Drake Sisters 05 - Safe Harbor

had played as a child. He knew vines hung there and the brush was thick and tangled. "Go this way, baby. I used to build forts out of the downed branches and formed tunnels from the foliage. There'll be more cover along this path." He'd crawled like a soldier through the animal trails on his belly back then, never knowing he'd be doing it for real in an effort to save Hannah's life. At the time it had been an imaginary game, pretending to attack the "germ" soldiers killing his mother. Now he had real enemies after them.
    Hannah reached back and took his hand, knowing he was suddenly thinking of his mother. These were the woods his mother loved so much. She'd enjoyed the sea, the sight and sound of it, but the forest was her first love and her husband had bought the estate with the beautiful home and acres of mixed forest where one could stand in any room on the main floor and just look right over the trees to the ocean.
    "No harm will come to us here," she murmured, wanting it to be the truth. Not in his mother's beloved woods.
    They turned along a path that followed a stream. Wild turkeys burst out of the huge ferns growing along the winding creek and up the slope. The huge birds called to one another in alarm, flapping wings and rushing up the hill to another path, two of them taking to the air in agitation.
    Jonas swore and caught her shoulder. "There's no way they didn't hear that. If they lost our trail, they'll be on it now. I should have hunted those idiot treacherous turkeys a long time ago."
    "You don't hunt."
    "I'm going to start." He'd never really hunt the turkeys. His mother had watched them every morning from her window. She would count the toms, even name them. She knew which trees the turkeys preferred roosting in at night. The hens would sometimes shelter the chicks under the deck during the day, or lead them down to the stream in the thickest part of the ferns, just at the edge of the forest where Jonas kept the weeds cleared so she could always see. The wild turkeys had brought pleasure and, in a way, relief to his mother. They would always be safe from hunters on his property.
    Jonas never hunted animals. Not the deer or bear or bobcat, not even those damned wild turkeys his mother had loved so much. He hunted men and he was damned good at it. He wasn't so good at running from them. "I could find a safe place to stash you, Hannah, and double back."
    She stopped so abruptly he ran into her. "You aren't stashing me, Jonas. We're in this together." Her hand gripped his harder. "I can't lose you. Not now. Not like this. And you're a crazy man when you get angry. You're angry now, I can feel it."
    He was shaking with fury, a fierce warrior trapped and unable to fight his way out.
    His instinct was to turn the tables on them and go hunting, but he refused to put Hannah in more danger. She knew that. Understood it. But she wasn't willing to let him separate them.
    The sound of gunfire reached them a split second before the bullet. It hit the tree closest to them, spraying bark all around them. Instantly a shower of bullets zinged into the trunks around them, thunking into wood and sending splinters and bark over them. Jonas pulled her down, his body covering hers as he cautiously lifted his head to peer through the leaves.
    "Can you see them?" she whispered.
    Jonas glanced down at her. Beneath him, her body was trembling, but despite her stark white skin and enormous eyes, Hannah's mouth was firm and her gaze steady.
    "If you can give me a direction, I can slow them down or maybe, if I'm lucky, pin them down until help arrives."
    She took a long sweeping look at the trees around them. The forest here was full of old growth, the trees tall, many of their lower branches cracked and hanging.
    "Lure them in, Jonas. Bring them to us. If we fall back and let them have this spot, I think I can stop them right here."
    "You move quietly, Hannah, stay low to the ground. Go deeper into the forest, we may need an escape route." His ears had stopped ringing and he could hear voices shouting back and forth. "Can you hear that?"
    "Just barely."
    "That's not English. You know languages. What are they speaking?"
    Her small teeth bit at her lower lip as she concentrated. "The accents are very heavy.
    They're speaking Russian, Jonas." She let her breath out slowly. "They have to be Nikitin's men."
    Jonas frowned. "Why would Prakenskii save your life if Nikitin wanted you dead?
    He's definitely Nikitin's man."
    Hannah's