by Cindy Dees
“Huh?”
“If you don’t kiss me with a little more heat, I’m gonna have to stick my hand down the front of your pants,” she threatened.
The idea of her doing that rocked his world. Literally. He inhaled hard, and if he thought he’d been tense before, his entire body went rigid. Must focus. Lethal threat nearby. Kiss Sam. Do not think about her hand!
Too late. In spite of shotgun guy out there somewhere in the dark, he was suddenly all too aware of her curves against his, of the seductive musk of her perfume, of how good it would feel to have her hands on him giving him pleasure he’d denied himself for far too long.
Nearly growling aloud in frustration, he bent his head to hers and did his level best to kiss her lights out. His attention was torn between the smoking-hot kiss they were sharing, trying to listen for the man in the woods and praying that he or Sammie didn’t take a shotgun shell in the back at any second.
Finally, he mumbled against her mouth without breaking contact, “Is he gone yet?”
“Nah. Jerk’s enjoying the show. Good news is he looks relaxed and isn’t pointing his gun at us anymore.”
Gray broke off the kiss immediately, whispering tersely, “I’m not putting you on display for some sick bastard like this. Point me in his direction and I’ll go take him out.”
“I think if we just move along, maybe head for a clearing so we can gaze at the stars a while, he’ll take off.”
Without his NVGs, he was as blind as a kitten out here. Sam took his hand and they strolled off through the trees with her leading the way. Unerringly, she took him to a rocky outcropping. They climbed up it and sat down, side by side to stare up at the night sky. The display would be breathtaking were it not for the armed man behind them.
“Still back there?” Gray muttered.
Sam looked around casually, as if checking out the view. “He’s moving away from us. Headed generally in the direction of the road.”
“Any idea who he was?” Gray asked.
“None. Could be just some bubba whose land we stumbled onto, could be one of Proctor’s guys checking us out.”
“How would they know we were here? Assuming we didn’t trip any motion detectors or the like.”
“I didn’t see any, nor any weight pads, trip wires or other nasty little surprises,” Sam replied. “Normally, I’d say they must have satellite imagery of this area and have picked up our heat signatures.”
Gray countered, “But how would Proctor get access to information like that? And heat-seeking sights are electronic. They’d be spotted around here in a minute.”
“Unless Proctor only uses them in emergencies. Or unless they’re mounted on satellites.”
If he had access to a cell phone, he could call the local NSA facility and ask in two seconds if an electronic emission had been picked up tonight in this area. But it would have to wait until the morning.
“So are we setting up a tent and playing house out here tonight?” he asked in resignation.
She gazed across the valley. “It’s as good a spot as any. I’ve got a pretty good view of the compound from here.”
“You’re kidding.” He didn’t even see the buildings anymore.
“Told you I’m good.”
“You’re freaking unbelievable,” he muttered.
“And don’t you ever forget it,” she retorted, laughing.
They pitched their lightweight, nylon tent together, angling the end opening so Sam could see the Proctor compound from inside. He unrolled a pair of sleeping bags and crawled into the longer one of the two. The night was growing cold and damp quickly. Sammie Jo crawled inside her bag as well, but sat up in it beside him and continued to watch the compound. His down sleeping bag warmed to a cozy temperature, and he began to feel drowsy.
Sam glanced down at him and murmured, “Go ahead and take a nap. I’m gonna watch the compound until everyone goes to bed for the night.”
He nodded and closed his eyes, listening to a light breeze rustle in the trees outside. Relaxation settled over him and...peace. The sensation was odd. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this way. But it was nice. Something he could get used to.
He fell asleep smiling. But when Emily appeared in front of him, looking sad and disappointed, his joy evaporated.
What are you doing, Gray? Have you forgotten me? Don’t you love me anymore?
The old guilt rolled through him like acid eating his soul. Of course I love you, baby. I’ll always love you. Except tonight he was having a hard time making out her face. It was blurred. Faded. Like water had dripped on a watercolor and smeared it.
Only me?
Yeah. Sure. Except his usual certainty in the truth of that wasn’t there tonight. More guilt piled on top of the previous guilt. A horrifying realization slammed into him. He couldn’t remember what she looked like. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t bring her face into focus. Panic gripped him. The ghost of his dead wife was slipping away from him. He held his arms out to her, but she was just out of reach and getting farther away by the second.
I forgive you for not being home that night, Gray. For not saving us.
He groaned at the searing pain her words caused. A mountain of guilt that dwarfed all the previous guilt crushed him beneath its mighty weight. Come back to me, Em! Don’t go—
Something gripped his shoulder. He shook off the interruption. He deserved this pain, this inability to breathe. It was all his fault. They were all dead because of him. Gone...
“Wake up, Gray.”
“Huh?” He looked up at orange nylon, disoriented. Where was he?
“You were having a bad dream.”
Not bad. Emily could never be bad. He welcomed her specter, no matter how painful, for how else would he remember her? Except tonight, he hadn’t been able to conjure her face. Frantically, he did his best to picture her. To remember some obscure detail about her. She liked lilies. White lilies of the valley. And lilac-scented candles. And rocky road ice cream. His panic receded slightly.
“Are you okay? What were you dreaming about?” Sam leaned over him in concern, dramatic and bold where Emily was soft and sweet. Mouthy, brash and funny where Emily wouldn’t say boo to a mouse. Frankly sexual, where Emily had always been shy almost to the point of painfulness.
“Yeah. I’m okay,” he lied. He stared up at the tent ceiling. What the hell was that dream all about? Was Sam erasing Emily from his mind? From his heart? A shocking sense of relief rolled over him, followed quickly by horror. He shouldn’t be relieved to forget his beloved wife! It was blasphemy. Em and the kids were dead. The least he could do was guard their memories.
He lay there flagellating himself until Sam murmured out of the dark beside him, “Uhh, Gray. We’ve got a problem.”
He lurched upright. “What?” He bumped his head on the tent fabric and ducked instinctively.
“The guy who was following us a while ago? He just pulled into the Proctor compound and was all agitated. And there are about eight men piling into SUVs as we speak. I’ll bet he told them about us.”
He swore under his breath and scrambled to get out of his sleeping bag. “How much time have we got before they get here?” he bit out.
“You’ve got to figure it’s a twenty or thirty-minute drive around the valley and then along this ridge to our location. Maybe ten or fifteen more minutes for them to hike in from the road to us here.”
That was plenty of time to pack up, erase any signs of having been here, and to bug out. Problem was, their Bronco was back behind them, hidden off the same road Proctor’s men would no doubt use to come here.
“If they come in on the same road we did, we’ll either have to circle around them or sneak right past them to get to our vehicle,” he bit out.
“That’s why you’ve got me with you,” Sam answered breezily. “Sneaking past folks is no big deal when you can see them long before they see you.”
“Yes, but in heavy forest, you’ve got no advan
tage on them because of trees blocking your view.”
She snorted. “Clearly you have no experience in thinking like an eagle. I don’t watch for the men. I watch for squirrels and birds and other critters to move away from the humans. Works like a charm. Trust me.”
“Like I have any choice in the matter?” he groused as he stuffed his sleeping bag into his backpack and strapped her sleeping bag onto the bottom of it.
“Have I done you wrong so far?” she asked as she passed him collapsing tent poles to shove inside the pack.
She hadn’t. But he’d probably done her a grave wrong by letting their attraction grow to the level it had. As bad as he wanted her, she was not for him. No woman was.
They took off running through the woods, paralleling the ridgeline a little below it, with Sam leading the way. He had to give her credit. She was in darned good physical condition. Without warning, she screeched to a halt and gestured for him to duck. He crouched beside her, peering through the night-vision goggles at a green world. All he saw were trees and more trees. She gestured that they should head left, toward the rocky high ground that marked the top of the ridge.
He nodded and they moved off quietly in that direction. The trees gave way to a rocky outcrop that was far too exposed for his taste. He opened his mouth to say so, but Sam waved him to silence. Just how close were the bad guys?
They crept along behind the boulders in fits and starts. Sam would stop and stare for a few seconds, nod to herself as if she’d spotted her prey, and then move out. She’d go a few yards until she saw something that made her freeze, and they’d repeat the process all over again. It was maddening. He hadn’t the faintest idea what she was seeing, and in spite of his excellent night-vision gear, he felt blind.
Worse, he was dependent on Sam for his safety, which felt extremely weird. He was the protector. The lone wolf who looked out for people in trouble. Not the other way around.
She yanked on his shirt, dragging him down beside her. She held up three fingers and pointed off to her right. Then she pointed her index finger at him like a toy gun. Three armed men off to their right? Damn. He reached for his own pistol. Sam forestalled him with a hand on his forearm and gestured for him to follow her instead. She took off crawling on her hands and knees ahead of him.
Were they not outnumbered and outgunned, he’d probably have enjoyed the view of her pert derriere wiggling along in front of him. But as it was, he spent the long crawl cursing her silently for not letting him take out the guys behind them.
Sam stopped behind a massive boulder topping the highest point along a broad stretch of rocks. She whispered, “They’ve moved off in that direction. We should be able to watch them from here and when they’ve moved a little farther off, slip behind them and head for the Bronco.”
He stared down at the tree line below, catching occasional glimpses of the men closest to them. Before long, something disturbing dawned on him. The men below were staggered at precise intervals, moving side to side in a highly disciplined search pattern employed by military forces.
He whispered back, “Who are these guys? Where did they learn to search like that? They’re using a pattern the army rangers developed.”
Sam shrugged. “Maybe they’ve got an ex-ranger among them.”
“It takes more than having a ranger show you the pattern. You’ve got to train for it, practice it, have a whole team of closely controlled soldiers to execute it properly. I thought these guys were granola-eating hippies. Where’d they learn that kind of discipline?”
Sam glanced over at him grimly. “Same place they learned how to gut a man with a knife, probably.”
There was a whole lot more to this Proctor gang than met the eye. What else were they hiding from the rest of the world? No wonder Jeff Winston had sent Luke Zimmer, and now them, to poke around. When they got off this mountain, he was having a serious conversation with Jeff about these guys.
Sam was moving out, picking her way between the rocks. He took a different route that brought him to the bottom of the scree field ahead of her. He might not be able to see a mile, but he knew a thing or two about stealth, and right now that was more important than eagle eyes.
“I’ll lead,” he whispered. “Let me know if you see anyone approaching.”
She nodded.
Whether she liked it or not, he drew his pistol as he eased into the trees. Proctor’s men were not amateurs, and Gray had no doubt they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him and Sam. It did beg the question of what they were so defensive of that they’d hunt down a pair of campers nearly a mile from their compound, though.
What was going on at that place? If only Sam had more time to watch it and figure out what Proctor was up to.
He moved swiftly through the trees. The silence around them was heavy with anticipation. Alone, he wouldn’t have minded it. He knew how to slide through the night without disturbing it. But Sam was with him and nothing must happen to her. Not like Emily—
He stumbled and his attention snapped back to his footing. He was not responsible for Sam. He’d vowed long ago never to be responsible for another human life again. And yet there was no denying his instinct to take care of her.
A tug on his shirt brought him to an immediate halt. Sam was pointing ahead in the gloom and indicating that the road was just ahead. He nodded and moved more slowly, easing toward the as yet invisible opening in the trees.
There. He crept to the edge of the road and glanced up at the tree line overhead, spotting the massive poplar that had been just ahead of the Bronco when he pulled off the road. It was off to their left. Sticking to the shadows, he headed for the vehicle, relieved when its bulk loomed before him. He tossed the backpack in the back, closing the hatch-back with a quiet snick. Sam eased into the car beside him and they pulled the doors shut carefully.
He reached for the ignition and Sam bit out, “Wait.”
His hand froze. “What’s up?”
“Dust ahead.”
He tensed, ready to start the car and race away from the approaching danger. He heard it before he saw it. Three pickup trucks raced past them in a cloud of dust. The mini-convoy barreled on by noisily, and the sound of it retreated into the night.
“Are we clear?” he murmured.
“Nothing more is moving out there,” she replied.
Good enough for him. He started the SUV and turned it around, heading slowly down the dirt road behind the trucks so he didn’t create a dust cloud to announce their presence.
“Well, that was exciting,” Sam announced cheerfully.
He frowned over at her. “You don’t have to sound so chipper about it. We could’ve been shot.”
“Us? Nah. I’d have seen them pointing a gun at us long before anyone pulled a trigger.”
“If you rely too much on your vision to save you, you’re going to get sloppy. Make a mistake that could cost you your life.” As the words came out of his mouth, dread coursed through him. He couldn’t lose Sam, too.
“I’ll be fine, Mr. Gloom-and-Doom.”
“Don’t blow me off. This is important.”
“What’s it to you?” she retorted. “I can take care of myself.”
Stung, he stared at the road ahead. That was what he wanted, right? No responsibility. No commitments. She’d take care of herself. Then why in hell was he so irritated with her right now?
Frustrated with himself, he asked, “Did you see anything at the compound to indicate what they’re up to? Anything out of the ordinary. Something that didn’t belong.”
She shook her head. “If they’re up to something, they’re probably doing it during daylight hours. It’s not like they have to hide their activities if they’re going to chase everyone out of this valley at gunpoint. We’ll have to come back when people are moving around and working. In the morning, maybe?”
He snorted. “In the morning, I’m calling Jeff Winston and having him call in every favor he has to in order to get satellite surveillance on these turkeys.�
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“Good call.”
“How did you spot them when we were up on top of the ridge? I never saw a thing.”
“It was little movements. The tail of a shirt. A handful of gravel rolling. Crickets jumping out of the way.”
“And you saw those details how far away?”
“Anywhere from a few hundred feet to several hundred yards.”
“Is there anything you can’t see?”
“I can’t look inside people’s heads. Life would be a lot simpler if I could.”
The idea of her being able to see his thoughts and feelings appalled him. “I wouldn’t like that at all,” he blurted.
“Why? What secrets have you got to hide?” she asked.
“Plenty.”
“Like what?”
“If I told you they wouldn’t be secrets anymore.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?”
He glanced over at her. She sounded strangely intense but was staring straight ahead, however. “Depends on the secret, I suppose,” he answered.
“In my experience, all secrets are bad.”
“Oh, come on. Surely you’ve got a few skeletons in your closet that you’d be mortified if anybody found out about. Everyone’s got them.”
She frowned. “Not really. My life’s an open book.”
The idea of living that way made him shudder. He’d been carrying around his secrets for so long he couldn’t imagine laying the burden down. Not to mention his work was all about keeping secrets. But those were different. They dealt with national security and didn’t touch him personally. He said slowly, “I wouldn’t know how to begin letting go of my secrets. They’re part of who I am.”
“Memories are part of who you are. Secrets are merely memories you can’t or won’t share with anyone else.”
“Some secrets have the power to hurt other people and are best left unshared,” he countered.
“Agreed. But some secrets hurt the person who’s keeping them the most. They eat at you from the inside out.”
She said that almost like she knew about his most carefully guarded secrets. Surely Jeff hadn’t— Gray cut the thought off cold. His old friend would never betray him in that way.
