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“With everything inside me,” he said quietly, his eyes in hers.
And somehow, when Rem looked at her like that…she could hear her heartbeat thunder in her chest.
She’d taken a step toward him, touched his shirt. From the backyard, the radio station had turned, maybe her mother taking control. Bryan Adams was belting out a love song.
“Everything I do, I do it for you,” Rem said softly, in tune with the song, his blue eyes in hers. He touched her hair. “I love it curly like this.”
Her gaze fell to his mouth, nearly tasting his urgency from last night. He smelled fresh, as if he’d recently done laundry, and the smell of him, the way the summer wind moved around them, reaping the scent of freedom—
“Eve, honey, go get changed. Asher and your father will go for the ice cream.”
Her mother’s voice emerged from where she was coming out of the garage.
Rembrandt sucked in a breath, and Eve stilled.
“Uh oh,” she said, and Rem made a face. Then, she turned.
Her mother stood in the driveway, but behind her, Danny was walking out, swinging his car keys.
Her mother’s eyes widened.
Her father stopped, looked at Rembrandt and the expression on his face turned lethal.
Eve stepped away from Rem, her heart a fist. Everyone should just calm down. It wasn’t like they’d caught her and Rembrandt in a clench.
Not quite yet.
“What are you doing here?”
Next to her, Rem sighed. “Listen, Danny, I just came to check on—”
“Inspector Mulligan, thanks. And if you’re here for Eve, I don’t think she needs you taking care of her.”
“You. I came to check on you.”
Danny’s eyes narrowed. “Stone—”
Rembrandt flinched. She heard it too—the screech of tires, an engine being throttled. She looked at Rembrandt, whose face turned slack, and then he pushed her—really pushed her—and took off.
She hit the dirt, stunned, as Rembrandt hurtled himself toward her father.
Shots punched the air. She covered her head with her hands as a car rocketed by, peppering their yard with gunfire.
No!
Screams—probably her own—rent the air, and she couldn’t look, just crawled toward the front steps, and hid herself behind them.
Dad!
Suddenly, a body hovered over her. Big, solid, his voice in her ear. “Stay down, Eve. Just stay down.”
The shooting had stopped.
She trembled, her breath hiccupping as she gulped back another scream. And then the voice again. “You’re okay, right?”
Not Rem’s voice. Because he’d run toward her father. As if he’d known—
She looked up as the body moved away from her.
