Boneyard Ridge

by Paula Graves

  At least he could help her out with that.

  He picked up the pack she’d set down on the cave floor and unzipped the main compartment. The beam of the flashlight slanted toward him, and he made a show of letting her see what he was doing. “I packed some shoes for you. I figured you’d be in heels, and they’re not exactly made for wandering around the woods.”

  “You don’t know my size.”

  She’d be surprised what he knew. Like the fact that she kept a pair of tennis shoes in her desk drawer in case she wanted to do a power walk during her lunch hour. Or her secret addiction to dark-chocolate drops. It was remarkable how many secrets a maintenance man could uncover if he was interested enough to snoop around while doing his work.

  She kept her desk and belongings more neat and inscrutable than most, but he’d been able to get her foot size from the running shoes. He’d have preferred to sneak out her actual shoes, but there’d been no chance to slip into the office that afternoon before the trouble started going down. He’d had to make a run into Barrowville to do some shopping at the thrift store in town.

  Deciding on the tennis shoes over the hiking boots, he tossed them to the cave floor in front of her and kept digging for the sweater and jeans he’d bought at the same thrift store. The sweater would fit, even if it was a little big. The jeans looked as if they’d fit as well, although he might have to come up with something to use as a belt.

  Susannah picked up the shoes and looked inside at the size. Her gaze snapped up to meet his, her lips tight with dismay. “Have you been stalking me? Is that what this is really about?”

  He almost laughed at the thought. If she only knew how much he wished he was pretty much anywhere else but here at the moment—

  “Don’t suppose you have a phone stashed in there?” she asked a moment later when he didn’t reply.

  “Sorry. No.” He found the sweater and jeans and carried them over to her. She looked at the garments through narrow, suspicious eyes. “They’re warmer,” he said bluntly.

  “How long do you plan to keep me out here?” She didn’t reach for the clothes.

  With a shrug, he set the clothes on the stone bench beside her. “At least forty-eight more hours.”

  She turned her gaze from the clothes to him. “Why forty-eight hours?”

  He waited for her to figure it out.

  Her eyes snapped open wider. “This is about the conference this weekend?”

  He pulled one last item from the pack, a corduroy jacket. It wouldn’t be heavy enough if the temperature really dropped over the next few days, but it should be enough, with the sweater and jeans, to ward off hypothermia during their hike out of this part of the mountain.

  He set it on top of the other clothes. “I’m going outside for a few minutes to scout around, see if there’s any sign of those other men we saw a little while ago. Go ahead and get dressed. We don’t have a lot of time.”

  “Don’t have a lot of time for what?” she asked, not making a move toward the clothes.

  He tried not to lose his patience, knowing it was a lot to ask of her to wait for events to unfold when she was cold, injured and probably scared out of her pretty wits. “We need to leave this cave and go somewhere safer and warmer.”

  “Like a police station?”

  He didn’t even roll his eyes that time. Improvement.

  But he didn’t bother to answer her question before he walked out into the rainy night.

  * * *

  HE MIGHT BE a frustrating cipher, but the man knew how to pick warm and comfortable clothes, Susannah had to concede a few minutes later as she tugged a thick corduroy jacket over the fuzzy sweater. He’d chosen clothing a little larger than her size, but his spot-on choice of footwear suggested he’d opted for the larger size deliberately, figuring it would be easier to get around in roomy clothing than a tighter fit. The jeans were a notch too large, but not so big that she needed a belt, thanks to her stress-induced chocolate binge over the past week.

  He was waiting outside the cave, his sharp green eyes scanning the misty woods. He seemed to take his sentry duty very seriously, making her wonder what, exactly, he used to do for a living before taking a job as a hotel maintenance worker.

  Clearly there was more to the man than she’d assumed. His earlier show of shy deference was long gone, replaced by a stubborn implacability that was somehow both unnerving and comforting.

  “Any sign of intruders?” she asked quietly.

  He answered without looking at her. “No. But we can’t assume they’re not out there.”

  “So we hike out of here, anyway?”

  “Something like that.”

  She shifted from one foot to the other, testing the feel of the shoes on her injured feet. He’d included a pair of thick, fluffy socks that padded her wounds well enough, but they made the shoes a tighter fit than she might have liked.

  On the other hand, the tight fit offered good arch support, which she’d probably appreciate if they were planning to hike their way out of these woods.

  Unfortunately, she realized a half hour later, leaving the woods didn’t seem to be part of the plan. They were headed into deeper forest, on a winding but unmistakable upward climb. The mist thickened, but the air thinned. They were heading higher into the mountains, which meant they were going east.

  She might not be a geographer, but she knew that Barrowville and civilization lay to the west. “We’re not heading out of the woods, are we?”

  He didn’t look at her. It seemed to be a habit with him. “I have a cabin about two miles from here. Not much, but it’s warm and there’s food and water there.”

  “You want us to hike two more miles tonight?”

  “If we wait until morning, there’ll be cops and searchers swarming this area looking for you.”

  “You’re not exactly providing me a good reason to go with you.”

  “Well, how about this? I know there’s at least one cop on the take in Barrowville, which has jurisdiction in this area. I just don’t know who he is. Or what he looks like.”

  “And I have to take your word for that?” she countered sharply. “Because you’ve given me such a good reason to trust you up to this point.”

  “I saved you from being mowed down in the hotel parking lot.” His voice was razor-edged. “I brought you clothes to warm you up and shoes to protect your feet. Hell, I carried you piggyback. Twice. And let me tell you, princess, you may not be an Amazon, but you’re not exactly dainty, either.”

  She faltered to a stop, shooting him a dark look. “Clearly, you’re not looking to impress me with your gentlemanly charms, either.”

  He laughed, turning to look at her for the first time since they’d left the cave. “I’m a lot of things, darlin’, but a gentleman ain’t one of them.”

  As he started hiking forward again, she caught up and asked, “Does the cabin have indoor plumbing?”

  She saw the slight curve of his lips but he didn’t answer her question, pushing forward at a surprising clip, given his obvious limp.

  Gritting her teeth against the pain of her injured feet, she hurried up the mountain after him.

  * * *

  THE CABIN WAS, to put it mildly, rustic. It had running water and electricity, but that was the extent of luxuries his little bolt-hole could offer, and during the winter, when the snows fell, electricity wasn’t a given.

  He had a woodstove for the long, cold nights when the power failed, and a rainwater cistern if a pipe burst from the occasional deep freeze. Canned goods in the pantry could be opened by hand and heated over the woodstove.

  It wasn’t Highland Hotel and Resort, and he doubted Susannah Marsh would find much to please her refined tastes, but she wouldn’t freeze and she wouldn’t starve. Considering how close she’d come to bleeding out in the hotel employees’ parking lot, she’d have to make do, at least until he figured out what to do next.

  Contacting Quinn directly was out, at least for the moment, even though
he had another burner phone stashed in the cabin. His second call to his boss that afternoon had gone straight to voice mail, a preordained signal that Quinn suspected their line of communication might be compromised.

  Hunter didn’t know what constituted “compromised communication,” but he knew better than to doubt the instincts of his wily boss. Quinn might be borderline paranoid, but he’d managed to survive some of the most hair-raising covert ops in history. Survival skills like those meant something, even to a former Army infantry grunt like Hunter, who’d never cared much for the spooks who’d haunted the perimeters of the battlefield during major military ops.

  He might not ever really like Quinn, but he trusted the man’s finely honed sense of caution.

  They veered off the barely visible path as they neared the hidden cabin. Behind him, Susannah was still struggling to keep up with his long strides, though she walked with less noise than he’d expected. It was taking sheer determination on his own part to maintain as much stealth as possible, because his old war wounds were hurting like hell.

  The clearing appeared almost without warning, with no discernible path to announce its existence. A ring of firs, pines and hemlocks stood sentinel around the tiny homestead, protecting the cabin from view even in the winter, when hardwood trees would shed their leaves for the season. The evergreens had been planted there nearly a half century earlier by his grandfather, who’d preferred seclusion to the increasingly dangerous world outside.

  Catching up as Hunter slowed his gait, Susannah sucked in a small gasp of air, and he wondered idly what she thought of the place.

  The cabin wasn’t much to look at from the outside, a low-slung edifice built from rough-hewn logs. The porch extended along the whole front of the cabin, but it wasn’t very wide because the cabin wasn’t large.

  Two steps up and they were at the front door.

  Because of its seclusion, there had never been any reason to put in a lock, and for decades, the door had remained unlocked and the cabin undisturbed. But Hunter didn’t see the point of taking chances, not after how easily he’d been ambushed and abducted several months ago. He’d installed a sturdy padlock on both the front and back doors of the cabin, and new latches on all the windows.

  He saw Susannah eyeing those latches as he led her into the cabin and turned the dead bolt behind them. Probably thought he was keeping her prisoner, and he didn’t hurry to disabuse her of the idea. If a little healthy fear would keep her from doing something foolish, like trying to sneak off on her own again, then he’d use it.

  “Nice place,” she said. Her tone wasn’t obviously sarcastic, but he assumed she meant the comment that way.

  He knew the place wasn’t much, but it offered him a sense of security in an increasingly insane world. It was one of the few things he owned that he hadn’t sold to raise his sister’s bail money.

  “I know it doesn’t look very big, but there’s a good-size bedroom. You can have it, of course. I’ll take the couch.”

  He saw her eye the old sofa with skepticism, and he couldn’t really blame her. He’d bought the battered piece of furniture at the thrift store in Barrowville a few months earlier, but for all its shabby appearance, the springs were sturdy enough and the cushions comfortable, even though his legs hung off a bit when he slept there.

  He’d stayed in the cabin several times since returning home from Afghanistan, when his guilt about his sister’s legal troubles had gotten to be too much for him to cope with back at her place. He’d bunked down here on the sofa more often than not, finding its rougher embrace easier to deal with than the civilized softness of the bed.

  “How can you be sure I won’t sneak out while you’re asleep?” she asked quietly as he dropped the rucksack on the low coffee table and began to unpack supplies.

  He slanted a look toward her. “You’re not my prisoner.”

  “Forgive me if I feel that way.”

  He waved his hand toward the door. “You know how dead bolts work. Feel free to let yourself out.”

  She actually took a couple of steps toward the door before she stopped, her chin dipping to her chest. Not looking at him, she asked, “Why were they trying to kill me?”

  There was a strange undertone to her question that piqued his curiosity, as if she already knew the answer but needed him to say the words aloud.

  So he did. “You’re in the way of their plan.”

  Her gaze flickered up to meet his, confusion glittering in her eyes. He saw with a jolt of surprise that one of her brown eyes had gone light gray with a touch of hazel around the pupil. He blinked a couple of times before he was sure what he was seeing.

  “What?” she asked, noticing his reaction.

  “You wear brown contacts.”

  Her brow furrowing, she blinked a couple of times herself. “Damn.”

  “Why would you want to hide your eye color?” he blurted.

  She looked down. “I like variety.”

  She was lying.

  “You didn’t finish answering my question,” she continued, her gaze stubbornly averted. “I’m in the way of what plan?”

  He might as well tell her, he supposed. If anyone had a right to know what was going on, it was the woman who’d damn near given up her life for what the BRI had planned.

  “A militia group called the Blue Ridge Infantry is planning to sabotage the law enforcement convention being held at the hotel this weekend.”

  Chapter Five

  “Why?”

  The question spilled from Susannah’s lips before she had time to formulate a rational thought. If she had, she might have asked a more important question, such as how he knew these things and how the attack was supposed to take place.

  But she supposed “why” was a good start.

  Especially since her cousin McKenna was going to be one of the attendees.

  Another question popped into her head. Could the Bradburys have made the connection between Susannah and her cousin? Had they targeted the upcoming conference knowing McKenna was going to be there?

  Wouldn’t that be ironic? Targeting the conference because of McKenna, never realizing that Susannah herself was right there in the thick of it all.

  But the Bradburys had never been connected to any militia groups, had they? They’d always been freakishly clannish, prone to trusting nobody but family, however vile and revolting those kinsmen might be.

  Hunter’s growl of a voice interrupted her musings. “Two hundred top cops from three states in one hotel? Hell of a temptation to a bunch of people who loathe authority.” He waved toward the sofa, a tacit invitation to have a seat.

  She limped to the sofa and sat on one end, surprised to find the piece of furniture sturdier and more comfortable than it looked. She glanced up at him, putting aside the thoughts of her cousin and any possible connection to the Bradburys of Boneyard Ridge. Sometimes coincidences were just coincidences.

  “And you’re part of the plan?” she asked.

  “I was what you’d call a forward scout, I suppose.” He answered with his back to her, crossing to the fireplace that took up half the near wall. But instead of logs, a large space heater filled the width of the fireplace. He plugged it in to the wall socket and a few seconds later, the unit hissed to life, giving off blessed heat and ambient light.

  “What do you do for heat when the power’s out?” she asked.

  He glanced at her. “There’s a woodstove in the bedroom and another one in the kitchen. But the lines to this place were laid underground, so there aren’t as many outages as you might expect from a place this far up the mountain.”

  “How did you ever find this place?”

  “My grandfather built it. Let’s just say, he lived through the early years of the Cold War and prepared for any eventuality.” He smiled, but behind the humor, she saw a hint of admiration as well. He seemed to be a man who appreciated the benefits of having a good contingency plan.

  Military, she thought after a moment’s considerati
on, remembering the rucksack full of necessary supplies. Not one of those desk-jockey rear-echelon types, either. She tried to picture his hair, currently collar-length and wavy, cut in a crisp, military style. What did they call it, high and tight?

  She could see it, she decided, her gaze narrowing as it skimmed the hard angle of his jaw. Could explain the bum leg as well.

  Something flitted in the back of her mind, tantalizingly out of reach. Something to do with a wounded warrior—

  “No more questions?” he asked, jerking her attention back to her present situation.

  “Why me?”

  “I told you. You were in the way.”

  “Of what? I’m not in security.”

  His gaze flicked her way. “Yeah, I know.”

  “What was your role? Following me around? Is that why you stayed on the elevator earlier today instead of getting off?”

  His lips curved slightly at the corners, carving shallow dimples in his lean cheeks. “No, that was my own bit of freelancing.”

  “I suppose you’re going to tell me you’re really on my side.”

  The dimples deepened, though there wasn’t much in the way of mirth shining from his green eyes. “I suppose you wouldn’t believe me if I did.”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted, then immediately wished she’d just kept her mouth shut. She was in a very vulnerable situation at the moment, and showing any sign of weakness in front of this man was just asking for trouble.

  If her grandmother had taught her anything during the long, hard years of her childhood, it was to never show weakness. Displays of weakness made you look like a tasty morsel for the big, bad wolves of the world, and in the neck of the woods where she’d grown up, there were a whole hell of a lot of nasty wolves roaming those hills and hollows.

  She knew from personal experience.

  “I don’t want anyone hurt. But whatever they’re planning for the conference is only the opening act. And I’m not sure what they have in mind for the main event.”