“Take a look.” He bent down out of sight only long enough to reach beneath the dashboard and pop open the trunk again.

She hesitated, then started toward the car. “I might have to use the last of your bandanas.”

“Short as that supply is, I’d hate to give up more.”

“I’ll buy you another dozen.”

It suddenly stuck her what an inane conversation this was to be having at this moment. But what did one say to someone at a time such as this? What would be appropriate? Nothing she could think of.

However, it seemed vital that she continue talking to him. The sound of her own voice somehow bolstered her resolve. It was proof that he hadn’t shot her outright when she reentered the building and that she was still alive. For as long as she was drawing breath, hope remained. In dwindling quantities, perhaps. But for now there was still a glimmer of it.

She got as far as the rear bumper on the passenger side. He was still standing in the open wedge of the driver’s door, his left forearm propped on the roof, looking deceptively casual. His eyes were the giveaway to exactly how alert he was. They reflected the faint light like razor-sharp blades, scarily motionless as they watched her.

Attempting to appear unafraid, she moved around to the open trunk and took a swift inventory. What she saw were the remaining canned goods, a half-dozen unopened bottles of water, their empties, the blue tarp. She didn’t spot her phone. Nor the tire iron. Was it beneath the tarp? If not, where was it? What had he done with it? “Find them?” he asked.

“Yes.” She reached into the trunk for the package of bandanas. She pulled one from it then dropped the package back into the trunk.

Trying to look unhurried, she turned and started walking toward the back of the building. “If you’ll keep the light on for a few minutes longer, I’ll just go back here and use—”

“Jordie.”

“What?”

“What’s your rush?”

“I’m wet.”

“Stop.”

“What?”

“I said stop!”

She turned around quickly. “Why?”

He was walking toward her, his right hand held down at his side close to his thigh. “Is this what you’re going after?” He raised his right arm. Her heart stopped in expectation of seeing the pistol in his hand.

Not the arrow.

She gasped.

With breath-stealing swiftness, he raised his right knee and broke the shaft over it, then threw the two pieces to the floor.

Jordie gave a strangled cry, spun away, and raced toward the back of the building.

He was right behind her and closing in. “I wondered what had captured your interest back here. I found it just now while you were outside.”

When she came even with the empty water bottle sitting on the two-by-four ledge, she practically threw herself against the wall.

“Did you really think—”

She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled forward a few feet.

“—that I wouldn’t know you were up to something?”

Splinters pricked her hands as she blindly felt along the rough wood wall.

He crouched down. She turned to face him, flattening herself firmly against the wall, her hands behind her. “It’s no use,” he said. “I found your secret weapon. What were you planning to do with that arrow? Restring the bow and shoot me with it?”

Tears welled in her eyes. She was trembling with fright.

“Come on. Get up.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and tried to pull her to her feet, but she resisted.

His face had become a watery blur because of her tears. But she could clearly see the scar carved out of his scruff, and the lips that looked so austere but which kissed with remarkable passion.

She also made out the stunned disbelief that froze his features when she thrust her right hand against his midsection.

They stared at each other for several seconds, then moved at the same time, he falling back several feet and landing on his butt, she slapping both hands across her mouth to keep in a wail of horror over her own violent action.

He continued to gape at her with bafflement, then bent his head down to look at the broken outboard propeller jutting from his abdomen.

Chapter 19

Shaw swore savagely and raised his head to glare at Jordie, who remained with her hands covering her mouth for several seconds more, then she sprang toward him.

“Get the fuck away from me.” He’d tried yelling it, but his voice had already gone thready.

She reached beneath his shirttail and wrestled the pistol from the holster. He needed his hands to support himself, so he let her take the gun without a fight. Shakily holding it between her hands, she aimed it at him.

“Don’t move or I’ll shoot you, too.”

“Not with that, you won’t.” Hissing in pain, he levered himself into a full sitting position. He could feel beads of sweat popping out on his forehead. Any other time, her inexperienced handling of the firearm would have made him nervous. Now, he grit his teeth against the agony in his middle and said, “I took the cartridge out.”

She stopped fiddling with the pistol and gaped at him. “What?”

“Safety precaution. You were getting too interested in it.”

“Where are the bullets?”

“Hidden.”

“Where?”

Ignoring her, he visualized a chart of the human anatomy and tried to remember the organs which, if punctured, would cause him to bleed out. The broken propeller blade had stabbed through his shirt under his last rib on his left side. It would have missed his pancreas, liver, and stomach, all of which were too high and center. Left kidney? Too high and posterior. Large intestine? Possibly. If he was lucky, the blade was too far left of it and had missed.

Worst-case scenario, it had struck that large artery—what the hell was the name of it?—that passed through the abdomen and funneled down into the groin to become the femoral. If that major blood vessel had been opened, even nicked, he wouldn’t be a problem for Jordie Bennett much longer. The time he had left would depend on the size of the leak.

He cursed again. “You might not need any bullets.”

She left him and ran to the car. He heard her fumbling around in the trunk, then swearing as she tried to click on the spotlight. “Dammit! Did you take the batteries out? Where are they? Did you hide them?”

“I was busy while you were napping.”

She came back, dropped to her knees beside him, and pushed her hand inside his jeans pocket. Coming up empty, she moved to the other where she found his pocket knife and Mickey’s phone. She tossed the knife out of Shaw’s reach, her interest solely on the phone. But when she tried to turn it on and realized it was dead, she turned it over and removed the back as she’d watched him do several times. Seeing that it was empty, she turned frantic. “Where is the battery?”

He shook his head.

“Are you crazy? Tell me. I have to call 911.”

Shaking his head had only made him more lightheaded and dizzy, so he didn’t respond at all.

“If you don’t get help, you could die.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“No! I didn’t want to kill you. I only wanted to stop you from killing me.”