The Heat Is On

17

THE MOMENT BELLA plunged into the water, she heard the shot ring out, and involuntarily screamed.

Not a good idea underwater.

She inhaled a cold lungful and promptly choked, forcing her back to the surface. She gasped quickly and plunged beneath again, bumping hard into the hull of the boat and knocking the air right out of herself. Good going, Bella. You get away from the crazy stalker and then try to help him kill you.

Still beneath the water, she struggled with the strong urge to kick to the surface again, and just before she had to have air, someone splashed into the water next to her. Propelled by the momentum, again she hit the hull, hard. She didn’t scream this time, she didn’t have the air left. And she had even less when two hands grabbed her.

Trevor.

Oh, no. Hell, no. In that moment, her fear was replaced by fury. Because of Trevor, Jacob would think she’d run away, think she was yet another woman who didn’t believe he was worth fighting for. Because of Trevor, Willow would accept her skipping out as just part of her pattern. Because of Trevor, her chance to change had been taken away from her.

So she fought back. Reaching up, she closed her hands around his throat, squeezing as hard as she could, which wasn’t hard enough.

She was too weak, and this wasn’t going to work. Frustrated, she shoved him, trying to swim away down the narrow space between the slip and the boat.

She heard a dull thud. Trevor’s hands fell from her neck, but before she could assimilate that, two more hands grabbed her and hauled her up to the surface.

She came up swinging, and managed to get in a good punch to the gut.

“Shit!” said someone who definitely wasn’t Trevor.

Yet another set of arms slipped around her. “I’ve got her.”

This voice she knew, and immediately she relaxed into the hard wall of muscle. “Jacob.”

He hauled her in close, holding her above water. “I’ve got you, Bella. You’re safe.”

She always was safe with him, she thought, blinking water out of her eyes as he lifted her up to someone on the dock already reaching for her.

Ethan.

He set her down but her knees were weak and she dropped to them. Directly in front of them was Trevor, facedown and being cuffed by a handful of uniformed men. He had blood flowing from a gash on the back of his head.

“You knocked him off me.” She coughed as Jacob was pulling up out of the water.

“No.” He dropped to his knees in front of her, running his hands over her as if he needed to make sure for himself that she was okay. “That was all you. You smashed his head against the concrete pillar under the dock. Nice going, by the way.”

She stared at the boat that Trevor had planned to force her onto, the water she’d been pulled out of and then into Jacob’s eyes.

“You did amazing,” he said softly, taking a blanket from a uniformed officer and tugging it around her shoulders. “You were in a bad situation and you kept your head. I’m so proud of you, Bella.”

The words bathed her in desperately needed warmth. Weak and shaking from the adrenaline letdown, she dropped her head to his shoulder. She’d barely dragged in a breath before he wrapped his arms around her hard and shuddered. “I thought I’d lost you. I don’t want to ever lose you.”

“I wasn’t leaving. Not willingly anyway.” She lifted her head, needing to see his face. “I didn’t want to leave you, Jacob. I know I was sending mixed signals, but that’s because I didn’t want to push you into this. I thought you weren’t ready, that you needed more time.”

He shook his head. “I don’t need more time. I love you, Bella.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered. She hadn’t gotten the words out before he lowered his head and kissed her.

An EMT dropped beside them with his med kit. “She needs to be checked out, looks like she hit her head, too.”

Yeah. Now that he mentioned it, she was feeling a little dizzy…

Jacob looked deep into her eyes, his clouded with worry. “Stay with me,” he said, repeating her words from when he’d been shot back to her.

“I’m okay,” she promised. “I’m not going to faint.”

His laugh was nothing more than a breath against her temple. “I meant here. With me. Stay here with me. Because I want you with me more than anything else.”

“You mean, here in Santa Rey?”

“In Australia. In goddamn Timbuktu. I don’t care where, as long as we’re in the same place.”

The warmth from the blanket and his own body continued to seep into her, but the warmth from his words penetrated even deeper, heating her from the inside out. “Yes, I’ll stay,” she breathed. “For as long as you want me.”

His smile spread across his face. “That’s going to be a while. Forever a while.”

“I can’t think of anything I could want more.”