Page 34 of Stolen By the Billionaire
They ran for a long time, for an eternity. With every step, Sarah listened for pursuers. Every breath of wind brushed her neck like the cone of air pushed by a bullet before it hit. The breeze rustling the green cornstalks sounded like one of those mafia horrors reaching to grab her.
The guy ran with his shoulders at an angle, twisting himself to fit through the narrow lanes between the rows of stalks. His pace was quick, fast enough that he stayed just ahead of Sarah. She was trying not to puff because surely those terrible men would hear her gasping, but the guy didn’t seem to be winded in the slightest.
Sarah ran harder and caught up to him, whispering, “Hey! Hey, dude!” as they ran.
The guy stopped dead in his tracks like an ice skater’s hockey stop and turned back to her.
Sarah plastered herself all over the guy’s chest like she’d run smack-dab into a wall.
A hard brick wall.
A tall, hard brick wall.
A tall, hard brick wall that barely swayed from the impact of her slamming into him but merely grasped her shoulders and steadied her before he moved her back a step. He raised his dark eyebrows above his impossibly blue eyes and put a finger to his lips.
Sarah raised herself up on her toes—she still barely reached his shoulder—and whispered, “He said he was going to kill Charlie!”
The guy leaned down, his voice barely a breath. “Your horse?”
“Yes, that horrible one, Igor, said he was going to shoot Charlie just because he wanted to.”
“We need to evac now. We don’t have time to deal with the horse.”
“No. We have to. I can’t let that awful man shoot my horse for the fun of it.”
“We don’t have time. The targets are doubtlessly searching for us now.”
Sarah looked back at the cornstalk sea behind them.
Somewhere back there, someone was crashing through the corn and yelling.
She said, “I won’t go unless he’s okay.”
The man reared up and stared at her for a beat, his icy blue eyes watching hers, evaluating, and then whispered, “Stay here.”
“I’m coming with you! I can’t let that guy hurt Charlie!”
“Stay here.”
He ran into the corn.
Sarah followed him, running as hard as she could because that guy was flat-out flying between the corn rows. His long legs pumped, and he ran away from her like a race car dropped in the middle of a 5K charity fun run.
When she broke out of the corn a few minutes later, the guy was crouched beside one of the fence posts, carefully disassembling it.
Charlie and HowNow were standing right in front of the guy who’d fed them that morning and watching what he was doing, just in case more oats were forthcoming.
Relief almost swept her off her feet, but she ran on her toes over to him and whispered, “I can help.”
He scowled and untwisted a wire holding a rail in place because everything on her farm was ad hoc jerry-rigged. When he turned the wire, the post wiggled and dropped out of where he held it under his arm. “You were supposed to stay in the cornfield.”
“Cut these zip ties. He’s my horse. I can help.”
The guy stood and took a pocketknife from one of the deep pockets of his uniform fatigues. He spun her around and, with a quick flip of his wrist, nicked the plastic from her wrists.
Her shoulders rolled forward as the tension released.
Sarah grabbed the wooden rail, holding it steady so the guy could use both hands to untwist the wire.
