A trip with the lantern into the cabin’s only bedroom turned up a white and blue quilt. In the bathroom, he grabbed a couple of thick towels and a first-aid kit then stood there staring at his own pale face in the mirror. His red-rimmed eyes looked wide and hollow, and the rest of him looked more than a little bedraggled. So much for a relaxing week of destressing.
He carried his bounty back to the living room and dumped it all on the floor next to the sofa. After a deep, fortifying breath, he stripped her down to practical white cotton underwear as efficiently as he could.
“Just so you know, I’m keeping my eyes to myself,” he said in a low, soothing voice. If she regained consciousness now, he didn’t want her freaking out on him.
Still, he couldn’t help but notice how lean she was. Not skinny but toned with clearly defined muscles. Yet she had distractingly feminine curves.
The lethal-looking blade strapped to her ankle gave him as much pause as the realization that a bullet had most likely passed completely through her shoulder, leaving behind twin entry and exit wounds. Given the other scars he glimpsed, it apparently wasn’t the first time she’d been shot.
Terrific. Stuck on a mountain in a rainstorm with an unconscious fugitive. Obviously, she’d been on the run, too desperate to get away from whomever had hurt her to seek medical treatment. Maybe that person or, God help him,
people
were still after her. Any second now, commandos would bust down the door and turn him into a bloody pulp with their big honkin’ guns. If she hadn’t been limp as an overcooked noodle with lips rapidly turning blue, he might have backed out the door and pretended he’d never made it to the cabin.
Instead, he lifted her upper body and slid the quilt underneath, then maneuvered it under her legs. When she was completely covered, he slid his hands under the quilt, holding his breath as his palms glided over the satin skin of her thighs to her hips.
“Don’t wake up now, don’t wake up now,” he chanted as he worked her underwear down her legs and off then dropped it to the floor with a rain-soaked
thwap
.
Next, he leaned over her and wriggled his hands behind her bare back to fumble with her bra clasp. This close, he noticed that her skin smelled of fall rain and some kind of floral soap. And blood. His stomach turned, but then the clasp yielded, and he divested her of the last piece of sodden clothing. “Mission accomplished. Now let’s get that shoulder taken care of.”
He quickly cleaned the bullet wound, thinking perhaps the sting from the antiseptic pads he found in the first-aid kit might rouse her, but she didn’t move even an eyelash while he worked. After he’d taped gauze to both the entrance and exit wounds, he noted she didn’t seem as pale as before, and the bluish tint to her lips had given way to a healthier, rosy hue.
For a moment, he wondered about the color of her eyes. With that ebony hair, he imagined a dark, dark brown, almost black. Mysterious and deep, the kind of eyes a guy could fall into headfirst. Dangerous eyes for a dangerous woman.
Pushing to his feet, he shook his head at his own foolishness. Instead of wondering about eye color, he should worry about how she’d gotten shot in the shoulder. For all he knew, the cops would be beating down the door by morning, maybe even arrest him for harboring a fugitive. Not that he’d had any choice. A washed-out road made sure of that, and he couldn’t very well just let her bleed, or freeze, to death.
He’d done the right thing. Now all he had to do was wait until morning. He’d get her to the hospital, let the medical professionals deal with contacting the cops then get back to why he’d come here in the first place: relaxing.
He took the lantern and headed out into the cold rain to figure out the generator.
CHAPTER FIVE
F
linn Ford hated the rain, especially the kind of cold rain currently dripping into his collar and down his back.
His walkie-talkie squawked at his belt, and he lifted it, hoping for some good news. He desperately needed good news. Everything that mattered had gone FUBAR in a matter of days.
“Talk to me.”
“We’re not getting anywhere near her tonight. The storm’s taken out the road.”
“What about on foot?”
“There’s a river surging down the side of the mountain, sir. Only way we’re getting over it is to be airlifted. Requesting that kind of help will get the attention of the boss. You want that?”
Flinn scowled at the mention of Andrea Leigh. He didn’t want the FBI assistant director getting wind that something was up, especially considering she had no idea about the project. That stupid fruitcake Zoe shouldn’t have known about the project, either, and now she’d dragged Samantha into it.
Deke and Tom had assured him they’d made the mess at Samantha’s apartment look like a burglary gone bad, but damn it all to hell, he was fucked. He could live with losing Zoe. That screwed-up bitch had been nothing but trouble from the start. But with Zoe dead and Mikayla reassigned in Afghanistan, Samantha held the only key to making his plan work. He’d be damned if he’d let her slip away from him.
“Hello? You there, boss?”
Closing his eyes, Flinn listened to the time bomb ticking in his head. He had to find a way to get to Samantha before it was too late. But how he went about it had to be as under the radar as the act that had started this rolling thunder of a disaster.
He depressed the “talk” button. “What about approaching through the woods from the other direction?”
A brief pause, then, “That’d take time, but it could be done.”
“Then do it.”
Holstering the walkie, he leaned his head back and let the rain wash over the angry, burning heat in his face.
“I’m coming to get you, Samantha,” he murmured.
CHAPTER SIX
M
ac Hunter settled in front of the cold fireplace with a groan. His muscles ached and his head pounded. His hopes for a cozy fire had gone up in smoke when the wood he’d dragged inside had done nothing more than steam and sizzle when he’d tried to light it.
The generator hadn’t cooperated, either, so he’d rummaged through kitchen drawers with the battery-operated lantern in hand until he’d collected several candles and some matches. Now, tiny flames flickered throughout the room, giving it a comforting glow that belied the chill in the air. Rain continued to hammer the roof, and occasional thunder purred in the distance. If not for the unconscious woman bundled inside the heavy quilt in the other room, the atmosphere would have been exactly as he pictured it. But with a fire. And perhaps better lighting.
Instead of curling up under a blanket with the latest Dean Koontz novel, he snapped open the wallet he’d fished out of the soaked bag he’d found by the door. He had to squint in the dim light to study the driver’s license. The shining waves of ebony hair and lively blue gray eyes didn’t look anything like the pale, sopping-wet woman he’d stripped over an hour ago.
Claire Hogan. 1235 Rhode Island Street, San Francisco, CA 94107. Blue eyes. Black hair. No restrictions.
An organ donor. He smirked a little at that. Considering the scars he’d seen, he couldn’t imagine her insides had escaped unscathed. Who’d want a liver that had been lacerated or a heart nicked by a knife?
Next, he pulled out a company ID, surprised to see she worked for Biomedical Research Corp. in San Francisco. The controversial company, which conducted stem-cell research, had been in the news lately after one of its scientists had gone missing. The words
“Research Assistant”
were printed in bold, black letters under Claire Hogan’s name, right next to a picture of the woman in the other room. In the photo, she flashed a dazzling smile that totally contradicted her current, wounded state.
Since when did biomedical research assistants get shot? And how had she gotten from San Francisco to this remote cabin in the Shenandoahs?
And, damn, but that smile looked familiar.
Recognition washed over him, and he pushed up from the sofa and ambled over to the fireplace mantel and a collection of Trudeau family photos. He had to move a candle to get a good look, but it wasn’t tough to spot the similarly stunning smiles beaming from a photo at least fifteen years old. Teenage versions of the two Trudeau sisters he knew well—Charlie and Alex—flanked a teenage version of the woman he’d put to bed. The three young women shared the same prominent cheekbones and full lips, the same wavy hair in varying dark shades. The girl in the middle, however, was taller and thinner than the other girls, her features somewhat sharp. She also had soulful blue eyes rather than brown. Even so, Mac would have bet money that she was Samantha, the oldest of the Trudeau sisters. That explained how she ended up at this cabin. It belonged to her family.
“Where’s my bag?”
He turned, surprised to see her wrapped in a quilt and leaning unsteadily against the frame of the bedroom door. Her now-dry hair hung in soft waves around her face, softening cheekbones that had looked severe before. The softer look did nothing, however, to lighten the dark circles under eyes that were a far more intriguing, and arresting, shade of blue steel than he’d gleaned from the photo.
“Uh, hi,” he said, and smiled to reassure her. “How’re you feeling?”
“My bag?”
A shiver shimmied up his spine at the husky rasp of her voice. Jesus, that voice alone could make a man fall head over heels in lust. “I hung it in the bathroom to dry with your clothes.”
Interesting that she asked for her bag before she asked about her clothes. All he’d done was retrieve her wallet from said bag before hanging it from the showerhead. Privacy and all. Maybe he’d have to rethink that.
“Get it and my clothes,” she said.
He was certain she would have retrieved them herself if she hadn’t been leaning so heavily against the frame of the door. “You probably shouldn’t be out of bed.”
“Get them. Now.”
Okaaay. Not a polite request but a harsh demand. Guess this wasn’t the time to bust her on the fake ID. “I was kind of in the middle of something, but since you asked so nice . . .”
She didn’t respond, pressing back against the wall as he eased by her. In the bathroom, he ignored the bag dangling in the shower, gathered her jeans, denim shirt, ruined T-shirt, underwear and bra and gingerly carried the cold and clammy bundle back down the hall.
She’d slipped to the floor, paler than before, the quilt bunched around her shoulders and her head resting back against the door frame. He wondered how she planned to get dressed when she couldn’t even remain standing. And where did she plan to go anyway?
He set the pile of clothing at her feet then straightened. “You’re Samantha, aren’t you? Samantha Trudeau?”
Her gaze snapped up to his face, sharpening anew. Everything about her—despite the cocooning cream-and-blue quilt and the nakedness underneath—screamed suspicion and danger. So unlike Charlie and Alex.
“Did he send you?” she asked.
He cocked his head, thrown. “Did who send me?”
“I don’t have the energy for banter.”
“Uh, this isn’t banter. I’m pretty good at that.”
“Just answer the question.”
He slid his back down the wall until he sat on the floor, forearms resting on his knees. Maybe he would seem less threatening if he weren’t towering over her. “No one sent me. Well, unless you count Charlie and Alex, who pretty much shoved me out the door with the directions. You’re their sister, right? You look like them, and”—he gestured over his shoulder toward the fireplace—“I saw your picture on the mantel.”
She stared at him, her confusion clear. “Who are you?”
“Mac Hunter. I’m an editor at your dad’s newspaper in Lake Avalon.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Before I found you unconscious and bleeding on the floor, I was on vacation. You?”
She rolled her wounded shoulder and winced, then shifted her legs so that they stretched out before her, bare toes tipped with red polish peeking from under the quilt’s edge. Cradling her injured arm against her stomach, she gave him a curious look that didn’t appear all that genuine. “How are my big sisters these days?”
He noted the way she watched him, quietly assessing. “You’re testing me.”
“It’s a simple question.”
“Not really. You see, you’re not the only Trudeau sister to take a bullet in the recent past. Your
younger
sister Alex took one in the chest several months ago, so the question may be simple, but the answer isn’t.”
If possible, her ashen complexion went whiter. “But she’s okay, right? Charlie told me she was okay.”
He hesitated. If he withheld the information, maybe she’d answer
his
questions. But cruelty wasn’t his style. “She’s fine. Charlie, too. And also younger than you, by the way, so they’re not your
big
sisters, as you called them. Do I pass?”
She used her free hand to push herself up so that she sat straighter. The only indication that moving hurt was the deep crease between her narrowed eyes. “That was an easy one. If Flinn sent you to take me back, you’d be prepared.”
“Who’s Flinn?”
When she met his eyes, her expression stony, he tried another question: “Is he the one who shot you?”
She repositioned herself yet again, her brow furrowing. When the quilt drooped off one shoulder, she managed to salvage her modesty at the last instant. “I need some dry clothes.”
“I can help you with that, but first I need to know what’s going on. Are we in danger here?”
Her lips tightened, as though she’d decided not to answer.
“I have a right to know,” he said. “Seeing as how the road’s washed out and I’m stuck with you here.”
“We should be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to know how you’re sure. You’ve been shot, and I’d like to avoid the same fate.”
“I wasn’t followed, and no one knows about this place.”