“I saw the smoke. You did good.”
Unable to hold the gun any longer, Lily dropped it onto the floor at her feet. She felt nauseated. Felt like crying. Simultaneously, anger coursed through her. Because anger was safer than falling apart, she held on to it for dear life.
Chase’s voice curtailed her thoughts.
“Lean forward,” he said. “Put your head down, lace your hands over the back of your head.”
A few yards ahead, Lily caught a glimpse of the mechanical arm. No time to argue. No time to debate the wisdom of crashing through the arm at breakneck speed. Thinking only of the baby, she leaned forward and braced.
An instant later, the car crashed through the arm. Chunks of wood flew in all directions. The vehicle bucked wildly as it flew down the final ramp. The tires barked against asphalt as the car went over a dip and then screeched onto the street. Chase cut the wheel hard to the right. Lily looked up, certain they were about to go into a spin. But Chase fought the wheel and managed to maintain control.
They hit traffic at Atlantic Avenue, but Chase took the Toyota over the curb and onto the sidewalk, laying on the horn to get two unwitting pedestrians out of the way. He crashed through a closed newspaper kiosk to get around a stalled delivery truck. Canvas and paper and fragments of wood billowed past the passenger window. Lily held on for dear life as he jumped the curb a second time and took them back onto the street.
They didn’t speak until they reached the Charlestown Bridge on the north side of town. Stranded cars and delivery trucks were parked along the roadway like discarded Tonka toys, but the bridge was open. Chase took the loop to Interstate 93 and headed north toward New Hampshire.
“Should be clear sailing from here,” he said.
Lily didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. If she laughed she would surely become hysterical; if she cried she might not be able to stop. She wasn’t sure which would be worse. So much had happened in the past few hours. Her life had changed drastically. Not only because she’d faced death, but because a man she’d thought was out of her life forever was back, and her heart was telling her nothing had changed.
Too many emotions jammed her heart, overwhelmed her mind. All the old feelings were still there, like a dormant fever, waiting to erupt. He was a good man. He’d saved her life multiple times tonight. But he’d also been one to bring danger into her world. Most troubling of all was the knowledge that he’d introduced that same danger into her baby’s life, too.
How could she have such powerful feelings for a man who would undoubtedly bring worry and pain and possibly future danger into her life?
Lily didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to feel. Emotions coiled and churned inside her like a cauldron of acid eating her alive. As they sped past the state line into New Hampshire, the dam finally broke. Leaning forward, she put her face in her hands and began to cry. Not just a little, but great shaking sobs she felt all the way to her belly. She wasn’t sure why she was crying; tears never helped anything. But exhaustion and fear and adrenaline had a way of breaking a girl down. Combine that with her conflicting feelings for Chase and she had an emotional meltdown on her hands.
“Lily.”
Chase’s voice carried over her sobs, broke into her thoughts. But she couldn’t answer. Didn’t want to look at him. He was an astute man, and she wasn’t exactly sure what her expression would tell him.
“Honey, what’s wrong? Are you in pain? Is it the baby?”
Taking a deep breath in an effort to regain control of herself, she risked a look at him. If she hadn’t been crying, she might have laughed. Of all the harrowing experiences they’d weathered, he looked most frightened at this moment.
“The baby’s fine.”
“What is it, then?”
Not sure how to answer, Lily wiped her eyes and turned to the window. A breath shuddered out of her and the sobs subsided. But she couldn’t stop thinking about how close they’d come to getting killed. That because of Chase, a man she cared for deeply, she had come very close to dying before giving birth to their innocent child.
The thought broke her heart—and drove home the fact that she could not let herself get entangled with him again.
“Hey,” he said gently, “what is it?”
She jolted when he reached across the seat and covered her hand with his. “I can’t talk about this right now,” she said.
“Talk about what?”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”