Rocky Mountain Secrets: Rocky Mountain Sabotage ; Rocky Mountain Pursuit

by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

  She snorted through her nose and shook herself. Where had these navel-gazing thoughts come from?

  Kent shot her a narrow look. “Not coming down with a cold, are you?”

  “Not a bit,” she responded lightly and quickened her pace.

  No way could she allow him to gaze too deeply into her jade eyes, as he dubbed them. He might see the rapidly growing cracks in her armor. She wasn’t ready to be that vulnerable yet.

  “Why do you call me Jade Eyes?” Yikes! Clearly, her mouth filter was not working.

  “Not many people have your vivid shade of green. It’s extraordinary. Besides, I didn’t know your name when I started calling you that. Does it bother you?”

  She opened her mouth, shut it and shrugged. “Of course not.” The glib answer following a significant pause didn’t sound convincing, even to herself.

  “Hmmm. Your no-no sounds more like a yes-yes. You don’t have to explain yourself. I’ll cut it out.”

  Lauren stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets. A moment ago they’d been cold, but now she just wanted to wipe the sweat off her palms on the pocket linings. So much for not being vulnerable. What did she tell him? Sure, he said she didn’t have to explain, but dropping the subject just felt...cowardly. And dishonest. To him and to herself.

  They reached the creek bank where the beavers had created their pond, and Kent handed her the makeshift pole while he began to dig in the soft, moist dirt.

  “It’s so chilly,” he said, “I don’t know if we’ll find earthworms. Maybe we can turn over a few rocks and uncover a grub or two, though the cold will make those less plentiful also. Then again, if we find enough, we could fry them up and eat them instead of fish.”

  “Ewww! You’re just torturing me for not satisfying your curiosity about your nickname for me.”

  “Not at all. I was—and am—completely serious. They taste like—”

  “Chicken, right?”

  “More like crunchy nothing with a mildly nutty aftertaste.”

  “You’ve actually eaten them?”

  “Locusts and honey too. Quite biblical. Aha!” He bent down and came up with a sluggishly wriggling night crawler. “Pull up a rock, and let’s do some fishing.”

  They settled down on matching boulders near the still pond. Kent flicked his line out into the deeper middle of the water. They sat and waited. And waited.

  He sighed. “It may be that the water has grown too cold up here, and the fish have migrated downstream. I figured if any were left alive, they would be trapped in the pond.”

  “Let’s not give up yet.” Lauren laid her right hand over his left, which rested on his thigh.

  He curled his fingers around hers, and she didn’t pull away. Not just because she enjoyed the warmth on her chilled digits. The touch soothed a troubled place inside her. Never had closeness with another human being generated peace rather than wariness. Even with her mother, she had to be on her guard around certain topics.

  How weird and how very nice.

  “Okay. I’ll tell you.”

  Kent didn’t look her way. Didn’t respond except to flick his line back and forth.

  “When I was little, my father called me Jadie-girl, sometimes Jadie-Sadie, and every once in a while, Jade Eyes.”

  “The memory hurts you? Did he pass away?”

  “Hardly.” Her upper lip curled. “He mostly lived with us when I was very small.”

  “Mostly?”

  “Let’s just say, he’d come home and stay for a few months then he’d be gone a few months. Mom always told me he was away on business, and I bought the whitewash when I was little. Then on my fifth birthday—poof!—he left and never came back. Mom tried to keep up the charade about the business trip. I even tried to believe her for a few more years, but I couldn’t forget that I overheard the last thing he said to my mom. ‘Nina-baby, I didn’t sign up for this. You know I can’t live with a couple of cement blocks wrapped around my feet, weighing me down. You and Jadie-girl—well, I’ve got to be free.’ End quote.”

  “What a selfish jerk...! No offense.”

  “None taken. Now that I’m grown up, my sentiments exactly. When I was a kid, all I understood was that I’d been rejected. I didn’t measure up. I wasn’t worth sticking around for, and I was a burden to the one man who should have been first in line to love me unconditionally.”

  “Wow.” Soft silence fell, and then Kent cleared his throat. “May I make an observation without taking my life in my hands?”

  “No guarantees.” She added a soft laugh, but her pulse pounded in her throat.

  Why did this moment feel so awful and so awesome at the same time? A risk-taker in relationships she was not, but here she was baring herself to a man she’d known only three days. Exceptional days, but a short span of hours nonetheless.

  “I think your bright mind and honest character have assessed the situation candidly and accurately, but your heart still feels like that little girl watching her daddy walk away.”

  Lauren squeezed her lips and her eyelids together, holding it in with every fiber of her will, but a sob escaped her. Hot tears traced twin paths to her chin.

  “I’m such an idiot!” She scrubbed at her face with her fists. “Why should it matter after all these years?”

  Kent tossed his fishing pole aside, and his warm arms wrapped around her.

  “If it had ceased to matter,” Kent spoke, his deep voice in her ear, “you wouldn’t be the wonderful, caring person you are. You guard your heart, but it’s not calloused, and it’s anything but hard. Huge difference. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like you, Jade Eyes.”

  Then she was laughing and crying at the same time into the scruffy fur collar of his bomber jacket. The jacket smelled like him and like their time here together—earthy sweat and pine and smoke. If she could bottle the scent she’d make a mint. On second thought, she’d just keep it all for herself.

  Whoa! What was she thinking? This man was not hers. He’d said nice things that made her feel better, but he was probably just sorry for her. She pulled away, and he let her go, fully proving her deduction.

  “Thanks for your kindness and understanding,” she said, keeping her face carefully averted. “What were some of those ideas you had for catching our saboteur?”

  She couldn’t look up. Facing the pity in his eyes would hurt too much.

  * * *

  Kent’s heart squeezed in his chest. Why did she do that all the time—get close and then pull away? Why did he care? He already knew there was no romantic future for them after this crisis passed. If only he could stop wishing that weren’t true. But he couldn’t turn back the clock and unlearn his lesson about meddling mamas—as charming as Lauren’s might be.

  Okay, if Lauren could tuck her emotions away and get down to business, so could he. In a few terse sentences, he explained what he had in mind.

  She actually bought into it, and the weight in his gut lightened. They might be nuts—certifiable!—but they were really going to do this. Desperate times and all that.

  He ought to be discouraged, since they had caught no fish, and he’d also deduced that the beavers were gone from the valley, too—probably fat and sassy from consuming every last fish in their pond prior to departure. One less source of nourishment for the survivors.

  At the stream’s edge, they scored some cattail roots and red clover to supplement their diet, but scrounging up enough food for the winter was not a priority. In fact, it was a pipe dream. If they hoped to survive, they had to get out of this valley and back to civilization...soon. Now he and Lauren had made a plan to identify the scum who must be hiding his means of escape until after he’d eliminated everyone else.

  As Lauren pointed out while they fine-tuned their strategy, “Whoever this guy is, he wouldn’t kill us all off and then leave himself to starve. He
must have a way to get out of here. Something he’s hiding from the rest of us.”

  Truly, Lauren possessed a cutting-edge mind. He couldn’t disagree with her even as his thoughts cast around for ideas on what that way might be. Whatever it was, the guy would have to give it up after they captured him. Kent had a few devious thoughts on how the lowlife could be induced to talk, and no one would have to lay a finger on the creep.

  With their meager booty, Kent and Lauren hurried side-by-side back toward the mercantile.

  “What’s that noise?” She grabbed his arm and halted him.

  Kent’s gaze locked with hers as they listened. Screaming...no, more like yelling, then a crash, along with the sound of splintering wood.

  “They’re under attack at the mercantile!”

  Heart hammering, Kent broke into a sprint with Lauren on his heels. He bounded onto the front porch in one leap just in time to catch the distinctive thud of fist meeting flesh. A pained outcry greeted him as he rushed over the threshold, weapon drawn, and took in the situation in a split-second glance.

  The place was a mess—water bottles and foodstuffs strewn about, shelving toppled, the couch from the plane upended, Nina pale as a sheet and pressed against the wall, but most alarming, the cluster of red-faced men surrounding a single, cowering figure. Fists drew back to continue pummeling their victim. Kent lifted his gun toward the open doorway and fired a shot into the empty street. The report reverberated around the room. Everyone froze.

  “What is going on in here?” Kent barked.

  “Oh, thank God, you’ve come back,” Nina cried out, tears streaming down her face. She rushed to Lauren, who stood at Kent’s side. “Dirk made a jerk of himself one too many times, and the guys decided he was the one trying to kill us, and...and...” She swept a hand toward the furious mob.

  Lauren grasped her mother in a hug as the woman softly sobbed. Her tight-lipped gaze at Kent demanded action. He offered an infinitesimal nod and stepped toward the combatants.

  “Back off, everyone, and get a grip.”

  “This is the guy,” Cliff pronounced, hands still fisted.

  Dirk dropped to the floor in a tight ball and lay shuddering.

  “He admitted it,” said Rich, gesturing fiercely toward Dirk with one crutch.

  “What exactly did he say?”

  The vengeful attackers—Cliff, Rich and Neil—looked from one to another without a word. A throat cleared, and Kent spied Phil sitting against one wall, massaging the calf above his injured foot.

  The man scowled toward the interrupted melee. “These jokers nearly crushed me beneath the toppled shelving. If I hadn’t already been scooting out of the way, I’d be nursing a bunch more injuries.”

  Cliff’s gaze lowered toward his toes, and Neil backed away from the man on the floor, shaking his head like he was waking himself up from a bad dream.

  “Aw, man,” said Rich, “we really weren’t thinking.”

  “I second that.” Nina’s tone could have frosted an iceberg.

  “None of you have answered my question.” Kent’s gaze dissected first one and then another. Red faces turned pale.

  Neil let out a long huff. “Our resident jerk said he’d be happy to leave our rotting carcasses behind in this godforsaken valley.”

  Kent glared down at Dirk, who was starting to unroll from his snail-like huddle. “Stupid thing to say.”

  “And mean-spirited,” Lauren added.

  “But it sounds more like the Dirk we all know and dislike rather than an admission of guilt.”

  Dirk lifted his head. His lower face and neck were covered in blood that continued to drip from his misshapen nose.

  A wordless exclamation came from Lauren. “Looks like it’s broken. I’ll have to set it as best I can.”

  “I’b pressing charges on these baniacs as sood as we get back to cibilization,” Dirk announced, his nasal impairment evident as he sat up.

  With glares all around at the man’s attackers, Lauren knelt in front of him.

  “Let’s get this place back in order,” Kent said, and the able-bodied scurried to comply.

  Soon Lauren’s infirmary was restored, and her new patient was stretched out beside Phil with his nose taped, sleeping under the influence of one of Rich’s painkillers.

  Kent joined her where she knelt at Dirk’s side. “Does he have any other injuries?”

  She rose and met his gaze. Those jade eyes were dark and deeply troubled.

  “Bruised ribs where Rich’s crutch whapped him a good one and a sore stomach where Neil’s fist connected. The broken nose was all Cliff. These people are on the ragged edge of insanity, and I don’t entirely blame them.”

  “Me either.” He lowered his voice. “Is Operation Eagle a go?”

  Her chin dipped a strong affirmative. Gutsy lady. Kent grinned. This afternoon was going to be very interesting...or very boring, if their quarry refused to rise to the bait.

  Half an hour later, Kent was situated on the wide ledge where he had rescued Lauren a few hours earlier—an eagle’s nest where he could watch everything that happened down below. Everyone thought he’d gone out to hunt for late-season dandelions, which were edible in almost every part of the plant. Instead, he gazed down at the frontier town with his binoculars.

  As soon as Lauren played her crucial part, he might expect to spot illicit activity. Earlier, she hadn’t been able to identify with the naked eye the person who was up to no good, but the binoculars would expose the culprit. Then they could apply the appropriate pressure to get answers. At this point, not many holds were barred in that endeavor.

  Kent turned and gave his perch a long study. The mystery dweller had showed up here and in an alley down in the town—both times apparently stalking Lauren. If Kent had hackles, they’d be standing at attention at the mere thought of some crazy mountain man getting his hands on her. This time she was safe—relatively speaking—at the mercantile, which was why Kent had taken the role of the eagle and had made sure his sidearm was ready with a round chambered. The guy could possibly be nuts, but his uncanny ability to remain hidden showed he wasn’t stupid. It would be senseless for him to attack a full-grown, armed man. Kent would be surprised if he had anything to worry about in regard to the mystery dweller.

  He settled down on the ledge cross-legged and surveyed his domain with the binoculars. The magnifying lenses brought the cliff sides into focus, and he spotted several areas that must have been mine entrances, but his earlier assumption had been confirmed. They had been dynamited shut. Too bad. Despite the risks of exploring the ancient tunnels, one or more of the mine shafts may have led to the other side of the mountain and a way out of this valley.

  Kent returned his scrutiny to the town. Nothing stirred yet. That couldn’t last long with the bombshell Lauren was about to explode oh-so-innocently in the midst of the survivors.

  Kent grinned. This was almost fun.

  A soft sound came from behind him—a pebble displacing. Kent began to turn but something hard as a baseball bat collided with his head. Hot pain engulfed his skull. Then nothing.

  TEN

  “Don’t get too frisky,” Lauren admonished Rich as he restlessly crutched around the room, putting more and more weight on his injured knee. “Let those muscles and ligaments heal.”

  She took a sip of the tea her mother had prepared for her. The refreshing warmth slid down her throat. If only she could truly let her guard down and take a rest break. She ordered herself to present a relaxed figure as she leaned back into the airplane seat. By now, Kent should have reached his perch and commenced his eagle-eyed watch. Time to bait the trap and see who stepped into it.

  Cliff slouched a couple of seats down from her, expression gloomy and morose. Dirk and Phil still lay in the infirmary, but judging by the murmur of conversation from that area, they were awake and conversing and would
be able to hear anything she said. Neil lay flopped across the couch with one arm over his eyes, but his breathing said he wasn’t asleep. The prevailing atmosphere was utter hopelessness. Yet, someone among them hoped for everyone else to die and for himself to escape to civilization.

  Why did this person need wholesale death and destruction? In order for his current identity to disappear from the face of the earth? She had discussed this possibility—no, probability—with Kent. It was the only solution that made sense. Whoever wanted the plane to crash, also wanted no one to be looking for them forevermore. They would be presumed dead.

  Mom settled into the seat next to Lauren and patted her knee. “We’ll be okay for a couple of days with the provisions we have. I might even try my hand at making biscuits with the flour, lard and baking powder we retrieved in that last load before the hut burned. I make no promises about how they’ll turn out, but—” She shrugged eloquently.

  “Sounds good, Mom.”

  “You seem a million miles away, dear.”

  “Just asking myself useless questions, like how we happened to be on this doomed flight. Is our presence merely coincidental?”

  Mom’s eyes popped wide. “What else could it be? Who would want to kill you and me?”

  “That’s the dilemma, all right.”

  Neil sat up on his elbow, gaze fixed earnestly on them. “Dear ladies, I cannot imagine why anyone would want to deprive the world of your presences.”

  Mom giggled, a coy little sound, and Lauren gave her a sidelong look. Sheesh! Flattery got a person everywhere with her mother. On the flip side, Lauren’s scam antennae always went up, which was hardly fair to the person delivering the compliment. Give someone the benefit of the doubt for once, she scolded herself.

  “On the good news side of things,” she said, allowing herself to smile, “Kent thinks there might be a way to beam a communication signal out of this valley.”

  Cliff went stiff and straight. “But the radio is broken.”