The Heart's Dangerous Trek

by Maya McMillan

  Tara hated herself for the knee-jerk jealousy that sprung up. She clenched her jaw and marched herself to the ladies room. She told herself to relax and let everything ride. The only thing she had to do was get back home. She was alive thanks to Nick. The rest of her life could be salvaged.

  CHAPTER 15

  Nick kept switching his gaze from watching Tara eat to looking out the huge plate-glass window in the front of the diner. The first few minutes it had bothered the young woman; but since she’d not eaten in over 12 hours and in that time had had the most explosive sex in her life, been kidnapped, threatened, and climbed down off a mountain, she was quite hungry.

  For his part Nick took huge bites from his burger, chewed thoughtfully for a long time, then took equally huge gulps from a large mug of black coffee. Tara noticed the mug was not restaurant standard.

  “You come here a lot?” she asked,taking a break from stuffing her mouth. She was quietly glad Nick had insisted they both have soup first to avoid gorging themselves sick.

  “Often enough, and I am a good tipper,” he said.

  Tara nodded and shoved another bite of the best grilled cheese sandwich she had ever had in her life into her mouth.

  “So they’ll extend you credit for this?” She waved a hand at the table.

  With a gossamer touch of a smile, Nick nodded.

  “So…you were telling me back there about the tall guy’s accent,” she pressed, rehashing the conversation from hours earlier.

  The smile vanished and Tara cursed her curiosity.

  “I have a good ear. If you hear enough people speak, and you have….help…you learn to pick up things. The leader, Hamilton, was born in England, but not London. I’d guess he was raised mostly with, I think, an Italian family. He also went to some kind of finishing school. Marko was born and raised in Croatia. I have no idea where. He didn’t say enough. Same with Vladamir, but I think he had more education than Marko.”

  “Why do you keep using their names? You didn’t know them, did you? It didn’t seem like they knew you.”

  “I didn’t know them.” Nick leaned forward and cupped the mug in his hands like it was an anchor. “I’ve killed people. Enough that, like anything else, it got easier. The more you do something the easier it gets. I never want it to be too easy. I want to remember they were people. Our humanity is more in danger of being eroded away by neglect than stripped away by tragedy.”

  Tara stopped mid-chew, the food in her stomach lumping up.

  “Who the hell are you? Who says things like that?” She found herself getting inexplicably enraged by his secrets.

  Nick leaned forward, opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it. He sat back and poured more coffee from the pot Lonnie had left on the table into his mug. He took a bear-like gulp, and began again.

  “Don’t over-think it, Tara. I’m just a guy who went into the mountains to be left alone. That’s all I want…to be left alone.”

  He paused, preparing to say something else, then, in an oddly cultured gesture, dabbed his mouth with a napkin.

  “Gotta use the head,” he said when he was done. Then he was gone, leaving Tara to process what had NOT been said.

  “I’m gonna top him off; the guy seems to have coffee for blood,” Lonnie said appearing out of nowhere and pouring coffee from her pot into Nick’s nearly empty mug. “You want some, Dear?”

  Tara nodded idly so the woman would go away and let her think in peace. Then inspiration struck her.

  “Lonnie, how long has Nick been coming here? Doing this?”

  The waitress thought about it as she poured, snapping her gum.

  “’Round a year more or less, I guess. To be honest you’re the first client he’s ever shown up with.”

  “Client?”

  “Yeah…well…whatever you call it. He’s a professional trail guide, right?” Lonnie nodded to Tara’s ever-present camera bag. “I figure you’re a nature photographer. Am I right? Hired him to show you all the scenic spots? Do you do pictures for calendars? “

  “I, uh, well, I take pictures then shop them out. Some of them go in calendars.”

  Lonnie nodded knowingly.

  “I, uh, when I hired him all I needed to know was if he knew his way around the mountains. I really don’t know anything else about him. It’s a special kind of man that does this kind of thing, isn’t it?”

  Lonnie nodded, briefly making eye contact with Tara.

  “Most only do it for a season. I don’t think I ever met more than one or two. Usually they’re part of a whole outfit. He’s the only one I ever seen that works alone.”

  Tara nodded.

  “Anyway, Hun, if that’s it?”

  Tara nodded again and picked up her mug to take a sip. She made a face. She’d forgotten to put cream or sugar in it.

  Then Nick was back, silently folding into the booth.

  “Finish eating. We have a room at The Warrenton. We can shower up there, get you some better clothes, figure out how to get you out of town quietly and get a good night’s sleep.”

  She looked at him over the rim of her mug. He seemed more agitated at that moment than he had after killing two men. She took another sip of coffee, made another face, but decided having coffee black would be her experiment for the day.

  “Wait…,” she sputtered as the name struck a bell. “The Warrenton? That’s the big one in the middle, right? The posh one that only the out-of-town snow-bunnies can afford?”

  Nick nodded and poured gravy over the last of his hash browns.

  “Let me guess. One room, one bed, maybe in a broom closet? How are we going to even afford that? You aren’t a big tipper there as well, are you?”

  Nick shook his head, shoveling hash browns into his mouth. Then, to Tara’s disgust and amusement, talked through them. “Never been there.”

  CHAPTER 16

  The ride up the elevator had made her nervous; it made no sense. When it stopped at the penthouse suite Tara didn’t want to get out knowing some terrible mistake had been made. She looked over at Nick who remained unfazed.

  He stepped out into the hallway, gently guiding her with a touch to the small of her back, then went down the wide, low-lit hallway, stopping at the only door on that floor. Nick produced a card key and slid it through the reader. Tara wasn’t sure she felt better or worse when the light lit up green. He handed her a second card key as he ushered her past him and into the room.

  But room wasn’t really the right word.

  Rather than a cramped dingy space with a bathroom fit for the black hole of Calcutta, Tara stepped into a huge domed atrium with a chandelier, marble floors and a step-down living room. The living room had a huge overstuffed leather sofa with matching chairs and fireplace which was already laid with logs and tender, ready to be lit.

  She turned to look back at Nick. His eyes were darting around the room but she could tell by the look on his face he was not appreciating or impressed with the huge windows or the coffee nook. He was studying it, as he seemed to do with almost everything, from a tactical perspective.

  Tara waited until it looked like Nick had finished his tactical review of the room before speaking.

  “Are you scamming this?”

  His attention returned to her, as though he was surprised she was still there.

  “Scamming?”

  Neither one of us has any money, Nick. I can almost buy the whole ‘you-are-a-big-tipper-and-Lonnie is-sweet-on-you thing’ for a comped lunch, but this…” Tara swept her hands to indicate the room.

  Nick rubbed his jaw.

  “Tara, I could tell you that I know the owner and he’s giving me a break, and it would be true, but it wouldn’t explain the rest so we might as well get this over with now.”

  With that, Nick left her standing stunned in the middle of the suite as he disappeared through the doorway to the left. Tara opted not to follow, but then Nick’s hand appeared, and he crooked his index finger, beseeching her to follow. She swallowed
her exasperation and went to join him.

  The bedroom on the other side of the door was in keeping with the understated grand elegance of the rest of the suite. With the rustic charm of polished wood and black wrought iron, there were also touches of modernism in with the minimalist furnishing, the tan color tones and clean lines. Tara approved, but was a little too blown away to think much more about it.

  Nick was standing at the walk-in closet. Tara joined him at the door, then peeked inside.

  The closet, with three full-length mirrors and plenty of room to turn around in and admire oneself, was half-full of a wide assortment of clothes. She quickly scanned through them. The attire ranged from business casual to evening formal to stone-washed jeans and flannel shirts.

  She looked at Nick.

  “So?” she said putting her hands on her hips.

  He just looked back. She knew she was missing something and took a closer look. Tags were easily seen on many of the items, meaning they were all brand new.

  But that wasn’t the only thing. She glanced back at Nick.

  “These…all of this stuff is my size,” she said, unease tinting her voice.

  Nick’s only response was to nod. She didn’t bother mentioning that, with her best friend as a fashionista, she could also tell every item of clothing, even the flannel shirts, were out of her price range.

  “These were bought for me.” It was both a question and an accusation.

  Nick at least had the manners to shrug and look slightly chagrined, though it did not suit him well.

  “The owner of the hotel had the concierge do some shopping. Louie has a good eye, I think.”

  Tara bit down on her rage, but had no intention of swallowing it. She knew what she wanted to say, she just had to organize her words. Then she replayed everything Nick had said.

  “You are showing me all this, all at once, because you are going to tell me you can’t tell me where the money for all of this is coming from.”

  He nodded, lips pressed together in a tight line.

  “So you got money from somewhere that you can’t talk about, people owe you favors, or maybe you made them offers they couldn’t refuse. And a paramilitary faction of the church is trying to kill you. Have I missed anything?”

  The stone seriousness of his face was infuriatingly derailed by just a hint of mischief in his eyes.

  “That I have been hiding out in the mountains for…awhile.”

  If she’d had anything in her hands to throw at him, Tara knew she would have, and she would have wanted it to be heavy.

  “So do I even want to know where all the money came from to pay for all this? Or all the ‘favors’ you called in to make it happen?”

  Nick was suddenly serious again.

  “No. Sleeping dogs and all that. There is one more thing I need to get for you.”

  “A plane ticket?”

  The man smiled wanly, but her comment seemed to put more weight on his shoulders.

  “No. That was actually my first thought though. Then I realized if these guys after me were able to get a helicopter and have permission to fly over federal lands and put down then they must…”

  “... have ears out on all the flights out of anywhere in the area,” Tara finished for him.

  “Warrenton is really the only option. One call and they could be on top of you in as little as 15 minutes. That’s assuming they don’t already have someone at the airport to just grab you right when you get there.”

  Tara nodded.

  “Bus? Train?”

  There’s no train station here, and the bus would allow you anonymity, especially if you chose an outfit very different from what you were wearing when they saw you.”

  “Which is why you gave me such a wide array.”

  He nodded and continued talking.

  “I finally decided the best thing we could do was get you a car. There will be one delivered in a couple of days. We will lay low until then. Most likely whoever is after me is going to think one or both of us have left and will quit looking around here so carefully; that will be the time to leave.” He paused and looked around the bedroom. When he returned his gaze to her, his hazel-gold flecked eyes were deep with sorrow.

  “I’m very sorry I got you into this, Tara. Saving you from them might have made things worse. They know that I’ll risk my life to save you. It makes you a high value target.”

  Tara digested everything the man said. She had not thought about it like that, but it wasn’t untrue.

  “A lot of it was just accident, but what wasn’t an accident was you risking your life last night to save mine.”

  He nodded.

  “Why is it taking two days for a car?” Tara asked to change the too emotionally-charged subject. “This little town must have a used car or a rental place. Especially rental if it’s a tourist town.” She stepped away from the mountain man to more carefully examine the bedroom.

  “The car is kind of…special.”

  Tara stopped mid-stride as she moved towards the bathroom and turned to look back at him. She willed him to explain, but the look he returned told her he was done with the matter.

  “Well,” she said, trying to break the tension. “if I have to cool my heels for a couple of days, there are worse places to do it.” She spun in a slow circle, her bare feet reveling in the tickle- massage of the plush carpet. After almost three days of hiking boots and some very heavy-duty hiking, the bliss was almost unbearable.

  “And the first thing I want to do…” she said, making a point of drawing out her words and eyeing Nick devilishly. She smiled, more inwardly than outwardly at the expression on his face. “…is take a hot, hot, steaming hot shower,” she finished.

  He didn’t quite laugh, but the broad smile that spread across his fuzz-covered face was reward enough. Tara spun on her heels and sauntered to the bathroom. She closed the door softly but solidly behind her, then collapsed against it.

  “What the fuck am I doing?” she gasped quietly to herself.

  CHAPTER 17

  “I would get in trouble in grade school. I got distracted by patterns. The folds of a teacher’s pants or dress; the scuff marks on the floor. Anything. I thought shapes were really interesting.”

  They were sitting on the couch in luxuriously soft terry-cloth robes. Nick had a dangerously full tumbler of scotch, and Tara was on her second glass of wine.

  “I hope your creative side wasn’t squelched by the dictates of standardized education,” the mountain man said. His voice was unusually soft, and Tara shivered a little at the intensity of his gaze as she spoke.

  She waved a hand, aware that her movements were unusually loose and expressive. She chalked it up to the wine and good conversation.

  “I’m a photographer now. I’m living my dream. Well, living might be too kind of a word. But I am doing what I love and I know…I just KNOW that over time it will grow into something big and beautiful that I can look at and be proud of.”

  She looked out the huge windows into the dark of the early night and down at the lights of the village. She seemed to be living another dream of sorts.