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FUCK!
My mind raced through a myriad of possibilities. I was too deep in the neighborhood to make it back to Main Street, and too tired to try. But there was no one around, either. No one on the streets I could run up to for help, and hopefully use them as a buffer to drive the guy off.
Another plan involved running up to one of the neighboring houses to pound at the door. Maybe someone would answer. Maybe they wouldn’t. It was a risk I hated to take, but in a pinch it was better than nothing at all.
But first…
First I would make it to Luca’s, and pray that the boys were home.
Rounding the final corner, I made a wider turn so I could glance back. The man was still there, still behind me. Only now he’d picked up his pace. He was finally closing the distance, forcing me to run harder and faster just to stay ahead.
Just three houses away from my goal, my heart stopped and my blood ran cold.
Tyler’s car wasn’t there.
Oh GOD.
Inadvertently they’d left me here alone, the two of them. They’d gone out and they’dtoldme they were going out, without any of us realizing I’d be running all the way across town to be saved by them.
And now—
Putting everything else out of my head I sprinted full-tilt toward the house. I reached the piles of snow from when we’d collectively shoveled the driveway. I pivoted in the direction of the snowman we’d made together, right before laughing our way through the mother of all snowball fights.
The man behind me closed the distance with a final series of grunts.
And then I was tripping, sprawling, pinwheeling forward. Putting my hands out and locking my arms in preparation for the inevitable fall, which I knew would be painful against the hard-packed, wind-swept ice.
But the fall never came. Instead I was enveloped in T-shirt ensconced flesh, and pulled back to my feet as a pair of warm, familiar arms wrapped themselves around me. They swept me inward, pinning me protectively against a hard, rippled chest.
And the voice I heard next made my pounding heart soar.
Forty-Five
JENNA
“HEYYY!” Luca boomed, as the man skidded to halt behind me.
My pursuer stopped short, his hood slamming forward, then falling back. His face came into view and I gasped.
ELIJAH!
My asshole ex-boyfriend stood at the edge of the sidewalk, chest heaving, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps of frosty white smoke. His face was flush, his cheeks red.
“What the fuck are youdoing?” Luca demanded angrily.
Elijah took one look at Luca’s balled fist and coughed. “I live here, remember?” He pointed across the street and toward his house. “In fact—”
“You know what I mean,” Luca spat angrily. “I’m talking about you chasing her around!”
My hero — and boyfriend — shoved me defensively behind him. His entire body looked coiled now, ready for attack.
“I wasn’t chasing anyone,” Elijah replied with mock-innocence. “I was merely running.”
“Running!?”
Elijah smiled at me, then nodded my way. “My girl and I used to go running together all the time, back in Fort Worth—”
“She’s not your girl,” Luca snarled.
