Authors: Alicia Scott
"Ah…" he said weakly, "no."
She sat back with a sigh. "Exactly my
point. But please, don't tell my grandmother I said all that. She's a farmer.
She doesn't really approve of overromanticizing animals. I once took one of the
beautiful Swiss heifers for a pet—Maple—and the year she went dry, Grandma sent
her out to get butchered along with the other dry cows. It didn't matter that
she had a name, it didn't matter that I trained her to come when I
called—"
"She trotted over whenever you called her
name?"
"Oh yes. Just like Lassie."
"Of course."
"But then they butchered her." Her
face had gone pale with just the memory and she looked at him with troubled
eyes. "Can you believe they had Maple one night for dinner?"
"No," he said, honestly feeling a
little queasy at the mere thought—and he was a man who appreciated a good
steak. "But I'm beginning to understand how you ended up with a
three-legged cat."
"Exactly," she said and slapped her
knee. "Would you believe no one would give her a home just because she was
missing her hind leg? I mean, she was born without it and she didn't seem to
miss it. If she could be so well-adjusted about it, why couldn't the rest of
us?"
"Of course," he murmured and suddenly
had this image of himself being slowly and methodically snowed under. "Why
couldn't the rest of us?"
"You're not just humoring me, are
you?" she asked abruptly, her voice suspicious.
"Maggie," he said sincerely, "I
wouldn't do that."
She relaxed again, and appeared satisfied, her
gaze going back out to the windows and the verdant line of towering trees.
He stifled a yawn, then another, then figured
he would have to bring it up sooner or later. "I have a project for you,
Maggie," he said lightly in the companionable silence.
"What's that?"
"I'm getting very tired and it's too
dangerous to risk encountering my brother exhausted. We need to stop for the
night so I can sleep. How should we manage that?"
"Night? Sleep?" she asked weakly.
"Ah!"
"Exactly."
Chapter 6
B
randon
stood in the middle of the luxurious suite in the Waldorf Hotel looking
conspicuously out of place in his ripped-up jeans, battered wool sweater,
filthy T-shirt and boot-encased feet. He hadn't shaved in two weeks. He hadn't
bathed in four days—sunken bathtubs were a little hard to find when hiking
around the volcanoes of Indonesia. As a result, the concierge maintained a
careful distance of ten feet and even then wrinkled his nose at the pervasive
odor of sulfur.
Brandon didn't blame him. He'd hiked the live
volcanoes for nearly a month, the steaming ground pulsing and popping beneath
his feet, and if he never smelled sulfur or ate a fried banana and hard-boiled
egg sandwich again, he wouldn't be sorry. Now he tipped the concierge
generously, closed the door behind the man and started stripping off his
clothes where he stood.
He'd never been out of shape or slovenly, but
even so he barely recognized his body anymore. Whatever executive softness had
existed had disappeared in the past two years, melting away slowly and surely
as he hiked the complete length of the Appalachian Trail, scuba dived in Samui,
went snowboarding in the Alps. He'd also rearranged a few joints and limbs
along the way. Maybe men who grew up in private boarding schools weren't meant
to be rough and rugged after all.
He padded naked into the huge, gold-marbled
bathroom and filled the tub. A suite was incredibly extravagant and just the
right thing for a man bound and determined to lose money. Then again, he would
gladly have paid a million dollars just for the deep, jet-propelled bathtub.
With a groan and a grimace, he eased his aching body down, sinking into the
wonderful heat, closing his eyes and letting the steam seep into his pores.
You're back in New York, Brandon. What are you
going to do now?
He'd avoided the city for two years. He'd
thought it would be too much, that every place would remind him of her, that
though he'd survived a freak blizzard on the AT and a startled encounter with
two poisonous snakes in Samui, Central Park might still break him. Even now,
through the rising sulfur-soaked steam, he thought he smelled his wife's
perfume and it was as beautiful and god-awful as ever. She'd loved cheap
fragrances. She'd loved anything cheap and tacky. He'd proposed with a diamond,
but she would have been just as thrilled with a paste ring from a gum ball
machine.
He was right after all. New York still hurt.
He got out of the tub, dried off his whip-lean
body and, knowing there was no point of returning to civilization without at
least contacting it, called in to his answering service with the white bath
towel roped around his bronzed flanks.
The first message was from his broker. The
stock he'd bought in a failing company had just doubled—some white knight had
come in unexpectedly and bailed the company out. Industry experts were
thrilled, and Brandon, who had dedicated himself to losing his money, had just
made fifty grand.
"Damn."
The next message was from his mother, wanting
to know why she had received only a lousy postcard for Mother's Day and not a
phone call. And where was he anyway and why was he so hard to get hold of? He
was just as cold and insensitive and unfeeling as his father…
Brandon skipped over the rest of the message.
The last message was from C.J. Brandon replayed
it twice, then calmly recradled the phone and got dressed while he buzzed the
concierge. Two minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Brandon was
already prepared.
"I'm leaving," he announced without
preamble. "Please take my bags downstairs and hail a cab."
"But sir, you just arrived—"
"Don't worry, it's nothing personal—the
suite is as beautiful and overpriced as always." He picked up his
briefcase. "I reserved the whole week. Bill me for it."
"That won't be nece—"
"No, no, I insist." Brandon smiled
grimly, already striding out the door. "After all, it's only money."
They came down the other side of the mountain, catching up with the river and
running alongside like its mate. Cain rolled down the window all the way,
resting his arm on top of the door and feeling the fresh spring sun soak into
his prison-white skin. The trees were greener than he remembered, the sky even
more blue. The river fascinated him, looking like a mischievous child as it
raced gleefully over stone boulders and fern-lined banks. Sometimes it plunged
into full-fledged lakes, sometimes it thinned down to a babbling brook, but it
never gave up completely, and Cain admired that a great deal.
The red-laced granite cliffs soaring up on his
left, the snowcapped mountains beckoning out front, the blue, crisp water racing
on his right. White and yellow daisies waved merrily from the protective shade
of trees, and deep pink foxgloves rose up regal and serene above them, nodding
in the wind like approving matrons supervising young, impetuous charges. Golden
dandelions swept beneath it all, adding dazzling touches of sunlight to a
pulsing, populated forest floor.
After six years of concrete walls, concrete
floors and iron bars, the lush grandeur of the Cascades was almost enough to make
him pull over the truck and roll in the carpet of moss, pine needles and
wildflowers just to make sure it was real.
He'd been born in the mountains, then left them
for the city. He'd been lying to himself all along. The trees were in his
blood. He didn't want to leave them again.
And his fertile mind ran away from him that
quickly, drawing vast, impressive images of a two-story log cabin with towering
panes of glass to let in the sky and two layers of decks for barbecue, and a
four-wheel-drive vehicle for the winters and two German shepherds for company.
He saw himself fishing along the riverbank, hunting deep in the forests, and
skiing along the mountaintops.
He cut off the pictures before they grew roots
and planted too firmly in his mind. The future was a luxury for innocent men.
He had the police behind him and Ham ahead of him.
If you make it to Idaho, Cain, if you do find
Ham, what will you do then?
Shoot him? Or get shot? And how do either of
those options help you?
"Are you woolgathering?" Maggie asked
at last, her gaze curious on his face.
"No. Playing chess."
The Cascades surrendered to central Oregon. The sun grew fierce, the air
unbearably dry. Moist greens gave way to a resilient brush of straggling pines
and tumbling sagebrush. Red dust swirled along the side of the road, and while
green rolling hills and white-topped mountains lined the horizon, they might
have been just a mirage compared to the immediacy of red dirt and sun-bleached
grass.
Cain's eyes became dirty and gritty. He'd
driven almost two hundred miles under intense stress and strain, and he was
beginning to feel each moment as an oppressive heaviness pushing his body
deeper and deeper into the seat. He approached Sisters, and the stark red
landscape gave way to vast, cultivated fields where white, brown, and black
llamas poised prettily with the snowcapped North and Middle Sisters mountains
behind them. Next came the stables, with wooden corrals and sturdy
Thoroughbreds already waiting at posts in Indian blankets and Western saddles.
Finally came the town itself, small and charming with a single main street
lined by Old-West storefronts. Ice cream parlors. Saloons. Indian jewelry.
In a blink of an eye, Sisters was gone and the
red, endless brush took over once more. Cain rubbed his weary eyes and knew
he'd had enough. Bend loomed ahead of them, large, modern and easy to get lost
in.
It was good enough for him.
"We're stopping," he said thirty
minutes later when the outskirts of the city abruptly burst out of the land.
"Lunch?" Maggie asked hopefully, but
her voice was already wary.
"Bed."
Her face paled instantly. "It's only four.
The sun is still out."
"Good. Then we can get up and drive again
during the night."
"But … but … my cats."
"Are doing just fine. It's one night,
Maggie. You can handle it."
She smiled weakly and flattened against her
side of the truck.
Cain drove through the outskirts of town and
finally selected a hotel that was close to the center, a long, two-story wooden
structure tucked off the road alongside the river. It seemed to do plenty of
business, the kind of place where two new people could pass unnoticed.
After turning off the ignition, he contemplated
his options. Leave Maggie in the car handcuffed to the steering wheel, or take
her in with him to get the room? He glanced over at her. She looked nervous and
wary once more, as if she'd give anything to disappear. It would be too
dangerous to leave her in the truck, he decided, let alone inhumane.
He produced the key and wordlessly took off the
handcuffs. If anything, Maggie looked even warier. Slowly, she massaged her
slim wrist. "Now what?"
"We go into the lobby and reserve a
room."
"One room?" Her voice was so faint he
could barely hear it.
"One room, two beds."
"Gee, thanks." She squeezed her eyes shut
and a small shudder rippled through her.
He reached over and picked up her hand.
"Just a little bit longer," he said steadily. "Think of it as
your first Hathaway Red big adventure."
"Harold wasn't a convicted murderer,"
she muttered.
Cain just smiled.
He popped open the door. She followed glumly,
her head lowered and her red hair cascading down his arm. It felt cool and
silky, but the color promised deeper fires. He turned his mind quickly from
that direction. This woman and her fires or lack thereof were not his concern.
Remember that, Cain. Remember that.
He led her to the lobby, his grip firm on her
wrist.
"How many rooms, sir?" the attendant
asked politely.
"One," Cain said, not taking his eyes
off Maggie. Her blue eyes had latched on the dark green carpet. Now they swept
up slowly, steadily homing in on the attendant. Cain's body tensed. Was she
going to try something? Unconsciously, he gripped her hand more tightly.
Immediately, her gaze plummeted to the floor.
"Smoking or nonsmoking, sir?"
"Nonsmoking."
"A king-size bed, sir?"
"Two beds."
"Twin-size or queen?"
"Would you just give me a damn room!"
The explosion of temper made Maggie jump and the attendant blanch. For a
minute, Cain just stood there, unable to think. He'd never lost his cool before.
He couldn't afford to lose his cool. Stay in control just a few minutes longer,
dammit. Don't do anything stupid now.
He took a deep breath and released it slowly.
His left hand slid into his pocket and pulled out the cash. That got the
attendant's attention. "Sorry," Cain forced out more calmly.
"It's been a long day. We'd like one room, with two beds, whatever size
you have available."