Hittin It: A Hitman Romance (Marked for Love Book 2) (7 page)

“Morning.”

Wynn returned his greeting, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “You look like hell.”

Will rubbed at his face, his palm scraping against a day’s growth of beard. He felt like hell too. And he didn’t think his ass would ever recover from his long night on the porch. “What do you know?”

He led Wynn inside the cabin. It wasn’t much, just a room with a tiny kitchen, a double bed, a sofa and some lamps and a television that got three channels—on a clear day. If the wind blew right.

“You need to do something about her,” Wynn murmured, motioning to where Sabrina lay. Her face was hidden by a mass of hair and she barely moved. At her feet, Scamp looked up, ears at attention. Once he’d decided they were no threat, he curled up again, watching them.

Will crossed to the battered coffeemaker and turned it on. “I know.” Boy, did he know. He’d spent most of last night trying to figure out what to do with her. He’d dragged her into this and he had to get her out.

He had to figure out how to get them
both
out—alive.

“Y
ou can’t hide out here forever,” the other man said.

Here
was some remote lake in far North Texas. We’d driven, and driven, and
driven
, heading west once we’d gotten to Gainesville and losing ourselves in ranch country.

“I know.” That was Will.

I slowly pulled back the covers and peeked at them both, startled to see how much the other man looked like Will, except taller. And cuter. As in puppy dog cute. While Will looked like the unassuming boy-next-door-all-grown-up, good-looking Soccer Dad. They were obviously related and both of them would get better with age. But right now Will looked as tired as he sounded, and he hadn’t come in all night. I’d stayed awake as long as I could, worried about where he’d sleep, worried he'd take off with my van and leave me stranded, worried someone would kill us in our sleep, but I didn’t think he’d slept at all.

“And you can’t go anywhere near Mom and Dad.”

“No shit. You’ve got to find out who put a hit out on me. Before Dad gets wind of this.”

“And why.”

“They had the Monte Carlo—from Phoenix.”

“You sure?”

“My gut says yes.”

They moved outside, leaving me alone and wondering what they were planning. And I didn’t even want to know what had happened in Phoenix. I grabbed some clean clothes and headed for the bathroom. Despite plenty of sleep, I was still tired and I couldn’t shake the painful knot between my shoulder blades as I splashed water on my face.

Back out in the kitchen, our guest had apparently brought food. I poured myself a cup of coffee and rifled through the supplies in a box, then made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I was thoughtfully nibbling at the crust when Will reentered the cabin—alone.

“You’re up.”

“Where’s your friend?” I took another bite of my breakfast, nearly choking on the thick peanut butter and the fear clogging my throat. Hot coffee helped dissolve the peanut butter but not the rest.

“He left.” He collapsed in a seat across from me, his gray eyes darkened to charcoal. A frown furrowed his eyebrows. He looked exhausted.

“Why couldn’t I have gone with him?”

“Because I need to keep my family out of this.”

“But it’s okay to put
my
life in danger.” I left my words dangling there between us.

“That’s not what I meant, Sabrina.” He blew out a heavy breath and his shoulders sagged. His head sank into his bandaged hand.

“How’s your hand?”

“Fine.”

“I can make you a sandwich.” As peace offerings went, it sucked but it was all I had.

He shook his head and looked up long enough to give me a brief, tired smile. “Thank you, though.”

“What’s the plan?”

“We’ll stay here for a few days.”

Because you have no idea what the plan is.
I frowned at him, letting him know that
I
knew he had no plan of action. I sat at the table, the hardwood chair biting into my ass, and finished my breakfast.

“Hopefully my brother can find information, and fast, so we can get you back to San Antonio.”

In another world, under different circumstances, I wondered if Will and I would have met. What would have happened? Would he have asked me out? What would dinner and a movie have been like? Considering I liked Indie films and he probably liked action flicks, not so good. Then again, someone like him wouldn’t have asked someone like me out in the first place.

Will was a damned fine specimen, if you could get past the whole “killing people for a living” thing. Even with the shadows under his eyes and his normally pristine clothes, now wrinkled and smudged with dust and dirt.

But he was still handsome in a way that made
not
staring difficult, and I had to force myself to look away. Everything was already complicated enough.

“Are we safe here?” I finally asked.

“Yeah. For now.” He nodded, staring at me slow and steady as if he could silently assure me things would be fine.

I nodded and nibbled at my sandwich until it was gone. “Is anyone going to...miss you?” Like a wife or a girlfriend...or boyfriend.

“Just my family.”

How ironic that
he
had a family and
I
didn’t. “You were supposed to go on another job? Weren’t you?”

Nodding, he lurched to his feet. “I’m gonna take a nap. Don’t go outside.”

I couldn’t just
sit
here. Waiting. Watching Will sleep. He dislodged Scamp from the bed and stretched out. He came over and started munching on the kibble I’d brought in from the van. I sat, silently, waiting until Will’s soft snores filled the cabin, then glanced down at my dog. “Come on.”

* * *

I
quietly slipped out the door, never looking back as I made the walk to the end of the driveway where I debated which way to go. It was a beautiful early summer day; the thick trees surrounding the cabin were still lush and green. Somewhere nearby a boat engine roared. The air was warm and slightly damp. Despite our dire situation, I smiled. Being outside, moving, soothed my frazzled nerves.

A stiff breeze stirred the reddish soil that made up the road and rocked the rickety mailbox back and forth on its rotten post. I glanced down at Scamp who was waiting for me to make a decision. Just like he’d waited on me so many times in the past. Much like my poor, not-so-sainted mother, I’d made a slew of wrong turns. Unlike her, I knew how to turn my ass around and get the hell out of Dodge. Until now. Now it looked like I’d gotten myself into a hell of a mess. That didn’t stop me from worrying that Will was right—if I ran, they’d find me.

Scamp trotted a few paces away, drawing my attention back to the here and now. I finally decided to go right; my flip-flops quickly grew gritty from the road, my feet covered with a thin later of dust. Around me, the world seemed to have stopped. My fingers itched for my journal. I wished I could empty my brain of all its clutter, but I had a feeling Will wouldn’t appreciate me cataloging my adventures in Hitman Land.

I passed a few empty doublewides and kept going until I hit a dead-end. I stepped onto the porch of a rickety white house that actually looked worse than the cabin we were in. Despite the boat I’d heard earlier, everything was pristine and quiet, the lake like rippling, liquid glass. I sat for a while, letting myself get lost in the day and letting Mother Nature soothe me in a way all of Will’s reassuring words couldn’t. I stayed put until Scamp’s scurrying around and the movement of the sun got me on my feet again.

As I headed back toward the cabin, it crossed my mind that I should probably be more afraid, that I was. I should leave Will here and let fate deal with him, but in some strange way, I felt like I owed it to him to stick around after he’d saved my ass twice in El Paso.

Because, yes, a part of me feared Will was right and whoever was out there would come after me. I wasn’t just mad at Will; I was mad at myself and I didn’t just want to live. I feared death.

The ugliness and the violence of seeing it firsthand had left an inedible mark on me. But I didn’t doubt Will could keep me safe.

He was sitting on the porch angrily masticating a sandwich when I returned.

I climbed the steps and walked past him, silently reminding myself once again that it was my van (even if he had bought it—and swiped my keys once we’d arrived). I could leave any time I wanted.

“Do you have a hearing problem?” He scowled up at me. If anything, he looked worse than before his nap.

“No, but I do have an ordering problem. And you’re not the boss of me.”

W
ill was in deep shit.

Real deep shit.

When he couldn’t find Sabrina, he’d dashed outside. At the sight of the van still parked next to the cabin, anger had replaced his fear. He’d immediately headed back inside and re-hid the keys. Then he’d waited and waited for Sabrina to return. He’d moved from his spot on the porch just long enough to fix some lunch, then settled back on the steps where he’d spent most of the previous night. He figured, and rightly so if her dusty feet were anything to judge by, she’d gone out for some fresh air.

Figures she couldn’t be bothered to listen.

But what really got to him wasn’t the sense of relief when he’d spotted her at the top of the drive, but the way he’d found himself watching her. The sun made her hair look all fiery; her curls and breasts bounced, and hips had rolled and swayed as she closed the distance between them. He’d nearly choked on his food. His blood had warmed, thickened, pooling in the most uncomfortable of places. He would have killed for a cold shower—figuratively speaking.

He’d
never
kill for something so mundane, but Sabrina Walker? He’d kill for her.

Sabrina Walker was a beautiful woman. Not that he hadn’t noticed before. He had. Plenty. But in the last twenty-four hours, things had changed drastically.

When she sassed him and said he wasn’t the boss of her, instead of getting angry or feeling butthurt, he’d almost laughed.

“You’ve got forty-eight hours to figure something out and then I’m leaving.”

Her words had the same affect as the cold shower he’d wished for only moments earlier. “You can’t leave. You know that”

“I can, and I am.”

“If you leave, they’ll find you.” And they’d use her to get to him. How many times did he have to say it?

“No, they won’t.” She shoved open the cabin door.

“Sabrina.”

“What,” she said, her poker-straight back to him.

He inhaled, wishing he hadn’t as he caught a whiff of her, female sweat, her sex and whatever it was that made Sabrina smell like...Sabrina. He shoved the thought of investigating further away. “You can only run for so long.”

“And then what happens?”

“They catch you.” The end result of her being caught hung between them thick, heavy and unspoken.

“I can run for as long as I have to.” She stepped inside the cabin, but Will would have the final word in this round.

“God knows you’re good at it.”

She slammed the door, and he retrieved the gun he’d tucked under his leg at her appearance.

Will knew human nature.

Sabrina knew how to run.

But she couldn’t run forever. He knew better than anyone at some point they’d have to turn and fight, and no matter how badly he wanted to protect her...he shook his head. Failure was
not
an option.

He left Sabrina alone, the sound of running water keeping him outside, away from her and her shower, his head filled with images of her naked, wet and warm, slick with soap bubbles running down her lush tanned body. Her laughing up at him, those odd green eyes flashing and teasing. He could almost feel her slippery skin under his fingers.

Groaning, he lurched to his feet and took a walk of his own. How the hell was he going to survive the next few days stuck in the middle of nowhere with Sabrina.

While she was gone, his curiosity, and more than a touch of anger, had driven him to grab another journal from the van. He glanced at the cabin, pulled it from the back of his pants and tucked it under his arm, finally settling on the porch of a rickety house at the end of the road. Sabrina had been here, he could tell by the tiny paw prints Scamp had left behind in the sandy soil. If anything, the writing in this one was curlier, more girlish and the reason was quickly apparent. It dated back a few years before the other one, from when Sabrina had still lived at home.

What had Sabrina wanted, planned? How had she thought her life would turn out? Apparently, she hadn’t been much of a journaler then. The next entry was dated six months later.

The next entry was dated three weeks later—and water stained.

It was dated almost eight years ago.

Will knew in the nauseatingly twisted depths of his stomach that those were tearstains not watermarks. Though her journal
had
gotten wet at one time. The pages were stiff, some stuck together and water had smeared some of the ink on other pages. There were no clues as to how Sabrina’s mom had died, but it obviously hadn’t been pretty. From what he could gather, she’d taken Scamp—Walt’s dog—and hitchhiked to Florida.