Sturdy palms gripped her from behind. Bridget screamed, making an attempt to interrupt free. They tightened on her arms as she continued to battle.

She screamed louder because the headlights of the automobile blinded her.

“No!” she yelled.

“Bridget. Bridget!” A deep voice referred to as her title, however she didn’t have time to reply. She wanted to get away.

“Let me go!”

“Bridget. Open your eyes.” One other voice. A well-known one. A pleasant one.

She froze, her respiratory and coronary heart nonetheless in a race with one another, each shifting too quick, too onerous.

“Open your eyes, darlin’.” Mark’s fingers brushed her cheek and he or she opened her eyes. “It’s simply us.”

Matt was sitting beside her on the sofa, trying to untangle her from a blanket.

Neither man had time to say anything as a result of at that second, Rodney burst by means of the entrance door, operating at full velocity, gun in hand, able to do battle.

“Wait!” Bridget cried, terrified her protector would shoot Mark or Matt. Rodney’s eyes had been wild with concern and concern.

“I heard you screaming,” Rodney mentioned.

She shrugged guiltily. “Nightmare.” She’d suffered far too many dangerous desires because the night time of Lyle’s homicide, however none since arriving in Saratoga. She’d foolishly hoped they’d stopped coming.

Rodney slowly lowered his gun, his relieved face revealing a brand new drawback. Earlier than Bridget might contemplate an answer, Jacob—who’d run into the room proper on Rodney’s heels—requested the inevitable query.

“Why do you could have a gun, Rodney?”

Rodney turned to face his new pal, and Bridget imagined she might see the spinning wheels in his thoughts looking for a solution. She wished to inform the James brothers the reality. She knew with each fiber of her being that she might belief them. She additionally knew Rodney wouldn’t let her.

“It’s my fault,” she mentioned shortly.

Rodney glanced at her, his face issuing a warning for silence. “Bridget.”

The lie got here to her straight away, falling from her lips far too simply. Six months of hiding, pretending to be another person, had taught her nicely. She’d develop into the queen of subterfuge and half-truths. “I obtained combined up with a nasty man in New York. We dated for some time, however then issues turned form of abusive. I attempted to get away from him a couple of occasions, however he stored discovering me. I even obtained a restraining order, however that didn’t assist both. Rodney and I made a decision to get out of city, attempt to let issues cool off. I believed we’d be protected right here. I imply, Saratoga’s midway throughout the nation, for God’s sake.”

Rodney nodded as she wove the story, then added his personal pile of crap to the lie. “I obtained a name from a pal a couple of days in the past. She mentioned she thought Lucian had found out the place we had been. That’s why we had been going to chop our trip quick.”

Lucian. Choose Thompson. Bridget would have laughed at Rodney’s inventiveness if her coronary heart weren’t aching. Mendacity to those males who’d provided her nothing lower than kindness, friendship and the best orgasm of her life didn’t sit nicely along with her.

All through their impromptu storytelling, Bridget stored her gaze on Rodney’s face, too afraid to have a look at Matt and Mark. Had been they shopping for this? What had been they pondering?

Lastly, she regarded. She glanced at Mark, then at Matt. Each of them had been carrying equivalent scowls.

“That is the key you’ve been hiding?”

Bridget thought there was a touch of disbelief lacing Matt’s tone, however she chalked it as much as her personal paranoia. She nodded.

“Why didn’t you inform us, Bridget? We’d have helped preserve you protected.” There was no mistaking the harm in Mark’s query.

“I used to be embarrassed,” she mentioned. “I felt silly.”

Matt grasped her hand, squeezing it tightly. “Don’t say that. Don’t even suppose it. You didn’t do something unsuitable.”

She wished that had been true. She sniffled barely, shocked by the robust need to cry. She hadn’t cried as soon as since Lyle’s loss of life. “I’ve performed so many issues unsuitable.”

Her conscience collapsed round her. She’d been a idiot to place this household at risk, egocentric to contemplate her personal wishes over their security. What if Thompson had discovered her? Had arrived at this home tonight?

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