Kristen choked on the scream she tried to swallow. The men had caught up with them too quickly, too easily. She and Nick weren’t anywhere near far enough from the shore. They weren’t anywhere near enough to the other side of the lake.
“What do we do?” she cried.
No sense in being quiet. The men knew where they were.
“Paddle faster,” Nick said.
He dipped his paddle deeply into the water.
Kristen tried to imitate the movement. Her shoulders felt like they were wrenching from their sockets with the effort. She thought she was strong. Paddling a canoe through a lake with men and guns behind them on the shore made her feel as weak as an infant.
To emphasize their power, those men fired their guns again. Across the water, the sound magnified, echoing around the open space. Surely someone would hear. Surely someone would investigate.
Or maybe not in the Wisconsin woods. Maybe firing guns in the middle of the night was normal. Kristen didn’t know. The closest she got to woods was walking beneath the trees in parks. No one shot guns in parks.
She glanced over her shoulder to see how much progress the canoe had made. Not much. To her, they seemed to be sitting still in the water.
The men weren’t sitting still. They had climbed to the deck of the empty cottage. Two flashlights gleamed like staring eyes trying to pierce the darkness beyond the range of their beams.
Kristen and Nick were outside the flashlights’ range, but the silver aluminum of the canoe glowed in the moonlight. Her hair must be glowing too. The part of her she considered her best feature, her prettiest feature, was now her downfall. First the strand on the branch had alerted the man on the trail where to look for them. Now she shined in the dark like her own beacon.
Another gun fired. Not a pistol. Pistol bounds weren’t all that great. But this was a rifle. Kristen might not know about firearms usage in the woods, but she knew the firearms themselves. Her boss had taken her to a firing range so she could understand the power of the weapons that too often harmed her clients.
They would have to paddle much faster to outrun a bullet from a rifle.
One round splashed into the lake mere inches from the canoe.
“Duck,” Nick called.
“I can’t paddle if I duck.”
“Never mind. Just duck.”
Never mind because her paddling was useless.
But Kristen didn’t argue. She curled up on the bottom of the boat and clenched her teeth so they wouldn’t chatter. Each breath was an effort.
A ping echoed off the seat where she’d been sitting. If she’d still been there—
A whimper like a lonely puppy’s burst from her before she could stop it.
Another bullet hit the canoe without Kristen having any power to stop it. The round fell short of the seat and cut through the hull half a foot from Kristen’s toes.
This time, she couldn’t hold back the scream.
“Are you hit?” Nick’s voice was taut.
“No, but there’s water gushing in.”
“Better than you being hit.” Nick lifted his oar from the water. “Can you swim?”
“Of course.”
“Then we’re going into the water. Grab your paddle and stand. I want to tip the canoe over.”
“I will if I can stand up.”
She wasn’t sure she could. The boat was unstable, worse with water oozing through the hole in the bottom.
Nick held out his hand. “Take my hand.”
Gladly. He had broad, firm hands with long, strong fingers. He gripped her hand and hauled her to her feet. She clutched the paddle in her other hand. He gripped the other paddle in his. Together, they leaped into the lake. As the icy water closed over Kristen’s head, she heard more gunfire.
The paddles drew them back to the surface with their buoyancy. Not a great deal of support, but enough to help keep them afloat so they could kick and kick and kick, heedless of the splashing or the wake of their passing. They simply wanted to get out of firing range as fast as possible.
To Kristen, the water began to feel as thick as gelatin, her legs as heavy as lead pipes. Though she knew doing so was probably foolish, she toed off her sneakers and allowed them to sink to the bottom of the lake. The absence of the soaked shoes lightened her legs, making kicking easier.
She longed for a raft she could simply lie on and float, for sunshine to warm her instead of the too-cool night breezes chilling her.
But she wouldn’t mind Nick’s hand to hold again.
She shouldn’t think such a thing. He was all wrong for her. He had missed dinner with his sister. What if he were married and that was his child’s recital he missed?
Crises happened in most jobs, incidents that compelled one to work late, but not as often as in law enforcement, not as important either, things that couldn’t be put off for the next day to take time out for family.
Law enforcement and the law like her parents.
At least the denial of her moments of attraction to Nick distracted her. They had swum a hundred yards from shore. The shooting had ceased. Beams of light from the beach suggested the men walked around it, perhaps seeking another form of water transport.
Nick paused and pumped his legs to keep in place. “We need to get ashore. I don’t think either of us can swim all the way across the lake.”
“I’m sure I can’t.” Kristen could barely move her legs anymore. She could scarcely feel them. “I didn’t know the water was still this cold in June.”
“It was a late spring this year. It’ll be cold all summer if this lake is deep.”
“So which way do we go?”
Nick glanced around, though the moon had ducked behind clouds and the predawn hours were nearly light-free. “North.”
“Which way is north?”
“To our left.”
“How in the world do you know that?”
Nick touched her cheek, warming it, though she knew his fingers must be cold from the water. “I know how to read the sky for directions. Now let’s go.”
They turned. They swam. They encountered an islet, little more than a sandbar, and paused to rest. Kristen wanted to stretch out and sleep on the twenty square feet or so of sand and rocks and some scrubby bushes. But they needed to keep running from the man who wanted her to give him information about Raven Kirkpatrick. The woman’s father.
The memory of the young woman made her feel as though the lake had invaded her veins, replacing her warm blood with the chilly water. She couldn’t give him any information. She couldn’t risk the girl’s life that way.
Was any client worth dying for?
She didn’t want to find out how she would answer that question, or if she and Nick would die. They needed to get away now, report Robert Kirkpatrick as the man who had engineered the abduction, a man out on bond while awaiting trial, and move Raven to another safe place, one about which Kristen knew nothing to tell.
Which was why she was sure, and guessed Nick also recognized, the men would kill them—because they knew too much. No return of her person had ever been planned. The men intended to take Kristen, extract information, then kill her.
On her feet before she realized what she was doing, Kristen raced to the far side of the islet and into the lake. “Let’s go.”
“Careful.” Nick caught up with her.
They waded into the water until it grew deep enough for swimming. Then they struck out for the north shore of the lake a million miles away. Or maybe only a quarter mile away but seemed like a million or two. Kristen’s arms and legs had ceased feeling like lead pipes and now resembled rubber bands—floppy and useless. She needed all her concentration to push through the water. Right. Left. Right.
Her foot struck bottom. She dug her toes into the oozing sand and lowered her other leg. The bottom. Shallower water. She could walk, difficult through water, but easier than swimming.
Beside her, Nick did the same. He gripped her hand again and they trudged to shore where a tree-lined ledge met the water instead of beach. Kristen released Nick and tried to haul herself onto dry land, but her arms gave way and she splashed into the water.
“If I may?” Nick climbed onto the ledge, then held out his hands.
“Please.”
He lifted her out of the water high enough she could kneel on the ground. “I hope there isn’t any poison ivy around here.”
“Me too.” Nick kneeled before her. “I hate to tell you this, but I don’t think there are any cottages or cabins around here for sure.”
“Shocking.” Kristen yawned. “A lake that hasn’t had its shoreline developed to death with houses.”
“I think it’s too small for much development.”
“Does that mean we can sleep somewhere without people finding us?”
Nick hesitated a moment, then said, “That might not be a bad idea. Let me see what I can come up with for shelter. Wait here.”
He moved deeper into the woods. For a moment, Kristen’s breath caught in her throat, the familiar beginnings of panic at being left alone. “He’s coming back. He’s coming back.” She repeated the words to herself again and again.
They didn’t help. Before she knew what she intended, she had curled into a fetal position on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest and gasping for air.
“Kristen? Kristen, you’re all right.” A gentle hand stroked her wet hair from her face, then rested on her cheek, lightly caressing. “You’re all right. I’m here.”
The touch, the voice, the words soothed her. Her breathing slowed. Her heart ceased racing as though it needed to escape her rib cage. But she started to cry.
“Shh.” Nick kneeled on the ground in front of her and cradled her head against his shoulder, letting her weep out her fear and worry and guilt. He murmured gentle words of encouragement like “Let it out” and “We’ll be all right.”
She appreciated the former. She didn’t believe the latter. She needed to cry to ease the emotions bottled inside her. The rest, however, neither of them could know for certain. She didn’t know if anyone was all right. Her mother, her father, even Nick’s family could be in danger. And she knew that she and Nick were far from out of the woods—literally and figuratively.
The little joke replaced the next sob with a chuckle, and the tears began to dry.
“What’s funny?” Nick asked.
“I was thinking we’re not out of the woods yet.”
“Nice one.” Nick groaned. “But we’re probably fortunate for that. The woods give us plenty of places to hide.”
“I hope so.”
“Come. I found a place where you can get a little sleep.” Nick took her hands in his and hauled her to her feet.
Kristen followed him along a narrow, twisting trail that had probably been used by more deer than humans, and showed her a woodland bower beneath the spreading branches of a pine. Those branches drooped to the ground, forming a “room” beneath.
“Your boudoir, madam.” Nick lifted several of the fragrant limbs.
Kristen crawled through the gap in foliage and welcomed the soft carpet of fallen needles. “I doubt I’ll sleep, but it’ll be nice not to be walking or swimming. But what about you?”
“I’ve got my own shelter a few yards away. I’ll be close enough to hear you if you have trouble, but far enough away to give you privacy.”
So considerate, so thoughtful that she might need some time alone. And he hadn’t freaked when she cried. The benefits of a man with sisters.
As if she needed to think about Nick Sandoval’s benefits. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”
“I think I’m the one who dove into this.”
She smiled at his joke, then sobered. “Seriously. I should have listened and not gone off on my own.”
“It’s done, Kristen. You can’t undo the past. You can only move on with the future.” He laughed, though she didn’t know why, and squeezed her hand. “Try to sleep.”
She didn’t think she could, but sheer fatigue overcame the discomfort of her battered feet and aching limbs, and she dozed off remembering how nice Nick’s arms felt wrapped around her.
He’d only been comforting her. Nothing more. He was treating her like one of his sisters, probably an annoying one always causing him trouble. Still, she couldn’t deny his kindness.
Or the fact that her feelings for him weren’t exactly sisterly.
She smiled in her sleep and dreamed of a Fourth of July celebration with fireworks shooting brilliant stars and flowers and flags into the air.
She awoke gasping for breath with the realization the fireworks of her dream were, in wakeful reality, gunshots.
Nick lay motionless beneath a fallen log, the best shelter he had found for himself not too far from Kristen, and listened to the crackle of distant gunfire. He thought it came from the lake but had no idea what anyone would be shooting at dawn. Maybe their pursuers thought they saw him and Kristen. Shadows played tricks on tired men with quick fingers on their triggers.
The shooting could be as innocent as someone target practicing. At dawn that seemed unlikely, but people took odd notions of what they wanted.
Whatever the source, he and Kristen needed to assume the worst and get moving. They had been in one place for too long. They needed to find shelter and a form of communication.
Nick rolled from beneath the log and stood. He brushed down his clothes as best he could and headed down the narrow path to Kristen’s shelter. Each step hurt his essentially bare feet. Every rock in Wisconsin seemed to dig into his heels. At least Kristen had her sneakers. Her feet didn’t need any more assault than they had already suffered and he doubted he possessed the energy to carry her far without any form of nourishment for nearly sixteen hours.
Not concerned anyone would hear him above the singing of the birds, he whistled as he approached Kristen so she wouldn’t be frightened. “It’s me,” he announced.
She poked her head through a gap in the branches. “I feel like a porcupine.”
The corners of Nick’s lips twitched.
She rather resembled one with pine needles poking from her hair like quills.
“Don’t laugh. I’m humiliated enough.” She brushed the tangled golden mass away from her face, her skin as white as fresh snow. “Was that gunfire?”
“Yep.” He held out his hands. “Let me help you up.”
“Is it those men after us?” Her eyes were huge and dark in the pale light.
“I don’t know, but we need to get moving in case it is.”
She took his hands and rose, her teeth sinking into her lower lip. He hoped she wasn’t about to cry again. He didn’t run from weeping females, not with two sisters, but neither did he like to see women upset enough to cry. He wanted to make the world all better for them, and right then, he couldn’t make much better for Kristen.
He wouldn’t think about how nice holding her felt. Neither was it the time to think about how well her head nestled against his shoulder.
“Let’s go, then.” She tugged on his hand and began to walk, back straight, ponytail fanning out in curls and tangles and a collection of pine needles like some elaborate hairdo for a costume.
He wanted to find a hairbrush, remove the band holding her hair up, and brush it smooth for her, feel the silkiness of each long strand as it ran through his fingers.
He needed to get them to a form of communication and safety before he lost all reason where she was concerned.
“Which direction should we take?” Kristen asked at a Y in the path.
Any direction away from the one I’m thinking with you.
“Right,” he said aloud. “We want to skirt the lake but keep inland enough we can’t be seen.”
Especially if those men were still waiting for them along the shoreline. Around the shoreline.
He wondered if they should head in a different direction instead of seeking for occupied houses on the south side of the lake. The pursuers might be there already. They could tell anyone in the cottages a story about Kristen and Nick being fugitives from the law.
But he had no idea in which direction they could go to find people. Far enough east, they would reach Lake Michigan, but how far? They could be dozens of miles from the coast.
Nick walked along behind Kristen, ears open for sounds of people, either friend or foe. He couldn’t hear much above the birds and wind in the trees. The chilly wind smelled damp. By now, the sun should have brightened the sky beyond the branches. It hadn’t. The sky remained gray, sultry. Rain was coming. They needed to find shelter quickly or they would be soaked a second time. A third time for Nick. His clothes still felt clammy from the swim. Baggy in the knees and itchy. Kristen must feel as bad or worse. Her feet certainly must be hurting her. Rocks protruded between the layers of moldering leaves and pine needles. Stepping on those rocks hurt.
He glanced down to watch for stones and noticed one was smeared with red, with blood. Fresh blood.
Through her shoes.
He looked and saw she no longer wore her sneakers.
“Kristen?” He put out a hand and grasped her shoulder, halting her.
She glanced back, eyes huge and rimmed with dark circles of fatigue. “Yes?”
“You lost your shoes.”
“I couldn’t keep swimming in them, so I kicked them off.”
“And now your feet are bleeding. Don’t they hurt?”
She nodded.
“Why didn’t you say something?” Nick began to think of how he could bandage her feet.
She shrugged. “What good would it do? It’s not like we’d stop and change direction for an urgent care center.”
“No, but I could bandage them.”
“With what?”
He looked at himself. His clothes were filthy. Wrapping wounds in anything he might manage to tear from his shirt or pants could do more harm than leaving the wounds open to the air.
He sighed. “Good point.” He touched her cheek. It was smooth and cool like some kind of special cloth; the smooth stuff Gina’s wedding dress had been made of. Not silk. Too flimsy. Satin. That was it—delicate but strong. “I’m sorry you have to go through this.”
“Why are you apologizing? I did this.” She turned her back on him and resumed walking.
He followed, not knowing what to say. She was right. She had gone off on her own and gotten captured by those men, but he had followed her into the river instead of calling for assistance.
“I didn’t have to jump in the river after you. I could have called for help,” he said at last.
“And who knows what would have happened to me.”
Only God knew what would happen to them now.
“We need to find a stream or river,” Nick changed the subject with noticeable abruptness. “Running water will cleanse your feet.”
“How do we do that?”
“We listen.”
Running water was going to be coming from the sky if the glowering clouds were any indication. They could be in outright danger if lightning accompanied the rain.
All they could do was keep moving. Moving forward. Seeking shelter.
They walked in silence for a quarter hour, listening to the gurgle of flowing water. Then Kristen paused and glanced back to him.
“Should you have called for help instead of jumping in the river after me?”
“I did.” He may as well be honest.
“Are you in trouble?”
“I was ordered to stick close to you and bring you into protective custody as soon as possible.”
“My nanny.” She sighed and trudged on.
He followed, trying to concentrate on picking up signals from their surroundings rather than thinking about what Callahan would say to him. Nick was supposed to bring Kristen in, not follow her through the Wisconsin woods. Callahan wouldn’t care how difficult keeping her to safety was. The US marshal would have nothing nice to say. And if the judge hadn’t been released, probably lots of harsh words instead. Getting Kristen back safe and sound would help.
He hoped. He prayed. He liked his job.
Sir, he imagined his argument, I couldn’t let those men take her in front of me when I had a chance to stop them. I know I didn’t stop them, but here she is safe and sound.
He glanced at her limping stride and added, Mostly sound.
So far, they had avoided getting riddled with bullets.
But they couldn’t avoid the rain. It began as a smattering of drops seeping through the canopy of leaves overhead and progressed to a deluge pouring upon them like someone had turned on a thousand garden hoses.
They took shelter under the heaviest roof of leafy branches they found, Nick’s arm around Kristen for some semblance of warmth. Kristen hugged her arms across her chest and shivered, teeth chattering.
“Is thi-this J-June or M-March?” she asked.
“March.” Nick smiled.
Then, as abruptly as it began, the rain ceased, and the sun blazed down like August.
“Let’s find a clearing where we can warm in the sun.” Nick took Kristen’s hand, still cold, and headed toward a sound he thought might be the splash of water.
It was. They broke through the trees to find a stream no more than six feet wide, but deep after the deluge.
“Sit on the bank and put your feet in the water,” Nick directed her.
She dropped to the muddy edge, slid her feet in and gasped. “That’s cold.”
Nick sat beside her and dropped his own feet into the water. She was right. The water felt like snow runoff. But the sun warmed them. It warmed the flies and mosquitos too. They swarmed Nick and Kristen like they were a banquet ready to be consumed.
Kristen swatted them away. “This is why my mom never wanted an outdoor kind of vacation. She hates insects. If the tiniest fly gets into the house, she doesn’t rest until it’s squashed.”
“We could do with some bug spray.”
They fell silent. Nick knew what he needed to ask Kristen, something that would appease Callahan and help solve the case. But she looked so tired and defeated he didn’t wish to disturb her.
He gave her time to rest and think, while he pulled off the shreds of his socks and examined his own feet. They were bruised and scratched but hadn’t sustained any serious damage. He would walk on what was left of his socks, the uppers, until he could obtain some shoes or flip-flops at the least.
He looked at Kristen’s feet in the water. The remnants of her bandages still encircled her ankles. If he removed those strips of gauze, he could wrap them on her feet to protect the cuts.
“May I move those bandages to your feet?” he asked.
She glanced down. “I forgot they were even there they’ve been on so long.” She moved back so her feet no longer dangled in the water, and pulled the wet gauze away from her skin. “These are kind of pathetic, but they will be better than nothing.” She handed him the gauze strips.
They were sodden and gray, but better than walking on bare, cut soles.
He sat cross-legged on the bank and lifted one of her feet onto his knee. A long scratch ran from her arch to her heel. He traced it with his fingertip, seeking the heat signaling infection brewing beneath the surface.
She jumped and giggled. “Sorry. That tickles.”
“I’ll try not to touch you again.”
The soles of her feet anyway. He wanted to touch her hand, her face, her lips.
Where had that idea come from? The last thing he needed to be doing was thinking of kissing Kristen Lang. It passed well beyond the bounds of propriety, of professional behavior. He wouldn’t think of such a thing again.
“So who is Raven Kirkpatrick?” he asked to set his mind firmly on important matters and not dangerous fantasies. “Besides the daughter of a dangerous man.”
“The daughter of a dangerous man.” Kristen ripped up several blades of grass. “If I say more, I’m breaking a confidence.”
“And client confidentiality?”
Kristen drew in a breath. “She’s not a client anymore, so anything since isn’t technically confidential.”
Nick wound gauze around her foot. “How will kidnapping you help this man?” Nick asked.
“He probably wants to stop her from testifying against him.”
“Do you know where she is?” He tied the ends around her big toe as though she were wearing thongs.
“I do. I also know her new name since I helped her get it.”
“Is she in the witness protection program?”
Kristen shook her head. “She didn’t qualify. But she’s nineteen and free to go where she likes.”
“But you gave her a new life anyway. And if those men catch you, they can force you, in probably unpleasant ways, to divulge this information.”
“Yes.”
“Why do they want it?”
“That’s getting into the confidentiality realm.”
“But I can presume that having her father find her wouldn’t be a good idea.”
“I can’t tell you what conclusions to draw.”
“Good enough.” Nick tied off the second bandage. “This should help.”
“Thank you.” She drew her legs back and started to rise.
“Careful. The bank’s soft here.” Nick cupped his hands beneath her elbows and lifted her to the solid ground.
And when they stood on the grass, with the sun pouring over them like lemon sauce and her eyes, bluer than the sky, gazing into his, he couldn’t bring himself to let her go. Too easily they could have died the night before. Too easily they could still die. But for that moment, they were alive and warm in the sweet-smelling, peaceful woods, and he wanted to celebrate that gift that might be all to fleeting.
“Will you think I’m awful if I tell you I want to kiss you?” he found himself asking.
Her eyes widened. Her lips parted. And she merely shook her head, her porcupine hairdo glinting in the sun.
He took the head shake and the parted lips as a no, she didn’t object, and cupped her face in his hands. For a moment, their eyes met, and then her lids dropped and Nick touched his lips to hers.