Promises to Keep Read Online Free PDF Page B

distance. Four months since he realized that he’d never been to the beach without a gun on his back or a target to neutralize. Now a day didn’t go by without him dumping sand out of his boots.
    He was living the dream.
    Looking down, he wasn’t at all surprised to find that the little girl was still loading sand into a bucket in careful measured scoops, giving each a pat with the flat of her pink plastic shovel before adding another. He sighed. “Christina.”
    â€œWhy won’t you wear swim trunks?” she said. Ignoring the warning tone in his voice, she lifted her head just enough to eye the leg of his dark cargo pants. “I know you have some.”
    â€œBecause they’d look funny with my lace-ups.” He wiggled the toe of his boot, and she cracked a smile. “I’m serious—the tide’s out. Time to pack up.”
    The smile died, and she allowed her gaze to travel upward until it hit his face. “You’re always serious.” Her dark eyes, the way they held his without wavering, were sharp. Too sharp to belong to a child. Sometimes it was difficult for him to believe she was only four. Correction: she was five. Her birthday had been last week. No party. No cake and pony rides with her friends. Christina wasn’t allowed to have friends. Aside from breakfast with her mother every morning and the occasional visit from her father, all she had was him.
    Squinting behind his sunglasses, Michael looked away, pretending to do another visual sweep. He ignored the twinge—a mixture of guilt and pity. “I’m not your playmate, Christina. I’m your protector.”
    She picked up the bucket and turned it over, giving it a wiggle. “I liked the last one better,” she said, lifting the bucket to reveal a perfectly formed tower. “He had a funny moustache and told knock-knock jokes.”
    â€œWell, I hate to disappoint.” He smirked at her sass. “Knock, knock.”
    She looked up at him again. “Who’s there?”
    â€œGet your stuff, it’s time to go.”
    She narrowed her eyes, pitching her pink shovel in the direction of her beach tote. “Make me.”
    Michael took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I’m warning you …” He let the rest of the sentence go, looking down at her with what he hoped was an appropriate amount of severity.
    â€œ I’m warning you ,” she mimicked him, dropping her hands to her hips. “You can’t do anything to me. I’ll tell my—”
    He didn’t wait for her to finish her sentence, just took a step forward and hooked an arm around her waist, lifting her out of the sand to sling her over his shoulder. She screamed, her tiny feet kicking against his chest, her equally tiny fists beating against his back. “You can’t leave my stuff here! Put me down!”
    He ignored her, heading for the black H2 parked in the sand twenty yards away. A sudden flutter of birds took to the sky, bursting from the dense stand of trees, a breathless scatter that stopped him in his tracks. It was likely the girl’s screams that sent them flying, nothing more. But the skin on the back of his neck went tight, telling him something entirely different.
    Without thinking he dropped to one knee, slinging Christina off his shoulder. “Hush,” he breathed, pinning her with a look that instantly killed her protests. The little girl went still. Eyes wide, she nodded, understanding perfectly. “Good. Now,” he said, pulling a set of keys from his pocket, “when I tell you to run, that’s what you’ll do.”
    Something moved, a deeper shadow, crouched within the dense canopy of trees. Something that didn’t belong there. He looked down at the girl again. To whoever was watching, it would look like he was giving her a stern talking to over her behavior. “Just like we practiced, okay?”
    Tears welled up in her eyes.