Allison Brennan - The Prey

But she hadn’t expected this from John. Of all people, she thought John would understand. He wanted justice for Michael as much as-or even more than-she did. And for all Bobby’s other victims.

The sacrifice John had made hit her hard. He’d left to protect her . He’d given up his chance to avenge his brother’s murder because he wanted to keep her safe. She glanced over at him with renewed appreciation. And something deeper. A feeling that had been invading her mind and body since the first night they made love.

John was irrevocably a part of her soul. She couldn’t lose him. She’d finally begun to accept and deal with what had happened so many years ago. Losing John was unthinkable.

When it came right down to it, Rowan hated running. It reminded her of the Franklin murders and the lowest point in her life since Dani had been killed.

She didn’t have the urge to run anymore. Her demon had a face: Bobby. She wanted to fight him herself. She wanted to see the look on his face when he realized she wasn’t the young, weak, frightened little girl he’d confronted twenty-three years ago. Despite her youth she had beaten him then, and surely she could beat him now.

But the opportunity to catch Bobby had been taken away by the erroneous whim of a man who had lied to her and the complicity of a man she had trusted.

It felt wrong, even though she knew it was really their only option. She hadn’t done or said anything to make John or Roger believe she was strong enough to handle a confrontation with Bobby. Was she? If Bobby found her, would she be able to fight him and win? Or would she cower in a closet like her younger self, waiting for him, letting him kill those she loved?

She hoped-no, she believed -that if Bobby found her, she would rise to the challenge. She wouldn’t let him get to her. Couldn’t let him defeat her.

But running kept John safe as well. While she had no doubt he was capable of leading an operation while driven by emotion, here in the safe house, he, too, would be protected. The thought gave her a modicum of peace.

“I’m sorry,” she said to John when he stopped in front of a locked gate down a private drive.

He turned in the seat to look at her, the engine idling. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”

She shook her head. “Yes, I do. I acted like an immature kid back in Malibu and I sulked all the way here.”

“You do have sulking down to an art. I don’t think I’ve ever been around a woman who could be quiet for three hours.” He was actually joking. It made her heart a little lighter.

She wrinkled her nose. “Well, I appreciate you coming here with me. Roger would have assigned an agent. You didn’t have to do this. You could have stayed back in L.A. Avenged Michael.”

John didn’t say anything for a long moment, then took her hand and squeezed so tight it almost hurt. “You mean a lot to me, Rowan. I’m not going to trust your safety to anyone else. Michael is dead.” He swallowed, raw pain clouding his eyes. “You are alive. I need you to stay that way.”

His voice was full of quiet emotion. He put a hand behind her neck and pulled her face to his, kissing her hard on the lips. Then he stepped from the car to unlock the gate.

She closed her eyes and hoped Bobby was caught fast. Not only because he was a vicious murderer who deserved to be locked up in prison-or worse-for the rest of his life, but because her life was in limbo-professionally and personally-until he was apprehended.

Five minutes later the road dead-ended in front of a cabin. The safe house. It didn’t have a view of the ocean, but through the trees, Rowan could hear the distant roar of water breaking against rocks. It didn’t sound far away at all. This was exactly the location she had dreamed about.

The cabin itself was open and spacious, with two private bedrooms downstairs and a loft upstairs. Everything else-the living room, dining room, and kitchen-was in the open, one large room with tall windows looking west into the woods and toward the unseen ocean.

It was similar to her cabin in Colorado, just bigger. She felt like she’d come home.

John finished his security check, then brought in their bags. She had packed light: one overnight bag and her laptop. John had two bags as well-one for clothes, one for weapons. She had her Glock and knife on her.

John unloaded his firearms. “I’m going to put this little.45 in the kitchen here on the other side of the breadbox,” he said as he crossed into the small kitchen area. “And,” he continued as he crossed over to the larger of the two couches, “the nine-millimeter under this cushion.” The butt barely jutted out, and you couldn’t see it unless you knew it was there.

Rowan nodded. John had his favorite ten-millimeter holstered in the small of his back, and he took the collapsible rifle and another gun into his bedroom, along with extra ammunition.

She watched him walk down the short hall and turn into the bedroom on the right. They were in a fortress, but someone else was taking her place. Someone else was making her kill.

That didn’t make her feel any better.

Adam dreamed the same dream again that night.

He’d been having the dream ever since seeing the picture of the man who told him to buy lilies for Rowan. At the flower stand by the ocean he’d thought something was familiar about the stranger, but he didn’t know what or why.

It always started with the flowers. Adam wanted to buy roses. The man wanted him to buy lilies.

In the dream Adam said no, Rowan didn’t like lilies. She broke lilies and got mad. He didn’t want to buy them for her.

“She likes lilies, she just doesn’t know it,” the man said, his voice sounding odd, through a fog.

Adam shook his head back and forth. Then, as happens in dreams, he was no longer at the flower stand but sitting on Rowan’s deck watching the sunset. Rowan was happy and smiling. She was holding a thick green stalk with a white calla lily on the top.

He frowned at her. “You hate lilies.”

“No, I just didn’t know how pretty they were.”

He listened to the waves break and run up the shore. It was soothing.

And then he would wake up and have to go to the bathroom.

He had the dream every night, and sometimes more than once. But he always woke up and felt like he was forgetting something, something very, very important.

“Stupid,” he said to himself. “You’re just a stupid kid.”

Rowan lamented the fact that she wasn’t good with relationships. She was angry with John about the safe house, but understood its necessity. She’d tried to explain this in the car, but she hadn’t seemed to do a good job.

He’d made no attempt to come to her room last night.

Of course, he was in full protection mode, leaving the cabin every hour to prowl like a cat through the wilderness for ten minutes before coming back.

She’d asked to go with him and he simply said, “No.”

But she was going stir-crazy, and it was obvious John was, too. Rowan typed. John paced. Rowan stared out the window. John checked the perimeter. Rowan cleaned the guns. John paced.

Quinn had checked in that morning and said there was no news. Bobby hadn’t surfaced, but the decoy was in place.

Finally, Rowan had had enough. “Let’s run.”

“We can’t leave.”

“We’ve been cooped up in this damn cabin for the whole day. We have at least a good hour of daylight left, and running will do us both good. Besides, you’re wearing the finish off the poor hardwood floor.”

John frowned, obviously debating her suggestion. “All right,” he snapped. “We’ll go. But I’m in charge.”

“Of course you are,” Rowan mumbled, irritated.