God, the stricken look she gave him. He realized that she did see things in black and white, good and bad, lawful and unlawful. She needed to, for whatever reason in this situation, and this was tearing her apart.Yeah. He wouldn’t blame her if she got up and left him on the mountain.
“Sylvie.” He fought back the bile churning in his stomach at the thought of losing her. “I love you. I have from the beginning. I don’t want to lose you. I know there are probably things you can’t tell me, or else you wouldn’t be asking about all this. So I’m not going to push you on that. I’m going to trust you instead, and hope that you can trust me back. We’re on the same side. But please, let me do what I can to make sure you’re safe.”
She blinked back tears that ripped at his heart. “I love you, too, Alex. So much it hurts. I know you’re a good man. But…I hate that there are things we can’t tell each other. But we really can’t, can we?”
“No, we can’t.”
“This is where lies and half-truths and secrets get us. They stop us from trusting each other.”
Gut punch. “So you don’t trust me.”
She opened her mouth, closed it again, and he realized he’d just gut-punched her right back. She sucked in her lower lip and spit it back out with an exasperated puff of air. “If I didn’t trust you, I couldn’t let you do what we did the other night. So Idotrust you, Alex. But that trust has to go both ways. You need to trust me when I say that I’m handling this, okay?”
He leaned in and kissed her, then stroked her hair and cupped her face. She pressed her cheek against his hand. Finally, he nodded.
“But you have to promise me that you won’t hesitate, not for one moment, to tell me if you need help. You have a target on your back and that scares the hell out of me.”
“I know. But if this is going to work, you have to accept that my job means I have to go into dangerous situations alone sometimes. If I ever have to go undercover, you need to accept that.”
“How about, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. And I’d much rather you move in with me right now than stay in your townhouse.”
Sylvie tried to cover her smile. “I’d like that. When this…weirdness…is over.” She turned her head to kiss his palm. “Thank you.”
“Sylvie.” Alex took her face between his hands. “I love you. And I do trust you.”
She blinked back tears. “I love and trust you too, Alex. Now more than ever.”
They packed everything up and put it in her trunk in a silence that wasn’t entirely comfortable. Letting Sylvie ‘handle it’ alone went against every instinct Alex had.
Just before he opened the passenger door, Alex’s phone went off. They looked at each other over the Mustang’s roof.
“What is it?” Alex barked into the phone.
Kyle barked back, loud enough for Sylvie to hear. “Fucking Glass took off from the accident site. He’s headed toward Lyons.” The distant sound of police sirens suddenly bounced against the mountains, making Sylvie look toward the road they’d taken up the mountain.
“Get in the car!” she ordered, cutting off Alex’s phone conversation.
“What?” He told Kyle, “I’ll call you back,” and disconnected.
She was already in her seat and turning the ignition.
“You’re off-duty,” Alex said as he got in. His right foot had barely left the ground before the car’s rear tires were kicking up twin rooster tails of gravel.
“Yup, but it doesn’t matter. I’m still the best driver around and they need me.”
With that, she stomped on the accelerator and the Mustang took off like a demon over the dirt and gravel road. They fishtailed down the switchback and Alex was convinced they’d end up over the side of the cliff.
“What are we doing?”
“People are gonna be all over town, walking along the main road from the campsites to the festival, and some of them will be none too sober. The last thing George needs is a car chase straight through the middle of that, and that’s what he’s about to get. I can still cut them off up ahead and prevent it.”
Her white-toothed grin flashed as the Stang flew over gravel. One more cut, one more turn, and Alex could see the two-lane road about two hundred feet below through the pines. With the windows down, he could just make out the sound of a powerful V-8 coming closer. Behind it, a siren’s whine sliced through the air.
One last turn, and the road was ahead of them. Sylvie pulled out onto it, dirt flying in an arc from under the rear tires, and did a one-eighty until they faced the way they’d come. The mustang blocked the road just as a Charger came into view at the top of the hill—doing around ninety was Alex’s best guess.
And not slowing down.
“Get out of the car,” Sylvie said, reaching under the driver’s seat.
