Even though she’d come up with the hastily explained idea herself, Alessandra still wanted to hold her breath as they put it into action. With each movement, she was sure Jesse would somehow figure out what they were up to. He hadn’t gotten as far as he had in his criminal enterprises because he was a fool.
But we’re being careful, she reminded herself.
And they were. Almost painfully slow, when it really felt like something should be happening quickly. Shots should be ringing. Shouted threats should be flying. Hostile negotiations, maybe. But there was none of that. The only sound was the ongoing car alarm, and Alessandra was already so used that particular unpleasantness that it almost felt normal to hear it.
And there really wasn’t much of a way to speed things up, anyway. Not if they didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that their movements had purpose.
Brayden still held watch over the rear of the car, while Rush and Alessandra had been inching their way toward the front—and more importantly, toward the ditch. And as they did their thing, Alessandra’s dad was waiting to get to work on carefully opening the front passenger-side door.
“Alessandra?”
Her name was an urgent hiss from ahead, and she realized Rush had crawled forward again. Inhaling, she closed the three-inch gap between them. Then she waited as he made a new gap. She closed it. Then again. And again.
Hurry, hurry, Alessandra thought, even though she knew it wasn’t an option.
The nearly flat tires meant there was little space between the undercarriage of the car and the ground, but Rush had said he was still worried that Garibaldi might be able to see something. And there was no room for taking chances.
Alessandra breathed out as they finished crossing the path of the door. From behind, she heard her dad shuffle, and she knew he was repositioning himself. Next came a light click as he found the handle and lifted it. And even though she knew it couldn’t possibly have been audible from where Jesse was, she still tensed. She braced for the impending squeak or a rusty squeal—a noise that might actually carry—but there was nothing.
“Alessandra?”
This time, hearing her name made her realize she’d closed her eyes. She dragged them open. Rush was already at the ditch now—already in it, to be more accurate—and he was looking expectantly up at her. He was on his knees. He had to be, in order to avoid being seen over the top of the front end of the car. A hysterical giggle threatened, and Alessandra had to push her lips against each other to keep from letting it out.
Keep it together, she ordered silently.
She gave herself a mental headshake and moved forward. This was the spot where she had to exercise extra caution. The front end of the car was only a couple of feet long, and any miscalculation of the space could expose then.
But that’s not going to happen, she told herself.
As she settled back and swung her legs around, Rush’s hands landed on her knees.
“You okay?” he murmured.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Your shoulder?”
“Stings. But it’s not bothering me.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“All right. It’s a little awkward getting in. It’s only about three feet deep, so bend your legs as you slide forward or else you’ll wind up standing straight up.” He smiled reassuringly. “We don’t want that, do we?”
She couldn’t quite smile back. Her heart was thumping too hard. And she barely managed to answer in a steady voice. “Okay. I’m ready.”
But when he slid forward, she discovered that she wasn’t quite as prepared as she’d claimed. Or maybe Rush wasn’t quite ready. Because as Alessandra pushed over the lip of the ditch, she lost her balance, slammed straight into him and flattened him to the bottom of the ditch.
Rush’s chuckle filled her ear. “You know that before I met you, I’d never once been stuck in a hole with a girl. But with you... I guess I should prepare for a lifetime of it.”
She pulled back, prepared to find his mouth curved up with amusement and a teasing sparkle in his familiar brown eyes. Instead, what she found was utter seriousness.
A lifetime.
It was crazy. Impossible. Over-the-top, Ken-and-Barbie stuff. But it was true nevertheless. She wanted a lifetime with this mud-spattered man. She couldn’t remember at all why she’d been holding back on expressing her feelings. Or why she’d asked him to do the same.
She opened her mouth to say as much, but Brayden’s boots suddenly hit the ground on the other side of Rush’s head, and then a noisy mechanical groan overrode both her words and her thoughts.
Rush dropped a curse. Not because Brayden jumped down near their heads and sent a splash of mud in his face. Not because the blue sedan tipped forward into the ditch near their feet, or even because the crash was too close for comfort. No. Those things were a minor inconvenience. The source of his swearing was the fact that he was damned sure that Alessandra had been about to say the three little words he longed to hear. The words he was holding in at her request. The words he’d never thought about any other woman, and which he was certain he’d never say to another. And the stupid car had ruined it all by cooperating and doing exactly what they’d planned for it to do.
Dammit all to hell. Can we just reverse time for, like, two minutes?
“Rush!”
Alessandra’s urgent, whispered cry drew him back to the moment. She was clambering to a sitting position.
“Where’s my dad?” she asked.
The idea had been simple. Randall was meant to put the car in Neutral and give it a nudge. The moment the vehicle started to move, Brayden was supposed to jump into the ditch with Alessandra’s dad right behind. The crash that followed was intended to draw Garibaldi’s attention, and the empty space they’d left behind would make him bold enough to expose himself.
But if Randall isn’t where he’s supposed to be...
Rush pushed himself up and whipped his gaze to the side. The car had done its bit and created a noisy distraction, and it now sat at a crazy angle, half in, half out of the ditch, its rear end sticking up. Harley and Brayden were exactly where they were supposed to be. Alessandra’s father, on the other hand, really was nowhere to be seen.
Cursing again, Rush grabbed the edge of the ditch and leaned forward. He immediately spied the problem. Randall Rivers hung from the inside of the car. His hips and legs dangled out while his torso was sprawled over the passenger-side floor. He had his left arm bent awkwardly up, his hand flailing on the edge of the seat. On the right side, only his shoulder was visible, but it was obvious that he had the rest of his arm extended. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the other man was stuck. It took even less of a genius to conclude that at any moment Garibaldi would see him. Possibly take aim. Anderson would fire back, but it wouldn’t do much good if Garibaldi hit Randall first.
Rush had no choice but to act fast.
He tightened his hands on the ground, yanked himself to his feet and propelled his body out of the ditch. He heard Alessandra call his name, but he didn’t have time to turn and assuage her fears. He didn’t even have time to turn and look at her. Seconds were the difference between Randall living and Randall dying. And the difference between two other things, too—starting his life with Alessandra with her father’s death hanging over them, or starting it with her father walking her down the aisle. It wasn’t even a choice. It had to be the latter.
Rush darted over the packed dirt and positioned himself beside the older man.
“You shouldn’t be out here,” Randall said right away.
“Neither should you,” Rush countered. “So why don’t you tell me what the problem is, so we can both get back to safety?”
“Sleeve’s stuck on the gas pedal. Can’t reach it with my other hand.”
“Not for long.”
Rush slid his own hand up to the sleeve and pedal in question. A quick yank, and Randall dropped to the ground. But they no sooner ducked and turned to run toward the ditch than three rapid-fire bullets hit the ground where their feet had just been. As they smacked the mud, Rush waited for the answering fire to come from Anderson. Instead, it was his friend’s voice that carried to him.
“Garibaldi wants me to tell you he has some questions. He’d like you to file out, one at a time, with your hands on your head. And he’d like Alessandra to come first,” he announced. “But if you want to just shoot him and let me die, I promise not to haunt you over it.”
A kicked-in-the-gut feeling hit Rush immediately, but he made himself answer in an even voice. “That last bit’s not a terrible offer.”
“That’s why I made it,” Anderson replied. “Always called me Mr. Nice Guy, didn’t you?”
“You earned it, fair and square,” he called back.
Rush turned to the group in the ditch, hoping one of them would give him an indication that they were planning something. Harley had his hand on his sheathed gun and Brayden had his weapon drawn, but each of them gave him a quick headshake. Alessandra was standing close to her father, and Rush was grateful that the older man had a supportive hand on her arm.
Garibaldi’s angry voice cut in. “If you’re trying to buy some time...don’t bother. In T minus thirty seconds, I’ll shoot your blond friend. Then I’ll shoot whoever comes out next. And I’ll keep shooting until I can’t shoot anymore.”
Rush gritted his teeth and ignored the twist in his heart. He couldn’t send Alessandra out, but he couldn’t just let Anderson die, either. Garibaldi wasn’t bluffing. He had Rush stuck. And there was no doubt that the other man not only knew it, but was enjoying it, too.
Garibaldi’s next words—cheerful and threatening at the same time—confirmed it. “By my count, we’re down to twenty seconds now.”
“I’m coming!” Alessandra yelled suddenly.
Then—before Rush could process that she truly meant to do it—Alessandra ripped her arm free from her father’s grasp and climbed out of the ditch.
And Rush was filled with a sudden vision of how it would go. He knew what Garibaldi’s plan was. He knew why he wanted Alessandra to step out. The other man was going to shoot her on sight, because he knew it would cripple Rush and send things spiraling in his favor.
Rush couldn’t let it happen. He leaped from the ditch and bolted, Alessandra’s safety overriding everything else, self-preservation included. He reached her just as she stepped into the open. Vaguely, Rush was aware of other things. Like the fact that Anderson was lying on the ground, his eyes rolled back in his head. And like the fact that the distant wail of a very belated siren was blaring in the distance. But it was all secondary. The only thing that really mattered was Garibaldi and the way he was lifting his gun and taking aim.
Rush had no choice. He had to dive in, even if that meant becoming a human shield.
The air cracked with the echo of a single shot, and Rush’s body fell to the ground in a heap. Alessandra couldn’t stop a scream from erupting from her throat. It came out raw and full of emotion. A sharp contrast to the sudden lifelessness of her heart. Because without Rush, it had no real reason to beat.
Leadenly, she stepped forward. Then stalled. There was blood on the ground under Rush’s head, and his eyes were closed. And she wasn’t sure she could bear confirming what the evidence told her was true. The only man she’d ever loved had just taken a fatal shot. For her.
Chaos erupted around her. Harley and Brayden had surged out of hiding and were rushing in Jesse’s direction. Alessandra’s father was saying her name. Anderson was sitting up, a hand on his head. And a sobbing, wailing sound was coming from everywhere.
Not everywhere, said a voice in her head. From you.
She realized it was true. She was crying so hard that she was sure her chest had to be about to cave in. Her throat burned. But she couldn’t stop the noise from coming. Just like she couldn’t stop herself from collapsing to her knees as a stark reality hit her.
Over the last day and a half, she’d changed. Her world had exploded in the worst way. Yet somehow, in all of that, the things that really should’ve been most important—like the loss of her livelihood and the realization that someone she’d known her whole life was a murderer and the fact that her long-dead father was alive—came in second place. Because she’d found something more important. Something she hadn’t even known she was looking for. He was the other half of her whole. And now he was gone. Before she could even tell him how she felt.
I love you.
“I love you.”
Alessandra blinked, surprised to hear the words aloud. It took her a full ten seconds to process that it wasn’t her own voice that had said them in the thick, needy way. It took another five to realize it sounded an awful lot like Rush. And she blinked again, thinking she’d fallen off into the abyss of Crazytown.
Alessandra’s gaze slid over Rush’s body. He was still pale and unmoving. Painfully lifeless. From his mud-covered jeans to his gun-holding fist to his closed eyes, there was no sign that he was drawing breath, let alone that he’d spoken. Alessandra’s lids sank shut. But then the declaration came again, and it was too real to be an auditory hallucination.
“I love you, Red. And if you don’t say it back now, I think you might never say it at all.”
Her eyes flew open, and she found the impossible. Brown irises, staring back at her. Waiting.
“Rush,” she breathed. “If you’re only alive in my imagination, I’m going to kill you all over again.”
His mouth twitched. “Did you hear what I said?”
She swallowed. “That you love me.”
“And...”
“I swear to God, if—”
“Red.”
“What?”
“I’m alive.”
Tears spilled over, and she dived forward to press her head to his chest. His breaths were even and steady.
“Jesse shot you,” she whispered.
“Actually, love, I think I shot him,” he corrected, lifting the gun a little off the ground.
“But your head is bleeding everywhere.”
“Banged it pretty hard, I think. Head wounds and all that.”
She started to sit up. “I’ll get your partners to call the paramedics.”
His hand shot out and closed on her wrist. “Red?”
“What?”
“I’m still waiting.”
“Oh.”
“Well?”
Alessandra hesitated, suddenly nervous. “Every time I think it, something goes wrong.”
Rush frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I think ‘hey...this feels like forever’...and then the world implodes in helicopters and shootings and falling into holes.”
She waited for him to protest. Or argue. She even wanted him to do both. But his mouth twitched instead.
Then he turned his head a little and yelled, “Hey, Brayden!”
The reply was immediate. “What’s up?”
“Is it over?”
“Yeah, man. Hard to believe. But I think it is.”
“Thanks.” Rush’s chocolate gaze sought Alessandra again. “See? There you have it. My man Brayden never lies. He’s far too Goody-Two-shoes for that. Case closed.”
She stared down at him. At the face that she hadn’t even known existed until two days earlier. Less than two days earlier. She thought of the way her mom’s eyes looked when she’d talked about true love and just knowing. And she knew, without a doubt, that the same sparkle had to be in her own.
“I love you, too, Rush,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.
He grinned. “Thank God. Now about that doctor...”