Ever Hopeful Read online

  Paul tried to stay calm as he dialed his contact in the Connecticut Police Department. Mark was somehow holding it together, even as Alec held the barrel of a gun in his mouth and threatened to let Paul finish the job alone if they didn’t get a lead on Laura right away. Alec had seriously lost his head after the cops let them go. How he got the jump on Mark, Paul would never know, but he had. And now Mark was on his knees, and Paul was frantically trying to get ahold of everyone he knew in law enforcement that might help them.

  The ticked off look on Mark’s face might even be funny if Paul wasn’t so afraid he was going to see the back of his best friend’s head explode any minute. Or maybe they’d laugh about this when they got out of there. They had laughed at more screwed-up crap than this together.

  But not this time, Paul decided; if he got Mark out of this alive, he was done. They were leaving the business, or at least going a bit more legit. If Mark walked away from this, they’d move out of state to start over with new names and no more dealings with the Alec Halls of the world.

  “Got it. She was spotted at a restaurant in Kansas,” Paul said into the phone but he looked at Alec as he said it. He didn’t name the city or the restaurant. He had to be damned sure Alec still needed them. Alec slowly put his gun away and stepped back from Mark, whose lip was split open. Mark spat blood on the floor and Paul held his breath praying Mark wouldn’t go after Alec.

  “You have two days to track her down. If I don’t have a location in two days, you better run fast and far, gentlemen.”

  Paul had a feeling they would need to run fast and far anyway. Alec Hall didn’t look like he planned to keep any witnesses around when this was over.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Laura woke to Cade’s arms around her, his breath warm on her cheek as he held her tightly. Nothing could have made last night more beautiful. Not a luxury hotel with champagne and rose petals. Not a soft bed instead of a tent with sleeping bags. Nothing. Cade had been patient and kind and sweet when she needed him to be, and he’d been sexy and hot and passionate when she’d needed that. He had taken her to places she’d never even dreamed of—hadn’t dared to hope for before.

  And, no. She hadn’t had a single flashback to her time with Patrick. Patrick hadn’t entered her mind the entire night. When Laura looked at Cade now, she felt hope, and that hope no longer scared her. In a way, it set her free.

  She pulled out of his arms carefully, planning to sit up and sneak out of the tent to use the bathroom. As soon as she moved, she felt Cade’s arms clamp down on her again, locking her in place. He grunted and snuggled back into her, drawing a laugh.

  “If you don’t let me get up, I’ll pee in our sleeping bag. I don’t think either of us wants that,” she said, smiling at him.

  Cade released his hold and reached above his head to where he’d stashed toilet paper and a shovel in a corner of the tent.

  “Bury it,” was all he said as he handed the items to Laura. Laura was surprised he didn’t seem to be more of a morning person. He was always up so bright and early to work with the animals; she’d just assumed he woke up that way. Apparently not.

  “Wow. I guess the honeymoon’s over, huh?” Laura joked and then realized what she’d said. She blushed, but Cade just opened one eye and squinted at her.

  “When I do get you on a honeymoon, it’ll last a heck of a lot longer than one night, I promise. And it sure won’t be in a tent with Red, a roll of toilet paper, and a shovel.”

  “I like having Red with us,” Laura said as she unzipped the tent and stepped out.

  When she came back to the campsite a few minutes later, Cade was up and moving around. He pulled out a granola bar and tossed it to her then poured food into a bowl for Red. Their guard dog ate it without seeming to chew a single piece.

  “Do you still have the gun you took from Alec?” Cade asked.

  Laura nodded and reached into the car to pull it from her bag. She wasn’t at all comfortable handling it, but she’d grabbed it before she had had time to think about it. Cade was quiet and calm as he showed her how to remove the safety, how to hold it, and fire it.

  “I want you to keep this on you at all times, for now. If we get to a place where I think we can fire it without drawing a park ranger to us, I’ll show you how to fire it. It’s a lot of gun, so it’s going to have a big kick and you won’t have much accuracy.”

  Laura didn’t know what to say. She really didn’t know how she would use that gun, even if she needed to. At her worst moments with Patrick, she wasn’t sure she could have used a gun to defend herself. Aside from scaring her to death at just the thought of taking someone’s life or injuring someone, there would have been the issue of Patrick getting it away from her and turning it on her.

  “Run if you can, but if you get cornered, use the gun,” Cade said.

  Laura nodded and then tucked in her shirt and put the gun in her waistband like he showed her. She put another shirt on that hung down and covered the gun.

  After going into town to get breakfast and a few things they could keep at the campsite for lunch and dinner, they spent the day in the woods. They watched Red race around trying to catch the chipmunks. Their loud chirps tormented the dog. When Red finally lay down to rest, they sat and watched quietly as a small black bear ambled around in the woods at a distance. It seemed startlingly close to Laura but didn’t faze Cade at all.

  Laura held her breath, torn between praying Red would listen when Cade told her to “stay,” being utterly stunned at the awesome nature of the creature they were watching, and being relieved Cade had taken the time to hang all of their food high in a tree before leaving their site.

  By nightfall, they’d walked back to the tent where they spent another night wrapped in each other’s arms, making love slowly, almost languidly as if they both knew they could lose this at any moment.

  ***

  Paul and Mark had decided it was time to cut their losses and take off. They’d technically finished the job for Alec by tracking Laura to a state park, and even finding the specific campground she was in. Had they not been so desperate to locate her after finding no record of her in hotels in the area where she had been sighted, they never would have thought to check the state park. A waitress at the restaurant told them a lot of visitors to the area camped at the state-run campgrounds three miles down the road from the restaurant.

  Laura Kensington and Cade Bishop were holed up in a tent at campsite number forty-nine. After texting this information to Alec Hall, Mark and Paul ditched both of their phones and the rental car that Alec’s company was paying for. They picked out an old junker of a truck and hotwired it, then took off for California, intent on putting as much distance between Alec Hall and themselves as possible.

  It wasn’t hard to see the writing on the wall. Hall wouldn’t need them much longer. They’d been overly confident in taking work from a guy like him, but they knew it was time to cut and run before things went south.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Justin Kensington’s head was still thick with the effects of the coma he’d been in for days, but he was awake and functioning enough to answer the doctor’s basic questions. He was surprised to see his mother standing on the other side of the bed, grilling the doctor about his prognosis. It was shocking to see her up and functioning as if there wasn’t an ounce of alcohol in her system.

  Images swam in Justin’s head as he tried to pin down what had happened. Voices that didn’t have faces talking around him. Laura shot him? That wasn’t right. Why were they saying Laura shot him?

  “What happened?” he croaked out.

  “You were shot, Justin. We were able to remove the bullet and the surgery went quite well, but you’ve been unconscious for several days. You’re going to be here for a while longer, but the prognosis is good. We don’t foresee any long-term ill effects,” the doctor said.

  “Laura?” Justin said, looking back and forth between his mother and the doctor as the world began to come
back into focus.

  “The police are looking for her, Justin. They’ll find her soon. She won’t get away with this. She won’t get away with what she did to you or your brother,” his mother said, and he was shocked to see tears streaming down her face.

  “What are you talking about?” Justin shook his head, but shards of pain dug into the back of his head, and he had to hold himself still to ward off a wave of nausea.

  “Your brother was poisoned. After Laura shot you and the police found out she had a fake identity hidden with cash, I had them exhume Patrick’s body. It wasn’t a heart attack. They found poison that they hadn’t had previously tested for, given the history of heart attacks in the family.”

  The doctor interjected. “It’s not standard protocol to test for poisons when there isn’t any reason to suspect something other than a heart attack. With the history in your family, no one questioned that he may have been murdered.”

  “Not Laura,” Justin said. “It wasn’t Laura.”

  His mother opened her mouth to object, but Justin raised his voice with the little strength he had. “It wasn’t Laura. Alec Hall shot me. He was threatening Laura. Something about evidence she was hiding. Evidence Patrick had given her.”

  Images swam in Justin’s head, but the pieces were beginning to string together into memories he could make sense of. He felt the world slipping away around him again as he gave over to the darkness that called to him, but, as if from a distance, he heard his mother ask the doctor to call Sheriff Davies.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Cade woke to the palest of light beginning to warm the day and to find the space next to him empty. He laughed. He didn’t think pregnant women had to pee constantly until later in the pregnancy. Laura had said that at her last appointment, her doctor said she was at a point in the pregnancy when the baby was tiny, but her uterus was tipped over and pressing right on her bladder. He believed it when he considered how often she was going to the bathroom.

  A baby.

  He had told Laura that they’d need to decide where their relationship was going before the baby arrived so they weren’t unfair to the baby, but Cade knew where he wanted this relationship to go. He wanted to spend his life with Laura. He hadn’t ever felt like this with anyone. Not even during the time when he and Lacey had been happy together, when they’d planned to marry.

  He knew he wanted forever with Laura and her baby, and as many babies as they could have down the road. He just hoped she’d be willing to go out on a limb and give marriage another try after what happened with Patrick. He hadn’t flat out asked her about that, but he hoped he could convince her he was worth taking another shot on. They could take it slow if she needed to. He could wait.

  Red raised her head and emitted a low, almost inaudible bark from her place beside him. Cade knew that bark. It was meant to warn Cade without alerting whoever was out there that she was aware of their presence. She wouldn’t have done that if it was just Laura returning to the tent.

  Cade stilled as he listened. Footsteps around the car. Whoever it was must have come in on foot. Cade would have heard a car approaching.

  Damn. Cade was stuck in the tent with no way to see who was prowling around the site, and Laura was off in the woods by herself. Was it a bear? No. Red would have been more aggressive. It could just be some random person looking to see if there was anything easy to lift. But, it could also be one of the investigators or Alec himself. Cade wasn’t willing to sit by and take the chance that it was just something benign. Laura would walk back into the campsite any minute.

  Cade slipped his knife from beneath the stash of shoes and an extra sweatshirt he had stacked in the corner of the tent. He slowly cut the fabric on the side of the tent that faced away from the campsite until he had a large enough opening to slip through. He held the opening for Red and she crawled through to stand by his side. Cade stayed crouched low and signaled to Red to stay by his side as he moved.

  Together they circled around the back of the small tent and peered into the brightening light. Cade cursed under his breath when he saw Alec looking through the car windows. He knew Alec would turn his attention to the tent as soon as he saw they weren’t in the car.

  Cade moved away from the campsite and circled wide around it to stay out of Alec’s line of sight. No sooner had Cade gotten out of there, when Alec moved. He turned and approached the tent, looking behind him as if checking to be sure he wasn’t followed.

  Where was Laura? Should he send Red to find her?

  Cade did his own scan of the area. He saw no sign of another vehicle. No sign that Alec had the two investigators with him. Could he have come alone?

  Cade didn’t want to chance it if the investigators were waiting close by to provide backup to Alec. As he watched, Alec pointed a gun at the tent and emptied what sounded like a full magazine into the tent, spraying it with bullets. He must have used a suppressor because Cade heard low pops, not loud gunshots.

  Alec had come prepared to kill. Whatever evidence he’d demanded from Laura back at the barn, Alec had apparently given up hope of getting it out of her. Now, he simply looked as though he wanted to get rid of Laura as quickly as he could. Cade touched Red on the shoulder and turned to move off into the woods. He cut around the other side of the site and headed for the area Laura would have headed for to go to the bathroom.

  Cade heard Alec’s swearing when he realized there wasn’t anyone in the annihilated tent. Laura must have heard the noise, too. She was heading back toward the site when Cade intercepted her and pulled her off the trail into the shrub. His hand over her mouth, he whispered in her ear.

  “You hear gunfire and you head toward it? We need to have a talk, woman.”

  Laura shook his hand off her mouth and looked up at him. In a completely staid voice, she said, “You were back there.”

  “Seriously. We’re talking about this later. Do you have the gun with you?” Cade asked and held his hand out when Laura nodded. She passed him the gun and Cade turned them toward the creek. They couldn’t go back to their car. They needed to get to a public location and get help. If they followed the creek, it would take them to the ranger station at the entrance to the park. With Laura ahead of him, the two walked as quietly as possible. Red pressed against Laura’s leg the entire time.

  They hadn’t made it far when Cade heard a twig snap behind him and turned to look. Alec Hall launched himself at Cade’s legs, taking him down in a full-on tackle at the same time that Red hurled herself at Alec. Hall’s gun was in his hand, but he must have blown all of his bullets on the empty tent earlier because now he was hitting Cade in the temple with the gun. Red was on Hall’s back, but Cade heard a yelp as Alec turned and struck her with the gun, a blow hard enough to send her sprawling behind them.

  Cade’s head reeled as he took hit after hit. He kicked out with his legs, throwing Alec off balance. When he threw a punch that connected with Alec’s jaw, Alec eased his hold for a split second and Cade rolled away.

  He was stronger than Alec and bigger, but Alec had gotten a few good blows in and Cade’s head was foggy and slow. He managed to yell to Laura to run, but she didn’t move. Cade reached behind him for the gun at his waistband, but it wasn’t there. He looked around for it on the ground, but didn’t have time to see much. Alec was coming at him again.

  Cade spit out a curse as Alec crashed into him. He struggled to clear the murkiness in his head as he landed his own blows to Alec’s head and shoulders. He struck out again and again, then kicked and rolled to pin Alec beneath him, but Alec took advantage of the momentum and twisted into another roll, taking them both into the creek.

  The water was shallow, but the icy cold must have knocked the wind out of Alec. Red was back then, and Cade saw her grab at one of Alec’s legs, but Alec seemed oblivious to the pain of her jaw clamping down on him. Cade felt the sickeningly sharp pain of his ribs cracking when Alec then focused his pounding fists on his torso.

  Cade tried to focus a
round the blood running into his eyes from the cuts on his forehead and temple. Laura was standing above them, white knuckled, with the gun gripped in both hands.

  “Laura, shoot!”

  “I can’t! I can’t shoot him without hitting you,” she cried, and he could hear the terror in her voice.

  Cade was losing consciousness as Alec’s fists continued to pummel him. With all he had left, he threw Alec off of him and twisted out of the way. “Now, Laura!”

  Alec lifted a rock, ready to go after Cade with it, but the shot rang out and Alec fell. Laura had shot him square in the stomach from no more than six feet away. Her own body was sent flying back onto the creek bed from the kickback of the gunshot. Alec fell into the creek, his blood polluting the once-clear water.

  Red and Laura ran back into the stream and hauled Cade from the water. Red stood guard while Laura ran her hands gently over his battered face.

  “Please be okay, please. Oh God, Cade, please.” Her hands and voice shook as she spoke and Cade tried to answer her, but his head wouldn’t stop pounding. Neither of them had a phone—they’d ditched them when they were running to ensure no one could track them. But, now Cade didn’t know if he could walk out of these woods, and he wouldn’t send Laura over to Alec’s body to look for a phone in case Alec was still alive and conscious. He couldn’t risk Laura’s safety any more than he already had.

  Cade put his hand on her stomach. “Baby okay?”

  “Yes,” she sobbed, nodding her head. “But you, Cade; I thought he was going to kill you.”

  “Not that easy,” Cade grunted and rolled onto his side, then shoved up onto his knees. “Wait here,” he implored, hoping she’d stay back.

  Cade half crawled, half dragged himself over to Alec. He laid his fingers on Alec’s neck, but there wasn’t a pulse. Cade dug through Alec’s pockets and found a phone in Alec’s chest pocket, but it was too wet to use.

  He pulled himself back over to Laura, who helped drag him up onto the bank of the river and sat cradling him in her arms.