Page 105 of Promised to the Cowboy

Toward Evie.

Chapter 25

Evie

The truck stops beside the plane.

For one second, nobody moves.

The engine idles beneath us. The small runway lights glow weakly in the morning haze. Beyond them, the white aircraft sits sleek and immaculate on the scraped strip of earth.

Falcon keeps both hands on the wheel. The gun rests against his thigh.

I look at him. “Chance trusted you.”

His jaw tightens. He doesn’t turn. “I know.”

At least he doesn’t insult me by pretending.

“You stood beside her while she learned that stall was safe.”

“I know.”

A long silence.

“But I have to protect my son,” Falcon says, like he needs me to understand, even if it changes nothing.

I look at him for a long moment. My hand moves to my stomach without thinking. “Then we both know what this is about.”

Before either of us can say more, a man in a dark coat approaches the passenger side. One of Alexander’s men.

He opens the door. “Ms. Voss.”

“Gale,” I say. “My name is Evie Gale.”

His expression doesn’t change.

Falcon finally looks at me. His face is closed now. Whatever humanity I caught in the truck has retreated behind something harder.

“Please,” he says.

The word nearly undoes me. Not because I pity him, but because he wants me to make this easier for him.

The man outside reaches in.

“No!” I kick him, driving the heel of my boot into his knee and twisting away when he swears. For half a second, I am almost out the other door.

Falcon catches my wrist. He doesn’t hurt me, which somehow makes it worse.

“Don’t,” he says.

“Let go.”

“I can’t.”

The other man recovers and grabs my arm, yanking me from the cab. Then Falcon is beside me, securing my other arm.

I fight them every step. Twenty-three weeks pregnant, off-balance, and outnumbered, and I make them earn every yard between the truck and the plane.