by Debra Dixon
The cabin was about twenty minutes from town, off a logging road at the end of a long drive. Emily understood why he didn’t call it home. Obviously, the place was built as a poor man’s hunting retreat. Inside, there were two rooms—a living room with a wood stove, and a small room for supplies and gear. No kitchen. No bathroom. Only one window, one door. The springs in the couch were shot so badly that she could see the sagging middle in the dark.
“I bought it for the land,” he explained. “Not the amenities. Sit down and stay out of my way.”
“No problem. I’ll just practice my sitting-duck imitation,” she snapped, then wished she hadn’t. The tension between them was thick enough without her foolishly adding to it. “Sorry. I snap when I’m terrified.”
He didn’t acknowledge her apology. Instead, he went straight to the small room and brought out a gas lantern. When he had it lit, he placed it by a tall metal cabinet that looked more like a bank safe than a storage cabinet. Emily caught her breath when he unlocked the doors.
“Souvenirs,” Gabe said, anticipating her question. A variety of firearms was mounted on the inside walls. And obviously a few other toys he’d collected over the years. “All of it’s legal. Most of it anyway. No explosives.”
She watched as he took down another pistol like the one he had at the bar and slammed a clip in it. He laid it on a wooden TV tray along with some sort of radio gadgets and what looked like a spool of white thread. Finally he reached for a shotgun—that she could identify at least—and a box of shells.
As he opened the box, he told her, “I figure he won’t be able to find the turnoff until the storm lets up. That should be about dawn. I’m going down to the front of the drive to put in an alarm system.”
“Those radio things?” she guessed. “How?”
“Real simple.” He started loading shells. “One of the radio things is a cheap sending device. Anybody with access to Radio Shack can whip one up. Works off a pin. The thread will connect from the device to a tree. When our boy drives in, the tires pull out the pin, and we get the signal on this little receiver. And then we throw a surprise party for him.”
“How do you know he’ll turn in the driveway?”
“He’ll walk most of the way, but he’ll want the car off the road. I would.” Gabe pumped the shotgun, sending a round into the chamber. “Here.” He held out the shotgun.
Recoiling, Emily shook her head. “No. It wouldn’t do any good. I couldn’t actually hit anything I aimed at anyway.”
“Then don’t aim. Point it at a noise, shut your eyes, and pull the trigger. That’ll be close enough.” He motioned for her to take the gun again. “Lucky for you, in this world close enough counts in three things: horseshoes, atom bombs, and shotguns.”
Slowly Emily took it, awkwardly laying it across her knees. The gun was heavy and alien to her.
“As soon as you shoot something, pump it again like I did.” He scooped up the sending device and thread, slipping out into the snow without a backward glance. “Lock the door behind me.”
He could have been gone an hour or five minutes. Either way, she was terrified every second, terrified he wouldn’t come back. Terrified that if he did, she wouldn’t know what to say or how to break through that icy wall he’d put up. She hated it.
Gabe hollered and came back in the door, she half rose to meet him, not that he noticed the smile of relief she couldn’t keep off her face. He didn’t acknowledge her in any way. Other than to tell her what to do, he hadn’t looked at or spoken to her since Marsha Jean’s call. He acted like a man doing a job for an employer he didn’t even like. It was as if they’d never made love or as if he’d detached himself from his emotions.
Or she’d imagined them to begin with.
When he had checked the receiver and started a fire in the wood stove, Gabe finally shrugged off his coat and turned the lantern down. “First watch is yours. You take the chair. I’ll take the couch. Wake me in an hour. Or if you hear anything. Anything at all.”
“I don’t have a wristwatch,” she said as she got up to move.
He tossed her his. “Now you do. Dammit! Careful with that shotgun!”
Gabe hadn’t meant to yell at her, but it was either that or pull her into his arms. She looked white as moonlight on snow. And scared. He was a bastard to ignore her, but he couldn’t give in, wouldn’t torture himself anymore.
Every time he gave in, something happened to remind him that there was nothing real between them. At least not for Emma. No trust. No love. Only the danger.
Forcing himself to settle in, he put one Beretta on the wooden tray within easy reach and one on the floor beside the couch. He turned his back to the door and closed his eyes. Sleeping anywhere, anytime, was a talent, but tonight it failed him. He couldn’t remember the magic formula that turned off his brain and let his body rest.
Seconds turned into minutes before he finally began to relax. In the quiet, he imagined he could hear Emma’s heartbeat along with his own. Then he imagined he heard her voice whispering to him.
“I know this is the wrong place, and God knows it’s the wrong time, and you’re asleep …”
Gabe’s eyes snapped open at the tiny sniff that sounded so real, so muffled. She was crying as quietly as a woman could cry.
“… but I’m scared to death that whoever’s out there is going to kill you before you forgive me for Patrick. I keep seeing him, lying there, needing me. And I keep asking myself why I didn’t stay. Why I didn’t hold his hand and close his eyes. Gabe, I am so sorry I left him, but I couldn’t … I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t pull that trigger. I tried. God knows I tried.”
When he rolled over and sat up, Emma jumped so high she almost upset the shotgun, which was leaning against the wall. Her eyes were huge glittering circles of tears as she stood there, catching her breath. “I—I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“It’s all right. You don’t have to— It’s all right. I understand.”
“I never meant to hurt you,” she promised, and licked a tear off her top lip. He’d never seen a woman who needed someone to hold her more than Emma needed him then.
He rested his forearms on his spread thighs and clasped his hands together. The only way he could keep his heart in one piece was to keep hands off her. Whatever she felt toward him was aroused by the need to feel alive, and not by love. It was a natural reaction. He didn’t blame her, but he couldn’t let it happen again.
“We called him Wile E., you know,” he said, speaking of Patrick. “Wile E. Coyote. He was never very bright, but you couldn’t kill the son of a bitch.” His voice broke, and he realized that he never should have started this story. It was his turn to cry. “You could blow him up … drop him off a cliff … you could even shoot him. But you couldn’t kill him. He was invincible.”
“Gabe.…”
When she crossed the room and touched his arm, he was lost; he needed her as much as she needed him. Right or wrong, he had one more chance to love her, and he took it. He told her he loved her with his mouth and his body, but not with words. That would have only made it more difficult to let her go when the danger was over.
She wasn’t his, but when he came, he came inside her.
At the first gray light of dawn the alarm system did its job.
“Show time.” Gabe turned off the receiver and cracked the door for a peek as he talked. “You take the shotgun and get into the supply room. Don’t come out until I tell you to, and if anyone but me tries to open that door, shoot them. Pump the shotgun and shoot them again.”
Gabe broke off to give her a hard look. “Are we clear on this?”
“No.” Emily didn’t like the plan. It was too much like Patrick’s plan. She didn’t think she could go through that again. “Why do you have to go out there? Why can’t I go with you?”
“Because killing men is what I do,” he said bluntly as he grabbed the Beretta and an extra clip off the tray. “And I do it a helluva lot better when I’m not distracted.”
/> He opened the door wider and scanned the area. Satisfied, he slipped out into the cold. The black night was slowly giving up its hold on the sky, grudging every inch stolen by the dawn. A diffuse gray light washed the driveway, but purple shadows still clung to the woods.
As quietly as he could, Gabe faded into the woods on the left of the cabin. He moved from tree to tree in a smooth motion, always parallel to the drive, and his attention riveted on the trees across the way. If he were the marshal or the hit man, that’s the approach he’d have chosen. More trees, better cover, better view of the cabin door and window. Finally he stopped about thirty yards from the cabin, setting his shoulder against the icy bark and bracing himself for the shot.
His hands stung as the cold seeped into them, but he didn’t move them to his pockets to warm them. He couldn’t take the chance. He might get only one shot at the man; he couldn’t miss.
Gabe waited, motionless, constantly scanning the far side, searching for the movement that would give him his target. As the minutes passed, Gabe felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle. Slowly he turned toward the cabin, gut instinct telling him that too much time had gone by. Something was wrong.
Dammit! Whoever tripped that thread was playing with him or very, very good. Or both. Somehow he’d managed to slip by.
As swiftly as he could, Gabe silently retraced his steps. Pausing at the edge of the cabin clearing, he checked for footprints in the snow, trying to see if anyone had approached the cabin. From this angle all he could see were the indentations made by his own boots and the drifts of snow piled around the cabin and the woodpile.
He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. Emma was alone.
Quickly Gabe checked behind him, giving the drive and the area one last sweep. Then he searched the tree-line around the clearing. A few more minutes and dawn would be gone. For a second Gabe wondered if an animal had tripped the sending device, and then he saw the dark green fabric of a coat sleeve, just barely extending beyond the corner of the cabin. As if someone were waiting, arm upraised, leaning against the cabin and ready to shoot.
Gabe took an experimental step, gauging the sound of his footstep in the loose snow and the reaction of the coat sleeve. It didn’t move. Gabe took another slow step, still close enough to the woodpile to dive for cover if the man heard him. Once Gabe made it to the side of the cabin, he forced himself to keep the same careful pace.
At the back corner of the cabin, Gabe waited and listened. Finally he risked a glance around the corner, and all he saw was the blue-black metal of a gun as it cold-cocked him. Stunned, Gabe staggered and felt his gun ripped from his hand. When his vision cleared, Gabe spread his hands and focused on the tall, familiar man who leveled a 9mm at his head.
“Archangel, I presume?” The man tossed away the Beretta. It landed beside the remains of the sending device. “Funny. I thought you’d be faster. And perhaps smarter.”
“Obviously not.”
“Obviously.” He jerked his head toward the front of the cabin. “I believe I’ll let you walk in that door first. In case you’ve planned any other surprises for me.” He smiled. “You have, haven’t you? Sure you have. You’ve lasted longer than Patrick. I’ll give you that.”
Gabe fought for control. No mistakes, he cautioned himself. No emotion. He had to be as cold as this bastard. It was their only chance. Slowly he turned and started for the front, his mind racing.
“Stop at the porch, Gabriel, and tell her we’re coming in.”
Gabe halted, his foot on the first step. “Emma! It’s Gabe. We’re coming in. Me first. Don’t do anything stupid.” Then he added, “Take my advice for once. You’ll be safer that way.”
“Nice touch,” the gunman praised. “Let’s hope she listens.”
Gabe smiled grimly as he approached the door. “Let’s hope.”
He turned the handle and let the door swing open. Emma stood facing them, shotgun raised. And just as he told her, she pointed at the noise, closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger.
FOURTEEN
The moment Emma closed her eyes Gabe dove for the Beretta on the floor by the couch. He found the grip and rolled in the same motion. The force of the shotgun recoil knocked Emma backward; she went down hard, but Gabe’s attention was focused on the silhouette in the doorway. When he fired, the man—already stunned by the damage Emma had done to his right arm—wavered like a cut tree right before it snapped and fell.
With a great deal of satisfaction Gabe softly called “Timber!” when the man hit his knees and pitched forward into the cabin. “That was for Patrick.”
At his words the paralysis that gripped Emily evaporated. She realized she was still sitting on the floor, shotgun on her lap. As the man fell, she shoved the gun away. Hating the feel and smell of it.
Hearing her, Gabe tried to get up, but pain blindsided him and drove him back down. Nausea hit him in waves, and he knew he’d dislocated his shoulder in the dive. Dammit, he thought as his head rested against the floor. He was getting soft. He’d been out only a year, and he’d not only let someone get the jump on him, he’d forgotten how to dive and roll. At least the adrenaline had kicked in long enough for him to get the shot off. That was all that mattered.
“Gabe! Are you all right?” Emily tried struggling to her feet, not quite making it when she saw that Gabe was lying on the floor by the couch. She crawled over to him, chanting, “Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. I need you. Gabe!”
“I’m fine.” He held up a hand to reassure her as she reached him. “Just dizzy for a minute. I had to catch my breath.”
“Oh, thank God! Don’t you ever do that to me again!” she yelled at him.
Grabbing a handful of his shirt, Emily crumpled into a tearful heap at his hip, realizing she needed some oxygen, or she was going to pass out right alongside him. There was too much she wanted to say, so she sucked air in and out until her heart stopped racing and the faintness passed. Her hands were shaking so badly as she rubbed beneath her eyes, she could feel them vibrating on her face.
Emily spared a glance for the body in the doorway. She didn’t look long because the weight of what she’d done bore down on her. She studied her hands, turning them over and over as if they could explain where the strength had come from. For so long she had thought of herself as weak, powerless to control her life.
In that split second before she pulled the trigger, something changed inside her. She knew what she wanted, and she knew what she had to do to keep it. “I didn’t want your death on my conscience too. All I could think about was you, what you told me to do. That I didn’t want you to die.”
Gritting his teeth, Gabe knew where this was leading, and he had to stop her before she convinced herself that guilt and gratitude were love. Before he allowed himself to encourage her, to use her fear of being alone in the world as a way to chain her to him.
All his life he’d wanted to be important to someone, to be needed. Now he knew that simply being needed wasn’t enough.
He wanted more for himself. More for Emma. He loved her enough to let her go. Sister Mary Joseph’s last lesson.
Forcing himself up, he used his good hand to hold his arm tightly to his body. He ground out words through the pain. “You did what you had to do. We both did. Don’t analyze it to death.”
She twisted around at the strain in his voice. “Oh, my God, Gabe, you are hurt!”
“Don’t,” he told her, waving off her concern and her touch. “It’s just a dislocated shoulder. I can manage.”
Stung by the coldness in his tone, Emily slowly dropped her hands, wondering what she’d done wrong. She searched his face for a clue, but found only detachment, a stranger’s face. There was no anger, no softness, no love, no emotion of any kind.
Uneasiness crept over her, tiptoeing into her soul and chewing up her certainty. She and Gabe had made some sort of commitment last night. Hadn’t they? Nothing was actually spoken, but it was implied. Wasn’t it?
Suddenly she wasn’t so sure anymore. Did she want him to love her so badly that she lied to herself to make it so?
Her mind raced as she tried to find something concrete to reassure herself. But there was nothing. No words of love, or of a future. No words at all. Just their bodies and passion in the night. Just two people trying to feel alive one more time before they died.
The truth closed in on her, and her heart began to ache. Her pride refused to let her cry. Backing away from him, she gave him the distance he wanted, emotionally and physically. “We need to get you to the hospital. If we wait, the shoulder joint will be too swollen for them to pop it in manually. They’ll have to do surgery if that happens, and they have to X-ray it anyway. It could be broken, you know.”
Emily knew she was babbling, but she had to do something to keep the awful blackness inside from swallowing more than just her heart. Without waiting for his response, she got their coats. Gabe was on his feet, his jaw clenched as she stretched up to put his coat around him without hurting his shoulder.
“Get the keys out of my pocket.” While she did, he said, “Tell me you can drive a stick shift.”
“Not great. Not for a long time, but I’ll manage.” She shrugged into her own coat, averting her eyes from the body on the floor. “What about—”
“Leave him. You go start the truck. I’ll handle it.”
“Handle what?”
“We need his keys in case his vehicle is blocking the drive, and I need to check his pockets. If he’s law enforcement, he’ll have his badge. They don’t go anywhere without it.”
“You can’t turn him over. Not with your shoulder. I—I’ll do it.”
“Emma, don’t argue for once,” he said wearily. “Just get the truck.” When she held her ground, he said, “I don’t want you to do this. All right?”
For a second he sounded like he cared, but then his voice hardened, eradicating the tiny flare of hope. She nodded. Even if he didn’t care, he was right; she couldn’t do it. There were too many bad memories waiting for her. So she slid by the body without looking.
