I ease to a slow stop just out of her line of sight. She quickly goes inside the cabin, but she doesn’t bother concealing where she keeps the key tucked above the door.
I smile. Big mistake. She’s let her guard down out here and that tells me she thinks no one can find her.
I let half an hour go by before I make my way closer. Her cabin is quiet when I step onto the darkened porch. The lights from the front window are killed, but from the sides of the cabin I can spot a low hum of gold and white coming from a window. Her bedroom? Bathroom?
There are no neighbors to worry about since the cabin is in the middle of nowhere.
That’s one plus.
Another is how winter’s stillness wraps around the place, offering a buffer between the real world and whatever I find waiting for me on the inside.
Maybe this night will turn out to be a little fun after all. Large cypress trees cocoon us in from nearly all sides. There are some raised stairs with empty flowerpots filled with snow. I look around for any other signs of a family she’s started or maybe signs of a lover, but there’s not much else. No porch swing, no secondary vehicle and there’s no smoke coming out of the chimney. There’s nothing to make this place feel like home. That’s not the Harlow I remember.
I crouch down and take a peek inside the front window. There’s not even a throw blanket on the couch.
If I didn’t see her walk into the cabin, I would say this place is abandoned most of the year.
I grab the key from the top of the door ledge and I step inside and close the door softly behind me.
The place smells like fresh soap and clean linen, with a faint undercurrent of gun oil that tells me she hasn’t gone soft. I move through the space, cataloging exits and checking for any hiddenweapons, but there’s nothing to find. Her badge sits on the table beside the door alongside her gun.
She’s not expecting anyone to find her out here. It’s not like her to be so careless.
I leave the kitchen and turn down a short hall. Gold light spills from a crack in the bathroom door.
Hmm…she’s in the shower. I can’t help but grin.
Steam drifts down the hall, carrying the scent of her soap, something citrusy and soft. I stop just outside the bathroom, listening to the rush of water and the faint sound of her soft exhales. She always loved long showers.
I ease the door open a fraction more. Moonlight spills through the open ceiling window, silvering the steam.
I step into the doorway as she reaches for a towel.
Harlow freezes when she sees me in the mirror. Her chest rises sharply with a breath of surprise.
For half a second, neither of us moves.
And then someone hits fast forward.
“You!” she seethes.
She spins, blue eyes wide, and then the hellcat lunges.
I hold my hands up. “You’re on a hit list and shit is about...” I try to explain, but she’s not having it.
Her breath stutters as she rears back and drives a fist into my side. “You don’t get to?—”
I block it and cut her off by pressing my mouth to the bruise on her cheek, my lips lingering there. She gasps, her body betraying her even as she shoves at my chest.
I feel it then. The heat between us rekindles on contact. Our souls recognize each other and I can feel the way her blood sings under my touch.
Water drips from every delicious curve of her body and there’s not a part of me that doesn’t go on high alert the second my hands are on her body. My entire plan of getting her to safety and finding out why she’s in the Vultures’ book is out the door. I’m now locked in on remembering her smell, the feel of her in my arms and tasting the sweetness of her kisses on my lips.
For a few seconds, my whole fucking world is right again. I can’t believe I let her slip through my fingers. Then again, back then my life was pure chaos, and she was a force of nature I didn’t know how to handle.
That is not tonight's problem, though.
She lunges again, and this bathroom is very small.
