Hawk (A Stepbrother Romance #3)(32)

I should have killed him then. That would have been the brave thing to do.

Now what?

I have to save her. I have to get her out of this. I don’t care if she hates me. She can if she has to, but I will never allow her to be hurt again. My own life means nothing. Hers is all that matters.

I fall back on the bed and the thought of Alexis getting hurt crushes me like a fist in my chest. I can see her in my mind’s eye, confused and scared, then terrified, strapped to a locked down hospital bed with that creature standing over her.

I did that. It’s my fault.

The longer I brood, the brighter it gets outside. I still haven’t slept when the birds start chirping and I’m not going to. Rising, I walk to the window and look out.

By sheer chance, I spot Alexis. She walks out of the house in running clothes and sneakers, and stretches in the backyard. She must be going for a run. She always loved to run. On her best days, she could even outrun me.

Quickly, I slip out of my jeans that I’ve been wearing all night, fish a rumpled pair of shorts out of my bag, yank them on, and tear out of the room. I take the steps two at a time, down to the first floor, but when I get to the backyard I catch only a glimpse of Alexis bobbing down the sidewalk, picking up speed as she warms herself up. It must be shy of six in the morning yet, the sun just barely up.

I start jogging after her. She doesn’t spot me, so I hang back. I let her take the lead, her ponytail swaying back and forth as her muscular legs pump and carry her forward faster and faster. She only slows when she crosses a road.

She’s headed for the memorial park. In the northeast of Paradise Falls, the old war memorial was built to commemorate the dead from World War I; since then smaller memorials have been added for every conflict after that. My grandfather’s name is on one of the monuments; he was shot down in Korea.

Alexis runs faster as she hits the foot path that winds through the park. It’s not a big place but heavily wooded, the old trees standing sentinel over the memorial and the path that winds around their roots. As she runs, squirrels dart out of her path and up the trees, and watch me warily as I jog past them.

I should say something to her, but I just let her go. She’s totally consumed in running, oblivious to the world around her at the same time she’s tuned into the terrain, weaving around cracks and dips in the worn old walking path, glancing at the places where the path crosses itself, finding it empty. There’s no one out this early but us.

Almost no one. Alexis slows as she approaches a couple on bicycles. They slow too, and I duck off the path before they spot me, slipping behind a tree. I weave my way along the path, crouching in the thick brush.

Alexis jogs up to the couple and stops, panting.

There’s a man and a woman. The man I don’t know, the woman tickles my memory and I can’t place her. She’s tall for a girl, almost six feet. It takes me a second to realize how tall she actually is, only from seeing her stand next to Alexis after she dismounts the bike. She has short reddish-brown hair that looks coppery when the light catches it, and a compact, athletic build.

The man is taller still, and well built. He’s got a tiny hint of a limp but he knows how to handle himself, it’s obviously in his every movement. They both move that way, in the reserved, oddly graceful manner of people who have a lot of conditioning and training.

Then it hits me. The hair, and the thin scar on her face, threw me. The redhead is one of the teachers from when we were in school. I don’t know the man.

I’m going to, though. He looks right at me.

“You can come out now.”

I freeze, and all three of them look over. Alexis scowls at me.

Slowly I rise, holding my hands away from my sides, not quite in a gesture of surrender but carefully, to make my intentions clear. I walk slowly down the path and stop a few feet away, taking a better look at them both. The man is big. I’m not sure I could take him.

“What are you doing here?” Alexis snaps.

“I was keeping an eye on you.”

“Who are they?” I nod at the pair, feigning ignorance. Although to be fair, I don’t know the woman’s name.

“I’m Jennifer Kane. This is my husband, Jacob.”

“Okay. You are…”

“Teachers,” the man says, smirking. “Why are you following Alexis?”

I shrug. “I was keeping an eye on her.”

“He’s my stepbrother,” Alexis says, coldly. “The older one.”

Jennifer looks at her, then looks at me. Her expression is neutral but there’s a flash of something in her eyes.

“You’re the one who disappeared?”

“I don’t think this is a safe place to talk,” I say, glancing around.

“We’re fine,” the man says. “We won’t be here long.”

“I don’t have anything for you anyway,” Alexis says. “He’s been busy with the festival junk all week. I had to make all the calls to set up the carnival and hire the clowns, and get the land from the church to use, all that crap.”

Hearing Alexis say junk and crap brings a smile to my face. She was as foul-mouthed as a sailor when we were kids, at least when we were alone.

Jennifer nods at me. “Should he be hearing this?”

Alexis sighs. “I don’t know. I don’t… can we talk?”