Page 25 of Hidden Shadows
Obsession… She had become someone’sobsession. Involuntarily, her breathing quickened, and her feet became unsteady.
“Hey.”
She turned her head toward Nixon too quickly, and her skate slipped. She yelped as air rushed over her skin. Scrunching her eyes, she expected her butt to hit the ice, but strong arms wrapped around her, catching her before she could fall. Then his warmth surrounded her.
She opened her eyes to find Nixon right in front of her, his big chest taking up her field of vision until she raised her gaze. Her lips parted at the sight of his mouth so close, eyes so intense.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a gruff voice.
She nodded, struggling to make words work. “Thank you. You reacted so quickly.” She’d barely recognized what was happening before he’d spun and grabbed her.
“Like I said, I’ve had a bit of practice.”
Finley wrapped her fingers around his upper arms, feeling his biceps contract. “I’ll, um, just get some footage and we can get off the ice.”
For a moment, he was quiet, and for once she didn’t mind. Because it was accompanied by his dark eyes on her. His gentle touch. Then he skated back a fraction, his hands on her hips. “Are you steady?”
Not even a little bit. “Yes.”
He nodded and released her, then returned to her side.
She forced the small tremble from her fingers as she took some footage with her phone. She filmed the rink around her, carefully avoiding any glimpse of Nixon, continuing to skate as she went. Twice more, she almost fell. Both times, he was there to grab her. Wrap his fingers around her arm and steady her. Every time he touched her, she had to remind herself to breathe. To keep the absolute flurry of emotions inside her from showing on her face.
When she was finally done, she breathed a sigh of relief that she was off the ice. She was not what one would call a physically gifted person. And any new skills took time to learn. Certainly a lot longer than the hour she’d been in skates.
After finding a seat, they both put their shoes back on. Then she took a few minutes to review the footage while Nixon watched the rink. The man was always watching the people around them. She couldn’t deny it made her feel safe.
Halfway through the video, something on the screen caught her attention.
She frowned, pausing the footage and zooming in on the trees in the background. A gasp slipped from her chest, and she shot to her feet. “Oh my God!”
Nixon was up and beside her in a moment. “What?”
Her gaze lifted from the phone to the exact spot in the woods. “Someone was behind the trees up there. And it looked like he was watching us.”
The words had barely left her mouth when there was movement in the woods.
A man stepped out from behind a tree, clear as day. He was too far away for her to see the features of his face, but he was wearing the same red jacket as in the video.
Nixon cursed and pushed her toward the ground. “Stay down.”
* * *
Nixon was runningbefore he could stop himself. He jumped the perimeter fence and sprinted toward the tree the asshole hid behind, the air whipping across his face as his feet sank into the snow.
When he saw the back of the guy weaving through the trees, Nixon forced his body to move faster. He couldn’t let this asshole escape.
Anger pummeled through his chest as he leapt over a tree stump. The guy had been staring right at her, and Nixon hadn’t noticed. He’d been so fixated on Finley and making sure she didn’t fall that he’d missed the threat.
When traffic sounded from a street in the distance, he swore under his breath and sped up again. It took too much time to reach the road, and once he did, he stopped, gaze searching for the asshole.
But he was gone.
Fuck.
He wanted to turn and punch his fist into a tree. To make the weight of his frustration over letting the man slip through his fingers drown in pain. The asshole had been right fuckingthere, yet he’d slipped away.
With gritted teeth, Nixon turned and jogged back to Finley, a new anxiety coiling in his chest that he’d left her alone for so long.
