Blackthorne (The Brotherhood of the Gate Book 1) (9 page)

“She seems a bit bothered by something,” he replied, calmly watching her make her way up the steps, “but then…I’m a bit bothered by something. We’ve been out walking in the woods together…and I got the feeling we weren’t alone, until we made our way back up here.” He looked down at the giant dog fondly. “Ellie here wants to hunt something…the hair on the back of her neck was standing straight up for the whole walk. But then again, so was mine. Then Houston called on my cell and told me to make sure you girls got home safe. I knew it must have been an emergency or he would never have called the cell phone. You gonna tell me why he wants me to do guard duty?”

Rhi grimaced. “You’re asking me? If I told you half of what has gone on today, you would say I was in dire need of lithium. And of course you aren’t alone—these woods are filled with warm and fuzzy critters.”

Bobby Wayne hitched his gun up a little further to examine an imaginary dust speck on the barrel, pointedly not meeting her eyes. “You stay indoors tonight, Rhi and lock it all up tight. I saw some tracks I don’t know what to make of and I don’t think these are anything resembling ‘warm and fuzzy.’ Someone might be putting me on and then again, I might need to buy some more ammo. I’m gonna head down to Pam’s and make sure she’s tucked in, then I am going to give Houston a call. I get the feeling I might need more information and more supplies. I think our government has been up to something nasty…at least, I hope it’s our government.”

Once Rhi would have silently snickered to herself about the paranoia of her neighbor, but tonight she felt a strange kinship with the man who Pam claimed had enough explosives in his cabin up the hill to single-handedly mount an offensive on Little Round Top. After shutting herself in her home, Rhi sat in the dark with Ellie Mae at her side, gazing out at the diabolical darkness of the night. The woods across the little valley seemed to breathe with evil. She absentmindedly massaged her neck with one hand and rubbed Ellie’s satiny fur with the other. She noticed the dog still sat as much at attention as she did when they first came into the house. Whatever was out there, hovering on the edges of her mind, was troubling Ellie’s thoughts as well. The emotional rollercoaster of the evening, coupled with a long shift at work, conspired to make Rhi’s eyes feel heavy enough to add a few pounds to her body mass. She fought the waves of sleep that washed through her body. She knew instinctively that tonight the moment she surrendered to the sandman…she would be another person in another time.

»»•««

Raven was so glad that she had finally talked Mother into letting her go with her friends on a trip to the Garden of the Gods. The great red rock formations reaching for the sky made her spirit soar with joy, even though she didn’t have the strength to go walking among them with her companions. They had ensconced her on a throne of picnic blankets in a meadow near the wagons and reluctantly left her to her books and the view of the Colorado sky, edged with a crown of red sandstone. She arranged her skirts and lay back on the cushions of her nest to inhale the latest chapter of Sir Walter Scott’s
Ivanhoe
when a shadow fell across her book. Shielding her eyes, she tried to make out who the owner of the huge shadow was. Brilliant blue eyes captured her green ones and then he smiled. She knew she was lost with that smile. It simply took what breath she had away. She was shocked she did not swoon as he approached. He was a tall man, well dressed in a tailored walking suit, with shoulders that looked powerful enough to burst the seams on his jacket. Dark, shoulder-length hair dusted with white framed his handsomely weathered face. White teeth glinted as he spoke. “A fair maiden in a meadow on a spring day…reading Scott, I see.”

»»•««

The pines in her yard swayed with her dreams and the wind howled as Rhi tossed in her bed. She jolted awake, groggy and in a fog for a second, and then resolved to not sleep any more that night. Instead she sat, staring down the drive to her home, and waited for him to come to her…a totally insane thought but there it was. Rhi knew any effort at sleeping would bring dreams of Blackthorne holding her in his arms again—even being awake didn’t keep the thoughts of his embraces at bay. Every molecule of her being called to him, some parts more than others. The depth of her longing for a man she had encountered twice was terrifying and incomprehensible. Added to the mix was the dark presence of someone else in her thoughts. Someone deadly. Some
thing
deadly. Or was that someone Blackthorne himself?

At 5:00 a.m., in the dark of the early morning, she packed a gym bag and loaded Ellie Mae into the Blazer, heading to town to take out her frustrations on the climbing wall at the gym.

The huge dog stood at attention in the cargo area of the SUV the entire drive to town. The hair on the hound’s neck stood on end and every so often a low growl could be heard as the dog stared into the darkness.

Rhi resolutely ignored the behavior of her pet and the feeling that giant shadows were flying over her sturdy vehicle.
I’m not losing my mind. I’m not losing my mind. I’m not losing my mind.
She managed to drink her entire thermos of coal black coffee before arriving at the gym, eyes red and haggard. Eat the Mountain opened at 5:30 a.m., owing to the erratic sleeping habits of the miners and casino workers. Several other early birds had braved the dark to punish themselves in a building where the motto was
“Eat the Mountain One Bite at a Time.”
The cavernous building was filled with weights, exercise and cardio equipment, and three concrete climbing walls, all faux painted to resemble the outdoor rocks all of the climbers preferred when the weather was warmer. Multicolored handholds studded the walls. Most climbers enjoyed a temperate climb in the gym more than the icy one they would have if they went bouldering on the cliffs of the Garden of the Gods farther down Ute Pass or the walls of Phantom Canyon just past the neighboring town of Victor, Colorado. Various routes had been marked with multicolored duct tape and monikers such as “Oh Shit” and “Satan’s Monkey Bars.” The names adorned each route, written on the first piece of duct tape marking a route by a Sharpie pen.
“This goes to show…never mix beer, climbing, and Sharpie pens.”
Rhi grinned at the memory of the party she’d attended at the gym a few weeks ago when the present routes had been so named. One of her favorite climbing partners was waiting at the front counter for a likely victim. He looked like a reject for the part of Spicoli in
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
and like that iconic character, Rhi mused amusedly, Nate didn’t have the common sense God gave a domestic turkey.

She pointed Ellie Mae to a convenient corner and asked her friend to lie down. With a grumble, the dog obeyed, but kept one brown eye opened and focused on her mistress.

“Hey Nate.” She called to the large surfer type man with peroxide blond dreadlocks hugging the counter. “Do you have a belay slave for the morning?” She was referring to the practice of climbers spotting each other via harnesses and ropes.

Nate Evans shoved himself back from the counter to examine her much shorter frame as she stood before him. He was just a big lug. “I missed the opening rush, Rhi. I was in the bathroom.”

“You seem to spend an extraordinary amount of time on the throne, Nate.”

“Hell, if they had held high school in the toilet, I would have gotten straight A’s. I do my best thinking there. I told Burl I’d watch the counter this morning, but I think I can spot you a few climbs and keep an eye opened,” the unshaven Nate replied, reaching below the counter for his phone. “Besides, Ellie Mae will let me know if anyone comes in.”

Rhi grinned. It was pitch black outside. Only the truly mental were up at this hour in the gym. She was proud to be one of them.

They made their way to one of the emptier climbing walls and prepared for the climb. Rhi put her harness and climbing shoes on, and then she hooked up to the purple and green static line hanging off the wall. She was busy concentrating on the intricate knots used to hook her harness up when a large shadow fell over her. The sounds of the gym suddenly became muted to her ears. She didn’t have to raise her eyes to know to whom the shadow belonged. The sudden racing of her pulse and the electric spark that ran down her neck let her know his identity immediately.
God
,
if I don’t watch it, I’ll leap into his arms at any moment. And where is my noble guard dog?

She glanced back to the corner and saw that the dog was on her back asleep, her legs straight up in the air.

“Some guard dog you are, Ellie,” she muttered.
I am starting to feel a bit stalked here…what the hell is he doing here and why can’t I stop thinking about him naked? WTF is wrong with me? Who the hell is this guy?

“Caesar was left-handed also,” Blackthorne said aloud, his silvering head bent over her smaller form. She felt his eyes boring into the back of her favorite T-shirt, a souvenir of her first bungee jump several months beforehand, a simple white shirt with “Boinggg” in huge black letters.

“He made everyone shake hands with the right so most wouldn’t be able to draw a weapon on him.”

Still refusing to raise her eyes to him, she continued to tie her knots. “How is that useful to me? And how do you know that? Was he a buddy of yours?”

A large, callused brown hand reached beneath her chin to raise her face to his. His sky blue gaze fiercely bored into her features. “Because you never know when someone might want to draw a sword on you.”

She jerked back, her skin tingling from his touch, her senses buzzing. “Might want to watch that touchy-feely stuff, dude. You might pull back a nub someday.”

“Swords?” Rhi gave him the most sarcastic grin she had in her mental supply closet and then stepped back. “There comes a time in every girl’s life when she knows she is never going to get her own dragon in
Game of Thrones
. I gave up that one a long time ago. I’m a girly girl now.”

“But you still went bungee jumping at some point? I don’t see you as the Bungee type.”

She shrugged. “All I need is someone to hold my purse while I jump.”

“You carry a purse? You look like a backpack girl to me.” Blackthorne stepped back, giving her the full view of him in his climbing gear—black bike shorts and a white T-shirt stretched over his broadly muscled torso. She groaned inwardly as her hormones broke out in a cold sweat and muscles contracted in parts of her body that hadn’t been used in a long time. This attraction was getting on her nerves.

His legs were fantastically manly. The marks of several scars on them only added to the onslaught of testosterone…but where would someone in this day and age get such long slashes on his legs? Motorcycle accident? The white scars had to have been acquired long ago and could barely be seen. She then noticed his arms and hands were in the same condition and there were some prime character-building scars faded out on his handsome face as well. What kind of sport or job would cause that kind of injury?
Wait. If I look closely will some of those scars resemble the bites of a small animal? Do I want to look closely?

“Your heart and your purse mustn’t be worth much if you give them away so easily, Rhiannon,” Blackthorne said, his even white teeth showing in a slight grin, making him even more incredibly handsome than before. But his eyes were still guarded, still holding that bizarre expression of anger and desire in their depths when he looked at her. What she could have ever had done to him was beyond her. They had just met. No matter how darkly familiar he was to her, she was sure of that.

If I didn’t know better—I’d say he’s flirting with me,
she thought, examining his face a bit more closely.
Wait…

“Who said I had a heart and how did you know my whole name?” Rhi asked in frustration, ignoring Nate. The younger man had moved to stand behind her in a slightly goofy looking attempt to appear intimidating. The object of her frustration, Blackthorne, started to double-check the knots in the rope hanging from her harness, his hands dangerously close to her waist. “What are you doing? Did you not understand the ‘pull back a nub’ statement?”

“Making sure you don’t have a great fall. You seem to be accident prone,” he replied, roughly tugging on the harness encircling her waist and legs to check the tightness of the straps. “Evans, you can go back to the desk, I think I’ve got this one.”

Much to Rhi’s surprise, Nate obediently gave her a grin and thumbs up sign. He then ambled back to the front desk.

“Wait, are you calling me a klutz?”

Blackthorne didn’t lose his maddening composure for a second, taking up the ropes once again to continue his safety check. “I didn’t say that you were a klutz, lady. I think you seem to be having a run of bad luck and the last thing I want to see is you hurt—in
any
way.”

“So I’m supposed to let you hold my life in your hands while I climb? Even though I get the distinct impression you dislike me? And you didn’t answer my question…how did you know my given name?”

“You can look at it this way…I already have held your life in my hands…what’s once more?”

He had held her life in his hands before? This conversation was steering too close to her dreams of the man. Rhi could think of nothing else to do but turn toward the wall to scout a challenging route. Normally she never would have allowed a complete stranger to be on the anchor end of the belay…but some compulsion—a stupid compulsion, she thought later—forced her to move. She would never allow him to see her nervousness. Reaching into her chalk bag, she blotted her sweating hands then reached up for the first handhold.

∙
•
∙

Blackthorne took up the slack on the climbing rope as he observed Rhi carefully make her way up the wall. It hadn’t been difficult to find out everything that was known in Cripple Creek about Rhiannon Brennan and that was quite a bit considering the fact she had lived there only a couple of months. A beautiful, reclusive blackjack dealer with a past was irresistible to most of the eligible men in town as well as to most of the town gossips. But—he had to admit to himself he was glad to know—she was also unobtainable as well.