, muscles locked in a terror response that wouldn’t let go even though the immediate danger seemed to have passed.
She was cold, so cold her teeth chattered. Her wet clothes clung to her skin like a frosty glaze. The breeze that had seemed pleasant at dinner now cut through her like knives.
Her mouth tasted awful—bile and saltwater and fear. Her throat burned. Her hands ached from gripping the deck so hard.
What was happening to her life?
This morning she’d woken up in her own bed, gone to work at Ravenscroft International, spent the afternoon reviewing press releases for a new shipping contract.
Everything had felt normal. Safe. Predictable.
Now she was on a stolen boat, soaked and shivering, having just been shot at by people she’d never seen before. And the man at the wheel—Hudson, not Timothy—had somehow navigated them away from the gunfire into . . . where?
She couldn’t see anything but darkness and the vague shapes of lumpy marsh grass on either side.
He’d saved them. That was undeniable.
Whatever else Hudson Roberts was or wasn’t, he’d gotten them away from those men with guns. The way he’d moved, theprecision of his driving, the calm in his voice even when bullets were flying—that wasn’t consulting.
