Love on the Edge: Nine Shades of Romantic Suspense, page 73
His brows drew together. “What’s wrong?”
Bad time to find out it was possible for a man to be too perceptive. “I was just trying to imagine you with a mom. It doesn’t go with the gun any better than grocery shopping did.”
Matt examined her smile, found it missing the warmth and edged with strain. Her mom had died when she was eighteen. Tough time to lose a mom. Not that there was a good time to lose a parent, he thought, thinking about his dad.
“You’d like my mom. She’s good with a gun.” He grinned. “Had to be good riding herd on three boys and a husband.” His mom would like Dani, too. If things were different—
“Something’s burning down here!” Luke hollered up the stairs.
“Coming!” You play the hand you’re dealt. He stood up. “Take your time. I’ll keep your breakfast warm for you.”
“Thanks. I won’t be long.” All she had to do was get up and face a day that could be nasty. She could do the “life in review” thing or she could watch Matt leave. Since the guy couldn’t look anything but great in jeans, she opted for the latter. It was shallow, but she wasn’t in the mood for angst or for deep. Shallow was better anyway. Her crying jag had practically drowned her and Matt, but she felt more buoyant and flexible again. Taken with her clean sweep at poker last night, she had to wonder if her luck was changing.
Dani shed the pajamas, pulled on jeans and a long sleeved shirt. After a detour through the bathroom, she settled at the table with a plate of food she didn’t want, but would eat because he’d fixed it for her with his big, sexy hands.
“Do we have a plan for today?” She tipped her soda can back and felt the cool bite of it flow down her throat.
“Anderson won’t be ready until late this afternoon, so I figured, this is a popular wilderness playground. If we stayed off the beaten paths, we could do a little hiking or rock climbing—”
She spluttered, then coughed to clear shock from her throat, fixed an incredulous gaze on him and said, “Excuse me? Rock climbing? As in going perpendicularly up the side of something high?”
Matt arched his brows as he briskly scrubbed the frying pan. “That’s the general idea. Though I’ve never heard it put quite like that before.”
“You can’t be serious?”
Matt looked at her. “I can’t?”
“How could you know so much about me and not know I don’t do up?”
“I know you don’t like heights—”
“Saying I don’t like heights is like saying that Clinton waffles a little. I don’t climb.”
Matt’s lips twitched. “Not even stairs?”
“Only under duress.” She took another drink, looking at him warily over the can. “I wouldn’t exactly call it a phobia, because I don’t consider wanting to avoid plummeting to my death an unreasonable fear, but if you really need to climb something, I could watch. Probably.”
He smiled, shook his head. “Luke and I thought it might make the waiting easier. You want some toast?”
She shook her head. “No thanks. This is great.”
He looked like he wanted to say something, but Luke came in, his arms full of chopped wood. When Dani finished eating, the three of them went into the living room so the men could check their equipment in preparation for the climb they were putting off for her.
Dani settled in a rustic chair in front of a wall of windows, her position such that she had a view of the panorama of mountain and valley and the men at work. Despite her doubts about the sanity of it all, she took an interest in the equipment Matt and Luke were assessing for worthiness. Just because she was afraid of heights, didn’t mean her characters had to be.
“What’s that?” she asked when Matt pulled out what looked like an emaciated speedo.
“This is a harness,” Matt held it up for her inspection. “It’s what keeps you from plummeting to your death.”
“Really.” She ignored his ironic tone. “Doesn’t look up to the job if you ask me.”
“Oh, it is,” Matt said. He stepped into the harness, then showed her how it worked, in concert with rope and carabiners, to forestall plummeting.
Dani was impressed—with the way it looked over his jeans. It emphasized all the right things. She looked up and caught him watching her, his grin one that told her he knew what she was getting out of the demonstration. She grinned back and felt her throat go dry with wanting what she couldn’t have.
“I think I’ll get me a soda. You guys want something?”
“I wouldn’t mind a beer.” Luke looked up from the rope he was checking for wear.
“Same here,” Matt said.
“Two beers. Okay. Anything else?” Two feet separated Dani from Matt, but it felt like they were chest to chest, heart to heart.
Matt stared at her for an endless moment, started to say something, stopped, then shook his head. “Just a beer, thanks.”
“Right.” She wanted him to say it, but how could he? The timing was wrong. It always had been.
Dani sidestepped their gear to the kitchen door, had her hand on it to push it open, then hesitated. It didn’t make any sense, but it felt like if she stepped through that door, she couldn’t go back. There’s nothing to go back to, she reminded herself. If you have any backbone at all, you won’t look back. You’ll just keep going forward until this is all over and you’re home. Too bad backbone got cried out of her with the angst.
She looked back and was glad she did. Matt was still watching her, something buried deep in his eyes that erased the strange chill and made her feel warm and safe again. She would be quite happy to just stand there forever looking her fill. He didn’t move.
If one of them didn’t do something, she realized, they’d start looking like coffee commercial clones. Since Dani didn’t like coffee, she pushed the door open and stepped through, then let it swish back into place. It swung a couple of times, giving her several brief, diminishing glimpses of Matt before it stopped.
She sighed, then realized just how much she had been doing that. She would have to style herself a weeping willow if she didn’t stop it. She started to turn around and felt something brush against her neck, feather-light, followed by a sting, like a bug bit her neck. She started to lift her hand to slap at it, but a strange numbness spread from the spot faster than she could think, let alone move. Like an onlooker of her own crash, she felt her knees buckle, saw the floor coming up to meet her—
Arms caught her, cradled her. Matt. Her hero. Her head fell back against his shoulder. Darkness spiraled in like a tornado, but it didn’t touch down in her head until after she saw Spook in the center.
Her lips formed a cry that couldn’t get out.
Spook smiled.
*
Matt turned around to find Luke watching him with that big brother look on his face. He stared at him, wishing he wouldn’t.
He didn’t. “You gonna be able to get off for the climb?”
“I’d better be able to.” Relieved, Matt knelt and began stringing carabiners on a sling. “I need the rest.”
“Good.” He was quiet a minute. “I saw Judith the other day. She looked like Judith. Only happier.”
“Didn’t know she was back in town.” Matt kept coiling rope. He didn’t want to think about Judith. It reminded him how lousy he was at marriage.
“Parents having some big do. She asked how you were.”
“What’d you tell her?” Matt packed the carabiners in a pack, then started coiling rope.
“I told her you were the same. She thought that was funny.”
“I’m glad she’s finally developed a sense of humor.”
“She’s developing more than that. She’s with kid.”
Matt stopped coiling. “Now that’s news. I thought she was afraid of overpopulating the world.”
“Guess she changed her mind.”
“Guess so.” Matt started coiling again. It didn’t bother him that Judith was willing to give her lawyer-husband what she wouldn’t give him. Sometime during the seven days of Dani, that part of his past had lost its sting. He could look at the people they had been and see that their inability to stay married to each other had more to do with who they were than what they did. That he could have done what she wanted and they still wouldn’t be married right now. Was he happy for Judith? He was. Odd. When she cheated on him, it hit him hard, but only in his pride. He could see that now. It didn’t matter. Was this what the shrinks called closure? He almost shuddered. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up on one of those daytime talk shows sharing with America.
Whatever it was, he felt free—to do what? Let his hormones lead him into another mismatch? Take away the lust and what was left between Dani and him? He liked up. She didn’t. He was sports, beer, and pretzels. She was romance, Diet Dr. Pepper and M&M’s—Dr. Pepper. Had Alice found the cans in the refrigerator? He frowned. He had been thinking of Hayes like a killer, but he was also a man who knew Dani very well. Don’t go off half cocked, Kirby. Just because Hayes found some soda cans, didn’t mean he could find this place—
A climber. Hayes was a climber. Matt looked out the plate glass window at Longs Peak. It wouldn’t be easy, but if Hayes knew the area well and had searched even half way thoroughly when he was in the apartment—
“We need to move, Dani now—” He stopped, a chill heading down his back with dry ice fingers. “How long does it take to get a couple of beers?”
Luke looked at the closed kitchen door. “Not this long.”
Fear kicked in, trying to mess with his head, but Matt knew how to block it out. He’d always known. He pulled his gun, signaled for Luke to go right. He went left. When they were on either side of the door, he mouthed, “Cover me.”
Luke nodded. Matt kicked the door, waited a beat, then went in fast. He could have gone in slow.
The kitchen was empty.
Chapter Twenty-four
The pungent odor of ammonia burned into the fog that Dani drifted in. She tried to get away from it. There was a reason she didn’t want to leave. A good reason. If she could just remember what it was. The smell followed her. She coughed. When she did, little spikes of pain made a headache crown for her head, digging deep into the fog.
“Come on, Willow. Open your eyes,” a man’s voice said. It was a nice voice, gentle and filled with love. God’s voice? she wondered, remembering she was probably dead. That’s why she didn’t want to leave the fog. The Queen of Denial. She giggled.
“Cleopatra,” she murmured. The smell stabbed into her nose again, sparking another cough. It seemed God didn’t have a sense of humor.
“Let me be dead a little longer. I’ll get up soon. Promise.”
She tried to roll to her side, but something or someone stopped her.
“Open your eyes.”
The ammonia zoomed in again. This time she jerked hard enough to do what he asked. And realized she probably wasn’t dead, unless heaven was the cab of a pickup truck. “I guess for a redneck it might be, but I was kind of hoping for something more comfortable.”
“What are you talking about?” the voice asked.
Not God. He would know. Whoever he was he sounded amused and a little puzzled.
“Let me help you sit up.”
Hands slid under her shoulders and lifted. Her head did a spin that raised a nausea echo in her stomach.
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Drink this. You’ll feel better.”
Hands guided hers around something circular, helped her spaghetti arms lift it to her mouth. Something cool flowed down her parched throat. It wasn’t her favorite brew, but when it hit her stomach, she did feel slightly better. Now if she could just get her brain to behave. Instead of an orderly queue of questions waiting to be asked, she had the Sesame Street segment from hell going on inside her head. Words kept spinning off in little tangents, while question marks and letters did a really lame Macarena—like Al Gore on Valium. She persisted and finally put together a sentence.
“Am I dead?”
“Of course you’re not dead. You’re with me. It’s the stuff I gave you. It’ll mess with your head for a bit longer, then you’ll have a little headache.”
“A little headache?” The questions were dancing at the base of her head, right where it hurt the most. She tried to rub the spot, but her fingers were mushy. She shook her head, but that just started the dance going again. “Who are you?”
“Spook. I’m Spook.”
She got the dancers to move left so she could turn her head toward his voice. Pale, malleable features. Blonde hair. Blue eyes, a little tired around the rims. Narrow mouth. Sure enough it was Spook a.k.a. Dark Lord, the whacked out hit man.
“Are you going to kill me?”
“No! I love you.”
Even the dancers stopped to think about this. “Why?”
He grinned. He had a nice smile for a killer. “Why not?”
“Well,” she frowned, “for one thing, you’re a hit man and I’m a romance writer.” She frowned. “I think. Whatever. It’s weird. And probably illegal.”
He laughed . “Most things are. Don’t worry about it. We’re together, the way we were meant to be.” He lifted her hands to his mouth. At least, she thought they were her hands. They looked kind of familiar. “I won’t let anything keep us apart ever again.”
“I have to pee,” she said.
He grinned. “Except that.”
*
“You aren’t the first person to underestimate Hayes,” Luke said to Matt as they drove toward the highway. “As far as I can tell, we’re only the second ones to walk away alive.”
It didn’t help. It wasn’t his job to stay alive. It was his job to protect Dani. He hadn’t done his job. Now they had to play catch-up.
It had been easy to find the place Hayes brought his four-wheel drive up behind the cabin. They even found his footprints coming and going. Made him feel like Daniel Boone when he noted that those coming weren’t as deep as those leaving. So Hayes had followed his own MO by disabling Dani before he grabbed her. Would he continue to follow his MO and kill her? He usually moved his victims, but not this far.
It gave him reason to hope, though a lovesick Hayes wasn’t much easier to contemplate than a murderous one. He couldn’t think about what form Hayes’ love might take. He told himself that nothing was as final as death, tried to believe it before pushing away everything but the hunt.
His team was coming in by chopper, meeting him at the Longs Peak ranger station where they would coordinate the search. Throughout the area, roadblocks were going up in a two hundred mile radius. The locals hadn’t liked it when he told them to search every building, to look under every rock that moved. They hadn’t like it but they agreed to do it. Big government had a long reach. Matt didn’t mind beating them with it if they could stop Hayes from leaving the area.
He wouldn’t let himself think about what would happen if Hayes got Dani out of the area. Just like he wouldn’t let himself think about how she had looked when she asked him to get her home.
*
Hayes had put a closed sign at the entrance of the campground before driving in. He didn’t want to be disturbed at his work. While Willow took care of her bodily functions, the sight of the pit toilet had cleared her head more than the ammonia, he thought with a grin, he unloaded their gear and moved it to a safe distance from the truck.
Copeland was still out. Hayes had made sure Copeland would be, just as he made sure he kept the dosage below lethal. It wouldn’t be as fun to kill him this way, without him knowing who had taken him out, but he didn’t want any trouble with the bastard. Not in front of Willow. This would be her first kill. He wanted her to enjoy it.
With luck, Copeland’s body would buy them the time they needed to make their climb, then their getaway to a new life.
Hayes hadn’t decided where that new life would be. They would take it in stages, erase their old selves, make new ones. He did know it would be some place high. They would need a new mountain for their new life. For their new pattern. He lifted his eyes to his mountain, used his hand to block out the sun, and felt regret bit deep. She was magnificent. He would miss her.
The door creaked and he turned as Willow came out. She was pale, a bit wobbly, but the hike would work the rest of the drug out of her veins. It had served its purposed, easing the transition between her old life and her new. Now it was time for her initiation to begin. Time to introduce her to the wonder of blood and fire. Time to introduce her to his mountain.
“Come on, Willow.”
Dani looked at the gentle rise to the parking lot where Spook waited for her. He looked taller from her vantage point. She knew it was the drug humming in her blood that made it possible for her to stand and look up at him without hysterics or screaming. Instead of a killer and a romance writer, they might be a normal couple out for a day in the mountains.
“It’s time,” he said.
Time for what? She examined the rise doubtfully. “I don’t think I can make it up there.”
“You can,” he said. “You need to try.”
She didn’t know why, but it was easier to do what he asked than marshal thoughts to argue with him. There was a well worn trail. She followed that, felt gravity tug at her, then give way when she topped the rise.
“I made it.” She looked down, then at Spook. “I went up.”
“Of course you did. You’re Willow.”
She didn’t feel like Willow. She felt like Gumby. Even the green part. His eyes were still filled with love, but something else had moved in there while she was peeing. They had a glow like a dude in a Steven King thriller. Didn’t Stevie boy live in Colorado, too? Unease tried to make a move, but it was hard going against Spook’s drug. The places inside her that hurt hadn’t changed. They still hurt. Still felt empty. She just didn’t care. If this was how Steven felt when he drank, no wonder he kept pouring stuff down his throat. Spook’s eyes looked like Steven’s when he drank, with matching dark circles underneath. “Are you all right?”
