The Last Resort

by Janice Kay Johnson - His Best Friend's Baby

  Just the other night, for example. Thinking he was alone with Shawn Wycoff walking at the edge of the trees, TJ had said, “I’m starting to think he’s all talk.” Hidden in the darkness, Spencer hadn’t been ten feet away. He didn’t miss so much as a mumble. It never occurred to them anybody could be near, far less breathing down their necks.

  That arrogance was good. It would bring these fools down.

  Unfortunately, it also explained Higgs’s continuing hesitation as well as his unwillingness to trust anyone.

  Speaking of trust, Spencer said, “I need to go check on Leah. Make sure she’s behaving herself and that Joe hasn’t forgotten who she belongs to.”

  Leah’s face had looked better this morning, but that wasn’t saying much. He still feared she’d suffered a concussion. He’d checked on her a few times in the night and not seen anything too worrisome, but he wanted to be vigilant.

  Higgs’s eyebrows rose, but he nodded. “I don’t need you out here. Let’s talk after lunch, though.”

  Yes. Why don’t we talk about who’s footing the bills, he thought. Better yet, some details about your endgame.

  But Spencer only nodded and, carrying his rifle, walked toward the lodge. He was careful to keep his pace unhurried until he was out of sight of the range set up in what had been a beautiful high alpine meadow. They’d undoubtedly destroyed much of the fragile ecosystem.

  Then he broke into a run.

  * * *

  LEAH WAS ON her hands and knees scrubbing the floor in the downstairs bathroom when she heard someone stop in the hall. She stiffened, sneaking a look. Without lifting her head, all she knew was that a man stood there, and he wasn’t Spencer or Dirk.

  Feet in heavy black boots were planted apart, meaning he filled the doorway. Camo cargo pants didn’t hide powerful legs.

  “May I help you?” she asked timidly.

  “You sure can,” he said.

  Oh, God. She’d heard his name at breakfast. Joe Osenbrock. He hadn’t been one of the two who’d tackled her during her escape attempt, but his perpetual sneer didn’t make him likeable. Plus, she’d seen hunger in his eyes when he looked at her. Almost as tall as Spencer, he was broad and strong.

  Swallowing, she stayed on her knees and kept her head bent.

  “See, Wyatt’s got no reason to keep you to himself. What he don’t know won’t hurt him, now, will it?”

  She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. Where was Dirk Ritchie? Had he seen Osenbrock come in?

  “You think he won’t know?” she asked, still diffident.

  “If he finds out, so what? Not like I’d be spoiling the goods.” His voice changed, hardened. “On your feet, woman.”

  Her mind scrambled for any way to get away from this would-be rapist. She couldn’t just let this happen. Finally, she straightened her back, lifted her head and met his eyes, holding his gaze. “If you touch me, he’ll kill you.”

  “Nothin’ to say I won’t kill him, you know.”

  A dark shape materialized behind him. “I say you won’t,” Spencer said, voice as cold as his eyes.

  Joe whirled to face the threat he hadn’t anticipated. “What’re you talking about?”

  Spencer spoke softly, but with a sharp edge. “I’ll also tell you right now that if you bother her again, if you lay a finger on her, she’s right. I will kill you.”

  “I was just teasing her a little. That’s all. Ain’t that so, Leah?”

  She kept her mouth closed, even though agreeing might lessen the tension that made the air hard to breathe.

  Spencer leaned toward the other man until he was right in his face. “Do you hear me?”

  “I hear you!” Joe yelled, and stormed forward. His shoulder bashed Spencer’s, but he kept going. A slam seconds later was the front door of the lodge.

  Spencer took Joe’s place in the doorway. “Where’s Dirk?”

  “I don’t know.” She used the hem of her T-shirt to wipe her forehead. “He might still be in the kitchen. Why?”

  “I expect him to watch out for you when I can’t be here.”

  “I thought he’s here to make sure none of us make a run for it.”

  The grim set of Spencer’s mouth didn’t ease. “Well, that, too.”

  “Will you expect TJ Galt to watch out for me? Or Jennifer’s husband? Or... Is Lisa married?”

  “Not married. She lives with Del Schmidt. And no, I wouldn’t ask any of the other men to protect you. Which leaves me with a problem.”

  How reassuring. “Leaves you with a problem? That sounds like my problem.”

  He shot a glance over his shoulder. “Keep your voice down.”

  Leah opened her mouth again but had the sense to close it. She hadn’t sounded meek or deferential at all, which would set any of the others wondering about him, too.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  As usual, his expression remained unemotional, even as his gaze never left her face. “Did you have a choice of jobs?” he asked after a minute.

  Leah shook her head. “I wouldn’t expect to when I’m the newcomer. They don’t know me.”

  “No.” He rubbed a hand over his face in what she’d decided was the closest to betraying frustration or indecision that he came. “Finish up here. I’ll decide what we’re going to do after lunch.”

  She nodded, hesitated...and went back on her hands and knees to resume scrubbing. Not that this ancient linoleum would ever look clean again.

  * * *

  “I’LL TAKE OVER here this afternoon,” Spencer said during a break in conversations around the table while they ate.

  Heads turned, the silence prolonged. When Higgs said, “I’ll stick around, too,” the atmosphere changed.

  Many of them had the same interpretation: their leader intended to discuss plans with Spencer, the chosen, while everyone else, the mere grunts, continued physical training.

  And yeah, Spencer thought with some irony, he’d been guilty of plenty of apple polishing to achieve just this outcome. What he earned today were some hateful glances directed his way only when the colonel wouldn’t see them.

  Only Rick Metz kept chewing with no visible reaction. It wouldn’t have crossed his mind that he could have a planning role. The question was why Dirk looked relieved. The same man was never allowed to hang around the lodge all day. Spencer wondered if Dirk knew the other women weren’t safe from TJ or Tim Fuller.

  By God, maybe he should slip Leah a knife so she could protect herself.

  Nice thought, but even if she could bring herself to stick it into her attacker, the ultimate outcome wouldn’t be good.

  Fear of him was her only real protection. He had to say a few quiet words to men besides Joe Osenbrock.

  As he and Higgs waited while the other men left the lodge and the women cleared the long table, Spencer tried hard to focus on what might be an important step in closing this damn investigation, instead of on the woman who had become his Achilles’ heel.

  * * *

  LEAH WISHED SHE could hear what the two men were talking about at the table, but she couldn’t make out a word. She had a feeling it was important, but she couldn’t think of an excuse to sidle close enough to eavesdrop. Jennifer Fuller was in the pantry making sure she had everything for tonight’s dinner, which was to be lasagna. Leah had noticed that she poked her head out pretty regularly to survey her worker bees. As intimidated as she was around the men, she seemed to relish lording it over the other women.

  Helen was well aware of when they were alone. Now, as she handed over a rinsed pot for Leah to dry, she whispered, “Spencer said something to Dirk that shook him up real bad. Do you know what happened?”

  Just as quietly, Leah said, “Joe Osenbrock got me alone when I was cleaning the bathroom and threatened to...you know.”

  Helen blushed and ducked her he
ad.

  “Spencer heard him and was really mad. I guess he thought Dirk should have kept Joe away from me.”

  “Dirk didn’t know nothing about Joe being back here in the lodge. He wouldn’t have let anyone hurt you if he’d known!”

  Leah hadn’t known a whisper could sound indignant. She smiled at the small, anxious woman. “I believe you. He seems nice.”

  She didn’t actually know any such thing, but at least he didn’t look at her the way most of the other men did, and she hadn’t been able to help noticing that Helen didn’t seem afraid of Dirk.

  “Spencer was mostly mad at Joe,” she confided.

  “I bet.” Elbow deep in sudsy water, Helen wielded a scrubbing pad with vigor on the pot that had held the baked beans that were part of the lunch menu. They’d been really good, considering the limited resources anyone cooking had to draw on. Plus, the commercial stove and oven had been installed at least thirty years ago. The miracle was that they mostly still worked.

  Possibly that was because Uncle Edward had hardly ever used them himself. Most of the time, he’d insisted the hot plate in his apartment was all he needed. Why make baked beans from scratch when you could open a can? Leah remembered her mother’s rolled eyes. Mom had bought him a microwave their last summer here, which had intrigued him. It was safe to say that, as her great-uncle got older and crankier, he would have been even less likely to be inclined to bake a cake or cook anything from scratch.

  Too bad he hadn’t lingered as a ghost. If he could know, he’d be horrified by the consequences of his gift to her. If he’d actually rented the resort to this group in previous summers—and she increasingly doubted that story—he couldn’t have known what those men believed, and especially not what they intended. He’d been courtly, old-fashioned in some ways, but also accepting of people’s vagaries. Not for a minute would he have condoned hate-mongering or a threat to the country he loved. Having served as a paratrooper in World War II, Uncle Edward had spent time in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp. Maybe those experiences explained why, upon returning, he’d chosen a solitary life in the midst of one of American’s wildest places.

  Handing Leah the next pan, Helen whispered again. “Dirk says you own this place.”

  “My great-uncle left it to me in his—”

  Helen jabbed her hard in the side. “Sshh!”

  “What...?” Oh. Spencer had settled himself in the doorway between the main room and the kitchen, his posture relaxed, his gaze shifting between the two women. Leah almost whispered that Helen didn’t need to worry about Spencer—but if his reputation as the baddest man here was to survive, she needed to keep her mouth shut. If Helen told Dirk what she’d said, he could tell anyone.

  She was supposed to be afraid of him, and she needed to act the part. In fact, she immediately imitated Helen’s fearful posture. But her forehead crinkled as her hand stopped in the act of wiping out the pot. Wait, she thought in alarm. I am afraid of him.

  Wasn’t she?

  Chapter Six

  “How would you feel about going for a walk?” Spencer asked once they left the lodge, post Leah’s KP duty after dinner. He felt restless, but didn’t dare take a run and leave her behind. The sky was still bright, with night not falling at this time of year until close to ten o’clock. Then he took another look at her. She moved without any noticeable pain, but she’d been brought down to the ground hard yesterday. “Scratch that. You’re probably beat.”

  Flashing him a surprised look, Leah said, “Beat? Why...oh. The cleaning. You do know I don’t sit behind a desk all day back home, don’t you?”

  He hadn’t thought about it, but of course she wouldn’t.

  “I’m on my feet all day long. I see patients, package bloodwork to send out or run screens myself. Medicate and give fluids. Assist in surgery. Like just about everyone else, I help clean kennels and runs. And I subdue everything from snarling Dobermans to raging bulls while one of the vets does an exam or procedure. Oh, and then there’s the wildlife. We do the care for a local refuge, which means holding down an eagle with a broken wing or a cougar dented by a car bumper. A little house cleaning is nothing.”

  Spencer would have laughed if he hadn’t felt sure they were being watched. He appreciated this woman. Leah’s bravado was welcome in place of self-pity.

  “Of course,” she continued, her tone musing, “on the job I wouldn’t be worrying whenever a man walked into the room whether he had in mind raping or murdering me. That does take a toll.”

  “Yeah,” he said, a little hoarsely. “It would do that.”

  “A walk sounds good. After all,” she added wryly, “as Colonel Higgs said, I couldn’t be held captive in a more beautiful place on earth.”

  Spencer turned his head, for a rare moment letting himself take in the extraordinary panorama. It had been many years since he’d spent time in the Pacific Northwest, a fact he suddenly regretted.

  White-capped Mount Baker dominated the sky to the southeast, while more jagged, and farther distant, Shuksan would have been impressive enough. Other mountains were visible almost everywhere he looked. This was rugged country, and yet not far from the Puget Sound and Strait of Georgia to the west. They were surrounded by forests that had never been logged, an arc of vivid blue above, thin grasses and a dazzling array of flowers. Once they passed the last cabin, he found himself picking his way more carefully than usual because of the wildflowers.

  “This is one of the prettiest times of the year here, with so much in bloom,” Leah remarked.

  Grimly focused on his task, he’d hardly noticed the flowers until five minutes ago. After a moment he said, “I know a few of these. Who hasn’t seen a foxglove or a tiger lily?”

  For some reason the idea of him gardening in some distant future crossed his mind. Not like he wanted to spend another decade living this way. Once this was over...what if he bought an actual house? Even thought about a wife, having children. What would it be like, coming home at five most days?

  His picture of that kind of life was vague, not quite in focus, but he discovered it did include a bed of flowers and a lawn. He hadn’t mowed a lawn since he was a boy.

  As if she’d followed his thoughts, Leah looked around almost in bemusement. “My mother is a gardener. I always figured someday I’d have a house and yard, too.” She went quiet for a minute, likely reflecting on the very distinct possibility she’d never have that chance. But she forged on. “I remember Uncle Edward telling me about the wildflowers. There.” She pointed. “That’s an easy one, a red columbine. And yarrow, and bleeding heart, and monkshood.”

  “Isn’t monkshood poisonous?”

  “I think so. I don’t remember if it’s the leaves or the flowers or what.” She looked pensive, then shook her head. “Oh, and that’s goat’s beard and...”

  He let the recitation roll over him. He wouldn’t remember which flower was which, but he liked that she knew and was willing to talk to him.

  “When’s the last time you were up here?” he asked at one point.

  “I think I was twelve, so it’s been forever.” A pained expression crossed her face. “I’m thirty-one. I don’t know why I never thought to get up here to see Uncle Edward. I loved our visits when I was a kid.”

  “We tend not to look back.” He was ashamed to realize how many friends he’d let go over the years. He couldn’t even claim to have a close relationship with his own brother or parents anymore. Disappearing for months at a time wasn’t conducive to maintaining ties with other people.

  Leah stopped walking feet away from the bank of the lake that filled a bowl probably scoured by a long-ago glacier. That was not where she was looking, though. Instead, she turned a gaze on him that was so penetrating, it was all he could do not to twitch.

  Instead, he raised an eyebrow. “See anything interesting?”

  “Yes. Is there a single other man up her
e even remotely interested in the names of wildflowers?”

  “It’s not the kind of thing we talk about,” he admitted, although he knew the answer. No. “Anyway, who said I am?”

  She frowned. “Do you have any hobbies?”

  He ought to shut her down right now, but she’d taken him by surprise, as she often did.

  “I target shoot. That’s relaxing.” More reluctantly, he said, “When I can, I play in a basketball league.” Baseball, too.

  “All militant white supremacists?”

  “Ah...we don’t talk politics.” For good reason.

  “Why didn’t you assault me last night?”

  Spencer was offended enough, he was afraid it showed.

  “I told you, I don’t hurt women,” he said shortly. “It doesn’t turn me on at all.” Except that she had to have felt his morning erection, so she knew that she did turn him on. For all she knew, though, he woke up with one every morning.

  She nodded slowly, the green of her eyes enriched by the many shades of green surrounding them. His fingers curled into his palms as he resisted the desire to cup her good cheek, trace her lips with his thumb.

  Damn, his heartbeat had picked up.

  But she wasn’t thinking about him kissing her, because what she said was, “I don’t believe you’d blow up innocent people to make a point.”

  This time he felt more than alarm. “Who says we intend to kill anyone who’s innocent?”

  “How can you not?” she said simply. “Unless you plan to blow up Congress...”

  That idea was enough to make him break out in a cold sweat. He was beginning to fear that Higgs’s plans really were that grandiose.