Page 147 of Ready For His Rule

Making the margarita fall from her numb fingers.

Tequila-soaked sand spattered her ankles, but she barely noticed past the fresh shrapnel in her chest. Dammit. Kell could’ve only learned that look from one source. The man belonging to the only face she could still see. The toffee skin and dazzling smile from which her heart screamed for release, as she wheeled and headed across the sand.

Alone.

Feeling, for the first time this week, truly afraid.

But somehow, forcing one foot in front of the other. Trudging into the darkness, toward the vast, black sea beneath the dark amber moon…its liquid magic reminding her so much of his perfect, knowing eyes…

Her soul seeking solace in his beautiful, incredible words…

Instead of wallowing in the fear, you chose to turn and face it.

Scared is a good thing, remember?

I’m scared all the time, woman. We all are. What turns the experience into triumph is what a person does with their fear…

“But I don’t know what to do with it now, Sir.” She whispered it to the wind and waves and stars, only to listen as if he’d actually use them to respond. “I don’t know how to make this a triumph…”

I don’t know how to be strong anymore.

Because if strength comes from our vulnerability…andyou’re my greatest vulnerability…

“Tracy?”

The hail was so faint, she first imagined it as a trick of the wind. She slowed, listening, but didn’t hear it again. As her feet hit the flatter sand near to the water, she quickened her pace. Maybe just a few seconds of direct contact with the sea would reconnect her to the force she desperately needed. The will to push past the fear again.

“Tracy.”

Not imagined. Not this time.

She spun—

And instantly wished this was the tequila playing tricks.

Just as immediately, the icy snakes in her bloodstream confirmed otherwise. And the scorpions clamped to every nerve ending. And the cockroaches of dread, taking over her lungs.

Do not panic. Do not panic.

Easier said than done, when the man she’d often called her dervish now paced the ground in front of her. The man who’d been a dervish for her. Who she’d trusted with her life…

Who’d conspired to take her life.

Somehow, the true horror of it only fully slammed her now. Maybe her head had comprehended it, but her heart had hesitated. No more wavering now—not with the awful truth gleaming at her from Sol’s frantic, furtive stare.

She backed up. Sol matched her, step for step. Would be able to easily overtake her. He was built like a giraffe, all spindly legs.

Shit. Double Shit.

The buzz was completely gone. All her synapses fired at full throttle, ordering her past all the insects of fear. No wallowing. Turn and face it. What turns the experience into triumph…

“Sol.” She dashed a hand up, as gawky as Luke. “Hey.”

“Tracy.” For an awful second, he eyed her hand as if to grab it. Instead, his lean features dissolving, he sobbed, “Oh, Tracy.”

“It’s all right.” Breathe, she ordered her lungs. Breathe, dammit. “It’s—going to be all right.” Listen to yourself. That’s for you as much as him. Breathe!

He turned, pushing out a bitter laugh. Meshed both hands across the back of his head—lifting his sweat-soaked golf shirt high enough to expose the handgun in the waistband of his khaki shorts.

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