Even though he was here, he didn’t know if he knew how tobehere. He’d been chasing anything that got his blood pumping for so long, he wasn’t sure he knew how to stand still.
He reached beneath his shirt and traced the tattooed ink on his skin.
You’re too loved to lose.
He read that message every day. In her handwriting. With her voice in his head.
A small whisper inside him said that maybeshewas the reason he was back. Because it had been too long since he’d heard that voice for real…the gentle tone that had always kept him calm.
He dropped his hand and looked out over his mountains again. When he was a kid, he couldn’t wait to get out, but now, being back, he had to admit that all he felt was…relaxed. At the way the air whistled through the trees. The sway of the branches. It was peaceful. Calm. Two things he needed.
He closed his eyes, breathing in that fresh air.
He was just opening them again when movement from below caught his attention. He frowned at the distant sight of two men and…shit…was that a woman dangling over the taller guy’s shoulder?
The older man looked up suddenly, and Jace shifted around the bend in the skywalk so that he was shielded by a tree. He pulled out his phone. His brother was the town sheriff. Surely he’d want to know about this.
The phone rang. Then it rang some more. When it went to voicemail, Jace hung up but tried again. This time, Eastern answered.
“Jace, now’s not a good time.”
“I think you’ll want to hear this. I’m at the skywalk, and I just saw two men moving through the woods, one of them with a woman over his shoulder.”
There was a pause before Eastern asked, “What do they look like?”
“One older guy, maybe mid-fifties. It’s the younger man who has the woman. I only saw the back of her though. She has long black hair, I think?”
“Sadie.” His brother sounded winded, as if he was running.
Jace frowned. Eastern had briefly mentioned the woman he was seeing. Wasn’t that her name? “Sadie? She’s missing?”
“Yeah. Where in the skywalk are you?”
Jace opened his mouth, but anything he was going to say was cut off by the sound of a gunshot. And judging by Eastern’s sharp intake of breath, he heard it too. Then a second gunshot sounded.
Jace raced down the skywalk to get back to the forest floor.
“I’m sending you a pin of my location. I’m going after them, brother.”
CHAPTER 30
Air soared in and out of Sadie’s chest and pain radiated from her ribs, but she didn’t stop or slow. She couldn’t. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been running, seconds or minutes. Time had blurred together, the fear and adrenaline fogging her head.
Sharp branches scratched her cheeks and arms, the gun heavy in her hand.
A gun. She was holding agun. One that she’d used to shoot both Jarrad and Mr. Anderson.
Nausea rolled in her belly at the memory of the blood on Mr. Anderson. The way it had spread so quickly across his shirt and soaked through his fingers.
She pushed it down. If she hadn’t shot him, he would have shother. And now Jarrad would be coming after her. He had a weapon too, and he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot to kill. All she could do was hope and pray that the bullet she’d put in the back of his leg slowed him down enough that she could get away.
But God, was she even running in the right direction? She didn’t know these mountains well enough, and even if she did, fear was messing with her head.
She rounded a tree, only for her foot to catch a root and send her to the ground. With bound hands, she wasn’t able to catch herself while also holding the gun. Pain exploded through her ribs, halting her breath and making her groan in agony. She rolled to her side, holding her middle, begging the pain to subside.
When footsteps sounded in the woods, she ground her back teeth together and forced herself to her knees.
Oh God, where was the gun? It was getting so dark, she could barely see a thing. And the cover of the trees was doing nothing to help her.
