by Cindi Myers
“Will you be back soon?” Ian asked.
“Soon. I promise.”
He crept through the woods alongside the track leading into the camp and approached the compound obliquely, keeping an eye on both the entrance and the row of cabins. The office had been reduced to charred ruins, the acrid smell of smoke hovering in the air around it. The other buildings stood silent and still, their boarded-up fronts adding to their look of desolation.
He had reclaimed his Glock from Andrea and as he entered the camp, he drew it. Alert for any sign of life, he checked each cabin and found them all empty. The middle one, where they had overheard Anderson talking with Gravel Voice, contained a pair of faded green plaid recliners, a kitchen table and chairs, and a single mattress on an iron frame. The stale odors of cigarettes and coffee hung in the air. Jack was careful not to touch anything. An evidence team might be able to lift fingerprints or DNA from the furniture and kitchen utensils.
The end building, where Ian had been held, contained a sofa and a small table and a woodstove, as well as the mattress. The other cabins looked as if they hadn’t been occupied by anything but mice and squirrels for years.
Jack left the camp and returned to the truck, grateful for the respite from the icy wind. “They’re all gone,” he said. “We’ll be safe there. As soon as we’re inside, I’ll call my boss and fill him in.”
“Do you think we’ll have to stay here very long?” Andrea asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll get a weather report, too, and find out what the status is for the roads.”
He parked the truck in front of the end cabin. Later he’d move the vehicle out of sight back in the trees, just in case anyone showed up again. “This one is in the best shape,” he said. “And it has the woodstove, so we can keep warm.”
“Warm sounds good.” She picked up Ian and followed Jack up the steps. Ian made a noise of protest. “I don’t like it here,” he said.
“It’s okay.” Andrea rubbed his back and kissed the top of his head. “The bad men are gone and Jack and I are staying right here with you.”
“I’m going to start a fire to warm us up.” Jack knelt in front of the woodstove, relieved to see a supply of firewood against the back wall and a basket of kindling near the hearth. “We’ll get dry. Then I’ll see what I can find for dinner.”
The boy didn’t say anything, but he seemed content to sit in Andrea’s lap on the sofa and watch Jack build the fire. Soon he had a good blaze going. He closed the glass-fronted door to the little stove. “That should warm us up quickly,” he said. He stood. “I’m going to get my things out of the truck. You might look around here and see what kind of supplies we have.”
He retrieved his gym bag from behind the seat and brought it inside, along with the damp towel. When he returned, he found Ian wrapped in a blanket and Andrea draping the boy’s wet clothing on chairs in front of the fire. She looked up when he entered. “There’s a lot of canned food and some dishes in the kitchen cabinets,” she said. “And I found sheets and blankets for the bed.”
“You should get out of those damp clothes,” he said. “You’ll feel a lot better when you’re dry.”
“Maybe.” She looked doubtful.
“You can wrap up in a blanket,” he said. “I promise not to look.” But he wouldn’t promise not to let his imagination fill in the details about her figure. The damp had made her clothing formfitting, making it pretty obvious that she was a very shapely woman. Even exhausted from their ordeal, her hair a wet tangle about her shoulders and any makeup she might have once worn long since washed away, she made him want to do things that might have made her blush if they had been alone and he had revealed his desires.
He turned away. They weren’t alone, and they weren’t out of danger yet. He picked up his bag. “I’ll change in the other room,” he said.
After he had finished dressing in the sweats and a sleeveless T-shirt he usually wore to the gym, Jack called his boss. “Sir, this is Jack Prescott.”
“Agent Prescott.” Special Agent in Charge Ted Blessing had a deep, sonorous voice and the demeanor of a drill sergeant, which Jack suspected he had once been.
“Sir, I’m involved in a situation I believe relates to our case.”
“Agent Prescott, you are on a medical leave. You are supposed to go to doctor’s appointments and go home. How did you become involved in a ‘situation’?”
“I was at a medical appointment, sir. Or at least, I went to see a therapist I hoped could help me remember who killed Gus Mathers.” He had to force out the words. Admitting he had sought help from a counselor felt like confessing to a weakness.
“And what happened?” Blessing asked.
Jack explained about spotting Anderson in the restaurant, the theft of Andrea’s purse and the subsequent kidnapping of her son.
“Why didn’t you call me and alert the local police as soon as Dr. McNeil contacted you?” Blessing’s words held an edge sharp enough to cut.
“She insisted I keep quiet,” Jack said. “The note left at her house said if she contacted anyone other than me, the kidnappers would kill her son.”
“The note specifically mentioned you.”
“It said she could call her boyfriend, but she doesn’t have a boyfriend. Anderson saw us together in the restaurant. I think he assumed a relationship.” From the first he had felt drawn to Andrea, but he couldn’t possibly have given that away over a casual lunch, could he?
“We’re going to set aside the question of why you were having lunch with your therapist—for now,” Blessing said. “What happened next?”
“The next morning a man called and instructed us to bring the ransom money to an address, which turned out to be an abandoned fishing camp on the Pine River, near the small town of Bayfield. We arrived early and hiked in to assess the situation. We located the boy and determined there were three men in the camp—Anderson and two others I had never seen before.”
“And you still didn’t call the police?”
“We were concerned if authorities arrived, the kidnappers would carry out their threat to murder the boy. Then the kidnappers discovered our presence. After an exchange of gunfire, one of them was killed. The other two fled.”
Blessing made a sound like grinding his teeth. “I’ll expect a full report detailing why you discharged your weapon—in triplicate.”
“Yes, sir.” Jack would fill in the details later to clarify that it was Andrea who had fired, killing a man in order to save Jack’s life. “I pursued the remaining two kidnappers as far as the river. An avalanche had blocked the road and they ran their car into a ditch. They fled on foot and jumped into the river and swam the rest of the way across and escaped. If you can get some men out here, you might be able to pick them up.”
“Where are you and Dr. McNeil now?” Blessing asked.
“We’re back at the fishing camp with her son. We’re stuck here until the weather clears.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, sir. No one is hurt and we have food and shelter.”
“The weather report is calling for blizzard conditions to continue into the night, so plan to stay put,” Blessing said. “Give me some directions and a description of the two men we’re looking for and I’ll get some agents out there. I’ll also alert local authorities.”
Jack gave directions and descriptions. “What makes you think this is connected to our case?” Blessing asked. “Is it because of Anderson?”
“Yes, sir. He’s in our database of suspected associates of the terrorist cell we’ve been tracking. Also, Dr. McNeil and I overheard Anderson talking with the man who was shot, and they mentioned Roland. There was also another man, their boss, whom they didn’t mention by name, but I think they were talking about Braeswood. They implied that this bigger boss wasn’t in a position to keep tabs on t
he operation right now, and Roland had taken over. That fits the scenario of Braeswood recovering from wounds sustained when he jumped off that railroad bridge.”
“Having another man named Roland involved would be a big coincidence,” Blessing said. “But we both know coincidences do happen in our line of work. The information you’ve given me is very interesting, but we’ll have to dig deeper to find proof of a connection. It’s possible, even more reasonable, to believe the kidnappers targeted Dr. McNeil for a specific reason. Has she suggested anything in her past or her other relationships that might lead her to be targeted?”
“Her late husband was a police officer who died in the line of duty three years ago,” Jack said. “But she’s sure this doesn’t have anything to do with him. And this whole scenario echoes methods the group has used before. I think Anderson kidnapped Ian McNeil in order to get to me.”
“It sounds as if it almost worked. I’ll look into it. In the meantime, sit tight until the weather clears.”
Jack ended the call and returned to the front room. Andrea still stood in front of the fire, shivering in her wet clothes in spite of the blaze. He pressed a sweatshirt and socks into her hands. “Put these on,” he said. “You’ll feel better.”
“All right.” She glanced toward Ian, but the boy was curled on his side on the sofa, sound asleep.
While Andrea changed, Jack hung his jeans and shirt to dry, then went into the kitchen, where he found coffee and a coffeepot. He got the coffee started on the little three-burner gas stove, then opened two cans of chili, dumped them into a saucepan and started that heating. A few minutes later, Andrea, wearing his sweatshirt, which came to midthigh, and a pair of his gym socks, shuffled into the kitchen. He let his gaze linger briefly on her long, shapely legs before he forced himself to turn away.
“What smells so good?” she asked. “I’m starved.”
“Canned chili. We’ll have it with crackers. Do you think Ian will wake up and eat some?”
“I hate to wake him, but if the men holding him wouldn’t even let him go to the bathroom, I doubt they fed him anything to eat.” Her face crumpled and he thought she might cry.
He pulled her close and held her tightly against him. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “He’s safe now, and they didn’t hurt him.”
“Thanks to you.” She lifted her head to look into his eyes. “I don’t know what I would have done without you,” she said. “I never could have rescued him on my own. I owe you everything.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” he said. “You saved my life, remember?”
He was sorry as soon as he said the words. She stiffened and bowed her head and he silently cursed his thoughtlessness. He should never have reminded her of the man she had shot, who had probably died and whose burned body he suspected lay somewhere in the wreckage of the office. “Andrea, look at me,” he said.
She raised her eyes to meet his. “You did the right thing,” he said. “If you hadn’t fired when you did, he would have killed me. And then he would have killed you, and probably Ian, too.”
She took a deep breath and her shoulders straightened. “You’re right, of course. I just... I never expected to have to do something like that.”
“I know. Yesterday morning you were an ordinary workingwoman. You and your son were safe. I’m sorry I brought these people into your life.”
She searched his face. “I was so terrified they would kill you,” she whispered.
“I’m not going anywhere.” He traced the curve of her jaw with his thumb. Her skin was so incredibly soft, yet she was as tough as any man he knew. She had been terrified for her son’s safety, yet had found the courage to do whatever it took to save him. Her combination of vulnerability and strength stirred him.
She closed her eyes and leaned into his palm. The tenderness and sensuality of the gesture fired his senses. He bent, his lips hovering over hers. “If you don’t want me to kiss you, you’d better say so now,” he murmured.
In answer, she slid her arms around his neck. “Kiss me,” she said, and drew him to her.
The attraction he had felt for her flared into the full heat of desire when her lips touched his. Her mouth claimed him, erasing all other thought or sensation. He angled his head to explore her lips more fully, tracing his tongue across the seam, tasting her and feeling her breath hot and silken against his cheek. He caressed the satin of her neck with one hand and slid the other down to the curve of her hip.
Her lips parted and she made a breathy sound of welcome as he deepened the kiss. All the tension and fear of the last hours melted away in the fire of that embrace. He felt lighter and freer than he had in weeks, and when at last she gently pulled away, he found he was smiling.
She returned the smile, shy and maybe a little dazed. “You’d better see to the food,” she said. “I’ll go wake Ian.”
He moved to the stove to turn off the pot of chili, but the memory of her lingered on his skin like warm silk. He hated that he had brought danger into her life, but he couldn’t be sorry he had met her. Yes, she had saved his life when she fired on Gravel Voice, but she had rescued him even before that moment. With Andrea, he could feel himself healing, becoming whole again in a way he had begun to think was out of reach.
Chapter Seven
Andrea stood beside the sofa, staring down at her sleeping child, her lips still tingling from Jack’s kiss, her skin pebbled with goose bumps from the loss of his warmth. She had never intended to kiss him. She wasn’t a woman who behaved impulsively or who had casual relationships with men. Or any relationships, really. She was a working mother with a son to raise. She didn’t have time for all the drama and risk of dating.
But kissing Jack had felt so right. She had grown so close to him in the last two days as they worked together to save her son. When she looked into his eyes, she found no pity or false promises, only a steady faith in her that had melted some of the chill she had carried inside her ever since the night Preston was killed.
Still, she needed to be careful, she reminded herself. She had just met Jack and knew very little about him. With scarcely a second thought, she had trusted her life and that of her son to him, and so far he had proved worthy of that trust. But could she take the next step and trust him with her heart, as well? Every instinct for self-preservation told her to back away and protect herself. But in Jack’s arms she wanted nothing more than to surrender to feelings she hadn’t allowed herself to experience in years.
“Mommy?” Ian’s voice, soft and sleepy, pulled her from her reverie. She hurried to sit beside him.
“I’m right here, baby,” she said, rubbing his leg. “Are you hungry? Jack made some chili for us.”
“Chili sounds good.” He sat up and rubbed his face. “I’m thirsty, too.”
“I’m sure we can find something to drink.”
“Do we have any root beer?”
She laughed. “I’m afraid not.” She stood and leaned down to pick him up, but he slid off the sofa.
“I can walk.” Trailing his blanket, he hurried into the kitchen, his feet making soft slapping sounds on the bare floor.
Smiling, she followed. She had to keep reminding herself that he wasn’t really a baby anymore. Every day he asserted his own personality more, an odd mixture of hers and Preston’s quirks—and new traits that were clearly all his own.
What would Preston think of his son if he could see him now? she wondered. He’d been a good husband during the pregnancy and birth and was proud to be a father, but he wasn’t the kind of man who was very involved in child care. He came from a tradition where men provided for and protected their families but women did most of the hands-on parenting.
Jack looked up from ladling chili into bowls when Andrea followed Ian into the kitchen. “Grab a seat and have some chili, buddy,” he said.
Ian
climbed onto one of the rickety folding chairs. “I like it when you call me buddy,” he said.
“That’s because you are my buddy.” Jack looked up and caught Andrea’s eye, and she swallowed the sudden knot in her throat. He was so good with Ian. So natural. She never would have expected that the big tough FBI agent would have such an easy way with kids.
“Do you have brothers and sisters?” she asked as she pulled out the chair across from Ian. “Nieces and nephews?”
“I have a younger sister, but she’s still single. Why?”
“You’re so good with kids. I just wondered.”
“I like kids. Well, maybe not all kids, but I like Ian.”
“I like you, too.” Ian looked up from crumbling crackers on top of his chili. “How long are we going to stay here?”
“We have to wait until the snow stops and the road is clear,” he said. “It could be a while.”
“One of the men we overheard said something about a radio,” Andrea said. “If we found it, we could listen to the weather report.”
“I’ll look for it later,” Jack said. “I’m going to take the plywood off these windows, too, and let in some light.”
“Good idea.” She suppressed a shudder and focused on the hot chili. Maybe the cabin wouldn’t seem so gloomy without the boarded-up windows.
“How long do we have to stay?” Ian asked, with a child’s insistence on specifics.
“The weather report on my phone calls for snow most of the night,” Jack said. “Think of it like a sleepover.”
Warmth curled through Andrea as she contemplated spending the night in this small cabin with Jack. Of course, they had a five-year-old chaperone to keep anything from happening, but after the kisses they had shared, being near him felt so much more intimate. Now that he’d reminded her that she was a woman with sensual needs, she couldn’t seem to think of anything else.
“Just as long as we don’t miss Christmas,” Ian said.
