by Paula Graves
It was only slightly damp when he pulled it from its hiding place, and the water-resistant canvas lining would almost certainly have protected anything inside from the elements.
Not that he supposed Susannah Marsh would quibble about wet shoes; they’d certainly be a big improvement on the bloody gauze wrap currently protecting her battered feet.
He’d purchased a pair of hiking boots and another pair of tennis shoes he hoped would be comfortable for walking, though he wasn’t exactly an expert on women’s shoes. She had narrow, delicate-looking feet, although the hard calf and thigh muscles he’d seen—and felt—while carrying her through the woods on his back had suggested she wasn’t nearly as soft and ornamental a woman as she looked.
That was good. She’d need to pull her weight over the next few days, until he could figure out what to do next.
He couldn’t be sure Myron or the others had recognized him, but it was likely they had. So his undercover assignment was officially over, as far as he was concerned. While he suspected his boss might wish him to take a chance and try to get back inside the cell, he wasn’t stupid enough to risk it. He’d already come damn close to pushing up daisies twice in his life.
No hurry to do that again anytime soon, right?
Hiking back to the cave with the backpack strapped to his shoulders reminded him of the frantic run through the woods with Susannah Marsh clinging to his back like a leech. A leech with long, well-toned legs and pert little breasts that had somehow managed to feel both soft and firm against his shoulder blades.
Plus, she’d smelled like freshly cut tart apples. How could she possibly have managed such a thing after a long day in the office and a headlong run for her life?
He tried to follow the path he and Susannah had taken earlier that night in hopes of tracking down his missing cell phone, but he’d seen no sign of the phone by the time he reached the cave entrance. He had to assume it was now in the custody of one of the Blue Ridge Infantry foot soldiers Billy Dawson had sent to kill Susannah Marsh.
The phone was a burner, and he took care not to leave any incriminating evidence for Dawson or the others to find. Even his calls to his handler, as he’d come to think of the wily old ex-spy who had hired him for this operation, were calls to another burner phone that would be next to impossible for Dawson and his crew to trace.
Alexander Quinn had made sure of that. After all, the Blue Ridge Infantry might be a crew of authority-hating rednecks with a mean streak, but not long ago, they’d aligned themselves with a band of tech-savvy anarchists as well as a hodgepodge of downright entrepreneurial drug cookers that had once formed the standing army for a criminal named Wayne Cortland.
Cortland had died a couple of years ago, and the authorities had largely dismantled the organization in a series of raids not long afterwards.
But the remaining remnants now had a blueprint for success. A business model, if you wanted to put it in those terms. When the local cops, already dealing with more than their share of crime, had moved on to other cases, Alexander Quinn had apparently decided to take up the slack. He seemed to be making the job of cleaning up the post-Cortland mess a personal project.
Overhead, a break in the rain clouds offered a brief glow of moonlight, just enough to reveal the rain-slick face of the rocky overhang that hid the small cave where Susannah Marsh was waiting. He slowed his approach, trying to prepare himself for telling her the truth about why he’d confronted her in the parking lot earlier that evening—and just what he had planned for them for the next few days.
She wasn’t going to like it. That much he knew for sure. If Susannah Marsh was known for anything around the Highlands Hotel and Resort, it was her polished, professional look. Men and women alike commented on it when she wasn’t in earshot, and not all of the talk was kind, but Hunter chalked the negative talk up to envy.
Susannah Marsh was damn near flawless. She dressed with meticulous style, her clothing a compromise between fashion and function. Never inappropriate, but always sleek and attractive. Perfectly groomed, perfectly competent, perfectly lovely.
But what he had in mind for the next few days, he was pretty sure she’d find perfectly appalling.
He had been sticking with a stealthy approach to the cave to this point, but he didn’t want to sneak up on her and scare her, so as he reached the mouth of the cave, he made sure to make a little noise to give her notice of his arrival. “Susannah?” No answer.
Peering into the gloom, he tried to make out any signs of movement. But the cave interior was cold and still.
Pulling his keys from his pocket, he winced at the jingle of metal on metal as he located the small penlight he kept on his key chain. With a flick of his finger, the penlight beam came on, and he ran the light across the width of the cave.
The first-aid kit was still there, lying on the stone outcropping where they’d sat a little while earlier. Even the flashlight was there, snugged up next to the first-aid kit.
But Susannah Marsh was nowhere in sight.
The flashlight beam caught a glimmer of white on the cave floor beneath the stone bench. Crouching with a grimace of pain, he shined the light on the floor, taking in several half-moon-shaped white slivers. It took a second to realize what he was seeing.
Nail clippings. She’d cut off her nails.
He picked up the first-aid kit to put it in his pocket and stopped as he realized it was considerably lighter than when he’d used it to bandage her feet earlier. When he checked inside, he found that all of the gauze that had been packed within was gone.
What the hell was the woman up to?
* * *
WAS SHE CRAZY to be doing this?
When Susannah had left the cave, she’d been certain that the worst possible choice she could make was to stay there and wait for Hunter to get back. No matter how attractive he might seem, especially when he was standing between her and a bunch of men with guns, he wasn’t her friend. He wasn’t even an acquaintance. He was just a guy she’d seen for the first time in an elevator earlier that very day. For all she knew, he’d been lying when he told her he’d hit the button for the wrong floor.
Maybe he’d been looking for her the whole time.
But now that she was out in the woods, shivering from the cold and biting her lip to keep from moaning over the pain in her injured feet, she was beginning to second-guess her decision to strike out on her own.
Yes, she knew a little something about getting around in the mountains. And yes, she’d done a pretty damn good job of fashioning shoes out of gauze, tape and a couple of slabs of wood she’d used her Swiss Army knife to shave off a fallen tree limb she’d found near the mouth of the cave.
But the makeshift shoes were already starting to fall apart, no match for the wet, tangled underbrush and rocky soil. The temperature had to have dropped another five or ten degrees since sunset, and her coat was made for getting from the office to the car, not for traipsing around in the woods on a cold, damp October night.
And worst of all, she had a bad feeling she was lost.
She usually could find her way around anywhere, but in her panic to get away from men shooting at her, she’d lost track of what direction they’d gone. She’d never learned to navigate by the stars, having grown up in the middle of the Smoky Mountains, a long way from the sea. And the heavens had opened up again, anyway, mountain fog and driving rain obscuring everything outside a fifty-yard radius.
She might as well be in the middle of a big, tree-strewn void for all the good her surroundings were doing her at the moment.
Stubbornly quelling the panic starting to hurtle up from her trembling gut, she made herself stop and take a long, deep breath. Look around. What do you see?
Trees. Fog.
Someone moving through the woods ahead.
Shock zapped through her, compelling her to run. She clamped down on the instinct, knowing that movement was the worst possible thing at the moment. Standing very still, several yards from the
dark silhouettes she could barely make out moving through the mist about thirty yards away, she had a chance to escape their notice. Her coat was a dark olive-green trench that covered her from neck to knee, and the underbrush covered her legs from toes to knees. Only her face and hands would be visible in the damp gloom, and they might be mistaken for the patchy white trunk of a birch tree.
As long as she stayed very, very still.
Nearby, something rustled in the underbrush. She held her position, ruthlessly suppressing the urge to turn her head and see what was moving around so close by.
Ahead, the two dark-clad figures walking through the trees kept moving. Apparently they’d heard nothing, or if they had, they’d chalked it up to an animal wandering around in the rain.
The pounding rush of her pulse in her ears was so loud it almost eclipsed the staccato beat of the rain, which had risen to a torrent. Even the thick evergreen boughs overhead weren’t enough to keep her from becoming thoroughly drenched. But she didn’t move, not even to wipe the rain out of her stinging eyes.
The dark figures kept moving, gliding with terrifying silence through the fog until they disappeared from her sight.
She ignored her body’s urge to crumple into a boneless heap and stayed still a few moments longer until she was sure the prowling men were no longer in earshot.
She heard the rustling noise again. Closer this time.
Her patience and control left in a snap, and she started running headlong through the woods, heedless of the noise she was making or the painful slap of her unraveling gauze-and-tape footwear against her battered feet. All she could think about was the chill-inducing menace of the men she’d seen gliding through the misty woods like vengeful ghosts.
The tape on her right foot tore away completely, and she went sprawling, barely catching herself from landing face-first on the rocky ground. She hit hard, the impact driving the air from her lungs and leaving her gasping and heaving for breath.
For a few terrifying seconds, the world around her seemed to go completely black as her oxygen-starved lungs struggled to refill. And in that frightening void, Susannah heard her grandmother’s voice, sharp and clear.
“Get yourself together, girl. Ain’t nobody gonna fix your troubles ’cept you.”
Air seeped into her lungs, easing the blackness. Cold, damp air replaced the burning pain in her chest, and slowly her pulse descended from the stratosphere to a fast but steady cadence.
Get yourself together, girl, she repeated silently, gathering up the remains of her ersatz shoe and examining it to see if there was any hope of making a repair.
Nope. It was a goner.
Allowing herself only a second or two of despair, she rose to her feet and shoved the bundle of tattered gauze and tape in the pocket of her flimsy jacket. Gingerly putting her injured foot on the ground, she gauged the discomfort level and, while it hurt like hell, she thought she could bear it, at least a little while longer.
She took a careful step forward. The ground was rough, wet and hard, but she could take it.
The flurry of movement behind her came out of thick silence, like a whirlwind born from dead calm. She had time to suck in a quick breath and take a stumbling step forward before she was jerked back against a wall of hard heat. A large hand clamped over her mouth and a low drawl rumbled in her ear.
“Don’t make a sound.”
Chapter Four
He could feel her heartbeat against his chest, fluttering like a frantic bird. Not daring to unclamp his hand from her mouth, he whispered in her ear, “It’s Hunter. I know you saw those men out there. You need to stop making so damn much noise.”
He felt her body tense up, her muscles knotting as she strained against his grip. He tightened his hold and added, “If I let you go, will you promise not to scream?”
Slowly, she nodded.
He eased his grip, watching for any sign that she wasn’t going to keep her promise. She jerked free of his grasp and whirled around to look at him, her eyes blazing in the watery glint of moonlight peeking through the storm clouds overhead. “Who were they?” Her words came out so softly, he saw more than heard the question.
He put one finger over his lips and turned away from her, reaching both hands over his shoulders toward her. With a soft exhalation, she caught his hands and he hauled her onto his back, releasing her hands once she had a firm grip on his shoulders and wrapping his arms around her legs to hold her safely in place.
“This is humiliating, you know,” she whispered in his ear, her breath stirring his hair and sending a shudder of raw masculine need scudding down his spine. He closed his eyes, took a long, slow breath and let it out in a ten count. Then he started back through the woods the way he’d come, hoping the rainfall would obscure their trail before anyone came back out here to start looking for them again.
He’d stashed his supplies between a couple of large boulders, hidden under a dun-colored rain tarp, in case someone discovered the cave before he got back. Carrying them in his backpack had made sense when he thought they’d have time for a more leisurely escape. But it was a whole other thing to chase an escapee through the woods while dodging unidentified strangers carrying a heavy pack on his back.
He stopped by the pair of boulders and set her down.
“Why are we stopping?” she whispered.
“For this.” He tugged the tarpaulin from over the large rucksack, folding it neatly and handing it to her.
She stared at the large olive-drab backpack first, then at him. “How long were you planning this?” Even though she still spoke in a whisper, her inflection rose, and he could see in the widening of her eyes that she found his foresight alarming.
“This particular set of circumstances?” he answered quietly, slinging one strap of the pack over his shoulder. “About three hours.”
She eyed him nervously as he held out his free arm. “You knew there were going to be people gunning for me tonight, didn’t you?”
He didn’t see the point of dissembling. “Yes.”
“How?”
“Let’s get back in the cave and see how much damage you did to my handiwork.” He didn’t wait for her to make a move. He just wrapped his arm around her, lifting her half off her feet, and started walking toward the cave.
He hadn’t given her much choice but to stumble along beside him. Considering the flaring anger he could practically see swirling around her like a big red cloud, he was grateful she didn’t show any signs of fighting him as he hauled her into the cave.
He should have known he wasn’t going to get away with the caveman act for long. The second he let her go and turned to set the rucksack down on the floor of the cave, she sucker punched him right in the kidney.
Pain exploded through his side, shooting off shrapnel of pure agony to tear through his gut and groin. Doubling over, he wheeled to fend off her next blow, but it never came. When the stars cleared from his vision, he found himself staring into her crumpled face.
The damn woman was crying.
Before he could process the unexpected sight, she’d regained control, her expression returning to a cool, neutral mask as she dashed away the tears from her eyes as if they were mere raindrops that had slithered down from her damp hair.
“Think you could answer a question directly now?” she asked in a regal tone that sent ice flooding his veins.
There was the princess he knew.
“You gonna sucker punch me again if I don’t?”
Her mask slipped, just a bit, a hint of a wry smile hovering over the corners of her lips. The rain had washed away her carefully applied makeup, leaving her bedraggled and natural, but she still looked utterly royal and in control. “If necessary.”
He rubbed his back over the site of her blow. The skin was tender, but the worst of the pain had ebbed to a dull ache. “You went for the kidney.”
“Shameful of me.” She didn’t sound particularly regretful, but he’d seen that moment of breakdown, no matter how qu
ickly she’d managed to don the icy mask again.
“I was working with them. But I wasn’t one of them.” He hadn’t meant to tell her even that much, but the second he opened his mouth, the words had spilled in a rush.
Her eyes narrowing, she nodded toward the backpack he’d dropped when she hit him. “Did you put the flashlight in there?”
“Yeah.”
She bent to pick up the pack, grunting a little as she encountered the unexpected weight. “How long did you pack for?”
“A few days. More if we can get to a place where we can do some laundry.”
She located the flashlight he’d tucked in one of the pack’s outer pockets and flicked on the switch. Light knifed through the darkness, piercing Hunter right in the eyes.
“You planned to kidnap me.” It wasn’t a question, and her tone was oddly neutral, as if she were merely a disinterested observer trying to make sense of a situation she’d stumbled upon.
“I knew I’d have to get you away from that parking lot, yes.”
“Because of the gunmen.”
He hadn’t really been sure exactly how they planned to kill her. Guns had seemed a reasonable option, since most of the men in the cell owned them. A whole carload of them shooting off their guns and making a lot of noise hadn’t exactly been what he’d been expecting, though. The concept of stealth apparently didn’t factor into how the BRI conducted their business.
Calling themselves an “infantry,” he thought with a grimace. They weren’t fit to lick the boots of the real warriors they claimed to emulate.
She must have seen the grimace. “You weren’t expecting the gunmen?”
“I wasn’t sure what to expect. I only knew that whatever they had planned was happening this evening, and I had to get you out of there.”
She looked at him for a long, silent moment, then walked slowly over to the stone bench and sat. It was a little high and narrow to make a proper bench, forcing her to perch more than sit. She looked bone-tired and disheartened, and one of her feet, the one that had lost whatever crazy bandage she’d put on them for her trek through the woods, was bleeding again.
