A watery laugh bubbled free. "I do so love your logical mind."
"You do?" He knew but sure wouldn't mind hearing it again.
Her tears evaporated in the warmth of her smile. "Yes. Of course, I've loved you since you slugged Buddy Davis for me in the third grade."
She traced her hand gingerly over his bandage.
"Buddy's punch back then hurt a helluva lot worse than this." He captured her fingers tracing featherlight paths over his arm as if to heal it. He brought her hand to his lips. "I love you, too."
Whimsy lightened somber emerald eyes to spring grass. "More than Hostess Ho-Hos?"
"Oh, damn, that's a tough one."
She slugged his uninjured arm.
Laughing, he pulled her close, inhaled the scent of honeysuckle shampoo and the promise of forever. He held her while the wind encircled them and could have sworn there was something symbolic in the moment. A damned strange thought for a man more comfortable in the mathematical realm.
He held her closer. "You know I'm not a. flowery-words kind of guy. I wish I could tell you how much I love you with the poetry that you deserve. All I can say is that I love you. No measurements. No limits."
Her hands hooked around his neck, she stood in his arms, unmoving while they both watched the fading sunlight stain the sky deeper hues of purple.>Oh, Daniel. Always trying to flipping protect her.
Damn it, she absolutely refused to let Kent anywhere near him. Hatred spiked sarcasm. "As always, Kent, you're too generous."
His smile widened without reaching his eyes. "I do miss your wit. Now, open your present and I'll tell you whether your lover is alive or dead."
A frigid fist closed around her heart. She knew Kent was playing with her like a cat tormenting a mouse. And she wouldn't be a mouse. She would play his game and win.
Keeping one hand steady on the gun, and her eyes glued to him, she worked the paper free of the band around the weight. Thicker paper than she'd originally thought. She raised it and glanced at the last thing she would have expected. Oh, God.
Her fingers clenched around the funeral mass card for her stillborn child.
Cold hatred iced through her, although she wouldn't give Kent the satisfaction of seeing he'd stabbed her clean through. She thought perhaps she could shoot Kent after all. Fighting back for herself wasn't near as easy as fighting for her child.
Maternal instincts swelled further, encompassing Trey and Austin, demanding retribution for the fear this man had brought down upon her boys by working with their uncle. How dare he force Trey and Austin into hiding? Fury clogged her throat.
"It seems only right that you have one, too, since you left everything behind when you ran from me."
She cleared the haze of emotions and adjusted another inch to the left. Move, Kent. Move. "I didn't run from you. I ran to life. Something you could never understand."
Her finger itched on the trigger until logic teased, reminding her if she gunned him down in cold blood she would be no better than him.
That argument almost swayed her. Almost.
Then logic pushed further that she owed it to Trey, Austin, Danny to be a stronger person. As much as she wanted vengeance, her life was inexplicably woven with theirs. And that surrender made her all the stronger.
She took a bold step forward toward the trap, placing her within touching distance of pure evil.
Kent lunged.
An explosion of motion from the trees behind him yanked her vision up.
Danny?
Kent grabbed her wrist, twisted, squeezed. Her gun went flying.
She screamed. Jerked, yet was unable to take her eyes off Danny locked in hand-to-hand battle with a knife-wielding foreigner. Blood stained both of them. From which one?
Bodies shifted, revealing a face she'd hoped never again to see outside of Rubistan.