She turned and raced back the way she’d come, heading for the beach area. At the tree line, she stopped and scanned the beach. Two figures, backlit by the moon, moved along the shoreline, and she squinted, trying to figure out who they were.
“Well, Ava, I guess it’s just you and me now.”
That hated voice came from behind her. Somehow she’d passed him, alerting him. Then the smell hit her. A nauseating combination of singed flesh and a coppery metallic scent that turned her stomach. She stood frozen as a dozen responses flickered through her brain.
Slowly, she turned and her gaze collided with his. He held the gun on her, and she took in his appearance. The left half of his face had been charred beyond recognition. She swallowed. He limped as he moved closer—he had to be in horrible pain. But the hand that held the gun was steady.
Ava backed up, placing one foot carefully behind the other.
“Stop.”
“No,” she said. “If you plan to shoot me, then go for it.”
Sirens cut through the night. Helicopter blades pounded the air, drawing closer with each second.
“You ruined it,” he said, his breath hitching. “You ruined it all. It wasn’t supposed . . . to go like . . . this.”
“Put the gun down, Nicolai. It’s over.”
He hesitated, swaying, his breathing growing more ragged by the second. “You’re right. It’s over. But if you don’t die, then I will have broken . . . my . . . promise. And I can’t . . . do that. I . . . prom—” His hand twitched.
A gunshot sounded and Ava flinched, waiting for the pain to hit. Instead, blood foamed from Nicolai’s mouth and he went to his knees as two more shots caught him center mass. His weapon dropped from his fingers to the sand.
He fell face forward and was still, the tree branch protruding from his back. Ava’s father stood beyond him. She spun. “Caden! Travis!”
Caden held his weapon on Nicolai. He’d shot it at the same time her father had launched his homemade spear with surprising accuracy.
Ava ran to Caden and threw her arms around his neck. He pulled cuffs from his belt and tossed them to Travis. Then he hugged her close, burying his face in her hair, his breath rasping against her ear. “I was scared to death I wouldn’t be in time. You’re okay? You’re not hurt? You need an ambu—”
She turned his face toward her and settled his lips over hers. And clung. She was so happy to see him that she wanted to cry. But kissing him came first. Once he got over his surprise, he responded most enthusiastically, wrapping his fingers in her hair while his kiss conveyed his sheer relief that she was in his arms.
She wasn’t sure how long the embrace lasted, but when Caden finally lifted his head, she caught Travis doing his best to hide a snicker while he sat next to the cuffed dead man. Her father had a similar look of bemusement, before he winced and clenched his jaw in pain.
Because of his gunshot wound.
She gasped. “Dad.” She ran to him and gripped his arm, then looked back at Caden. “We need to get him to a hospital.”
“The water police are here. Let’s get him loaded on the boat. They can call an ambulance to meet us back at shore.”
“Thank you.”
Officers swarmed the sandy beach, and two of them took over helping to get her father on board.
One of the others wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and did the same for Travis and Caden.
Once they were in the boat with her father stretched out on the floor between the seats, she held his hand and looked at Caden. “It’s over now, right?”
“It’s over.”
Ava’s tears released and she sniffed, trying to hold them back and failing. Caden slid over next to her and wrapped an arm around her. “It’s all going to be okay now.”
“I want to go see my mom,” she whispered.
“Sure thing.”
“And John, I want to know how John is.”
Caden asked one of the officers if they could borrow his phone. The man handed it back to them and Ava dialed Julie’s number.
The woman answered on the first ring. “Hello?”
“It’s Ava.”
“Ava!” Julie’s screech had Ava yanking the phone from her ear. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes, I’m all right. Is John okay?”
“We’re at the hospital and he’s recovering. Hold on a minute. He wants to talk to you.”
“Ava?”
His deep voice brought tears to her eyes. As irritated as she’d been with him, she hadn’t wanted him dead. “John, I’m so glad you’re okay.” The words came out of a suddenly tight throat.
“I’m sorry, Ava. I only wanted to protect you and Paul, and I . . . messed up. I acted without thinking everything through and that was a disaster. If you’d been killed—”
“But I wasn’t. And Dad’s okay too.” She looked at her father’s pale face and prayed her words were true. “We’ll be at the hospital soon and I’ll fill you in.”
She hung up and swiped the tears from her cheeks once more. She handed the phone back to the officer and leaned into Caden, not caring that he was soaking wet. He kissed her head and she smiled. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He fell silent, then cleared his throat. “So . . . where do you want to go for our third date?”
She sat up, recognizing what he was doing in the attempt to cope with the horror they’d just survived. “What?” she asked. “Third date? We haven’t had the first one yet.”
“Of course we did.”
She blinked. “What’d I miss?”
“Actually, now that I think about it, we’ve had a bunch of dates.”
Ava shifted so she could see him. “Explain yourself, Caden Denning.”
“All those times I came to the nursing home to see you. We did puzzles, played board games and cards, and talked about nearly every topic you can think of. Those were lots of dates.”
“Those weren’t dates. Those were just . . . hanging out and eating and talking.”
He tilted his head. “So, how is that different from a date?”
“It’s not,” her father murmured.
“No one asked you, Dad,” she said.
“Thank you, sir,” Caden said at the same time.
Travis snorted.
“And then there was the night that Petra sent us out to eat.”
“That wasn’t a date, that was . . . forced proximity.”
A choking sound came from her father. Travis turned his back, but his shaking shoulders gave him away. Ava found herself fighting her own smile. How could she smile?
Because she was alive. Thank you, God, for life. And she wanted to relish the feeling.
“Actually,” Caden said, “we’ve already had our third date. I cooked steaks for you, remember?”
“Yeah. Those were really good.”
“Thank you.” He paused. “So, was that a date?”
“That was . . .”
“It was a date,” the officer said as they pulled to the dock.
“There was no kissing,” Ava said. “It wasn’t a date.”
“But you’ll go out with me on a real date?”