She hadn’t said a word about it to Cross. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t. But the cramped passage had pressed every one of her buttons. Bugs, tight spaces, not being able to stand or breathe freely—and the sickening thought of something crawling across her hand had nearly undone her. She’d gone cold in that moment, as if ice water had replaced the blood in her veins.
She was certain he’d noticed. That flicker of a glance. The tiny frown. But he hadn’t said anything, which was why he was still alive. If he’d said word one to her about her fear, she would have strangled him on the spot.
Now, sitting in the open boat as the humid night air wrapped around her like a damp blanket, she tried to shake it off. The bayou felt almost alive—the air thick with the scent of moss and brine, flowers too sweet to be pleasant, and the rot of old wood and decay. She hated everything about this swampy byway. Every. Damn. Thing.
Trees loomed on either side, their trunks rising like shadowy sentinels from dark water. Spanish moss hung from gnarled branches, the ragged parasite drifting on the wind. Frogs croaked from the reeds. Insects buzzed in clouds that caught the moonlight like dust motes. The hum of the motor was the only thing keeping it all at bay.
Drew slapped at her arm. Another mosquito.
"They’re going to bleed me dry," she muttered.
When Drew glanced over her shoulder, she caught a small smile on Cross’s lips as he steered the skiff. "You’re sweet. They can’t resist."
She rolled her eyes but said nothing. Sweet wasn’t the word most people used to describe her. And coming from Cross… well, she wasn’t going to unpack that. Bad enough she’d been shot at but what sucked more, what knotted her shoulders worse than a tightly-knit cardigan, was the thought that she was now stuck in the middle of nowhere with Cross.
It had taken her more than a year to get over him. He was larger than life to her. He had always made her feel secure, invincible, as if she could do anything. The time she was with him was the first time she’d ever felt that way. He’d banished the self-doubt she’d grown up with, and then he’d pulled the rug out from underneath her and left her reeling. Cue the self-doubt crashing back into her life.Maybe she hated Cross even more than she hated the bayou.
The last place she wanted to be was with Cross. It was too hard on her psyche, not to mention too damn hard on her body.She still wanted him more than she’d wanted any other man. Life just wasn’t fair. So much for doing the right thing, the thing that she could live with. It might just end up getting her killed.
She leaned back, letting the boat rocking beneath her lull her careening emotions. Her legs ached. Her heart still thudded with the aftershocks of the ambush, the bullets, the rush of adrenaline. And now here she was, in a boat in the middle of nowhere, running deeper into the Louisiana night with the man who had broken her heart.
"Where are we going?" she finally asked.
Cross didn’t look at her. His eyes stayed on the water ahead. "A safe place."
"Could you be more vague?"
"A cabin," he said. "Built over the water. Only reachable by boat. Nobody stumbles on it by accident. It doesn’t have a place name. It’s not official or anything."
She exhaled through her nose, trying to decide if that was comforting or not. “Does my sister or brother have a place there, too?”
Cross shook his head. “No. We thought it was better if we all weren’t holed up in the same spot back when we were…”
“Playing dead?” Drew supplied. She still hadn’t totally forgiven Savannah, Savvy as she liked to be called, and McGuire for that one. Oh, she understood. They were all in danger, and it was better if the world thought they were all dead. Still, it’s not like Drew was the world. She wouldn’t have told a soul. Anger unwound in her belly. Left out in the cold once again. What a surprise…
“Being in the same location would have made it too easy for someone to take us all out at once,” Cross stated.
The skiff banked to the left as he adjusted the rudder to turn, following a narrow waterway that twisted between gnarled cypress trees. The passage narrowed into a kind of channel,shadows pressing close. Then the trees broke open into a wider section of swamp, and Drew blinked.
There were lights.
Faint. Flickering. Warm yellow and pale blue. A handful of cabins and shacks perched on stilts above the water, spaced out along the winding channel like waypoints in a forgotten world. Most of the structures looked cobbled together from salvaged wood and rusted metal. Tin roofs, sagging porches, weather-beaten siding. One had a line of glass bottles strung on twine, rattling softly in the breeze. Another had wind chimes and a curtain of bones across the front door.
"Do people live here?" She kept her voice low.
Cross nodded. "Yeah. Off-grid folks. Some of them grew up out here, never left. Others came to disappear."
"Sounds cozy."
He gave a quiet laugh. "They keep to themselves. But they look out for each other, too. That one there—" he nodded to a small shack with faded green paint and an old satellite dish bolted to one side, "belongs to Boudreaux. Retired Navy. Swears he sank a Russian sub with a bow and arrow."
She raised an eyebrow. "Did he?"
"Hell if I know. He tells a good story."
They passed another cabin; the porch overhang was littered with hanging charms and strange symbols painted on driftwood. Candlelight flickered behind the curtains.
Drew shivered.
