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My words stopped the big soldier cold, faster than any bullet ever could. He fumbled around for a moment, then looked down at his feet.
“That… that can’t be.”
“But it is,” I said simply. “I love you, Cole. I loveallof you.”
“But—”
“I love the men that took me in, saved me, protected me. The men who treated me as an equal. The three men who plucked my lifelong dreams from my tired head and forged them into reality, right before my eyes. Without asking for anything of me in return.”
The wind blew harder. Tendrils of my hair were whipping gently against the side of his face.
“I love the depth of your courage,” I went on. “Where most people huddle against the darkness, the three of you brave it. You don’t hide from it, youownit.”
I had no idea I was about to say any of these things. My heart just opened, and they poured right now.
“I’m going to have your baby,” I went on. “And if that’s all I ever am to you — a surrogate and nothing more — I’d still be thrilled to have been in your lives at all.”
I paused, choking up to the point of tears. Somehow I managed the strength to continue.
“But I want much, much more,” I admitted. “I love my time with you, and I don’t ever want it to end. If the three of you don’t feel the same way, I’ll live with that. But I had to tell you. I had to try.”
Cole stood there silently, not saying a word. Then his own eyes went glassy.
It’s just the wind,I told myself.
He took my hands, which looked so tiny against his.
Maybe.
“Quinn,” he began slowly. “I… I mean,we…”
In that exact moment Joshua came flying up behind me, obliterating all other conversation. He made the top of the hill and stopped before us, totally out of breath.
I didn’t like the look on his face at all.
“What is it?” Cole snapped quickly. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything,” gasped Joshua. “Everything is all fucked up.”
Forty-Five
QUINN
I heard the helicopter well before I saw it: a low whoosh-whoosh that echoed hollowly through the desert valley. I half-ran, was half-dragged down the rocky slope, and somehow ended up in the cab of Joshua’s jeep, which Cole was now driving. Tires spun. Gravel scattered high into the air, falling like rain as we raced away.
In the end though, none of it mattered.
“Get down!”
The crack of a high-powered rifle split the air, followed by the type of ricochet sound you never could’ve imagined was real. Hunched down in the back, I saw Joshua navigating while hanging half out of the vehicle. Cole was jerking the wheel side to side, fishtailing the jeep, kicking up so much desert dust it had to be intentional.
“LEFT!” Joshua shouted.
Cole didn’t react right away.
“Left left left leftLEFFFFT!
I was tossed sideways as he cut the wheel again, smashing violently into the rear passenger door. There weren’t any windows, and I almost went right over the side. Instead, I cursed through the rapidly-growing knot on my temple, and braced myself for whatever came next.
