She was full of wild hopes these days. She hoped she hadn’t been recognized. She hoped her baby would be healthy and happy. Most of all, she hoped she and Chance could build a life together, that he would be thrilled about the baby even though it was unplanned, that he truly cared about her as much as he appeared to. He never actually said he loved her, but it was there in his voice, in his actions, in his eyes and his touch as he made love to her.
Everything had to be all right. It had to. There was too much at stake now.
Sunny slept through the landing as Chance set the plane down in Des Moines. He glanced at her, but she was soundly asleep, like a child, her breathing deep and her cheeks flushed. He let her sleep, knowing what was coming to a head.
The plan was working beautifully. He had arranged for Sunny’s face to be broadcast worldwide, and the bait had been taken immediately. His people had tracked two of Hauer’s men into the country and maintained discreet but constant surveillance on them. Chance hadn’t made it easy for anyone to follow him and Sunny; that would have been too obvious. But he had left a faint trail that, if the bloodhounds were good, they would be able to follow. Hauer’s bloodhounds were good. They had been about a day behind them for about a week now, but until Hauer himself showed up, Chance made sure the hounds never caught up with him.
The news he’d been waiting for had finally come yesterday. Word in the underground of terrorist organizations was that Hauer had disappeared. He hadn’t been seen in a few days, and there was a rumor he was in the States planning something big.
Somehow Hauer had slipped out of Europe and into America without being spotted, but now that Chance knew there was a mole in the FBI helping Hauer, he wasn’t surprised.
Hauer was too smart to openly join his men, but he would be nearby. He was the type who, when Sunny was captured, would want to interrogate this rebellious daughter himself.
Chance would take him apart with his bare hands before he let that happen.
But he would have to let them think they had her, not knowing they were surrounded at all times, at a distance, by his men. Chance just hoped he himself wasn’t shot at the beginning, to get him out of the way. If Hauer’s men were smart, they would realize they could use threats to Chance to keep Sunny in line, and they had proven they were smart. This was the risky part, but he had taken all the safeguards he could without tipping his hand.
His interlude with Sunny would end tonight, one way or another. If all went well, they would both live through it, and she would be free to live her life out in the open. He just hoped that one day she wouldn’t hate him, that she would realize he had done what he had to do in order to capture Hauer. Who knows? Maybe one day he would meet her again.
He guided the Cessna to a stop in its designated spot and killed the engine. Sunny slept on, despite the sudden silence. Maybe he’d cost her too much sleep and it had finally caught up with her, he thought, smiling despite his inner tension. He had glutted himself with sex for the past two weeks, as if subconsciously he had been trying to stockpile memories and sensations for the time when she was no longer there. But as often as he’d had her, he still wanted her. Again. More. He was half hard right now, just thinking about her.
Gently he shook her, and she opened her sleepy eyes with a look of such trust and love that his heart leaped. She sat up, stretching and looking around. “Where are we?”
“Des Moines.” Puzzled, he said, “I told you where we were going.”
“I remember,” she said around a yawn. “I’m just groggy. Wow! That was some nap. I don’t usually sleep during the daytime. I must not be getting enough sleep at night.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “I wonder why.”
“I have no idea,” he said, all innocence. He opened the door and climbed out, turning around to hold his hands up for her. She clambered out, and he lifted her to the ground. Looking up at the wide, cerulean-blue sky, he stretched, too, twisting his back to get out the kinks. “It’s a pretty day. Want to have a picnic?”
“A what?” She looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language.
“A picnic. You know, where you sit on the ground and eat with your hands, and fight wild animals for your food.”
“Sounds like fun. But haven’t we already done that?”
He laughed. “This time we’ll do it right—checkered tablecloth, fried chicken, the works.”
“All right, I’m game. Where are we going to have this picnic? Beside the runway?”
“Smart-ass. We’ll rent a car and go for a drive.”
Her eyes began to sparkle as she realized he meant it. That was what he loved best about Sunny, her ability to have fun. “How much time do we have? What time are we leaving?”
“Let’s stay for a couple of days. Iowa’s a nice place, and my tail could use some time away from that airplane seat.”
He handled his business with the airport, then went to a rental car desk and walked away with the keys to a sport utility.
“You rented a truck?” Sunny teased when she saw the green Ford Explorer. “Why didn’t you get something with style, like a red sports car?”
“Because I’m six-three,” he retorted. “My legs don’t fit in sports cars.”
She had bought a small backpack that she carried instead of the bulky carry-on she had been lugging around. She could get her toiletries and a change of clothes into the backpack, and that was enough for the single night they usually spent in a place. That meant her pistol was always with her, fully assembled when they weren’t having to go through x-ray scanners, and he didn’t protest. He always carried his own pistol with him, too, tucked into his waistband under his loose shirt. She put the backpack on the floorboard and climbed into the passenger seat, and began pushing buttons and turning knobs, every one she could reach.
Chance got behind the wheel. “I’m afraid to start this thing now. There’s no telling what’s going to happen.”
“Chicken,” she said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I’m just thankful Explorers don’t have ejection seats,” he muttered as he turned the key in the ignition. The engine caught immediately. The radio blared, the windshield wipers flopped back and forth at high speed, and the emergency lights began blinking. Sunny laughed as Chance dived for the radio controls and turned the volume down to an acceptable level. She buckled herself into the seat, smiling a very self-satisfied smile.
He had a map from the rental car company, though he already knew exactly where he was going. He had gotten very specific directions from the clerk at the rental agency, so the clerk would remember where they had gone when Hauer’s men asked. He had personally scouted out the location before putting the plan into motion. It was in the country, to cut the risk of collateral damage to innocent civilians. There was cover for his men, who would be in place before he and Sunny arrived. And, most important, Hauer and his men couldn’t move in without being observed. Chance had enough men in place that an ant couldn’t attend this picnic unless he wanted it there. Best of all, he knew Zane was out there somewhere. Zane didn’t usually do fieldwork, but in this instance he was here guarding his brother’s back. Chance would rather have Zane looking out for him than an entire army; the man was unbelievable, he was so good.
They stopped at a supermarket deli for their picnic supplies. There was even a red-checkered plastic cloth to go on the ground. They bought fried chicken, potato salad, rolls, cole slaw, an apple pie, and some green stuff Sunny called pistachio salad. He knew he wasn’t about to touch it. Then he had to buy a small cooler and ice, and some soft drinks to go in it. By the time he got Sunny out of the supermarket, over an hour had passed and he was almost seventy bucks lighter in the wallet.
“We have apple pie,” he complained. “Why do we need apples?”
“I’m going to throw them at you,” she said. “Or better yet, shoot them off your head.”
“If you come near me with an apple, I’ll scream,” he warned. “And pickled beets? Excuse me
, but who eats pickled beets?”
She shrugged. “Someone does, or they wouldn’t be on the shelves.”
“Have you ever eaten pickled beets?” he asked suspiciously.
“Once. They were nasty.” She wrinkled her nose at him.
“Then why in hell did you buy them?” he shouted.
“I wanted you to try them.”
He should be used to it by now, he thought, but sometimes she still left him speechless. Muttering to himself, he stowed the groceries—including the pickled beets—in the back of the Explorer.
God, he was going to miss her.
She rolled down the window and let the wind blow through her bright hair. She had a happy smile on her face as she looked at everything they passed. Even service stations seemed to interest her, as did the old lady walking a Chihuahua that was so fat its belly almost kept its feet from touching the ground. Sunny giggled about the fat little dog for five minutes.
If it made her laugh like that, he thought, he would eat the damn pickled beets. But he’d damn sure eat something else afterward, because if he got shot, he didn’t want pickled beets to be the last thing he tasted.
The late August afternoon was hot when he pulled off the road. A tree-studded field stretched before them. “Let’s walk to those trees over there,” he said, nodding to a line of trees about a hundred yards away. “See how they’re growing, in a line like that? There might be a little creek there.”
She looked around. “Shouldn’t we ask permission?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Do you see a house anywhere? Who do we ask?”
“Well, all right, but if we get in trouble, it’s your fault.”
He carried the cooler and most of the food. Sunny slung her backpack on her shoulders, then took charge of the ground cloth and the jar of pickled beets. “I’d better carry these,” she said. “You might drop them.”
“You could take something else, too,” he grunted. This stuff was heavy.
She stretched up to peek in the grocery bag. The apple pie was perched on top of the other stuff. “Nah, you won’t drop the pie.”
He grumbled all the way to their picnic site, more because she enjoyed it than any other reason. This was the last day she would ever tease him, or he would see that smile, hear that laugh.
“Oh, there is a creek!” she exclaimed when they reached the trees. She carefully set the jar of beets down and unfolded the ground cloth, snapping it open in that brisk, economical movement all women seemed to have, and letting it settle on the thick, overgrown grass. A light breeze was blowing, so she anchored the cloth with her backpack on one corner and the jar of beets on the another.
Chance set the cooler and food down and sprawled out on the cloth. “I’m too tired now to enjoy myself,” he complained.
She leaned over and kissed him. “You think I don’t know what you’re up to? Next thing I know you’ll get something in your eye, and I’ll have to get really, really close to see it. Then your back will need scratching, and you’ll have to take off your shirt. Before I know it, we’ll both be naked and it’ll be time to leave, and we won’t have had a bite to eat.”
He gave her a quizzical look. “You have this all planned out, don’t you?”
“Down to the last detail.”
“Suits me.” He reached for her, but with a spurt of laughter she scooted out of reach. She picked up the jar of beets and looked at him expectantly.
He flopped back with a groan. “Oh, man. Don’t tell me you expect me to try them now.”
“No, I want you to open the jar so I can eat them.”
“I thought you said they were nasty.”
“They are. I want to see if they’re as nasty as I remember.” She handed him the jar. “If you’ll open them for me, I’ll let you eat fried chicken and potato salad to build up your strength before I wring you out and hang you up to dry.”
He sat up and took the jar. “In your dreams, little miss ‘don’t-touch-me-again-you-lech.”’ He put some muscle behind the effort, twisting the lid free.
“I’ve been sandbagging,” she said. “This time, don’t even bother begging for mercy.”
She reached for the jar. The loosened lid came off, and the jar slipped from her hands. He dived for it, not wanting beets all over everything. Just as he moved, the tree beside him exploded, and a millisecond later he heard the blast of the shot.
He twisted in midair, throwing himself on top of Sunny and rolling with her behind the cover of the tree.
Chapter 13
“Stay down!” Chance barked, shoving her face into the grass.
Sunny couldn’t have moved even if she had wanted to, even if his two hundred-plus pounds hadn’t been lying on top of her. She was paralyzed, terror freezing in her veins as she realized her worst nightmare had come true; her father had found them, and Chance was nothing more than an obstacle to be destroyed. That bullet hadn’t been aimed at her. If she hadn’t dropped the jar of beets, if Chance hadn’t lunged for it, the slug that blew chunks of wood out of the tree would have blown off half his head.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered above her, his breath stirring her hair. “Sniper.”
The earth exploded two inches from her head, clods of dirt flying in her face, tiny pieces of gravel stinging her like bees. Chance literally threw her to the side, rolling with her again; the ground dropped out from beneath her, and her stomach gave a sickening lurch. As suddenly as the fall began, it stopped. She landed hard in three inches of sluggish water.
He had rolled them into the creek, where the banks afforded them more cover. A twist of his powerful body and he was off her, his big pistol in his hand as he flattened himself against the shallow bank. Sunny managed to get to her knees, slipped on the slimy creek bottom, and clambered on her hands and knees to a spot beside him. She felt numb, as if her arms and legs didn’t belong to her, yet they were working, moving.
This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. How had he found them?
She closed her eyes, fighting the terror. She was a liability to Chance unless she got herself under control. She’d had close calls before and handled herself just fine, but she had never before seen the man she loved almost get killed in front of her. She had never before been pregnant, with so much to lose.
Her teeth were chattering. She clamped her jaw together.
Silence fell over the field. She heard a car drive by on the road, and for a wild moment she wondered why it didn’t stop. But why would it? There was nothing the average passerby would notice, no bodies lying around on the highway, no haze of gun smoke hanging over the green grass. There was only silence, as if even the insects had frozen in place, the birds stopped singing; even the breeze had stopped rustling the leaves. It was as if nature held its breath, shocked by the sudden violence.
The shot had come from the direction of the road, but she hadn’t seen anyone drive up. They had only just arrived themselves; it was as if whoever had shot at them had already been here, waiting. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? The picnic was an impulse, and the location sheer chance; they could just as well have stopped at a park.
The only other explanation that occurred to her was if the shooter had nothing to do with her father. Maybe it was a crazy landowner who shot at trespassers.
If only she had brought her cell phone! But Margreta wasn’t due to call her for several more days, and even if she had brought the phone, it would be in her backpack, which was still lying on the ground cloth. The distance of a few yards might as well be a mile. Her pistol was also in the pack; though a pistol was useless against a sniper, she would feel better if she had some means of protection.
Chance hadn’t fired; he knew the futility of it even more than she did. His dark gold eyes were scanning the countryside, looking for anything that would give away the assailant’s position: a glint of sunlight on the barrel, the color of his clothing, a movement. The extreme angle of the late afternoon sun picked out incredible detail in the trees and bushes, but
nothing that would help them.
Only nightfall would help, she thought. If they could just hold out for…how long? Another hour? Two hours, at most. When it was dark, then they could belly down in the little creek and work their way to safety, either upstream or down, it didn’t matter.
If they lived that long. The sniper had the advantage. All they had was the cover of a shallow creek bank.
She became aware that her teeth were chattering again. Again she clamped her jaw together to still the movement. Chance spared a glance at her, a split-second assessment before he returned to once again scanning the trees for the sniper. “Are you all right?” he asked, though he obviously knew she was all in one piece. He wasn’t asking about her physical condition.
“S-scared spitless,” she managed to say.
“Yeah. Me, too.”
He didn’t look scared, she thought. He looked coldly furious.
He reached out and rubbed her arm, a brief gesture of comfort. “Thank God for those beets,” he said.
She almost cried. The beets. She had thoroughly enjoyed teasing him about the beets, but the truth was, when she saw them in the supermarket she had been overcome by an almost violent craving for them. She wanted those beets. She felt as if she could eat the entire jar of them. Could cravings start this early in a pregnancy? If so, then he should thank God not for the beets, but for the beginnings of life forming inside her.
She wished she had told him immediately when her period didn’t come. She couldn’t tell him now; the news would be too distracting.