Thirty-eight

Kootenai Canyon, Montana

“I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Christina looked up and over at him from the driver’s seat of the Challenger. She looked terrified and exhilarated all at once and he tried not to laugh, he really did.

“Are you laughing at me?” She narrowed her eyes before aiming them out the windshield, delicate fingers wrapped around the steering wheel.

“What?” Michael cleared his throat. “No, I would never—”

“Because I’m only thirteen,” she sniffed at him. “I shouldn’t be driving.”

He swallowed another burst of laughter, angling his head a bit lower so she couldn’t see it. “Christina, I’m asking you to pull the car into the grass, not jump it over a dozen flaming school buses. You’ve done it a hundred times.”

“Yeah, with you in the car with me.” She glared at him for a moment before dropping one of her hands to the gearshift while she pressed the clutch into the floorboard. She gave him a long-suffering sigh. “Whatever. Move or I’m going to run you over.” She slipped it into first and eased off the clutch, exchanging it smoothly with the gas pedal. The Challenger inched forward, carried through the open barn door by the rumbling engine.

Like he’d been told, Michael stood straight, backing away from the car so she could guide it from the barn onto the grass in front of the house. She did perfectly, moving slowly, like he’d taught her. As soon as the Challenger was where he’d told her to put it, Christina shifted into neutral and cut the engine. She even set the emergency brake. But she didn’t get out of the car. She just sat there, staring straight ahead.

Michael closed the distance between the barn and the car. “You gonna pout all day or are you gonna pop the hood so we can—”

“There’re bug guts on the windshield.” She finally looked at him, her tone careful and even. “Why are there bug guts on the windshield?”

Shit.

“You left,” she said, dark brown gaze narrowed on him accusingly. “You left me. You left us.”

“Christina, I—”

“You said you wouldn’t do that,” she said, lunging out of the car to push past him.

“Just let me explain,” he said, voice raised louder than it should have been.

“Explain?” She turned on him, jabbing an accusatory finger in his face. “You said you wouldn’t leave.” He reached out to catch her arm but she yanked back before he could make contact. “You promised.”

“What was I supposed to do, Christina?” He finally caught her arm and she went still, turning on him, waiting for him to let her go. “She’s out there alone, and I—”

“Is that why Miss Ettie is here?” Christina said, her arm tense and heavy in his grip. “Just in case you decided that sticking around was too much of an imposition?”

“What?” He jerked back, his hand dropping away from her. “No.” He shook his head, sagging against the fender of the car. “You’re a kid, Christina. You don’t understand.”

“Then explain it to me,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Because the way I see it, Sabrina left us.”

“It’s not that simple,” he said, shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans while glaring at the toes of his boots. “All of this is my fault. All of it—the last four years of her life have been a waking nightmare and that’s because of me. I’m the one who brought her brother to her doorstep. I’m the one who brought it all to her doorstep. If I’d have left her alone, she’d still be in San Francisco. She’d still have her family. She’d be—”

“Bullshit.”

The curse jerked his head up and had him swinging his gaze toward her. She didn’t look like Christina anymore. Her jaw was set in silent challenge, her dark eyes wise and older than they had a right to be. She looked like Lydia. She looked like her mother. Seeing his lost friend in her daughter was suddenly too much.

“What?”

“You heard me,” she said, losing some of that hard-won nerve but still refusing to back down. “You act like she’s not capable of making her own choices. She knew what she was doing when she came here. And she understood what would happen if she left.”

No matter what she thought, there was still a lot Christina didn’t understand. A lot they’d chosen not to tell her. “Like I said, you’re a kid.” He pulled his hands from his pockets and straightened himself off the hood of the car. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand that you’re going to have to choose, Michael,” she said, her arms tightening against her frame, like she was afraid of what came next. “Her or me. You can’t keep your promises to both of us.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, kiddo,” he told her with a sad smile. “Because when she left she made me promise not to go after her. She made me promise to stay here, no matter what. I broke my promise to both of you.”

Her arms dropped away from her chest, her eyes filled with tears. “Then why—”

“Because I love her. Because I can’t just leave her. She’s in danger, every moment of every day—” Michael swiped a hand over his mouth. “And that is my fault. At least when she’s here, I can protect her …” He sighed. “I just made a phone call. That’s it. That’s all I did.” It was all he could do. The uselessness he felt chewed at his gut, making him want to throw up.

“A phone call?” She looked at him like he’d lost his mind, eyes wide with disbelief over his recklessness. “You used a phone?”

“It’s an old analog—practically untraceable. I was almost three hundred miles away before I turned it on and the call lasted less than two minutes. After I was finished, I wiped it down, destroyed it and tossed the pieces into a lumber truck headed for Idaho.” He forced a reassured smile onto his face. “And the person I called is just as careful, I promise.”

“Who?” she said quietly. “Who did you call?”

He thought of Phillip Song, struggling to find a way to describe him that wouldn’t make him sound like what he was—an alleged gangster. Possible drug lord. Probable murderer.

“Someone who can help her.”

She didn’t push it; instead she nodded, chewing on her lower lip. “She said the same thing, you know,” she said, fixing him with a look that said she finally understood. “That day the senator came, she put Alex and me in the lift by ourselves and I freaked out. She told me she loved you and couldn’t leave you. I was relieved that you wouldn’t be alone but I was scared too.” Tears stood out in her eyes and she gave them an irritated brush with her fingertips. “I know you and Sabrina would die for each other …”

“It’s not just me she’s willing to die for, Christina.” He reached out, pulling her into a hug. This time she let him. “Sabrina will do whatever it takes to keep you and Alex safe. She’s a fighter. Hiding isn’t in her nature.”

“It not in yours, either.” She said it against his chest, her hands gripped tightly against the thin cotton of his T-shirt. “That’s what scares me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, running a gentle hand over her sun-warmed hair. “I’m not going anywhere—not again. I’m keeping my promise to the both of you.”

She didn’t answer him. Didn’t say she believed him. Probably because she didn’t.