Something Blue

Chapter 40

Gabe

I will kill her.

The thought rang over and over in his mind as he heaved his body from one stone to the next, the water growing steadily darker and more turbulent as they went. The whorls and eddies it formed as it burbled around the rocks were oddly mesmerizing. He'd hated this game as a child, and he hated it now. She always insisted on going first, leaping from rock to rock as if the water wasn't even there. She was utterly fearless.

And not just here. What had she been thinking, coming for him at the gallows? He'd been resigned to his death, dammit. Not excited, and the whole strangling-to-death affair had certainly hurt like hell, but he'd reached a sort of peace with it, knowing that at least the people he loved were safe.

And now here he was, running for his life with a splitting headache and bones filled with lead, and everyone he loved was in peril.

Including Katherine.

I will kill her.

God, she was beautiful. Maybe it was the fever or the whole unexpected resurrection business, but he could swear she was glowing as she leaned back on one leg, tightened her muscles, and sprang forward. Time seemed to slow as she sailed over the churning water and landed on the broad gray rock in the center of the river. He stepped back himself, willed strength into syrupy blood, sucked a breath through a throat that seemed determined to close, and followed.

He landed beside her, not bothering to shrug off her help as she wrapped a hand around his arm to steady him.

"This is as far as we ever came," she said, her hand slipping down to his and squeezing as she turned her face up to look up at him. It wasn't just his eyes. She really was glowing—her face lit as if from within by the rising sun and her eyes so bright they were blinding. A gentle dew of sweat sparkled in the delicate hollow of her threat and along her hairline, and a short tendril of hair had come loose from her hat and dangled in a damp spiral by her jaw.

"I love you," he said, each word a scrape of gravel up his throat.

"I know," she said with a sly, confident smile, and she could have been the little girl who'd run with him in these woods, back before life went sour. "I love you too."

"I know. You'd have to, to have done something this stupid."

She scowled. "Now how would you feel if that was the last thing you ever said to me?" she teased. And then, without further preamble, she released his hand and sprang across the widest distance yet. Leaped over the chasm that had separated them as children from the future of which they both dreamed. Gabe's heart leaped up into his aching throat as every split second of her flight stretched out into a lifetime. He watched her land. Watched her waver, and his own muscles coiled in preparation to spring. If she fell he'd go after her. She was such a lousy swimmer she'd drown before the cold had a chance to kill her. At least if he helped her stay afloat she'd stand a chance.

But before he could leap, she'd found her balance and stepped forward on the rock, turning to flash him a mischievous smile.

"Come on," she said. "It's not that far."

Maybe not for her. But he was bigger and his muscles were made of decaying, termite-riddled wood, and someone had lodged the head of a pickaxe right between his eyes.

He sucked in as deep a breath as he could manage.

Leaned back.

Leaped forward...

... and came up short.

His toe slipped off the edge of the rock and his chest slammed into the granite. He heard Katherine yell, but her voice was drowned out by the sensation of ice clamping around his lungs as his body plunged into the water. The current grabbed him, yanking his legs downstream, and his fingers scrabbled uselessly for purchase, tearing on the rough grit of the rock as the water dragged him away.