Author: Jane Blythe

“I am not your girl,” Elle said through gritted teeth. Her memory was a little hazy on what had just happened and her chest felt like someone had smashed it with a rock but she knew one thing for certain, she HATED Jacob Keaton with every fiber of being.

Sadness washed over his handsome features and guilt gnawed at her but she shoved it away. He was the one who had had the affair not her, she had nothing to feel guilty about.

“Yeah, I know,” he said softly, smoothing a hand over her hair. “Come on I better get you inside.”

When he moved to pick her up she shoved him away. “I don’t need your help,” she said, wincing when pain stabbed through her chest when she tried to move.

“Yeah, sweetness, you kinda do. I just did CPR on you, Elle, might have cracked a couple of your ribs.” His hand brushed lightly across her chest and she cursed her body when a flash of desire shot through her.

“CPR?” she asked. What had gone on here tonight? “And why are you here? I thought you left town.”

“You told me to leave town, babe, I never agreed.”

“How did you know where I was?” Was he stalking her? Had she ever really known the real Jacob Keaton?

“I’d rather have this conversation inside.” Jacob was looking around like he expected someone to jump out and grab them, and just like that her memory came back.

“Someone tried to drown me,” she whispered, no longer upset that Jacob was here, he’d protect her, not her heart but he’d never let anyone hurt her physically.

“They didn’t just try, babe, they succeeded.” Jacob picked her up and began to walk with her towards the cabin.

“You know who it was,” she accused. The tightening of his jaw told her she was correct. Empty handed, empty headed, empty hearted, that was how he’d left her last time, why did it feel like this time he was going to leave her in worse shape?

Inside the cabin Jacob set her on the couch, closed all the blinds, and turned off all the lights bar a small flashlight he must have brought with him. He returned to the couch, knelt beside her, and for the first time since she’d met him he appeared nervous.

Jacob was never nervous.

Jacob was never nervous.

Something was wrong.

“Tell me,” she bit out.

“I lied.”

“I know,” she growled.

“No, not how you think. There was no affair, Elle, I’ve been working undercover, things got out of control, my cover got blown, you were in danger if I didn’t break it off with you. I’m so sorry, Elle, I never wanted to hurt you, I love you.”

Setting his rifle down felt like leaving piece of himself behind but Jacob knew he didn’t have a choice. There was no way he could shoot whoever was attacking Elle because there was a very real chance that he would hit her instead, and that was unacceptable.

Even if it meant that this man got away and he missed out on an opportunity to get the answers he needed.

Elle would always come first.

Right now he wasn’t sure how he was going to overcome the problems he’d created by letting her believe he was cheating on her so she’d walk away. The idea of hurting her made his gut boil with a sickening mixture of guilt, regret, and pain, but it was better than the alternative. The only way to get her to leave him was to let her think that he had betrayed her, it sucked but it was what it was, and he’d do anything to get her out of the line of fire. He had brought this danger to their doorstep and he hated that Elle was hurt because of it.

Wading into the cool water, Jacob scanned the area searching for signs of life. Thanks to his years as a SEAL the water was his second home and when he spotted something he thought might be signs of movement he moved quietly and stealthily through the water.

As soon as he got closer he saw them. A man dressed in black with a SCUBA tank and Elle hanging limply in his arms.

Anger surged through him, nobody hurt his Elle.

Spurred on by the deep protective rage she brought out in him, Jacob closed the distance between them, slid the knife at his ankle free and stabbed the other man once right through the heart.

There was no need to check the man was dead, he wouldn’t have survived at this undercover cop gig if he wasn’t ruthlessly efficient when he needed to be, so he simply grabbed Elle, yanked her up against his chest, and swam them both to the surface.

They weren’t far from the shore and he got them there quickly, and laid her down on the grassy bank. One hand on her neck, the other on her chest, his head above her lips, when Jacob felt no signs that she was breathing he shoved back the fear and started CPR.

Two breaths, fifty compressions.

Two breaths, fifty compressions.

Two breaths, fifty …

He was rewarded with Elle dragging in a breath and starting to cough up the water she had inhaled.

“There you go, baby,” he soothed as he rolled her onto her side so she didn’t choke on the water her lungs were trying to expel.

When he was sure that most of it was out he rolled her onto her back again and tucked a lock of hair that was stuck to her wet cheek behind her ear. How much he wanted to drag her into his arms, apologise for lying about his job and the supposed affair, then whisk her away to an island paradise where they would never have to worry about anything else again.

Elle’s green eyes focused on him slowly, and he knew the exact second she realised it was him kneeling above her because her eyebrows knit together and she growled at him in a weak and raspy voice. “I hate you.”

Smiling despite her words, because if his girl was telling him that then he knew she was okay, Jacob cupped her cheek in his hand and let his thumb brush across her soft skin. “That’s my girl.”

She couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t see.

She was surrounded by water and it was soon going to become her grave if she couldn’t get back to the surface.

The hand on her ankle continued to pull her down, further away from safety, further down to the depths of the lake.

Elle fought against the hold, she kicked and thrashed, pulled her arms through the water as she tried to get her bearings and get back to the surface, she wanted out of the lake now.

Forcing herself to go against her instincts she went still, stopped fighting, tried to figure out where her attacker was and how best to get rid of him. Focusing on the hand this time when she lashed out with her free foot she connected with something and the grip loosened.

Taking advantage she began to swim, deprived of oxygen for too long her limbs were sluggish and she struggled to put any distance between them. Where was he? Or she?

There.

Was that a figure?

She lost sight of him as she neared the surface. When she broke through she gasped and spluttered, sucking in precious breaths of air.

As soon as she could Elle was swimming for the shore. She was almost there when arms wrapped around her chest and she was pulled under again.

This time the grip was like iron.

It wasn’t budging.

She wasn’t getting out of the water. She was going to die alone in the dark lake and no one was going to mourn her.

Why did he like to torture himself like this?

Jacob didn’t have an answer to that question, but here he was, on his stomach on the ground, rocks and sticks poking painfully into his ribs and abdomen, hot and irritated, with his eyes glued to the scope on his rifle through which he was watching Elle swimming in the lake.

Elle.

Elle, Elle, Elle.

The woman drove him crazy but he loved her with every fibre of his being.

Which made what he’d had to do so much harder.

But when it all boiled down to it there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for Elle, even if it shredded him … and her … at least she would still be alive, and that was what was important.

She looked so peaceful down there, floating on her back in the water. What he wouldn’t do to go down there, strip that swimsuit off her, kiss those plump lips of hers until the rest of the world floated away, then carry her to the cabin and make love to her until they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

Jacob may very well have thrown his plan into the wind and gone down there and done just that when Elle suddenly disappeared beneath the water. What was she doing? Was she swimming again? No, she didn’t like to have her head completely under the water, it was one of her many quirks, when she swam she always kept her head up, it made her look awkward but oddly cute.

She started thrashing in the water and that was when he saw it.

There was someone else down there in the lake.

And that someone was trying to kill Elle.

Scared, Jacob jumped to his feet and started running, praying he got there in time.

The water was cool and smooth on her skin as she swum absently around the lake. The sky was a large black expanse above her, littered with millions of stars. The stars were one of the things she loved the most about being out here.

Elle came here when she needed to center herself, when she needed the peace and quiet of nature. She’d loved this place since she was a little girl and her family would spend summers at this secluded lakeside cabin.

Leave town.

That was what she’d told him, like it was that simple.

Like it could ever be that simple.

She was an idiot.

An idiot to love him, an idiot to let him go, an idiot for letting him treat her that way.

Why did she always have to gravitate towards irritating alphas who thought that they always knew better? And why did she always have to get annoyed when they behaved like she knew that they would?

Elle was trying to decide if she was more annoyed with him or herself when something brushed against her leg.

At first she thought nothing of it, she was in the lake after all and there were always branches or leaves or things floating about, but then something curled around her ankle.

Panic washed over her when she realised it was a hand.

A hand that was pulling her down, beneath the surface.

She fought, she panicked, she thrashed, desperately trying to claw her way back up to the surface but it didn’t do any good.

Water closed in above her head.