“Stay down.” He bit out the words through gritted teeth.

  Bullets flew at them, but Ezra had expected that. A couple hit the Jeep, breaking glass, embedding in the back of his seat. The doomsday preparer was an excellent shot. He’d counted on that, too. The bullets would have hit him if he’d been sitting in the driver’s seat, instead of half lying across the console, his legs in a split formation, with one foot on the gas and one bunched up by the radio. He had one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding his gun, as he sped down the road that led to Smith’s place.

  “Stay down,” he said a second time, less forcefully. “He might follow us.”

  “I don’t think so.” Her tone was...fine. Considering she could have been killed. And he wondered if she’d lost it back there—thinking that just because they’d managed to evade the bad guy once, they were automatically safe.

  “Mark talked about how his folks were always teaching him how to defend house and home,” she continued, as if conversing from the back floor of a Jeep was part of a regular day in her life. “They were always really careful about not breaking laws—no way you could save yourself from the blast if you were locked in a cell. They knew when and where they could fight with force, shoot their guns, whatever. And chasing someone down on a public road, shooting at them, wouldn’t qualify. Legally, if Smith had hit us while we were on his property, he could have claimed self-defense.”

  He couldn’t believe it. The woman had just nearly lost her life and she was conversing as though they were on a picnic or something. Almost chuckling with relief as half a mile passed with no further bullets flying at them, he slowed the vehicle, chanced a quick glance behind them, saw the roadway completely empty and stopped in the middle of the road just long enough to get himself in the driver’s seat.

  “Wait. I’m coming up,” Theresa told him as sirens sounded.

  He did as she asked, keeping watch around them for any activity in the woods on the sides of the road as well as the road itself, and saw the row of vehicles with lights flashing coming from the opposite direction toward Smith’s property.

  “I called the police,” she said.

  Of course she had. And Tom Smith would tell them that everything was fine. That Jack and Molly Wallace had been potential clients who’d left unexpectedly. Lay any trouble on them. If he was questioned about shots fired, he’d say he shot in self-defense.

  “Did you use the burner phone I gave you?”

  “Yes.”

  He had to call Dom. But first, when she looked over and smiled at him, giving him the urge to pull her against him and thank God she was okay, he put his foot on the gas and got them the hell out of there.

  * * *

  Thirty seconds after she’d climbed in the front seat, Theresa started to shake. Adrenaline dissipated, survival mode faded, and she was left with vivid sensations that wouldn’t let her go. She’d heard shots. She surveyed every visible inch of Ezra’s body for signs of red. Found none. Not even on his shirt.

  “I didn’t know if you’d been hit.” He hadn’t wanted authorities involved in their hunt. Protocols would slow their process. And if they were ordered to stand down and didn’t...

  Freezing in her long-sleeved shirt, she rubbed her arms and tried to get herself back under control. “I had to call for help.”

  “You did the right thing. I’ll call Dom just as soon as there’s a little more distance between us and the Smith residence,” he said, sounding not at all upset or disappointed with her. “He’ll be pissed, read me the riot act, but he’ll arrange for us to have another vehicle. And he’ll get his people looking at what they can legally access of Smith’s business dealings and associations.”

  The slow route he’d wanted to avoid.

  “I’m sorry you’re in hot water with your brother.”

  She most definitely didn’t want to get him in trouble with the law.

  And she didn’t want him to give up on them, either. She needed him.

  Just until the girls were home and safe.

  Then she’d be able to wish him a blessed life and say goodbye.

  She’d never forget him. That was a given.

  “If Dom were in my position, he’d do the exact same thing. And he’d expect me to do so as well. He’ll be more pissed that I’m out here getting stuff done while his hands are tied,” Ezra told her, giving her another glimpse into the man who was so quickly growing to mean so much to her.

  Feelings that would dim as soon as life got back to normal.

  “The aftershock will wear off in a few.”

  “What?” Looking over at him, she saw the concerned glance he was sending her.

  “What you’re experiencing right now. The aftershock. Every sense is on high alert. Emotions temporarily shut down. Your mind is in full charge. And when the battle is over, when all of that starts to subside, it takes a bit for all parts of you to come back in sync with each other.”

  He sounded so...normal. Like someone who’d just watched what had happened on a screen, not in real life.

  Almost like a teacher in class.

  The once-in-a-lifetime potentially debilitating experience she’d just lived through was only a day’s work to him.

  The reminder was another shock to a system that she was pretty sure couldn’t take much more. And yet she wasn’t backing out.

  Wasn’t quitting. And if he thought she was...

  They’d turned onto another country road, surrounded by more woods and very few homesteads. He parked on the side, kept the Jeep running and pulled out his personal cell.

  “Where are you?” The bullet-tattered Jeep filled with Dom’s voice.

  In succinct phrases, Ezra filled his brother in on Tom Smith, the plan to get inside the man’s shop. “Everything was coming down perfectly, almost had a list with a very good chance of including the Fitzgeralds. It would tell us if not specific addresses, at least details about the physical location of the bunker and type of bunker. Then he gets a text. Looks over at us, looks back at the text, at us again, and bends down to his file cabinet...”

  That was how he’d known...

  “Getting a gun...”

  She’d thought he’d been going to a file for a copy of his reference list. And seconds later, if she’d been there on her own, she’d have been looking down the barrel of a gun, instead of fleeing one.

  Ezra continued his half-sentence statements, telling Dominic about his game play with Smith outside the shop, his escape.

  “Then we got the hell out of there,” Ezra said, while Theresa kept her own counsel.

  “And the anonymous 911 call that couldn’t be traced?”

  Wow, they knew that already?

  “Theresa. From the burner phone I gave her.”

  “How bad’s the rental?”

  “I’ll need something else.”

  “Smith knows what we look like,” Theresa finally blurted. Which meant the police might soon know, and they’d be ordered to stand down.

  And maybe authorities would believe that Dom had been involved with his brother’s off-the-grid vigilante enforcement? Would he be told to stand down as well?

  Panic filled her anew.

  Her daughters, who could have already disappeared off the grid forever, needed more than protocol at the moment...

  “He’d have to reveal more than he wants to, maybe even give access to the information you were after, if he admits he saw you. If he’s going to report it officially,” Dom said over the line. “More than likely he’ll say he thought he saw movement and shot, thinking it was an animal.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. But clearly Ezra had. He was nodding his head. And reached out a hand, tucking a lock of fallen hair back into her bun. Automatically reaching up to tighten the scrunchie holding her hair in place, she accidentally brushed her ascending hand against his descending one.

  Ice against warmth.

  Dom said he’d get back to Ezra shortly with details of where he could pick up a new vehicle and leave the damaged one to be retrieved by the rental company. “You’re lucky you paid extra for their insurance, bro,” the FBI agent said.

  He was lucky he wasn’t dead, Theresa thought to herself, recalling the cat-and-mouse game Ezra had told Dom he’d played with Smith while she’d been facedown on the floor of the Jeep, listening to gunshots.

  Neither of the brothers seemed to get that the danger they were taking for granted, their escape from it, wasn’t at all normal life.

  Because to them it was.

  To her, it would never be.

  * * *

  As it turned out, Dom used Smith’s shooting at Ezra and Theresa as a means to tie the incident to the kidnapping of Claire and Neve Fitzgerald, and by the time Ezra and Theresa were in a new, slate gray Jeep, picked up at a rental place in Benson, the FBI was attempting to get a warrant to search Smith’s place.

  “So our plan worked after all!” Theresa said when she heard the news. “Not like we’d hoped, but, as you said, once we got inside, the plan was fluid...”

  They’d just pulled off the rental lot, and he had more to tell her. “There’s been no sign of the Fitzgeralds.” They’d agreed to drive through for something quick to eat, and then he had to come up with his next move. “No credit card use, no sightings of the truck, and their phones are still turned off.” He knew his words had to be striking terror within her, but if they were going to get through however long it took to get her kids back, she would have to be able to deal with the hard stuff.

  No way, as darkness fell soon, that it wouldn’t be coming.

  He couldn’t let her slow him down.

  Because to do so would let her down.

  “That’s with reports from multiple law enforcement agencies across the state and in bordering states, and a check of all Benson surveillance cameras.” The truck was seen twice in Benson and then disappeared.

  He pulled into the lot of an Italian place that offered a drive-through window. Pasta was filling and easy on the stomach. And then he asked, “Do you like Italian?”

  He didn’t look her way. Couldn’t afford to be compassionate at the moment. Either she had what it might take, or she didn’t. With the chance for a quick rescue gone, he was going off the grid.

  “Look at my hips. What do you think?” The somewhat waspish comment drew his gaze to hips that, while maybe a little filled out due to childbirth, looked way too good to him.

  “No, don’t do that,” he told her, shaking his head.

  “Do what?”

  “Distract me. Look, here’s how it is. I’m given a goal, I figure out battle plans, and I only work with the best of the best. At the moment, that’s me. Alone.”

  “We’ve already been through this.”

  The car in front of him pulled forward, making it his turn to order.

  “I want baked ziti,” she said. He asked for two. Saw her reach for her credit card as he inched the Jeep toward the pickup window, and pulled out his own wallet.

  She stuck her card in front of his chest. He handed his own card to the teenager leaning out the window.

  “Why are you being this way?” she asked, her tone marked down several notches. “I was good today. I helped.”

  He nodded. He’d like to have her along. When he found the twins, there was no telling what emotional state they’d be in, and they’d need her.

  She had a right to be with him since he wasn’t working in any official capacity, but rather, at her request. If it were his kids who’d been hauled off, no way he’d sit out the search.

  It wasn’t like there was going to be some kind of ransom call. No reason for her to be home. Worse, there was nothing for her to do there but worry.

  Not his concern.

  She wasn’t even a friend.

  “I need to know that you aren’t going to fall apart on me. I have no idea what I’ll be doing, or what I might find along the way. If I have to tend to you, it could make the difference between completing the job successfully or not.”

  “The credit card, that was a test, right?” she said, her brows drawn together as she pinned him with a knowing look.

  How did she do that? How was it possible that a woman he barely knew could read him when no one else, other than Dom and Oliver, had ever been able to do so?

  What was taking the damned ziti so long? He glanced toward the window.

  “I’m the boss,” he said. When it came to split-second decisions and life and death, there had to be one.

  “And I proved that I won’t fight that. You won. You paid. I conceded gracefully. And earlier, when you told me to leave, to run, where to run and how to enter the Jeep, I followed every command without question.”

  Yeah. She’d done good. He had good points, too, but he was being a jerk. Because the woman turned him on, and he didn’t want her to do so. Had given no permission for that to happen.

  Had no good outcome for the malady.

  And that pissed him off.

  The fact that he hadn’t found her daughters before nightfall was eating his insides out.

  None of which was her fault. Nor should she be bearing the brunt of his frustration.

  She’d suffered enough for a lifetime.

  And was carrying a burden far, far worse than his would ever be. Nighttime fell on his failure, but it fell on her children.

  He couldn’t even imagine...

  “You showed me what I needed to see in terms of your ability to do what’s asked in the heat of battle this afternoon.” He glanced her way again, really looked at her, into those overflowing brown eyes, and let himself soak for a moment.

  He shouldn’t have doubted her ability to hold up even for a second. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re risking your life for my daughters, Ezra,” she said softly, the glow in her eyes growing, not diminishing. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

  He needed to kiss those lips. To hold her tight and make the bad things go away.

  “Here you go, sir.” A hand reached a bag out to him.

  He took it.

  And drove off into the setting sun with a sinking feeling in his gut.

  For the first time in his life, he was in over his head.

  Chapter 14

  He hadn’t quit on her. From the time they’d talked to Dominic, Ezra had been chewing on something, and Theresa had been prepared to hear that he was stepping back to let law enforcement do their jobs.

  She’d been prepared to beg him to stay, even though he’d already done far too much for her.

  Instead, she’d had to beg to be allowed to stay.

  He drove out by a river they’d passed, pulled into a lay-by and parked. Wanting, first and foremost, not to hamper his process, she didn’t attempt to converse with him while they ate. And forced herself to chew and swallow a good portion of the pasta crammed into a very full Styrofoam container.

  She might not be skilled in battle, and sometimes her imagination ran away with her when it came to worrying about her kids. But she would not hinder the finding of her children.

  Nor would she abandon them solely to the abilities of others.

  “You’re too quiet.” Ezra’s words washed over her like warm water.

  “I didn’t want to interrupt your thoughts.”

  “Might have been better if you’d pulled me away from them.” The statement was odd, most particularly from him, but she let it go.

  And said aloud what she’d just started thinking about. “When I was two, I was abandoned at a church. Just left there, inside the vestibule, with no note, no identification. I’m told I wandered around for several hours, at best guess, and eventually crawled up onto a lone pew that was out there and fell asleep. I was found there early one morning.”

  She took a bite. Chewed. Appreciated his silence.

  “Authorities spent a lot of time trying to find my parents. They couldn’t put me up for adoption without knowing that I hadn’t been kidnapped. Maybe one parent not wanting the other to have me or something. In any case, I grew up in a children’s home associated with the church. I was well educated. Well loved. But until I married Mark, I’d never had a family of my own. Two things about this are pertinent,” she continued. “First, the authorities, through all of their effort and access to information and databases, were never able to find who’d left me at that church. I cannot just leave my daughters’ fates to authorities. I trust them to do everything they can. I appreciate all that they’re doing. But whether you’re with me or not, I will be on the hunt for Claire and Neve until I find them.”

  There was nothing he or anyone was going to do to stop her.

  “And second?”

  She glanced at him, noticed that he’d completely cleaned his container. “What?”

  “You started with ‘first,’ and I wanted to know what second was.”

  “Second, I will not abandon my children as I was abandoned. I’m not prepared for battle, I get that...”

  “I’ll prepare you as best I can every step of the way.” The old Ezra was back. The one who’d spent an entire afternoon at her side while his family hovered around them. Who’d made her daughters’ horse-riding dreams come true.

  “We’re a team again, then?”

  He nodded. Didn’t really smile, but he was looking her in the eye again. Telling her things that she couldn’t really translate into words, but things that mattered.

  Things that gave her strength.

  And hope.

  * * *

  “The good news is that Eric and Jennifer Fitzgerald’s end goal is to protect their son’s children.” Ezra started in before they’d even pulled away from the river. “Which means that this kidnapping is different from many where hope for the child’s physical safety wanes as the hours pass.”