Mountain Ranger Recon

by Carol Ericson

  He wanted to take her in his arms again. She looked vulnerable in her soft, flowered pajamas and bunny slippers. Vulnerable? She kept your son from you.

  Ian rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know, Meg. Do you have much vandalism in this area? Kids pulling pranks?”

  “That’s what you think now?” Her eyes widened. “Kids pulling pranks? Don’t try to spare me, Ian. If you think some terrorist has me in his sights because he thinks I know something or have something, spit it out.”

  Wedging his palms on the countertop, he hunched forward. “Just seems like a coincidence to me. Kayla dies, we stay behind to hike out and you have a Peeping Tom breaking windows in your house. What does it sound like to you?”

  “Sounds like I’ve stepped in it.” She shook her foot in front of her. “Fuzzy slippers and all.”

  He laughed and slapped the counter. That’s what he loved…liked about Meg. She could be terrified, facing a crevasse that tumbled away into nothingness, and she’d scrounge up a little bit of humor for the situation.

  “In the morning, I’ll take a look around outside and see if our visitor left anything besides the yarn from his scarf. Somehow, I can’t picture him wearing mittens.” On the way to his makeshift bed, he chucked Meg under the chin. “Get some sleep.”

  “Are you comfortable enough on the couch?”

  “I was fine until you screamed.” He peeled off his socks and adjusted the blanket over his shoulders. “Good night, Meg.”

  “Good night.” She shuffled from the room and he could tell by the squeak of a hinge, she was checking on Travis again.

  She had the mom stuff all figured out. But right now, it wasn’t the mom stuff that made his mouth water every time she smiled or touched his hand. Ian punched his pillow a few times and turned his face into the soft cotton of the pillowcase, inhaling the sweet wildflower scent of his wife.

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING a bug crawling across Ian’s face woke him up. He slapped at it and burrowed deeper into the pillow, trying to recapture his erotic dream about Meg, featuring a field of wildflowers and a lot of bare skin.

  The bug resumed its course across his cheek, and Ian smacked it again eliciting…giggles.

  Dishes clinked in the sink. “Travis, leave your daddy alone. He’s sleeping.”

  Ian peeled open one eye and met an identical green one staring back at him. He yawned and Travis poked a little finger into his gaping mouth. Ian snapped his mouth around the finger, holding it tight with his lips.

  Travis squealed but made no attempt to remove his finger, instead wiggling it behind Ian’s teeth. Ian spit out the finger, making a face by screwing up his eyes and puckering his lips. “Ugh, I almost swallowed a bug.”

  The “bug” giggled again as Ian hunched up to a sitting position. He grabbed Travis beneath the arms and hauled him onto the couch next to him.

  Meg wedged a shoulder against the entrance to the kitchen, cradling a cup of steaming coffee. “Is he bothering you?”

  “Not at all.” Ian trailed his fingers through his son’s curls, his gaze tracking up and down Meg’s outfit of jeans and hiking boots. She obviously had no intention of following his advice. “Apparently, it’s time to get up anyway.”

  “I made coffee, hot and strong, just the way you like it. There are some blueberry waffles on the stove and juice and fruit in the fridge.” She waved an arm behind her. “Help yourself. I’m dropping Travis off at Eloise’s Day Care—Eloise is Felicia’s mother. Then I’m going to work.”

  At this last statement, she squared her shoulders and planted her boots about two feet apart. He knew better than to go on the attack. Besides, he had his own methods. Hadn’t he been a covert ops guy under the best damn leader in the entire military?

  “Mmm, I love blueberry waffles.”

  Meg almost spit her coffee back into her cup. “I made them last weekend. They’re frozen. Just pop them in the microwave for a minute.”

  Travis scrambled from his lap and trotted toward a small backpack with a superhero on it. Ian would have to brush up on his superheroes.

  “I can handle a microwave.” He stretched and the blanket fell away from his body. Meg’s eyes flicked over his chest and her gaze felt like the brush of a soft feather. A hot need plunged from his belly further south. He and Meg had always liked to start the day making love.

  Ian cleared his throat and yanked the blanket across his crotch. “What trail are you hiking today?”

  “Morningside.” If she’d noticed his lust springing into action, she gave no sign other than spinning around toward the kitchen and dropping her cup in the sink. “What are you doing today?”

  “First I’m going to check outside that garage window and the surrounding area. Maybe our boy left a calling card.” He pushed off the couch, shook out the blanket and folded it. “Then I’m going to do some more checking up on those hikers from yesterday.”

  Meg grabbed her pack by the straps and hoisted it over her shoulders. “Thanks for sticking around last night, Ian. If you had left and I discovered that window…well, I probably would’ve stayed up all night pacing. I felt safe with you here.”

  “I’m glad I could make you feel safe.” He took two steps toward her and hooked his thumbs around the backpack straps skimming the sides of her breasts. “Now stay that way.”

  A pink tide inched across her cheeks. “Get your backpack, Travis.”

  Travis scooped up his pack and hitched it over his shoulders just like Mom. Then he scurried to the two of them and grabbed Ian around the leg.

  Ian swept him up in his arms, superhero backpack and all. “You have a great day, kiddo. No more battle scars, at least for now.”

  He followed Meg to the front door, still clasping Travis to his chest, Travis’s hair tickling his chin. The fact that he’d been half-responsible for creating this miracle filled him with awe. How could anyone abuse that gift? How had his parents managed to live with themselves?

  “I’ll take him from here.” Meg held out her arms.

  “Are you sure?” Ian didn’t feel like relinquishing his hold on his son. He had a sudden, irrational fear that if he let him go now, he’d have to wait another two years before seeing him again.

  “You’re hardly dressed to go out into a brisk Colorado morning.” She waved her fingers at his bare chest and feet.

  “You have a point.” He gave Travis one last squeeze before turning him over to Meg. “Be careful, Meg. Beware of German tourists bearing gifts.”

  “Back atcha.”

  Ian folded his arms across his chest as the cold air needled his flesh, giving rise to a rash of goose bumps. He watched Meg secure Travis in his car seat and back out of the driveway. When the last puff of exhaust disappeared, he turned and shut the door.

  He’d throw on his clothes here, and then shower at the hotel. Just as soon as he devoured a couple of those blueberry waffles. He poured himself a cup of black coffee and sipped it as he tossed a waffle into the micro wave. After making short work of not one, but two waffles smothered in maple syrup, he finished dressing and braced against the chilly air to investigate the back of Meg’s house.

  She lived on the edge of the wilderness. Rough terrain rushed up to the back of her house and then became civilized as it met the patterned bricks of her patio. She needed a fence around her property to keep animals, human and otherwise, away from the house.

  Ian stepped up to the broken window, searching the ground beneath it. A few sprinkles of glass sparkled on the bricks, but most had landed inside the garage. At six-feet-two, he couldn’t even see into the garage, and would definitely have a hard time hoisting himself over the ledge.

  He surveyed the patio, noting the wooden table, chairs and a folded umbrella. The intruder probably used one of the chairs to reach the window and then shoved it back under the table when his plans changed abruptly.

  Ian stepped off the bricks to the dirt path along the side of the house, the same path he’d followed last night. He couldn’t be sure whic
h bush snagged the yarn from the scarf, so he studied the foliage for a broken line into the underbrush. A few broken twigs, a few misshapen leaves and a big wet footprint in the dirt—his—marked the spot.

  Parting the branches, he ducked into the foliage. The hostile environment scratched and clawed at him from all sides, but he could discern a ramshackle and recent trail. He pushed his way through until he stumbled into a clearing.

  Another house, similar to Meg’s, the front leading to the same road, arose out of the apparent wilderness. No startled residents met him or attempted to stop him, so he traipsed through the backyard to the front of the house. Yep—Meg’s nearest neighbor.

  Ian peered up and down the road. The intruder could’ve parked his car along the side or ensconced it in one of the turnouts down the way. Whatever. Ian had missed his opportunity last night, and the guy hadn’t left anymore tell-tale signs. Now if he could just remember if Hans, the German tourist, had been wearing a black knit scarf.

  He trudged back up the road to Meg’s house and slipped inside. He washed up the dishes she’d left in the sink and rinsed out the coffeepot. Then he gathered his stuff and hit the road.

  Morningside Trail. He could find it. He could hike it. He could follow Meg. And he could do it a lot faster than she could, with a passel of dawdling tourists holding her back.

  Ian pulled his rental into the parking lot of his hotel. The place would be packed during ski season, but Crestline was still on the cusp between fall and winter and hadn’t had the first snowfall yet. Bad enough the climbers and hikers had descended en masse. He didn’t need a crowd of skiers to complicate this mission any more.

  Of course, the minute Meg showed up as the guide for the hike, the mission had gone downhill from there. The mission maybe, but not his life. He had a son. And despite everything, a smile stole over his entire face.

  Jingling his keys in the pocket of his jacket, he waved to the clerk at the front desk and caught the elevator to the third floor. A housekeeping cart hunched at the end of the hallway, abandoned by its keeper. He and Kayla had adjoining rooms. He swallowed hard as he passed hers. He and the agent from Denver decided to keep Kayla’s death under wraps, and Rocky Mountain Adventures hadn’t objected. The tourists on Meg’s hike might have spread the word in town, but nobody official would confirm it.

  Ian dragged the key card out of his pocket and inserted it into the slot. At the green light, he pushed open the door and flipped up the light switch. His nostrils flared at the scent of tobacco. He’d specifically requested a non-smoking room. Both of his parents had been chain smokers, and the stench of tobacco made him nauseous.

  His gaze tracked around the room, taking in an open drawer, a tossed pillow and a stack of hotel literature fanned across the credenza. A chill rippled across his flesh and he reached for his gun.

  He crept forward, nudging the bathroom door with the toe of his boot. It stopped. With his heart thudding a dirge in his chest, he peered around the edge of the door.

  He was sure he hadn’t left that body on the floor.

  Chapter Eight

  Ian dropped to his knees and pressed two fingers against the hotel maid’s pencil-thin neck. Her body was folded over the side of the tub, a sponge still wedged in her gloved hand. A trickle of blood meandered down the side of her face, taking a detour into her ear.

  Her pulse ticked, faint but steady, beneath the pads of his fingers. He loosened her frame from the edge of the bathtub and stretched her out on the floor, her gangling legs extending into the entryway to the bathroom.

  He stepped over her, grabbed the phone and dialed 911. Then he called the front desk and explained the situation to the clerk, who started hyperventilating. Good thing he’d called 911 first.

  Crouching beside the maid again, he rolled up a bath towel and nudged it beneath her head. He cranked on the faucet in the tub and pulled a washcloth from the shelf above the toilet. The cool water soaked the cloth as Ian held it beneath the faucet. When he’d saturated it, he wrung it out and dabbed the maid’s pale cheeks and lips. He now noticed the blood on her face was oozing from a lump on the side of her head.

  Footsteps thumped down the hallway, stopping at Ian’s hotel room. Then the thumping started on the door. Ian lodged the washcloth against the lump on the maid’s head and swung open the door.

  “What happened? Is Crystal okay?”

  “I wouldn’t say she’s okay.” Ian gestured toward Crystal’s unconscious form laid out on the bathroom floor. “But she’s alive.”

  The elevator doors trundled open, launching three EMTs into the hallway, whisking a stretcher and medical equipment along with them. Ian pushed the door open wider and waved. “She’s in here.”

  While the EMTs crowded into the bathroom, Ian took a turn around the room, ignoring the hotel clerk and his wringing hands. He tugged at the closet door and checked the in-room safe—still closed and locked. Ian punched in his code and thumbed through some cash, a few fake IDs, an airline ticket and his iPod. Everything accounted for and undisturbed.

  He then swiveled toward the credenza and cursed. He strode toward it and checked behind the TV, in all the drawers and even beneath a stack of papers. Someone had stolen Kayla’s camera.

  Crystal groaned and one knot loosened in Ian’s gut. At least whoever broke into his room had spared the maid’s life. Crystal must not have seen the guy, because if she had, she’d be dead.

  Heavy footsteps clumped toward the door again, and Ian looked up to see two uniformed cops clustered around the entryway…and his old friend Sheriff Cahill, hat firmly on his head. Crestville had to be a small town, if the sheriff made an appearance at an assault and robbery.

  “Well, whadaya know?” Cahill crossed his arms and puffed out his chest.

  “Sheriff.” Ian nodded in his direction. “I think the maid has come to.”

  Ian poked his head into the bathroom. The EMTs had Crystal on the stretcher, an oxygen mask on her face and a bandage on her head.

  “Can she talk?” Sheriff Cahill loomed over the group.

  “Sure.” One of the EMTs removed the mask and Crystal sputtered.

  “Who knocked me on the head? One minute I was leaning over cleaning the tub, the next I’ve got these guys hovering over me with gas masks.”

  “That’s not a gas mask, ma’am.” The youngest EMT had a stricken look on his red face. “That’s an oxygen mask to help you breathe.”

  “Well, it’s not helping anything.”

  “So you didn’t see who hit you?” Sheriff Cahill took a notebook out of his front pocket.

  “No. Didn’t hear him either. I propped open the door and was hard at work.” She glanced toward the front desk clerk to make sure he’d heard her.

  “And what about you, Mr…. Shepherd?” Cahill tapped his pencil on the cover of the notebook. “Where were you?”

  “I was out. I came back to my room this morning and the cart was down the hall and my door was closed. I discovered her slumped over the tub and called 911.”

  “Have you had a chance to figure out if anything’s missing from your room?” He jabbed the eraser of his pencil in Ian’s direction, as if accusing him of something.

  Ian shrugged. “Just a camera I foolishly left out on the credenza.”

  The sheriff narrowed his eyes. “So you think this is a garden variety burglary?”

  Crystal protested with a wince of pain. “It’s not garden variety to me. We’ve never had nothing like this happen here before, have we, Tate?”

  Tate, the clerk, shook his head so hard his short ponytail whipped from side to side.

  “How about it, Mr. Demp…I mean Mr. Shepherd. Garden variety?” Cahill’s dark brows formed a straight line over his nose.

  Ian shoved his hands in his pockets and wedged his hip against the credenza. “Someone stole a camera. Do you consider that garden variety?”

  “Someone bopping a maid on the head to do so has a more sinister ring to it, don’t you think?”


  “I do.”

  “How about you, Tate?” Cahill turned to the front desk clerk who’d been following the exchange like a tennis match and now gulped in the face of the sheriff’s inquiry. “Huh?”

  Cahill waved his pencil in front of Tate’s face. “Did you notice anything suspicious this morning? Anyone ask for Mr. Shepherd here? Did you see anyone lurking around?”

  “No, Sheriff Cahill. I knew Crystal was working on this floor, but I didn’t hear or see anything.”

  Cahill had more questions for Crystal and Tate, while Ian pretended to look interested. They didn’t know anything, and Cahill knew that.

  Ian had a job to do and no time for Cahill’s games. He cleared his throat. “Are you guys going to take Crystal to the hospital? She was bleeding and out cold when I found her.”

  The EMTs answered by strapping Crystal to the stretcher and wheeling her out of the room while she protested loudly. One of the uniformed officers stepped back into the hallway and Cahill spread his arms as if propping up the frame of the door. “You let me know if you find anything else missing.”

  “I’ll do that, Sheriff.”

  Ian closed the door in Cahill’s face, shed his clothing and hopped in the shower. Five minutes later, he yanked on some clean Levis and layered on the rest of his hiking gear…including his weapon.

  Time to take a brisk hike along Morningside Trail.

  MEG STOPPED FOR the hundredth time that morning to wait for the straggling hikers bringing up the rear. The Rocky Mountain Adventures website and brochure had specifically labeled this hike “easy.” And yet, the gently sloping trail, bordered by fall foliage and waving wildflowers, had this bunch huffing and puffing as if scaling K2 in the midst of a snowstorm.

  A fake smile stretched across her face as the last of the tourists, a man carrying too much junk, panted toward the group. “Water break?”

  Her jolly hikers immediately reached for their packs, fumbling for their water bottles and food. Did she say it was picnic time?

  Meg dug the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. Okay, you had a rough night, but don’t take it out on the poor unsuspecting tourists. How could they possibly know she’d spent a sleepless night in her bed while her husband bunked on the couch in her living room?