“Anything,” he said, which was the only possible answer. “Tell me what you know.”
Listening, he remained lying on his back on the weight bench where he’d been working out.
Hearing that the sister was a psychologist didn’t make him want to break out in song and dance. He’d had his fill of social workers and counselors both at the hospital and rehab facility. They were positive he had to be suffering from PTSD. Guilt because a teammate had died in the same explosion. Talking about it was the answer. Reliving the horrific moments over and over being so helpful to his mental health. When he balked, that had to mean he was refusing to acknowledge his emotional response to his own traumatic injury as well as Raul’s spectacular death. No chance he just didn’t need to talk about it, because this wasn’t the first time he’d been injured and he’d seen so much death in the past decade he was numb to it.
If this woman thought she’d fix him out of gratitude for his help, he’d make sure she thought again.
His protective instincts did fire up when he heard what had happened to the kid, followed by the cold-blooded attempt to make sure that little girl couldn’t tell anybody what she’d seen that day.
“Why don’t the cops have them in a safe house?” He finally sat up and reached for a towel to wipe his face and bare chest. His workout was over.
“I didn’t ask for details. She sounds wary where they’re concerned, at least about the primary investigator.”
“Okay.” There’d be time for him to ask her about her issues with the police. City, he presumed, rather than the Granger County Sheriff’s Department. For her sake, he hoped the murder had happened within the Sadler city limits. The current county sheriff was a fool, the deputies, whether competent or not, spread too thin over long stretches of little-traveled rural roads. Boyd had nothing good to say about the sheriff’s department.
“I’ll go get her,” he said, to end the call. “You watch your back.”
“Goes without saying.” Which of course was a lie; Joseph would be watching his teammates’ backs instead, trusting them to be doing the same for him.
Still straddling the bench, Gabe ended the call. A quick shower was in order. And then, huh, he’d better think about whether there were any clean sheets for the bed in the guest room. If the kid needed a crib...no, she had to be older than that to be verbal. Formerly verbal. Whatever.
Yeah, and what about food?
As he was going upstairs for that shower, it occurred to him that he’d better let Boyd know what was up, too. He was unlikely to need backup...but thinking about the bastard who wouldn’t stop at anything to save his own skin, Gabe changed his mind.
Having backup would be smart.
* * *
SOMEHOW, SOMEWHERE, TRINA found a smile for Vicky, who had been fussing over her ever since Josh left the two women and Chloe at the house while he went to work.
“I’ll have Caroline cancel all your appointments for today and tomorrow,” he’d assured her. “With the weekend, that gives you four days to figure out what you’re going to do.”
Trina hated the necessity. It was bad enough when your patients were adults, but when they were frightened, withdrawn children? They wouldn’t understand.
Now she said to Vicky, “Thanks, but I’m fine.” More fine if she could take the prescribed pain pills, but she didn’t dare, not if she were to stay alert. If somebody had been watching the small hospital, he wouldn’t have missed seeing her and Chloe leaving with Josh. Following them would have been a breeze. She’d asked Vicky to pull the drapes on the front window immediately, even though she was uneasy not being able to see the street and driveway.
“You look like you might be feverish,” Vicky said doubtfully.
Trina felt feverish. But she couldn’t relax and let herself be miserable until the promised Army Ranger appeared to keep Chloe safe. Really, it hadn’t been much over an hour since she talked to Joseph. Expecting instant service was a bit much. Joseph might not have been able to reach this Decker guy immediately. Or Decker might have been in the middle of something he couldn’t drop just like that.
Tap, tap, tap.
Vicky and Trina both jumped. That knock hadn’t been on the front door. They looked simultaneously toward the kitchen.
“It might be a neighbor,” Vicky said after a moment, almost whispering. Trina could tell she didn’t believe it. The elegant homes in this neighborhood were all on lots of a half acre to an acre or larger. Most of the wives were probably professional women themselves, not housewives who casually dropped by for a cup of coffee.
Trina would have gone along with Vicky to see who was knocking, except Chloe lay curled on the sofa. Not asleep, but pretending to be, she thought. And the tap on back door could be a diversion meant to draw the two women away long enough for someone to come in the front and snatch Chloe.
Trina heard voices, one slow and deep. Vicky reappeared, right behind her a massive, unsmiling man who took Chloe and Trina in with one penetrating glance. Her first stupid thought was, how had anyone managed to hurt this man, given his height and breadth, never mind all those muscles?
So she wasn’t at her sharpest.
“Mr. Decker?” she asked.
He nodded. “Gabe.”
“I’m Trina. And this is Chloe.” Who had stiffened, even though her eyes remained closed.
“Okay.” His voice made her think of the purr of a big cat, assuming they purred. Velvety, deep and not as reassuring as she’d like it to be. “You have anything to bring?”
“A duffel.” Vicky had scrounged some clothes from her daughter’s drawers, the one who’d left most recently for college, that would probably come close to fitting Trina. Better yet, she’d produced several outfits of little girl clothing from wherever she’d packed them away with granddaughters in mind. Otherwise...otherwise they wouldn’t have had a thing.
“Oh!” Vicky said suddenly. “I have extra toothbrushes. And surely I can find a hairbrush for you.”
Bless her heart, she came back with both, plus a handful of hair elastics. Something Gabe Decker, with dark hair barely long enough to be disheveled, would not have.
With damp eyes, Trina hugged Vicky. She was grateful the other woman remembered not to hug her back. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you and Josh.”
“We’d have been glad to have you stay, you know,” she said, her eyes wet, too.
“I know, but—”
Vicky nodded. She poked the brush and other things into the duffel and said, “I can carry this out.”
Gabe stepped forward. “No, I don’t want you outside. I’ll take that.” When he saw Trina reaching for Chloe, he shook his head. “And her. Joseph said you’d been hurt.”
She had no doubt his blue eyes saw right through her pretenses. “I have burns on my back.” With sudden alarm, she remembered that he’d have to renew the ointment and bandages for her. A stranger, and male. Very male. With enormous hands that would come close to spanning her back.
That tingle couldn’t be what it felt like, not under the circumstances. Especially since she knew perfectly well that no touch would feel good. Despite the gauze, she’d swear the thin cotton of the scrub top was scraping her burns every time she moved. “Can you carry...?”
His lifted eyebrow mocked her question. Yes, he could carry both, and probably pile on a whole lot more. He undoubtedly did on a regular basis, come to think of it. She’d read that soldiers often packed over a hundred pounds even in the desert heat of the Middle East.
“You’re not parked out in front, I take it,” she said.
“No. I drove through the neighborhood to see if I could spot any obvious surveillance. Even though I didn’t, I left my truck in a neighbor’s driveway. Didn’t look like anyone was home. We’ll cut through the trees out back.” He hesitated. “You need to leave your phone behind. Bett
er if it’s at your office than with you. Or here.”
Trina felt a spurt of panic. Her phone was the only possession she had left. And without it...she’d be even more isolated. But she didn’t argue, knowing how easily smartphones could be traced.
“Josh will be home for lunch,” Vicky said. “I can have him take it.”
Gabe said simply, “Good.” Trina hadn’t said a word, but he seemed to take her compliance for granted.
She lowered herself gingerly onto the edge of the sofa. Standing had had her light-headed, but putting pressure on her burns was worse. “Chloe, this is Gabe. He’s a friend of my brother’s. He’s going to carry you, since you don’t have any shoes.” She now did, but they were in the duffel, and they hadn’t had a chance for her to try them on. Since she knew Gabe wanted to move fast, it was a good excuse.
“Hey, little one,” he said, sounding extraordinarily gentle as he bent over her.
With him so close, Trina could see the dark shadow of what would be stubble by evening, the slight curve of a perfectly shaped mouth...and a white scar that angled from one clean-cut cheekbone to his temple, just missing his eye. That was an old one, she felt sure, not the wound that had him on leave. Her teeth closed on her lower lip. If he turned his head at all, they could almost—
No, no, no! Don’t even go there.
The muscle in his jaw spasmed, and she held herself very, very still. Lowering her gaze didn’t help, not with impressive muscles bared by a gray T-shirt. And then there was his thigh, encased in worn denim.
Maybe he’d turn out to have a girlfriend living with him. Joseph wouldn’t necessarily know.
“Here we go,” he said calmly, and scooped up Chloe, tucking her against his broad chest and rising to his feet. A moment later he’d slung the duffel over his opposite shoulder, and looked at Trina with raised brows as if he’d been twiddling his thumbs waiting for ten minutes. “Can you walk?”
“Yes.” She jumped up too fast. His hand clamped around her upper arm, making her suspect her eyes had done whirligigs. She blinked a couple of times and repeated, “Yes. I’m fine.” Slight exaggeration, but she could do this.
He studied her for longer than she liked before releasing her. “Okay.”
Vicky trailed them to the back door and locked it behind them. Gabe paused only for a moment to scan the landscape, then strode toward the trees. With so little undergrowth on this dry side of Oregon, the lodgepole and ponderosa pines didn’t offer much cover, nothing like a fir and cedar forest would have on the east side of the Cascades where Trina had grown up. Gabe paused now and again and looked around, but mostly kept moving. At first, she was disconcertingly aware of how silently he moved, while she seemed to find every stick or cone to stomp on. Crackle, pop... A jingle teased her memory.
She couldn’t hold on to such a frivolous thought. She felt his gaze on her a few times, too, but didn’t dare let herself meet his eyes. The pain increased with each step until Trina felt as if fire were licking at her back again. Sheer willpower kept her putting one foot in front of the other. She stumbled once and would have gone down, but he caught her arm again.
“Almost there,” he murmured. “See that black truck ahead?”
She didn’t even lift her head. He nudged her slightly to adjust her course, but without touching her back. Trina didn’t remember how much she’d told her brother about her injuries.
She almost walked into the dusty side of a black, crew-cab pickup. He unlocked the door, tossed the duffel on the back seat and placed Chloe there, too. She looked tiny on the vast bench seat.
“I don’t have a car seat for her anymore,” Trina heard herself say. Right this second, that seemed like an insurmountable problem.
“I’ll drive carefully.” He buckled a lap belt around Chloe, who stared suspiciously up at him. Then he closed her door and opened the front passenger door. “In you go,” he said quietly, that powerful hand engulfing Trina’s elbow. “Big step up.”
He didn’t quite say “upsy-daisy” but coaxed her and hoisted until she was somehow in. He closed this door with a soft thud, too, rather than slamming it, and was behind the wheel in the blink of an eye, firing up a powerful engine. When she made no move to put on the seat belt, he did it for her, not commenting on her grip on the armrest or the way she rolled her weight to the side.
He backed out and accelerated so gradually she was never thrust against the seatback.
“How long?” she asked, from between gritted teeth.
“About half an hour. Do you have pain pills?”
“Yes, but...”
“Take them. Are they in the duffel?”
She nodded.
Gabe reached a long arm back, his eyes still on the road, and tugged the duffel until it was between the seats. The bottle of water he handed her was warm, but it washed down two pills.
“You okay, Chloe?” she asked.
No answer, but Gabe’s gaze flicked to the rearview mirror. “She’s nodding,” he said quietly.
“Oh, good.” She thought that’s what she’d said. The words seemed to slur. Leaning her cheek against the window, she closed her eyes.
* * *
SHE DROPPED OFF to sleep like a baby, Gabe saw. That’s what she needed. He was sorry he’d have to wake her up when they got to the cabin.
The little girl was not asleep. She sat with her feet sticking straight out in front of her, her arms crossed and her lower lip pouting. Eyes as blue as his watched him in the rearview mirror. Clearly, she expected the worst. He kind of liked her attitude. He tended to expect the worst, too. That way you were prepared. Optimists could be taken by surprise so easily.
Once he made it onto the highway, he could relax a little. The couple of vehicles he could see in the rearview mirror hadn’t followed them from town. At this time of morning, most traffic was headed south into town, not north out of it.
He checked on the kid, to see her eyelids starting to droop, too.
Another sidelong glance made him wince. Trina’s contorted position had to be miserably uncomfortable. Burns, Joseph had said, without being specific. Gabe would have known they were on her back even if she hadn’t told him, since she’d done a face-plant on the window to avoid making any more contact than she could help with the seat. Twisted as she was, he saw a thickness that could only be bandages. Or, hey, Kevlar, but that wasn’t likely.
Since Joseph talked often about his sister, Gabe had known they were close. Funny his friend had never mentioned that she was a beauty, or a shrink of some kind. The stories had all been from their childhood, or repeating some amusing or pointed observation she’d made about life in general, politics and shifting international alliances more specifically. She probably followed the world news with more interest than most people did because she knew her brother was bound to get involved in a lot of the messes.
Gabe wondered in a general way what it would feel like to have parents or someone like her worrying about him. Would he be as anxious to get back in the action if his death would devastate someone else?
Impatiently, he shook off the descent into sentimentality. No family, no reason to think about it.
Instead, he circled back to the beginning. Katrina Marr would be spectacular with makeup, a snug-fitting dress and heels. Face showing strain and streaked with char, hair a tangled mess and wearing sacky, faded blue scrubs and thin rubber flip-flops, she was merely beautiful. With expressive green-gold eyes and hair the color of melted caramel, she was tallish for a woman, slender rather than model-skinny, and still possessing some nice curves.
One corner of Gabe’s mouth lifted. Could be this was why Joseph never mentioned his sister’s appearance. He might give one or more of the guys the idea of looking her up someday while on leave.
Fully amused now, Gabe thought that was just insulting.
But his amusement didn’t last long.
To stay vigilant, he couldn’t afford any distraction. Somebody was gunning for the cute kid who’d now slumped sideways in sound sleep—and Gabe had no doubt Joseph’s sister would jump in front of the bullet to save that kid.
His job was to make sure that never happened. Plan A, he calculated: hide them. Plan B: make sure he fought any battles that did erupt. Plan C: take the bullet himself.
Chapter Three
Trina opened her eyes to a dim room. The window was in the wrong place, she saw first. Light sneaking between the slats of the blinds told her it was daytime.
Her bedroom didn’t have rough-plastered walls, either. Awakening awareness of pain discouraged her from rolling onto her back. Instead, she pushed aside a comforter in a denim duvet cover and gingerly sat up.
It all rushed back. The fire, dropping from a second-story window, the hospital. Complete loss. Wasn’t that what the fire chief had said? Joseph.
Gabe Decker.
This must be his home, or at least his ranch hideout. The wide-plank floor looked like what she’d expect of a log house. A closer look at the window told her it was set in a wall thicker than usual.
And then her eyes widened. Chloe!
Still wearing the scrubs, she didn’t take time to use the bathroom or find her flip-flops. She rushed out into a hall and toward the staircase at the end.
Halfway down, she heard that deep, smooth voice. He was talking to someone, pausing for unheard answers. Telephone?
The vast living room was empty. She followed the voice to the kitchen, where she saw Chloe, perched on a tall stool, watching as the big, powerful man flipped a hamburger in a pan on the stove.
“Is that a yes or no to cheese?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.
He took in Chloe’s nod, then saw Trina hovering. He didn’t smile; the way he looked her over was more assessment than anything. “You’re just in time for dinner.”
“Dinner.” She was dazed enough to feel out of sync.
Hide the Child Page 3
