They had been two damn fine men. The best. And no one had even had the decency to close their eyelids.
Where the hell had it all gone wrong?
Before him, Jess began to shake, her eyes still glued to the men that had volunteered their lives to protect her own. Hadn’t she had breakfast with Bill just the other day? Hadn’t she borrowed Jamie’s jacket just yesterday afternoon for a long walk?
And now they were dead.
And the blood was all on her hands!
“Don’t, sweetheart,” came Mitch’s low voice. “Don’t even think like that.”
He saw the guilt and the horror so clear on her face, felt the reflection of his own regrets in her vivid brown eyes. Softly he drew her into his arms. She did not protest.
He could feel each shudder in her tormented frame. Feel her disintegrate in his very arms, the cool control of the Ice Angel shattering in the warm comfort of his embrace. He leaned his cheek against the top of her head, stroking her back as he absorbed every heart-wrenching shudder of her delicate frame. He eased them back behind a tree, seeking cover as he held her close.
God, he had not wanted it to be like this. He had not wanted it to be like this at all.
Then suddenly, before he could react, Jess was pushing herself away from his chest. He looked at her with sharp concern, seeing a sudden fierce intensity in her eyes.
“I didn’t want this,” she gasped out, her hands curling into desperate fists on his chest. “Please believe I didn’t want this.”
“I know,” he told her, trying to soothe her agitation. “I know. It’s not your fault, Jess. It’s not your fault.”
But she didn’t seem to be hearing him. Instead, her eyes were ablaze with dark shadows of stark horror and pain that took his breath away.
“I just wanted to get away from the violence,” she said desolately. “I wanted it all to end, I wanted to be free. And now...” Her tortured eyes fell to his chest, the look of despair on her face so crushing. “There’s so much blood, Mitch,” she whispered. “So much blood on a single pair of hands. And I never wanted any of it. I always hated the violence. I just wanted it to go away. To just go away.”
He didn’t know what to tell her anymore. The stark admission tore at his own gut, until her pain knifed through him like his own. Looking at her now, seeing the torment in her face, he didn’t know how he could have ever thought she was cold. And he didn’t know how he could have ever wondered if she’d betrayed them. He drew her once more into his arms, willing her burden onto his own strong shoulders.
But his guilt was overwhelming. He should have seen this coming. He should have kept them all safe. Somehow he should have made sure that everything turned out all right.
And he knew that this moment would haunt him, like the death of Victor haunted him. In his job, his decisions didn’t mean whether or not some boss was happy. They didn’t mean a company made money, or even that someone kept a job. His decisions, from where to take the witness, to who should be the guards, to what type of backup plans should be made, were life-and-death decisions. And when he failed...
When he failed, the cost was simply too damn high.
Abruptly he felt a surge of intense anger. Someone had betrayed them. Someone had let Les know how to find them. Someone had sold them out, trading lives for cash. And if Mitch ever found that person, that person would plead for death before Mitch was done with him.
Even if it was this woman in his arms?
The thought came from nowhere, and he hated himself the minute it slashed like neon across his brain. He could still feel the heartbreaking trembles of her shock-filled frame. Her horror and anguish were too real to be faked. Certainly she hadn’t sold them out.
Then again, it didn’t have to be intentional. She’d tried to leave last night. She said there was no man involved, but she’d been creeping out somewhere. He knew her too well to believe it was impulsive. Whatever she’d been trying to do, it was according to some plan, some motive, she refused to tell him about. And perhaps in that plan, she had unwittingly tipped off Les Capruccio.
What had she meant when she’d said, “I didn’t want this. I just wanted to get away from the violence”?
He didn’t know. So help him God, he didn’t know.
Suddenly, almost violently, he swore at himself. Since when did Mitch Guiness become so emotionally involved in his work? Once boiled down, decisions were remarkably clear. Fact: Someone had betrayed them and it wasn’t Jamie or Bill. Fact: Jessica Govern, a.k.a. Jessica Gavornée, a.k.a. Jess McMoran, had been sneaking away from the retreat twenty-four hours before, a clear violation of the Witness Protection Program. Fact: This same woman kept secrets, including the small matter that Jessica Govern didn’t appear in records until age sixteen.
His instinct told him she hated the violence, and she hated Les Capruccio. But she still had a hidden agenda that could have accidentally given them away. Mitch’s frame stilled, his dark eyes becoming stark and clear. When all boiled down, he couldn’t trust this beautiful woman tucked in his arms.
Until she trusted him and started revealing those secrets buried under the Ice Angel’s rigid control, he had to consider her a liability to them both.
It was the only way to be safe.
Jess felt Mitch’s hand suddenly still on her back. She felt his body stiffen, and all at once a sharp pang of loss cut through her. She didn’t question the instinct that drove her. Instead, her head raised up to find his eyes.
And the emptiness within her was complete.
She didn’t say anything, she simply stepped away. And by the way Mitch’s brown eyes followed her, her suspicions were confirmed. Oh, they weren’t hateful eyes, nor condemning. Instead, they were simply alert and carefully shuttered. Whatever caring she’d seen just sixty minutes before in the car was gone. Mitch had abruptly removed himself from her, effectively breaking the fragile emotional bond that might have once existed.
It hurt more than she would have thought. Instinctively, her hand came up to her throat. She could feel it trembling. Mitch suspected her. It was the only explanation. And as her brown eyes swept unbidden to the two men dead at the base of the tree, she realized deep down inside she couldn’t blame him.
All this time she’d tried to outrun the violence. And now three men were dead because of her. Had living with Les been that bad? Had enduring his touch and his blows truly been so horrible? Were the lives of three men truly worth her escape?
And once more she could see her father’s shocked eyes as the gun exploded, and he fell, down, down, down, onto the gold-patterned carpet. Her mother’s face, so starkly resigned as she lowered the shotgun. The blood pooling into the cheap carpet as Jessica began to scream, the long silent scream that had never quite ended.
She would never have to fear his drunken rages anymore. She would never have to wonder what he had wanted that night, when he’d come to her room with his breath stinking of cheap whiskey. It was over, all over.
But at what price?
Her gaze swept up to the large dark man standing before her, watching her with his intense brown eyes, and she wondered what he would think if he knew the thoughts running through her mind. She wondered what he would do, if he knew all the things she had seen in her lifetime.
She wondered if maybe then he would understand.
And she knew, in that instant, that she would never tell him. Because she’d sworn to her mother she would never tell, and because she was afraid. Afraid that this man would look at her with disgust or even pity. Afraid that this one strong man, would turn away from her altogether.
“We’ve been here too long,” Mitch said under his breath, breaking the silence. Jess nodded. And then she did something he never would have imagined.
She crossed right to Bill and Jamie, and with a hand that only trembled slightly, reached out and closed both of their eyelids.
“You were the bravest men,” she whispered. “I will not forget you.”
The gesture touched Mitch, and once more his suspicions filled him with guilt. The more he learned about her, the less he understood.
“I want to finish scouting the area,” he said gruffly, his brown eyes not quite meeting her own. “Stay behind me.”
She fell in step behind him without saying a word. Squaring her shoulders, she followed him through the woods.
In the end, Mitch determined that two men had stayed behind. They seemed to be firmly ensconced in the house, probably keeping watch in the event that Mitch returned. That finding left him with little knowledge, however.
If anything, his mind now blazed with more questions than before, and the snowy silence offered few answers. Jamie and Bill were dead, and it appeared he and Jess would be on their own a bit longer. Given the uncertainty, he couldn’t risk a call into the program. There was no telling who might be listening.
He vented some of his frustration by slashing the tires of the ill-concealed vehicle. That would slow down the two men left behind, and give them something to ponder. He would have liked to do more damage than that; he’d like to burn the whole place down to the ground to avenge Bill and Jamie.
But such actions weren’t prudent, and he still had Jess to consider.
They went back to the car in silence, two shuttered people lost in their own thoughts and suspicions. The exhaustion was nagging, but the sense of danger kept them moving.
This time, Mitch turned the car southward. They drove to a little town on the New Hampshire-Massachusetts border, where Mitch had set up one of his three contingency plans. As Jess waited in the car, Mitch went into the bank, produced a second set of fake ID and received access to a prearranged safe-deposit box filled with more cash and another set of ID. As he’d told Jess, he could keep them running for a while.
It was now late afternoon, but that didn’t matter to Mitch. Both he and Jess were exhausted, however, and exhausted people made mistakes. He drove to a small, roadside motel.
“Six hours,” he informed her curtly as he shut off the engine. Jess stared back at him with confused eyes.
“Six hours of what?”
“Sleep. Then we hit the road again. Probably with another car.”
She nodded, turning away from Mitch so he wouldn’t see the shadows she knew were in her eyes. They’d driven the entire distance in silence, and now that he was finally speaking to her, his voice was so curt, she didn’t know which hurt her more.
And she hated herself for feeling the pain at all.
“Fine,” she said out loud. “We leave at ten.”
But as she watched him climb out of the car, she allowed herself to acknowledge the truth once and for all. She wouldn’t be leaving with Mitch Guiness at ten. No, she intended to do what she should have done a long time ago.
She was getting out on her own.
Because as she watched the strong, dark man beside her stand, she knew there was one man’s death not even the Ice Angel would be able to handle.
Chapter 11
W
hen Mitch came back from the reservations desk, he carried with him only one key. Jess looked at it immediately with wary eyes.
“Where’s my key?” she asked more sharply than intended.
He merely glanced at her. “Same deal as last night,” he said crisply, “though this room happens to have two beds.”
“Unacceptable,” she bit out, her brown eyes unrelenting. The certainty of her word was probably too strong, however, for Mitch instantly stiffened. His jaw became grim.
“We are both adults, Jess,” he reminded her with edged softness. “We can handle this.” His eyes bore into hers, clearly telling her the matter was resolved. She refused to back down, though. How could she? There would be no chance of creeping out on her own if they were both in the same room.
“I need time to myself,” she managed to say. “I sleep better alone.”
Mitch took a deep, steadying breath. He was tired and short-tempered. His doubts about this woman sickened him, just as the gravity of their situation refused to allow him to relent. Damn it, he had a job to do.
His voice dropped to an octave she’d never heard before, and when he spoke, he spelled out each word with such precision, she felt every syllable in the hollow ache of her stomach.
“We
will
share a room tonight. You
will
sleep in one bed. I
will
sleep in the other. You
will
do exactly as I say, or so help me God
I
will wring your neck right here and now and save Capruccio the trouble. Now is that clear, Ms. McMoran, or shall I carry you up to the room myself?”
He took one step forward and it was all the encouragement she needed. Looking into the dark seriousness of his eyes, she had no doubt that he would in fact lift her up before a lobby full of people and manually cart her off to the room. No doubt at all.
“Fine,” she managed to say, trying to inject enough curtness in the word to salvage her pride. But instead, the word came out rather breathless, and a faint blush crept up her cheeks. Mitch’s gaze followed the coloring like a magnet, and the responding tightness of his body was unmistakable.
The next six hours would most likely kill them both.
“Fourth floor,” he practically growled.
Jess nodded and turned away to punch the upward arrow button for the elevators, grateful for the cover.
The elevator arrived with a ding, and she walked through the doors without looking back. She didn’t have to; she could feel Mitch’s presence in every shivering flash of awareness whispering down her spine.
They traveled up in silence, both looking at everything but each other. Then they were on the fourth floor, Mitch leading the way down the dimly lit hall. After a bit of jiggling, he opened the door. They both walked in, took one look around and tried to keep the tension from showing on their faces.
The room did contain two beds. However, they were crammed so close together in the tiny confines of the room, it hardly seemed to matter. Between the dresser, TV and nightstand, the room offered little spare space and even less privacy. Jess felt like screaming, even as the tightness within her stomach grew.