“We need to get moving,” he said, the words coming out shaky as his jaw chattered.
She nodded, but didn’t speak, and she didn’t protest when he took her hand and walked at her side rather than bringing up the rear guard. Helping each other, leaning into one another for warmth, they staggered onward. By the time they crawled up the rock face leading to the hidden ledge, it was fully dark and he was all but carrying her, with his arm looped around her waist, hers around his neck. She was shivering and in shock, but she hadn’t complained, hadn’t given up.
The moon was out, which was a damn good thing, since they didn’t have even her small flashlight. When they got inside the cave, he lit the way with his cell phone—stupid thing couldn’t call out, but at least it was water-resistant enough that it was still working, and the display light was good for something.
His initial intention had been for them to spend the night in the cave itself, but the dip in the river had changed the direction of his thoughts. They needed to get warm. In the absence of matches, a lighter or any certainty that either of them could start a fire from scratch, and not being sure a campfire was the best idea, even inside the cave, his next best choice was to keep going, all the way to the hidden glen with its strangely warm water.
“Will the pool be warm enough to camouflage us if they fly over?” Mariah asked softly. She’d all but stopped trembling, which was a bad sign, indicating that her body was starting to shut down on her.
The real answer to her question was “We don’t have a choice,” followed by “If it’s warm enough to hide us, it’s warm enough to show up on infrared, which could mean they might give it a second or third look.” But Gray knew she needed more from him than that, so he said, “Absolutely.” And, as they neared the smaller offshoot that would lead them to the hidden canyon, he hoped it wasn’t a lie.
“Wait here. I’ll be right back.” Mariah paused, took the phone and moved away from him, stumbling a little as she walked deeper into the main branch of the cave. Gray did as she’d ordered, but he tracked her progress by the glow of the phone and the small sounds she made, and held himself ready to go after her, if necessary.
He heard the sound of rock shifting against rock, and called out, “What’s going on over there? You have this place outfitted with a secret door that leads straight back to the city?”
“Not quite that good, but I think it’ll help.” She returned, carrying his phone in one hand and a battered, dusty canvas knapsack in the other. “I built a cairn a little farther in and stashed some emergency supplies in case…well, just in case. We’ve got some energy bars, water, a blanket and a first aid kit. Not exactly the comforts of home, but it’ll help.”
“Any matches?”
“Yeah, but they’re soaked. One of the water bottles leaked.”
“Bummer,” Gray said, but felt something ease in his chest when she rejoined him. At the same time, something else tightened within him.
This wasn’t just the place she’d come for peace, he realized. It had also been her bolt-hole. If she were outside the cabin’s perimeter when the alarms sounded, she’d intended to come here and hide. The knowledge wasn’t surprising; she’d proven herself a survivor time and again. What was surprising was the hard squeeze that caught him beneath his heart, and the sadness that accompanied it.
The system had failed her so badly that she’d felt the need to protect herself in isolation. Worse, he’d been part of that system. In the process of trying to save the world from the terrorists’ threat and gain justice for Ken and his family, Gray had lost sight of some of the other people involved. He’d seen Mariah alternately as an asset or an obstacle. He’d forgotten to remember that she was also one of the innocents he was charged with protecting.
In the blue-white light from the cell phone, her expression shifted to one of worry. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry.” He took the knapsack from her, let her keep the phone for the dim glow it provided.
She frowned. “For anything in particular?”
For most of it, he realized. He was sorry for how he’d treated her and her family during the first round of the investigation; sorry that al-Jihad and his conspirators had outsmarted some of the country’s best and brightest to escape from the ARX Supermax; sorry that once they had, she’d been treated with more suspicion than compassion, and hadn’t felt safe in her own home. Hell, she hadn’t been safe in her own home, and even once she’d gotten free, Gray had turned around and put her right back in harm’s way. It didn’t matter that she’d volunteered to become bait, he should’ve been man enough, agent enough, to say no thanks and tuck her into protective custody, far away from Bear Claw City. Instead, he’d used her and nearly gotten her killed. More than that, he’d kissed her. He’d known she was growing attached to him and hadn’t done anything about it.
But he was too much of a coward to tell her that, so he focused on the matter at hand, on the failure of the system. “I’m sorry the FBI wasn’t there for you, and that you figured you were better off alone than under our protection.”
Her expression flattened to something he couldn’t quite interpret, but she said only, “Come on. I’m freezing.”
He ducked and followed her through the narrower offshoot cave, breathing a sigh of relief when they emerged once again out into the open.
The air warmed palpably, and the hidden valley spread out beneath them, the waterfall close enough to touch. Moonlight bathed the scene, a magnificent display of blue-white light that sparkled on the plunging waterfall and the rioting surface of the pool below, all of it cast over by the mist, which had thickened as the night air cooled.
Gray paused, awestruck by the beauty of the scene. But he knew there were more practical, immediate issues to deal with. They needed to get warm, and quickly.
“Come on.” He holstered his weapon, which by his count had a scant four or five rounds left in it, shifted the bulky knapsack onto his shoulder and held out a hand to Mariah.
They helped each other down the narrow path to the flat rock, which was damp and slippery with condensation, and shrouded in mist. The moist air beaded on Gray’s hands and face, and the contrast between the warmth of the stone and the damp chill of his clothes made him long for the hot, dry warmth of a fire.
The thought made him flash on his last sight of Mariah’s cabin. He’d looked back as they had fled, and had seen flames licking from the front of the log structure, devouring the porch.
He wanted to believe that the other agents had gotten to safety, that the gunfire they’d heard had been a rearguard action, but he feared that wasn’t the case. The cabin was gone. His backup was gone. And Lee and the others were on the hunt.
The terrorists had torched the cabin, indicating that they knew full well that the statuette wasn’t there. But was that because Lee had searched the place top to bottom while he’d been in residence…or was it because someone privy to the investigation itself had leaked information on the great clown roundup down in Albuquerque? If the latter, what did it mean in terms of the FBI’s response when the ridgeline team failed to check in at midnight? Would a conspirator within Johnson’s group try to delay their rescue?
“Hey,” Mariah said, breaking into his reverie. “Turn it off for a little bit. Right now we need to concentrate on getting warm, having a snack, maybe scouting one of the other caves as an escape route and then bunking down as safely as possible. There’s nothing more we can do until daylight.”
“Yeah. I know.” But he shook his head. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen, you know?”
“Story of my life.” She dropped his hand, and, with her eyes on his, took a couple of steps back until she was all but obscured by the mist. “I’m serious, though. I think we should turn it off and think of something else.”
It wasn’t until he heard the plop of wet cloth hitting the rock ledge that he realized he was staring at her.
“Mariah,” he said, the word coming out on a soft growl
. “What are you doing?”
“My clothes are soaked. I’m taking them off and hanging them off the backside of the rock in hopes that they’ll dry a little while I’m hot-tubbing it, so to speak.” The practicality of the response was somewhat undercut by the faint tremor in her voice, one that spoke more of nerves than chill, and turned her tone husky when she said, “I think you should do the same.”
He wanted to, more than he’d wanted to do just about anything else, ever. But hadn’t he just been thinking of all the things he’d done wrong when it came to her? He didn’t think he could add “took advantage of her at a particularly vulnerable time” to the list and still look himself in the eye afterward.
Though a large part of him wanted to do just that, and damn the consequences.
Keeping his voice gentle when it wanted to go rough, he said, “You’ve had a hell of a day, on top of a hell of a week. Don’t do something you’ll regret later on, when all this is over and we go back to our normal lives.”
He thought the corners of her mouth turned up in a small, sad smile, though he couldn’t be sure in the moonlight and mist. “What’s normal? My cabin is gone. Even if part of it is salvageable, I won’t be able to live there by myself again and feel safe. Even if Lee’s out of the picture, how will I know that another one of al-Jihad’s men won’t come after me?”
There it was again, her basic, well-earned distrust of the system. Gray wanted to tell her to have some faith, but who was he to talk?
Half the time he went around his boss, trying to do what he thought was best. In that, he and Mariah weren’t so different. They were very different in all the other ways that mattered, though. Or, rather, they were too alike to be compatible—both hardheaded and stubborn, and too used to fixing their own problems rather than working as part of a team. Which by all rational interpretations of right and wrong meant he should turn away while she finished undressing and slipped beneath the surface of the swirling pool.
But he didn’t.
He kept watching as she shimmied out of her shirt and panties, and unhooked her bra, each motion camouflaged by the mist, letting him see impressions but not details, lending romance to something that should have been simple expediency, but had become something more.
“You’ll get through this,” he said with quiet certainty, even as his blood heated and his heart set an increasing tempo. “You’re going to get through this and come out the other side, and you’re going to make the life you want. Maybe you’ll make up with your parents, maybe not. Maybe you’ll rebuild the cabin, maybe not. You’ll make those choices for yourself, not anyone else, and you’ll figure out what comes next. I have faith in that, in you, and I’m not a man who’s big on faith.”
This time her smile was more genuine. “Yeah. That much I’ve figured out.” She let the bra dangle from her fingertips, then drop to the stone surface. She took one step toward him. Then another.
Gray’s breath caught at the moonlight-limned sight of her. He drew his eyes from her gracefully muscled calves up the long, curving sweep of her thighs and hips, along the dip of her waist to the symmetrical globes of her breasts, which were tipped with dark, pouting aureolas and nipples that puckered in the warm moist air, crinkling under his regard.
“Mariah,” he said again, this time not in warning but almost as a plea.
Don’t ask me to do this, one part of him wanted to say, while another, equally strong part wanted to say, Don’t stop, come closer, let me touch you.
“Gray,” she said in answer, stopping very close to him, so her eyes dominated his vision and his breath came thin in his lungs. “Don’t worry, I don’t think this is love, or even the beginning of something that will last beyond tonight. But over the past few days, I’ve had good reason to take stock of my life. I’ve thought about the things I’d regret doing, and regret not doing, if Lee gets me before you get him.”
Her words were matter-of-fact, and they brought a deathly chill to his gut. “I won’t let that happen.”
“Maybe you should.” She held up a hand when he started to argue. “I’m not saying I want to die—absolutely not. But you said it yourself—there might come a time when saving me might mean letting him go. If that happens, I hope you’ll do the right thing.”
“I will,” he said, his voice harsh. “I’ll get you the hell out of there and stick you in protective custody where you should’ve been all along. Then I’ll get a team back out there, and go after the bastard.”
“And what will he have done in the meantime?” Her eyes were sad, but resolute. “How many people died in the bombings? How many would’ve died if al-Jihad’s plan to destroy the stadium hadn’t been foiled?”
“But it was.”
“We might not be so lucky the next time, and you know it. Tell me I’m wrong.”
He wanted to grab her and shake some sense into her. He wanted to protect her, to kiss her, to make love to her, to throw his head back and shout at the moon, railing against the unfairness of it, the cruelty of men who destroyed for nothing more than their own pleasure, though they might disguise it as something else. Men like her ex and al-Jihad.
“Tell me,” she pressed.
“You’re not wrong,” he admitted, though the words laid him bare.
“Then knowing that, knowing what you might have to do in the next couple of days, tell me you’ll do me a favor.”
“What favor?”
“I don’t want my biggest regret to be that Lee was my first and only lover.”
Shock rattled through Gray, followed by understanding and a sharp twist of grief for the purity that an evil man had used for his own purposes. “Mariah,” he said, voice catching in his throat, “no.” He wasn’t sure if he was denying her words or the greedy leap inside him, the one that wanted her, that would take her on the thinnest of excuses.
She lifted a shoulder in a half shrug, and though her eyes were full of uncertainty, there was only acceptance in her voice when she said, “Your call, Gray. If the answer is no, your reasons are your own, and I’ll respect them, as I’ve come to respect you.” She touched her lips to his, bringing a spike of heat and a thrill of passion to the complicated mix of emotions that tangled together inside him. “Just as I’ll still respect you if you say yes.”
Her lips left his as she backed off a few steps. Then she turned, dove cleanly into the warm water and was gone, leaving him standing on the stone overlook, trying to figure out what had just happened to turn his world inside out. And what the hell he was going to do, when what he wanted to do conflicted so thoroughly with what he knew was right.
Chapter Ten
Mariah told herself she was trembling because of the cold, but even her conscious mind knew that was a crock. She was wired tight, her body humming with nerves as her immediate future hung balanced on the knifepoint of Gray’s choice.
She held her breath, hovering beneath the churning water, which warmed her flesh as she tried to guess what he would decide. Would she surface to see him sitting cross-legged at the edge of the stone ledge, watching over her as she bathed, protector but not lover? Or was he even now stripping down to the hard body she’d felt beneath his clothing, preparing to dive into the pool naked, in tacit agreement with her plan?
She stayed under as long as she could, unwilling to surface and learn the answer. She wanted this, wanted him, for all the reasons she’d cited, and because she’d done the wrong thing before in choosing a man who’d seemed so right for her. This time, she was picking one she knew was wrong, and going in with her eyes wide open.
Knowing that even making the choice was part of taking control back from the memory of what Lee had done to her, she rose and broke the surface, sucking in a deep breath of air.
She nearly got a lungful of water as Gray dove in beside her.
The impact of his body rocked the churning waters that surrounded her and brought a flare of heat to her belly, a balm of healing to her soul. They might be wrong for each other, she knew, but i
n this moment they were exactly right.
He surfaced a few feet away from her, treading water as he smoothed back his short-cut hair, leaving it bristling on end, dark in the silver-blue moonlight. He didn’t speak as he sculled toward her, gliding across the distance that separated them.
As he did so, Mariah was acutely aware of the warm press of water on her suddenly sensitized skin. No longer chilled, she burned from within and reveled in the sly touch of watery currents. Mist surrounded them, bringing clinging wetness with every breath, and when she licked her lips, the moisture carried a tang of minerals and a thrill of excitement.
She skimmed gently backward, until she was standing on a submerged outcropping, the water lapping at her collarbones. Gray followed and stopped very near her, not touching her, but close enough that she could touch him if she reached out.
When he didn’t say or do anything, just looked at her, his eyes serious and silver in the moonlight, she said, “I wasn’t sure you’d agree to this.” She rushed on before he interrupted, “I know we said we couldn’t—and shouldn’t—do this, but I’m not suggesting that we start something. I just want a new memory—one that’s true, rather than tainted.” She looked up into the sky, letting her head tip back and her hair dip into the blood-warm water as mist feathered her face like the faintest of kisses. “I want to make love, here under the waterfall, in a place that’s brought me peace. And don’t worry—I’m using the word love in its most generic sense. I want to love life, love our bodies, love what I feel when I’m near you.” She straightened to look at him once again. “Did I just scare the hell out of you?”
“No,” he said simply. “You’ve humbled me. And you make me wish I were a better man, one who could let this be the start of something, rather than just a memory.” He paused, looking around as she had done moments earlier. “You make me wish I had flowers to give you, or poetry. Something worthy of this place and what we’re about to do in it. But I’m not a romantic and I haven’t got a way with words, so I’ll just say it plainly. This will be a memory for me, too, Mariah. I haven’t been with another woman since Stacy. I haven’t wanted anyone that way. Then I saw you.”
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