“Hell.” Rafe rolled onto his side and propped his elbow beneath his head to watch the last glowing flames of the fire before it burned down to embers. Hannah set him on fire inside like that—his body, his head. She’d even ignited something inside him he wasn’t sure he knew how to use anymore—his heart.
He picked up a small stick and chucked it into the firepit, listening to the wood crackle and watching the sparks fly. “Damn straight Miss Chapman never got under my skin like this.” Miss Chapman never made him hard as a rock just thinking about her.
But a woman from the flat plains of Kansas and a man from the mountains? A woman who could quote Shakespeare when he wasn’t even sure he could spell the name right? He couldn’t even get the right words out to talk to her sometimes. He was too gruff. Too blunt. He’d tried to apologize for being such a lusty idiot at the river instead of the gentleman she deserved, and he’d wound up hurting her somehow.
Hell. He wasn’t apologizing for kissing her. He was apologizing for not doing it right. For maybe not being the right man to do it. He’d spent too much time on the job, too much time in the company of other men or on his own. His brother, Luke, would have handled this afternoon better. He’d know the right words to say to a woman like Hannah. The right way to treat a lady.
The final kicker was that when this was all over and it came time to tell her goodbye, he’d probably screw that up, too.
A concussion of sound in the distance, like a muffled sonic boom, echoed through the night. Rafe rolled over onto his back and studied the stars again as a rumble of thunder shook through the mountain. Clear sky.
Rafe sat up. Though he knew that sound well enough, he couldn’t pinpoint its exact location. Rock slide.
A natural enough occurrence in the mountains. Fault lines cracked rock. Moisture settled in. Ages passed and the weight of the rock would become too great. It would break off and gravity would carry it down the mountain, gathering debris in its path and altering the terrain.
But tonight, the whispers of the mountain weren’t natural. With three murders and the threat of more surrounding them, Rafe unsnapped his knife from his belt and pulled on his socks and boots. Something was out there. Something beyond the sleeping tents and shadows. He could feel it.
By the time he heard Hannah scream, he was already on his feet, rushing to her tent.
“Rafe! Rafe!”
She burst through the exit flap, dragging Irene behind her. He barely raised his knife out of harm’s way before she slammed into the middle of his chest.
“Easy, Kansas. What is it?” He latched onto her arm to steady her and quickly realized two things. She wasn’t wearing anything beneath her thermal shirt, and she wasn’t letting go.
Hannah released a dazed and sleep-rumpled Irene and crawled beneath his arm, sliding around behind him where she hooked her fingers into his belt and pressed her nose into the middle of his back. “In there. On my blanket.” She gasped for a breath. “Oh, my God. I left my glasses in there. That’s how I could see it. It was right there. Huge. In front of my face.”
Rafe stuck his knife blade between the tent flaps and lifted one aside to check for intruders. “What did you see?”
Irene shoved her hair out of her face, slowly waking up as the others filed from their tents to see what the commotion was about. “She just started screaming. Woke me plumb out of the best sleep I’ve had since we walked up this mountain. I didn’t see anybody.”
“No. Not a person,” Hannah insisted. He could feel her trembling. He tried to turn around to read her expression and offer comfort, but she jerked on his belt, keeping him squarely between her and whatever had spooked her inside the tent.
“What the hell’s going on now?” Dick Copperfield had stumbled out of his tent, along with Rowdy Trent. Keith Robinson was buttoning his shirt as he jogged up behind Ed Butler. Lydia poked her head out of the tent she shared with her husband.
Rafe waved her back inside. “Go back to sleep, ma’am. It’s nothing.”
“The hell it isn’t!” Hannah argued from the middle of his back. “It’s a monster. The size of my fist. A huge, killer spider-monster.”
Robinson swore. “A spider? Lord, woman, I thought you were being attacked.”
“I was. He was on my hand, right by my face. If I hadn’t heard that thunder—”
“You woke us up over a bug?” Rowdy scratched his head, still too groggy to grasp the situation.
“Come on, Rowdy.” Copperfield had been understandably subdued ever since finding Natalie. His somber mood seemed to have finally made him a better leader. “We’re all a little jumpy. I, for one, am relieved it’s not another dead body.” He started ushering the others back to their tents. “There’s nothing to see here, folks. Go back to bed. If that’s all right with you, Mr. Kincaid?”
“Sure.” Though Hannah had loosed her grip on him, he wasn’t quite ready to say the danger had passed. Better to keep everyone calm and accounted for until he was clear on what had happened. “Irene, I suggest you go ahead and bunk with the Defoes. It’ll be a while before I can get your tent thoroughly checked for other critters.”
“What about Hannah?”
“She’s bunking with me.”
“Oh?” Irene wasn’t the only one gaping at his decision. But she was the first one to smile and accept it. She even winked. “Oh. Well then, goodnight, you two.”
“Goodnight.”
Once they were alone, Hannah turned to face him. She had her arms crossed beneath her breasts and he had to concentrate to keep his focus on her prim, nervous expression instead of the generous bounty farther down. “What do you mean I’m bunking with you? You don’t even have a tent.”
He nodded toward the isolated bedroll near the fire pit. He intended to be firm about this. He couldn’t think of any way to quit worrying about her except to keep her where he could touch her or see her. “Go get in my sleeping bag and stay warm while I check this out.”
“But, Rafe—”
“Go, woman. If you’re not in that bag when I get back, I will track you down and carry you there myself.” She opened her mouth to protest. “Unless you’d rather check out the tent with me and the spider?”
Her lips snapped shut just as quickly and Rafe itched with the desire to kiss them. To comfort her, to reward her for her cooperation—hell, he just wanted to kiss her again.
But Hannah thumbed over her shoulder toward the firepit before he could force his coarse charms on her. “I’ll be in your bed.”
With those suggestive words sounding way too right in that unconsciously seductive voice of hers, Rafe finally admitted he had it bad for this woman. He watched her walk away and knew that finally saying goodbye was going to be more than awkward.
Chapter 7
By the time Rafe returned several minutes later, Hannah was up, grinding a circle into the ground as she paced around his sleeping bag.
He allowed himself a moment to simply watch her move. He couldn’t exactly call her graceful, but there was a force about her—a combination of mental energy, hope and selfless natural beauty—that spoke to him in a way no other woman ever had.
He’d nearly lost her today. Twice. If the mountain hadn’t talked, hadn’t woken her, she might be dead.
When she spotted him, she squinted him into focus and hurried to meet him. “I’m so not a nature girl, am I? Did I totally embarrass myself with my little phobia?”
Rafe walked right up to her, palmed the back of her head and kissed her soundly before she could make another joke about herself or any other thing that had happened between them. The kiss grounded him and bamboozled her enough to keep her quiet for the moment. “You’re a smart girl, Kansas.” He held up the spider skewered at the end of his knife. “Not quite as big as your fist. But this guy’s poisonous.”
She jerked back from the point of the blade and the nickel-sized menace at the end. But she wasn’t so squeamish that she didn’t tiptoe back for a closer inspection once she rea
lized the eight legs weren’t wiggling anymore. Like a curious scientist, she moved in really close. That was when he realized she wasn’t wearing her glasses. It was also when he realized that he was damn well going to find the proper way to tell her how he felt about her.
“Could his bite kill me?” she asked.
Rafe nodded and flicked the tiny carcass into the fire. “Not instantly. But left untreated, you’d have a slow and painful end. Paralysis around the wound would be almost immediate. It’d make it damn near impossible to hike out of here.”
“Yeesh.” After the initial shock of his explanation, the color crept back into her cheeks. “How did he get into my bed?”
Tender admissions would have to wait. “I’m guessing someone put him there. He’s not indigenous at this altitude. Besides,” He pulled a crumpled note from his pocket. “I found this inside your, um…bra.”
“Oh, God.” Though he’d already memorized the weight and shape of her beneath her shirt, he found it endearing when she crossed her arms in front of her. “I forgot.”
He sheathed his knife, handed her the note and pulled her to him in one smooth motion. “I think you and I are past the point of modesty with each other. Go on. Read what it says. I’ll be right here.”
She held herself stiffly, tapping her fingers against his chest as if she was afraid to let her hand rest against bare skin. She cleared her throat. “Did you find my glasses?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t immediately pull them from his pocket, though. “I’m not done lookin’ yet.”
“Looking at what?”
“You’re a beautiful woman, Hannah.”
Her hand stilled. She blushed, then laughed, then waved aside the compliment. “Get real. I’m the brains. My sister’s the pretty one.”
Rafe cupped her chin and bent down close enough so that she could read his sincerity. “She doesn’t have prettier eyes than you.”
“You haven’t even met…” Her voice trailed away as she considered his words. When she finally relaxed against him, Rafe thought that maybe, finally, he’d done right with her. “I never expected poetry from you. Thanks.”
Poetry? From a man who’d spent a good portion of sixth-grade English in the prinicpal’s office? He could imagine his brother laughing at his pitiful effort. But if his words made Hannah smile, then they were good enough for him.
“Read the damn note.”
She reached up and touched his face with that gentle caress he was learning to like a little too much. “My glasses?”
He was still holding her when she read the note.
“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the spider to the fly;
“’Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy.”
“Don’t I know that from when I was a kid?” Rafe frowned. Now the killer was into nursery rhymes?
Hannah fiddled with that wayward curl at her temple. “‘The Spider and the Fly’ by…Howitt. Mary Howitt.”
“So you know who wrote it. What does it mean?”
He tucked the curl behind her ear and watched the various possibilities change her expression. “Just the spider killing me is too obvious. He’s talking about a web, a trap. He wants us in his parlor, to go somewhere in particular. He’s daring us to. He’s set a trap for us.”
“The only place we’re going is down to Extreme, Inc., and to the cops and hospital in Moose.”
She leaned back against his arms to meet his gaze. “But there’s more than one way to get there, right?”
“Yeah. With Defoe’s ankle, I thought we’d circle southeast by Lewis Springs. It’s a longer route, but it’s an easier grade to carry a man.”
“Is there a way to get him to help sooner?”
He didn’t like where this was going. “Sure. We could cut straight through to Bridger Pass and call for a chopper. But it’s a more dangerous route. We’d have to deal with sheer rock walls, maybe some rappeling, and a drop-off or two that I don’t want you anywhere near.”
“One way’s a trap. Maybe both are. Which way does he want us to go?”
Rafe pried the note from her fingers before she got too agitated with speculation to sleep. “Either route is dangerous enough that we’ll need to be rested and sharp.”
He led her to his sleeping bag, unzipped it and urged her to slip inside. He tossed another log onto the fire to build up the heat and pulled on his T-shirt before he sat on the ground beside her. “Go to sleep, Kansas. I’ll decide which route we take in the morning.”
“You can’t sleep out there on the ground,” she protested. She flipped the bag open and sat up, scooting as close to the far edge as possible. “Wyoming’s idea of a summer night is about forty degrees. Now get in here.”
Rafe grinned at her bossy invitation. “Do you know how close we’d have to be to fit inside a sleeping bag together?”
“I don’t mind.”
He waited a moment to make sure she completely understood what might happen if he crawled into those close quarters with her. She didn’t budge.
Minutes later, he’d kicked off his boots and spooned himself against Hannah’s back. His arm slid naturally around her waist, his hand beneath her shirt. He palmed the smooth skin of her belly and brushed aside her hair to kiss her nape. Helplessly, his hand slid higher until he caught the weight of her breast in his palm.
“Is this too much?” he asked.
Hannah moaned at a husky pitch that sent a rush of pure liquid heat straight to his groin. She shook her head, stirring her silky hair against his cheek. His chest expanded in an uneven breath at her acceptance. He buried his nose in the fragrance of her skin and kissed the warm pulse beat beneath her ear.
“This?”
“Are you sure?” Her whisper drizzled against his ears like a sultry breeze.
He kissed her again. “I’m sure.”
He squeezed his fingers together and found a taut, pearlized nipple begging for his attention. “How about this?”
Hannah pressed forward into his hand. Her breathing grew as ragged as his own. “More, Rafe. More.”
It was the most seductive plea he’d ever heard from a woman.
He unhooked the snap of his own jeans, then wrapped himself around her, nudging her bottom with the proof of just how much he wanted her. “Too much?”
His brainy lady surprised him by lacing her fingers through his and dragging him down to unzip her jeans and guide his hand inside to her warmth. He kissed her. Held her. Touched her. He savored every kiss and touch and verbal caress she bestowed upon him in return.
“You tell me when, Kansas,” he whispered against her ear, sliding into the very heart of her.
They didn’t speak again until morning.
Had things changed irrevocably between her and Rafe? Hannah wondered. Was she a one-night stand? A foray into the world of large and lovely women? Was there any chance he’d still say and do such beautiful things back in the real world off the mountain?
She was the last person in line this morning as Rafe led them toward Lewis Springs. He was all business today, urging them to quickly break camp, police the area, then switch off carrying Charles on a lashed-up stretcher or hauling his gear for him. Rafe led them on a steady, winding descent through the thickening spruce forest.
But Hannah was having trouble concentrating on the hike. Up ahead, Rafe’s short brown hair glistened whenever he crossed through a patch of sunlight, reminding her of its soft texture against her palms. His massive shoulders and terse orders reminded her of his strength, but they also reminded her of his gruff charm and fierce protection that had comforted her, warmed her and seduced her last night.
Making love with Rafe under the stars had been thrilling. Naughty. Uniquely their own intimate experience. He’d shown the perfect mix of tenderness and urgency, of need and consideration. She’d thought he’d be too big, too rough, that she’d be too amateurish, too little of what a man of his appetite for life and danger needed.
But he’d been perfect. H
e’d made her feel…perfect.
“Take that, Piper.”
Not that she wished her sister any ill will. But last night, she’d felt a lot less envious, a lot more as though Hannah was the Greene sister who was all that. Last night she’d finally understood that she didn’t have to win a Pulitzer Prize or earn a million dollars a year or out-shine anyone else in her family to be proud of who she was. She liked the woman she was becoming. In fact, she had a hard time imagining Piper scaling down a mountain, snuggling inside a sleeping bag, making love in the great outdoors, and falling in love with a man like Rafe.
“Damn.”
Startled as she was by the discovery of her true feelings, the curse wasn’t her own. Rafe had stopped at a clearing where the ground seemed to fall away at his feet. Even from her vantage point, she could see the ripped-up trunks, like oversize match sticks that had been pushed over by a giant’s hand. A fine layer of dust coated the surviving branches, transforming their rich blue-green color into a dull shade of gray.
“What happened?” Hannah asked, joining the others as they gathered around the edge of the fifty-yard-wide gap in their path. “Was there an earthquake?”
“Rock slide.”
“That thunder we heard last night.” But this time the earth, not the sky, had trembled.
Rafe nodded as he dropped the extra pack he carried and pointed to the U-shaped valley of rocks, gravel and debris where the trees used to stand. He tipped his head and scanned the higher elevations where the rocks had once been part of the mountain itself. But he was frowning. This couldn’t be good. “Someone’s not playing nice.”
“What do you mean?”
He glanced down past his shoulder at her. “Mother Nature didn’t do this.”
“How do you know?” Irene asked.
“Blast marks.” He turned and faced the group. “Probably rigged by the same person who stole my radio to keep me from reporting in at headquarters this morning.”
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