by Cindy Gerard
“There’s supposed to be an old forest-fire lookout tower around here. Wait. There it is. Turn left there. The entrance should be at the end of this road—less than a quarter of a mile.”
He braked suddenly. Jammed the Jeep into park, turned off the ignition, and stared at the dark glasses he’d whipped off and held in his hand.
“What?” she asked after several seconds ticked by.
He turned his head slowly. “I need a moment.”
She looked puzzled, then amused. “A moment? You need a… moment?”
“Okay, fine. I want a moment.”
Then he reached for her.
She had to know what he was going to do. The question was, would she let him? He didn’t give her time to decide. He dragged her against him and kissed her. Kissed her as if yesterday was nonexistent, tomorrow would never come, and this moment was all that mattered.
Because it was. All of his fear for her, all of his second-guessing, his bafflement over this crazy hold she had over him—all of it—dissolved into feelings that only made sense when he had her in his arms and his mouth was pressed over hers.
Her taste alone was insane, intoxicating. Yet unbelievably grounding. The feel of her in his arms was, hell, it was perfect. And if he’d learned anything that one single night, those few amazing hours in her bed, it was that what he felt for Eva Salinas didn’t have to make sense. Not when he was kissing her. Not when he was inside her. Not when she was gasping his name and moving against him with an abandon that she could never have given in to if there wasn’t something important happening between them.
But that wasn’t happening now. He pulled away, pressed his forehead to hers, and dug for control. There were other important issues they still had to deal with. Ramon was one. History was another. The snake pit they were about to set foot in was yet another.
“We will finish this,” he whispered, then dove back for one final taste. “When this is over, we will figure this out and we will finish it.”
As abruptly as he’d grabbed her, he let her go. Sliding back behind the wheel, he cranked the ignition and glanced at her. Her lips still parted, her nipples erect against her thin knit top, her expression was slumberous and sexy—and damn if it didn’t make him smile.
“Ready?” he asked as if he hadn’t just kissed her into next week. He was pretty pleased with himself for not only catching her off guard but for bringing her on board. If they weren’t where they were, he’d have dragged her out of the Jeep, flattened her up against the door, and taken her right there. And she would have let him.
“Ready?” he asked again, his voice low this time, intimate, and she finally snapped to.
“Um… yeah.”
Oh, yeah. She definitely would have let him.
He felt smug as hell. So sue him.
To be continued. “Then let’s do this.”
Her hand on his arm stopped him. The dreamy look in her eyes had been replaced by something that sobered him.
“This isn’t going to be easy for you, Mike. Coming face-to-face with Lawson. Buddying up to him. Pretending to drink the Kool-Aid. You sure you can handle it? Because you really need to be sure.”
She wanted guarantees that he could keep his cool, contain his anger, and play nice with the man who had ruined his life and was responsible for ending the lives of some of the best men he’d ever known.
“I can handle it.” He had to handle it.
She searched his eyes, then squeezed his arm. “Then let’s do this.”
He put on his sunglasses and shifted into gear.
They were as prepared as they could get. They both knew their own and each other’s cover as well as they knew “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” They’d studied the intel on the Squaw Valley area and the encampment. They knew the United We Denounce doctrine as well as they knew their own faces. All they needed was to get into the compound.
Which would be no easy feat, if the size of the guns held by the men in the camouflage pickup that suddenly roared up to meet them was any indication.
24
“You can’t read the signs?” The guy riding shotgun—literally—stepped out of the pickup, a big-ass, 16-gauge double-barrel propped against his shoulder. Dust rolled up from under the truck where its oversized tires had skidded to a stop on the dirt road.
Mike squinted through his shades and sized up Mr. Personality with the 16-gauge. He put him at around forty. He was broad-shouldered, beefy, bald, and judging by the swagger and the scowl, saw himself as bad to the bone. Two guys, a few years younger with more wiry builds, sported short dark hair and beards. Both stood in the truck bed, elbows propped on the roof; each had one foot hiked up on the rim of the box in a combative stance. One carried an AR-15 assault rifle. The other held a shotgun that would have been a twin to Mr. Personality’s if the barrel hadn’t been sawed off to next to nothing. All three wore camo T-shirts, cargo pants, combat boots, and varying degrees of a Hitler complex. Mike guessed that the guy behind the wheel was decked out and armed pretty much the same, but couldn’t see him clearly behind the dust on the windshield.
Mike glanced at Eva. “Showtime.” Then he opened the door and stepped out of the Jeep.
“That’s far enough.”
He lifted his arms away from his sides to show he’d come in peace. “I’m looking for Joseph Lawson. Maybe you boys can help me.”
Dead silence. Stone-cold glares.
“This is the UWD compound, right?”
“Don’t matter what this is,” Sawed-off said, all slow and hostile. “ ’Cause it’s no business of yours. You’re on private property, boy. Best you turn around and head back the way you came.”
Mike stood his ground. “Came a long way, fellas. All I want to do is see Lawson.” Not deal with jerk-offs like you, his tone made clear. “I was told I could find him here.”
Personality glanced over his shoulder at Sawed-off, then back at Mike. He was close enough by now that Mike could see SIMMONS stenciled on the pocket of his T-shirt. “Is that a fact? Told by who?”
Mike returned his glare for a tense moment, then finally gave it up with a hint of exasperation. “Barry Hill.”
Hill’s name got exactly the reaction he’d been shooting for. Simmons wasn’t the brightest bulb in the fixture, and the look on his face gave away his surprise. “Hill? What have you got to do with Hill?”
“That’s between me and Lawson,” Mike said, making his impatience clear. “Look. I’m not here to cause trouble. I’m just here to talk to your boss. Now is he here or not?”
Simmons got a real mean smile on his face. “I asked you to tell me how you know Hill.” It was no longer a question but a demand.
“I don’t have to tell you anything.” Another show of irritation that Simmons found amusing.
“Now, see, you’re wrong about that. You don’t get to Lawson unless you get through me.”
Mike pretended to consider, then surrender. “Yes. I know Hill. He said he and Lawson were tight. Brothers in the movement.”
Simmons still wasn’t buying it. “I got a little problem with your story. No way you coulda talked to Hill.”
“Because he’s in stir?” When hostility turned to surprise then to interest, Mike put a cap on it. “He joined the club a couple months before I got out.”
That had them all looking at him in a new light.
“Look, I’m not on the run. I did my time. Now I’m square. Don’t owe anybody anything. I’m not looking for trouble and I didn’t bring any trouble with me.”
“She looks like trouble.” Sawed-off glanced at Eva.
Mike ignored the reference to Eva. Just like he ignored Eva, something he knew instinctively that these Neanderthals would respect the same way they grudgingly respected his show of arrogance. This was men’s business. A woman had no part in it.
“So is Lawson here or not?” he asked Simmons point-blank.
“You still haven’t told us who wants to know.”
“Jesus,�
�� he swore, a man beyond tolerance and weary of their games, then he met Simmons’s combative expression with his own and stepped out on a limb. “The name’s Walker. Dan Walker. But you know what? Forget it. You’re not looking for recruits? Fine. I’m outta here.”
He jerked open the door and moved to get back behind the wheel.
“Hold on there.” Simmons made it clear that he made the decisions around here and he would decide if and when Mike went anywhere. He scowled a while longer, then turned to the driver with a clipped nod. “Call him.”
Inside the shadowed interior of the truck, the driver punched some keys, then held a phone to his ear.
Mike glanced at Eva. She sat stone still, eyes down, hands clasped in her lap. Like a good little subservient of an alpha male would do. It was a nice touch.
A raven flew overhead as they stood there, playing the waiting game. A fly buzzed his ear. The July heat, cut only by the pines that blocked direct sunlight, bore down in evergreen-scented waves.
And time turned agonizingly slowly as they all waited on a conversation that could seal or stall the deal.
Everything hinged on Lawson’s response.
Finally, the driver gave Simmons an almost indiscernible nod and Mike knew they were getting in. It was all he could do not to exhale in relief.
“You carrying?” Sawed-off asked, still perched in the truck box.
“Couple handguns. A Makarov and a Taurus.”
“Turn ’em over.”
Mike made a weak show of looking reluctant, then leaned down to window level and told Eva, “Get the guns out of the glove box.”
“Keep ’em where we can see ’em.” Rifleman felt the need to exert his show of power.
With slow, deliberate moves, Eva handed the handguns to Mike, who handed them to Simmons butt end first, to make sure no one got too excited.
“Now your phones.”
Schooling his expression to reluctant resignation, Mike turned over the burn phone.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“How about I check for myself?” Simmons laid his 16-gauge on the hood and walked over to Mike. “You don’t want to know how sorry you’ll be if you’re lying to me.”
Mike assumed the position and gritted it out while Simmons did a rough and thorough pat-down.
He straightened with a grunt. “Now her.”
Mike had a feeling this would be the first of many moments he was going to regret. He lifted his chin toward Eva, motioning her to get out of the car.
In the end, he couldn’t help himself. “Touch her the wrong way and you’re the one who’s going to be sorry,” he warned Simmons when Eva got out and stood by the Jeep. “You can see she’s not carrying.”
It was true. It would have been difficult to conceal much of anything beneath the tank top and jeans.
Simmons searched her anyway and all Mike could do was stand there, fists clenched at his side, and wait for the bastard to make the wrong move. Apparently Simmons was smarter than he looked. He kept it businesslike, short and impersonal.
“Make sure they stay right where they are,” he told Sawed-off when he was finished, then started searching the Jeep.
He popped the hood, checked the trunk, inside the wheel wells, under the seats, then rifled through their duffel bags. All the while, Mike acted bored and irritated. If Simmons found their cache of weapons inside the doors, there wasn’t enough BS in the world to talk his way past it.
“Get back in the Jeep,” Simmons said, satisfied with his search. “Stay right on our bumper. Keep both hands on the wheel—both of ’em. And tell her to put her hands on the dash where we can see ’em. You only stop if we stop. Got it?”
Mike nodded.
“And stay in the vehicle until you’re told to get out.”
He climbed back into the truck. After a lot of engine gunning and tire spinning, the driver maneuvered the pickup around on the narrow road.
Mike glanced across the front seat to Eva.
She told him, “You’ve got to get used to things happening to me that make you uncomfortable, or you’re going to blow it.”
He would never get used to some knuckle dragger touching her. “Yeah. I know.”
He shifted into gear, face grim, and tailgated the hell out of the truck’s rear bumper. “In the meantime, looks like we’re in.”
So why didn’t he feel like celebrating?
• • •
Up close, Mike could read the name on Rifleman’s shirt—WAGONER. With Simmons behind him and Wagoner ahead of him, he walked up seven wooden steps into a log building that looked to be a command center or meeting place.
Double crossbuck doors opened into a wide foyer. The floor was made of rough pine planks. The walls were more of the same, and bare except for two pine picture frames hanging on either side of an interior door that Mike suspected led to Lawson’s inner sanctum.
Both frames were three foot by three foot square. One was a copy of the UWD charter. The other was a photograph of Lawson decked out in standard UWD uniform, posed with an AK-47. The general in charge of his army.
“Sit,” Simmons ordered, then knocked on the door, waited for admittance, and disappeared inside.
Mike sat, slipped off his shades, and hooked a bow into the neck of his T-shirt.
Wagoner took a position with his back to the door, the AR-15 cradled in his arms, the barrel pointed in Mike’s general direction.
It was a nice touch if intimidation was the game, and from what he’d seen of these yahoos, their game was all about intimidation.
He hadn’t liked leaving Eva alone in the Jeep with Sawed-off—Bryant—leering at her, but he had no choice. Counting on her ability to handle herself, he steeled himself for the confrontation to come.
He owed it to himself, to his lost team, and to her to keep it together. Yet when the door opened and Lawson appeared in the doorway it took every shred of his self-control not to launch himself across the room and wrap his hands around the ferret-faced bastard’s neck.
On a deep breath, he rose in a show of respect and swallowed back his disgust.
For a long moment Lawson said nothing, only looked him over as if deciding if he was worth the time it would take to draw another breath.
“It would seem you’ve gone to great lengths to find me,” Lawson said finally.
“Yes, sir. I have.” He infused his few words with just enough humility and respect to show he was aware that he was in the presence of greatness.
Apparently it worked.
“Bring him in,” Lawson told Simmons, then told Wagoner to stay outside and guard the door.
“You heard him.” The barrel of the AR-15 lifted, a signal for Mike to move.
So he did, with Simmons’s shotgun pointing dead center in the middle of his back.
25
Eva drew a deep breath to steady herself. They’d done it. They’d gotten inside the belly of the beast.
She’d watched Mike, surrounded by thugs with guns, disappear into a heavily guarded building an hour ago. She didn’t try to hide the fact that she was worried. She was playing the role of Dan Walker’s wife. And what woman wouldn’t worry if the man she loved had walked into unknown territory so long ago and hadn’t been heard from since?
And it wasn’t entirely role-playing. She wasn’t Mike Brown’s woman, but something was happening between them. Something unexpected and extremely unwise.
“We will finish this… When this is over, we will figure this out and we will finish it.”
She had no idea what that “finish” was going to look like, or even what she wanted it to look like. She knew how he made her feel. Very much like a woman again, alive and vital.
But they were a long way from getting out of here alive. The full-body pat-down Simmons had given her had almost prompted Mike to hurl himself at the guard. Now Bryant, who’d been stationed in front of the Jeep to guard her with his sawed-off shotgun, had more than guarding her on his mi
nd, judging by the look in his eye.
And Mike was inside the big building in the center of the “city” square, meeting Lawson.
The heat didn’t help her sense of apprehension. Here in the middle of the open meadow, the sun beat down on the Jeep’s black roof like a blowtorch.
Sweat trickled down her back and between her breasts. She’d been ordered not to move, and other than opening the door to let some air in, she hadn’t.
“Roll down the window,” Bryant had told her when she’d asked if she could open the door.
“It’s broken.”
That was a lie, but with the weapons and ammo hidden in the door, she didn’t dare roll the window down. Since the Jeep had seen better days and looked the part, he’d finally conceded—thank God, or she’d have had a heat stroke by now. So here she sat, one foot propped on the open door’s armrest, arms crossed over her breasts, helpless to do a damn thing but commit the layout of the compound to memory.
The aerial photos, while accurate, told only part of the story. She felt like she was looking at a time-confused scene from Little House on the Prairie. She hadn’t expected the compound to be so breathtakingly beautiful. Just a few minutes in, the narrow dirt road had opened up to a stunning valley. Tall green grass, bobbing white daisies, and soft yellow and pink flowers peppered an expansive, idyllic meadow that cradled the epicenter of the UWD compound.
Half-plank logs had been used for siding on the buildings, which had all the earmarks of a small, crudely constructed village in the middle of nowhere. She kept expecting to see teams of horses pulling lumbering wooden wagons. Instead, ATVs, pickups, and Jeeps lined what passed for streets, parked in front of a motor pool and maintenance shed, a first-aid station, food and supply storage, a guard post, and several residence buildings.
Wooden shakes covered the roofs; piles of split wood were stacked under exterior windows and close to entry doors, which were open like the windows to take advantage of the slight breeze.
