“Let go of me!” Camille screamed, and Andy’s arms tightened around Narelle even more. There were a lot of police around, why couldn’t they control her? When would they take her away?
“You need to calm down,” a voice she didn’t recognize shouted.
“She’s not going to get away from me!”
“What’s happening?” Narelle asked and pulled back so she could see. She wished she didn’t because Camille was on the ground, clutching her leg with her bloody hand, looking directly at her, and it wasanything but friendly. Narelle gasped at the venom in her eye. “She hates me.”
“Come on, let’s get you away from here.” Andy tugged her to the side, as simultaneously Camille stopped screaming, and the sound of a single shot rent the air.
“Fuck.” Andy scooped her up in his arms and moved swiftly until they were behind the safety of the car.
“Can you see where the shot came from?”
“What the fuck?”
“Keep down, we don’t know if the shooter is still around.”
Had she’d been dropped into the middle of an action movie? Because the shouts from everyone around her was straight out of one.
“Keep down. Someone took out Camille,” Andy whispered in her ear.
“What!?”
Now she really was in a movie. Why would someone want to kill Camille, that wasn’t one of the guys who worked with Andy? Unless it was?
“Did one of you kill her?”
“No, we don’t know where the shot came from. Stay here. Don’t move.”
Everyone shouted at once and Andy shifted to asquatting position, but she tugged him back. The one thought that had remained with her throughout the whole ordeal of being trapped in the back of Camille’s car, was that if she got out of the ordeal alive, she’d tell Andy that she loved him. No way was she going to let him walk away without telling him that now.
“I love you.” Andy stilled as the words exploded out of her. There were still people shouting around her, but right this second, it was as though they were in a bubble and nothing could penetrate them. “I know it seems too soon and totally not the time, but I needed you to know.”
Andy looked shellshocked, his eyes wide and his mouth hung half open.
Was she making a complete fool out of herself?
Was he going to say something or run off like he had planned to do before she stopped him?
“Fuck, honey.” He grabbed her face, framing it with his hands, and his mouth landed on hers in a bruising kiss. She didn’t have a chance to respond before he was pulling back. “Hell of a time to tell me, but god, I love you too.”
In the midst of chaos surrounding them, she felt lighter than she had since her near escape in Bali. All she could do was stare at the man who she hadn’tbeen able to forget since their night together, and now, while their lives were under threat, they’d committed to each other.
“I’ve got to go,” he said after a few seconds. “But I will come back to you. Don’t move until I do.”
“I won’t, and I trust you will.”
Andy kissed her quickly, before his demeanor changed in the blink of an eye and he became the soldier he’d once been and disappeared around the corner of the car.
She didn’t doubt he would be back. Her heart told her he would always come home to her.
And he did.
Epilogue
“We’re still no closer to finding out who was behind Narelle’s attempted kidnapping and who wanted to buy her. Nor who killed Camille.” Andy hated having to state the obvious to his teammates and boss, all seated in the office’s conference for their regular Monday meeting.
It had been three weeks since Narelle and Margot had been taken.
