She gently extracted her hand. “It could just be the baby muddling things.”

He shook his head. Her concern was reasonable, but he knew his mind—and his heart. “I meant what I said last night. And I get that you can’t say it back. I know you might never be able to. But I want you to know for me, this—us—is real.” He rose to his feet. The rain had lifted slightly. They needed to keep going. “Now, what else do you want to know about my family?”

“Did your family immigrate, or were they in California before statehood?”

“My grandparents on my father’s side immigrated from Mexico just after World War II—before my dad was born. My mother’s side was here a generation before that. I never knew her parents, but I was close to my paternal grandparents.”

“Do you speak Spanish?”

“Not as much as I’d like. My grandparents—on both sides—were eager for their children to be seen as Americans and so didn’t speak Spanish much at home. Neither of my parents are fluent, my brother and I less so. But my brother’s wife is from Costa Rica, and she’s teaching their son Spanish along with my brother.”

“Oh, I love that. I’d love to have a second language and would love it even more if our baby were multilingual.”

“I’ve always wanted to take classes. This would be a good time. Maybe hire a tutor. I’ve studied Russian and Arabic for the job, and having a tutor for intensive training really helped. I’m not fluent like Cohen is in Russian, but I often get the gist.”

Behind him, he heard the snap of a stick followed by the click of a gun being cocked, followed by a man’s voice—speaking Russian. “Oh yeah? Then you should understand what I’m about to tell you. You both are coming with me, or I will shoot your pregnant girlfriend in the stomach.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Audrey heard the Russian words, but didn’t need to know what they meant. The man stood upslope, and Xavier’s body blocked him from her view.

“Get behind the tree to the left and keep it between you and him at all times,” Xavier whispered.

He referred to a very large old-growth cedar. She dove for it without hesitating at the same time Xavier moved to the right, taking cover behind a much smaller tree.

How the hell had this man found them? If they were needles, then the haystack would be the size of Lake Olympus.

Xavier moved farther to the right, skipping from tree to tree. She couldn’t see the merc, but could hear him as he shouted in Russian. He switched to English and said, “Mikhail has tripled the bounty on the woman, but he wants her alive.”

Mikhail. That must be the mercenary leader’s name.