Love Inspired Suspense April 2015 #2 (53 page)

“Good idea, except for one thing.” Shaun pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose. “As soon as we try to move the tarp, the ice on it will crack and leave shards across the deck. It'll give away our position.”

“You sure about that?” Lexie broke free of the doorway, speeding across the icy deck like an expert skater, sliding one foot after the other on the slick surface. Moments later, she touched the orange tarp and waved at him with a slight grin. “Water repellant. It's one of the good ones.”

Shaun couldn't resist a smirk as he joined her next to the lifeboats. “Camp
and
skate a lot, do you?”

“I used to,” she said, her expression thoughtful. “I had an outdoorsy childhood. If we climb under here, we should be able to refasten the far corner from the inside. I don't see anywhere else to go.”

“Let's do it. Mind the gap at the edge of the boat.” Shaun helped her unhook the corner of the tarp and held it open as she crawled underneath. They'd spent far too much time figuring out what to do. Seconds made all the difference when it came to protecting oneself from the cold, and they'd already lost precious moments that could mean the difference between life and death. It didn't help that Lexie's mild shiver had become visibly more pronounced in the past thirty seconds.

With a final glance back at the door they'd exited, Shaun's heart skipped a beat as he thought he heard the recognizable
thunk
of the crash bar smashing into place. He dove under the tarp, grateful that the ferry had secured their lifeboats firmly in place for boarding. The moment would have been made that much worse if their entrance to the lifeboat had caused it to swing back and forth.

Shaun reached two fingers underneath the tarp to reattach it to the boat's corner.

“I found a blanket,” whispered Lexie as he settled into the spot next to her. “It's chilly, but it'll heat up in a few minutes.”

Shaun didn't miss the chattering of her teeth as she tried to offer the blanket to him. He shook his head in silence. No way could he share that blanket with her. He'd been through training exercises designed to test his mettle in extreme temperatures, so he knew what his body could handle, but would Lexie recognize the signs of hypothermia if and when they set in? That blanket might be her lifeline.

A subtle click in the distance sent Shaun's senses on high alert. He shot a glance at Lexie, hoping she'd get the message.
We need to keep quiet, or this could end very quickly.

Shaun drew his gun from his belt and slid onto his back, keeping the barrel raised for optimum range of motion in any direction. If the killer came anywhere close, Shaun would not hesitate to protect the woman next to him. He'd gladly suffer the consequences if it meant keeping her safe. She meant too much to him—he knew that now.

Another quick glance showed him that Lexie had her eyes closed tight. Was she praying? Lexie hadn't said anything about God, beyond seeming miffed when he'd suggested that his faith might play any kind of role in the work he did. Their discussion about the past hadn't come full circle to what she believed in the present. It was his fervent prayer that he'd get a chance to ask her about it once they were somewhere warm, safe and dry.

At the soft scrape of shoes sliding along ice, Lexie stiffened beside him. He yearned to reach out and comfort her, but deep inside he knew that she was stronger than he instinctively gave her credit for. She'd gone through so much since this whole ordeal began, and yet here she was, leading the charge to hide inside a lifeboat from a madman. Had Lexie possessed this kind of inner strength all those years ago, or had it been born of necessity? He hadn't bothered to get to know her back then—she hadn't been “fun enough” for him. But if he had to be trapped with someone right now, well, she'd stayed as level-headed as any fully trained agent, which only drew him to her that much more. He
needed
to bring them both out of here alive. He had so many questions to ask her, so many things he wanted to know...and so many wasted years to make up for.

Lexie's breathing softened and quieted. He looked over at her every thirty seconds to be sure she hadn't fallen asleep—because if he wasn't mistaken, the temperature outside kept dropping as the night grew deeper. After what seemed like hours, Shaun thought he heard the soft click of another door shutting, though he didn't want to look outside right away to check for sure. An intelligent adversary like the Wolf would know how to lure them out by creating a false sense of safety.

Shaun counted to one thousand before slowly and carefully unhooking the far corner of the tarp. He peered out at the empty deck, its surface shining like crystal under the clear winter sky. Under different circumstances, it would have been beautiful.

Shallow, ragged breathing startled Shaun into action. Lexie's eyes remained closed and she clutched the blanket to her chest, her entire body shaking violently. She'd go into hypothermic shock if he didn't find her a place to warm up soon. Staying outside at this point might prove a whole lot more fatal than a gunshot wound.

“Lexie?” He brushed his fingers against her forehead, though they were too cold and numb to feel much of anything. “We have to get inside. I need you to come out of the boat. Then I can carry you the rest of the way.”

If she couldn't walk, he'd take her into his arms and carry her. It was that simple. But one way or another, they were getting out of this alive and together.

Her blinks were sluggish, chilling Shaun in a way that the frigid winter air couldn't. He needed to get her inside and warmed up immediately. Lexie propped herself up on one elbow with great effort. “Is it safe?”

“No one's out here, but we have to hustle. We need to get you inside as fast as possible. Bring the blanket, but wait here until I'm out of the boat so I can help you.”

Shaun crawled out of the corner of the boat, which proved a more precarious task than getting inside of it. The deck's coating of ice made it difficult to find his footing, and he had to hook one foot on the inside of the boat and then use it to push himself away from the edge of the deck. While it hadn't posed a threat getting inside, the small gap between the end of the boat and the edge of the ship's deck was just wide enough to make him nervous. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't be a problem, since lifeboats were lowered down once passengers stepped inside—people didn't typically get out of a lifeboat and back onto the main ship.

Lexie's head poked through the tarp as Shaun tried to find safe and secure footing to help her out of the boat. Before he could tell her to wait, she'd lurched upright in the lifeboat, blanket in hand, and taken a direct step onto the deck.

And then she slipped, with nowhere to go but four stories down onto solid ice.

SIXTEEN

S
heer terror flooded every vein as the earth slid out from underneath Lexie's feet. She flailed in the air, feeling her weight begin to free-fall. The blanket tangled around her arm, and though she tried to reach for the side of the lifeboat, her limbs refused to cooperate.

So...cold.

A vision of herself and Nikki, the day before her sister disappeared, flashed through her memory as she fell. Nikki's coy smile and teasing laugh, and Lexie feeling confused at her sister's exuberance...pity at her sister's need to find happiness in empty relationships. Jealousy at her sister's freedom? Yes, jealousy that her sister had a kind of personal freedom that Lexie never had. That she'd never felt she deserved, because she'd thought it was up to her to be the responsible sister, to take care of her ruined sister whose heart she'd believed had been broken by a selfish, heartless boy. Now she would never know that freedom for herself. Her life would end on the ice below, broken and forever unfulfilled—

In the same instant, a strong hand grabbed the edge of the puffy vest Shaun had loaned her. The hand jerked her upward, gripped her wrist and pulled her forward. Lexie's legs slammed against the side of the ship with a bang.

“Stay with me,” Shaun pleaded. “Look at me. Don't look down, keep your eyes on me.”

Lexie pulled her gaze back up from where it focused, four stories down on the ice below. The lifeboat blanket slipped from her arm and drifted toward the ice, catching in the breeze. It made the descent look as peaceful as falling asleep.

“Up here!”

Lexie snapped out of it, realizing that the hand clasped around her wrist wouldn't hold for much longer—Shaun's fingers were beyond white, almost blue, and Lexie barely felt anything in her own fingers and toes. Shaun's other arm reached for her as he leaned over the edge of the ship. He had one leg braced against the lifeboat and the other precariously placed on the icy deck. He gripped under her shoulder and she grasped his forearm, following his directions to place her feet against the side of the ship and the lifeboat, straddle-walking her way back up.

A few tense seconds later, they were both back on the deck.

Lexie gulped down shallow breaths, panic threatening to overtake her senses, but the cold air burned her lungs and overrode the external triggers. Lexie didn't resist as Shaun bundled her into his arms and hustled across the deck, sliding one foot after the other. He took them through the first door, though the complete and utter lack of light barely registered in her consciousness as Shaun walked with purpose through the darkened halls.

“I'm sleepy,” Lexie murmured, feeling the lull of exhaustion. She tried to cover her mouth as she yawned, but her arm refused to follow orders and she hit herself in the cheek instead. “Oops. Shaun, I think I need to lie down for a minute.” What would a short nap hurt? They'd been running all day...all night...

A tingle began in her fingers and toes, rousing her from the sudden urge to sleep. By the time she felt herself being placed on the floor, the tingle had become a painful burn in all her limbs. At least it detracted her attention from the sting of her gunshot graze.

“Don't fall asleep,” Shaun pleaded, grabbing her hands and placing them between his own. “Lexie, keep your eyes open. Talk to me.”

Why should she talk to him? All she wanted was a warm bed, some coffee...wait, coffee...something about coffee...

The reminder of coffee jolted her brain back to the present. “Shaun? Where are we? Are we safe?” The last clear memory she had was of diving into the lifeboat outside. “We have to hide.”

Shaun searched her face, and half of her brain told her he sat too close. The other half wondered why the burning in her limbs wouldn't go away.

“I don't know if we're safe or not,” he said. “We're going to wait in here a little while and try to warm up.” He squeezed her hands between his, alternating between breathing hot air on their frozen fingers and rubbing the skin to increase circulation. Lexie faded in and out of consciousness as the tingling waxed and waned. Time's passage became irrelative to everything save the easing of pain from her numb extremities.

At some point, Shaun crossed the room and came back with a handful of candles, matches and a box of tissues. He must have seen the quizzical look she gave him, because he shrugged, pulled out a match and lit a candle. He placed it on the floor between them. “Take off your shoes and socks. I'll light a few more of these.”

Lexie did as he asked, but the muddy candlelight made it even more difficult to tell where they were. “What kind of room is this?” Her words still sounded sluggish to her own ears. “How did you know this was here?”

“It's the ferry's prayer chapel. I saw it when we were making our rounds a while ago. There were a few candles lit in here earlier today, so I thought this might be our best source for fast heat. Looks like they've turned the power off on this deck, too, or at least in this section. The elevator explosion is one hall over and one floor below us, so they might have turned off the power to try and fix things. Might explain why we haven't heard any alarms or announcements yet.”

Lexie nodded, gritting her teeth at the returning sensation in her fingers and toes. “Do you think they evacuated these decks?”

Shaun scooted across the floor next to her so they sat shoulder to shoulder. “I suspect that, since this floor is one floor above the explosion, it was evacuated while we were outside. We probably missed the ensuing panic right after the blast, which may be why our pursuer hasn't found us yet.”

“Yet. That's reassuring.” Lexie wished her fingers didn't hurt so much. He looked so discouraged, she actually thought she might hug him. Again.

Shaun rested his head against the wall. “Have to say, I'm feeling like a pretty unintelligent intelligence agent right now.”

Lexie felt a grin spread across her face at his admission. “If it makes you feel any better, if I had to be stuck in the dark with anyone while on the run from an angry kidnapper, I'm glad it's with you. It means we have two brains working instead of trying to do this on our own.” She hoped she hadn't said the wrong thing. Up until this moment, he hadn't shown any kind of self-doubt.

It was the right thing to say. He rolled his head against the wall to smile at her. “We do make a good team. I shouldn't be so negative. I trust that God's in control here, though sometimes it's hard to see His hand at work.”

Lexie hardly believed the words coming out of his mouth. “The last I checked, the person in control of this situation is the person chasing us. But hopefully that changes soon.”

“God provides, Lexie. He helped me catch you when you fell, and He'll help us get through this one way or another.”

Despite her frigid limbs, heat flooded Lexie's cheeks as ire rose in her belly. Helped to catch her when she fell? So where did that put God when other people were in trouble? “What you're telling me is that God picks and chooses who to help. Like some kind of cruel game master.”

Shaun blinked in alarm. “That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying I trust in His ultimate authority. God is the ultimate dispenser of justice. I'm hoping we take this guy down, but God's justice is what really matters in the end.”

“That's a pretty raw deal for the people who get hurt in the meantime.”

“We're not meant to understand everything, we're just meant to—”

“Sit back and watch as God takes away everything from us?” Lexie pulled her hands away from Shaun and tucked them under her armpits. She'd warm up her own way, thank you very much. “God doesn't care, and you can't tell me you actually think He does.”

“He does.”

“He
doesn't.
” Lexie knew her voice had risen, but she couldn't stop it. He needed to know exactly why she didn't care for his garbage platitudes. Like cement hardening, the next phrase took shape before she could stop it. “If God cared? Nikki and I would have never met you. If you'd never been a part of our lives, never become friends with her, she wouldn't be missing today. So,
no
. I don't believe God cares.”

A dark, harsh silence descended. The only sound in the candlelit blackness was Lexie's heartbeat. Could Shaun hear it? She didn't care. She didn't care if one more word ever came out of his mouth. As soon as they made it to shore, she'd leave Shaun whatever-his-last-name-was behind and never look back, not even once—

“I'm sorry, Lexie.”

Lexie hardly believed her ears. “You're...what?”

“I'm sorry. I'm truly, honestly sorry.”

Lexie stared at Shaun. His expression had grown plaintive, the candles' white flame only accentuating the sadness and regret on his face. “Come again?”

“I'm sorry that I allowed your sister to be distracted on the trip. I was a selfish, narcissistic teenager, and even though she and I were just friends, I probably didn't help matters by goofing off most of the time. I came around eventually, but I guess it was too late to be a good influence on Nikki. Maybe I didn't explain myself when I let her down, maybe I could have been more compassionate. I don't know. If there's anything I did wrong, I'm sorry.”

This was unexpected. Lexie's heart pounded harder as Shaun's gaze held hers with unshakable sincerity. “You can't be serious.”

He reached over, gripping her hands in his once again. “I know I can't go back in time and make things better. None of us can, and it's not worth living our lives in regret. All we can do is our best in the present, living the way God wants us to live. Constantly striving to be more like Him as we move toward the future. After everything we saw on that trip, I wanted to try to be the best man I knew how, and I'm still trying to do that today.”

All Lexie could do was blink. No other body parts seemed to be working. He was asking for her...forgiveness? Understanding?

When she didn't respond, he squeezed her hands one more time and released them. “I realize you're angry, and you have every right to be. It's a lot to take in, and I don't have all the answers.”

Her head, her logic, screamed at her not to forgive. Her brain spouted lies, telling her that he had ulterior motives, that he only said this because they were in the dark on the run from a killer. But her heart, when she looked into his eyes, knew the request came from a sincere man. A man of God who only wanted to do what was right.

After all this time, after all these years, she'd never imagined she would have a chance to give Shaun Carver a piece of her mind—or that he would ask her for forgiveness for an anger that she finally understood had nothing to do with him and everything to do with her sister's choices. He deserved no blame, despite being willing to take it for something that was never his fault. No, Lexie was angry with herself...angry for forcing her sister into a position where she'd taken a wrong turn, and for not being able to stop her or change her or bring her back from wherever she'd ended up.

Lexie inhaled slowly, counting the seconds as they passed. He waited for a response, and she needed to give him one.

But the words refused to come. She buckled, and the emotions she'd held back for so many years burst forth and spilled over. Shaun closed the gap between them, wrapping his strong arms around her once again. How could she respond to a request like that? After everything she'd done to him in anger—blaming him for years, projecting her anger onto him—he'd been the wrong person all along. He'd tried to do the right thing. Here was a man who knew about honor and trust, and she'd given him neither.

“It's not your fault,” Shaun murmured into her hair, his breath warming her chilled exterior. “I know you think it's your fault because you made her go with you on the mission trip, but it's not. Your sister had free will, and so did I. So do you. God allows free will so that we can make our own choices. It's never been your fault, Lexie. You can't blame yourself.”

“I'm sorry, Shaun,” she whispered into his shoulder. “I've been so angry at you all these years, but I forgot the very lessons I'd gone on that mission trip to learn in the first place. I hope
you
can forgive
me.
”

With a gentle laugh, Shaun smoothed his hand over her hair and kissed her forehead. “I already have.”

“I can't give up on her.” Lexie hiccupped through her sobs. “I know Maria isn't Nikki, but I can't give up on her—on knowing what happened to her. God did, but I can't.”

Shaun placed his hands on her cheeks, linking their gaze together like chains. “God never gave up on Nikki. Not once. And He's never given up on you, either.”

It was a truth she knew from childhood, but how long had it been since she'd believed it? And yet, here was an undeniable case of redemption right in front of her. How could she have been so blind for so long? People changed, the same way she had. Only she hadn't changed for the better. She'd allowed herself to become bitter and angry, blaming herself for something she had no control over and never would.

Life was too short to stay angry, to hold grudges. To say “later” or “can't.” Who knew what would happen once they made their way out of this mess, if they ever did? What mattered was that they were here together, right now, in this moment. He cared deeply for her, she knew that—and somewhere, past the fear and the physical pain of the injuries of the past thirty or so hours, she cared for him, too. More than she'd been willing to admit. Her heart had been chained by anger for too long. And now, after so many years, the burden of anger and guilt, as heavy as a mountain, lifted from her shoulders.

She knew with firm certainty that she'd held back long enough. She tilted her chin upward, parted her lips and waited. Gently, and so tenderly, he took the invitation.