Jill Shalvis - Head Over Heels

She managed a nod, and he opened the thing like it was a ticking bomb.

“Pocket,” she wheezed. “Inside pocket.”

Looking squeamish, he rooted past a lip gloss, a pack of birth control pills, and the latest Cosmo to get to the pocket. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he was muttering. “If I find a tampon in here, I’m going to hurt you.” He opened the pocket, plunged his hand in, and came out with a…“Argh!” He flung the tampon across the room like it was a hand grenade, and she was both laughing and sobbing for breath when he finally located her inhaler.

She took a long puff. Then another. It didn’t help fast enough, and she felt the licks of that familiar horrific panic gripping her. Lance stayed with her, holding her face. “In and out, baby, that’s all you gotta do. In and then out.”

Chloe caught enough breath to croak out a shaky joke. “That’s what she said,” she gasped, making Lance laugh.

After a few minutes, she’d caught her breath a little more and glared at him. “Okay, don’t you ever fucking say good-bye to me again.”

“How the hell is telling you that it’s okay to fall for someone saying good-bye?”

“It felt like a good-bye. God.” She felt the tears well up. Tears. She never cried. “Goddammit.”

Lance let go of her face and sat back on his heels. “Chloe,” he said softly. “You know it’s coming.”

“No, I don’t! And you can’t think like that!”

“I have to think like that.” When her phone vibrated, he rose to his feet a little shakily and reached out a hand for her. “But you don’t. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

She swallowed a sob, ignored his hand, and scrambled to her feet on her own. She read the text from Tara requesting some help. “I have to go,” she said. “Renee will be here soon. Call me if you need anything.” She refused to look at him as she shoved her inhaler in her pocket and ran out the door. She stepped off the cottage porch and wiped the tears from her eyes. It was all she could do to not drop down to the stairs and weep like a child. Clearly she hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep. She and Sawyer had turned to each other over and over again in the night like…like they were never going to have each other again.

Don’t go there.

Another sniff, another swipe of the back of her hand, and she was almost at the inn. As Chloe moved, she saw a swirl of dust fade at the edge of the woods, which was odd enough to catch her attention. There wasn’t a road there, just an old hiking path.

With a quick change of direction, she followed the dust and caught sight of tire tracks in the still-moist mud. She could hear an engine. A truck, probably. Something with four-wheel drive. It wasn’t far, but she was wondering who’d be out there in the first place.

At the edge of the woods, she stopped and listened again. Not one truck.

Two.

Chloe took out her cell and called Tara. “Hey, there’s a couple of trucks moving around out here in the woods. I’m going to go take a look, and I didn’t want to be the stupid chick in the movies who doesn’t tell anyone where she’s going.”

“Hang on, I’ll come out.”

“It’s probably nothing. Maybe the forest service checking on the fire lanes. I’ll call you right back.” She disconnected, then headed down the trail. She could still hear the engines ahead of her. The trail wasn’t meant for a vehicle so it’d be slow, rough going.

And then the engines cut off. There was the faint sound of male voices. And then a truck door closing. An engine revved, coming back her way. Shit. Chloe dove into the bushes and ducked low.

A blue truck drove past her, going far too fast for the terrain. She recognized the driver and covered her mouth to hide her gasp, even though no one could have heard her.

Nick Raybo.

The forest had come down around her like a theater curtain, surrounding her with mossy pines, spruce, and the scent of Christmas. There was still someone ahead of her, and she made her way a little closer, then went utterly still because there, behind a huge outgrowth of sage, was a truck. New. Black. Shiny.

Todd’s.

Todd and Raybo. Oh, God, that couldn’t be good.

Chloe shifted behind a large pine and dialed Sawyer this time, watching Todd behind the wheel talking on his cell phone. She took a hit from her inhaler and held her breath as Sawyer answered, sounding distracted. “Thompson.”

But Todd was exiting his truck now. Afraid to reply and tip Todd off, Chloe bit her lower lip.

“Chloe,” Sawyer said. “You there?”

“Raybo. And Todd,” she whispered, hearting pounding, chest tight. Too tight. That half-mile walk had taxed her.

“Todd? He’s with you?”

“In the woods. Raybo’s leaving.” It was all she could say. She took another peek from around the tree. She could see the whole left side of Todd’s truck, but not Todd. There was something in the bed of his truck that looked like camouflage netting. She knew marijuana growers used it to hide their crops, which made sense given what Todd was suspected of.

“Chloe,” Sawyer said. “I’m on my way. Where are you exactly?”

“I’m half a mile or so in.” She pressed a hand to her chest. She was wheezing badly. “Lance knows the trail. I think Todd’s hiding his stash.”

“I’ve called it in, Chloe,” Sawyer said. “We’re all on our way. You did great. Now get the fuck out of there.” He paused, then added, “Please. Please get the fuck out of there. For me.”

Despite the fear and asthma attack now fully upon her, Chloe smiled as she left her tree and started to head back. “Like the please,” she whispered. “Nice…touch.”

“Use your inhaler.”

“Did.” She was a safe enough distance away now that she slowed, then stopped. “Okay, I’m in trouble,” she admitted. “I have…to rest.” She dropped to her knees, gasping for breath. She opened her mouth to tell Sawyer that she was going to hang up when a hand clamped down on her mouth, and her scream was swallowed before it started.

Every muscle in Sawyer’s body tightened as he heard Chloe’s attempt at a hoarse scream and then the beep of the call being cut off. A dozen horrible images raced through his mind, but he cut them off, swerving around slower cars as he called Morris.

The DEA agent was still pissed at Sawyer for not being available when he’d been needed last night, and when Sawyer told him he wasn’t waiting for backup as he raced toward Chloe’s last-known location, the man started to tear Sawyer a new one.

Sawyer didn’t give a shit. The job, the bust, the drugs, none of it mattered. The whole world could go fuck itself if something happened to Chloe. He waited for Morris’s rant to end, confirmed the location one more time, and clicked off.

Raybo-he’d been the missing link, the big dealer the DEA had been looking to nail. It made perfect sense. Sawyer knew Morris’s team would get Raybo on the road or at his compound. Sawyer was certain of it.

What he wasn’t certain of, what he was terrified of, was what was happening to Chloe right this very second. He wasn’t far from the B &B, but every second felt like an hour. If that fucker touched one hair on her head, he was going down. Sawyer had no more mercy left. He cut the sirens and the lights as he approached the turnoff. When he pulled up at the inn, Tara was standing on the porch holding her cell phone. “Chloe called,” she said. “I think she’s in trouble.”

“Which trail?”

Lance came around the corner. “I’ll show you.” They moved to the marina building, Lance doing his best to keep up, but he was breathing hard. “There,” he said, pointing the way. “That one.”

Sawyer knew the trail all too well. It was the same one that he, Ford, and Jax had taken the night they’d seen the odd flare. It was also the trail to the hidden clearing where he and Todd had partied through their high school years. “Stay here,” he said to Lance. “More are coming. Tell them which way I’ve gone.” He drew his gun. No matter what happened, Chloe was coming out of this in one piece, but he’d make no guarantees about anyone else.

Todd had his arm across Chloe’s throat. Just tight enough that a regular person would have trouble breathing. She’d passed trouble halfway to his truck.

“This is just great,” Todd was muttering, dragging her along with him. “Fucking great. I spent a year trying to get your fucking attention, and you could give a shit. And now that I’m headed out, you want a piece of me.”

“I don’t-”

He tightened his grip on her, cutting off her words. He smelled of sweat and fear, and his body shook with tension as he walked her forward. There was a gun in his free hand, a semiautomatic, and she hoped the safety was on because he was swinging it around like a laser pointer. “I’m not going back to jail,” he said, his jaw pressed to hers. “Not even for your sweet ass. But I can’t let you go, either.”

“Yes, you can. It’s Raybo, right? It’s all him. You-”

Again he tightened his grip, and she choked. “Shut up,” he said. “Shut up and listen. I’m not taking the fall for Raybo. Hell, no. And I’m not narcing him out, either; the fucker is crazy. He’d kill me for sure.”

“No-”

“You should be worried about you, Chloe,” he said. “Our fun is over. I could have had you that day at the mud springs. That pisses me off. You were hot for me up until then, but something changed.”

“I was never hot for you,” she managed.

“Liar. But after that, Sawyer had you. That pissed me off, too. You’re not his usual type.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know what it is about you, but you jump knee deep in shit all the time and still come out smelling like a rose. I fucked with the boats at the marina,” he said. “I told everyone that you were pissed off at your sisters and wanted to get out of this place. I thought everyone would blame you, but no one did, no one even believed the rumors. Nothing sticks to you. Too bad you can’t teach me that trick,” he said almost wistfully.