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“What do we do?” I ask. “We can go over the side and swim home.”
“It’s too cold,” she shouts back.
“We can’t just wait here! Let’s climb to the underside and we can walk across the trusses or hang from them like monkey bars.”
Ainsley shakes her head and looks around the pier. “I’ll figure something out. Last resort, Scotty will call the cops.”
“I can’t have my name in the news again,” I shout as Ainsley fires off another round.
“That’s why I said last resort.”
There’s a momentary flash of light coming down the road that leads to the pier, like headlights going over a speed bump. All the shooting dies down for a moment and I hear a deep, distinct revving of an engine. The car flies towards the pier and doesn’t hesitate for a second. It smashes straight into our car now pockmarked with bullets, shoves it to the side, and speeds towards us.
“We should run,” says Ainsley, frozen in place.
I hesitate for half a second, then my body almost melts into the pier with relief. I know that car.
“It’s Everett.”
He can’t shoot a gun one-handed, but he’s driving the hell out of the bulletproof car. He swings wide and across the pier in a squeal of tires and cloud of burning rubber. The window rolls down and there sits my husband with a look of pure fire in his eyes.
“Get in,” he roars over the dull thunk of bullets hitting the car.
I go straight for the front seat and Ainsley dives into the back seat. Everett takes off as soon as the doors close and the window’s up.
“You’re driving a stick shift with one hand!” Ainsley exclaims.
“Yes, and?” Everett retorts. His left arm is still firmly held in place by his sling and when he shifts gears, there’s no control of the steering wheel.
“Oh my gosh!” I squeal, closing my eyes and bracing myself as Everett speeds down the pier and up the road, barely swings the whole car past incoming traffic, cutting off a cab who lays on the horn. I swear I can see the person in the back of the cab, their eyes big as saucers as we slide by. But somehow, we don’t so much as scrape them.
“Is this even legal?” Ainsley exclaims.
“Can we focus on getting home for now?” I add.
Everett’s driving is confidently riding the fine line between sexy and scary and while I’m in awe, I’m also terrified we’re going to crash. His eyes focus on the road and his jaw muscle ticks as he stays in the zone, shifting and weaving through the cars on the road like a racing professional.
“Trust me, we’re going home,” he says.
CHAPTER 18
Everett swings open the door from the garage to the house and I’ve never been so happy to see the familiar hallway lights. I stumble in behind Ainsley and Everett is already berating her.
“You almost got her killed,” he says, his voice a growl. “You were overconfident and you messed up.”
When our eyes connect, Everett rushes to me and pulls me close, tilting my chin up with one finger towards the light. My neck must be bruising and he looks furious about it. His eyebrows are drawing together in concern, his eyes pained.
“You were a useless distraction,” Ainsley hisses at him. “You made yourself a liability, Everett. I am her agent right now, not you.”
“I might not be point, but I’m going to be giving Boss a full incident report,” he shoots back.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Ainsley crosses her arms and juts her chin towards Everett.
“He patched into the radio frequency that Scotty set up. He was trying to keep tabs on you. But he kept jabbering in my ear and I could barely hear Scotty.”
Affection and understanding for Everett flood my heart. If I could have hacked my way into the operating room speakers to listen to the surgeon while he stabilized Everett, I would have totally done it. I wrap my arms around his waist and hug him tight. He puts his arm around me and leans down to rest his chin on my head. His warmth is comforting.
