by Regan Black
When she’d hauled him here yesterday afternoon, she’d stripped him and taken his weapons. He hadn’t carried a pack of any kind, no water or food in his pockets. Keeping his wicked knife on her hip, she’d hidden the rifle, pistol and ammunition in case he woke up and remembered he’d been hunting her. Dragging off his wet boots and clothing, she’d done her best to ignore his stunning body. Defined muscles appeared ready to spring into action even while he was passed out.
Annoyed with herself for the bolt of lust his naked form provoked, she’d covered him with her emergency blanket and searched this clothing for any identification. The effort had been a bust. No wallet, no cash, not even a cell phone. Nothing that explained what he’d been doing before he’d abruptly changed course to chase her.
All she knew for sure was that a man who looked like a Viking didn’t belong on the protected land of the Crow Reservation. She guessed he had a military connection, based on his gear and the way he’d moved. Of course, nothing had been marked with an official emblem—that would have been too easy.
She had the pictures of his face and his weapons. He had yet to be awake long enough to eat or drink anything. He couldn’t go on like that indefinitely. She’d treated the two wounds with her dwindling supplies and still the blood seeped. If she left now, she could get out, take advantage of the full dark and beat the coming rain. That was the most logical option and gave her the best chance to escape.
She stared up at the velvety sky, heavy clouds blotting out the stars, scudding over the moon. Go. The word whispered through her mind. Go. She stepped back toward the shelter, determined to get her pack and actually leave this time.
Suddenly the man was shouting, spewing violent oaths amid the sounds of a struggle. “Get the fuck off me!”
What now?
Rushing forward, she saw him tangled in the mylar sheet of her emergency blanket, the shiny surface reflecting light all over the cramped space. Any second now he’d be in the fire. His eyes were open, glassy, and wild. Whatever he was seeing, she knew it wasn’t her.
Just what she needed, a brutally tough, naked man in the throes of a violent nightmare. “Easy. You’re safe.” She wished she knew his name but she kept reiterating the safe aspect, keeping her voice even and steady. Murmuring nonsense had calmed him during the previous fever spikes. “Relax, friend.”
“You can’t keep me!” he bellowed, shoving to his feet and swaying like a drunk.
“Easy,” she repeated. A single misstep would end with yet another head injury. She stepped aside so he could see the way out. “By all means, go.” And good luck to you, she thought. He might be strong, but unwell and nude with all that pale skin glowing like moonlight, he wouldn’t last until noon out in the elements.
Guilt nipped at her conscience. If he left, she’d have to follow him. He was unwell—at least in part—because of an injury she’d caused. She’d struck him to survive, yes. But since she hadn’t left him to drown, she wouldn’t leave him to wander the reservation until death caught up with him. Probably not sound logic, she’d given up on that where he was concerned. She told herself it was curiosity fueling all of this: if he died she’d never know why he decided to shoot her and that seemed like an important detail.
He took a staggering step forward, intent on escape, she imagined. Giving him room, she stuck close to the opposite wall. She would douse the fire and gather their belongings and then follow him until she could contact authorities.
Apparently he had the sense to bend low to get through the opening, but that was the limit of his coordination. He tripped and pitched forward, catching himself on his hands and knees. A startling contrast to how perfectly he’d moved on the run yesterday morning. He hissed in pain and swore again.
Sitting back on his heels, he tipped his head up to the sky. Lightning flashed and somewhere in the distance thunder rumbled. He swore again, but his tone changed from that bellow rooted in terror to something akin to bewildered.
“Where am I? What’s happening to me?”
At least one question was easy to answer. “You’re on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana.”
He twisted around at the sound of her voice, his eyes clear.
She swallowed, suppressing the shiver as prickles of unease danced down her spine. “And I have no idea.”
Chapter 5
“You’re real.” This wasn’t a bizarre nightmare. The air chilling his skin wasn’t due to a relentless fan in a cold lab it was actually a real, natural breeze. The odd play of shadows was because of a fire behind the woman rather than some manufactured sensory assault. And he was standing outside under a dark sky, bare-assed naked. “I’m not dead and you’re real.” Despite the evidence, the abused part of his brain needed more convincing.
“My name is Hope.” Clearly oblivious to his nudity, she held out a hand to him. “Come in out of the weather. It smells like rain.”
She was—her name was—Hope. Again, she was real and not a cruel manifestation of his nightmares. He wasn’t in that glass and metal hell like an overgrown lab rat. Moving slowly, his knee stinging from a scrape and random tremors quaking through his limbs, he returned to the shelter and warmth she promised. Settling near the small fire, he recalled gentle hands and a soothing voice.
“Hope.”
“That’s right.” She knelt down and gathered up a stack of clothing. “Your clothes are dry now.”
He took his clothes and the fabrics, warm from the fire, felt amazing against his skin. He remembered being wet. And hot. And so damn cold. There had been strange dreams and stranger conversations. “I’m thirsty,” he said. The creek was right there. Despite the hour, the cold, and the looming rain, jumping in and scrubbing off sounded like a fine idea. The unpleasant smell of the fever sweat clung to his skin.
“I’m sure. There’s fresh water here. And a couple of protein bars.”
On cue, his stomach rumbled. Despite the tight space and his uncooperative muscles, he managed to get his pants on before he sat down again. Her smile intrigued him. Not exactly friendly, but patient. As if she had all the time in the world for him to get his head clear and figure out what was going on. Only the wariness in her eyes gave him cause to wonder about the events that must have landed him here.
His mind was a jumble of receding pain and disjointed images that didn’t add up. “You’re a steady one,” he observed as she handed him a canteen. “Are you out here alone?”
“I was.” With a series of crinkles and rattles that bounced off the stone and hurt his ears in the small space, she folded the mylar blanket.
“That was the sound that woke me,” he noted.
“The blanket?” Her hands stilled and the resulting silence was almost worse. “You were under it until a few minutes ago.”
He remembered the crackling heat, feeling stifled as if every breath scorched him from inside out. “In my dream, nightmare, whatever. That sound must have, ah…”
“Scared you?” she finished for him.
He shrugged and dipped his chin. “Guess so.” Why did it matter if she thought he was a coward?
“Makes sense,” she said. “You were really sick and fevers can do strange things to your head.” The blanket folded into a compact rectangle, she tucked it into a pouch not much bigger than an index card. “On top of that you probably have a concussion.”
“Did you tell me you’ve been watching me for two nights or did I dream that?”
She nodded. “That was only a few hours ago,” she said, answering his next question.
When she turned away, stowing the pouch into her pack, he noticed the big-ass knife straight out of a Mercenaries R Us ad sheathed at her waist. If she’d wanted to kill him, she had the right tool, though the black grip looked too big for her hands. His right hand automatically went to his hip and instinct told him that knife was his. He was in over his head, clearly. But how deep and which way to the shallow end?
He had to figure out which of the images in his head wer
e real and how much time he had before the man in the gray suit sent someone to take him out for disobedience. He touched the place near his ear that would activate his connection to the voice that issued his orders when he was in the field. No response, not even static, only a smear of blood on his fingertips.
“You need to tell me what happened,” he said, wiping the blood on his pants. He dragged his shirt over his head and looked around for his boots and the rest of his gear. He should have guns. “Did I have any guns or weapons,” he shot a look at his knife, “when you found me?”
“You don’t need weapons in here tonight,” she said. “What brought you to the Crow Reservation?”
She was smart not to trust him. He didn’t trust himself with the conflicting urges playing bumper cars in his head. He remembered shooting a truck off the road. He remembered being diverted from the planned rendezvous and extraction, but not why. That ex-fil option was surely gone now. But if he got there, and found a way to reestablish communication, he could get back on the right dosage before the next hell of withdrawal hit him.
Except this was his chance to get out, to break the addiction. With the comms offline, the voice in his head silent, he might have a chance to escape the man in the gray suit, unless Hope was another test or trap. “I’m not sure,” he admitted.
“Can you tell me your name?” Her voice soothed his sensitive hearing.
“Owen,” he answered without thinking. Yes! That was his name. He sucked in a breath as the relief rushed through his veins, sweeter than the drug they’d pumped into him. Whatever happened next, he would not let anyone take away his name again.
She tilted her head, the thick, straight fall of dark hair spilling over her shoulder as she studied him. “It suits you. Got a last name?”
He opened his mouth eager to reply, but it just wasn’t there. “You first?”
Her smile was slow, too informed for his comfort. The unease returned. What did she know that he didn’t?
“Hope Small.” She warmed water over the fire in a small pan. “I’m here on tribal land for professional reasons and it’s my tribe.” She dipped a cloth into the warm water and handed it to him. “For the…” She gestured to the side of his face. “That wound isn’t wanting to close.”
He blotted at the tender spot near his hairline. Sure enough, the cloth was bloody. He rinsed it in the warm water and washed his face before tending the wound again. Having his face clean made the rest of him feel more human, but he still couldn’t pin down his last name or what he was doing here.
She watched him, caution underscoring her striking features and demeanor. “All I have are a few meal bars.” She named off flavors, let him choose. “We can hike out tomorrow and you can find real food.”
Better to be forthright, he decided. An opportunity like this might not come around again. If she was some new test, he had size on her, even if she held the weapons. “These head injuries must have scrambled my brain. If I should know you, I don’t.”
“That’s something,” she murmured.
“Meaning?”
“You shouldn’t know me at all.” She broke off a piece of her meal bar, ate it slowly. “You don’t recall anything about how we…met?”
“Not really.” He polished off his meal bar and imagined a steak dinner and a bottle of beer. How long had it been since he and the guys had made a night of it? A long time, he realized. Faces without names drifted through his mind as he tried to fit the pieces into a coherent picture. “You found me out here alone?”
“I’ve heard people with concussions shouldn’t tax themselves,” she said abruptly. “Full recovery relies on time and quiet. Just get some rest,” she suggested. “We can talk in the morning.”
He supposed if she’d been sent to kill him, she would have done it while he was incapacitated. Outside he could hear the leading edge of the rain splashing into the creek, on the trees and stones sheltering them. “Do you have a cell phone?” he asked.
“Yes.” Her gaze narrowed. “Won’t do you any good right now. The reservation is littered with dead zones like this one.”
The people who’d sent him here wouldn’t let that kind of detail stop them. “Is it on or off?”
“Off.” She banked the fire and stretched out, using her pack as a bolster behind her shoulders. “I’ll keep watch. You’re safe here, Owen.”
He wanted to believe her. Needed to, he realized. If she was who she claimed to be then she was his best hope of breaking the drugs, brutal tests, and fog he’d been in for who knew how long. If she was on their side, he’d know soon enough.
“All right.” Her confidence gave him just enough reassurance to give into the fatigue dragging at him. Besides, she looked as if she could use a peaceful night as well. Lying down on the soft blanket she must have provided for him earlier, he pillowed his cheek on his bent arm and watched her through the fire until he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer.
*
Amelia clicked on yet another crime report listing Owen Harbison as a person of interest. All of them dated within the past forty-eight hours and all of them following a trail north of where he’d first been spotted in conjunction with the dead JAG officer in Arizona.
“The unstoppable one-man crime spree,” she murmured. Amelia continued her search of online news outlets and headlines, scrolling with one hand, the other resting on her rounded belly. Inside, she felt the baby stretch, a tiny miracle growing day by day. Only a few short months to go before she and John brought the baby home to the ranch. Home, she thought with a swell of love and pride, another unexpected miracle.
It was past time to find a potential miracle for Scott. As well as he had adapted to his new situation, he needed some closure, preferably of the positive variety. He and Ben had returned yesterday, utterly disappointed with their lack of progress. Even with the police actively searching for Harbison in and around Fort Huachuca and more law enforcement teams looking for the man, they hadn’t picked up a viable trail.
Not the first setback since they’d started this journey to dismantle UI. It wouldn’t be the last. They just had to be more tenacious than Messenger.
The man in the gray suit had changed up his pattern when he’d recruited Scott and the others and she wasn’t sure what it meant. The three soldiers had been falsely accused and eventually convicted of murder on a military base overseas. Days after the sentencing, the three men had been signed out of prison in the middle of the night. Their escape vehicle had been found later, a charred wreck off a lonely stretch of Texas highway with three dead bodies conveniently identified as the escapees.
Obviously, it was all an impeccable bit of black-ops theater by Messenger to get fresh blood into his pet-project. Scott was alive and well, and he continued to believe his friends could also be found and rescued from UI. She hoped, for everyone, that they wouldn’t be too late.
“You can’t do this on the run,” she murmured. The tracker they’d planted on Messenger a few years ago wasn’t giving reliable feedback anymore. John and Ben continued to evaluate the movements they could confirm and although they narrowed the search areas, they weren’t any closer to locating a new facility.
The baby kicked and she took it as encouragement. “That’s right, sweetheart. We’ll get him.”
Owen Harbison had been sighted among the living, immediately disappeared and unexpectedly reappeared. But only on surveillance feeds. Not a single eyewitness account in any of these articles. She couldn’t let that be the end of it. Messenger had nearly killed John. She refused to allow the bastard to keep up his habit of ruining good men and women.
“Come to bed,” John said. He laid his hands on her shoulders and stroked the tension out of tight muscles. “The answers will be there in the morning.”
“Says you.” He knew evidence pointing to UI had a tendency to disappear. If she stopped searching, all of these articles on Owen might be buried tomorrow.
He short-circuited the argument by simply plucking her ou
t of the chair. Since she’d been feeling less like a woman and more like one of Jaime’s new draft horses lately, she let him. There was something to be said for being handled by a man who knew her, loved her, and was willing to shower her with affection and pleasure until they were both spent, gasping and satisfied.
“Sleep,” John ordered as he pulled the sheet up to cover them. “We have the ultrasound appointment in Bozeman tomorrow.”
“I knew you had an agenda.” Her body content and her heart happy, the worries drifted back into her mind.
“Everyone does.” He nuzzled her neck, laid his palm over her belly, and sighed when she squirmed away and turned on the light.
“That’s right.” How did Messenger advance his agenda by exposing Harbison?
John burrowed his face into the pillow to block the light. “Amelia. This isn’t sleeping.”
“Why did Messenger risk someone recognizing Harbison at the murder scene? We both know it had to be his goons or gadgets that messed with the other camera feeds in the area, why leave the most incriminating camera operational?”
“I’ll sleep on it and let you know in the morning.” John rolled to his back but he kept his hand over his eyes. The sheet slipped down to his waist, distracting her. Tempting her.
“I’m sorry.” She knew she could be obstinate once she sunk her teeth into an issue. But they’d come so close to undoing UI. The idea that Messenger could rebuild was a direct threat to their current peace.
John sat up and reached over her to turn out the light. “Sleep.”
She let him pull her close, his heart beating a soothing lullaby in her ear. In recent years as they alternately pursued UI and evaded Messenger’s pursuit of them, she’d learned not pulling a thread could also be helpful. Timing, she supposed, really was everything. She closed her eyes and though the baby had quieted, her mind kept churning.
The court martial had been in Texas. The escape car torched and three bodies found meant the authorities had no reason to keep searching. An unfortunate blemish on the correctional system, but the case was officially closed.
