Shadow Hawk

on your face.”

“Tibbs called again. They know the body wasn’t Gaines.”

Their eyes met. “Then who?”

“Watkins.”

“Oh, my God.” So Gaines had killed one of his own. Knowing it rammed home another certainty-Gaines would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

“Gaines had Logan pushed off that roof to kill him,” Hawk told her. “He needs us dead.”

“Which is a very good reason not to go to his ranch.”

“Or to go.” There was knowledge in his eyes and acceptance.

Oh, God. He was going there to end this, one way or another, for her. So she’d be safe. “Hawk,” she said. “You are not going to go there to die.”

“Not me, no.”

He sat there, so serious, so determined, she felt her heart just give in. From the very beginning he’d evoked myriad emotions from her-annoyance, lust, more annoyance, awe, affection, the ever-popular annoyance…and now, love. “We need to go to Tibbs.”

Hawk let out a low laugh. “So he can hold me while they sort this out?”

“He won’t-”

“He would, yes. That’s his job. We’ll call him, but when it’s too late to stop me from finishing this with Gaines.” His eyes were hard, his voice tight. “Which we do today.”

20

Cheyenne Memorial Hospital

HAWK AND ABBY PULLED INTO the hospital parking lot just as a nurse wheeled out a large woman and her baby.

Hawk hopped out of the SUV, squatted before the wheelchair and grinned for the first time in two days. “Congratulations on your new arrival.”

“Fuck you,” Logan said from beneath his Vegas showgirl-style wig. He looked at Abby, then back at Hawk. “Huh?”

“What?”

“I just never thought you’d ever land yourself someone as classy as Abby, that’s all.”

Abby’s brow shot up. “And how do you know he ‘landed’ me?”

“It’s all over your face. Both your faces.”

She blinked, then looked at the pretty nurse behind Logan, who smiled and held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Callen. And don’t worry, I don’t see anything but a lovely glow.”

Abby put her hands to her face. Hawk looked over Logan’s multitude of injuries, then glanced at Callen. “You didn’t do so shabby either.”

Logan reached for Callen’s hand. “Yeah, I did pretty darn great.”

Callen smiled dreamily, but that faded as two police cars pulled into the lot. “I wonder if that’s related to our new problem?”

“New problem?” Hawk asked.

“Later. Run now.” They all piled into the vehicle, with Logan looking a little green despite his grin, which told Hawk he was hurting much more than he wanted to let on.

“New problem?” Hawk demanded from behind the wheel. “And the cops? What do they want? My head?”

“On a platter,” Logan said. “The ATF has large sums of money going in and out of your accounts. Out being the key operative here, apparently. Supposedly you’ve just withdrawn a huge sum of money. Then there’s the memory stick Tibbs found. And, wait for it…in spite of the fact that they do not have Gaines’s body and all the evidence is looking right at him, they’re charging you with kidnapping Abby.”

“Is that all?” Hawk asked in tune to Abby’s gasp. “Hell, that’s not too bad.” He met Logan’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “We’ll go to Gaines’s ranch in two hours.”

“Why two hours?”

“Because nightfall will be a better time to get close to Gaines.”

“We can go to my place,” Callen said.

It seemed as good a plan as any, especially since Logan really did look like death warmed over and Abby seemed ready to shatter. They’d take a few minutes, hopefully get their game plan together and finish this.

One way or another.

Callen’s condo

HAWK PACED CALLEN’S SMALL spare bedroom while Abby sat on the bed watching him. “Okay,” he said. “So he’s got the money, freshly laundered through my account. He’s going to vanish, and soon. Unfortunately, he’s run into a snag. Me.”

“If he sees you, you’re dead.”

“Right,” he agreed. “Which is option number one.”

“And option number two is?”

She sounded pissed, a front for her fear, which he appreciated, but he didn’t plan on dying. “Me turning myself in on the mercy of the legal system.”

Abby’s eyes were conflicted. “I’ve been thinking about that. Given how he’s handled everything so ruthlessly, that’s not a good option. He’ll try to have you killed while you’re waiting for justice.”

“Probably.”

“So we move to option three,” Abby said tightly. “Which is me offering myself up.”

He stared at her in utter speechlessness. Finally, he managed to say, “Over my dead body.”

“No, listen. We both know he has this obsession with me. He’s got an ego the size of Texas, right? And he thinks I worship the ground he walks on, that’s what keeps that ego going. You know it,” she continued when he opened his mouth. “I’m the one thing he never got, and it’s eating at him, Hawk, you know it is. I offer to go with him if he leaves you alone. It might work.”

“Abby.” His belly felt hollow. That she’d even suggested it after what she’d been through last year told him how much he meant to her. Touched beyond words, he ran a finger over the cut on her cheek, then leaned in and kissed it. “Not happening.”

“I don’t want you to die.”

“Makes two of us.”

She looked into his eyes, her own soft and sweet and heartbreakingly open. “Remember last night, when you said you’d do anything to make this all up to me?”

“Of course.”

She backed to the door and hit the lock.

“What are you doing?”

Her hands came up and pulled off Serena’s sweater, beneath which she wore her own bra. “I just figured out how you can do that.”

“Oh, yeah?” Hawk’s voice was no longer so steady, and neither were his hands as he shoved them in his pockets to try to keep them off her. But God, she stood there, offering him everything with her eyes, her body…

She reached for the zipper on the jeans. It was a tribute to how much she’d stunned him that she managed to shimmy out of them before he moved. Good Christ, she was commando. “Abby-” He reached for her but she slapped a hand to his chest.

“No, I’m not naked yet. I want to be naked with you.”