The same man who apparently wasn’t as oblivious as she’d thought.
“You stare at me much longer and I might just have to charge you for it.”
A muscle in Henry’s jaw twitched, trying to keep in a smirk, no doubt.
Cassie felt heat start to crawl up her neck. That had less to do with being caught admiring the man’s body and more to do with how hers had reacted to the memory of what it had felt like against hers. South of her waistline was already heated.
And was already wanting more.
There he was again, a fire starter wearing denim so well it was almost criminal.
“I was just wondering how long you were going to sulk,” she said, keeping her tone light. “You’re acting like you were the last boy to be picked for kickball, and you know that’s just not the case.”
Another small twitch in his jaw let her know she’d hit on some of his humor. It was brief. Even if they’d made headway about the two of them, there was still a county of hurting outside the cabin’s walls.
“I spent months trying to get away from my old job, an old life, and still, after a week here, I bring trouble hot on my heels.” He moved over so she could take up position at his side. The sky was nearly crystal blue. If storms were coming, they were being slow about it.
“Trouble follows this job.” Cassie touched his shoulder to underline the point. “It might have followed you, but it also followed Caleb and Suzy and a whole bunch of people. That’s just the way of the job. You do enough good and you’re bound to reap some of the bad you helped stop.”
“But Calvin is my bad. And if he really did orchestrate the attacks yesterday...”
Cassie saw his frown. She felt it in her bones. Just as she saw the guilt weighing down his body. She felt it, too. She wanted to stop both. Or, at least, lessen them.
“No one is going to blame you for Calvin. No matter what he does, he did it. Not you. Plain and simple.”
Henry looked down his nose at her, eyes the color of any woman’s favorite pair of blue jeans. Which might just be the ones he was wearing, Cassie decided.
“You know you Riker County people have a habit of sounding like fortune cookies. First the ‘some people suck’ thing and now ‘trouble follows the job’?”
Cassie made a face as he smirked.
“I mean no disrespect. Just saying you all might need to look into designing those inspirational office posters. You know, the ones with cats hanging from things and nice words over pictures of sunsets. Might be a good source of extra income for the department.”
Cassie couldn’t help snorting at that.
It earned a small smile from the man.
Again, that didn’t last long, either. He didn’t have to say a word. Cassie knew he was still being eaten up from the inside. Memories of his former partner, worries of his new department and the giant unknown connecting both.
“Here, I know what might help.” Cassie reached out and took the man’s hand. Despite his inner turmoil he wrapped his fingers around hers, protectively. They were warm and strong.
Cassie directed the man through the living room to the kitchen and out its back door. The temperature had indeed cooled, but once the mist left over by the rain was completely gone, the sticky heat would make up for the change. Until then she marched them through the yard and right into the trees.
“We shouldn’t be out here,” Henry said, head already on a swivel. He didn’t get out of her pull, but she heard the distinct sound of him freeing his gun from its holster.
“No one knows where this place is. We’ve been here for hours. If Calvin or Michael or anyone else manages to show up, then color me impressed.” She gave him a little tug as he started to resist when she said Calvin’s name. “Plus, isn’t that a gun in your hand? If anyone comes out at us, shoot ’em!”
She heard him chuckle but kept on forward.
“You know, since I started, everyone keeps telling me how sweet and calm you are, but sometimes I think they don’t really know you,” he said matter-of-factly. “Instead of honey, you’re more like hot sauce. But the kind they try to hide in one of those bottles with the pretty wrappers.”
Cassie dropped his hand as they moved through the trees, trying to keep herself balanced. The ground was filled with thick, twisting roots. The last thing she wanted to do was to face-plant in front of the deputy.
The deputy who seemed to think she was a bottle of hot sauce in a pretty wrapper.
“You don’t think I’m sweet?” Cassie asked with mock offense. She placed her hand on a tree, trying to navigate around a few of its gnarled roots. It didn’t work. One foot slipped off. It was enough to tip her entire balance off. Her stomach probably didn’t help matters. All she had time to do was yelp.
One strong, solid arm looped around her waist. Henry stopped her fall by pulling her to him. Suddenly she could feel his warmth through the back of her shirt, feel his heartbeat thump between them. Cassie tried to laugh off her embarrassment and the heat that it brought to her body.
But she couldn’t bring herself to make a sound.
Henry’s hold on her didn’t loosen. He didn’t step back. He didn’t try to turn her around. Cassie placed her hand on his arm. The fabric of his flannel was impossibly thick.
“You okay?” he asked.
Henry’s voice had filled with grit, low and heady, near her ear. His breath skated across her skin. It didn’t just stir feelings within her, it ignited them. Fire starter in denim, indeed. Cassie closed her eyes. Now wasn’t the time.
“Cassie.”
It wasn’t a question. It felt more like a declaration.
Henry used the arm at her waist to slowly turn Cassie around. One look up at those soft lips and hers parted in anticipation. The deputy replaced his gun in his holster and then, slowly, closed what little distance there had been between them.
The woods around them quieted.
All there was were two people, each breathing heavy and searching for something the other might just have. Past and future be damned, Cassie wanted the man who’d given her her son right then and there.
Closing her eyes, she tilted her head up, anticipation tightening her entire body. All the man had to do was meet her halfway.
* * *
HENRY’S PULSE WAS RACING. His body winding up, ready for the woman he still held by the hip. Sure, they’d kissed the night before, but this was different. This feeling was almost carnal. This feeling was need.
One his body decided to give in to.
Her lips were soft, warm and inviting as Henry pressed against them. He laced his fingers into her hair, holding her fast. A moan escaped between them.
It unleashed the reservations inside Henry.
Moving carefully but pointedly, he pushed Cassie backward until she was against the bark of the closest tree. He braced one hand against that very bark. His tongue swept past her teeth and met hers, keeping the kiss. And then deepening it. Familiar territory.
But that didn’t mean he was about to stop exploring.
He slipped his hand from her hair back to her hip, meaning to pull her even more against him. To show her that his attraction to her hadn’t lessened in their time apart. His jeans were already growing tight at the zipper with how much he wanted the woman.
However, she was two steps ahead.
Her hands found his backside faster than a canine unit could find drugs in a dealer’s den. She cupped his cheeks hard, using the force to try to pull him closer. It was enough of a surprise that Henry couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up in his throat.
Cassie broke their kiss, eyes hooded and lips dark, but kept her hands firmly in their respective places.
“What?” she asked, breathless.
“Never had a woman manhandle me like this before.”
Not even an ounce of embarrassment passed over her express
ion. Instead her eyebrow rose high. “Wearing jeans like this and you’re surprised I’m admiring your assets? I never took you for the modest type, Deputy Ward. I surely never took you for a fool.” She took the smallest of moments to straighten her shoulders and jut out her chin, resolute. “Plus, pregnancy hormones are a very real thing.”
Another laugh leaped from his chest. It was loud, genuine and seemed to please the woman. A beautiful smile pulled up the corners of a set of perfect, sexy, plump lips.
It was those lips he caught again in a quick kiss.
“See?” he said, pulling away to speak. “Hot. Sauce.”
The sound of a branch splitting somewhere behind them changed the mood in an instant. Cassie let go of him as Henry pivoted around, careful to keep her behind him, gun already being pulled out and up.
Kristen’s hands flew up in surrender.
“Well, this is awkward,” Kristen hurriedly said.
Cassie let out a sigh.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked her sister, heavy with the annoyance in her voice.
Henry put his gun back in its holster and angled his body so Cassie could get a better view of her older sister. The woman looked between them with a knowing expression.
“I would ask what you two are doing out here, but I think that’s apparent,” she shot back. “As for me, I heard you two sneak out and got worried. We are supposed to be keeping a low profile, right?”
The unmistakable thuds of car doors shutting sounded behind them, back at the cabin. Henry pulled that gun right back out. No one had called Cassie’s phone. No one was supposed to show up.
And even if Suzy Simmons or James Callahan had wanted to, they shouldn’t have brought so many people.
Before Henry could move Cassie to the other side of the tree they’d been against, he had counted at least six car doors shutting.
“Calvin?” she whispered.
Henry didn’t respond. The sound of glass shattering seemed to be answer enough that whoever the guests were, they weren’t friendly.
“We need to go,” he said, already moving backward. He took Cassie’s hand as Kristen hurried to their side. “Try to be quiet,” he warned. His heart thrummed in his ears. One man he could take on. Two or three, maybe, depending on the situation. But five or six?
If he lost, Cassie and Kristen would be targeted next.
No, he would try to get them to safety first and then—
“Hey! I see something!”
And just like that, the plan changed.
Henry cursed and spun on his heel, dropping Cassie’s hand.
“Go,” he instructed over his shoulder. “I’ll hold them off.”
Cassie stopped, shaking her head. “I’m not leaving you!”
“I’ll be right behind you,” he lied. “I just need to scare them off to give you some time.”
Cassie’s face contorted into an emotion he couldn’t place. He didn’t have time.
“Kristen, take her,” he ordered, voice going hard. Two figures in the distance were coming through the trees.
“Come on, Cassie.” Cassie must have resisted. Kristen’s voice had also taken on an edge. “Think of your son.”
Henry didn’t take his eyes off the men coming through the trees at them, but he was keenly aware of the sounds behind him.
The sound of Cassie running away.
Chapter Twenty
One man wore all black. The other also wore a ski mask. Both had guns. Neither was prepared for Henry.
Wanting to give the girls more time to escape, he checked his gun and ran straight toward the men. It apparently wasn’t what they wanted.
The man wearing the mask hesitated, misstepped and toppled over with a yell. His friend in all black was more graceful in his surprise. His eyes widened, but his gun remained steady. He sent off two shots just as Henry took aim and fired his.
Bark next to Henry’s head splintered and a quick burn of pain lit up the side of his leg, but all of his focus was on the man. Henry’s bullet hit his stomach and down he went.
Now it was time to make sure his mask-wearing friend stayed down.
He closed one eye, pictured where he wanted to hit, and pulled the trigger.
Ski Mask gave another yell. This time in pain.
Henry was upon him in seconds, picking up his gun. The man in black was unconscious, but Henry wasn’t going to take any chances. He put the new gun in the back of his jeans and hurried to the fallen pistol. Ski Mask was angry. He cradled his shoulder but stayed on the ground.
“You son of a—”
A gunshot echoed through the trees. Henry ducked behind the one closest to him. He needed to reevaluate his strategy. Anyone and everyone at the cabin or in the surrounding woods would have heard the shots clear as day. The advancing shooter might be by himself now, but his numbers could quickly multiply.
Henry took a quick breath, adrenaline pumping hard throughout his system. He ducked low and swung around the tree. The gunman wasn’t anyone he recognized, but he was admittedly a better shot than those who had preceded him.
The bullet tore through Henry’s shirt, hot pain pushing into his skin. It threw off his trigger hand and aim. He shot close enough to make the man take temporary cover but not close enough to do any damage.
“You hit him,” yelled the man in the mask.
Henry cursed something awful, wishing he’d rendered Ski Mask unconscious. His words alone rallied the man in the distance. He sent off another shot around the tree. Henry ducked to the side, barely clearing it.
He needed a better position to hold or else he’d be in real trouble sooner rather than later.
His arm burned, angry at being used after taking a bullet, as he pulled up his weapon, ready to stop the third unknown man.
He didn’t get the chance.
Another gunshot filled the air. The man who had shot him made no noise as a bullet went through his head. Henry stalled in his current action, stunned.
Calvin stood farther behind the now dead man.
He was aiming at Henry but shouted an order to the world around them.
“No one take a shot at Henry Ward or I will kill them, too. Understood?”
Henry had thought his situation was already one-sided. Sure, he’d taken down two men, but he’d assumed there were more.
He’d assumed correctly.
Yells of confirmation sounded off in the distance, near the cabin. However, a few came from the one place he didn’t need them to be.
Behind him.
“You’re thinking about trying to shoot as many of us as you can,” Calvin called from his spot several yards away. “But I promise you that I came prepared.”
A woman’s scream made Henry’s insides go cold. He spun around, not caring that his back was to Calvin. Paula walked out from behind a cluster of trees smiling. At the end of her shotgun was Kristen.
Her eyes were wide, terrified.
“First you’re holed up in a hotel with a pregnant woman and now you’re traipsing through the woods with this one?” Paula shook her head. “And here I was hoping I’d get a chance to say the first thank-you for my new scar.” She motioned to her shoulder. It was bandaged. Henry shared a glance with Kristen. She gave nothing away.
“Well, now that we have what we need, I think it’s time we get started,” Calvin said.
Henry turned to watch Calvin’s smirk dissolve. “Like you said, only children play games. And now it’s time to be an adult.”
Henry’s mind raced, filling with questions and fears and plans that might save them.
However, above the whirl of noise, there was one question that stayed loudest.
Where was Cassie?
* * *
“STOP BITING ME!”
Michael managed to free his hand, but Cas
sie was more than ready to try again. Hands tied behind her back or not, she had enough adrenaline and rage pumping through her that she was positive she could do some damage.
“Oh, I’m sorry, am I causing you discomfort?” she yelled. The sound bounced off the wall around them. Without the blindfold over her eyes she had to squint against the sunlight filtering through the closest window. “Considering you’re the one who kidnapped me, blindfolded and gagged me, and now have tied me to a chair, that’s truly rich.”
Cassie struggled against the rope around her wrists. They weren’t that tight. If she could slip out of them, maybe she’d have a fighting chance.
Michael took off his suit jacket. Wherever they were, along with not having any furniture, the place didn’t seem to have air-conditioning, either.
“I had to get you out of there as fast and as quietly as I could,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d just believe that I was trying to save you.”
Cassie felt her eyebrow rise. She snorted. “Trying to save me?”
Michael rolled his eyes and looked at the half-moon mark she’d just left on his hand. He sighed. “Despite what you may think of me, I’m not some cold-hearted thug. I was paid to find Henry Ward and get him to meet with Calvin. I knew he was looking for revenge, but I didn’t know how far he would take it. He saw you drag Henry into the house to protect him yesterday. He decided he wanted to use you against the deputy. I tried to warn you, but that had the opposite effect, apparently.”
Cassie tilted her head to the side, confused.
“Why?” she asked. “Why do you care about me? We don’t even know each other.”
Michael looked at her belly. His expression actually softened. “My wife’s pregnant.”
Cassie knew she could be naive sometimes, too kind at others. But in that moment, with those three words, she believed the man standing in front of her. Still, that didn’t mean she had to be happy about it.
“Why didn’t you grab my sister, too? Why not help Henry?” Fear gripped her chest. “What happened to them? Do you know where they are? Where are we? What happens now?”
Michael shook his head. “Paula was too close to grab you both. One look at you and I’m pretty sure she would have forgotten who her boss was and repaid you for shooting her. She doesn’t hold that anger for your sister. Hell, unless they say something, I don’t think they’ll make the connection that you two are related. I was the only person who did my homework. That was only my job.”
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