Sophie screamed as the steel railing gave way with a screech and groan. The nose of the SUV yawed downward. Griffin locked up the brakes, but that didn’t help. Nothing did.
The vehicle slid ten or fifteen feet, then dropped straight down and smashed into the frozen surface of Lonesome Lake.
The crash noise roared inside the vehicle, counter-pointed by Sophie’s choked-off scream. Ice chunks flew up on either side of them and the airbags detonated with a whumpf, cushioning the force of the impact, but also pinning Griffin back against the driver’s seat as the SUV nosed beneath the lake surface. Cursing, he fought the springy airbag, fought his seat belt, trying to get free.
The spiderwebbed windshield crumbled inward under the water pressure and frigid water poured in over the dashboard, dousing him. Freezing him. A clock started up in his head, timing how long they’d been in the water, and how long they could stay there, which wasn’t long at all.
The SUV paused for a moment, hung up on a chunk of pylon, then slewed to the side and started to sink once again.
Griffin didn’t know how deep the lake was at that location, didn’t want to wait around and find out. They had to get out of the vehicle, had to reach the mansion and get themselves dried off and warm, or else hypothermia would set in quickly. He didn’t know why or how the bridge had given way just as they were crossing it—maybe the passage of the construction trucks had weakened it, or the last freeze-thaw cycle had done irreparable damage. But that didn’t matter just then. What mattered was getting him and Sophie to safety.
Knowing they’d gone from a business drive to a life-or-death situation in an instant, Griffin shoved his business persona aside and drew on the man he’d once been, the soldier who’d saved lives, and taken them. Fighting past the airbag, he kicked the windshield all the way out, letting in a new gush of water but clearing the way for escape. “Come on,” he said. “We can—” He broke off, cursing bitterly as he got a good look at Sophie.
She was out cold. And the water was rising fast.
ON THE OTHER SIDE of the lake, the bald man leaned up against a tree and watched the SUV sink into the frozen lake.
He would’ve liked a cigarette to congratulate himself for a job well done, but his wife had nagged him to quit a few years back. So instead, he stood there and watched as the ice-laden water rose up around the heavily tinted rear windows of the four-by-four.
He couldn’t see in through the tint, but there was no sign of the vehicle’s occupants trying to escape. If Vaughn and his secretary were in a position to get out, there would’ve been doors flying open, and occupants scrambling out to safety. Which meant they were already dead, or close enough to it that the distinction was academic.
It was for the best, really, he thought, feeling no grief or guilt for the dead, but rather the sense of another box checked off on his to-do list. He didn’t have anything against Vaughn and the woman. They had simply been in the way of more important things.
Satisfied, the man pantomimed flicking an imaginary cigarette butt to the ground and pretended to grind it into the frozen soil. Then he settled his loaded knapsack more comfortably on his back and turned away, headed back uphill toward the barn at the rear of the house.
He had a job to do. It was as simple as that. And anyone who got in his way was going to become a statistic, real quick.
Sophie awoke to panic and pain. The panic was locked in her chest, squeezing her lungs and keeping the screams inside. The pain was in her head, making her dizzy and weak. And she was freezing—not just a little “time to go put on a sweater” chill—but a deep, bone-hurting cold that surrounded her, consumed her.
She struggled against the sensations, trying and failing to push away from whatever terrible nightmare gripped her. Then the world shifted, reeling around her. Light intruded, forcing her to squint against the stabbing glare.
“That’s it, Sophie. In and out,” a deep, masculine voice said from very close by. “You can do it. Breathe in and out.”
The pressure on her lungs let up, and some of the pain cleared. The world stopped spinning and she could move again. Moments later she could see again, though seeing didn’t do much to clear her confusion, because she found herself lying on her back, with her handsome boss, Griffin Vaughn, leaning over her.
In his late thirties, with short dark hair that was frosted with silver at the temples, Griffin was a hard, no-nonsense businessman with chiseled features and elegantly arched brows. He was clipped and to the point, and rarely let his face show the slightest hint of emotion. Which was why it was shocking to see worry in his dark green eyes, and hear it in his voice when he said, “Hey. Welcome back to the land of the living. You scared the heck out of me.”
“Sorry,” she said inanely, too aware that his face was close enough that if she reached up just a little, they’d be kissing. Which was the sort of thought she usually relegated to the “don’t go there” section of her brain, along with thoughts of her mother’s illness and her own crippling debt load.
She stared up at him, blinking, trying to figure out what had happened. As she did so, she realized she wasn’t really even that cold anymore, just numb, almost going to warm now, kindling to heat. She smiled, dazed. Griffin didn’t smile back, though. Instead, he touched her cheek, though she barely felt it. “You’re freezing.”
“Not really. I’m actually sort of warm.” Her voice sounded strange, a deep rasp she wasn’t used to, and her throat hurt with the effort.
His expression went hard. “That’s even worse, because it means you’re going into hypothermia. We’ve got to get moving. Come on. Your arms and legs are working fine—nothing’s broken. I could carry you, but I think it’d be better if you walked and got your blood moving.” He eased away from her and stood, then reached down to pull her up. The world tilted beneath her feet and she sagged against him, feeling his hard, masculine muscles beneath his sopping-wet button-down shirt.
Wait a minute. Why was he wet?
Her fuzzy brain finally sharpened and she became suddenly cognizant of the fact that he wasn’t the only one who was wet to the skin. Her own clothes were glued to her body, cold and soaking. And it was freezing out; a sharp wind cut through the pitiful protection of her wet clothing, and as she watched, a few fat flakes of snow drifted down from the leaden sky above. The blizzard, she thought, heart kicking with belated panic. The bridge!
She gasped as she remembered the accident, the pop of the airbags, and then—
What then?
Heart hammering, she pulled away from her boss and looked at the lake. The bridge was a wreck, with a big section missing from the middle and chunks of cement hanging from mangled steel reinforcements. There was no sign of the SUV.
“Wha-t-t-t…” The last word turned into a stutter when huge shivers started racking her. With the exertion of standing and beginning to move around, the numbness she’d been feeling had changed to a huge, awful coldness. Wrapping her arms around her body as her muscles locked on the chills, she turned to Griffin. “You pulled me out-t-t?”
“Come on.” He slid an arm around her and urged her uphill. “We’ve got to get up to the house.”
He was shivering, too, she realized. She could feel the tremors racking his large, masculine frame, could hear them in his voice, warning her that the two of them were far from out of danger. They could very well freeze before they reached safety.
As if called by the thought, a storm gust whistled across the lake and slammed into them, nearly driving them to