“God, I love you.”
“I’m so glad you’re here.” She pressed a soft kiss on his lips. “Take me to bed, Michael. Let’s make a good memory tonight.”
His heart squeezed. He felt so lucky, the luckiest man in the world. Michael flicked a glance at the door. His brother was sitting in a car out in front. He should at least invite him in.
But Pia was pulling him up from the sofa, tugging him down the hall toward the bedroom. Bran was his brother. Brothers understood situations like this. He would invite Brandon in after he and Pia had gotten...reacquainted.
Michael grinned. He was sure his brother would understand.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The night sounds intruded, cicadas buzzing outside the guest bedroom windows. Only a sliver of moon lit the dark late-October night. The weather had turned cold, an icy breeze slicing through the branches of the trees.
Chase flicked a glance at the red numbers on the digital clock on the bedside table: 2:00 a.m. He had dozed for a while, but the sleep he needed remained elusive. He felt restless and edgy, worse knowing Harper lay in bed on the other side of the wall.
He could hear her, shifting on the mattress, awake, just as he was. It was all he could do not to go to her, give her what she needed to help her sleep, what both of them needed.
He knew it wouldn’t take much to convince her—the physical attraction between them was stronger than ever. But he wouldn’t break his word.
Instead he shoved his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling, wishing dawn would arrive. Better to be at work than lying there, sorting through regrets.
The sound of glass shattering in the living room shot a jolt of adrenaline into his blood. Leaping out of bed, he pulled on his jeans, grabbed his pistol and his cell phone, and ran barefoot toward the door. The extra magazine in his pocket felt comforting as he bolted down the hall toward the stairs.
More glass shattered, a second window in the living room. Harper’s door swung open as he raced past.
“Chase!”
“Stay in the bedroom!”
Pistol in hand, he ran down the stairs toward the red glow and crackling sound of flames. Fire engulfed the sofa, snaked across the carpet and climbed the curtains. Two homemade bombs filled with accelerant lay broken, spitting tendrils of flame across the floor.
“Oh, my God!” Harper stood at the bottom of the stairs in a pink shorty nightgown, her phone gripped in her hand.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Chase shouted above the roar as more glass shattered and another firebomb crashed through the window of the dining room. The curtains erupted, billowing with hot streaks of red and orange. Thick black smoke made it difficult to see. “Head for the back door!”
The front of the town house was completely cut off. No chance of escape in that direction. Chase knew what he would be facing when they stepped out the back door, knew the fire was a means of forcing them into the hands of men waiting out back.
He pulled his cell from his pocket and punched Maddox’s number, figuring half a dozen people had already seen the flames and called 9-1-1.
“I got trouble, Hawk,” Chase said when Maddox answered. Honky-tonk music played in the background. “Shooters. I don’t know how many.” He rattled off Harper’s address.
“I’m not far. Just hang on till I get there.”
Maddox was close. They’d caught a break there. Now all they had to do was stay alive till Jason or the cops could reach them.
He spotted Harper in the kitchen, ending a call on her phone. “I called 9-1-1. They’re on their way.”
“Good girl.” Trouble was the fire was closing in on them, burning on three sides, flames reaching closer every second they delayed. And the cops were still minutes away.
Chase took a quick glance out the window above the sink, spotted two men in the bushes an instant before a bullet shattered the glass next to his head. He jerked back out of sight and hauled Harper out of the way.
She was trembling. “The garage is on fire.” Her BMW inside. “We can’t get out that way, either. What...what are we going to do?” Her eyes looked bigger and bluer than Chase had ever seen them.
“Only one way out. I’ll go first, try to lower the odds. Stay close beside me. If I go down, don’t try to fight them. You’re the reason they’re here. If these men want you that badly, I don’t think they’ll risk hurting you.”
Her face went even paler than it was already.
Chase reached for the doorknob, but Harper caught his arm. “There’s a shed at the back of the property. The gate to the alley’s behind it. If we could make it there—”
