Chapter Five
S
he knew she was making a mistake. Kissing this man, this stranger, could only spell trouble, but then she was in trouble already, running from some danger, some inner fear that she couldn't quite name. He took her into his arms and his mouth settled eagerly over hers, dispelling the cool touch of snowflakes on her skin. His hands were big and broad, his skin bronzed as if he had a tan. Impervious to the cold, he stood bare chested, his black hair touching the back of his neck, his eyes as dark as obsidian.
Inside she melted. Despite the snow that drifted beneath her feet and clung to her hair, she was white-hot, burning with an inner fever, and she wanted him to touch her in the most forbidden of places. Her breasts began to ache and when he reached beneath her sweaterâ
“Wake up!”
Casey started and the dream began to fade quickly. She was in bedâa strange bed. She blinked and found herself staring into the same intense black eyes she'd seen in her dream. “Wha...?” she asked, then remembered yesterday. Her face flushed with color as her dream still lingered in her mind's eye and her skin still tingled with the imagined feel of his touch. “Is something wrong?”
He paced from the bed to the window and she noticed the way the faded denim of his jeans stretched tightly over his buttocks. Quickly she drew her gaze to the other side of the room. “There's a break in the weather and the road's being plowed and sanded,” Sloan said. “But it won't last long. Another storm's due in a few hours, so we'd better get moving if we want to get closer to Rimrock.”
That was all the incentive she needed. She threw off the bed co and headed to the bathroom. “Just give me a minu She splashed cold water over her face, combed her hair and added just a touch of makeup.
Within minutes they'd loaded the truck and were on the highway, snow crunching beneath the pickup's tires. There were patches of blue in the sky, but clouds, dark and threatening, were beginning to roll in from the north. While she'd been sleeping, Sloan had gone to the restaurant, where he'd bought a bag of doughnuts for the trip and had the thermos filled with coffee.
As he drove, Casey poured the coffee and handed him a glazed doughnut, which he somehow managed to eat while concentrating on the road ahead. She wasn't really hungry and picked at a maple bar while she sipped her drink.
Later, when the road finally straightened, he pointed to the cellular phone with his chin. “Maybe you want to call home.”
“I thought you were worried about being found out.”
“I think we're safe.”
She didn't wait, but dialed quickly and drummed her fingers impatiently on the window ledge until Jenner picked up the phone far away at the ranch in Oregon.
“Hi.”
“Casey! Where are you?”
“Heading homeâI don't know exactly where...” She cast a quick glance at Sloan, who shook his head sharply. “Did they arrest Barry White?”
Jenner let fly a string of blue words that made Casey wince. “...that low-life bastard, if I ever get my hands around his fat neck, I swear I'll kill him myself.”
Casey couldn't help but grin at the thought. God, how she missed her hotheaded brothers. “Don't kill him before you find out who he's working with.”
“Yeah, well, when I find out who that guy isâ”
“I know, I know. He's dead meat.”
“Beyond dead meat.”
“Maybe I should talk to Mom.”
“Okay, but first, just tell me this. White didn't hurt you did he? 'Cause if I find out that slimebucket so much as touched you, I'll cut off hisâWell, I'll take care of him.”
“I'm fine and don't worry, Barry didn't hurt me.” That was a little bit of a lie. Barry, though he hadn't been horribly cruel, had probably scarred her psychologically for life. Except that she wouldn't let him. Barry wouldn't win.
“Thank God. Look, Mom's climbing the walls to talk to you.”
“Then put her on.”
There was a slight hesitation, then Jenner said, “Case?”
“Yeah.”
“I'm glad you're okay.” Her throat was suddenly thick and she blinked hard. Jenner wasn't a compassionate man or a particularly kind man. His emotions usually ranged from stony silence to rage with not a whole lot in between.
“Me, too. I miss you.”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, here's Mom.”
“Thank God you're safe!” Virginia McKee's voice sounded strained. “I've been so frightened, I can't tell you. And your grandmother, Lord, I thought she might have a stroke.”
“I'm fine!” Grandma's voice was distant, but strong and filled with McKee conviction. Casey smiled. Her grandmother, Mavis, had never really gotten along with her daughter-in-law, but they always banded together when facing a family crisis. “Virginia, you tell her I'm just fine.”
“Grandma says she's okay:”
“I heard.”
“Anyway, you get home as quickly as you can.”
Casey slid a glance at Sloan. “We're working on it.”
“Well, where are you?”
“In the mountains.”
“What mountains? There're ranges all the way from here to Alaska.”
“I don't know, but Sloan thinks we shouldn't discuss it.”
“Why not? I'm your mother, for crying out loud.”
“I know, I know. Look, Mom, we'll be home as soon as we can.” She caught Sloan motioning toward the phone with one hand. “I think Sloan wants to talk to Jenner. Would you put him on again?”
“Yes, well, all right.” Reluctance hung heavy in her words. “But you take care now, y'hear.”
“Promise.”
“Good. Here's Jenner.”
Reluctantly Casey handed the phone to Sloan. He asked questions about Barry's arrest, and the conversation became one-sided as Jenner explained how slowly the wheels of justice were turning in Rimrock.
Sloan finally cut the connection and glared at the road, once white but now sprinkled with gravel. “White's still in Montana,” he said, frowning thoughtfully. “The FBI agent, Revere, flew up to Montana but hasn't reported back to your family about White's story. Good ol' Barry will probably be extradited, but it might take a while.”
“Is that bad?”
Lifting a shoulder, Sloan shifted down for a sharp curve in the road. “Maybe, maybe not. At least he's behind bars. I doubt if his partner will dare show his face up here, for fear he'll be found out. But he'll be plenty worried that Barry will rat on him. Jenner, he wants Barry back in Rimrock. He thinks he can somehow help intimidate the guy into confessing, but that's not how it works. The Feds will break him if he's gonna be broken. If not, Jenner might as well save his breath.”
Casey curled up on her side of the truck and stared out the window. They were heading west now and had crossed the Idaho border. Closer to Oregon. Closer to home. And what then? Could she pick up her old life and forget about the kidnapping, or would it forever be a part of her, a dark fear that kept her awake nights and forced her into being cautious, even skittery.
She'd been ready to leave the ranch and the life she'd known there a week ago. So what about now?
As if he could read her thoughts, Sloan said, “Jenner told me you weren't very happy at the ranch.”
She wasn't certain she wanted to share too much of herself with him and yet she supposed it really didn't matter. They'd be cooped up together for a dayâmaybe twoâif the storm hit, then he'd drop her off at the Rocking M and she probably wouldn't see him again until Jenner's wedding, if then. He might show up for the ceremony, which was scheduled for sometime in February, and he might not. Chances were he'd disappear from her life completely. That thought was unsettling and she didn't want to examine her feelings about it too closely. He was a stranger, for God's sake, a man paid to find her. That was all. And he was waiting for her answer.
“I thought it was time I got my life together,” she admitted as she watched the sky turn the color of slate. “It seemed to me that I'd never really proved myself. I'd gone away to college and had a job in L.A. for a whileâ landed a job as an assistant in a production company. My father didn't approve of my choice of careers, but I didn't really care. I liked L.A. and needed a change of pace from Rimrock.”
“But you didn't stay.”
“For a few years, then the company I worked for went under. I scrambled around looking for another job, but in the end I went home, just to kind of rethink what I wanted to do. Dad tried to talk me into working for him, but I still didn't want to be tied to Rimrock. I thought about going to graduate school, but hadn't really made up my mind when Dad was killed. Then everything changed. For a while, Mom was a basket case. I thought she was going to break down completely. Then there was one thing after another. The fire, Jenner's recuperation, Beth coming back to town with Jenner's little boy... well, you know the rest.” She drew into herself at that point and watched as the first few flakes fell from the leaden sky. There was more to the story, of course.
There was Peter.
But Peter belonged to a different world, a different time, a different city. During her rebellious period in Southern California, she'd wanted to fall in love with Peter Zeller; but she'd learned that Peter was in love with someone else: himself. He didn't have time or room for her kind of woman in his life and they'd parted ways as soon as she was out of a job.
Peter was everything Sloan wasn't. Lanky, with curly blond hair streaked by the sun and eyes the color of the Pacific Ocean, he was a smart dresser, seemed like a shrewd businessman and ran with a very fast crowd.
He'd spotted Casey at a trendy restaurant and asked for her phone number, and though he really wasn't her type, she'd started dating him. She saw past the flashy exterior to a man who'd been raised dirt-poor, had helped support his alcoholic mother and made something of himself. The trouble was, she really didn't like the something he'd become. He hid his past as best he could and made up stories about his childhood. He seemed to have regretted confiding in Casey and soon they grew apart. Their relationship lasted all of three months, and even during that time he'd been with other women, women who were easier to deal with as they looked no deeper than his expensive suits, flashy cars, famous friends and healthy bank account.
Now, Casey didn't know what she'd seen in him. He'd appealed to her rebellious nature because she knew that her father disapproved of L.A., the film industry and slick record producers. But deep down, she'd known her interest in him had been only skin-deep. Just as his had been for her.
The snow had started coming down in earnest and was piling up on the road again, sticking on the windshield until the wipers slapped the stubborn flakes away.
It was late afternoon by the time they crossed the Idaho border and drove into Spokane, Washington where they stopped for a late lunch at a roadside diner. Sloan didn't say much, but watched each of the patrons come and go, his eyes shifting from the doorway to the booths and back again as he ate a sandwich and bowl of soup.
“You really think we're being followed, don't you?” she said, smiling and shaking her head as she set down her fork and pushed her plate of half-eaten salad aside.
“Just being careful.” A bell tinkled over the door and he glanced up sharply at the sound.
Casey looked over her shoulder and swallowed a smile. A woman with a toddler bundled in a snowsuit entered. Her face was red from the cold, her smile wide, the little boy running to an empty booth and announcing to everyone in the restaurant that he wanted hot chocolate. “I don't think she's a hired assassin,” Casey said dryly.
“You never know.”
“Oh, for Pete's sake, Sloan, relax.”
“Relax?” His gaze narrowed on her and he studied the contours of her face with such intensity that she swallowed hard and had to fight the urge to lick her lips nervously. “Do you really believe that your family's enemies will give up? That just because you've escaped, they'll just roll over?”
“But Barry's in jail.”
“We think.”
He wasn't sure?
“And he has a partner, maybe more than one. A guy who just about now is getting pretty nervous.”
“Then why not call the FBI?”
Sloan's mouth flattened. “You don't get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
“I don't trust anyone.”
“Not even the government?”
His smile was cold. “Especially not the government.”
“Who could have found us?”
“Anyone.”
“We were in the middle of nowhere, in a blizzard.”
He grimaced. “Someone besides Barry White knew where you were. Maybe more than one guy. We don't know if his accomplice was in Rimrock. Maybe someone else in the nearest town to that cabin was in on the deal.”
“I don't think so. Barry would have said something.”
“You think.”
“Yes.”
“But you're not sure.” He finished his sandwich and reached for the bill the waitress had slipped onto the edge of the table.
“You're paranoid,” she accused, not for the first time.
“Worse than paranoid.”
“I think we're safe.”
She saw the shoulders beneath his shirt bunch as the door opened again and a solitary man entered. Long and lean, a cowboy type, with hair that had been tied back in a ponytail and a Stetson that had seen better days, the man sauntered into a booth on the other side of the diner, stretched his legs beneath him and reached into the breast pocket of his jacket for a pack of cigarettes. His face was weathered and lined, and as he lit up he glanced casually in Casey's direction before shooting a stream of smoke from one side of his mouth and looking away.