Saving Andi: St. John Sibling Series: FRIENDS

by Raffin, Barbara

  Just as he sensed his angel didn't smile easily. A shame, as it brought such light to her face, such softness to features shaped by hard living.

  That reminded him of her comment about not being complimented often. Someone hadn't done right by this girl. Maybe a lot of someones.

  #

  He woke to a cabin full of sunlight so bright it pierced the curtains…and silence. Even Tuff Stuff didn't come clattering into the bedroom when he rolled to the side of the bed, threw off the quilt, and planted his feet on the floor.

  He listened a few seconds while his head acclimated to being upright. He rose, using the bedside and footboard to get him to the doorway. Blinking into the brightness of the great room, he scanned the space. No Andi. No dog.

  Cautiously, he made his way to the kitchen sink and parted the curtains just enough to see outside. Nothing. The front door was bolted from the inside and its window revealed an empty driveway and closed garage.

  A short rest on the arm of the couch and he headed for the side door at the back of the cabin. It was locked but not bolted.

  Parting the curtain a crack, he spotted her and the dog several hundred yards from the cabin on a plane of white. The dog romped. Andi sat hunched on a folding stool, every now and then jerking what appeared to be a miniature fishing pole.

  Ice fishing. That plane of white was a frozen lake.

  He closed the curtain. He was alone in the cabin. All the possibilities that afforded him flashed through his brain. He knew what he wanted above all else. The gun.

  Or any gun. She was a hunter. And, right now, he was being hunted. He needed protection. Even more, he sensed he needed to protect her.

  A wall-mounted rack outside the bedroom held two shotguns, a long-range hunting rifle, and a small caliber twenty-two. They would do in a pinch. But a handgun would be more efficient for his needs.

  So where was the handgun she'd taken off him?

  The bottom part of the rack was a cabinet with a drop-down door. It no doubt held shotgun shells and bullets, which he'd need whether or not he found a handgun. And there was definitely room in that cabinet for a handgun or two. But the door was locked. He felt around the cabinet and rack without finding a key.

  He sat down at the small desk below the rack and pulled open the center drawer. Being Andi lived alone and there were no children, he expected to find the key in easy proximity of the rack. No such luck. There was nothing other than the usual office supplies in the drawer.

  The drawers down one side gave up little more than a few file folders, a cord that could belong to a laptop but no computer, and a small framed photo of a younger Andi. She was maybe in her teens with a bear of young man, his arm slung around her shoulders.

  They stood against a backdrop of glistening water. The lake, he presumed. They grinned at the camera.

  He lingered on Andi's face, on the happiness glowing from it. He ran a fingertip over her smiling lips and looked deep into her eyes. Even gleaming as they were in the moment, there were shadows in them. He sensed happiness was fleeting for her even back then and the thought saddened him.

  He turned his attention to the man in the photo, wondering if he'd been the one who chased away her happiness. But, upon closer examination, he looked more boy than man in spite of his size. There was also a likeness between his and Andi's eyes and mouth. A familial resemblance.

  The brother whose clothes he wore? That would account for why the tee fit him in the shoulders but bagged around his torso and why, though the length on the sweatpants was right, he had to tighten the drawstring at the waist.

  Did he have to worry about this brother dropping by? She didn't seem concerned about any unexpected visitors, so Cole let it go for the time being.

  Returning the photo to the drawer, he shut it, slumped back in the chair, and studied the rack. There were no handles or knobs on the lower panel so there had to be a key to open it.

  He searched a free-standing pantry in the corner but found nothing more than canned and dry goods. Though most of the canned items were home preserved vegetables, fruit, and meat. And there were jars of dried morels, a virtual goldmine of them. At least in the city. Morels sold for big bucks in Chicago.

  That he knew this gave him pause. But, again, it seemed a memory he could trust. It also gave him a clue to where he might be from. When no further memories surfaced, he moved on.

  The kitchen cabinets were sparsely filled with plates, glasses, and cooking pots all sparkling clean. The cabinets showed wear and tear and one patched door hinge, but no sign of a key.

  He moved around the cabin searching, noting, in spite of his main focus, an aging to the place beneath the care Andi had clearly given it. When he'd completed the circle back to the rack, he stood in front of it staring at its knobless panel door. He needed a key to get into it.

  He wedged his fingernails into the seam between door and frame and tried prying it open. No go.

  Why did she hide the key when she was the only one living here?

  Until a stranger with a bullet hole through him moved in.

  Was he the reason she hid the handgun and key to the ammunition cabinet?

  He was so deep in thought he was slow to register the sound of a key being slid into the backdoor lock. He jumped when the lock snicked out of place.

  Thankfully the blast of wintery air coming in with the opening door admitted Andi and Tuff Stuff, the latter of whom bounded straight for him. He planted his butt on the seat just as the dog reached him and head-butted him in the chest.

  "You're up," the two legged member of the entourage said.

  "Yeah," he returned, scratching Tuff Stuff behind the ears, actually finding the dog's exuberance toward him endearing.

  She held up a bucket before ducking into the space off the back door behind the bathroom, an extended entryway in which he'd found a washing machine and laundry sink during his explorations. "Tonight's supper."

  Fish, he presumed.

  She reappeared, stuffing mitts and cap in her jacket pockets. "What you doing at the desk?"

  Evasion or honesty?

  "Looking for the handgun that came here with me."

  She shrugged off her jacket and hung it on a peg by the backdoor. "Thinking you need to protect yourself?"

  Her directness didn't surprise him. They thought alike and he liked that.

  "Yeah. And so do you."

  She patted the holster strapped against her hip. "Which is why I'm carrying."

  He nodded at her holstered gun. "Is that the Glock I had with me?"

  "No. This is my gun, and it's not a Glock. Just looks like one. Can't afford the real deal."

  "So where's mine?"

  "The Glock you had on you when I found you is locked in the gun case."

  "And the key?"

  She unzipped a small pocket on her jacket, lifted out a key, and tossed it to him. "Guess I can trust you with this." Adding as she headed for the kitchen area, "Put it in the center drawer of the desk when you're done."

  He unlocked the panel below the long guns and found the Glock and clip. Loading the gun, he placed it on the desk, relocked the cabinet, and dropped the key in the desk drawer.

  "I don't imagine you got as far as breakfast, yet," she said, rattling a cast iron frying pan from the cabinet by the stove.

  "No."

  She arched an eyebrow at him. "Too busy searching for a key to that gun case, huh?"

  "Yeah."

  "Eggs and sausage suit you?"

  "They sound great. What can I do to help?" he asked, picking up the gun and stepping into the kitchen area, wobbling only a bit.

  She eyed him. "Sit down before you fall down. You're white as a sheet."

  "Yes, ma'am," he said, dragging a kitchen chair back from the table, sitting, and placing the gun on the table, careful to point it away from where she worked. His searching—snooping had tired him.

  "You plan on carrying that thing around wherever you go?" she asked.

  "I
plan on keeping it close," he said, glancing from the gun on the table at the ready for his reach to her.

  "You need something to carry it in," she said, unbuckling her belt which he saw now had an excess of strap. But not so much it could have circled the girth of the young man in the picture he'd found in the drawer. Another brother? Her father's belt?

  Removing the gun from the holster and tucking it into the back of her jeans, she tossed the belted holster across the table at him. "Use this. The waistband of those sweatpants won't hold a pistol."

  "I could wear my jeans. They're clean, aren't they?"

  "I washed them," she said, turning back to the stove and dropping sausage patties into the skillet. "But I don't know how comfortable they'll be with your injuries."

  Tuff Stuff, who'd dropped her big, furry head in his lap the minute he sat down, sighed and peered up at him as though questioning why he wasn't already scratching her ears. He chuckled and sank his fingers into her thick winter-weight coat.

  Andi pulled out a couple plates from the cupboard by the window above the sink and two sets of flatware from a drawer below and set them on the table "Don't encourage her. You'll never get rid of her."

  "That's okay. I like her."

  "She likes you, too," Andi said, flipping the patties.

  "Let me guess. She likes everybody."

  "Pretty much. But she can be wary of strangers, especially any threatening me."

  So the dog trusts me. How about the master? She trusted me with the key to the ammo and my handgun. Correction. Make that the gun I was shot with. Whether it's mine or not is still a question mark. But the point here was Andi Johanson trusted him and he didn't know why.

  #

  Cole dug into his breakfast. If he kept eating like that, she was going to have to do a lot more hunting. In spite of the additional work, she smiled. She hadn't seen anyone eat her food with such relish since… Her happiness faded with the reminder of Theo.

  Cole wiped grease from his chin with a napkin and looked up with a grin. "I can't say when I last had homemade bread and these sausage patties are great. Never tasted anything like them before."

  "They're a mix of venison and pork. My own spice-blend."

  "You made the sausage, too?"

  "I live off the land as much as I can."

  He dabbed at egg yolk with the corner of his toast, his smile slipping. "These look like chicken eggs."

  "They are."

  "I don't recall seeing a chicken coop when I was looking around earlier."

  "When John Joki's hens are laying," she said, "I trade with him for eggs."

  "When they're laying," he repeated, meeting her gaze. "My guess is they're not laying now?"

  She shrugged. "Winter. Shorter days don't inspire chickens to lay eggs."

  "Meaning you have to buy the eggs this time of year," he said.

  "Yeah."

  He frowned as he chewed at the egg-sopped toast, swallowing before going on. "You seem to live on a tight budget and I'm blowing it."

  His concern warmed a heart already growing too attached to this stranger and her self-protective nature kicked in. "Just don't expect eggs every day. Pancakes and oatmeal are the usual breakfast fare. But right now, you need as much protein as I can get into you."

  A line formed between his golden-brown, puppy-dog eyes. "I'm costing you money. I'm causing you work. And I've put you in danger. Why are you taking care of me?"

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The knock at the door saved her from answering him.

  Tuff Stuff jumped to her feet and barked while Andi spoke in barely more than a whisper. "I didn't hear a car pull in."

  "Me neither," Cole returned in like, already on his feet, pistol in hand.

  His reaction, the quickness of it, should have been reassuring. Instead, it made her stomach bottom out. "Get in the bedroom and keep quiet."

  "We need to clear the table," he said.

  "I'll handle it," she said, hoping whoever was at the door hadn't heard them talking before they knocked—hoping Tuff's barking covered any noise they now made.

  Cole lifted his chair back in place close to the table, making it look like no one had been sitting there, and headed for the bedroom. She gathered everything off the table and placed it all in the sink out of sight. A swipe of a cloth over the table and, with a glance around the room for any forgotten signs she wasn't alone, she went to the door.

  Parting the curtain, she came face-to-face with a clean-shaven man, a black fedora shadowing his eyes.

  She hushed Tuff and called through the glass, "What do you want?"

  "FBI, ma'am," the man said, flashing a badge. "Need to ask you some questions about a prison escapee."

  Her heart sank. She hadn't wanted Cole to be on the wrong side of the law…even given her family history.

  She opened the door just wide enough to accommodate her body, the impression she wanted to give that if she stepped out of the way, the hulking Tuff would lunge past her and tear the man's throat out. Make that two men. Another bulkier man stood in her driveway beside a black SUV.

  The man on her porch forced a semblance of a smile. "How about you put your dog away, ma'am, so we can talk?"

  She was getting a bad gut feeling off these two—something that made her doubt Fedora Guy was any kind of law enforcement agent. Maybe it was the ill fit of the trench coat to his slight frame. And the backup guy didn't look FBI at all, given the worn condition of his jacket and jeans. What FBI guy wore jeans on the job? In fact, he looked familiar.

  A dark bruise along his jawline distracted her from exploring further that familiarity. Might that bruise match Cole's bruised knuckles?

  Something else struck her now that her focus wasn't on covering up Cole's presence. The Marquette prison wasn't federal. FBI shouldn't be involved.

  And damned if Tuff didn't choose that moment to lose interest in the visitors and start to turn away.

  "Back," Andi ordered in Tuff 's direction, making it look like the dog's retreat was due to her command. Facing Fedora guy, she added, "The dog won't bother you as long as you don't do anything threatening."

  Fedora Guy shoved his hands in the pockets of his ill-fitting coat and gave an exaggerated shiver. "Can we come in?"

  She met his gaze, his eyes squinty in the shadow of his hat. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She really wasn't getting a good vibe off these guys.

  Pasting on a smile, she ventured, "You wouldn't be wanting to get inside to look around, would you? Because that would require a warrant."

  Fedora Guy's lips pinched together for an instant before he responded. "We just want to talk. It won't take long."

  "Since it's nothing that'll take too long, we can talk here just fine," she said, keeping them out in the February chill.

  The guy behind the first scowled and looked up and down the road.

  Clearly this pair didn't want to be spotted. That, along with the more usual February temperature, should hurry up this interview.

  Fedora Guy looked down his narrow nose at her, reached into an inside pocket, pulled out a photo, and showed it to her, asking, "Have you seen this man?"

  It was a three-quarter headshot of Cole, slightly unfocussed as though it'd been cropped and enlarged from a shot of him with others. Not a mug shot which would have been a more likely photo from someone searching for a prison escapee.

  She searched the picture for any clues about Cole, but only long enough to give the impression she'd been studying the face in the photo. She'd had years of practice at stifling reactions. Years of practice at lying, too.

  She looked Fedora Guy in the eye and easily answered his question with a lie. "No."

  "Do you know him?" he asked.

  She snorted. "If I haven't seen him, I can't very well know him."

  Fedora Guy pulled in a deep breath. "Perhaps if we stepped inside and talked, we might be able to jog your memory."

  Was there an implied threat in the man's statement?
<
br />   The gun in the back of her waistband grew heavy as if to remind her it was there, and she said, "How about you leave the picture and your number with me and I'll let you know if he shows up."

  "You don't know what you're dealing with here, Miss Johanson."

  So he knew her name, and here she was without a mailbox or a "Welcome to the Johanson's" sign anywhere in sight where he could have seen her name.

  She leaned a shoulder against the inside of the door, adding to the wedge of her foot against its bottom, her free hand finding a place on her hip nearer the gun at her back. "How about you tell me what I'm dealing with here? What'd this guy do?"

  "It's an ongoing investigation so I'm not at liberty to reveal specifics."

  Ongoing investigation? She could remind Fedora Guy he'd initially said he was looking for a prison escapee, not investigating one. But better to let him think she hadn't caught his slipup. Maybe she could yet garner some information about Cole from him.

  "Let's just say he's not a man to trifle with," Fedora Guy added.

  "Trifle with?" she repeated, chuckling. "I promise, should he show up, I won't trifle with him."

  "Perhaps I understated the danger of this man," Fedora Guy said, leaning in.

  She didn't flinch. Came with years of living with intimidating men. She sobered and did her own forward lean. "Why don't you just tell me what I'm dealing with, should this dangerous guy show up?"

  Fedora Guy waved the photo in her face, ignoring her question. "This man won't hesitate to use whatever or whoever he needs to accomplish his goals."

  Okay. She wasn't going to get anything more off this guy. Time to get rid of him.

  "I have a good compliment of guns and I'm a proficient shot. I'm very good with a knife as well, and you've already met my dog. I think I can take care of myself. So, Agent, how about you give me your name and let me have a closer look at that badge of yours. You wouldn't mind waiting out here while I phone the FBI and verify your identity, would you?"

  Fedora Guy eased back a few inches. "I have a number you can call."

  "That's okay," she said. "I'll use the number in the phone book."

  "I doubt our FBI branch is listed in the local phone book."