“I saw some hooded tourist sweatshirts for sale in the display case on our way into the diner.”
“You shouldn't use your credit card. They'll be—”
“Able to trace it. Yeah, I know. I have enough cash. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll have some gloves and warm socks, too.”
“I saw the morning paper on the way in. I'm not on the front page this time.”
“That's a good thing.”
“I figured there might be something about the explosion.”
“Not likely. The FBI will want to keep that under wraps. Bad PR, you know?”
“Jake, that wasn’t an ordinary gas leak.”
They hadn’t talked about it last night. They were both too much in shock and primal instinct was to keep moving and survive. But in the light of day…
“No, it wasn’t. I don’t believe in coincidence and there was too much gas being pumped through that heating unit in your bedroom.”
Cassie was quiet a moment. A faraway look made her look so lost.
Jake drained the rest of his coffee and placed the cup on the table before grabbing the check.
“I'm nervous enough about being out in public like this with so many people who could recognize you.”
“Looking like I do, feeling like a do, I sure hope not.”
As if on cue, Jake saw Bernie stroll out the front door of the diner, newspaper tucked under his arm.
He pushed out of his seat. “Our ride to the Catskills is leaving soon. Let’s roll.”
#
Chapter Eight
The sun had long since dipped low on the horizon when Cassie and Jake finally reached the hidden cabin in the woods. It was snowing lightly now. Luck staying by their sides, Bernie proved to be in more than just good spirits. He was making good time and offered to drive them up to the bottom of the road leading to Maureen's cabin. It saved them one hell of a walk in the cold.
They reached the small shack-like cabin with frozen feet and chapped lips. But thankful they only had a half-mile walk instead of having to walk the entire way from the highway exit.
“Are you sure this is it?” Jake asked.
Cassie sighed. “Please stop asking me that. Yes, I'm sure.”
“It's the size of a tin can.”
“It looks smaller than it really is. On the plus side, it won't take long to heat up. At this point, anything with heat will be heaven.”
Jake gripped the doorknob and pulled it back and forth, each yank became more urgent. “The door's locked,” he said, grunting as he slammed his flat palm against the wood.
Cassie knew his outburst was fueled by fatigue. She felt it herself. The minimal sleep and being bowled over by the explosion had her bones screaming for relief and had her barking right back at him.
“I wouldn’t have brought us here if I didn’t know how to get inside. Maureen keeps the key hidden in this stump,” she said, brushing away the snow-covered lump by the porch stairs. “It's one of those plastic planters that has a hidden…here it is.”
With the frozen key in her hand, she quickly ran to the door and unlocked it. Relief poured into every inch of her. They were finally going to be able to relax and let their guard down for the first time in days.
She pushed through the rough planked door with anticipation. The inky blackness that greeted her inside was only marginally inviting. Void of the warmth she craved, the cabin felt similar to an ice chest, but still less abrasive than being exposed to the wind.
At the sound of the light switch clicking on and off, Cassie swung around.
“Does Maureen forget to pay her light bill?” Jake asked.
“The cabin is solar powered. Although, apparently nothing is kept turned on. There is a wood stove in the corner. Do you know how to work one?”
“Yeah, I can fire it up if I get some light.”
“We always had power when we came before. But it was always during the day and we had the benefit of daylight. Maureen might have turned everything on when we got here. I just don't remember.”
“Do you have any idea how the system works?”
“Not really. She said it was fairly easy to figure out though. I think enough of the system is kept running to keep the batteries charged. There is a supply closet with a stack of batteries and a panel in the back.”
Jake took a step and plowed into Cassie. Unprepared for the blow, she lost her balance and fell into one of the chairs. She recalled the new striped slipcovers Maureen put on the old furniture last summer when they were here last. Cassie couldn't see the bright colors in the dark, but she did feel the cold, soft fabric as she fell against the chair.
“Are you okay?” he asked. As Jake found her in the darkness, his hands gripped her leg and brushed against the swell of her bottom, sending a shiver through her.
Her pulse quickened and blood pounded through her veins, warming her fast. Her only warmth for last two days had been Jake. Even now, with the two of them frozen and tired, just having him stand behind her made heat coil inside her and spread to her extremities.
A little disoriented, Cassie fumbled for a firm grip on the arm of the chair and pushed herself upright.
“I'm fine. I just fell into the chair.”
“Stay with me,” he said, as if he'd been affected by the mere accidental brushing of his hand against her derriere.
“I'm right here,” she said, her voice an earthy whisper.
She heard his heavy breathing, felt his fingers tighten around her.
“Um, the kitchen is open to the living room. Stay behind me. There are some candles in one of the cabinets.”
Jake had his wide palms on her hips, his fingers digging into the denim material, as she cautiously moved through the dark with her hands stretched out ahead of her. When she bumped into the counter, she quickly ran her hands along the cabinet drawers, blindly searching each one until her fingers grazed the waxy surface of a long, skinny candle and a box of wooden matches.
She waited until she lit a match to grip two candles firmly between the fingers of her other hand.
Jake was impossibly close as she twisted around to face him. Cassie craned her neck to look up at him, nothing but the glow of the match illuminating his features. His face was surreal in the flickering flame.
“Light the candle,” he said softly, his lips barely moving.
Even with the minimal light the flame emitted, she could see a cloud of mist from his breath. With her body sandwiched between the cold counter and Jake's warm body, she tried to steady herself, but her head spun.
Pain pierced her fingers. She dropped the match and they were plunged into darkness again.
Jake’s arm instantly snaked behind her. With the rolling of the wooden sticks and the unmistakable strike of the match, a small flame glowed, dimly lighting the room once again.
“You burned yourself.” He quickly lit the two candles she still held in her hand and blew out the match.
He took her sore fingers to his lips and kissed them tenderly, so much more so than she would have expected a man as rugged as Jake could be. She knew the hard-edged intense side of him and pictured him as much in bed, rough, wild, completely on fire and burning her with the same intensity.
But here he was with the pad of his thumb gently caressing her blistered finger, handling her like a fragile piece of glass that would shatter with the slightest pressure.
“It's just a small burn,” she murmured.
“No burns are small.”
In response to his gentleness, she curled her fingers around his, wanting much more than to simply have his hand caress her fingers. She wanted him to touch her intimately. His eyes were extraordinarily dark despite the minimal light. He gazed down into her eyes, silently whispering words she felt in her heart but didn't hear with her ears.
Cassie willed herself not to give in to the impulse of reaching up to push her fingers through his thick, coarse hair.
Jake dropped Cassie's hand, quickly forcing his gaze away fr
om her tempting lips to the counter behind her. “We can use these mugs as candlestick holders for now,” he said, occupying himself by placing the lighted candles in the mugs he'd just retrieved from the hooks under the cabinet. Anything to keep himself from feeling the emotional war raging inside.
He'd been ready to kiss Cassie. All he had to do was bend his head and press his lips against the sweetness of her soft mouth, feel the fire she had burning inside her.
He'd almost done just that last night in the back of the truck. He'd kissed her forehead. To give her comfort, he reasoned. But he'd fought mightily to let it end there. He'd wanted more from that kiss. He wanted to hold her in his arms as she slept beside him. The feeling was as overwhelming now as it had been last night.
As tired as he was, he'd slept straight as a board with his hands glued firmly beside him, hoping he wouldn't subconsciously reach for her in the middle of the night. After a few hours of sleep, he'd pulled himself from the mattress and climbed to the front of the cab with Bernie, deciding chitchat with the truck driver would surely cure his libido.
It worked.
But being this close to Cassie now, and in such confined quarters, was bringing the memories of carnal dreams he’d had last night rushing back.
Clearing the sudden lump that lodged in his throat, he asked, “Where is the power panel?”
“In the pantry.”
He couldn't help but laugh. “This shack is about as small as a pantry and it has a pantry? What about bedrooms?”
“Just one very tiny one. Maureen has this enormous bed in there that leaves next to no room for anything else. But the bed is big enough for both of us.”
Jake's heart slammed against his ribcage. “No, you take it.”
He ignored the wounded expression on Cassie’s face. She was tired. So was he. But the small pout of her full lips made his heart break just the same.
She straightened her spine and jutted out her chin. “I'm not going to attack you in the night.”
Maybe she wouldn't, but Jake couldn't be certain he could say the same. A little sleep and a walk into hypothermia land hadn't changed that fact that he still wanted her desperately.
“You're being ridiculous. We slept in the same bed last night, and it didn't matter to you.”
“We didn't have a choice last night. Tonight we do.”
Glancing around the dimly lit room, he saw the large sofa in the middle of the floor in front of an ancient potbelly stove.
“That should do me fine for the night. That way I can keep the fire going.”
She looked past him toward the sofa and then peered up at him again. “I can't let you sleep on that thing. I've slept on that sofa, and I know how uncomfortable it is. You need your sleep just as much as I do.”
He didn't say anything. How could he tell her that he didn't trust himself not to reach out for her in the middle of the night? That the only thing he was thinking of had nothing to do with sleep.
“Let's work at getting some lights and some heat in the cabin. We can argue about the sleeping arrangements later.”
It didn't take much to figure out how the solar electrical system in the cabin worked. While Cassie turned on the power, Jake gathered some stacked logs from a small woodpile out back and filled the woodstove. Within a short time, the cabin filled with welcoming heat.
“These should fit you and be comfortable to sleep in while your clothes dry,” Cassie said as she walked in from the bedroom. In her hands, she carried a pair of dark gray sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt.
She'd changed out of her wet clothes, too, Jake noticed. Her hair was damp, combed free of tangles and pulled back in a tight ponytail at the base of her head. She wore a pair of green spandex stretch pants that accentuated the curves of her slender hips and the smooth lines of her thighs and a short Kelly green and blue flannel shirt. She'd taken off her soaked sneakers and socks and now had a pair of fluffy bear slippers on her feet that look incredibly ridiculous and adorable on her at the same time.
Jake glanced down at the pile of clothes she still held in her hands. “Maureen keeps men's clothes here?”
“I think they belong to Adam. Or maybe they belonged to her ex-husband. She got the cabin in the divorce, along with the Jeep she keeps parked out back.”
“There's a Jeep?”
“Yeah, Maureen’s afraid of driving in the snow without four-wheel drive. She hates driving in the city even more, so she keeps the Jeep here. It doesn't get much use. We had to jump start it last summer to get it going.”
“I thought you said she doesn't come up here in the winter?”
“She doesn't. At least not since her divorce was final. But she keeps a vehicle here just the same. It costs a lot less than keeping it in the city.”
“That’s good news for us. It'll save us having to walk to town to get some supplies.”
Cassie fiddled with her hands. “How long do you think we'll need to be here?”
Jake ran his hand over his scruffy face. “I have no idea.”
“They must know by now that we escaped the explosion,” she said, rolling her shoulder.
“I’m guessing they knew within the hour. Surveillance cameras would have shown us running into the woods.”
“Why didn’t they come after us?”
Jake had wondered that himself. “The only thing I can think of is that Agent Bellows didn’t want to bring on more suspicion than what the explosion was bound to do.”
“You think he did this?”
“It’s the only logical thing I can think of. He checked the perimeter of the house when we went inside. And when we went to open the doors, they wouldn’t budge. My guess is he knew that the explosion would break free whatever he used to jam the doors. If not, he needed to cover his tracks before the fire department got there.”
“But why? Why would the FBI bring me there only to try to kill me. Why would I be a threat to them?”
“Not the FBI. But you being able to finger Angel Fagnelio in that shooting has probably rattled someone’s cage. Angel had to have been working with someone from the FBI and I’m guessing it wasn’t Novak.”
He got a good look at Cassie now. He'd tried his best to pull his thoughts away from her, but now he allowed himself to really look at her for the first time. She wasn't scared anymore. Her face was freshly scrubbed as if she'd washed away the worry creases along with the dirt and grime from the explosion. Maybe it was the fatigue or because she was in familiar surroundings that she seemed more at ease.
He took in the sight of her. Cassie’s hair was wet and her face cleanly scrubbed.
“When did you take a shower?”
“While you were fiddling with the stove. You didn't hear the water running?”
Jake shook his head. “I guess I was too busy trying to get the fire going.”
“It was…lukewarm,” she said with a smile. “But even that was okay because the water pressure is pretty strong. I needed something to pull some of these aches out of me. I think I'm going to sleep for a hundred years now.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “You should take one, too. You might have better luck with the hot water, now that the system has been on a while.”
“Am I that offensive?” he said with amusement.
Cassie quirked a smile, cocking her head to one side. “Only mildly offensive. But the hot water will ease the tightness in your muscles. Don't you feel like a truck rolled over you?”
“That's basically what happened when we rolled down that hill. It was worse last night,” he said, rubbing his two-day-old beard again. It was beginning to itch. “I could use a good soak and a shave though.”
She tossed him the clothes, which he caught in both hands like a football. “I think I saw some fresh razors in the cabinet. Why don't you do that now while I see what I can scrounge up for dinner out of the canned goods in the pantry. I’m starving.”
Twenty minutes later Jake emerged from the tiny bathroom to the smell of food. Cassie had outdone hers
elf by cooking up a pot of canned beef stew and biscuits from a box mix. In truth, it didn’t matter what Cassie had prepared. It was hot. It was food. And Jake would have eaten anything she put in front of him.
He hoped that as soon as the dishes were cleared and washed, Cassie would just go to bed. It would be easier that way. Looking at Cassie in the soft lighting of the cabin only seemed to magnify another hunger inside him that wouldn't easily be sated.
The sofa didn't look inviting at all, but at this point, Jake didn't care. He dropped down to the middle cushion and leaned back. Closing his eyes, he squeezed the tension spot in the center of his forehead with the pad of his thumb and index finger.
“You've got to learn to relax, Jake. Every time I look at you you're all bunched up into tight knots.”
With a rush of cool breeze, Cassie moved behind him. Placing her delicate fingers on his shoulders, she gently kneaded his tightly knotted muscles the hot shower hadn’t eased.
“That feels good,” he murmured, keeping his eyes closed. Too good. Warning bells pealed loudly in his head, but he ignored them. She wasn't going to bed. And he needed her to go to bed. Alone.
A soft chuckle escaped Cassie’s lips. “I know. It felt good when you were doing it to me the other day.”
Jake remembered the feel of her body easing beneath his fingers as he'd touched her. Was that really just two days ago? It didn't quite seem possible. Time was passing so rapidly and yet it felt as if he and Cassie had been running from a phantom for so long.
“You know all about me,” Cassie said, her voice like smooth velvet to his ears, like a breath of a whisper.
He liked the sound of her voice, the way it was strong and sure sometimes, like the other day when she was determined to get her way with the FBI.
And now, when it was low and sexy as hell.
His thoughts betrayed him, making him wonder what she'd sound like when she was making love to a man. Did she talk at all? Whisper sweet words against her lover's ear? Or just moan as desire took hold of her? He had a hard time pushing away the image of her calling out his name as she reached climax.
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