Chapter Twenty-Two
Harley
Heart leaping into her throat, Harley spun around, cursing herself for not getting the boat started first. She might have already been pulling away from the dock right now if she’d hotwired the ignition first.
But she hadn’t. She had armed herself and she meant to use the weapon to make sure she got the hell off this island.
Clenching her jaw, she brought the gun to her shoulder, preparing for Clay to burst through the cabin door. She didn’t have to wait long. Seconds after she steadied her grip on the rifle, the door swung open, revealing a sweat-soaked Clay wearing nothing but his shorts and boots.
His bare torso glistened and water beaded on his face and neck, smearing the blood that streamed from the wound at the back of his head down over his thickly muscled shoulder. His eyes glinted with rage, but he wasn’t out of his mind with it. He still had the sense to freeze when he saw the gun, his gaze darting from Harley to the open storage bench beside her and back again.
“That loaded?” he asked, his breath coming fast.
He must have sprinted the entire way here, too, every bit as eager to recapture her as she was to escape.
“It is. And I’m an excellent shot.” She stepped her right foot back, firming up her stance, not wanting to get knocked off her feet by the recoil if she were forced to shoot him. “Even if I wasn’t, there’s no way I could miss with you this close. The only way you’re waking up to see another sunrise is if you get off this boat right now and let me go.”
“I can’t do that,” he said, taking a step closer.
Harley took a mirror step back. “I’m serious, Clay! I will shoot you. I don’t want to, but if you give me no other choice, I will. I have to get to Jasper. He’s all that matters. Now get the fuck off the boat!”
He shook his head as he slowly lifted his arms into the air in a gesture of surrender she wasn’t buying for a moment. “You’re right. Okay? You’re right. Jasper is what matters. We need to make sure he’s safe. Then we can work out the rest of the shit between us.”
She tried to laugh, but it got stuck on the way up her throat, emerging as a startled-sounding gurgle. “You know I’m not that stupid.”
“I know you’re not,” he said, edging an inch closer. The movement was so slight most people wouldn’t have noticed it. But Harley noticed and it was enough to make her cock the hammer and squeeze one eye shut, preparing to shoot a hole through Clay’s gut if he took another step.
He froze. “You’re not going to shoot me.”
“Don’t come any closer,” she warned softly.
“If you were going to kill me you would have let me drown,” he continued, holding her gaze with his big hands still held aloft, framing his seemingly earnest face. “We were all the way across the pool when you hit me over the head. There is no way I fell at the edge of the bank onto my back. You pulled me there, didn’t you? And made sure I was breathing before you ran?”
“I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.” She fought the tears pressing at her eyes as he shifted another inch her way, ignoring her order, bringing the moment when she would have to kill him to get to her son a second closer. “Please! I just want to leave. Don’t make me do this!”
“I’m not going to make you do anything. Not anymore,” he said in a deep voice that would have been soothing if she didn’t know that he was preparing to pounce at any moment. “You have changed. You’ve proven that. Now give me a chance to prove that I’m not out of my mind. And that I can put Jasper’s welfare first. There will be plenty of time for us to fight once we know that he’s as safe as we can possibly make him.”
He eased another micro-step closer. “I had time to think while I was running back here, hoping like hell that I’d get to the boat before you made it off the island. I get it now, okay. I get that I’ve been fighting a losing game and that I shouldn’t have been playing games in the first place. The second I knew that Jasper was in danger, I should have done whatever it took to keep him safe, even if that meant calling a truce between us.”
“You’re lying,” she said, lips pressing together.
“I’m not,” he said. “I swear I’m not, Harley. I swear on my life. On Jasper’s life.”
Harley swallowed against the salt and fire taste rising in her mouth. She tried to clear her head and think rationally, but the moment was too fraught. All she could think about was the gun in her hand and the man who had imprisoned her and tortured her and used her sick desire for him against her—turning her own body into a traitor that couldn’t be trusted—standing in front of her, ready to drag her back to hell.
“I can’t go back into that cage,” she whispered. “I can’t. It will kill me.”
“No, it wouldn’t.” His lips tilted up one side. “You’re made of tougher stuff than that. You’ve proven that, too.”
“Don’t look at me like that.” Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t try to trick me. You don’t admire me, and you don’t want to work together. You just want me to put the gun down.”
“Yes, I would like for you to put the gun down,” he agreed, shoulders shrugging as his hands began to drift back to his sides. “But I don’t—”
He lunged the last few feet separating them, wrenching the shotgun from her hands before she could fire. Her finger hadn’t been on the trigger, but even if it had, she couldn’t have pulled it. She wasn’t capable of killing one of the few people she had truly loved, even if she hated the devil he’d become.
She stumbled back until her bottom hit the control console, and stood, heart pounding, bracing herself for whatever Clay would do next.
Would he shoot her, beat her, or simply fist his hand in her hair and force her back to his torture chamber?
Instead, he opened the gun, shook the shells out onto the floor, and stood staring at her over the evidence of what looked like an attempt at a real truce.