Unforgettable

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Unforgettable Page 6

by Cassie Miles


  “I told you before. We can’t drag anybody else into danger.” Why didn’t she understand? “If the horses show up, the people at the ranch will know that something happened to you. They’ll report it. Local police will be involved.”

  “As if that’s a bad thing?”

  Her sarcasm was the last straw. He wheeled around on Fabio and rode up beside her, confronting her face-to-face. She appeared to be blasé and cool.

  “There’s a time to be a smart-ass, Caitlyn. This isn’t it.”

  “What do you want me to do? Burst into tears?”

  Tears would be more normal than the facade she was putting up. He wanted an honest reaction from her. “Rojas wants us dead. Both you and me. If he gets his hands on us, death won’t be painless. This isn’t a game. It isn’t a tidy little story you’re writing for an article.”

  “You don’t know anything about what I do for a living.”

  “Tell me,” he challenged.

  “I lived on the front lines of battle.” Her eyes darkened. She wasn’t joking, not anymore. “I’ve seen things you couldn’t imagine.”

  “There’s a difference between reporting on the shooting and being the target.”

  “Really? The incoming bombs didn’t know the difference. An improvised explosive device couldn’t tell that I was a reporter. I know what it’s like to be in danger, Jack. I remember every minute, every horrible minute. Sometimes, I wake up at night and…”

  He was beginning to understand her earlier reaction. “That’s what happened to you when you heard the gunfire. You had a flashback. You froze.”

  “The only way I can handle the panic is to ignore it, pretend that it’s erased. But it won’t go away. I can’t forget. That fear is branded into my brain.”

  If they were going to survive, he needed for her to be fully in control. She needed to be smart and conscious. To get beyond the flashbacks.

  If they weren’t careful, her memories would kill them.

  Chapter Seven

  Caitlyn couldn’t help feeling the way she did. Her way of hiding fear was bravado. Cracking jokes and making snide comments gave her a buffer zone. One of the reporters she worked with in Iraq said that when it came to gallows humor she was the executioner. What else could she do? The alternative was to turn as hard as stone.

  But the way she’d frozen when she heard gunfire wasn’t typical. In other combat situations, she’d been able to respond and follow orders. The attack at her cabin had been unprovoked, unexpected. Because there hadn’t been time to prepare herself, fear rushed in and overwhelmed her. She could never let that happen again. Her response had almost gotten them killed.

  Jack reached toward her, spanning the space between their horses. She slapped his hand and turned her head away. “I’m fine.”

  “Listen to me, Caitlyn.”

  “You don’t have to explain again. I’ve read the news stories. I know the cartels are famous for their vengeance. And brutal. Their victims are dismembered, beheaded, burned alive. I know what Rojas is capable of.”

  “Look at me.”

  Reluctantly, she lifted her gaze. His eyes narrowed to jade slits. A muscle twitched in his jaw. He was fierce, a warrior. Quietly, she said, “I’m glad you’re on my side.”

  “I don’t make promises lightly.” His voice had an edge of steel. “Believe me, Caitlyn. I won’t let them hurt you.”

  How could he stop them? Sure, he was tough, and his marksmanship at the cabin had been nothing short of amazing, but he was only one man. “We need backup.”

  “Do you really think your friend Danny is a match for Rojas?”

  “What do you know about Danny?”

  “I’m assuming he’s the cop who came to your house.”

  “You were watching my cabin.” She appreciated his concern. Instead of putting miles between himself and Rojas, Jack stuck around to keep an eye on her. “Why?”

  “Guilt,” he said. “I feel like hell for putting you in danger.”

  “How did you know they’d come back?”

  “I didn’t. That was the worst-case scenario.” His eyes scanned the forest impatiently. “I have a strategy. Plan for the worst and hope for the best.”

  “Something you learned while working for Santoro?”

  “Santoro wasn’t my first job. Let’s get back to Danny. You gave him a long hug. Are you close?”

  “I’ve known him since we were teenagers. He’s like a big brother. And why do you care about who I’m hugging? Are you jealous?”

  “Hell, no.”

  His denial came too fast. He was jealous. “Danny is happily married.”

  “Good for him. Now, here’s the plan. We’ll take the horses down to a field and leave them. Then we come back here, climb the rocks and find a place to hide until nightfall.”

  “I know this area better than you,” she said. “Let me take the lead.”

  “Move fast.”

  As she rode down to an open area beyond a grove of aspen, she digested the very interesting fact that Jack cared enough about her to stay and watch her cabin, and he was jealous when he saw another man give her a hug. He must be attracted to her. He’d kissed her, after all.

  Frankly, that attraction went both ways. He was handsome, aggressive, masculine and…totally unavailable. It was just her rotten luck to get involved with a guy who worked for a crime family and would be going into witness protection.

  When they reached the creek at the edge of the meadow, she dismounted, removed the saddles and used a rope to lightly hobble the front legs of their horses. She didn’t like to leave Fabio and Lacy alone for a prolonged period of time, but they’d be all right for a couple of hours. When she and Jack were safely on their way, she’d call Heather and tell her where to find the horses.

  Jack slung the little backpack she’d prepared for him over his shoulder. “Give me the tool belt,” he said. “We’re going to be moving fast, and it’s heavy.”

  She unbuckled the belt and held it toward him. “How much time do we have before they come after us?”

  “Not much.” While he fastened the belt around his hips, he transferred his gun to his hand. “They had to deal with two injured men and arrange for off-road transportation. Those things take time, but I’m assuming they’re already on our trail.”

  She swallowed the fear that was bubbling inside her. “I suppose that’s the worst-case scenario.”

  “Getting caught is the worst.” He looked back toward the rocky cliffs. “Stay under the cover of the trees.”

  “Why?”

  He gestured to the cloudless blue skies overhead. “Possible aerial surveillance.”

  He really was thinking of every contingency. “Really?”

  “Start running,” he said.

  Though she didn’t follow a regular exercise routine, Caitlyn was in good physical condition. She jogged at the edge of the forest, dodging between the tree trunks and ducking under low-hanging branches. The vigorous motion got her heart pumping. Though breathing heavily, she wasn’t winded. After a month at the cabin, the altitude didn’t bother her. But Jack probably wasn’t acclimated to the thin air at this elevation. She glanced over her shoulder to check on him.

  With the gun in his hand and ferocious determination written into every line of his face, he showed no indication of being tired. “Faster,” he said.

  “Need to be careful.” She took a breath. “Don’t want to trip. Sprain an ankle.”

  “You can move faster.”

  She spurred herself forward. When her family spent summers at the cabin, she and her brother climbed all over these rocks and hills. She knew the perfect place to hide. Her thigh muscles strained as she started the final uphill push.

  Pausing, she caught her breath. “We’ll climb down this sharp ravine, then up and over those boulders.”

  “Right behind you.”

  Her hideout wasn’t actually a cave; it was a natural cavern formed by huge chunks of granite piled against each other. The
most dangerous part was at the top. She flattened her back against the rock and crept along a ledge. “Be careful here. The drop wouldn’t kill you, but it’d hurt.”

  Even with the tool belt, he managed easily.

  At the far side of the ledge, she slipped through a slit between two boulders and climbed down, placing her feet carefully. A cool shadow wrapped around her.

  She was inside a low cavern. The waters of the creek trickled through the rocks above and formed a pool, which then spilled down into another cavern that wasn’t visible from where she crouched on a rock.

  Jack sat beside her. There wasn’t enough room for him to stretch his legs out straight without getting his feet wet in the pool. “You did good, Caitlyn. This cave is excellent.”

  Sunlight through the slit provided enough illumination for her to see him. When she sat on the rock beside the pool, she felt moisture seeping into her jeans. “The only way they can find us is to stick their heads down here. Have you got any bullets left?”

  “Two.” He unbuckled the tool belt and moved closer to her. “The sound of the creek will cover our voices if we talk quietly.”

  Her muscles tingled from the run, and his nearness started a whole other spectrum of sensation. In spite of the danger and the fear, she was thinking of how good it would feel to lean against him and have his arm wrapped around her shoulders.

  He pointed toward the ledge where the water made a miniature Niagara Falls. “There’s another cavern below this one, right?”

  “Two others. A large one that can be reached by following the creek. Then another. Then this cubbyhole.”

  “How visible is the approach to the first cavern?”

  “If they come after us on horseback, they’d have to dismount and walk in. Rojas didn’t impress me as the kind of man who did that kind of search.”

  “We have to remember the other men at the safe house,” he said, “the federal marshals who betrayed me.”

  She hated to think of that conspiracy but didn’t have trouble believing it had happened the way Jack said. Rojas had plenty of money to use as an enticement. “After you were found dead, how do you think the marshals planned to cover it up?”

  “They could say that unidentified men in masks burst into the safe house and grabbed me. Or they could claim that I turned on them and they had to shoot me.”

  “What about me? How can they explain killing me?”

  In the dim light, the rugged lines of his face seemed softer. The rough stubble on his chin faded to a shadow. “Your death wouldn’t be explained. You’d just disappear. There’s no tangible link between us.”

  “Yes, there is. The gray mare.” The horse that showed up on her doorstep belonged to the men at the safe house. “A good investigator would connect the horse to my disappearance. Plus, Rojas and his men tore up my cabin. Somebody would have to suspect foul play.”

  “They’d blame it on me.” His quiet words blended into the rushing of the creek. “Or on the unidentified men who killed me. The marshals wouldn’t necessarily come under suspicion.”

  Though Rojas and his men represented a direct threat, she was more concerned with those federal marshals. They wouldn’t charge through her door with guns blazing. Their approach would be subtle and clever. “What if they contact Danny to help them search for me? He knows about this cavern. He could lead them to us.”

  “Think it through,” Jack said. “In the first place, they won’t want to involve local law enforcement. Not while Rojas is in the area.”

  Wishing that she felt safer, she leaned against him. The warmth of his body contrasted with the cool surface of the rocks. His arm slipped around her.

  She looked up at him. Would he kiss her again? Though she wouldn’t mind a repeat, she was too nervous to relax and enjoy the sensations. “How long do we wait?”

  “After dark,” he said, “we’ll go to your cabin and take your car.”

  “Won’t they be watching?”

  “I’ll know if they are.”

  He sounded so confident that she believed him, even though she had no reason to think that he was a surveillance expert. Being in the employ of the Santoro family meant he knew his way around firearms and was probably good with his fists. But he seemed to have a wider spectrum of experience.

  “I don’t know much about you.” In the subtle light of the cave, she studied him. “You might say I don’t know Jack.”

  “Funny.” He touched the tip of her nose with his index finger. “And this is an appropriate time for a joke.”

  “So glad I can entertain you. Seriously, though. Do you have training in surveillance?”

  “I watched your cabin for over an hour, and you didn’t know I was there.”

  “True, but I wasn’t looking for you.”

  “I know how to shadow, how to observe and how to do a stakeout. And I learned from an expert. An old man who lived in Arizona. He was a tracker, a hunter. He showed me how to disappear in plain sight and how to sense when someone was coming after me.”

  “Sensing a threat? How does that work?”

  “Awareness.” He pointed to a glow that flickered against the cavern wall. “That patch of light is rising from the cave below us. If I see a shadow, I’ll know that someone is approaching and getting too close.”

  She nodded. Though his method was simple, it hadn’t occurred to her. “What else?”

  “Listen to the rippling of the water as it slips from this cave to the next. There’s a pattern to the sound. A splash indicates an obvious disturbance, but even a stealthy approach can be heard.”

  Though she concentrated on the sound of the water, she only heard gurgling and dripping. “This awareness thing is a kind of Zen-like approach. Was your teacher a guru?”

  “He’d never use that word, but yes.” Jack rattled off a sentence in Spanish, then he translated: “Wisdom comes from an open mind and profound simplicity.”

  “You speak Spanish. Are you from Mexico?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Not really.” When she shrugged, her shoulder rubbed against his chest. The moist air in the cavern sank into her pores like a cool sauna. “You make me curious. How did you get those scars on your chest?”

  “How do you think?”

  “You’re being deliberately evasive.” And it was beginning to irritate her. “There’s no reason for you to be secretive. I already know you’re not the real Jack Dalton, because Danny told me he’s sleeping off a drunk-and-disorderly charge in jail. I know you’re a federal witness on the run. And I’m fairly sure that you’re Tony Perez.”

  “I guess you know it all.”

  She doubted that she’d even begun to scratch the surface of this complicated and somewhat infuriating man. “When I ask a question, I want an answer. How did you get those scars?”

  “I was in a motorcycle accident. And a knife fight. Twice I was shot.”

  He’d lived a dangerous life, but she’d known that. “What were the circumstances? Why were you injured?”

  “I have enemies. They don’t place nice.”

  “Enemies like Gregorio Rojas and his brother,” she said.

  With his thumb he tilted her chin so she was looking up at his face. Though his expression was unreadable, his eyes glimmered, and that shine was somehow reassuring. A few years ago she had interviewed a mercenary in Afghanistan and had seen a flat coldness in his eyes, as though his soul no longer inhabited his body. Jack wasn’t like that. Though she had no doubt that he’d killed people, he still had a conscience.

  The tension in his jaw relaxed as he leaned closer to her. She arched her neck and closed her eyes, waiting for his kiss. His lips pressed firmly against hers. He withdrew an inch, then tasted her mouth more thoroughly, nibbling at her lower lip and gliding his tongue across her teeth.

  His subtlety tantalized her, and she pressed for a harder, deeper kiss. This wasn’t wise. Not profoundly simple. But she experienced a wonderful awareness.

  He tensed and pulled
away. Without speaking, he pointed to the patch of light on the wall. The pattern had changed. She heard a difference in the splashing of the water.

  Someone had entered the cave below them.

  Chapter Eight

  Moving cautiously so he wouldn’t betray their hiding place by scraping his boot against the rock, Jack positioned her in the darkest corner of the cavern. He figured that if she froze in panic, he wouldn’t have to maneuver around her. Though he didn’t dare peek over the ledge overlooking the lower cavern, he stretched out flat on his belly on the rock beside the water. If the searcher got close, Jack could react effectively. The SIG was in his hand.

  A voice echoed from the cavern below them. “This is a good hiding place. Not big enough for their horses, though.”

  Another voice responded from a distance. “Do you see anything?”

  A beam from a flashlight reflected on the wall and ceiling of the lower cave. Jack wished that he’d done more reconnaissance. Should have explored the cave below them. Should have been more prepared.

  Glancing toward Caitlyn, he saw her tension, but she wasn’t frozen as she’d been when she heard the gunfire. She managed a nod. Her eyes were huge. Her hands clenched at her breast.

  From below he heard a splash.

  “Damn,” the voice said, “I got my boots wet.”

  “Any sign of them?”

  “Nothing.”

  “We’ll move on. They’re on horseback and would have gone farther away from the cabin than this.”

  Jack listened carefully to their voices. One of them had a Texas twang that sounded familiar.

  The flashlight beam went dark. There was the sound of more splashing from the lower caves. As the searchers moved away from them, his voice faded. “Here’s what I don’t understand. If he was at that woman’s house, he’d have access to a phone. Why didn’t he call for backup?”

  Jack strained to hear what they were saying. Why did they think he could call for backup? The Santoros were based in Chicago. They couldn’t help him from halfway across the country.

 

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