Page 38 of Hunted

Time to change tactics. When Justin used to ambush him with snowballs this little trick had never failed. He let her hit him with one, then fell down onto his back, and lay very still, not moving.

Sure enough, she tiptoed closer.

“Romano?”

And still closer.

“Come on, Romano, I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

And closer yet. She crouched down, her hands moving to touch his face, and he sprang the trap. Grabbed her shoulders and flipped her onto her back in the snow while she yelped in surprise. He straddled her to hold her still and drizzled a little white stuff onto her face while she wriggled beneath him, his head full of memories. In his mind he saw Justin’s smile, heard the music of his laughter.

And then he stopped and sat very still. My God, he’d remembered. He’d done it without a flash of blinding pain. He’d been laughing. Laughing out loud.

He stared down at the woman beneath him. Her cheeks cherry red in the moonlight and falling snow, her eyes sparkling, her hair spread over the snow, damp with it.

She smiled softly. “All right, I surrender. You win. You’re a superior warrior, I admit it.”

He got off her, took her hands and helped her to her feet. He didn’t know what to say, what to think. Part of him knew he ought to feel bad for remembering without pain. How could he? How could he play and laugh when his little boys were dead because of him?

But there was another part, a long-starved, craving part that sighed in relief. A lifeless, barren place in his soul absorbed what had just happened the way the desert absorbs the rain. And it felt like a single blade of new grass was struggling to break through.

That sensation was life, he thought. But he didn’t deserve life. So he ignored it.

“I didn’t know you had a playful bone in your body, Romano,” she said, brushing snow away from her clothes, then starting on his.

“I …” He couldn’t answer her. He was still too overwhelmed.

“I’m glad you do,” she said. “I never had anyone to be playful with. I didn’t even know I had it in me.”

He forced himself to take his eyes off her. She looked like a kid, her hair tousled and snowy, her face glowing, her eyes sparkling.

Damn, damn, damn, he didn’t like what he was feeling.

“Come on, let’s go inside,” she said.

He followed her, reminding himself over and over why he was there. He had to kill White. He had to avenge his family. He didn’t deserve happiness, because it was his fault they were dead, and even killing that murderer wasn’t going to change that. Nothing would. His family was dead and Romano was alive. That was so wrong, so very wrong that the gods must have gone off duty on that blackest of days. Fate must have taken a vacation, because it just wasn’t the natural order of things. It was out of whack. The whole freaking universe was screwed up.

And he wasn’t going to forget that it should have been him blown into so many bits there hadn’t been enough left to bury. Those markers, standing over empty graves, should have his name cut into their stone faces. It should have been him, not them.

“Are you sure we can’t go back to the house?”

It was the fifth time she’d asked him the question as she tossed restlessly on the top bunk. He answered her mechanically, his mind on other things.

“We can’t go to your house, Lexi. It wouldn’t be safe.”

“You can’t be sure of that. Why would they leave anyone there, when they had every reason to think we were heading to New York? It doesn’t make sense.”

She was right. There was very little chance White had bothered leaving men at her house, or near it, on surveillance duty. Very little chance. But a chance, all the same. It would only take them being spotted once to bring White right back to their doorstep. And Romano didn’t want the bastard here.

Not yet, anyway.

He’d discovered that he would prefer to have that deadly formula safely on its way to Darren first. Moreover, he admitted, he’d like it if he could get Lexi Stoltz out of the line of fire before it came down to the final confrontation. He didn’t want her to see him kill or be killed. She was too damned softhearted to take it.

“Romano?”

“Hmm?”

“I hate calling you that. When are you going to tell me your given name?”

---