Read Leopard 03 - Burning Wild for Free Online Page B

ran toward it.
    Jake cut her off just a few feet from the car, snatching her up into his arms, sprinting away from the intense heat and building conflagration. She fought like a wildcat, kicking, scratching, the blood making her so slippery he lost his hold more than once. Each time he dropped her, she didn’t hesitate to turn back, her eyes on the burning car as she tried to run and then crawl back toward it.
    “It’s too late,” he cried harshly, “he’s already dead!” Ruthlessly he flung her to the ground, covering her body with his own, pinning her down while the earth beneath them rocked with the force of the explosion.
    “Andy.” She whispered the name, a lost, forlorn sound wrenched straight from the heart.
    In an instant, all the fight went out of her. She lay motionless in Jake’s arms, small, completely vulnerable and broken, her eyes staring up at him, unseeing. Again, time seemed to stand still.
    Everything tunneled until he was focused wholly on her eyes. Enormous, tilted like a cat’s, aquamarine with dark orbs, unusual and mesmerizing, now haunted. She seemed familiar—too familiar. He knew her, and yet he didn’t.
    For the first time in his life he felt a strong protective urge welling up out of nowhere. He became aware of the gathering crowd staring down at the woman as others leaving the party came upon the scene. Instinctively he shielded her, barking orders to check the overturned convertible, to ensure an ambulance and the police were on the way.
    He worked furiously at stemming the flow of blood pouring from the woman’s temple and from her leg. A part of him knew he should be thinking instead of Shaina and the child she was carrying, but his mind was consumed with the woman he protected. All he could do was vow silently not to allow her to slip away as she so clearly wanted to do.
    Her grief-stricken green eyes begged him to let her go. Where had he seen those eyes before? He looked into them again, drawn by some unseen force. Almond shape, pupils round and black, the irises a rare aquamarine, the blue-green surrounded by a golden circle. Unusual. And yet somehow familiar.
    “Let me go.”
    Jake found himself leaning close to her, his breath warm against her skin. He held her gaze with ruthless command, letting her know he refused to allow her to slip away, that he would hold her to him through sheer will alone. “No.” He said the word implacably. “Did you hear me? No.” He denied her a second time, his teeth snapping together in finality as he applied more pressure to the pumping wound in her leg.
    She closed her eyes and turned her face away from him as if she had no fight left in her. The ambulance was there, paramedics pushing him aside to work on her. A short distance away, firefighters draped a blanket over Shaina’s friend. It occurred to Jake with grim satisfaction that this was one accident Shaina’s father could not make go away with his money.
    More paramedics were working desperately at Shaina’s side. It took him a minute to realize they were taking the baby—his son. His heart in his throat, he waited until he heard the triumphant cheers. The child was alive, which was more than they could say for the mother. He waited to feel emotion—any emotion—at Shaina’s death or at the birth of his son. He felt nothing at all, only a sense of contempt for the way Shaina had lived and died. Silently cursing his own cold nature, he looked down at the woman lying so still, her dark eyes staring past the paramedic to the burned car. He shifted slightly while they worked on her, to block her view.

    Jake followed the ambulances carrying his son and the woman to a small hospital. Although the place seemed a little primitive by Jake’s standards, the overworked staff seemed to know their jobs.
    “I’m Officer Nate Peterson.” A young highway patrolman thrust a cup of coffee into his bloody hands.
    Her blood. The woman with the mesmerizing eyes. Her blood was all over him.