Her eyes filled. “If you don’t get out of that ranch house, I’ll kill you myself.”

He smiled, though he knew his eyes were shiny, too. “That’s a deal.” Hawk smoothed back her hair, and kissed her once because he couldn’t resist, letting their lips cling for a beat. “See you on the other side, Ab.” He wanted to drop to his knees, take her hand and ask her to love him forever. Yeah, he really wanted to do that. But he had to survive the next hour before he asked her for her heart and soul, that seemed only fair. So he turned, and with Logan, walked away.

But he left his heart with her.

FIFTEEN SWEATY MINUTES LATER, Hawk and Logan came to one of the streams.

“Oh, boy.” Logan weaved unsteadily.

Hawk reached out to grab him. “You okay?”

“Ask him.”

Hawk followed Logan’s gaze to a big-ass moose, who stood twenty-five yards away, watching them balefully. Between his huge palmated antlers, his elongated snout wriggled as he took in their scent.

“Just keep moving,” Hawk said. “I’ve got your back.”

“Why do I have to go first?”

“Because you’re the injured one. The one most likely to get eaten. Jesus. Just go!”

The moose wriggled his nose again but was too lazy to chase them. It took another fifteen minutes to get down to Gaines’s house. Gaines’s deserted ranch house.

“Think the bastard already took off?” Not looking so hot, Logan sank to the porch swing.

“No.” But it was so still as to be eerie. “He’s here, somewhere.”

Any minute, Tibbs and company were going to burst in with a blaze of glory, and damn it, having Gaines here would be ever so helpful. Hawk stepped into the yard and turned in a slow circle. “He’s probably watching us.”

“If that was true, we’d already be dead.”

“Then he’s watching something else.” Narrowing his gaze, he turned again, stopping short at the sight of a surveillance camera mounted in the tree off the right side of the porch. A matching camera was on the left. And he’d bet every last cent he had, there were many, many more. Shit. He whipped back to Logan. “Abby and Callen.”

“What?”

“This place is surrounded by cameras. He’s been onto us since we first arrived. He’s probably already at the car.”

Logan swore and got to his feet, huffing and puffing. “Jesus. I’m worthless. The drugs are wearing off. Just go.”

Hawk came back to him and shoved a shoulder into one of Logan’s armpits, working as a human crutch. “Like I’m going to leave you behind now, after all these years that I’ve been carting your sorry ass around.”

“Shut up and run.”

It felt like it took them an eternity, but in twelve minutes they were back at the top of the hill, where they separated to circle around. Hawk came in from the east and hugged up to a tree. Damn it, he couldn’t see. He’d have to climb the tree, which led him twenty feet straight up into hell before he had a good, dizzying, oh-holy-shit view.

God, he hated heights. But he hated what he saw even more. In front of the SUV, Callen was crumpled on the ground, eyes closed.

And Gaines. The bastard was leaning back against the car as if he had all the time in the world, Abby held tight to him, a gun to her temple.

“Might as well come out and join the party,” Gaines called out.

Bullshit. Hawk aimed his gun directly between Gaines’s eyes, which unfortunately put him damn close to between Abby’s as well. “Let her go.”

At the sound of his voice, Abby gasped and looked up until she locked gazes with him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “He got the jump on me.”

“Of course I found you.” Gaines pressed his cheek to hers. “I always will. Now, here’s how this is going to work, Hawk. You’re going to put down your gun. And Logan? I know you’re out there. Might as well show yourself.”

Logan did not appear. Hawk had no idea if this was strategy, or if he hadn’t made it around yet. “Let her go,” he repeated, his gun still sighted right between Gaines’s bloodshot eyes. “Do it. Or I promise you, this will hurt.”

“I’m sorry.” And actually, Gaines did look sorry. He sported a bandage around his shoulder that reminded Hawk he’d shot the bastard last night. “I can’t always be looking for you over my shoulder. You have to die.”

“No,” Abby gasped, terror filling her gaze, terror for Hawk. “Elliot, don’t be stupid, you’ll never get away with this.”

“You’d be surprised what I can get away with.” Again, he ran his cheek over hers, his eyes softening. Then he shifted the muzzle of his gun from her temple to just beneath her jaw, and Hawk’s heart just about stopped. The guy’s hands were shaking, he was a loose cannon who was going to go off and shoot her in the process.

No. He wasn’t going to let that happen. If he could get Abby to go limp and drop, he could get a clean shot. “Do you remember that one thing I wanted from you?” he asked.

She nodded. Trust. It was there in her eyes for him to accept, take. “Good,” he told her, and nodded his head once, trying to signal her to drop. “That’s real good.” As his finger applied slow pressure, she looked him right in the eyes and mouthed “I love you,” and on that stunning revelation, she didn’t drop but shoved back with her elbow, landing it hard in Gaines’s windpipe. A harsh sound expelled from his lungs, and then Abby dropped, in that split second giving Hawk the free target he needed.

Except that before he got a shot off, a different gun rang out, and both Gaines and Abby crumpled to the ground.

Hawk slid down the tree, racing toward the pair as Logan burst out of the woods, limping toward them, his gun in hand.

Hawk had never been so petrified in his life as he was in that very moment, that single moment of clarity, when he knew he was never going to be the same. Abby had just come into his life. With her smile, with every breath she took, she’d made it better.

She’d made him whole.

Goddamn, but he’d been waiting for that without even knowing it, and now that he’d experienced it, he was afraid he couldn’t live without it.

Without her.

21

BEFORE ABBY COULD DRAW A breath into her compressed lungs, the heavy weight was lifted off of her, and she was yanked into a pair of strong, warm arms.

Trembling arms.

“Jesus, Abby.” Hawk pulled back only enough to look down into her face.

“Hey,” she told him. “Good shot.”

“It wasn’t me, it was Logan.” He gulped for air. “Tell me you did not just say you love me when I had a gun pointed at your head.”

She smiled as her eyes filled. She couldn’t help it. “I did.”

His eyes went misty, and he hauled her back into his arms.

She let him squeeze the air out of her because that was where she needed to be, in his arms, tight, face plastered into the crook of his neck, inhaling his scent, feeling as if she’d just come home for the first time in her life. They might have both been victims, but no longer. They had survived, because they were stronger together. “Is Gaines-”

“I don’t know.” He palmed her head in his hands and held her face to his throat. “Are you-”

“Fine,” she promised. “Callen-”

“Logan’s got her, she’s coming around.” They both turned.

Logan was holding onto Callen the same way Hawk was holding onto Abby, but Callen was shaking her head. “I’m fine, he got me from behind, knocked me out cold, but I’m good now.” She managed to pull the tape recorder out from beneath her shirt. “Like me and the Energizer Bunny, this kept going.”

From behind the SUV, Tibbs, Thomas and Wayne appeared, running.

“About time,” Hawk said.

Tibbs held out his hand for the recorder. “Can I see that?”

Callen handed it over, and Tibbs tucked it away, nodding to first Logan, and then to Hawk, who visibly tensed.

But Tibbs didn’t shoot him, didn’t handcuff him, didn’t do anything but let out a slow nod of approval. “Should have trusted me, Hawk. I’m not stupid enough to believe you’d leave incriminating evidence lying around your house. Luckily I was only half a step behind you.”

Thomas and Wayne crouched at Gaines’s side and turned him over. “Still breathing,” Thomas noted.

Wayne radioed for the ambulance. “He’s not going to thank us.”

Logan hadn’t taken his eyes off Callen. “He could have killed you. I’ll never forgive myself for-”

“But he didn’t kill me. And you’re still alive, too,” she pointed out. “So now that no one’s dying today, maybe we can make plans, and do things right.”

Logan looked shaken to the core, and as if he’d been hit by a bus. In a good way. “You mean we didn’t do things right before?”

Callen smiled. “Well, you not being hooked up to any machines will be a bonus.”

“True.” He snagged her close, pulled her into his lap and just sat there. “Except I’m too tired to move.”

“Don’t worry. I have enough energy to keep us both moving.”

Hawk tipped his head down to Abby, not looking nearly as ready to joke as Logan and Callen.

“You climbed a tree for me,” Abby marveled. “A really tall pine tree.”

“Thanks for noticing.” He ran a hand down her hair, cupping her jaw. He couldn’t stop looking at her.

“I’m really okay you know.”

“Good.” He sank all the way to the ground, holding her tight to him. “That’s good, because I’m not.”

“What? Did you get hurt?” Panicked, she ran her hands over his chest, his face, his arms, until he caught them in his.

“No, listen. I love you back, Abby. So much I don’t even know what to do with it all.”

She stared up into the face of the man she’d given herself over to so completely. “Really?”

“God, yes.”

She felt so much joy she could hardly breathe. “Well, I have some ideas on what to do with it.”

“I knew you would,” he said fiercely, and beneath the setting sun, he kissed her to show that maybe he had a few ideas of his own.