This could be it, a sliver of time to regain her child. If she waited for Jacob, Blane might come retrieve Evan before they could stop him. He could step out at any second.
She couldn’t afford to wait. Tears froze on her cheeks as she sprinted from behind the tree trunk’s protective cover. Her heart slammed against her ribs with each pounding footstep. Only a few more yards and she would have him.
Evan turned. His laugh rose into a squeal. “Mommy!”
What a beautiful word, a name she feared she would never hear again. Her arms locked around him and held tight. The sweet smell of him filled her senses.
“Evan!” Her breath hitched on a sob, and she hugged tighter. “I have you, baby. Mommy’s got you.”
“Missed you, Mommy.” His sweet words puffed clouds into the subfreezing air. “You was gone a long time, so I snuck Daddy’s phone away and called you.”
With a familiarity that broke Dee’s heart all over again, Evan clutched a lock of her hair and nuzzled it to his face. So often as a baby he’d done that very thing, like clasping a security blanket. How frightened and confused he must have been during his time away from her.
“I’m here now and nothing’s going to make me leave again.” The sound of the revving engine sent shivers down her spine. Blane was so close. Enough of happy reunions. She needed to get Evan away, fast. “We’re gonna go for a ride.”
“What about Daddy?” Evan glanced over his shoulder. He gripped her hair until she winced.
“Shh, sweetie,” Dee whispered as she stumbled back toward the cluster of trees. Evan’s extra weight threw her off balance. She forced herself to sacrifice speed for a more surefooted pace. The last thing she needed was to sprawl in the snow. “It’s Mommy’s turn to see you for a while.”
“Okay.” He smiled, innocently oblivious to the trauma all around him. “I was sick from the candy bar but Daddy gave me a sticky pin.”
Thank God Blane had remembered about the extra Epis she always kept around Evan. “Good, that’s great. But I need you to be very quiet. We can talk all you want once we get to the truck.”
Hugging her son closer, she started back toward where she’d come. If she could just make it back out of the clearing, she would have cover. Where was Jacob? Taking on life solo stunk. She could have used his clear-thinking steadiness.
And suddenly, there he was, tall, strong, dependable. Only a few yards away with his back to her he darted around a thick evergreen. Did she dare call out to him and risk alerting Blane? What choice did she have? She would have to take the chance.
“Jacob!” she called, gasping, stumbling as her feet hooked on a root. She twisted to protect Evan as she tumbled into the snow.
“Dee!” Jacob shouted as he broke through the trees, one arm outstretched. The dread on his face broadcast far greater concerns than a simple fall in the snow.
“Deirdre,” a chilling voice echoed from behind her.
Chapter 17
Ten yards too far away to help, Jacob watched Dee tumble to the snow with her son clutched to her. A medium-build, blond man who matched Lambert’s mug shot with eerie accuracy approached her, gun in hand.
Jacob felt as if his brain had been cleaved in two. One part of him assessed the situation with a calm of old. The other part urged him to fling himself on top of Dee and her child, shield them from the evil only three steps away. Why the hell had she left the truck?
“Deirdre,” the man beside her called, each step toward her a menacing promise. He kept his eyes fixed on Jacob, his gun trained on Dee.
Her body jerked as if she’d been slapped. Dee’s face tightened and she squeezed her eyes shut as Evan whimpered in her arms.
“Blane.” The whispered name carried a wealth of disillusionment. She curved her body protectively around a strong-limbed preschooler to keep him from seeing the gun.
Jacob absorbed the waves of pain radiating from her as if they were his own. And they were. He’d brought her here, to this. He’d promised to find her son and keep them safe.
Frustration and rage both slammed into him. And love. Hell, yeah, love.
He loved her so damned much his chest hurt with each icy breath. No more dodging the truth. What a time to figure it out.
Evan tipped up his face and thrust out his bottom lip. “Hurted my nose when we tripped.”
“Sorry, sweetie.” She clutched him tighter, pressing his face against her chest as if to comfort while keeping his eyes shielded from the horror unfolding. “We’ll wash the scratch very soon.”
Lambert closed in on Dee. “Well, my dear, imagine seeing you here, and with such a hulking companion. I thought you’d died out on that road, but you certainly landed on your feet—” he paused, gesturing with his gun to her crumpled in the snow “—figuratively speaking.”
“Well, I’m very much alive,” Dee answered through gritted teeth and poorly disguised fury. “Unlike that man in your Suburban in the river.”
Blane shrugged. “Skidding away from you, I blew out my tires. I needed another ride that would be able to pull the trailer I’d already arranged to pick up. So I pulled over and pretended my car had broken down until the perfect Good Samaritan stopped by—one with a big truck.”
The implication slapped over Jacob in an icy splash. Lambert had left Dee for dead, then hadn’t hesitated to kill a total stranger just to steal his vehicle. The bastard was pure evil.
Then Jacob’s brain snagged on an earlier part of the man’s diatribe. Lambert had thought Dee died, too. But he had to know she was alive if he’d been stalking her at the Lodge. It didn’t make sense.
Regardless, Jacob had to get the man the hell away from Dee and Evan. “Lambert, you want to deal with me. We don’t want to risk the kid getting in the way.”
“Of course not.” He waggled the gun in his gloved hand. “Who says I’m going to shoot anyone? I just keep this around for protection against intruders. Right, Evan my boy?” His face creased with a wry smile. “Although a target as big as that fellow wouldn’t be tough to hit if I wanted practice.”
Jacob hoped Lambert would take a potshot at him, because then the gun would be away from Dee and Evan. If he could be certain the shot wouldn’t be deadly and leave Dee without protection, he would rile Lambert into shooting now. “Go ahead then. You must have been itching to do this all those times you lurked around my place.”
Lambert scowled. “What the hell are you talking about? The last thing I wanted was to see her again.”
Jacob searched for words to stall the man until the police could arrive. “Then why not leave?”
“And live like some two-bit car thief on the lam? I hardly think so.” He gripped Dee’s arm and yanked her to her feet none too gently. “I’m waiting for my new ID to come through. I’d already started the process to get out of the country, but then Dee screwed up the timetable by digging through my old files. I just needed another couple of weeks to finish the transition of my assets into a shelf corporation so I would be free to travel under my new identity.”
A “shelf corporation.” Jacob narrowed his eyes with understanding. He’d heard of that. An old corporation with no activity was allowed to linger “on the shelf” until someone wanted to buy into it, usually to give age to a new business. Some had begun opting in to create a new holding for assets.
A crafty way to shield an old identity.
Lambert would have been able to conduct all transactions under the banner of his new company, his name never coming under the radar. He could have gotten clean away, losing himself in another country.
The possibilities shifted around in his mind. If the guy’s explanation could be trusted, then who had followed them into Tacoma, and who tormented Dee that night at the hotel?
He’d been so sure when he’d seen the Suburban following them…One like the silver vehicle Chase’s parents owned.
Hell. The realization exploded in his head. He had to trust that Emily would be safe with Grace’s family because he didn’t have the luxury of placing a timely call at the moment.
“Wait!” Dee reached up, her palm poised as an ineffective plug for the gun. Her eyes darted frantically between them. “Jacob, take Evan.”
What the hell was she up to? He only knew he wanted her away from the barrel of that weapon. She really couldn’t expect the man would let Jacob leave with the boy.
Jacob glanced at Evan. The sweet-faced kid had snuggled against Dee’s breast. A sight so damned beautiful, Jacob struggled for air. Beautiful—except for the fact the kid was trembling, his confused eyes darting back and forth between his parents.
Dee inched away from Lambert and carried Evan toward Jacob—without a protest from Lambert. Why wasn’t the guy stopping her?
Suddenly Jacob understood. Lambert honestly didn’t want to frighten his kid. He didn’t want his child seeing him shoot the boy’s mother. This psychopath did love his son in a warped sort of way, and Dee had bargained on that to buy them time.
How long would it keep Dee safe? Only as long as she had Evan in her arms. The way the kid clung to his mother’s neck, it didn’t appear that he would let go anyway.
Jacob had to predict Lambert’s next move, or he’d be left flatfooted and Dee could die. The fog of rage threatened to swallow him.
Concentrate. At least Lambert seemed content to keep up appearances for Evan and pay lip service to civility.
Where were the police? Spike had been leaving from the base, which meant he could be as much as forty-five minutes behind.
Jacob backed away from Lambert, his eyes never leaving Dee.
Dee pressed a kiss to her son’s cheek. “I love you, sweetie.”
“Love you, too, Mommy.” His smile spread from ear to ear.
Dee’s eyes met Jacob’s and held. In the warm chocolate depths he saw trust and, God yes, love. Both directed at him at a time he couldn’t afford to soak up the amazing beauty of the moment.
Then he saw a firm resolution that chilled him clean through. He could see she planned to—
Shove Evan toward Jacob with a twist of her body that placed her back completely to Lambert. She flung herself backward. Toward her ex-husband.
Directly in the path of his gun.
“No,” Jacob shouted even as he wrapped his shoulders around her son, covered his face.
The gun exploded. Dee’s body jerked, her eyes wide. Blood staining her coat collar, she crumpled to the ground.
A roar of denial rolled through him. Jacob thrust Evan behind him and launched himself onto Lambert, throwing all the fury inside him into the charge. They stumbled backward, boots stamping for purchase on the packed ice. He rammed the bastard’s arm against the camper with a satisfying snap. The gun dropped into the snow a second before Jacob downed Lambert. Their bodies slammed into a frozen snowdrift. It hurt. Not enough.
Lambert landed a gut punch with his uninjured fist and Jacob welcomed the reverberating pain that narrowed his focus. He steadied his vision. “This is for Dee, you son of a bitch.”
He plowed his fist into Lambert’s face. Twice. Lambert’s eyes rolled back into his head as he sagged into unconsciousness.
Jacob held his fist aloft and resisted the urge to beat Lambert into a pulp. His rage demanded more than justice. He wanted revenge for Dee.
Dee. Reason pushed its way through the haze of fury.
He had to check her, get her to a doctor, but he couldn’t risk Lambert coming to. Wasting a critical minute, Jacob hefted the man up and tossed him in the back of the camper. He jammed a branch across the back to lock him in.
“Dee?” Jacob shouted, racing to where she lay in the snow, Evan kneeling beside her, patting her face, crying, shell-shocked.
Jacob’s hands skimmed her body. Where was the gunshot wound? His fingers settled on her neck. He found a pulse. Faint, thready, but beating.