by Janie Crouch
That was what he was known for, right? Getting the job done. Getting what he needed by any means necessary. Feelings had nothing to do with stopping a killer.
Ren could feel the darkness, the shadows he’d lived and fought in for so long, wrap around him a little more tightly. Another little piece of his soul gone.
“Five days,” he said to Steve. “I’ll have what we need. Just be ready.”
The sound of cracking branches in the distance had him turning and slipping the phone into his jacket pocket. A few moments later Natalie came into view.
“Hi.” She rushed in, then stopped, breathing a little hard. She was back in her jeans and sweater, the sleeping bag wrapped around her again. She looked around, then took a few steps closer. “I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. And then it sounded like you were talking to someone and I got excited.”
Damn it. “I was talking to someone.” He smiled, then jerked his head toward the river. “This damn fish. Trying to coerce him onto my hook.”
Ren swallowed a curse as her eyes narrowed like she didn’t quite believe him. He let go of the rod and closed the distance between them until they were only a couple of feet from each other.
“I thought you’d sleep longer and not witness the lunacy that runs in my family in the form of talking to fish.”
“I’m normally an early riser.” She looked at the river, then back at him. “You were really talking to the fish?”
How much had she heard? “Did you hear what I was saying?”
“No.”
He stepped closer. He had to get her mind off this, and there was only one way he knew how. “I was telling the fish I needed to catch him so I could take him back to the beautiful woman I found draped over my body again this morning.”
“I was?” That flush. Damn, it was so adorable.
He reached out and grabbed the edges of the sleeping bag, pulling her closer. “You were. And just like yesterday I didn’t mind it at all.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I keep doing that... I just—I mean...”
He brought his lips down to hers, stopping her words.
The kiss was supposed to be a distraction. A way to stop her thinking about having heard him talking. Light. Fun. Hint of sweet flirtation and possible promise of more.
But the moment their lips touched every agenda he had vanished. What he meant to be sweet and soft immediately turned heated. Scorched air filled his lungs as she gave a little gasp at the attraction that crackled and danced around them.
He took complete possession of her mouth. There was no other word for it. His fingers slipped from the grip he had on the sleeping bag to slide around her back, wrapping low around her hips. The fingers of his other hand wound into the hair at the base of her neck, anchoring her in place so he could kiss her more deeply.
And he did. Over and over. Taking her mouth with a need he hadn’t even known could exist, especially not in a situation like this. He moved her back against a large tree, pulling her closer as her arms entwined around his neck.
It was her soft sigh of something close to wonder that brought him back to reality.
What the hell was he doing? That kiss had left the distracting-her-from-almost-catching-him category within the first three seconds and had gone straight to...
Hell if he knew.
He stepped back, giving him some much needed distance, and found her clear blue eyes blinking up at him as if she couldn’t quite figure out what was going on.
Know the feeling, Peaches.
He gave her a smile and moved away, trying—way too late—to make this more casual. And fighting the fear that this was going to leave them both bloody in the end.
Chapter Ten
Ren was showing her how to clean a fish.
Definitely not very romantic—although more romantic than teaching her how to skin the rabbit they’d caught a few hours ago—and yet, Natalie couldn’t deny the closeness between them. An easiness that almost bordered on fun, which was crazy since they were lost in the middle of the wilderness.
But for her, not crazy at all. Not since she woke up this morning and realized she had nothing to fear out here.
Okay, maybe wild animals and blizzards. She could handle those. But the fear that she would turn around and possibly find Damien standing there was gone. For the first time she was one hundred percent certain he had no idea where she was.
Hell, she had no idea where she was. How could Damien possibly find her?
He couldn’t.
That was the truth she’d come to grips with this morning. And that left Natalie with a feeling of freedom she hadn’t known for as long as she could remember. A sense that anything was possible, even if she did have to learn to catch and cook her own meat in order to supplement what they had inside the cabin.
And then there was Ren.
If she had to be trapped in the wilderness, she couldn’t have picked a better person to be trapped with. He knew how to hunt, fish, clean and prepare food.
And kiss.
That kiss. It hadn’t been far from her mind since this morning.
She’d never been kissed like that. Not even before Damien had become a vicious monster. Never been kissed like someone wanted her more than he wanted his next breath. Like he might forget they were in the middle of the frozen wilderness and take her right there against the tree.
And Natalie was pretty sure she wouldn’t have stopped him. Especially considering she hadn’t even been able to remember her own name at that moment, had only been able to feel.
He hadn’t kissed her again. Hadn’t really touched her, except as needed when they were hunting and fishing. She would almost think she’d imagined the whole thing if it wasn’t for the slight tenderness of her lips because of the onslaught from his.
“You ready to chop the head off?”
His words yanked her back. She made a face.
He smiled, rolling those green eyes. “You did pretty well earlier. I would think a fish would be easier.”
“I was hungrier earlier.” And the meat had been delicious. But she took the hatchet from him and quickly lopped off the head of the fish like he’d shown her and they began to clean it together.
Although she didn’t particularly like doing this, providing for herself gave her a sense of accomplishment. Purpose. A couple of hours later they had a fish broth with canned potatoes. And damned if it wasn’t one of the best meals she’d ever eaten. Because she’d been responsible for it herself.
After a lifetime of never being good enough at anything, some fish broth made by her own hands felt pretty fantastically rewarding.
“Did you do a lot of hunting and fishing on your farm?” she asked as they washed the dishes.
He looked at her for a long moment, as if he needed to decide something. He closed his eyes, tensing, and she hated that she had broken the easiness that had been between them all day by sticking her nose where it didn’t belong.
“I’m sorry,” she began. “I—”
“Actually, I learned most of my hunting tricks in the military. It was part of the wilderness and survival training I did during my time in the special forces.”
She folded the towel in her hand slowly and hung it on the rack. “Oh, wow. I didn’t know you’d been in the... I’m not sure which branch is special forces.”
“In this case, army,” he said. “I love the farm. Love my family. But I wanted to get out. See the world. See what else I was capable of.”
That made sense. He had a quiet, understated strength and confidence about him that would’ve been honed in the military, much more than it ever would’ve been on a farm.
“Did you like it? Why did you get out?”
“I was good at it. But I liked being my own boss, not having to follow orders blindly. So I got out after six year
s.”
She smiled as he gestured toward the living room, and they took a seat on the couch. “Did you get to see the world like you wanted?”
“I did. All over the place. The only continent I didn’t make it to was Antarctica. I have this huge collection of postcards from all these different places sitting in a box at home.”
“You didn’t mail them to anyone?”
He smiled and it caused a bloom of warmth in her chest. Near her heart. “Some to my mom, but no, mostly I just collected them. Never really had someone I cared about enough to want to share my life with. How about you, ever married?”
The warmth immediately froze. It wasn’t an unreasonable question. Funny, last week she wouldn’t have even known how to answer without knowing if she was lying. Brandon and Andrea had at least given her that truth. “Um, yeah. Once. A while ago. It ended.”
“I’m sorry.”
She wasn’t. “Some things die. Aren’t meant to survive. Better just to let it stay buried.”
How badly she wished she could let her marriage be buried. To put it truly behind her with no hold on her anymore.
Thankfully, Ren changed the subject. “So, you said you’re between jobs. Relocating. To Saint Louis?”
“No.” God, how much should she tell him? She didn’t want to lie to Ren since he’d been so friendly, but if those Omega Sector people came to question him, she didn’t want him to have any information. She would give him what she could without any specifics. “Honestly, I’m not sure. It was just time for a change. I’ll get a job when I get to wherever I’m going.”
“And what kind of job will that be?”
The same as before, she guessed. Whatever she could get being paid under the table. Dishwashing, cleaning, maybe lawn work. She shrugged. “Whatever I can get. I’m not really picky.”
He smiled again, stretching his arm along the back of the couch, and her heart tripped over its own beat. “Not trying to become a millionaire?”
“No, money’s not important to me.”
“You sound pretty sure about that.”
That was one of the few things she could say with absolute certainty. “Oh, I am. Some of the years when I was surrounded by the most money—a huge house, fancy cars and meals—were the most miserable I’d ever been in my whole life.”
His fingers tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I always wanted to travel places, like you did. But...my ex-husband had other interests.”
Ren shifted closer. “What sort of interests?”
She shrugged. To this day she still didn’t know much about Damien or what he did business-wise. She knew he’d stolen money, and that was how he’d become rich, but by the time she’d figured that out she’d been too deep in his clutches for it to make a difference.
“His work.”
“Was that bad? What did he do?”
She shifted in her seat. “I know this sounds so stupid, but I really don’t know every pie he had his fingers in. I never did. I married him really young. I lost both my parents when I was eighteen and didn’t have any other family. I was sort of lost. He swept into the art studio where I was working, made me feel like the most talented and important person in the world, then married me six weeks later.”
And put her in a cast six months after that.
“He never traveled with you anywhere? Even with all that money?”
Not after he decided she flirted with everyone she came in contact with and that she needed to be kept apart from everyone else. Once he decided he would make her perfect.
She’d never been perfect enough. “No. He had his own priorities.”
“Sounds like he wasn’t any good for you and you should be glad the marriage is over.”
Oh, she was. She just wasn’t sure Damien would feel the same way if he knew she was alive.
“What?” Ren asked. “What was that look?”
She wanted to trust him with the whole story, tell him how she’d faked her death and was afraid Damien would find her and hurt her again. She’d carried this for so long alone. The fear, the exhaustion, the isolation.
But it wasn’t Ren’s burden to carry.
So she just smiled. “No look. Things just don’t turn out like you thought they would, sometimes.”
His green eyes studied hers. “I know.”
She leaned her head back against the couch, against his hand still resting there.
“You ready to learn how to use the flint and make some fire with no matches?” he finally asked. It was one of the things he promised to show her. “The fire is down enough that I’ll put it out and you can rebuild it. It’ll be part of your SERE training.”
She laughed, sitting up with him. “My what?”
“SERE. Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. It’s a military acronym for training they give us.”
“I’m really only getting the S, so I don’t know if the army would approve.”
He chuckled. “Probably true. Let’s hope you never need the other, anyway, seeing as it was a carry-over from soldiers who escaped and evaded Nazis in World War II.”
“Yeah, I’m hoping not to be evading Nazis any time soon.”
He showed her how to build kindling starting with the smallest and finest twigs she could find. When she had what looked like a tiny teepee in the stove belly, he stepped back.
“Okay, strike the steel against the flint like I showed you, close to the tinder, and you’ll be all set.”
He stood up behind her. Natalie stared down at the round piece of steel—it looked like it belonged on the bridle of a horse—in one hand and the flint, which looked like a plain rock you might find in any backyard, in the other.
She tried to get it to work, but couldn’t. How hard could it be? Hitting one hard object against the other, getting a little spark and starting a fire? It certainly hadn’t looked difficult when Ren had shown her.
Tension began strumming through her as she continued to try. Her aggravation was doubled by knowing Ren was watching this whole time, probably wondering why she was so inept. Tears stung her eyes at her inability to get such a simple task completed. He’d shown her more than once, given her understandable instructions, and she couldn’t get it.
After another few minutes, sweat now dripping across her brow, she saw one of his shoes come into her line of vision as he moved closer. She forced her arms to hit the flint harder, even though she was tired now and holding herself in this position was hurting her back.
How long before he lost his patience and started yelling? Or just pushed her out of the way and did it himself?
“Natalie.”
She waited for the belittlement.
“Take a breath, okay, Peaches?”
She hunched her shoulders. “I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”
A moment later he was crouched behind her. “No need to be sorry. It can be tricky to use flint the first time.” His arms came around her, his hand covering hers on the steel and stone. “Try hitting it at a slightly steeper angle.”
He showed her again so she could get the feel for the motion. Then he let go, putting his hands on the stove, keeping her fenced between his arms. After a few more times she struck it again, and this time it worked.
Ren’s hands trailed up her arms to her shoulders as he moved away from her. “See? Just needed to get a feel for it. Nobody gets everything perfect all the time.”
Natalie looked away. When she thought about all the times she’d been corrected by Damien for not doing something right...which had usually involved his fists or worse. He’d demanded that she be perfect. Always perfect. In her life. In her art.
She never was.
“Whoa, hey, what’s going on here?” He reached over and cupped her cheeks, wiping tears with his thumbs. “There’s no cryi
ng in SERE training.”
She tried to smile. “I couldn’t get it. It wasn’t right.”
“Are you kidding? You’ve now built a fire that’s so big we’re going to have to crack a window.”
“But...”
“Natalie, you did it. That’s what matters. And hell, even if you hadn’t been able to do it, you could’ve tried again tomorrow.”
There had never been try again tomorrows with Damien. Only pain.
The urge to run now was strong. She needed to get away even from Ren, who’d never been anything but kind. Knowledge that she didn’t have anywhere to go had panic lacing her veins.
“I—I need to go to the bathroom.”
She flung herself by him and through the door that led to the attached outhouse. She had to pull herself together.
Ren was right. Perfection was not required here. Who cared if she couldn’t get the fire started? Ren certainly hadn’t. And more importantly, she had gotten it started.
She’d had such a peace this morning at the knowledge that Damien couldn’t find her here. It wouldn’t last forever; they’d have to leave soon—if not tomorrow, then in a few days, tops. She’d probably never have another place where she’d feel so secure again.
She wouldn’t let the ghost of Damien past ruin her present.
Since she was there she used the bathroom, then walked back into the cabin. She expected to find Ren with eyes full of questions she wasn’t sure she was going to know how to answer.
Instead, at first she didn’t see him at all. Then he straightened himself from where he’d obviously been putting something on the ground near the wall at the other end of the room, by the front door.
He held his hands out in front of him in a gesture of peace. “Look, I wasn’t snooping, but this morning I was looking through your backpack, trying to see if there was anything in there that could be useful, that you might have missed in the inventory you did yesterday.”
