Lawless
HelenKay Dimon
WHEN A CORPORATE RETREAT TURNS INTO CORPORATE SABOTAGE, THE CORCORAN TEAM SENDS IN THEIR BEST. Undercover agent Joel Kidd wasn’t picked just for his risk-assessment and kidnap-prevention skills. He had inside knowledge of the mission’s target: Hope Algier. Business had divided the former lovers, and now that same dirty business brought them back together. Touching down at this high-end out-of-the-way campground, Joel had the perfect cover among these weekend warriors. In reality, he was there to provide an extra layer of protection. One Hope wouldn’t accept if she knew the truth. But when an unknown assailant begins picking off her clients one by one, Joel is the only one who can save them. Though civilization - and safety - was still a long way off.
“Hope.”
One look and her body froze. Right there in the beating sun, she couldn’t even feel her heartbeat.
Joel Kidd, the boyfriend who’d walked out on her eighteen months ago, stood next to the helicopter.
Black T-shirt, olive cargo pants and sunglasses to hide those dark eyes. From this distance she could see the ever-present dark scruff around his chin. His black hair was longer, grown out from the short military style she remembered.
She could see the gun strapped to his hip and knew Joel knew how to use it. That used to scare her a little. Now it comforted her frazzled nerves.
“What are you doing here?” The whip of her voice mirrored her frustration.
He hesitated, as if weighing what to say and whether to let his question go. Whatever he saw in her expression had him closing the distance between them. “I came to find you.”
Lawless
HelenKay Dimon
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Award-winning author HELENKAY DIMON spent twelve years in the most unromantic career ever—divorce lawyer. After dedicating all that effort to helping people terminate relationships, she is thrilled to deal in happy endings and write romance novels for a living. Now her days are filled with gardening, writing, reading and spending time with her family in and around San Diego. HelenKay loves hearing from readers, so stop by her website, www.helenkaydimon.com (http://www.helenkaydimon.com), and say hello.
To my husband for agreeing to watch all those big budget Hollywood action movies with me and pretending I was telling the truth when I called them writing research
Contents
Chapter One (#ub1b02e30-ff9c-51db-8129-6346efabb5c0)
Chapter Two (#u23933e64-dc05-502f-ab29-d8dda116bd62)
Chapter Three (#u61767fdc-f328-5728-92d4-6662b44ef97e)
Chapter Four (#u8b8dc0ce-1afb-5165-b8c2-d5c521c30e07)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Hope Algier preferred sunshine and fresh air to a stuffy office. Except today.
She spent most of her life outdoors. Her father had tried for years to entice his baby girl into the boardroom of the family business with promises of expensive cars and impressive bonus packages. She turned them all down without a second thought, but right now a leather chair behind a big desk sounded good.
Trees towered over her and surrounded her on every side. This section of land adjacent to West Virginia’s Cranberry Wilderness was called the Cranberry Backcountry for a reason. It consisted of more than eleven thousand acres of hills and woods and little else.
Animals skittered around her. Leaves rustled as the summer wind blew warm air under her ponytail and across the back of her neck. Thick branches blocked most of the sunlight, giving her an eerie sense of isolation.
No people, no houses and no easy way out.
Turned out, this patch of forest messed with her satellite phone. She needed open sky for a signal, and she could only see peeks of blue through the canopy of summer green leaves above her. Right about now she’d give anything for a second of heat on her face.
She slipped behind a large trunk and leaned against it. Her heartbeat hammered in her ears as she slipped the sat phone out of the pocket of her cargo shorts. It measured a bit longer than a cell phone and fit in her palm. The map she’d memorized earlier and carried in her back pocket pointed to a clearing up ahead. She hoped she was close enough to catch a signal.
Please let it work this time.
She pushed buttons. When that didn’t do anything, she smacked the side, hoping to jolt it into action. She even thought about smashing it against the cushion of dirt and leaves under her hiking boots.
She was about to repeat the hitting cycle when something crunched off to her right...again. The same subtle crackling she’d been hearing on and off since she’d dove deep into the trees. A squirrel, probably. She repeated the comment in her head over and over, hoping to reassure her brain and stop the sudden subtle shake moving through her hands. She refused to think bear or, worse, predator of the two-legged kind.
As she shifted, the stray branches scratched her bare legs and caught on the short sleeve of her cotton tee. She balanced her head against the hard bark again and counted to five. It took all of her control not to call out for Mark Callah, the vice president of finance for Baxter Industries.
He’d been all gung ho about “roughing it” on this corporate retreat. So much so he had brought a gun along without telling her. She saw it when he had waved it around last night at dinner. As the person leading the retreat, she had confiscated it. That didn’t go over well. Now he was missing.
Crack.
There it was again. That made the fourth time she picked up the sound she wanted to write off as nothing. Something furry and four-legged and small...she hoped. But the gentle thuds sped up.
She peeked around the tree she was using as a shield and spied what looked like a flash of blue in the distance. The same flash she’d seen twice so far on this journey to find Mark and grab a clear shot to the satellite to jumpstart the phone.
She’d left the rest of the executives back at camp with orders to make breakfast and clean up. Except for Mark, they weren’t exactly the venture-out-alone types. She strained to remember any of them wearing navy this morning at roll call, but her brain refused to focus.
Crunching and snapping echoed all around her until she couldn’t tell from which direction the noises originated. The tunnel effect had her doubting her hearing and her vision. If she spun around one more time or ventured too far in any direction, she’d need the GPS to guide her back to camp.
What she really wanted was a view of open sky. If she could get to the edge of the field and send out a call for help, then she could duck back into the woods again.
Maybe she could lure out her visitor. Not that the option sounded too reassuring to her right now.
Without thinking, she reached for the leather sheath hooked to her belt. Her fingers skimmed over the hilt of her knife. She wanted to slide it out for protection, but running on uneven ground with a blade struck her as a distinctly stupid thing to do.
Still, having the makeshift weapon lessened the anxiety pounding through her. A little.
With one last glance into the thick columns of trees behind her, she took off. Her hands swatted at the branches blocking her forged path as her feet slipped over rocks and roots and her pace picked up to a jog. The wind whistled by her and the slap of leaves hit her face. She made enough noise to put a target on her back, but she didn’t care. She needed that open field.
Footsteps fell hard off to her left this time. The thump of shoes against the ground kicked up and the person drew almost parallel to her position. She tried to zigzag even though she knew her white shirt would give her position away...wherever she was.
But she needed space and enough distance to make the call and pull her knife. Regardless of whatever or whoever else was out there, she would not go down without a fight.
The trail in front of her brightened and sunlight puddled on the forest floor. Even without the thinning of branches she knew she was close from the beep of her GPS as she zoned in on the preset location. The sat phone smacked against her leg with each step. She fumbled to pull it out of her pocket and hold it as she ran.
The log came out of nowhere. A fallen tree too thick to jump over right in her path. She tried to pivot and her ankle turned. One second she was on her feet and the next her knee cracked against the hard ground and something sharp dug into her palm.
She was down for only a few seconds but long enough for heavy breathing to pound in her lungs and float through the trees. The labored sound drowned out everything. The running near her seemed to stop. She feared that meant someone or something circled nearby ready to grab her.
Ignoring the pain thumping from her foot to her hip, she pushed up. With her hands on the log, she skirted the end and ran. Each punch of her right foot against the hard ground made her teeth rattle with the need to cry out.
But the bright light was right there. A few more feet and she’d be free. She dodged a massive tree trunk as the crashing of footsteps beside her picked up again. A blue blur raced close enough for her to make out a figure, but the heavy hoodie pulled down low made it impossible to identify who it was.
But the who didn’t matter right now.
She broke into the clearing and reached into her pocket for the phone. Nothing. She patted her shorts and spun around in a circle as desperation swamped her. Fear rumbled through her until her knees buckled.
The log. The fall. The memory came rushing back. She must have dropped the stupid thing on the ground when she went down.
With her back against a tree, she scanned the forty feet of open field in front of her and the miles of woods beyond that. She tried to calm her breathing and slow her heart enough for her to concentrate.
The adrenaline kept pumping. She knew she should welcome it because it kept the pain at bay and her mind off the blood around her knee and throbbing in her hand, but she needed to focus.
The figure, whoever it was, stood still, right behind a tree about fifty feet away. She slipped her knife out again and tightened her grip over the handle, ignoring the fresh burst of throbbing from her injury. She opened her mouth to call out, to make the idiot face her instead of trying to terrify her in silence.
A strange thwapping drowned out her yell. She shielded her eyes with a hand and squinted up into the sun. Blue skies greeted her. She didn’t see anything, but the noise grew louder.
Whop, whop, whop.
A helicopter broke into sight as it came in for a landing. She blinked twice, not trusting what she was seeing. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, it didn’t make sense.
Her breath hiccupped as a new panic crashed over her. She could have walked into anything. Drug runners or criminals of any type. And if the pilot was a partner to her tracker, there was no way a knife would save her.
The helicopter hovered over the ground. The blades kicked up grass and leaves. When it finally touched down, she could make out two men, but the glass, and probably the waves of fear, distorted her view.
She was about to slip back into the blanket of the woods where she at least stood a chance when the rustling off to her left had her attention dragging back to the tree and the person hiding there. The hoodie was gone. Fearing the attacker could sneak up on her, she backed to the edge of the open field and held her knife in front of her as she faced the woods.
“Hope.”
She thought she heard her name over the chopping of the helicopter blades, but she knew that wasn’t possible. No way had one of her executives ventured away from the camp and somehow made it this far.
Her mind had gone into shutdown mode. That was the only explanation. She was hearing things and jumping at every sound.
The helicopter’s engine wound down and the propeller slowed to a lazy turn. The change had her spinning around to face the new threat. One look and her body froze. Right there in the beating sun, every organ inside her whirred to a stop. She couldn’t even feel her heartbeat.
“Hope, what are you doing?” Joel Kidd, the boyfriend who had walked out on her eighteen months ago rather than fight for a life with her, stood next to the helicopter.
Black tee, olive cargo pants, and sunglasses to hide those near-black eyes. From this distance she could see the ever-present dark scruff around his chin. His black hair was longer, grown out from the short military style she remembered. He might even have been thinner. And none of that explained what he was doing in West Virginia.
With one last look into the menacing woods behind her, she stepped forward. She could see the gun strapped to his hip and knew Joel was well trained in how to use it. That used to scare her a little. Now it comforted her frazzled nerves.
“You cut your leg.” He ripped his sunglasses off, and concerned eyes traveled over her. “What’s going on?”
Seeing him hit her like a kick to the stomach. She almost doubled over from the force of it. She’d loved him and mourned his leaving, then had spent some time pretending she hated him. As she looked at him now, old feelings of longing came rushing back. So did the urge to punch him.
“What are you doing here?” The whip of her voice mirrored her frustration.
He hesitated as if weighing what to say and whether to let the question go. Whatever he saw on her face or in her expression had him closing the distance between them. “I came to find you.”
“Why?” Truth was, he devoted his life to gathering intelligence and protecting others. Right now she could use a bit of both.
The sound of the helicopter seemed to have scared off her tracker, and for that reason alone she was willing to hear Joel out. For a few seconds.
“You haven’t been picking up your phone.” His gaze did another bounce up and down her body, hesitating over her torn-up knee. “Where is it?”
Good question. “Lost.”
His near-black eyes narrowed. “Really?”
“Long story.”
“Any chance of hearing it right now?”
“First, you answer a question of mine.” She glanced past Joel to the pilot. He jumped down and headed for them.
“Shoot,” Joel said.
“There is no way you just happened to be out here, tooling around West Virginia, when you live in Annapolis. So, what’s going on?”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. “You know where I live now?”
No way was she walking into that discussion. “Let’s stick to my question.”
“Fine, it’s not a coincidence.” Joel’s expression went blank. “Your father sent me.”
Figured. “It’s still your turn to explain, so keep talking.”
She loved her dad, but his protective streak stayed locked in hyperdrive. He ran a private security company, one Joel used to work for. All that danger made her dad a bit paranoid. Though, admittedly, in this instance that was a good thing.
“Your dad and Baxter Industries.” Joel shifted his weight, putting his feet hip-distance apart. “Seems your dad wanted you to have backup out here. Combine that with the twitchiness of the Baxter Board about having a twenty-six-year-old woman, alone, guiding the male executives, and you get me.”
“How very sexist of them.”
“They clearly don’t appreciate how competent you are outdoors.”
She had no idea if that was a shot or a compliment, so she ignored it. “If the phone isn’t working, how did you...oh, right. The GPS locator still functions.”
“Yes.”
“So, Dad tracked me down and sent you by helicopter.”
Instead of answering, Joel motioned to the pilot. “This is Cameron Roth.”
She wasn’t in the mood for meeting people just now, but there was no reason to be rude. “Okay.”
“We work together,” Joel explained.
“At where exactly?” She’d tried to find out where Joel went when he left her dad’s company. One night, bored and feeling lonely, she conducted a search, hoping to locate him, and uncovered nothing.
Her father finally let slip Joel lived in Annapolis, less than an hour away from her place in Virginia, the same place he used to live with her but never bothered to visit now. Being ignored made her stop checking in on the guy. If Joel didn’t care enough to make contact, she wouldn’t either.
“Ma’am.” The other man butted in with a nod of welcome. “You can call me Roth or Cam.”
The guy looked about the same age as Joel, a few years older than her, and shared Joel’s used-to-be-in-the-military look. Broad shoulders with muscles peeking out from under the edge of his T-shirt. They both carried their bodies in a permanent battle stance, as if they could shoot or tackle at any moment, if needed.
Joel had the Tall, Dark and Whoa-He’s-Hot thing down. That hadn’t changed in their months apart. Cam’s lighter hair and blue eyes made him seem less intense, but knowing the male type standing in front of her, she doubted that was actually the case.
Joel clapped. “There. That’s settled.”
Looked like the menfolk thought explanation time was over. She disagreed. “Let’s go back to my question. Why are you really here? And skip the sat phone talk this time.”
“Your father sent me to look for you.” That smile widened. “Now it’s my turn to ask a question.”
“Did you really answer mine?”
Cam laughed. “She has you there, man.”
Joel nodded in the direction of her hand. “Is there a reason you’re carrying a knife, or is the plan to stab the helicopter?”
She glanced down, then back at Joel. “Are you worried it’s meant for you?”
“I take it you two know each other pretty well,” Cam said.
The conversation kept jumping around. She’d only remembered the knife when Joel mentioned it. The burning from where it pressed into her palm suddenly hit her.
Then Cam’s comment grabbed her attention.
“Joel didn’t tell you who I was to him?” She wanted not to care, but the hurt swallowed up her indifference.
Cam looked from her to Joel and back again. “Let’s just say I’m thinking he left out some important pieces about your joint past.”
“Hope.” Joel snapped his fingers and brought the focus back to him. “The knife?”
She stared at it in her hands. “What about it?”
“Why are you holding it as if you’re ready to attack?”
She couldn’t come up with a reason to stall and certainly had no reason to lie. Not about this. Not to him. “Someone was following me.”
Both men leaned in closer, all amusement gone from their faces. Cam’s mouth opened, but Joel was the one who barked out a question. “What?”
Now that she had their attention, she decided to spill it all. “And I think one of my executives might be dead.”
Chapter Two
Joel called up every ounce of his practiced control to stay calm. Before he’d joined the Corcoran Team, a private security organization out of Annapolis, Maryland, that specialized in risk assessments for companies and governments, this sort of thing would have had him spinning and drilling her with questions.
Connor Bowen and the rest of the Corcoran Team had taught him the importance of patience and holding still for the right opening. Without those skills, the high-priority, under-the-radar kidnap and rescue missions they conducted would fail. Because when you worked outside the legal parameters and without a safety net, mistakes couldn’t happen.
After a lifetime of kicking around in the intelligence field, Joel knew he’d finally landed in a place that felt right. He’d buckled down, used his tech skills to fill in after the last tech guy left and tried to forget about her. Hope, his greatest weakness.
Now he seriously considered telling Cam to get lost for a few minutes, though he doubted the guy would budge. Not when he was staring as if he’d never seen a woman before and was hanging on every word of the discussion.
Joel couldn’t really blame Cam on the gawking part. Hope looked as good as Joel remembered. Better, even. The long dark brown hair and near black eyes hadn’t changed. From the dimple and girl-next-door hotness to the tanned legs and smokin’ petite frame, he found her almost impossible to resist.
Add in her smarts, competency with weapons and near fearless determination when she wanted something and he’d had no choice but to dump his job and move to the next state to keep from falling deeper into her. Or that’s what he’d rationalized at the time.
But right now he worried more about the danger that appeared to be haunting her. “Say that again.”
She cleared her throat. “I have a missing executive.”
Joel had no idea what that meant. “You said dead a second ago.”
She shrugged. “I’m hoping that was an exaggeration.”
Well, that cleared up...nothing. He glanced over at Cam.
He shook his head. “Got me. I have no clue.”
“Hope.” Joel reached out to touch the hand with the weapon in it and felt the subtle tremor running through her. Yeah, forget how comfortable she looked hanging around outside, something bad had happened and she was throwing off the desperation vibe.
His protective instincts kicked into high gear. He folded his hand over hers and slid the knife out of her palm. Not an easy task since she had a death grip on it.
Moving nice and slow, he eased the blade back into its case at her waist as he rubbed his thumb over the deep creases on her palm. “Where is this executive?”
“His name is Mark Callah.”
“Okay.” Joel didn’t dig too deep for details. Not yet. “Where is Mark?”
“I have no idea since I lost him.”
Cam grunted. “She’s giving you a pretty logical answer, actually.”
“I got up this morning and he was gone from camp.” She tugged free of Joel’s hold and rubbed her hands together. “I headed for this clearing to use the sat phone and realized some guy was following me. Then your helicopter—”
“Hold up.” For the second time, she jumped right past the most interesting part. “Go back a second.”
“To where?”
Stray branches crunched under Cam’s feet as he shifted his weight. “I’m guessing to the ‘following me’ part.”
She spent a second frowning at both of them. “Blue hoodie. The guy stalked me, then started moving faster and came up the side until we were parallel. He didn’t look up and stayed close. Your helicopter scared him off.”
“Stalked?” Joel didn’t hear much after that word.
“Yes, Joel.” She didn’t roll her eyes, but she looked like she was right on the edge of doing so.
She could sigh at him all she wanted because he was not letting this conversation drop. Not until he assessed the level of danger. “Could this person be one of the executives you have out here on the team-building retreat?”
This time her face went blank. “Wow, my dad really did fill you in on this job.”
“Let’s stick to your story for now.” One more diversion and Joel worried he’d never be able to pull the tale out of her. And he knew from experience any talk about her dad and his protective nature would not make this exercise go faster.
“Except for Mark, most of the Baxter Industries management talk tough but are terrified of being out here. One guy jumped around demanding to go home because he found a tick on his upper arm.” She snorted. “I mean, come on.”
Joel bit back a laugh. “Very manly.”
“Right. So, you understand why I can’t imagine any of them chasing me through the woods, being covert and ducking out of sight for no good reason.”
“You’re throwing out some scary words there.”
“So?”
She could shoot and run and build a camp from twigs, but that didn’t make her invincible. He wondered if she understood that. “My point is this story gets worse the more details you add.”
She glanced over her shoulder and deep into the woods behind her. “Anyway, I’d like to think if it was one of my guys, he would have helped or at least called out when I fell.”
The bad news just kept coming. Joel glanced at Cam. “And now we have a fall.”
She faced them again. “What?”
“You skipped that part before,” Cam said.
Joel guessed that was intentional. “Let’s just say your linear storytelling needs work.”
“I’ll run through all of it if you need me to—”
“I do.” Joel wanted her comment to stop right there.
She talked right over his interruption. “But since you’re here, you can come with me while I get my sat phone and then we can spread out and hunt for Mark.”
Joel caught her in the second before she took off. Never mind her tale about a stalker and the terror in her eyes only a few minutes ago. Now she was ready to head out. “I thought you lost the phone.”
“Yeah, but I know where.”
“Your definition of lost is no better than your storytelling ability.”
“We don’t have time for chitchat.” Her gaze dipped to where his fingers wrapped around her elbow, then bounced back up again. “I’m assuming you guys need to get out of here and head off to some other covert action-movie adventure, so let’s move.”
Nice try. “You’re my job this week, remember?”
“Yeah, we’re going to talk about that later.”
“Talk all you want. I’m staying.” That had been the plan before the knife and the story about the fall and every other bizarre fact she threw out, and he wasn’t changing it now.
But there was some good news here. Her feistiness clicked back into place with full force. While the verbal jabs about his job used to drive him nuts, he missed this side of her, too.
She didn’t back down. She didn’t care about his size or ability with a weapon. She understood he’d never hurt her and held her ground. Probably had something to do with having a former special ops father who made sure his precious daughter and only child could protect herself no matter what.
The attitude had gotten her in trouble more than once. Not with him, but some of the men in her father’s business, Algier Security, didn’t appreciate her refusal to be a good little girl and sit down.
Sexist idiots.
Still, she could be rough on the male ego. He glanced over at Cam to fill him in with a simple explanation. “She doesn’t approve of what we do.”
“Understood,” Cam said with a nod.
Hope wasn’t having any of it. She shot them both one of her men-can-be-clueless frowns. “That’s not true.”
Cam kept nodding, as if he’d figured out some great big secret. “Is that why you left him?”
Damn. “Let’s not go there.” This was just about the last topic Joel wanted to discuss.
Strike that. It was the last. Dead last.
“I figured it out.” Cam smiled. “She’s the ex.”
Suddenly Joel regretted that one night a month or so ago with too much beer and too much talking. Cam had wanted to know why Joel never dated and he mentioned a tough break-up. Cam clearly put it all together.
“Didn’t he tell you the story?” Hope’s eyebrow lifted. “Interesting.”
“How so?” Cam asked.
“Joel left me.”
Cam’s eyes bugged as his jaw dropped. “No way.”
“I know, right?” She shook her head. “Whatever.”
Cam whistled. “I didn’t see that news coming.”
That was enough of that. Joel cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention. “Can we get back to the missing guy and the stalking?”
“Camp is back here.” She didn’t wait for a discussion or arguments. She headed off through the thick branches, with twigs and other debris crunching under her boots. She slowed down only long enough to glance over her shoulder and gesture for them to follow.
“Hope...and she’s gone.” Joel took a step in the same direction.
Cam slid in and blocked his path. “You dumped her?”
“Let it go.”
Cam laughed. “I think we both know that’s not going to happen.”
It was a long story and Joel knew he didn’t exactly come off well. With his messed-up upbringing, a quiet life in the suburbs wasn’t on the table. But she had tempted him, made him think even for a little while that he could do normal. Then he got offered a dream job with the Defense Intelligence Agency and, like an idiot, picked it over her.
Funny how karma nailed him on that one.
Cam leaned in with a hand behind his ear. “Not talking?”
“Nope.”
“You will.” He winked, then called out to Hope. “Hey, where was this stalker walking?”
She stopped and gestured to the line of trees directly across from her. “About fifty feet that way, running parallel with me.”
Joel tracked her white shirt as she pushed long branches out of her way and kept walking. “Notice how she acts like whatever happened wasn’t a big deal.”
“Was she ever an operative?”
“Mountain climber, archery expert, like Olympic skill level, outdoors type and can shoot better than some members of the Corcoran Team.”
“You’re talking about Ben, right?” Cam asked.
Ben Tanner was the newest member of the Corcoran Team and a former special agent for NCIS. The guy could shoot but he lacked the sniper skills of many on the team. And they never let him forget it. “Obviously.”
Cam stopped staring at Hope, and it looked like that took some control on his part. “Explain to me why you left her again? Because, gotta be honest, man, between the way she looks, the way she moves and that list of skills you just read off, I think I’m in love.”
“Get over it.”
Cam nodded, which he often did. “Ah, okay. Interesting.”
Hope’s white shirt got farther away. That meant one thing—the time for talk had ended. “Stop with that crap.”
Just as Joel lost sight of her, she peeked out from behind a massive tree trunk. “You guys coming?”
This time Cam laughed. “Your ex wants your attention.”
“Don’t call her that.” Correct or not, the term grated on Joel’s nerves. It meant she was free to find someone else, and even though he knew that was fair and the right thing, he despised the idea.
He’d spent the months away from her pretending he didn’t care when her father had called to alert him that she’d gone out on a date with this guy or that one. The old man was on a warped matchmaking mission. One that slowly broke Joel until he thought he’d go insane imagining her in bed with someone else.
“I am so happy I was available to fly you in for this op. Wouldn’t have missed this for anything.” Cam clapped Joel on the back. “Not sure who will enjoy this more—the guys back at the Annapolis office or the guys on my traveling team. Tough call.”
Both options sucked for Joel. “I could hide your body out here.”
“You’re welcome to try.”
Because Cam came to Corcoran with the nickname “Lethal” and rumor was he’d flown Navy missions so secret just mentioning the operation names would bring the FBI running with guns firing, Joel decided to switch the subject. “And this is a favor for an old friend, not an op.”
“If a businessman is missing and someone is chasing your woman, it’s an op.” Cam didn’t wait around for an argument. He headed in the direction Hope indicated as the stalker’s path. “I’ll be over there, straining to hear every word.”
Joel took off after Hope. She’d stopped, and with his long stride, he caught up fast. When he drew close he saw her standing near a fallen tree, staring at the dirt.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
She looked up, the anger obvious in her tight jaw and the flush of red on her cheeks. “My phone is gone.”
“I thought we already knew that.”
“No, I mean I had it in my hand while I was running—”
“You ran through this?”
“—and stumbled here. I dropped the phone and now it’s gone.”
There was no trail and no obvious signs of a path. Roots poked out of the ground, and the trees had grown to the point where they blanketed the area. Any sane person would watch her step. But she had run. Figured.
He thought about lecturing her but abandoned the idea when she bent down and started patting the rough terrain with her palm. Hope knew the outdoors, loved and cherished the openness. It was one of the things they had in common.
Still, a phone could only bounce so far. “Any chance you lost it somewhere else?”
“No.” She tried to reach her arm under the log. “I’m not exactly easy to spook. I know what I’m talking about.”
“But you are.”
She tugged on her arm but didn’t remove it or sit back up again. Twisting around, she looked up at him. “What?”
“Spooked.” And stuck. He wondered how long it would be before she admitted that. “Your pulse is racing and you’re jumpy. Not that long ago you were shaking and holding that knife like you were ready to slash anyone in your path.”
“Someone was chasing me.” She kept shifting and squirming. The heels of her boots dug into the dirt as she wrenched her shoulder.
Much more of this and she’d really injure herself. Any second now she’d ask for help. Well, most people would. With Hope, who knew?
He was ready to jump in. She just had to say the word, but he’d bet all the cash on him she wouldn’t.
“I get the chasing part,” he said.
She stopped moving around and shot him a big-eyed stare. “You don’t believe me.”
With Hope, he figured that was as close as he was going to get to a plea for help. He crouched and did the quick math on the best angle to pull her out without dislocating her shoulder. “I didn’t say that.”
“I am not a little girl who needs protecting. Your days of holding that job are over and, in case you missed it, I was never a little girl on your watch.”
“Oh, I noticed.” He jammed his fingers into the hard ground as dirt and peat moss slid under his nails. Ignoring the closeness and the way her arm brushed across his chest, he wedged his hand under hers and dug a shallow tunnel with his knuckles. “For the record, I noticed everything about you. Still do.”
Before he could add to the comment, footsteps echoed around him and boots appeared in front of his face. He strained to look up and got as far as the familiar utility pants.
“Our company is back,” Joel said into the relative quiet of the forest.
She tried to spin around and hissed when her trapped arm stopped her movements. It took another beat for her to get a word out. “Where?”
“He means me.” Cam dropped down to the balls of his feet with his body between Joel and Hope. “What are you two doing?”
With his hand caked with dirt, Joel wrapped his fingers around her bare arm and gave a quick pull. “Rescuing her.”
“I don’t need rescuing.” She popped free and fell back on her butt. Next she rubbed her shoulder joint. “Ouch.”
Joel refused to feel guilty for getting her unstuck when she’d been too stubborn to ask for his assistance. “Good thing you weren’t caught then.”
“Glad we cleared that up.” Cam stood. “She’s right about being followed. There are footprints over there.”
“Any clue about who or why?” Joel got to his feet and put a hand down, surprised when she took it to jump up next to him.
“Some interesting information.” Cam turned his camera around and flashed an image most people would think showed nothing but leaves but really showed an outline of a shoe. “Men’s size eleven. Probably a hundred-seventy pounds.”
She leaned in closer to the screen, her eyes narrowing. “You can tell that from a grainy picture?”
Cam nodded. “And your stalker is an overpronator.”
Joel had to smile at that. “Now you’re just showing off.”
Cam shrugged. “I’m good at my job.”
“Which is what again?” she asked.
No way was Joel entertaining an impromptu debriefing in the middle of an isolated forest. Protocol was very clear. The Corcoran Team operated on a need-to-know basis.
To the world they provided risk assessments and moved in to help if things went wrong. Important but not the complete story. The definition missed the reality of the constant danger and huge amount of shooting.
Fact was, telling the woman he once dated about his current occupation had to violate some rule. “Not up for discussion.”
She sighed. “I’ve been hearing that my whole life.”
A stark silence followed her words. Joel didn’t bother to explain the real-world need for not filling her in. She knew how this game was played. She’d lived with a man known for having secrets. Joel got that she hated the game, but that didn’t change it one bit.
Cam finally broke the quiet with a clap that thundered through the trees. “So, we have someone skulking around the woods.”
“And a missing phone.” She turned on Joel with a finger in his face. “Do not ask me if I’m sure this is where I dropped it.”
Those words died in his throat because saying them could get him punched. “No, ma’am.”
She treated him to a smile then. “That’s new.”
He tried not to notice how it lit up her face. “I’m not always difficult.”
“Yes, you are,” she said.
Cam nodded at the same time. “Not always, but mostly.”
“We should head back and make sure none of these weekend warriors cut off a toe.” Falling back into command mode kept Joel from telling both of them off. “We also need to check out Hope’s knee.”
She glanced down.
Cam nodded. “Maybe this Mark guy wandered into camp and there’s some reasonable explanation for all of this.”
The men started to walk but she stayed still. “What about your helicopter and wherever you were planning to go after stopping in here?”
Sounded like she still wasn’t understanding his assignment here. Joel tried again. “This is my final destination. With you.”
Cam slid his foot over the piles of leaves stacked around them. “And I’m good to hang out for a few hours.”
Her hands went to her hips, and her legs still didn’t move. “You both think something is seriously wrong.”
Joel decided not to sugarcoat this. Sure, the past half hour could mean nothing. Or it could mean Baxter Industries and her dad were right to send in reinforcements. They wouldn’t know until they got back to camp. “Stolen phone and a stalker? Yeah, Hope. Something is not right.”
Her smile came roaring back. “Good.”
He wondered if he would ever understand her mood swings. “How is that good?”
“Because you believe me. You’re not writing this off as some hysterical woman thing.”
Of all the things she could have said, that one came out of nowhere. “I’ve never known you to be hysterical.”
She eyed him up. “You know, you seem slightly smarter about women now. Maybe some things have changed about you since we last went out.”
And he worried the most obvious—how much he wanted her—hadn’t.
Chapter Three
Hope tried to ignore Joel for the entire walk back to camp. His constant stream of questions didn’t make that easy. He wanted to know about the campers and what her plan had been to get the men in and out of camp. She gave the details, even though she really wanted to stop and demand an explanation for why it was so easy for him to walk out of her life.
Then again, maybe she didn’t want to know. Her ego could only take so much, and he had the power to break her. Had from the minute she’d met him.
The forest floor crunched and crackled under their feet. Their steps echoed around her, and Cam whistled as he walked a half step behind her. It all seemed so normal...except for the missing businessman and lost phone. And who could forget the scary stalker?
Amazing how a nice morning could make a left turn into awful so quickly.
She had taken this job to emotionally recuperate. The double whammy of losing Joel and the disaster on her last climbing expedition had sent her world into a tailspin. A new career conducting business retreats and leading simple hiking and camping outings was supposed to be soothing. The way her nerves jumped around was anything but.
“Looks like we’re here.”
The sound of Cam’s voice over her shoulder made her jump and knock into Joel next to her. When her hands brushed against his, a new sensation spun through her. Something like excitement, and that didn’t make her happy at all. She wanted to be totally over him, or at the very least not feel anything. She’d do anything for a bit of indifference at the moment.
She settled for doubling her pace and broke through the trees and into the camp clearing a step before her self-appointed bodyguards. The businessmen sat on logs turned into benches around the fire pit area. They looked up as she approached.
They all started talking a second later. Shouting over each other in an attempt to hold the metaphorical floor.
Yeah, she hadn’t missed this part of their company dynamic during the past hour.
“Where have you been?” Jeff Acheson, the Baxter director of marketing, dumped his plate on the ground and stood up. His distaste for her was on full display, from his puffing red cheeks to the scowl marring what she guessed most women found to be his perfectly chiseled model face.
She took a long look at him in the bright sunshine and decided he was a bit too buffed and polished for her taste. He had a phony air about him. Probably because he listed his age as thirty-four on the questionnaire she had handed out last night to assess their skill levels, when she knew from the files Baxter gave her the number was more like forty.
That sort of thing struck her as ridiculous. She’d bet he took twice as long to get ready for a big date than she did.
She could still remember the up-and-down sweep he gave her when they’d first met in the Baxter offices. He’d turned on the charming smile back when he thought she was some sort of assistant to the real leader on the trip. That disappeared when she’d made it clear she was in charge.
But he picked the wrong time to get all uppity with her. She wasn’t in the mood. “Is Mark here?”
“What?” Lance Ringer, the Baxter personnel manager, asked.
Lance was the one guy Hope had liked immediately. He was the youngest on the retreat but didn’t try to impress her. He owned up to the fact he hadn’t been camping since he was a kid, more than twenty years ago, and would rather be home with his newborn and wife than out roughing it with the guys. Hope found his honesty refreshing.
“Mark was missing this morning and I went to look for him,” she said, waiting for Joel and Cam to pipe up and feeling a bit dazed when neither rushed to take the lead. “Did he ever come back?”
Jeff took a threatening step in her direction. “Why didn’t you tell us there was a problem before now?”
“Probably because of this type of overblown reaction.” Joel morphed from calm to a shield of muscles in two seconds. He reached around Hope, blocking some of her view of Jeff, and put a hand on his chest. “Back up.”
Jeff tried to push Joel’s hand away. “Who are you?”
“Not relevant at the moment.”
Joel didn’t move and Cam just smiled. Hope was smart enough to know those reactions meant brewing trouble. Joel’s protective nature made it tough for him to back down, and when he was faced with a pontificating blowhard like Jeff, there was no telling what could happen.
“You have a gun,” Jeff said.
Joel motioned toward Cam. “We both do.”
With the tension building and washing over all of them, she decided this might be a good time to make one point clear. “Joel is my assistant.”
She put her hand over his and it dropped away from Jeff. But the battle stance stayed, as did Joel’s unwavering gaze on Jeff.
Cam covered his smile with his hand as he mumbled, “This should be good.”
“What are you talking about?” Jeff asked as he turned his attention back to her. “I thought you were the supposed leader of this outing.”
She said the word assistant and Jeff assumed she was no longer in charge. The man heard what he wanted to hear.
Before anyone said anything else that made her grumbly, Hope made the necessary introductions to keep the chain of command clear. “This is Joel Kidd, my helper, and Cameron Roth.”
Joel cleared his throat. “Helper?”
With a raise of the chin she held her ground. “Yes.”
The silence lasted for only a second before he nodded. “Alrighty then.”
Relief poured through her when he didn’t push it. She turned back to Lance. “Where’s Perry?”
“Who’s that?” Cam asked.
Lance got up and brushed off his pants. He stopped to shake hands with everyone. “Perry Kramer is our sales manager.”
“What does he sell?” Joel stared at Hope when she shoved an elbow into his stomach. “What? It’s a fair question.”
Lance shrugged. “But it’s probably not important information right now.”
Hope heard the rustle of branches and glanced over in time to see Charlie Bardon, the camp owner and cook, break through the trees on the far side of the last cabin. He was out of breath and running his hands over his grimy chef’s apron as he walked.
“What’s going on out here?” he asked.
Joel looked to the newcomer. “That was going to be my question.”
Charlie didn’t look any more willing to back down than Joel. They stood face to face and shared the same former military in-command presence. Pushing fifty, Charlie had been out for decades, but Joel seemed just as determined and set in his ways at thirty-three.
Before this could blow into a full-blown argument, Hope tried to step in. “Mark is missing.”
“I was hoping he was with you.” Charlie turned his attention to Joel. “Where did you come from?”
Joel shrugged. “Annapolis...or are you looking for an explanation about how birthing works?”
The older man’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to be funny?”
“Not really.”
“Okay, enough.” She wasn’t sure who deserved the bigger kick to the shin—Joel for acting disinterested and maintaining his monotone voice through the snide comments or Cam, who couldn’t stop smiling. “Cam and Joel came in by helicopter to help me.”
If possible, Charlie’s scowl deepened. “With what?”
She had no idea how to answer the question, so she skipped it and talked to the campers, trying to ignore the fact another one appeared to be missing. “When is the last time anyone saw Mark?”
Taking a long time and making the movement last longer than necessary, Jeff folded his arms in front of him. “When you two fought last night.”
Joel turned to face her. “Really?”
“He stormed out, saying he was going to the cabin,” Lance said. “But he wasn’t in there when I went to bed.”
“What time was that?” Cam asked.
“Around midnight.”
Charlie blew out a long breath as he talked. “You didn’t think that was odd?”
“He was ticked off that Hope took his gun. I thought I heard him coming in later, but he wasn’t there this morning.” Lance looked at Joel as if he expected backup.
Joel leaned in closer instead. “His what?”
She knew there was no way that comment would slide by. “Gun, and I’ll explain later.”
“Yeah, you will,” Joel said.
But not now. Not when all those eyes focused solely on her. “Go on, Lance.”
“That’s it. I figured he was walking it off or getting something to eat. Honestly, I didn’t think it was a big deal. He got scolded. Get over it.”
Hope didn’t know what to do with any of that information. Mark had gotten angry and stormed off. She knew that before she took off on her search. But maybe she could get an answer to one question. “Were either of you out in the woods this morning?”
She got a lot of head shaking and mumbling but no answers. She scanned the crowd. Only Lance didn’t possess the right body type. He’d joked about gaining more weight than his wife during the pregnancy. Hope doubted that was true, but he was carrying around a few extra pounds that would have made it a bit tough to dodge in and out of the trees.
Still, that didn’t mean none of them had done it. Someone had and the nerves jumping around inside her wouldn’t quiet down until she had answers, the right number of campers and her phone.
“And where were you this morning?” Joel asked the man in front of him.
Charlie didn’t move. “Checking on the food situation.”
From the question Hope guessed Joel wasn’t as willing to believe as easily as she was. Then again, he’d just met the group, and they were down two members.
“Let’s try it this way.” Joel shifted his weight. Not a big move. Barely perceptible but something about it made him appear taller and less willing to play games. “When did you last see Mark?”
Charlie’s gaze bounced from Joel to Cam and back again. “What’s with the weapons? Are you police?”
The look on Joel’s face, the way the corner of his mouth inched up, came close to a smile. “Pretend I am.”
Charlie didn’t share his amusement. “I don’t think I will.”
Much more of this and they’d never get to an answer. As it was, Lance and Jeff stared, watching the verbal volleys with their mouths hanging more open with each sentence.
Hope decided to act like what she was—in charge. “Charlie, help me out here. Mark wandered off and now I don’t know where Perry is.”
“I’m pretty sure Perry is in taking a second run at the chow line.”
This time the relief walloped the air right out of her lungs. “So, you’ve seen him this morning?”
Charlie nodded. “About fifteen minutes ago.”
“That’s a relief,” Lance said.
She saw Joel opening his mouth to say something and jumped in first. “But it doesn’t explain the Mark issue.”
Charlie waved her off. Even threw in a “bah” right before he started talking. “He’s just blowing off steam.”
The men kept saying it, but the explanation wasn’t good enough. “I can’t find him and I need him to check in before we do one more thing.”
Jeff swiped his thermos off the ground. “We need to go out looking for him.”
“How exactly?” Joel asked.
The question caused Jeff to go still. “What?”
Hope knew where this was going. She felt the conversation rolling downhill and couldn’t grab a two-second break to throw her body in front of it.
She couldn’t speak for Cam’s expertise, but she guessed it was off the charts. But Joel knew everything about surviving outdoors. He was the one person in the group better at outdoor activities than she was, and that was saying something.
He thrived in this environment. His father had groomed his kids to fight and shoot, readying them for the domestic civil war he insisted was coming.
Lost in paranoia and reeling from the unexpected loss of his wife, Joel’s dad believed the government had lost its way and only small pockets of freedom-loving people would save the world. He went about it by toughening up his kids, making them sleep outside and denying them an education until the state stepped in.
The upbringing was sick and wrong and it shaped Joel in ways she still hadn’t explored. He liked to joke and act as if certain things didn’t bother him, but she knew. But there were times when his gaze would wander and those dark eyes would glaze. He’d go to whatever place he built in his mind to find normalcy. And he wouldn’t let her in.
“Do you know anything about wilderness survival?” His voice stayed deceptively soft as he aimed the question at Jeff.
The other man held eye contact for a few seconds, then broke it. “We studied up before we came out here.”
“Oh, good.” Joel stared at Cam. “They studied.”
She got the point, but the conversation promised to run them right into a brick wall. “Joel, that’s enough.”
Not that he heard her. He continued to stare at Jeff.
She knew the hard truth. None of the testosterone-jousting did anything to help them locate Mark.
“Which cabin belongs to this guy?” Cam asked.
“That one.” She pointed to the building directly next to where hers sat in the middle of the makeshift line. Because she appreciated the assist, she followed Cam’s lead. “Charlie, can you take the guys and put together some provisions? If we’re going to spread out and search for Mark—”
Joel frowned. “Are we?”
“—they need to be ready.”
Charlie started shaking his head before she finished the sentence. “I’m not convinced this is necessary. He’s probably sulking. Struck me as the type.”
“He’s the vice president of finance,” Jeff said, as if that explained everything.
When Joel finally performed that eye roll it looked like he’d been dying to do since Jeff stood up, it was obvious he wasn’t convinced. “So?”
But she had a plan and it depended on everyone agreeing and moving on. “Charlie, if you could, maybe, keep everyone together, that would be a great help.”
He stared at her, not saying a thing. A gust of wind shook the leaves and the sun beat down on the campground, but the silence stretched out. Finally, Charlie began a slow nod. It picked up in speed as it went and seemed to last for a long time. “Ah, got it.”
She blew out the breath she’d been holding. It scratched her throat as it rushed out. “Thanks.”
“Gentlemen?” Charlie motioned for the managers to follow him. “Let’s go find Perry and get packed.”
Joel didn’t speak until the place cleared out and the voices faded as everyone slipped through the path between the cabins and headed for the kitchen cabin and open seating area about thirty feet away before he faced her. “What’s with the search party talk?”
“Some of this crew think they are mountain men. I was worried they’d run off with butter knives and try to slay bears or something equally stupid.” She’d dealt with the type for a long time and developed some skills, the top one being not to let them rally and slide into attack mode.
Cam nodded. “You wanted Charlie to keep them occupied while we searched.”
She looked at Joel, waited for him to say something. She expected a lecture on knowing the parameters of her job and leaving the investigation to him, the professional.
Instead a smile broke across his lips. “Your dad would be proud of your covert abilities.”
The compliment rushed right to her head, making her as dizzy as drinking the finest wine. “You don’t grow up with a former special ops guy and not learn a few things.”
That smile only widened. “Apparently.”
“Besides, Charlie gets it. He knows the kind of people who come out here,” she said, hoping to focus on all she had to do and drag her mind away from Joel. “He can help.”
Cam chuckled. “If Joel doesn’t tick him off.”
Very true. “Well, there’s that.”
They walked to Mark’s cabin. The men’s footsteps matched and she had to push her gait to keep up. They had long legs and moved quickly and quietly. She had a case of nerves that shook her hard enough to knock her over. She wanted to believe there was a reasonable explanation, but as the minutes passed her faith waned.
She used her master key to open the lock. All three of them stepped inside and stopped. Their shoulders touched and they still took up most of the open space.
They kept silent as their gazes scanned from wall to wall. The room consisted of two double beds and a small sitting area. With only a few suitcases, a coffeepot on a hot plate and rows of clothes on hangers inside the open closet, the visual inventory didn’t take long. There was one door, which went to a bathroom only slightly larger than a closet because the shower was outside the cabin in every building but hers.
Joel’s shoes scraped against the wood floor as he stepped farther inside. “There’s not much here.”
She had to take the blame for that one. “I found I have to really limit what they can bring along or some folks come out here with laptops and three suitcases and think someone else will drag it along.”
“Very practical.” Joel rummaged through a duffel bag on the floor and peeked under the cushions on the loveseat.
Metal screeched as she slid the hangers on the old rod. She spotted a few shirts and extra sneakers on the floor. There wasn’t as much as a chest of drawers in the place.
“Blood.” Cam didn’t add anything else. One word and so deathly serious.
She spun around to find Cam standing by the bed closest to the door. “What?”
Joel got there first, but she was right behind. They all crowded around the bed, staring and unmoving. No one touched anything.
She tried not to state the obvious, but she didn’t see anything except crumpled white sheets and a stack of pillows with a clear head indent in them. “What am I looking at?”
Cam nodded in the direction of the bottom of the bed. “The underside of the cover.”
Before she could reach over, Joel put out an arm and held her back. Two steps put him at the small table on the other side of the room. He was back in a flash with a pen in his hand.
With the tip, he lifted off the cover and flipped it back. Dark streaks ran about a foot along the underside. Splotches stained the navy blue blanket underneath. The dark shade hid the color. But she knew.
The dizziness hit her full force and the room spun. She would have grabbed for Joel but he’d crouched down to study the bed close up.
“It’s not a lot,” she said, looking for any positive spin on this horrible find.
“Well, it’s more than a few drops,” Joel said. “Almost like the spill of a glass of something.”
“Are you sure it’s blood?” She wanted them to say no, but she knew they wouldn’t.
Joel stood back up. “Not without tests, but I think we should assume it is until we see Mark walking around here.”
“Maybe he cut himself and didn’t tell me?” She was willing to believe anything at this point, so long as the man was healthy and fine.
“What about this gun?” Joel asked.
The question shot out of nowhere and slammed into her with the force of a body blow. They could add the weapon to the list of things suddenly gone missing.
Dread washed over her and she would have sat down hard on the floor, but Joel reached over and settled a hand on her elbow. Technically, he wasn’t holding her up, but inside she felt as if he were holding her together.
She tried to explain over the knot of anxiety wedged in her throat. “Unbeknownst to me, he brought it along. He waved it around at dinner, acting like a big shot.”
“Guy sounds like a jerk,” Cam said.
She felt obligated to defend him on some level. “He was showing off, but my rules are clear. No weapons.”
Joel shrugged. “I’m armed.”
“So am I,” Cam agreed.
They acted as if they were the only ones concerned with safety. “Yeah, well, that makes three of us.”
Cam smiled. “Really?”
“We all know the most dangerous person in a situation like this is the nervous novice with the gun.” Joel nodded and she took that as approval and kept going. “I can’t have people out here with weapons, or sooner or later one of them will shoot off a hand by accident.”
He looked around the room. Even opened the bathroom door. “So where is it?”
“What?”
“The gun.”
“I have it.” She remembered the fight and what she did. “It’s in a small lockbox in my cabin.” But somehow deep down, she knew it was gone.
Joel stopped in the middle of the room and fixed her with a serious glare. “A hundred bucks says it’s missing.”
Just went to show how alike they were. She knew, he knew. Heck, maybe even Cam knew.
Still, she had to ask. “Why would you say that?”
Joel didn’t hesitate. “Experience.”
Chapter Four
Ten minutes later Hope had her leg wound bandaged and cleaned by Joel and carefully kneeled on the floor of her cabin, putting as little weight on the injury as possible. After a quick check under the bed she sat back on her heels and stared up at Joel. “Can I panic now?”
As far as he was concerned, they’d passed that point one missing businessman ago. “Soon.”
Joel had come out here as a favor. He’d dragged Cam because he needed a ride. Now they had a full-fledged mess on their hands.
Time was the issue. Mark had been missing for potentially twelve hours or more. That amounted to an emergency. The weather had stayed warm, but the breeze had kicked up and the air carried the scent of rain.
From all accounts Mark wasn’t a seasoned hiker. Animals, accidents, falls—the list of dangers went on and on. He could be hurt or worse.
Joel needed to get word to the rest of his team in Annapolis of the potential issue in West Virginia. They might need search and rescue, or air support, and he sure as hell wanted an answer to who was stalking Hope.
Then there was the bigger problem. The lingering sense of something being off. This should have been a routine assignment for Hope. He understood her dad’s worries, and Joel shared them when it came to her safety around a bunch of idiot men in the middle of nowhere, but this felt bigger. Targeted.
Joel didn’t like it, and the frown on Cam’s face and way he walked around, staring at the floor, suggested he wasn’t a fan either. Joel wanted to chalk it up to the mix of guilt and want that pummeled him every time he looked at Hope. She was the one woman who tempted him to give it all up and hunt for a normal ending to his story.
Leaving her was the one time when he’d acted like a complete jerk with a woman and deserved a swift kick. He was lucky she hadn’t treated him to one.
But the tic in the back of his neck wasn’t about his feelings for her. He loved her until he couldn’t see straight. Probably always would. No, this was something else.
He’d been attuned to danger—real danger, not the kind his father manufactured in his sick head—since he joined the military to escape his childhood. He learned to recognize it during his short tenure at Algier Security and honed it at the Defense Intelligence Agency. With Connor’s help and the support of the Corcoran Team, he understood not to ignore it and instead figured out how best to handle it.
And he was into it up to his eyeballs now.
“Let’s do a weapons check.” Joel touched a hand against the gun strapped to his side, then performed a mental rundown of the rest. One at his ankle and the two knives hidden under his clothing, plus the others in the lockbox on the helicopter.
He glanced at Hope. “What do you have?”
“Charlie has a gun.” She stood up next to Joel at the side of the bed. “I have a knife and a bow.”
“Bow?” Cam broke off from his staring to watch her from across the mattress. “Is that really practical?”
That was the kind of talk that usually led to a demonstration. People underestimated Hope. They saw the pretty face and tight body and decided she must be the type to sit on daddy’s piles of money and do nothing.
Joel had made that miscalculation for exactly three minutes before he saw her do a verbal takedown of a guy in her father’s office who called her sweetie. Joel had been about to give the guy a lesson in respect, but she’d handled it.
And he’d been hooked ever since. He found other women attractive, but none of them were her. None came close.
He decided to fill Cam in on the nonprivate part. “She was basically a Junior Olympics champion.”
“Not just basically.” Bending over, she pulled the case out from under the bed and opened it. “Want to see my medals? I have several bows—recurve, long bow and a few compound. You’ll have to trust me that I know how to use all of them.”
Cam stretched and looked over the bed from his side. “Why did you bring one here? That one’s recurve, right?”
She flashed him a smile. “The man knows his hardware.”
“Definitely.”
“Well, I figured I could show the men how to use it. People generally assume it’s easy and have no idea how much strength it takes. And...” Her smile grew to high wattage as she closed the case. “Having a bow and arrows in the room tends to cut down on drunken male idiocy.”
That time Cam laughed. “Impressive.”
“What do you guys have?” she asked as she sat on the bed.
The laughter in her voice caught Joel in a spell. Seeing her lighthearted and happy, if only for a few seconds, touched off something inside him.
Near the end they had fought a lot. Then he’d made her cry. He could have gone a lifetime without seeing that, without having her despair rip through him, shredding him from the inside out.
He forced his attention back to the present before the old feelings of guilt swamped him. “Guns, knives.” Joel thought about a man tracking her through the woods. “My bare hands.”
Her head fell to the side and her hair cascaded over her shoulder. “Strangely, I find that comforting.”
A stark silence zipped through the room. It was charged and uncomfortable enough to have him thinking about the big bed right in front of him and Cam squirming as if he wanted to bolt.
He inched toward the door, looking like he was about to do just that. “I should head back to the helicopter and lock it up. Also need to check in with Connor.”
Joel nodded. “Fine.”
“Who is that?” she asked, seemingly unaware of the firestorm she’d set off in the man she’d once dated.
Joel swallowed a few times and thought about every unsexy thing he could to overwhelm the other thoughts in his head. After a few seconds, his control zapped back to life. “Our boss, Connor Bowen. He runs the Corcoran Team.”
“Yeah, like I said, I should contact him.” With his hand against the door, Cam appeared to want to do it right then.
Joel didn’t disagree. He’d been toying with yelling for the cavalry, but he didn’t want to rush everyone in before they conducted a few more easy steps. “Let’s see if we can figure this out first. It’s still possible we have an annoying businessman acting like a spoiled child.”
“How do you explain the gun?” Cam asked.
Joel couldn’t. Not without hitting on options that had his temper spiking. That was the problem. “I’m thinking Mark snuck in here and took the box.”
“What?” Hope jumped off the bed and wrapped her arms around her body.
“I know that sounds bad, but—”
“While I was sleeping? No way.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “Don’t you think I’d hear him?”
Cam winced. “Maybe not.”
She visibly shivered. “That’s just creepy.”
“And one of the reasons your dad wanted me here.” Joel slid that in there in the hope it would cut off any argument he’d get on the helicopter when they flew out of there the second after they located Mark. Thanks to all she’d described about this retreat so far, he’d leave when she did and not a minute earlier.
She held up a hand. “Don’t start.”
Looked like her fear or disgust or whatever it was about the lockbox had disappeared. “Your dad is being practical.” Joel suspected her father was also engaging in a bit of matchmaking, but Joel decided not to share that thought.
“The word you’re looking for is overprotective.”
“Hope, I think—”
She turned to Cam. “So, now what?”
He bit his bottom lip in what looked like a poor attempt to block a smile. “We check the helicopter and do a quick search around the campground.”
Those priorities worked for Joel. “Cam will question the men here at the campground and maybe see if Charlie knows anything or can give us some direction.”
“He knows these woods better than anyone and probably can tell us where someone might hide.” She sighed as she shook her head. “I swear if Mark is just being a big baby and staying away because a woman yelled at him, I’m going to hit him.”
“Absolutely fine, since nailing him with an arrow is out. Unfortunately,” Joel said.
Cam nodded. “Sounds like a reasonable plan.”
She let her hand drop to her side again. “But Mark being a jerk still doesn’t explain the missing satphone and the stalker.”
“You’re sure Mark wasn’t the one following you?” Man, Joel wanted that to be the answer. It was simple and clean, but he knew life rarely worked that way. Not for him.
“The build was all wrong. Mark is stocky and a bit out of shape. This guy was lean and moved fast.”
“I don’t like that at all.” Cam shook his head as he peeked out the small window next to the cabin’s front door. “Heads up—the troops are gathering by the fire pit again. Looks like Charlie is giving them orders.”
“I bet Jeff pays attention to Charlie,” Hope grumbled.
Cam snorted. “Annoying but at least they’re listening. Good to know they can.”
Sounded like time had run out. Joel didn’t want to spend one more second in planning mode. “Okay, we meet back here in two hours. If we haven’t found anything, we start looking in the other cabins.”
Hope reached down. “I’ll bring—”
No way was Joel dealing with that. “The bow stays here.”
“Fine.” She got up and joined the men at the door. She glanced at Cam. “I thought you had to be somewhere else today.”
He nodded, like he always did. “I’m fine for now.”
“Maybe we should all be in on the questioning. I mean, I already checked the woods.”
Joel knew that would eat up too much time. “This go-round we’ll look for tracks.”
“Want me to do that? It’s more of my specialty than yours,” Cam said.
“We’ll be fine.”
Cam reached for the doorknob. “I bet.”
“Can I have a gun?”
Her question stopped both men. Cam froze and Joel did a quick count to ten. She could handle it, but she was still spooked and he had to be sure she was back in full control before he handed her a loaded gun. Still... “No.”
“Can you shoot?” Cam asked.
“Been practicing since I was ten.”
Joel wasn’t having this conversation right now. He reached around and shoved the door open, bringing the warm breeze inside. “Shooting a person is different.”
Her head snapped back. “Are we doing that?”
He hoped not. “Maybe.”
“And you would know how hard that is.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Yes, I would.”
* * *
THEY’D CROSSED OUT of sight of the campground before Hope broached the difficult subject. Actually, about a hundred feet away she opened her mouth and then closed it again, focusing on the sway of branches against the increasing wind and the clomp of their feet against the ground.
Later they hit the point where she could see sunlight up ahead and knew the helicopter sat a short distance away. She didn’t hold back. “Are we going to talk about it?”
He stopped scanning the trees and large expanse of forest around them to spare her a glance. “About what?”
Men were clueless. “Us.”
He exhaled. “Hope—”
“I know. You don’t have to list off the reasons why we should pretend we’ve never slept together.”
“I never said that.”
“You act like it.”
“And, for the record, it was more than sex.”
“Was it?” She asked even though she couldn’t stand to hear him dismiss their relationship as unimportant—again.
True, they hadn’t been together in what felt like forever. She’d convinced herself she didn’t care and could move on, but seeing him made her realize how untrue that was.
He picked a leaf off a branch that nearly whacked him in the face. “We can’t do this now.”
The world around her barely registered. Not when this topic came up.
She’d heard all of the excuses. They ran through her mind on constant play. They spilled out of her now before she could call them back. “This is the wrong time. I’m the wrong guy. You deserve better. My background is a mess. My job is dangerous.”
He stopped. “Excuse me?”
“Have you invented more reasons? I’ve heard all of those, and none of them sent me running.”
“Wow.”
She debated storming ahead, leaving him floundering, but refrained. Childish wasn’t the answer when what she really wanted was for him to treat her the way a woman deserved to be treated. “Imagine how I felt as you ticked off that list, or some version of it, day after day. You always had a new reason to push away and leave, but you never found one to stay.”
“That’s not true.”
She knew it was because she had lived it. “All those months ago I asked you to move in with me since you were basically staying there every night anyway, and you flew out of town on a business trip the next morning instead of giving me an answer.”
“That was legitimate.”
“Joel, come on.”
The leaf disappeared as Joel crushed it inside his clenched fist. “Your father said you were dating again.”
Her gaze slipped back up to his. “What?”
“No?”
The conversation had her mind spinning. Her dad still talked with Joel? And since when was her dating life up for discussion? Not that she really had one. She struggled through a few setups from friends and had a perfectly nice time with a guy from her climbing club.
Handsome men, fun places and she didn’t experience so much as a spark. Not even a tiny nibble of interest.
But that’s not where her mind went when Joel asked the question. It zoomed right to her nightmare scenario. The one where he walked away and found someone else. Where the truth turned out to be not that he wasn’t ready to make a commitment but that he didn’t want to make one to her.
“Are you?” Two simple words, but it actually hurt her to say them.
“I didn’t leave you so I could date other women. My decision wasn’t about being a playboy.” His voice rose and anger slipped in as he spoke.
As if he had a right to be upset about the fallout. “Well, I guess that’s good to know.”
Instead of standing around arguing, she headed in the direction of the helicopter. This was a waste of time and they had more important things to worry about than her broken heart.
Joel grabbed her arm before she got more than three feet. “Hey, wait up.”
She didn’t shake out of his grip, though she could have because his hold was more gentle than confining. Seeing the pain in his dark eyes killed off any thought of pulling back anyway.
He closed in, bringing his body within a few breaths of hers. “You know I’m telling the truth, right?”
“I know you had a lot of excuses. Still do.” And she couldn’t hear them again. Not and still function.
“Hope, look...I want...”
“What?” She heard the pleading in her voice.
His eyes closed and when they opened again the wary expression hadn’t faded. “Maybe we should stick to finding Mark.”
Just like that, the mood changed. Something snapped and the tension that had been building blew away.
Because he seemed to want an out, she gave him one. Maybe a change of topic made sense. There had been so much pain and disappointment, so many tears. She needed her head in the game and her mind on Mark. “Fine. Why are we headed back to the helicopter instead of following tracks?”
“I want to check in at work.”
“And?” Joel’s face went blank and she wasn’t falling for it. “Oh, please. Maybe I didn’t see you walking out on me, but I do know you. Part of you, and you are fixated and worried.”
“I didn’t leave you—”
“Joel.”
His hand dropped. “Okay, yes. I’m concerned.”
“You’re admitting it?”
“You deserve that much.” He motioned with his head for them to start walking again. “This is your job, and I think something is very wrong here.”
The honesty flooded her with relief. “Good.”
“Why good?”
“Sharing even that much is a big step for you.”
“I thought you’d be happy I left.” His voice dropped to a near whisper. “Back then, I mean.”
The words stunned her and she stumbled. She stared at him, thinking he had to be playing a sick joke, even though that wasn’t his style. But he looked ahead, not even blinking.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” She was about to pull him to a stop when a crack echoed through the trees. Dirt kicked up a few feet away from her, and birds swooped out of the trees in a rush.
“Get down!” His full body smacked into her before he finished talking.
The ground rushed up and she put out a hand to stop the free fall. Her legs twisted with his and the second before she slammed into the ground he turned them.
Landing on his side with a grunt, he absorbed the majority of their combined body weight on his shoulder. His body bounced and she tried to move away and let him brace for impact, but he curled her body into his. Still, the jolt rattled her teeth and she heard him swear under his breath.
She could taste dirt and feel sharp sticks jabbing into her bare legs and ripping off her bandage. Her mind finally focused and the sounds of the forest came rushing back. “Joel—”
“Don’t move.”
It had sounded like... But it couldn’t be. “What was that?” She whispered the question as she frantically looked around.
Before she could scramble to her feet, he shoved her against the ground and covered her body with his. His fingers slipped into her hair as he held her down. She heard a steady stream of reassuring words, but they barely registered over the fear and panic pounding through her.
She expected shouts and more pops. When nothing came, she glanced up. His gaze scanned the area, and his gun was up and ready. She swallowed hard at the vulnerability of their position. Right there on her makeshift path with nothing covering them or blocking their view in any direction.
“A gunshot.” He was so close the words vibrated against the side of her head.
Adrenaline pumped through her, and her heartbeat hammered in her ears so loudly she thought for sure she’d give away their position. “Where did it come from?”
“I’m more worried about who and how many.” He shifted his weight until most of it fell away to her side. “Stay under me.”
“Are you wearing a bulletproof vest?”
“Didn’t think I’d need one.”
She waited for the attacker to rush them. Listened for another shot. “I can’t hear or see anything.”
“I need to get to the helicopter.”
A vision of him running and getting shot hit her with the force of a crashing train. The horror of it stole her breath and had her fingernails digging into the dirt. “No.”
“I have a vest and binoculars in there.” He slipped farther off her. “Other weapons.”
“You can’t risk going into the open.”
With barely a touch he moved them to the left. She felt his deep inhale before he rolled them over and stopped close to a large tree trunk. He tapped the back of her legs. “Curl up.”
When the world finally stopped spinning she looked up and saw rough bark right in front of her face and threw a hand out to touch the surface. “What are we doing?”
“You are going to make yourself as small as possible.” He gave the orders without looking at her. His head kept moving as he glanced around them. “Then you’re not to move.”
“You can’t—”
“I’m serious. You move and I will come back, which is more of a threat to me than racing over there.” With a hand between her shoulder blades, he lowered her closer to the ground. “Stay down.”
Before she could grab on or call him back, he was gone. In a crouch, zigzagging he broke through the last line of trees. He hugged close to the helicopter as he lifted a hand. The door must have stuck or his angle was off because she saw him pulling and tugging.
With all her concentration, she focused on him. Her teeth clicked together as terror spun through her. She waited for footsteps to fall and a hand to pull her up. The only thing that kept her from screaming was watching Joel. Even as her vision blurred around the edges, she stared.
After some fiddling and a yank, he got the door open and bonelessly slipped inside. One minute his dark hair provided a beacon and the next he was gone.
Her breath hiccupped in her chest as she fought the urge to run after him. She’d just decided to do that when she saw his head again. He held binoculars and swept his gaze over the forest. The door inched open and he was off again, this time running toward her.
He slid in beside her, kicking up twigs and leaves around her. He held up a vest. “Put this on.”
“You need it.”
“I think the person is gone, but I don’t want to risk you getting shot.”
When he continued to hold the vest, she took it and slid it on. The way he stared at her with that I-can-wait-all-day expression had her adjusting the straps and securing it tighter to her body. “Happy?”
“Not really.”
That made two of them. She looked at the binoculars. They weren’t the standard bird watching kind.
“Do they do something special?” She half hoped they functioned as a grenade launcher. She’d be satisfied with any weapon that could protect them all and get them out of there fast.
“Increased magnification and brightness. Plus the universal mil reticle.” He spit all that out without lowering the glasses.
“Um, okay.”
“The last is a special feature snipers use.” This time he looked at her. “It allows for better targeting and range estimates.”
The techno-jargon filled her with a strange sense of relief. It was as if they had walked right into his wheelhouse. She was fine to stay there with him.
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