Oh god, he’d found me. Adrenaline shot through my tired, cold body, and I dug my elbows into the dirt, trying to wriggle up onto my legs. Pain shot through my knee, and I cried out in pain. Come on, Rosie. Stand the fuck up. He was coming at me, rushing through the trees with his eyes full of fire.

Panting, he dropped to my side. I opened my mouth to scream, but he clamped his hand over my lips. He smelled of manly cologne, of dirt, of sweat. Panic swept through me, and I tried to scramble away, but my stupid leg shot another bullet of pain into my knee.

“Rosie,” he whispered, eyes frantically flickering over every inch of me. “Don’t scream. Someone might hear you.”

Good, I thought, but I couldn’t speak the word with his palm still pressed against my lips. Instead, I shot daggers with my eyes.

“You’re hurt,” he said, eyes moving down to my twisted leg. I’d slipped on a pile of wet leaves when I’d heard him thrashing through the forest behind me, and my knee had twisted with a sharp snap as I fell to the ground.

I tried to pull away but he shook his head. “I’m not what you think I am.”

My heartbeat thrummed in my neck, and tears welled in my eyes. I wanted to believe him. I didn’t want to think Franklin was capable of murdering a bunch of innocent people, but I knew what I’d seen on the news. It hadn’t been difficult to piece things together. His intense need for secrecy. His insistence I had no idea who he was. This was what he’d been hiding from me, and now that I’d found out, there was no telling what he would do to keep me quiet.

He sighed, his shoulders slumping. “Please don’t look at me like that. I didn’t do what they said I did.”

“How am I supposed to believe you?” I mumbled into his hand.

Sighing, he stared hard into my eyes. Something in them made the fear and doubt ease up just enough for me to wonder if I’d been wrong.

He looked worried, but more about me than about him. He wasn’t acting at all like I’d expected a murderer to act. Franklin, or Garrett, or whoever he was…he was still being kind to me. Just like he’d always been.

“If I take away my hand, do you promise not to scream?” he asked.

I nodded, and a second later, his hand was gone. “How am I supposed to believe you?”

“Have I done anything at all that says I’m that kind of man?” he said, pulling a green package from his pocket. As he unwrapped it, I saw what it was. A parka. He draped it over my shoulders and took my cold and trembling hands in his. I flinched, a part of me desperate to pull away. But I couldn’t shake the look on his face. Soft, caring, gentle.

“The news said you were on the run from the FBI.” I shivered and wrapped the parka tighter around my shoulders, the cold suddenly descending upon me like a bucket of ice. My arms even looked a little blue. I’d been in such a frenzy to escape, I hadn’t noticed how cold I’d gotten in the storm.

“That part is true.” Franklin stood and held out a hand for me to grab. I could only stare up at him, my mind and heart and body split as to what to do. “I promise I’ll explain everything to you, Rosie. And I promise I’d never do anything to hurt you. Just let me get you back inside where it’s warm and where we can check out that knee of yours.”

Nodding, I took his hand.