by Misty Evans
“Sorry I keep falling asleep on you,” she said. Her voice was low and husky. “The adrenaline crash is a bitch, isn’t it? Where are we?”
“The cabin.” He eased around a downed tree limb in the road. He hadn’t been to the cabin since his father had died. His stepmom hadn’t sold it yet, and from the looks of it, no one else had visited. “We’ll be safe here until morning. Then we’ll go see Halston.”
Bianca righted herself, snagged her glasses from the dash and put them on. “Your dad’s fishing cabin? In the woods?”
He saw her visibly shudder. He couldn’t help the eye roll. She had a thing about snakes, bugs, poison ivy—pretty much nature in general, except the tornadoes and storms she seemed to gravitate to as a kid. He lived and breathed the outdoors, loved everything about it. How he’d ended up with such a nerdy prima donna, he didn’t know.
The front of the cabin was overgrown with weeds. Vines covered the roof and snaked down the north side. Cal parked and got out. The nearby trees blotted out the partial moon and stars, keeping the cabin in dense shadows. He left the driver’s side door open and went to the trunk, Maggie bounding out after him. From the trunk he withdrew a flashlight.
“Come on,” he said to Bianca who was still stationary in the car. “Let’s get you inside.”
Her voice took on a higher pitch. “Aren’t there bears and mountain lions in this part of the state?”
Getting her inside was going to be a challenge. “You went face-to-face with a hired assassin a few hours ago. If you can handle him, you can handle anything inside this cabin.”
“I’d rather stay in the car.”
Cal climbed the steps and inspected the door. A hard shove popped it open. Maggie started to rush through, but Cal stopped her. “Fine,” he called over his shoulder to Bianca. “Just keep an eye out for the serial killer known to haunt this area.”
He stepped in, shining his flashlight around. What the outside lacked in upkeep, the inside made up for.
Everything was tidy and neat, the couch and chairs covered with white sheets to keep the dust off. Inside the door, a coat hung on a wooden peg rack, a shotgun above it.
Cal’s heart thudded a heavy beat. Except for the dust covers, which he assumed his stepmother had added at some point since the funeral, the place looked exactly as his dad had left it on his last fishing trip.
Maggie nosed around, her coat so black, she disappeared in the shadows. The flashlight beam bounced off the window panes as Cal carefully made his way to the kitchen. A fine layer of dust covered the countertops. An empty coffee mug sat in the sink and a set of fillet knives lay to one side on a dish towel. Just like the coat his stepmom had left hanging on the peg by the door, she hadn’t been able to put the coffee mug away or sell his dad’s prized knife set.
Out back was the cabin’s solar-powered generator. It probably needed maintenance, but that would have to wait until morning. Crossing his fingers, Cal stood at the back door and flipped the nearest light switch. Several seconds later, he heard the engine kick on. A few seconds longer and the kitchen was bathed in warm light.
The front door slammed shut and Cal whirled around. The living room was still in darkness, but he saw Bianca leaning against the door, panting heavily and looking like she’d just seen a ghost. The bandage on her cheek had come loose on one end and dangled beleagueredly down the side.
Maggie barked once and rushed to Bianca.
“What is it?” he asked, his hand tightening on the flashlight.
She heaved a breath and made funny motions with her hands. “Big…long wings…yellow eyes…” She did that shuddery thing again. “Lots of flapping.”
The tension in his shoulders eased. He set the flashlight on the nearest counter. “It’s called an owl.”
She shook her head. “Owls are cute and cuddly. This…this was an owl on steroids.”
“You’ve been in your cozy, sterile cubicle in D.C. for far too long.” Making his way back to the living room, he turned on a lamp. “I’m going to get a few things from the trunk and move the car so it’s not visible. I’ll grab wood from the woodpile and we can build a fire.”
“Is this place safe? Won’t Tephra know this cabin is owned by your family and look for us here?”
Possibly, but it wasn’t an easy place to find if you’d never been there and Tephra had no idea which way they’d headed. Of course, he’d already found them once…probably because Emit, the asshole, had given them up. “If he’s good enough to track us to Emit’s, he’s good enough to track us here or anywhere else we go, but it will take him time. We won’t stay long. Just a few hours.”
“He found us at Emit’s because of the tracker in the bullet.”
Cal paused. “The what?”
She fixed her glasses, askew on her face. “There are special bullets in use by some government covert operatives. They have a miniscule GPS tracker inside them. He shot the boat with the bullet and the tracker led him right to us.”
Well, wasn’t that convenient? Bullets with trackers. He’d heard of them but his team had never used them. At least that cleared Emit from Cal’s capture-and-kill list.
If I’d wanted her dead, I wouldn’t have missed that shot and you know it.
Another possible truth from Tephra. Cal walked over to Bianca. She continued to lean on the door as if barring nature, and that owl, from coming in. Her eyes were wide as he stopped in front of her and fixed the bandage on her cheek. She still wore his T-shirt, her hair a mess, and her expression completely trusting.
After he secured the bandage, he brushed his hand over her jaw. Her breath hitched, but not from running from mutant owls.
When was the last time he’d taken her breath away?
Thank God Tephra’s bullet had missed. No matter how much she drove him crazy, Cal couldn’t imagine a world without Bianca in it.
He’d never been an affectionate guy. Expressing his emotions didn’t come naturally. After his mom died when he was five, he’d rarely hugged anyone. Not even Bianca, who’d given up so much for him. Sometimes it wasn’t hard to understand why she’d pushed him away. Why she’d filed for divorce. He wasn’t an easy person to live with. He hadn’t been there for her when she really needed him.
Reaching out, he drew her into his arms. Her body was warm and soft in all the right places, and even after their day from hell, she still smelled like vanilla. Familiar. He stroked the back of her hair, nuzzled her neck. He closed his eyes.
She melted into him, the same way she always had, an amazing blend of softness and strength. For several long seconds, they stood that way, nothing between them. Not anger, not disappointment, not their tumultuous past. Just a man and a woman seeking comfort in each other.
Deep in the woods, the owl she’d been scared by whoo-hoo’d and crickets chirped. A tree frog joined the chorus.
Bianca’s hands treaded lightly up his back muscles and her breasts rose and fell against his chest, her chin on his shoulder. “I don’t know how I ended up here.”
He stroked her hair with one hand, the other on her lower back. He should call Emit, get his extraction crew to meet them here as soon as possible, but he needed another minute to savor this. Another minute to hold Bianca close.
The stubble on his cheek rasped lightly against her skin as he shifted to speak near her ear. “I drove you, remember?”
She playfully whacked his shoulder and leaned back to look at him. “I mean, in this situation. I love my job. Love working for the NSA and being part of Command and…” She stiffened slightly, looked away. Her tone grew angry. “I don’t know how I ended up being the enemy.”
“I know the feeling.”
Her gaze returned to his, her eyes scrutinizing. “What happened out there? With Warfighter?”
The spell was broken. Cal loosened his hold, drawing away even though he didn’t want to. What he wanted to do was kiss her so she stopped talking. Drag her into the bedroom, strip her clothes off, and watch her willingly open h
er legs to him. Anything to keep her in the moment and not asking questions he couldn’t answer. Didn’t want to answer.
So long. It had been so damn long since he’d lost himself in her heat. “You know what happened.”
Bianca squared her shoulders. “Actually, I don’t. I was given a summary report—a whopping paragraph—about the outcome, but no details concerning the infiltration or ambush. When I asked Justin, he refused to share any details, claiming it was a national security risk for him to even talk to me.”
Every night since the mission failed, he’d lost sleep trying to force his brain to remember the details. A never-ending loop played in his head—was there anything he could have done differently? Why wasn’t he dead instead of three of his men? The hell of it never stopped. If only he could remember…
He knew in his soul the only way to come back from the brink of this insanity was to talk to someone. Bianca was the ideal person. She knew him, knew the way his mind worked.
He’d been her shield all these years, but she’d been his life source. Like the blood that pumped in his veins, he needed her. Needed her more than she’d ever known.
Tell her. Right now. Before another day passes. Tell her you love her, and no matter what happens, you’re not walking away from her again.
He stared down at her tangled hair and the shadows under her eyes. His hands dropped to her arms, her skin cool under the sleeves of his T-shirt. She shivered at his touch, her eyes meeting his. They were clear, truly concerned, but he saw a hint of other emotions. Anger mixed with disheartenment. The fear of the future, not just for her, but for him too.
He touched the edge of her jaw. “Everything will be okay, B.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s what we do, you and I. We figure things out, make things work, no matter the circumstances. We survive and every challenge makes us stronger. We’ll get to the bottom of this. We’ll figure it out and expose whoever’s behind it. Trust me, you’ll be back to work before you know it.”
Her hand rose almost hesitantly, her fingers stroking through his hair. Heat shot straight to his groin. “I wish I could believe that, Cal. I really wish I could.”
Chapter Sixteen
Bianca bit her tongue. Cal was living in an alternate dimension if he believed everything would be okay.
Trust me. She’d learned at an early age not to rely on people who said that. People who told you they loved you, that everything would be okay. Sit down, shut up, and be a good girl, Bianca.
Too many times in her life, those who were supposed to take care of her and have her best interests at heart did the opposite. Her mother beat her when she said or did the wrong thing—and she always seemed to say or do the wrong thing. Cal had withdrawn his love and neglected her after the loss of both babies. And now her employer, the government of the United States, had betrayed her loyalty and wanted her dead.
By the time she was four years old, she’d learned to withdraw, to go inside her mind and live in an imaginary world in order to protect herself. Her mother wouldn’t put her in preschool, so kindergarten was her first taste of life outside their shabby apartment. Kindergarten…a kind teacher, other kids, books and music and fresh air at recess. Bianca asked her teacher if she could live at school. When Ms. Olin said no, she asked the woman if she could live at her house. Another no, and the next day when Bianca’s backside was too sore to sit in the tiny chairs because of the spanking her mother had given her when Bianca told her she wished Ms. Olin was her mother, Bianca was sent to the guidance counselor’s office.
The man smelled funny and wouldn’t look her in the eye. Bianca refused to tell him what had happened, and in return, he’d said something about the school didn’t like to make waves but would contact social services. On her way back to Ms. Olin’s room, Bianca wondered how a school with no water in sight could make a wave.
By second grade, her mother had been investigated by the state, but Bianca was still living with her, taking her abuse. Teachers, the principal, the social workers—people who were supposed to care about her and protect her—left her with her monster of a mother. Bianca ended up in the hospital twice, once with a broken arm and once with a mild head concussion.
She found refuge in books and gobbled up the school’s library in no time. She earned perfect scores in all her classes, thanks to her memory, and at the end of the year, her teacher recommended she be tested for the gifted program. Bianca’s mother refused to sign the permission slip, so Bianca forged her signature. She’d already learned how to perfectly replicate her mother’s sloppy handwriting.
There was one other student in the principal’s office that day. Callan Reese. A boy whose father wore suits to school events and coached little league in the summers. Cal seemed to be lacking a mother, but he didn’t seem to care. Bianca wished she could give him hers.
He said nothing to her before or after the test, but something passed between them. A grudging respect that they were both unique on some level. In the hallway, when Marcia Linkletter shoved Bianca away from the water fountain, Cal told Marcia to knock it off.
That day, Cal invited Bianca to play dodge ball on his team. She hated dodge ball, but she was good at it. She could analyze the players and she knew how to move quickly to avoid getting hit. Cal’s invitation was the first she’d ever had, so she threw her shoulders back, walked over, and played her heart out.
She won the game for them by sheer determination, earning another solid stare from Cal that told her she’d upped her status with him once more. Later, when they met in the principal’s office to receive their testing results, Cal punched her in the arm, a type of congratulatory high-five. But Bianca froze and then ran off, embarrassed. Cal caught up with her after school and apologized. His father had told him never to strike a girl, and he hadn’t meant to hurt her.
His sincerity killed her, but she tried to laugh it off, refusing to tell him the real reason she’d ran away from the physical contact. Her laughter turned to tears, and then anger at herself for crying. Cal didn’t seem to care. He started walking her home every day—they only lived a block away from each other, yet it felt to Bianca as if they lived on completely different planets. Her with her crazy mother, and Cal with his handsome, caring father.
And then he saved her from the school ground bully, and the deal was sealed. That day on their way home, she told him everything.
The next day at recess, he taught her how to block her mother’s punches. How to bend her arm back and let her know Bianca was done cowering. How to dodge her kicks. His father had a black belt in karate and had taught Cal a few moves.
Seeing Cal now, knowing he was suffering but refusing to talk about it, reminded her of herself back then. If only she had a black belt in fighting his mental demons so she could fend them off for him. Protect him like he’d always done for her.
Reaching Cal on an emotional level was equivalent to running into a brick wall. Logic, her best friend, might work, though. “Talking about Warfighter might serve two purposes.” He was still standing in front of her, seemingly reluctant to let her go. She ran her fingers down his arm. “One, I might be able to tie Senator Halston to the disastrous outcome which has put us both in this situation, and two, you might feel better.”
He shifted his focus to the night outside the window. “I need to move the car. Can you get Maggie some water and check the pantry? See if there’s anything she can eat.”
Brick wall, we meet again.
Fine. She could be bullheaded too. “We are going to talk about it at some point, Callan Reese. I saw the gun on the boat.”
“The gun?”
“The one with a single bullet.” She paused, gathering her mental shields. “Were you really contemplating suicide?”
He made an exasperated noise in the back of his throat, looked away. “It crossed my mind, but I would never do that. Not to you.”
An image of her mother’s face flashed through her mind. The gun she’d
held in her hand. Bianca shut down the images. “Tell me what happened in Afghanistan.”
He shook his head and patted her cheek. “We are going to have a detailed conversation about a few things. You’re going to tell me what was on your phone, and I’m going to tell you a few things Tephra said at the house that don’t make sense.”
“You talked to him?”
Cal headed for the door. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
The door shut. Maggie, lying in front of the fireplace hearth, raised her head, giving the door a curious look. Bianca patted her leg to call the dog as she walked to the kitchen. “Let’s find you something to eat.”
The dog bounded up, wagging her tail.
A few minutes later, Maggie had dined on a can of beef stew and a bowl of water. Cal returned from moving the car with an armful of wood for the fireplace. Dirt was smudged on his cheek and he had a leaf stuck in his hair.
He unloaded the wood, opened the flue, and knelt to build a fire. Maggie stretched out next to him and closed her eyes. Bianca watched his sure movements as he placed the wood just so and balled up a newspaper from the stack nearby to use as tinder. Her heart pinched at the normalcy, the hominess of the scene.
She picked the leaf from his hair and he glanced up. His dark eyes were serious like always, but behind them, she saw the intelligence and magnetism that had drawn her in since the first day they’d met in the principal’s office.
And behind that, she saw the truth—they weren’t making it out of this alive.
That wasn’t going to stop him from trying. She could see that in his gaze as well. The same confidence she saw in his movements as he built a fire reflected back to her. That and the fact he was still attracted to her after all these years.
That they’d been through a hell of a day—that she’d brought this all on him—didn’t seem to dampen his libido.
