She kept her motions swift and efficient as she checked the straps. She went out of her way to touch only the nylon. She was certain he knew that.
“You didn’t need to check them. You’ve done this before.”
His unexpected speech froze her, but only momentarily.
When she stepped back and finally allowed herself to meet his eyes, the shade of amusement she heard in his voice was not reflected in their dark depths. She had no idea what he was really feeling. Instinct told her that beneath his smooth exterior, he was seething. He didn’t reveal even a trace of anger, but she knew she was right. It was exactly how she would have felt.
Her gaze drifted over his thick neck and wide shoulders, across the breadth of his chest. She watched his smooth-skinned pectorals rise and fall, the way the motion pressed at his biceps, all bunched up due to the way he was restrained. A small, shaky breath escaped her lips. How would she fare if the tables were turned?
She hoped to hell she never had to find out.
She strode from the room, fingers itching to grab the doorknob and swing hard. She resisted. Despite the fact that he was restrained, she still could not afford the tiniest slipup.
“I like my eggs fried,” he called out. “No bacon. A little juice if you have it. Freshly squeezed.”
She resisted the urge to turn around. She had less success containing the sudden urge to smile. Damn, but the man did have style. Under other circumstances, she’d think about possibly recruiting him.
“Black coffee,” he continued. “Precinct style.”
Scottie’s stride slipped imperceptibly.
“That’s right, princess,” he said. “You got cop written all over you. From your no-nonsense face right down to your hard little ass.”
She pulled her pack across the dining room table. He was far too observant.
“Lieutenant Princess?”
She yanked open a zipper.
“Okay,” he said, amusement once again in his voice. “Not a lieutenant. Let’s try … gold shield. Detective.”
How was it that he was the one strapped naked to the bed, yet she was the one who felt exposed? She dug around, pushing past her supply of power bars until her hand hit upon her secret stash. She yanked the candy bar out and tore off the brown wrapper. Chocolate, the true source of power in the universe.
“Big city. Not Detroit. Not New York. No accent. I’d rule out Chicago and Philly too. Miami. That’s a possibility.”
She took a small breath to settle her nerves. He was the hostage, she reminded herself. Let him ramble. It was a harmless enough diversion.
Or it should have been. He was good. She found herself wondering what had made him leave the force. She bet he’d made a great cop.
“Dallas. Nah. L.A. Nope.”
An obnoxiously great cop.
Some small demon inside her made her turn so she was in full view of him before she unrepentantly bit off a chunk of gooey chocolate.
“Ouch. I think that actually hurt.”
She didn’t smile, though she wanted to. Annoyance made her lean her weight against the table and slowly finish off the candy bar, making sure the stringy pieces of caramel were visible with each bite. It was highly unprofessional behavior, but temporarily gratifying. Logan Blackstone could provoke a saint. She was no saint.
The man she’d woken up was a raging beast. She knew exactly how to contain that threat and had. She crumpled up the wrapper.
“Didn’t your mama ever tell you it was impolite not to share?” he said.
“I never had a mama.” She’d had no intention of replying. It had slipped out.
“That explains a lot of things.”
It killed her not to ask him to explain and, damn the man, she knew he knew it.
“Well, if you’re a Daddy’s girl, then Daddy must have been a cop too.”
She straightened away from the table and tossed the balled-up wrapper at the trashcan. Her shot was perfect. Her control was not. “You like playing guessing games, Blackstone?”
There was a pause. “I prefer to call it deductive reasoning based on acute awareness of my surroundings and close observation of the people who pass in and out of it.”
He was entirely too smooth. His pause had been designed to make sure she knew he’d scored a point in getting her to talk at all. She faced him across the growing closeness of the cabin.
“Well then, deduce this. You can play games all you want, but it won’t change one fundamental fact. Because of circumstances beyond your immediate control, you and I will be keeping company for a few days. I will gladly explain all I can once this is over, but until then, I can’t give you any information or answer any of your questions. It is not my intention to hurt you.”
His expression didn’t change, but there seemed an almost palpable surge of energy emanating from him. She could feel it vibrating in the air. She deflected it with words. “However, if it makes my life easier, I do have means to make your temporary incarceration a more … restful one.” She strode to the door. “Which will it be, Blackstone?”
His face was absolutely devoid of emotion.
“No more needles.” His voice was as flat and empty as his eyes. Both, however, were far from lifeless.
She spent a brief moment being glad she’d have assistance when she finally released him. Suppressing a shiver as he continued to stare holes into her, she even admitted she’d miss his cocky, oh-so-cool sense of humor. It was better this way. Yeah, but for who, Giardi? “Fine,” she said, the word sharper than intended. “Then we understand each other.”
He said nothing. He didn’t so much as nod. He simply stared at her.
She turned back toward the table, feeling his gaze every step of the way. It was time to unpack the rest of her gear and settle in for the duration. Eight days was not that long. She thought of the man lying naked, strapped to the bed less than ten yards away from her. The man whose body was a living sculpture of graceful power, the man whose dark eyes were a well of banked fury. No, eight days was not a long period of time, but at the moment, it seemed like an eternity.
Perhaps she had been a bit rash in threatening him. She knew her stuff. He couldn’t get loose. She shouldn’t have let his verbal tactics rattle her. But she had.
Keeping her back to the still silent, still staring, Blackstone, Scottie dragged her duffel over to the small kitchen counter and pulled out several boxes of power bars and several big tins of powdered protein drink. Next to that she tossed a bag of juice pouches. Her candy bars stayed in her pack. One never knew when a quick exit might be necessary. Where she went, they went.
She reached back in her bag just as the small gold stud in her right ear began to vibrate, signaling an incoming message from Del. She pulled out a small digital phone, then quickly slipped it in the waistband of her pants, tucked up under her shirt.
She debated feeding Blackstone before returning Del’s silent page. After their little tête-à-tête, mealtime could prove interesting. She almost looked forward to describing the menu. It all sat behind her on the counter. But it was barely sunrise. Blackstone could wait. That reminded her that they had yet to tackle the answering-nature’s-call aspect of his incarceration.
Gee, the day looked to be filled with all sorts of fun and frolic. A dry smile crossed her face as she headed to the back door and let herself onto the deck. She could hardly wait.
She quickly dialed in the access code. After repeating a string of numbers, she waited for the return string. Once that was done, Del’s voice came clearly into her ear. The joys of digital technology.
“You hummed. Sir.” There was a short, censuring pause, but for once, she didn’t feel chastised. She was team commander after all. No matter what Del’s sudden reappearance indicated for her future, she knew she’d done a more than capable job of rebuilding his team. Her team. For the first time, she realized just how much she’d come to associate herself with her new role.
“Situation report?” came the terse req
uest.
“Under control.” She waited a moment, then asked, “Any further information on Logan Blackstone?”
There was a brief pause. “You have specific concerns?”
“He’s had training above and beyond any local police department, even Detroit.”
“Curiosity, Giardi?”
“Caution, sir.” She knew he didn’t buy that. Still, she had opened the subject. And she was curious enough to pursue it. “Your daughter had a contact with a former Detroit cop in New Mexico, didn’t she? Vince Gerraro I think his name was. He’d have been on the force the same time as Blackstone. Might be worth a call.”
“Unless you have a specific concern, I don’t have the man power to put on that right now. You do have him contained, don’t you?”
She clamped her jaw tight. “Yes, sir.”
There was another brief pause. “I’ll see what I can dig up.” It wasn’t a promise, but it was more than she’d hoped for. “You know better than anyone that we’re stretched pretty thin.”
“Apparently not as thin as I’d thought.”
This time the pause wasn’t one of consideration. There was no attempt to mask the hard edge to his tone. “There was no time to send the latest report through me. There is a messenger already en route to you, direct from the base site near the compound. It should be at station two in three hours. Can you rendezvous?”
Scottie glanced over her shoulder at the cabin, thinking of the man chained within. Station two was the location where she’d hidden the snowmobile. The round-trip would take her out of the cabin for approximately six hours. With less confidence than she should be feeling, she said, “I’ll be there.”
“I will update you again tomorrow by this link at twelve hundred hours. The link won’t be operational at any other time. If you don’t hear from me by then, clear out.”
Scottie wondered how in the hell he expected her to clear out of a snowbound cabin with two hundred-plus pounds of recalcitrant hostage in tow, but didn’t voice the question. If necessary, she’d find a way. And Del knew it.
That measure of trust should have eased some of the continued sting that Del’s abrupt reentry had delivered. It did. But not enough to make it go away. She wasn’t sure what that was going to take, but now was not the time to analyze it. Her emotions had been on more of a roller coaster in the past twenty-four hours than she’d allowed in many years. She wasn’t ready to look too deeply at anything more at the moment.
“Yes, sir,” she replied, then disconnected the call.
She tucked the phone back in her pants, then took advantage of the growing light to run a quick reconnaissance of the cabin. Satisfied that all was as usual, she went back inside.
Without wasting time, she immediately pulled on her parka. She grabbed three protein bars, stuffed two in her pocket and peeled the other as she walked determinedly into the bedroom.
“I will be gone for six hours. You might want to eat this.” She held it close enough for him to take a bite. She’d purposely not focused directly on him, but the intensity of his gaze eventually pulled hers in.
“No bacon, huh?” The humor in his tone didn’t reflect even a ripple of emotion in his flat eyes.
“Sorry. All out. Take it or wait until this afternoon.”
“At which time I will have a different menu selection?”
She glared at him. “You have about thirty seconds. Decide.”
He lifted his head the fraction of an inch necessary and took a bite. Scottie watched strong, white teeth clamp down on the chewy bar and tear off the end. She fought the urge to pull her fingertips farther away. When he clamped on the last inch or so, she let go, but was unable to tear her gaze away from the workings of his jaw. When he swallowed the last bite, she swallowed as well … in relief.
“I don’t suppose I get water rations with this?”
Scottie wanted nothing better than to walk directly out of the cabin and straight down the mountain, but she couldn’t. Without looking at him again, she walked to the kitchen and filled a small plastic tumbler with water. Keeping her thoughts on the hike ahead and the situation report that awaited her, she entered the bedroom and moved to the side of the bed.
He lifted his head slightly, and she tipped the cup carefully against his lips. His lips. Keeping her attention focused on his mouth made the action more intimate, not less. Her hand trembled, accidentally sending a trickle of water across his cheek and down his neck.
She pulled the glass away. “Sorry.” She instinctively reached down to wipe the water off his skin. His cheek was rough with night-shadow, but it didn’t diminish the heat searing her fingertips. She started to move her hand away, but he was faster, turning his head and capturing two of her fingers in his mouth. She tugged automatically, and he clamped gently down with his teeth. Her gaze flew to his. He held it without blinking. The subtle pressure of those perfect, white teeth on the gentle skin of her fingers should have been alarming. But the sensation skittering along the nerve endings in her hands and arms was anything but unpleasant.
Striving to maintain control, she kept her expression even. It cost her. “I’m sorry, but the meal portion of your breakfast is over.”
He smiled without releasing her, then his eyes went all hot and smoky as he held her gaze and deliberately softened his hold so that his lips slid slowly off of her fingers, closing gently on her fingertips.
Scottie barely subdued the shudder of pleasure that begged to ripple throughout her body. She wasn’t certain, but it was a pretty good bet that if she’d tried to take so much as a step at that moment, she would have exploded into a million tiny, electrified bits.
“More water?”
“Certainly.” She tipped the cup over and poured the last ounce of water smack on his face.
He didn’t react or even sputter. He just held her gaze.
Flustered and damning herself for letting him get to her, she turned and strode directly out of the cabin.
She was an hour and a half down the mountain when she remembered she hadn’t given Blackstone a chance to answer nature’s call. She smiled to herself, suddenly not feeling as guilty about pouring more water on him than in him.
Six hours turned into nine. The report, when the messenger finally made it to the site, hadn’t been bad, but it hadn’t been reassuring. No update from Lucas Blackstone in almost twenty-four hours. In a situation such as this, with an agent so deep under cover, it wasn’t unusual to miss a contact point or two. But with the recent information of the Brethren’s real plans, maintaining regular contact was more important than ever. Scottie could only hope that by the time Del contacted her at noon the next day, he would have further word.
It was late afternoon when Scottie arrived back at the cabin. Exhausted, hungry, and tired of drinking melted snow, she still took the time to run a circuit check of the area before heading inside. As she had when she’d first approached the cabin that morning—though it felt more like days ago now—she made enough tracks in the snow and in the surrounding woods to effectively cover the actual trail she’d made down the mountain.
As tired as she was, her senses still went on full alert the moment she stepped inside the cabin. She froze. Her neck prickled a warning alarm, but it was unnecessary. Someone was loose in the cabin.
There were no other tracks outside beside her own, she had made sure of that. The cabin was small enough so that she was certain no one else could have been hiding out. She knew there was no third person in this house. That could only mean one thing. She turned her head and looked into the bedroom.
The bed was empty.
THREE
Damn but it was colder than hell outside. Logan tucked the sheet a little tighter around his waist, wishing he’d had time to drag on a pair of jeans before sliding out the bedroom window. Wishes were for fools and dead men. He’d been the former, one more time than he cared to recall. He was convinced it was only because God had a perverse sense of humor that he had escaped becoming the la
tter.
He’d begun to appreciate that sense of humor two months before when his father had died in his arms, leaving behind an unexpected legacy. He had a brother. A twin brother.
On his dying breath Blackie had issued a challenge. Find Lucas. From any other man it would have been a final request. Blackie didn’t make requests, nor did he issue orders. His methods were far more clever. Logan had been a grown man before he had understood them.
Blackie’s motto had been, “Discover what motivates a person. Then use that desire to make them want to do what you wanted done all along.” It was a very successful form of emotional blackmail. It worked even beyond the grave.
Logan moved slowly toward the back deck, keeping close to the side of the cabin. His feet hurt from the cold. He focused on that pain to keep his mind sharp. Whatever the hell she’d pumped into him that morning had left him fuzzy. The concentration he’d had to use to keep his confusion at bay had exhausted him.
Even so, he’d begun working on getting free the moment he’d heard her close the sliding door. Despite her obvious skill in utilizing restraints, he’d anticipated being free and tracking her before an hour had elapsed. But she was better than good. He owed his freedom more to luck than his own skill. He’d barely made it out the window as she’d opened the deck door.
After taking care of the pressure that had begun to feel like a jackknife in his bladder, he crept forward, angled his head very slightly, and peered around the edge of the sliding glass door with one eye. Snow blindness made it difficult to see anything but dark shadows. He didn’t have the luxury of waiting for his pupils to adjust. Lord only knew what other nasty surprises she had in that damn black bag. He hated surprises.
A shadow moved into the bedroom. The light from the window highlighted his captor. Her hands were empty. She stepped immediately up onto the bed and went to the window. Smart. He had to be smarter. He tugged off the cumbersome sheet and made his move.
Dark Knight: A Loveswept Romance Classic Page 3
