The Hidden Years

by Susan Kearney

  Leaning back in the car, she looked forward to a long hot shower and maybe some mindless television to help take her thoughts off the day.

  Can’t you do better than that? Her conscience was back.

  Better than what?

  You’re going to spend the night with a man who saved your life and then tenderly held you in his arms. A single available hunk, and all you can wish for is mindless television?

  This is business.

  What would it hurt to throw in a little monkey business on the side?

  We’re just friends.

  There was no point considering that there could be more. Jake’s mind was on finding his sisters. She suspected that as soon as they checked out his house and then arrived at a hotel, they’d reexamine the photos and read his mother’s diaries and the aging documents for clues as to who might be after them.

  Beside her, Jake’s shoulders drew taut behind the wheel and he growled a curse. He hung a smooth right and turned four blocks before he reached his house.

  “What’s wrong?” Cassidy asked, her heart thumping. Craning her neck toward Jake’s house, she saw a van parked across from his driveway and another dark vehicle next to it.

  “I was hoping I was wrong and that no one would show up at my house. But those vehicles don’t belong to my neighbors.”

  In an effort to sound reasonable and keep her pulse from pounding Cassidy suggested, “Maybe they have company.”

  “They don’t. Someone’s waiting for us.”

  Chapter Four

  After the day she’d had, Cassidy wasn’t about to argue any further with Jake about his suspicions. Especially when he’d anticipated their pursuers showing up here. Erring on the side of safety was fine with her. Maybe the van parked across the street from Jake’s home was innocent.

  But maybe her pursuer had traced Jake’s tag and knew he was helping her. The police-department records might indicate that Jake was protecting Cassidy. And they’d been seen together at the restaurant. It wasn’t too much of a stretch for those men to have traced Jake’s address from his car’s plates.

  Before Cassidy could ask Jake what he planned to do now, he pulled over and parked. Jake’s neighborhood of wealthy homes, glass houses hidden behind high walls and locked gates, fronted the bay. But even the homes across the street from those on the water had imposing grandeur. An owl hooted ominously. Oak trees, their branches stretching over the street like grasping tentacles, cast eerie shadows.

  Despite the balmy night air, goose bumps rose along Cassidy’s arms. “Why are we stopping so far away from your house?”

  “It pays to be careful.” He leaned over and she got a whiff of his aftershave as he opened the glove compartment and popped the trunk. She found the scent enticing and almost ran her hand along his chin, but caught herself before she’d started the motion. What had gotten into her? She must still be more shaken than she’d thought. Jake was a friend. She didn’t think of him in a way that prompted impulsive caresses.

  When he exited the car, she followed him to the back of the vehicle, careful to keep her distance and avoid the chance of an accidental touch. She didn’t need her thoughts clouded with conflicting feelings about Jake. She liked thinking of him as the big brother she’d never had, not as a man whose face she yearned to touch just for the sheer pleasure of it.

  His roomy car trunk, crammed with electronic gear and camera equipment, had enough inventory to stock a store. Jake reached for a belt with loops that held binoculars, pliers, a two-way radio and other gear she couldn’t readily identify.

  Jake clipped a radio to her waist, wound a wire up her back and bent the end piece over her shoulder, so the microphone rested near her mouth. “This will allow us to keep in touch.”

  The idea of being left alone while he went off to investigate left her cold and hollow inside. She unclipped the radio and handed it back to him. “I’m staying right next to you.”

  With a shrug of resignation, he handed her a hat. “Hide your hair, Sunshine. I don’t intend for anyone to see us, and when your hair catches the light, it glitters like gold.”

  So much for compliments. Cassidy didn’t care. She simply obeyed his instructions, gathering her hair into a pony-tail, then twisting it up and under the hat.

  She looked from Jake toward his house down the street. “Exactly what are we after?”

  “Information.”

  “What kind of information?” she pressed.

  “The useful kind.”

  Well, that was helpful. She smothered her annoyance, fearful he would use any excuse to leave her behind. With Jake, she never quite knew what he was thinking. Although he was methodical, he could be unpredictable. Cassidy no more wanted to stand around in the dark alone than she wanted to play amateur detective. Still, she’d much rather accompany Jake and keep her mind occupied than wait for him. Alone.

  When Jake’s phone rang again, she nearly jumped out of her sneakers.

  “Yes?” Jake answered, and she saw him switch the phone to vibrate so the ring wouldn’t alert anyone when they made their foray.

  Jake hung up without saying another word. But his demeanor changed, becoming more stealthy, more focused, and she hesitated even to whisper a question. But she summoned the courage. She had to know what was going on and couldn’t hope that Jake would volunteer the information.

  “Well?”

  “Harrison’s friend traced the phone number.”

  “And?” she prodded.

  “The number belongs to a corporation that’s a subsidiary of a subsidiary.”

  Cassidy understood the difficulty from her business-law courses. Corporations could hide ownership behind legal entities. If the corporation went to extremes and registered offshore, in places like the Cayman Islands or the Bahamas, it was unlikely ownership could be traced back to an individual at all.

  Jake handed her a flashlight that was weighted and surprisingly heavy. Cassidy gripped the handle tightly and hefted it, trying to adjust to the weight in her hand.

  “Don’t turn it on. Use it as a weapon if you must. Choose your target carefully. Remember, you may only get one strike. Go for the throat, the knees or the temple.” His blunt instructions spread the goose bumps up her arms to her shoulders and down her back. “However, it shouldn’t be necessary to defend yourself. I don’t intend to get that close.”

  A tight grip on the flashlight and the weight of the weapon actually gave her courage. Jake closed the trunk with a soft click, then headed down the concrete sidewalk at an easy pace. When they rounded a neighbor’s yard, a dog started to bark. Lights came on in the house, and while Cassidy held her breath, the owners called the dog inside.

  Meanwhile, Jake skirted the streetlights and kept to the shadows. He stopped several blocks from his house, taking cover behind garbage cans set out for the next morning’s pickup. Cassidy had never realized that detective work could be so smelly. But she soon forgot the foul odors as she watched Jake work.

  First he took from his belt what must be night-vision binoculars. For several long minutes, he stood without moving, his sheer presence dominating the space around him while he simply watched the street.

  From her crouched position, Cassidy could see no movement. The neighbors appeared tucked nice and safe inside their two-story beach-front houses, totally unaware of the thugs parked on their street.

  Headlights suddenly lit up the street like a stage. A police car rolled closer.

  Jake ducked deeper into the shadows, and Cassidy, feeling like a criminal, wondered if it was necessary to hide from the cops.

  Jake didn’t move a muscle, and she marveled at his control. Nose itching, she fought back a sneeze. She made herself hold still despite the mosquito buzzing by her ear, the light sweat popping out on her brow and the nasty aroma taunting her nose. She tried to focus on the soft wash of waves on the shoreline and the occasional stray whiff of a salty breeze, instead of the man crouching next to her.

  But she didn’t suc
ceed. Jake was so close, his warm breath brushed her cheek. His shadow engulfed hers. And she had to restrain herself from reaching over to take his hand. These impulses to touch him kept coming out of nowhere. Having so little control over herself made her uneasy.

  Finally the police car turned onto the next street. And while it took her eyes minutes to readjust to the darkness, she realized Jake didn’t have that problem. He’d either looked away from the bright lights or had closed his eyes.

  He’d replaced the night-vision binoculars with an odd-looking camera. As he loaded film, she heard a soft whirring sound. Then a series of clicks as Jake took at least a dozen pictures.

  Probably only five minutes had passed before they left and returned to his car, but it seemed like hours. Although Cassidy’s mouth was dry from the tension, she could no longer keep back her questions as Jake once more began to drive, first out of the subdivision, then onto the freeway, heading north.

  “Did you get anything good?”

  He shrugged.

  “Well, what did you see?”

  “Not much. But the camera lens is more sensitive than the human eye. I’m hoping once the pictures are developed that we’ll get something useful.”

  Cassidy rested her head against the plush leather seat, unwilling to ask more questions. She had no idea where he was taking her, but he seemed to have a destination in mind.

  Exhaustion was finally taking its toll. She’d started early this morning—cleaned the attic, confronted Jake, suffered a man breaking and entering her home and almost killing her, and now all she wanted was to close her eyes, preferably in a comfortable bed, and sleep.

  She wondered if she was trusting Jake too much. But he seemed so competent that he inspired her trust. In her youth, she had always relied on him to do the right thing, and her past feelings for him reinforced that confidence now. Tomorrow, when she could think more clearly, she’d reevaluate her situation. She’d think better after a good night of rest.

  She must have fallen asleep, because when she awoke she was startled by the change in temperature. It was much cooler here, wherever “here” was.

  Jake had opened her car door and shaken her awake. “Come on, Sunshine. A bed’s waiting for you.”

  Cassidy glanced at the clock and realized they’d been driving for more than an hour. A crescent moon shone down on a pasture surrounded by hills. Crickets chirped, and frogs made so much racket she had trouble hearing herself think. While most of Florida was flat, the state did have a few hilly areas. Here the air smelled of pine. Up ahead an inviting A-frame cotage nestled on the shore of a small lake.

  “Where are we?”

  “Brooksville. My firm keeps a cabin here to hide clients when their safety’s at stake.”

  Cassidy knew she should ask whose name the cabin was in, but she just couldn’t wrap her tongue around the words. Without Jake’s help, she might not have had the energy to stand. She revived slightly in the nippy air on the short walk from the car to the cabin. Mostly she just enjoyed the security of Jake’s arm around her and concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other.

  The cabin, simple in design, a living-room-and-kitchen combination facing the lake with a bedroom and bath in the back, was decorated with simple pine furnishings that needed little care. The oak floor and hewn beams overhead gave the place a rugged masculine appeal.

  “You’ll find a toothbrush, soap and shampoo in the bathroom, and a robe in the closet. Help yourself to any clothing you can find that fits.” He must have read the questions in her eyes. “We aren’t the first people to use this cabin after being on the run. The kitchen’s stocked with canned goods, the freezer with meat.”

  Cassidy took one look at the immaculate bedroom and decided to bathe first, then sleep. While Jake started a fire in the living area, she took advantage of the shower. Helping herself to shampoo and cream rinse, she washed her hair twice.

  The bathroom lacked a hair dryer, so she slipped on the robe and twisted a towel into a turban over her hair. After washing her underwear and hanging it up to dry, she rejoined Jake. She found him squatting in front of the fire, poking a log, but mostly just staring at the flames. Firelight flickered over his features, and she wondered what he was thinking. He seemed a million miles away.

  Tucking her bare legs beneath her, she sat on a battered couch, its leather soft as warm caramel. “A penny for your thoughts.”

  Jake stared into the flames for so long she didn’t think he’d answer. The fire pushed back the darkness and lent an air of intimacy to the room. An intimacy that only she seemed aware of.

  For a big man, Jake could hold himself remarkably still. Yet his whiskey-colored eyes always shined with intensity. The startling combination of stillness and suppressed emotion held her mesmerized. She wondered if she’d ever really known him.

  But if she hadn’t, why did she feel safer just being in his presence?

  Jake dusted off his hands and came to his feet with the grace of an athlete. “I think I’ll wash up.”

  She suddenly recalled her lingerie hanging in the shower and her cheeks heated. Tired, accustomed to living alone, she hadn’t thought through their living accommodations and that they’d be sharing the bathroom.

  Quickly she rose from her perch and bumped into Jake. He reached out to steady her, and she jerked back. “I rinsed out my…I left…”

  He smiled at her then, a smile that filled those golden eyes with amusement and held a special place in her memories. “I’ve seen your underwear before, Sunshine.”

  The moment he referred to suddenly came rushing back. Winters in Florida might be wonderfully temperate, but August nights could be stiflingly hot. She recalled meeting Jake in the park after a suffocating heat-filled day where the temperature had soared over a hundred. Darkness later that evening hadn’t helped to relieve the stifling heat.

  Cassidy’s hair had stuck to her head and lay hot and heavy over her shoulders and down her back. Her damp clothes had clung to her, and not even eating ice cream had cooled her off. It was a night they should have been inside with the air-conditioning blasting. But Jake hadn’t been able to afford to turn on his air, and Cassidy had known how uncomfortable Jake felt at her home.

  So they’d walked to the community pool, climbed the fence and swum in their underwear. Other kids might have skinny-dipped, but Cassidy had had her dream of going to college and law school firmly in her mind. She wouldn’t let herself become emotionally involved or let their relationship go beyond friendship. But even then, she’d trusted Jake to know how she felt about him, how she considered him a best friend.

  She grinned at the memory. “I’d forgotten that night. We were lucky we weren’t caught and arrested.”

  “Yeah.”

  It wasn’t sarcasm in his voice but regret and something else that Cassidy couldn’t quite read. Before she could catch the look in his eyes, Jake turned away from her and headed to the shower.

  Without him, the room seemed larger and colder. Cassidy put another log on the fire, then checked the lock on the door and the windows. Outside, the clouds shaded the moon and a fog rolled in. The frogs’ croaking had died down and the crickets seemed to be sleeping. She searched for rain clouds, but the night sky looked cloudless. The entire state was going through a drought, and they desperately needed rain.

  Cassidy found a blanket in a closet and floated it over her lap as she resumed her place on the sofa. Closing her eyes, she still saw Jake. Imagined him in the shower, the water sluicing over his dark hair and broad shoulders. What was wrong with her? She didn’t think of him as the boy she’d once known but the man he’d become, the man she found more attractive than she would have liked. The man she kept wanting to touch.

  Cassidy tried thinking of Jake as a brother, but disturbing images, sexy images, kept getting in the way. Thoughts of him as a man with wants and needs and desires disturbed her. Luckily when she’d told Jake she wished they’d kept in touch, he’d seemed to sense that she’d sp
oken from a combination of nostalgia and insecurities and friendship. But had she?

  Suddenly Cassidy wondered what it would be like to make love to a man like Jake. Even as a kid, Jake Cochran would have been gentle—he wouldn’t have laughed at her inexperience.

  A loud bang startled Cassidy from her thoughts. She sat up with a gasp, the blanket falling to the floor, her heart pumping wildly.

  Had someone banged on the door? Had someone found them? Had she seen the doorknob turn?

  Rushing to the window, she peered through the darkness toward the lake. She’d just about convinced herself she’d dreamed the noise when the bald head of a man appeared, his face wild-eyed, with horn-rimmed glasses and bushy brows, two inches from the windowpane.

  Cassidy screamed and headed straight for the bathroom. And Jake.

  A very wet, very naked Jake.

  JAKE HEARD HER SCREAM and his throat tightened. Grabbing his gun from the shoulder holster hanging over the towel rack, he sprinted from the bathroom, his only fear for Cassidy’s safety. When he’d almost lost her earlier today, he’d realized how much she still meant to him. But now that she was in his protection, her safety was his responsibility.

  Expecting to meet trouble, he banged, instead, into a terrified Cassidy. Her eyes looked too big in a face that was pale. Something had scared her, and without thinking, he shoved her behind him. Then he raised his weapon, searching the room for danger.

  He didn’t see anyone.

  “There’s a man outside,” Cassidy whispered, her voice trembling. “I saw him through the window.”

  “Who?”

  “A man.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Wild. He looked mad and wild. And he wore horn-rimmed glasses.”

  Before Cassidy could say more, someone banged on the front door. The doorknob turned as someone tested the lock.

  “Damn it, Cochran,” the very familiar voice of Harrison demanded, “open the door already. I’m exposed out here.”