Page 27 of Honor ’N’ Duty

He took another chance and laced his fingers with hers. As the warmth of her soft skin seeped into his, his entire body gave an inward sigh. For years, he’d thought about holding her hand, but not like this. Not when their lives could very well be in his hands. “I’m sorry about all this.”

“Why would you say that?” she asked. “It’s not your fault. None of this is.”

A big fat lump of guilt rose in his throat, nearly choking off his oxygen supply.

Isn’t it?

He could have let Josh go. In fact, Kade’s brother had begged him to do just that, but Kade hadn’t. If given a second chance to do things differently, would he?

He tugged his hand away, returning it to the wheel where his knuckles cracked. Again, he checked the rearview mirror, looking at the vehicles behind them, including a white sedan. He shifted his focus to the sleeping child behind them, furious with his brother and wondering if he’d made the right decision.

Laia didn’t know the whole story, what really went down between him and Josh the day he’d been arrested. If she did know, she’d hate him until he took his last breath.

He looked at both mirrors again. The white sedan was still there, maintaining the same ten car lengths back.

Kade depressed the accelerator, gunning the Suburban twenty miles past the limit. For a few seconds, the distance between the sedan grew. Then it shortened, confirming his fears.

“Smoke, sit,” he called to his dog, who’d been standing. To Laia, he said, “Hold on,” then slammed his foot down on the accelerator, and the Suburban’s 8.1 liter, 340-horsepower engine kicked in, blasting them down the highway.

“Kade?” came Laia’s worried voice. “Something I should know?”

Lots, actually, but now wasn’t the time. “We’ve got a tail.”

Chapter Eight

“A tail? As in we’re being followed?” Laia twisted her neck to look behind them. Sure enough, a small white sedan was zigzagging through traffic, clearly trying to keep up with them.

“Yeah.” Kade maneuvered around a car in front of them, smoothly shifting into the center lane, then back into the left lane. His gaze flicked back and forth between the highway ahead and the rearview mirror. Other than the clenching of his jaw, the man looked as cool as a proverbial cucumber, like he’d been a professional racecar driver his entire life.

She turned to Rosa, but her daughter was sleeping peacefully, one tiny hand curled into a fist around Smoke’s fur. Oddly, Smoke had draped one front leg across her lap, as if he was trying to protect Rosa from being thrown forward.

“Can you lose them?” She sure hoped so. If he couldn’t…

“Working on it. Hang on, and this time I mean it. Grab onto something.”

Laia gasped, her eyes widening at the traffic jam a hundred yards ahead and completely blocking all lanes. She grabbed onto the armrest and held her breath because Kade wasn’t slowing down.

“Smoke, down!”

She hazarded a glance to the seat behind her. Smoke lay down, still maintaining a protective leg across Rosa’s lap. Amazing. How did he know to do that?

Kade slowed the SUV, slightly, anyway, then jerked the wheel to the right and gunned the vehicle up the shoulder and past the unmoving cars. An exit ramp loomed ahead. Some of the cars stuck in the right lane crossed into the shoulder, forcing Kade to slow down.

She glanced behind them again. The white sedan was still doing its best to follow them.

Kade punched the SUV up the ramp, riding the tail of the car ahead of them until they made it to the stop sign. At the top of the ramp, he cranked the wheel and passed the line of cars, looking both ways at the intersection, then gunning onto the road.

Several minutes passed before he slowed the vehicle on the rural, twisting street. A short distance ahead, he took the entrance to the Garden State Parkway south, casting more looks into the rear- and side-view mirrors before taking a deep breath. “I think we lost them.”

“How did they find us so quickly?”

“They must have left someone nearby on a side street to watch for us.” He glanced over his shoulder at Rosa and Smoke. “That, and there was a tracker under your car.”

“A tracker?” Oh God. How long had it been there? Days? Weeks?

“Yeah, but I destroyed it.”

Laia’s heart jackhammered and her knuckles were white where she had the armrest in a death grip. She really hadn’t imagined it. They had been following her all this time. “Where are we going?”