by Mary Wine
“Where am I?”
She was still tugging a shirt down when her guest appeared. He didn’t join her in the kitchen but took up a position between her and the front door.
“Nearest town is Colfax.”
The jeans were baggy on him and he’d found a belt to hold them up. The pistol was tucked into the waistband, the black butt a glaring reminder of her circumstances.
“What state?”
She loaded up the wet sheets and closed the dryer door. “California. Northern California.”
He seemed to be processing the information and she felt a twinge of pity for him. But it didn’t mix well with the sight of the pistol. She picked up the quilts and reached for the back door.
“Hold it right there.”
She looked at him over her shoulder. “Are you really holding me hostage? I saved your life. You would be floating dead in that mountain pool if I hadn’t been there.”
He obviously wasn’t used to being talked back to either. His lips thinned and he narrowed his eyes, but she turned her back on him and opened the door. She dropped the wet quilts on the porch table and grabbed one before he made it to the doorway.
“I’ve got things to do, mister. Resources are limited here. I don’t happen to like wet bedding, so get out of my way.”
She shook out the quilt and laid it over the porch railing.
“Where is your electricity coming from?”
He asked the question but didn’t wait for her to answer. He began conducting a search of the back wall of the cabin. The set of narrow steps that led to the roof caught his eye and he was up them before she had the second quilt laid out.
He jumped back onto the porch a moment later. “Nice design.” He stopped in front of her and pegged her with a knowing look. “Where’s your gun?”
Tension drew the muscles of her neck tight. “What makes you think I have one?”
His lips twitched, flashing a peek of even white teeth. “You’ve got electricity, a water source feeding down to your water tank, enough food to last two months. In short, everything to sustain yourself, so that means you have some form of protection.”
“Since you have your own gun, you don’t need mine.”
She made to walk past him and he caught her arm. She gasped but not from pain. This time his grip was solid, driving home just how easily he might make the hold painful if he didn’t control his strength. There was something about that tempering of his grip that unleashed a desire to trust him.
“Let go.” She jerked her arm and watched him decide whether or not to release her. He lifted his hand and she walked back into her kitchen, but a soft footfall behind her told her he’d followed. She lifted a frying pan off a hook and set it on one of the twin burners her stove offered.
“Is that lump on your head making you nauseous?”
“No.” But he reached up and felt along his scalp until he found it.
“Do you remember how you got it?” She pulled some bacon ends from the refrigerator and dropped them into the pan. They started sizzling and she got some eggs out and dropped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster.
He didn’t want to answer her. It was a look she’d seen before, but normally it was from gunshot victims who didn’t want her to file a report with the local police. They could be mighty creative in their attempts to convince her their wounds were from something other than a bullet.
“You were pretty passionate when you came to for a bit.” She kept her tone even from years of practice. An injured person was dangerous and emergency-room nurses had short career expectancies because of it. The upper floors of the hospital offered wards with patients who were much less likely to attack.
He was looking at the ruined pile that had once been her cell phone. “It’s for your own protection.”
“If you’re on the run, feel free to keep going after you eat.”
She poured a cup of coffee and set it on the bar. He didn’t touch it but raised a dark eyebrow in suspicion.
“I’m not the one with a pistol stuck in my pants.” She turned around and filled another mug for herself.
“But you do have a cabinet full of serious tranquilizers.”
She glared at him over the rim of her mug. “If you had time to snoop, you should have noted that none of them were missing.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t have other bottles.” He reached for the coffee and took a long sip. “Those are the habit-forming type.”
“Which is why I haven’t taken any.” It was a slip. A personal bit of information that she didn’t need to share with anyone. He eyed her for a moment, looking as if he approved of her.
“Smart choice.”
Her belly rumbled. A quick look at the clock confirmed it was midafternoon. Somehow, she’d fallen back asleep with him earlier and slept a good portion of the day away. The fatigue headache she’d had for most of the last ten months was actually missing, but it only frustrated her because she didn’t want to have anything to thank her guest for.
That last thing she needed was a case of Stockholm syndrome.
There was no way she was going to thank him for helping her find peace. She’d be grateful to the water spirits first. Even if they were working in mysterious ways.
She filled two plates and slid one up on the bar. “Like I said, feel free to keep on going, wherever you are heading.” She pointed at the front door with her fork. “I’ve got no reason to want you to stay.”
He sat down on one of the bar stools and picked up a fork, but he stared at her for a long moment. The strangest sensation burned through her head. As much as she wanted to appear poised and confident, she looked away because it felt like he was reading her thoughts.
“Yes, you do, Kalin Smith.”
Major Garrick Gennaro never hesitated.
But there was always a first time for everything.
He stood near the bodies of some of his men, his fingers too frozen to reach for their tags. The scene was a tangled mess. Scorched aircraft wreckage reeked of burnt jet fuel and human flesh. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen carnage, but this time it was personal.
It made him want to hurl.
He winced but reached for the first set of tags. The face was gone but he snapped the small metal identifiers off and brought them close enough to read.
Shit. Thompson had been just a kid. A crack shot and full of positive energy.
He moved on to the next body, performing the duty of collecting the rest of the tags. He sealed them in a small black bag before coming to a stop in front of the last corpse. The medic had already turned it over, in some desperate, vain attempt to find signs of life. The face was blackened, but Gennaro recognized the features of his Operative. The Army would be devastated to learn they’d lost one of their prime psychics.
But he was reeling from the loss of a man he’d called friend. Through all the missions they’d completed, it seemed a poor joke of fate to see the elite unit brought down by an intoxicated pilot.
The pieces of a private plane were mixed with the remains of top-secret helicopters. Crews were already beginning the clean up before the local press got a whiff of anything. Someone back on base would likely call it a stroke of luck that the accident had happened in such a remote area. Gennaro didn’t see anything favorable at all.
What he saw was the failure of his career. They’d been his men. His unit. Devon Ross had been his Operative. But more importantly, they’d been men who had trusted him to make sure they never ended up inside body bags.
He’d failed.
He wasn’t interested in excuses. The day he’d signed on with the classified unit he’d accepted that his military career wouldn’t be basic. It was going to be shrouded in secrecy but rich with the unexpected. Nothing came for free. The level of dedication necessary had been above the normal military creed.
The fact that he hadn’t taken leave in six months wasn’t a factor. And he wouldn’t use it as an excuse to shield himself from taking responsibility for the fact that his men were dead and he hadn’t been there to stop it from happening.
It was time to resign.
She’d never told him her name.
Kalin washed the pan and hung it back on its hook. She must have. He hadn’t read her mind. Yet it had felt like he was sifting through her thoughts.
Of course, the prescription bottle.
She relaxed a tiny bit.
“You’re a good cook.”
Her guest was sipping his coffee, a clean plate in front of him.
“It was bacon tails and eggs.” She pulled his plate from the bar and washed it. “Don’t let me keep you.”
He didn’t move but kept watching her with his dark eyes. She warned herself not to lock gazes with him but just couldn’t seem to mind her own good advice. When she looked deeper, his eyes had flecks of amber in them that looked like they were shining. The strangest feeling of intimacy filled her. It was a sense of understanding him on a level that was purely emotional, maybe instinctual. There was honor in him that was so powerful she felt goose bumps rising along her arms.
She jerked her gaze away, but he reached right over the bar and caught her chin. The contact was jarring. She jumped back, stumbling because she was so rattled, and lost her balance. Her knees were actually weak and it irritated the hell out of her.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. He didn’t look like the sort of man who needed to resort to rape, but looks could be deceiving. Some men raped for the power thrill.
His expression tightened, distaste filling his eyes. “It was only your chin, Kalin. You’re the one who got naked with me first, so don’t accuse me of assault.”
A shiver went down her back. “I didn’t say anything.”
For a second, he appeared confused. “You jumped back like I’m someone to fear.”
“You haven’t told me who you are and you have a gun.” She kept her voice low because it felt like something was about to snap between them. The wind touched her neck from the open back door, but she resisted the impulse to panic. There was no way she’d outrun him.
His attention shifted to the back door. “No, you wouldn’t.”
She jumped. “What are you?”
He pushed the bar stool back, the sound grating under the circumstances. Once he’d gained his feet, he adopted a pose that was just too military to be coincidence. His feet were planted shoulder width apart and his arms were crossed over his chest. His hair was only half an inch long too. But he looked confused, and it appeared his lack of understanding was not pleasing him.
“I don’t remember.”
The three words sounded like they were ripped from him. He was grinding his teeth before he turned and disappeared into the bedroom. She had to grip the countertop to keep from following him.
Stockholm syndrome.
She managed to stand still for a whole three minutes. It just wasn’t in her nature to ignore someone in need. Her rifle was in the broom closet but her belly knotted with nausea at the thought of shooting him.
Vivid pictures filled her mind of blood and panicking people. She could smell the metallic scent of it and hear the cries of the wounded.
No, she wasn’t going to shoot him. It didn’t make sense, not a bit, but she was so certain she couldn’t do it that she never even reached for the gun. She could go into the forest. Hope he’d consider it just too much trouble to track her, but the look on his face when he’d admitted he didn’t have a memory pulled her toward the bedroom. Those three words had been an admission. He wasn’t a man that admitted to needing help. No, he was the sort who came to the aid of others. Not knowing who he was was tearing him apart.
She peeked around the edge of the wall that separated the kitchen from the bedroom. He had every piece of his clothing spread out on the dresser top.
“You’re some kind of military person.”
The words were out of her mouth before she thought them out. He looked over at her.
“How do you figure that?” he looked back down at the clothing. “And why didn’t you run into the forest?”
She swallowed the lump that tried to choke her as he once again touched on exactly what she’d been thinking. At least this time there was a logical explanation. It didn’t take a genius to conclude she would have been wise to take the opportunity to leave.
But she stepped into the bedroom instead. “Look at the way you’ve laid everything out.” Each article was placed carefully and neatly.
“Maybe I’m a neat freak. What do you have to support your opinion?”
“To begin with, the way you talk.” She stepped up to look at the articles on the dresser top. “Most people would ask me why I said something, not phrase it so formally.”
He nodded. “But no tags.”
“True.” She studied the clothing for a long moment before realizing an obvious fact. He turned his head to look at her in the same moment the idea blossomed inside her mind. Her grandfather had believed in the supernatural, but she’d always considered it just legends from a time when science hadn’t been evolved enough to explain the natural world.
“What did you notice, Kalin?”
She pointed at the dresser top, needing him to break eye contact so she could think. “It’s all laid out in the order you’d put it on.”
“That doesn’t take military training.” He looked back at her. “But you have a reason why you think it does.”
“Stop reading my mind.” She backed away from him, unable to stand so close. She’d never felt so exposed, so bared to anyone.
Surprise flashed across his face but not denial. He took a step after her, reaching out with a lightning-fast motion to capture her wrist. With a swift jerk, she tumbled toward him. She put her hands out to brace herself but only ended up with her hands flattened against his chest. He closed a solid, immovable arm around her waist and bound her against his body. With his free hand, he captured the back of her head, making it impossible to turn her face away.
“Think something.”
It was an order, but there was a hint of need edging his tone. It wasn’t hard to comply. His body felt too good. It didn’t seem to matter what she thought about him or his actions. A massive response was welling up from somewhere deep inside her brain, so great it seemed like it was going to drown her. She needed space, needed him to let her go. It was a desperate cry being screamed inside her skull.
He broke his hold so fast, she fell backward. She landed on the bed and then bounced back onto her feet as she realized what she’d sat on.
Arousal twisted around inside her belly, horrifying her with just how bad her timing was. There couldn’t be a worse situation for her libido to decide to rear its head. It was Stockholm syndrome at its worst. She could not want him.
Why not? He is pure hunk…
Her eyes widened with the idea and her cheeks caught fire. Cowardly or not, she turned and escaped the confines of the bedroom. She ended up at the front door. She opened it but something kept her from crossing the threshold.
It was the lack of pursuit. She looked over her shoulder, her heart racing with anticipation of what she might find. But her house guest wasn’t hot on her heels. He was leaning against the doorframe of the bedroom, watching her with dark eyes. There was a look of resignation on his face and it pulled on her heart.
“Go on,” he encouraged in a tone that suggested he’d been through the same scene before. “You were right. I was hearing your thoughts.” His lips set into a hard line. “So run.”
Kappel stopped hiking and opened his cell phone.
“Report,” Aurik Dresner demanded smoothly.
“The Army took our bait. They accepted the body as that of their Operative Devon Ross.”
“Good,” Dresner responded. “Do you have the merchandise?”
Kappel wasn’t known for hesitating, but he didn’t want to admit his failure. “Not yet.”
“Your answer is less than satisfactory.”
“He made it out of the helicopter but he can’t be too far. Most likely holed up in one of the summer cabins up here. There is only one road into town. We’re watching it. He’ll surface at some point.”
“For your sake, I hope so.”
The line went dead and Kappel’s throat tightened. He cussed under his breath as he dropped the phone back into his lapel pocket. He’d get Devon Ross and he was going to enjoy shooting the man in the leg for putting him through the stress of finding him.
She couldn’t leave him.
Not after hearing the acceptance in his voice. There was something glittering in his eyes that tugged her back toward him. A sense of loneliness that was so deep she couldn’t turn her back on him.
He scoffed at her, shook his head and pointed at the door. “I don’t need your pity.”
“Have you remembered who you are then?” Her pride had always been big enough to trip over, but that didn’t stop her from walking back into the center of the living room.
“No.”
She pointed to the sofa. “Sit down and let me look at that lump.”
He raised an eyebrow at her and crossed his arms over his chest. His biceps bulged, making him look even bigger than he was. She really was walking on the foolish side of life by not taking the chance to leave, because he was a very large man. One in prime condition too.
“I know your type likes to die on their feet, but in this case, I marked the outline of that lump. So let’s see which way the swelling is going.”
She pointed at the sofa again. He studied her for a long moment, his expression giving nothing away.
“So you’re a nurse.”
He looked like he had to force himself to move toward her.
“And you’re military,” she countered as he sat with a huff. “Rather die than ask for medical help.”
