I used to run with earbuds in before I started running with Arran. But our jogs together had gotten me used to enjoying the sounds of the coast, a perfect symphony not even the best song in the world could beat.
A few miles down, just as I neared a break in the sand with nothing but rocks and water, I turned and started back toward the car park.
The sight of a figure in the distance made my pulse race faster with hope, but as I drew closer, I could tell by the person’s shape it wasn’t Arran. In fact, it wasn’t a guy at all. Another woman jogged down the beach toward me.
Robyn was the only other person I knew who ran along the beach, but Lachlan had asked her not to run without him while she was pregnant, and it was a concession she’d made for him. They’d taken to running together along on the estate’s shoreline after the doctor said it was safe for her to keep up the exercise since she’d always been a runner.
So it wasn’t Robyn up ahead. Disappointed it wasn’t Arran, I kept my eyes trained on the path in front of me where some of my footprints were still visible from my race along the shore. My calves and thigh muscles burned, as did my lungs. It was always worth it, though, for how it felt once I finished. There was nothing like that adrenaline. Dancing was the same.
That reminded me—Lachlan had agreed to install a ballet barre in my studio (we were still fighting over who would pay for it), and it was arriving next week, which was exciting. I hadn’t danced since that night with Arran, but once the barre was installed, I planned to practice there in the evenings.
The stranger on the beach drew near enough I could make out her blond hair and navy workout clothes. I didn’t recognize her face, so I assumed she was a tourist. As we neared, just about to pass, I gave her a friendly smile, but she wasn’t looking at me.
It was a shock, then, that as we passed, I saw movement in my peripheral and reflexively turned toward it just in time to see the woman swing at me.
Stumbling out of the run, I raised my arms on instinct to block the punch and cried out at the stinging pain that sliced across my forearm. That was when I saw the knife, now bloodied.
She slashed me, I thought, stunned.
No time to freak out, however, because she lunged again with the knife. Like the muscle memory that had come back while I danced only a few weeks ago, the memory of Robyn’s self-defense lessons took hold, and I dodged her attack and spun around her to slam my foot into the back of her knee.
She cried out, falling to the sand and losing her grip on the blade.
I didn’t hesitate.
I pinned her chest down to the sand and grabbed the weapon to throw it behind me, out of reach.
“Get off me!” the woman yelled.
Time for questions would come. For now, I struggled to keep her secured while I fought for the phone in my yoga pants pocket. Every time I loosened my hold to do it, though, she almost fought free.
I ignored her insults, railed at me like a banshee, and my eyes darted around us as I tried to think.
Then, like heaven-sent angels, a couple walking hand in hand approached in the distance.
I yelled, glad there wasn’t too much wind to carry my words away from them.
After what felt like forever, the couple seemed to realize I was screaming for help. They picked up their pace, running toward us.
Relief made me tearful as I tried to explain what had happened over the ranting denials of the insane woman beneath me. When they gaped at my arm, that was when I realized how much I was bleeding. Until that point, I hadn’t even felt the pain. But as soon as I saw the long wound, a blaze of fire shot up my arm.
Deducing I was not lying, the couple called the police, and the man helped me hold my attacker down until assistance arrived.
Unfortunately, just as we saw the police Jeep driving along the beach toward us, the blood loss and shock became a little too much. At least I assumed so because one minute I was sitting on the crazy woman who’d slashed me, and the next I was waking up in an ambulance.
36
ARRAN
I was running after Ery through woodlands. Something was chasing her I needed to protect her from, but every time I’d call to her, she’d keep running. Every time I thought I was gaining on her, she’d slip from my grasp.
Now there was a banging sound in the forest, and my terror increased tenfold as she moved farther and farther away.