by Cherry Adair
He shook his head. Dumb bastard.
"Make yourself at home," he said sourly, dragging on his damp jacket, trying not to trip over her dog. There wasn't anything Marnie could find while he was gone that he didn't want any stranger to discover. He was a careful and methodical man. There was no margin for error in his line of work.
Of any kind.
Skeptical eyes grazed the cottage. "Yeah, right." She poured coffee into another chipped cup, took a sip, and shuddered in distaste. Then she glanced back at him. "See ya."
Jake slammed the door behind him and strode into the deluge, her dog prancing at his heels.
Great. Just great.
Chapter Four
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It was a good thing Marnie rarely got bored. She set her sketch pad down beside her on the couch and stretched cramped muscles. There was nothing of interest in the cabin. She'd wandered around aimlessly after Jake stormed out. There was no point sleeping now.
How on earth anyone lived without creature comforts, even for an odd weekend, baffled her. Her little house in Sunnyvale was filled with things. Mementos of her life. Photos of her family, friends, and places she'd been. The stuff one collected without realizing it.
Jake Dolan's cabin was the clean slate of a man with no past and no future. Despite the dirt, everything about the cabin seemed sterile, scrubbed of character. Sanitized. It looked, Marnie decided, choreographed, like a stage set. Abandoned cabin in the woods. The play was obviously not a romance, she thought wryly, glancing at the narrow single bed against the far wall.
During his absence she'd done several intricate, detailed sketches of Jake. Most of them were conjured more from imagination than based on reality. She'd had to do some serious imagining to sketch Jake smiling, laughing, looking out of the pages with love, not just heat, in his eyes. She had a great imagination.
And while this attraction for a dangerous stranger hadn't exactly been in the cards, she wondered at the timing. Marnie pictured Grammy on a fluffy white cloud, chuckling as she manipulated her granddaughter's fate.
It didn't matter how unlikely and illogical her heated response to him had been. The fact of the matter was that she felt something. Something she'd never experienced before.
It was more than physical, although God help her, there had been that. Something greater than physical allure called to a part of herself she was still discovering. It was as though by seeing herself through his eyes, she would come to learn who the real Marnie Wright was.
The least the dratted man could have done was stand still and cooperate so she could fully explore the possibilities.
The rain had stopped an hour ago. Jake had been gone for almost three. She didn't need to be hit over the head with a two-by-four to know he didn't want her anywhere near him. And it made no difference that she knew her feelings were irrational. She'd known him for less than twenty-four hours. It was inconceivable she felt so strongly while he felt nothing in return. His lengthy absence made it pretty obvious he wouldn't return to the cabin until she'd left.
Was he out there somewhere, watching, waiting for her to leave? She stood in the middle of his dusty, inhospitable cabin and weighed her choices. Foolishly, her heart wanted her to stay and see what would happen in the next round. Eventually he'd have to come back.
Her brain told her to pack up, put on her coat, and go up-river in the hope the other bridge was passable.
But what about Duchess? Marnie suddenly smiled. Unless Jake planned on kidnapping her dog, he'd be back. They'd have to see each other at least once more.
Her coat had dried in front of the lire. She put it on, wrote a brief note on a page from her sketchbook, and left it propped up on the breakfast bar where he couldn't miss it.
A frigid breeze ruffled Marnie's hair and stung her cheeks. She dug into her pocket for her red knit cap, then pulled it on to cover her cold ears. Leaves and branches swayed and mingled their music with the sound of her Timberlines swooshing through leaves. There'd been no sign of Jake and Duchess along the way.
It didn't take long to walk down to her grandmother's cottage. Or what was left of it. A hard knot of sadness welled within her chest. She sat on a mossy rock nearby, chin cupped in her hands, and took in the devastation.
The tree didn't look nearly as large by daylight as it had in the dark. Nevertheless, it had crushed the little one-room house. Vision blurred, Marnie bit her lip.
Her grandmother's death in her sleep at the age of eighty-eight had hit her hard, forcing her to question her lifestyle and the choices she'd made.
Grammy's death had been a turning point.
There had been nothing the old woman had been afraid of. Nothing she hadn't dared. Nothing she hadn't ventured. And while Marnie had always considered them kindred spirits, after Grammy's death she'd suddenly had the rude awakening that they weren't alike at all.
She didn't take chances. She never risked anything. Her life had fallen into a rut without her being aware of it. She'd always taken the path of least resistance because it was easy and trouble free.
She worked for her father because he'd wanted her close and she didn't want to hurt him. And although her love of drawing and painting fulfilled her, she'd always considered it a hobby.
It was painfully ironic that Grammy had to die before Marnie could at last hear what her grandmother had been trying to tell her.
Live life to the fullest.
The tightness in her chest threatened to double her over. She bent over her knees to press her fists tight against her chest. It hurt to breathe.
"I'm going to do it, Gram. I'm going to do it."
Marnie didn't know how, when, or even what. But God help her, she was going to make her life a life Grammy would have been proud of. Not just for her adored grandmother, but for herself. Because twenty-seven wasn't too old to change.
There was enough of Martha Washburn in her to know there was hope. She wanted life with a capital L. She wanted to paint and draw; she wanted to taste excitement and grab life with both hands.
She wanted to live, not just exist.
A sob ripped through her.
She wanted it all, everything she'd missed by allowing herself to follow the path of least resistance. By taking the easy way out. By allowing herself to believe other people's reality of who and what she was.
Another choked sob tore through her.
She missed her grandmother. She needed her grandmother. She wanted her grandmother.
She and Grammy had shared their love of the outdoors, family, and all things traditional. Maybe they shared the same dash of daring, too.
The landscape blurred as the tears came—heavy and painful, and from so deep the well seemed bottomless.
She didn't try to stop them.
Grammy had been mother and best friend to her all her life. Marnie couldn't imagine life without her. She swallowed a sob, then let them come, one after the other. The tears, falling unchecked, felt hot on her icy cheeks. This was the first time in five weeks she'd been able to cry. The loss had just been too great, too deep. She made up for it now.
She'd always cried easily. A sappy commercial, a baby, or a beautiful sunset could make her misty-eyed. But when she cried for real, it wasn't pretty. She sobbed and hiccupped and blubbered; her nose ran and her face got red and puffy. She was thankful only a squirrel was witness to her outpouring of grief.
She cried long enough to give herself a stuffy nose and swollen eyelids. Feeling slightly better when she finished, she rose and walked around the crushed walls, trailing her fingertips along the wood siding, remembering the laughter, the words of wisdom, the lessons she'd learned inside these four walls. It was almost impossible to continue being sad when the memories were so happy. She said her final goodbye—but just to the place. Grammy would be in her heart forever.
Feeling as though she'd been through some sort of rebirth, Marnie trudged back up the hill.
Returning to Jake's, she considered what her grandmother woul
d have thought about him. Grammy had a soft spot for strays. She would have pulled him into the circle of their home and treated him like one of her boys. Grammy also had a connoisseur's eye for a good-looking male. She would have liked the way Jake's dark hair brushed his broad shoulders; she would have appreciated the wariness of his blue eyes and the length of his legs. She would have liked his gentleness and his strength. She, too, would have seen in his determination to be unfriendly the need to have a friend.
And what would Grammy have thought of me trying to jump his bones? Marnie grimaced at her lack of finesse. Admittedly that had been a little bold for the first time out of the gate. But the physical attraction was there. Even he couldn't deny it.
The reality was Jake Dolan was a little too much man for her right now. She didn't have time to add a sexy male into her equation. Not just yet. She had to figure out who she was to herself before she tried to figure out what she was to a man.
She sighed. Trust her to start her quest with the most difficult challenge of all.
Her breath misted as she trudged back up through the trees. The soft sounds of breeze and leaves soothed her, as they always did. The crisp, piney mountain air filled her lungs. Her muscles pulled pleasantly as she retraced her steps to Jake's cabin.
If he had his way, she'd be gone by nightfall. Probably the best thing for both of them.
But her heart leaped at the thought of seeing him again.
It took only a second to open the front door and look inside to see he and Duchess hadn't returned. Disappointed, she updated her note and closed the front door, then headed in the opposite direction.
A few hours without rain and the river might have subsided enough to cross. She'd check it out, then come back to wait for Duchess. She wasn't leaving the mountain without her.
Marnie grinned. That sounded as good as any other excuse she might come up with. And it was valid.
The rain might have stopped, but by the look of the clouds it was about to return, or maybe snow. She hunched inside her coat, pulling the collar up. Regardless of the weather, she'd rather be outdoors than in, any day. She'd spent enough passive hours indoors to last a lifetime.
The undergrowth was thicker beneath the trees, and snow from several weeks ago had turned into patches of ice in the shady pockets. She scrambled down into the wide, shallow ravine, where the going was considerably easier.
The expanse of water-smooth stones was dry except for the narrow shimmer of water meandering down the center. The snowmelt and rain had collected behind the main dam about a mile upstream. The overflow raced furiously down the parallel tributary about two miles up the mountain. Two footbridges provided access to this side of the mountain.
For the next mile it would be easier to keep to the riverbed, but soon she'd have to climb the bank again and take the route through the trees. The higher she went, the steeper the sides became. Before she got to the towering wall of the lower dam, six stories of vertical cement, she'd cut off into the trees to reach the tributary and the upper bridge.
A thin trickle of water cascaded in a silver ribbon over the sixty-foot drop of the cement retaining wall, fed from a bigger dam higher up the mountain. It had been an unseasonably dry winter, and the upper lake had not been full enough this year to be opened. The lower dam was empty, the ravine dry but for this narrow trickle of water down the middle.
The two rivers ran parallel to the logging road, but that had been closed for more than thirty years, right after the lumber and mining had played out.
Forty minutes later Marnie clambered up onto the half-mile-wide spit of land between the two rivers. It wasn't far to the narrow cement footbridge; she could hear the rushing water.
A strange noise cut off her thoughts. The sound was so out of place in the pristine outdoors that it took her a moment to identify.
It was the metallic action of a gun being cocked, and was followed immediately by the low rumble of men's voices. They were close. Extremely close.
Instinctively she dropped to the ground. Flat on her stomach, she snaked slowly backward into the thick brush, then ruffled the greenery so she couldn't be seen. She hoped.
Moments later five men dressed in black from head to toe strode past her hiding place. Their clothing was a loose version of a wetsuit, their heads covered with a drape of the same rubbery matte black fabric, making them all appear identical—right down to the long, lethal, matte black knives strapped to their calves, the automatic weapons slung over their shoulders, and the small, snub-nosed pistols in their gloved hands. One man spoke briefly and quietly in a foreign language. Another answered. Then they were eerily quiet.
Was one of them Jake Dolan? Was that why he was in such a hurry to get rid of her?
Either way this did not look good. Not good at all.
Marnie's mouth went dry and her heart started to beat faster as they passed within feet of her hiding place.
The wet leaves and earth soaked the front of her jacket and jeans, but she dared not move. Her eyes burned from trying not to blink. Who were these guys? Survivalists? No. They reminded her of ninjas or something out of a James Bond movie.
They looked like professionals. But professional what?
They moved so stealthily, so quietly, that if she hadn't known exactly where to look, she wouldn't have seen them at all.
Heart pounding in her ears, Marnie waited for the men to disappear from view. But no sooner had the trees swallowed them than another small group followed. Too frightened to breathe, she stayed frozen in place.
Whoever these men were, she was dead certain they had something to do with antisocial Jake Dolan.
It started to snow. So far just a light dusting, but by the look of the clouds they were in for one mother of a storm. Jake reluctantly headed back. There was a strange hush in the air. No animal sounds, no birds. Even the leaves seemed unnaturally still. He paused to listen. Nothing but the distant whisper of the river. Beside him Duchess stopped as well, ears swiveling.
Jake rested his hand on her large head, his gut sending up a warning flare. "What is it, girl?" he asked softly. "What do you hear?"
Duchess laid her ears back and growled deep in her throat.
"Yeah," Jake agreed grimly, trusting his instincts. "I feel it, too. Go to Marnie, girl. Make sure she's okay." The dog cocked her head, looking at him.
"Yeah, yeah. I'll be right behind you. Go!"
Her boobs were frozen. Marnie grimaced. Her entire front felt numb. It had been, she estimated, a good hour since she'd seen the last man. She flexed her fingers and contemplated the wisdom of standing up. A light dusting of snow coated her clothing and had melted into the knit cap, soaking her hair.
She decided to get up. If she didn't, she'd freeze to death.
She'd just shifted her feet under her when a large, icy hand clamped over her mouth.
Her heart ping-ponged in her chest. Damn. Too soon.
She definitely didn't plan on screaming and alerting the guy's friends, but she didn't have four big brothers for nothing. Using both hands, she pressed her captor's hand in place over her mouth and bit down on his palm. He muttered a vicious curse. At the same time she twisted around, gave his forearm a hard chop with her elbow, and rose to an upright crouch.
His arm dropped away. They came eye to eye.
He scowled.
Jake.
She grinned. She couldn't help it. "There are a bunch of bad guys around," she whispered." Why'd you have to grab me?"
"None of them look like screamers," Jake said dryly, his voice as soft as hers. "Watch out," he warned as Duchess nudged her from behind. He braced Marnie's shoulder, letting go the moment she regained her balance.
They sat on their haunches facing each other. Duchess looked from one to the other, then turned her back to watch the path, ears swiveling, eyes sharp.
Jake scanned Marnie up and down. "You okay?"
"Cold, wet, hungry. Fine," she said, using his brand of shorthand. His face ruddy with the co
ld, his dark hair tousled by the wind, he looked good enough to eat. "You?"
"Apparently batting a thousand this weekend." He gave her a penetrating look. "Who are your friends?"
"You saw them?" she whispered back, relieved.
Jake shook his head. "Felt them. Me and the dog."
"Yeah, well, they aren't my friends. They're the type my brothers warned me to avoid like the plague. And for once I'm inclined to listen. I think they've crashed our party and come calling on you."
He gave her an odd look. "How many?"
"I saw five. But there were more. I'm not certain how many."
"Physical description?"
"Black clothing, strange headdress. Professionals for sure. They all had Uzis slung over their shoulders, and small pistols. Their language was unfamiliar. I mean totally unfamiliar. I'm good with languages, but I didn't get a cl—"
"Don't ramble." He reached out and touched her frozen cheek. His warm breath fanned her face. He dropped his hand and draped it over his knee. "What else did you notice?"
"That's it."
"Close your eyes. Tell me what you saw."
"I told you, noth—" She closed her eyes. "Oh, wait. Each of them had a knife strapped to his leg. Right calf. No scabbard. The blades were about twelve inches long." She opened her eyes to look at him. "They were made out of some weird metal. Matte. Black. Sharp. Nasty-looking."
"Good. Anything else?" he asked grimly, his eyes scanning her face for God only knew what. "You were unusually observant," he said roughly. "Sure you didn't recognize any of them?"
"I'm an artist. Of course I notice details. But I can't recognize people I don't know, especially if their faces are covered. And trust me, Jake Dolan, those guys aren't in my little black book."
She sounded indignant enough to be convincing. But then, so had good old Soledad—just before she kneed him in the balls and tried to give him a Colombian necktie.
Marnie would have fought to the death, Jake realized, rubbing his smarting palm where she'd bitten him. But for which side?
