Bile rose up to her throat at the memory, and she wanted to scrape her mouth clean of him once more.
What a fool she’d been.
So desperate to be touched, loved, by Cody, that she had not seen the difference of the touch, of his taste, until she’d seen him—the man she loved—with a gun pointed to his head.
They were nothing alike.
Ivan had tried to look like him, but his essence, his goodness, his decency, had a scent, a feel, a vibe. Oh God, she wanted that strength around her, that scent, that man.
Ivan curved his hand around her nape and wound his fingers into the blond curls of her hair. “You think I haven’t thought of this, too, Maggie Meg?” He massaged her scalp. “That I didn’t fantasize about this even when I was just a boy?”
“LET. HER. GO.” Cody’s trigger finger was trembling, and Meg wondered if she ducked … would he shoot?
Cody was so damned decent inside, she wondered if he’d kill his own brother. Despite the fact that he was a murderer, Cody had not killed him before.
Ivan yanked her head back so hard the pain burned across her scalp, tearing a gasp and a whimper out of her. “Toss me the gun. And the other gun. And the knife.”
“You won’t kill her, Ivan,” Cody hissed in a low, threatening voice, “but I have no qualms about killing you.”
“I’ll scar her for life! I’ll make her suffer, you son of a bitch!”
“We have the same mother, you moron.”
“Drop your weapons and she goes!”
The silence was deafening in the nature. And then, one by one, Cody tossed everything to the ground, and Megan’s hopes of coming out of this alive plummeted.
“Okay.” Ivan pushed her aside with a smile. “Forty steps, Maggie Meg. Make them quick before I change my mind and shoot.”
Megan began walking, uncertain as she sought out a pair of blue, blue eyes that seemed to urge her to do as Ivan said. As she passed him, the man she loved, Cody ground out under his breath, “Keep going.”
But it was difficult to take another step. “I don’t want to leave you,” she said anxiously, fearing Ivan would do another stupid thing, another crazy thing.
“Keep going, Banks.”
She still couldn’t. “I don’t want to!”
“Go, goddammit!” Cody exploded, framing her face between his hands. “My life is over if anything happens to you.” He kissed her hard and long, pushing his tongue into her mouth in a long, hot wet thrust that sent her senses spinning. “I love you. Now go.”
I love you.
Now go.
Megan didn’t know why she obeyed, why she headed out off the clearing, dazed with those parting words, taking those words into her heart, even as she heard Ivan curse Cody in the background for what he’d done. Fifty steps later, down the rocky path, eighty heartbeats later, and about a hundred haggard breaths later, it struck her: Maybe … Cody would never have said he loved her if he thought he’d have another chance to.
She’d certainly never expected him to say the words except at gunpoint.
Oh God. What had she done?
And where in the hell was Zach Rivers?
* * *
When Megan disappeared in the distance, Cody’s heartbeat roared in his ears, like a wave crashing against the open mouth of a never-ending cavern.
He was stalling for time, time for her to get the hell away from his crazy brother. He met those blue eyes just like his with a taunting smile, wanting to get Ivan’s gaze back on him rather than on Megan’s rear, the crazed man’s full attention on him.
“She’ll call nine-one-one, you know.” Cody smiled thinly, enough to goad him, but the victory in his brother’s gaze took him aback.
“I’m counting on it.” He smiled triumphantly. “By the time they get here, you’ll be dead. And I’ll be you.”
* * *
Megan found a bar of signal after running around the forest like a lunatic. “Zach!” she cried into her cell phone when a male voice picked up. “Zach, where are you?”
There were men’s voices in the background as he answered. “We’re on our way. Are you okay?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid Cody won’t be. We’re at the—”
“Tonto National Forest, got that. Just whatever you do, get out of harm’s way or Nordstrom’ll kill me,” he commanded.
“Not if he’s dead!” Meg screamed, and hung up.
Putting the phone on silent, she started running back to the clearing.
Her heart felt like exploding with each step. And then, she heard it. Gunshots.
“Oh, no.” Megan kicked up her speed, her throat closing in. “Oh, no no no.”
She reached the clearing, and instantly Megan saw him, dead, on the ground. A pool of blood surrounded him. Him. Cody. It was him; she saw the tie he wore today, his most horrible tie, an orange color she wanted to throw away for the first time ever. Oh my God.
She began to shake her head, refusing to believe what lay right before her eyes, already feeling her heart begin to crack. Then she spotted him. Ivan laid back, clutching his chest, bloodied and panting. Megan’s eyes began to spill tears. She reached for one of the guns on the ground and raised it. “You son of a bitch!” she screamed, and shot.
“Mega—” His eyes widened when the bullet hit him, somewhere close to his heart, and he slumped back against the tree trunk. She
