"You need to calm down, Ethan," Alex said. "We don't even know if Briggs is there."
"Why else would he have torched Loon Cove, if not to pull Anna and me away from Fox Run?"
"There's always your surprise announcement Saturday night," Alex offered. "Maybe he's still holding a grudge for the beating you gave him eighteen years ago, and hearing you're marrying Anna might have set him off when he learned who she really is."
"Then that makes her even more of a target. Dammit, go faster, Tate!" he shouted at the windshield.
"He's going as fast as the road will allow," Paul said calmly. "What exactly is Briggs looking for?"
"An agreement drawn up between Samuel Fox and Joshua Coots sixteen years ago, for a land barter deal."
"What has that got to do with Briggs?"
"We think Frank Coots may have hired Briggs and some other guy to hunt for the agreement. If it doesn't exist, then Coots can take Anna to court and try to get the sale voided on the grounds his father was incompetent." He glance briefly at his brothers, then back at the road. "I also think Samuel's accident was deliberate."
He felt Alex stiffen beside him. "You think the old man was murdered?"
"John's beginning to think so, too, because of Anna's accident in the exact same spot."
"How?"
"Somebody must have iced the road," he said, just as he hit the brakes and turned down Anna's road behind John, the cruiser's flashing lights strobing through the trees like blue and white chain lightning.
"When we get there, John's in charge," Alex warned.
John skidded to a stop behind Anna's truck, and Ethan drove straight up the footpath that led to the back porch.
Alex grabbed his arm when Ethan tried to get out. "The dog looks calm enough, considering we just showed up like an invading army," Alex said, nodding toward the porch. "Briggs must not be around."
"That dog is deaf and blind," Ethan growled, shrugging free and getting out. He was up on the porch in three strides. "Anna! Anna!"
"What?" she asked, suddenly appearing in the door window, her eyes wide with surprise.
Ethan came to an abrupt halt the moment he saw her. He bent over to brace his hands on his knees and took his first full breath in twenty minutes.
He heard the door open. "What's going on?" she asked. "Did the fire flare up again? Did somebody get hurt?"
"We thought your intruders were back," Alex said, walking up beside Ethan. "Ah, you might want to put on some clothes. You're about to have a house full of men."
Still too weak with relief to move, Ethan lifted only his head to see Anna standing in the open doorway, a large towel wrapped around her that she was clutching to her chest, her wet hair dripping over her bare shoulders.
"Were you rushing to my rescue again?" she asked, sighing dreamily. "How gallant of you, Ethan." She turned her provocative smile on Alex. "He's so determined to save me."
Ethan finally straightened and walked up to the doorway, stopping in front of her. "It's Ron Briggs, Anna. We think he torched Loon Cove and is also your intruder."
Her smile disappeared and she paled, taking a step back. John Tate came walking into the kitchen from the living room, and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Anna. His face reddened; he spun around and quickly walked back into the living room.
"Ron Briggs?" she whispered. "Y-you're sure?"
"The plate number Clay gave us is registered to Briggs," Ethan told her, taking hold of her shoulders and turning her toward the bathroom. "Where are your clothes?"
"Upstairs," she whispered.
"I'll get them while you dry off."
He softly closed the bathroom door and turned to his brothers. "Put on the kettle and make some hot cocoa," he said, walking past them into the living room. "We should probably take a look around outside," he told John.
"Yeah. I'll start working my way through the buildings."
"We'll come with you," Alex said as he and Paul also stepped into the living room. "Ethan, you stay with Anna."
"Why don't you or Paul stay with her?" he asked, preferring to be the one to find Briggs.
Alex smiled derisively. "Because we already have our own women to deal with," he said, following John to the door.
The moment the three men stepped outside, Ethan strode upstairs two steps at a time, pulled some clothes out of the bureau, and ran back downstairs.
He knocked softly on the bathroom door. "I have some clothes for you," he said, slowly opening the door.
He found her sitting on the hamper, her face as pale as the towel wrapped around her.
"Why did Ron Briggs burn your mill?" she asked.
Ethan was relieved to see that she hadn't retreated back into her eleven-year-old world. "Maybe as a diversion to get you and me away from Fox Run, so he could continue searching." He snorted. "And maybe as payback for my beating him up eighteen years ago."
"And you all came speeding over because you thought I might have come home to find Ron here." She reached out and touched his arm, giving him a tentative smile. "Thank you. I wouldn't want to confront Ron Briggs alone."
Ethan lifted one brow. "So I do come in handy on occasion?"
She stood up and took her clothes. "Of course. Your armor's much more durable than mine," she said with a cheeky grin, giving him a nudge to leave the bathroom. "And you can cook, too. How about fixing us some bacon and eggs."
Ethan looked back at her. "The others are out searching the buildings."
"Then you should probably scramble a couple dozen eggs," she suggested, closing the door.
Ethan glared at the door. When had "cook" been added to his knightly duties?
Chapter Twenty
Anna lay on top of her bed, fully clothed right down to her boots, and smiled into the darkness as she cuddled into Ethan's warm embrace. It had been a hard-fought battle, and she had four very unhappy men on her hands, but she was here, by God.
This was her property, she'd argued, as well as her future at stake, and she wasn't about to let them tuck her safely away while they spent the night guarding Fox Run. She had finally threatened to sneak back on her own if they sent her away, and then promised to do whatever they told her to do, if they'd just let her stay.
Ethan knew her quite well from their few weeks together, and had been the first to capitulate— once John had explained that he couldn't lock her up in jail without cause. So the dooryard was empty of vehicles but for the old truck she'd bought from Gaylen, the entire mill was dark and silent but for the scurrying of night critters, and John and Alex and Paul were hunkered down in various hiding spots throughout camp, everyone waiting for Ron Briggs and his partner in crime to show up.
Anna never realized just how much planning, maneuvering, and downright patience went into a stakeout. In order to make it look like they'd all returned to Loon Cove, they'd left Fox Run in their respective vehicles, parked them at the lumber mill, and then returned in Anna's SUV, which they'd hidden on an old tote road over a mile down the lake. From there they had hiked back through the woods following the shoreline and each gone to their assigned hidey-holes to settle in and wait. Paul was up near the main road with a radio, watching the lane leading down to Fox Run; Alex was tucked in the shadows at the mill's old dump site on the edge of camp; and John was down on the shoreline near the cookhouse. She and Ethan and Bear were holed up in her house, which had grown chilly, because to make the camp look truly abandoned, they hadn't even left a fire going in the stove.
"Why wouldn't John call other deputies to come help?" Anna asked in a whisper.
"Because we don't even know if Briggs is planning to show up. We're only working on the theory that he's behind the fire today and is also your intruder. Nor do we have proof that Frank Coots is involved."
"But it all makes sense."
"Still, John can't justify pulling deputies from other parts of the county on a hunch. He did call Daniel Reed, but Daniel's right in the middle of his own case tonight."
Anna sighed. "This really isn't your or your family's fight, you know," she whispered into the darkness. "I could have called my own brothers. They would have been down here in four hours, tops."
Ethan's arm around her tightened. "We can handle this," he said in a low growl. He rested his chin in the crook of her neck, causing a shiver to run through her. "And it is our fight. We take care of our own."
"But I'm not 'your own.'"
"You will be in three weeks," he said, his lips against her skin sending another shiver coursing down her spine.
"I feel guilty that the others are outside, sitting on the cold hard ground while we're on a soft bed," she said.
His arm tightened again when he chuckled. "Are you kidding? They— "
The radio sitting on the nightstand suddenly made three short beeps, followed by a pause, then one slightly longer beep. Ethan immediately sat up, pulling Anna into a sitting position beside him.
"Three?" she whispered, her hand covering her suddenly racing heart. "Who's the third guy?"
She felt more than saw him shrug. "Frank Coots is in town. Maybe he decided to join Briggs and his buddy."
The radio beeped again, three long times.
"That was Paul saying he got John's message," Ethan said, reaching for the radio.
"John is the one long beep, right?"
Ethan stood up, pulling her with him. "Yep," he confirmed. "So that means the bastards came in from the lake. I suppose the ice has melted back enough for a boat or canoe to maneuver." Ethan waited until Alex responded with two long beeps, then keyed the mike four times to let everyone know that he and Anna had gotten the message.
"Where's the pepper spray John gave you?" he asked as he quietly led the way downstairs.
"In my pocket," she said, patting her front pants pocket.
"Take it out and keep it in your hand," he instructed. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and held her facing him. "What would I have to promise to get you to stay out of this?"
"For you to stay out of it with me."
His hands on her shoulders tightened. "What if you freeze up again, Anna?" he whispered thickly. "Like Saturday night."
"I won't, I promise. I was surprised Saturday night, but I'm prepared this time." She patted his chest. "And I'm just as eager as you are to see Ronald Briggs get his due. I need to be part of this for me, Ethan. I need to finally face my past if I ever hope to have a worthwhile future."
Covering her hand on his chest, he leaned down and kissed her. "Okay then, sweetheart," he whispered.
He led her to the back door and picked up the shotgun he had leaning against the counter. "I'm going to tuck you against that huge boulder up back, and I'll be right beside the path that runs from the house to the saw shed. The others are working their way toward us already. You should have an overall view from your position, so it's your job to watch all our backs, okay?"
"Wait," she said as he started to open the door. "Bear's trying to get out," she explained, leaning down to push the dog away.
Ethan pulled her upright. "If Briggs and his buddies are responsible for Samuel's death, don't you think Bear deserves to be part of this, too?"
"But they'll see him and get suspicious."
"They won't see him. He's blacker than the night, and he just might be helpful."
She tugged even harder when he went to open the door again. "He's an old dog, Ethan," she hissed. "He could get hurt."
Ethan turned to face her, cupping her cheek in his palm. "Then he gets to go down fighting, Anna. Give him the chance to decide that for himself."
She thought about what he was saying, and about all the loving things Samuel had written about Bear in his letters to her. "Okay," she said, leaning into his hand. "We're all in this together."
"That's my girl," Ethan said, finally opening the door and peering outside.
He let Bear go out first, then slowly crept off the porch with Anna's hand held firmly in his. They walked in silence up the sloping backyard, and since their eyes didn't need to adjust to the dark, Anna soon spotted the boulder that was to be her lookout. She suddenly understood why Ethan had asked her to dress in muted gray clothes instead of black. With half a moon dimly filtering through the canopy of trees, she would blend into the rock when she crouched against it.
"You can see most of the camp from here," he said, his mouth only inches from her ear. He helped her settle into place, then bent close as he handed her the radio. "If it looks like any one of us is getting in trouble, radio the others, okay?"
"I will," she said, gripping the radio in one hand and her pepper spray in the other.
Ethan gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, squeezed her shoulder, then disappeared into the night as silently as a ghost. Anna leaned back against her rock, her eyes wide and unblinking as she strained to separate the shadows from the solid objects. But then she remembered why camouflage worked so well: prey animals were alert to movement, not shapes. So she sort of let her eyes go slightly out of focus and started watching only for movement.
She had no idea where Bear had gone. Ethan had promised to stay near the house— so he'd be close to her, she suspected. Paul would be working his way down from the main road, but it would take him a while to travel the mile in the dark. And John and Alex must be quietly stalking the three men through camp.
Ron had been searching for nearly five months, so what was possibly left for them to search tonight? And why didn't Frank Coots just go to court? If his goons hadn't found the sales agreement by now, wouldn't he figure it no longer existed? Talk about tenacious.
And murderous. Was Frank really responsible for Gramps's death? All over some land and—
There. Just off to her left, halfway between the house and the lake. Something was moving… no, several somethings were moving! Anna clutched the radio and pepper spray to her chest. It could be the bad guys, or it could be Alex or John.
Then she heard whispers of conversation coming from the moving shadows, which told her it must be Ronald Briggs and his cohorts. She didn't move a muscle as they came closer, barely breathing as she strained to hear what they were saying.
Dammit, where was Ethan?
"You're sure no one's around?" one of the shadows asked.
"The woman was home for a while, and several men, including the sheriff, were here briefly. But I followed them when they left all at once, and they're at Loon Cove Lumber, including the woman. They'll be there for days, cleaning up that mess," the second man said.
"Then let's just get this over with and get out of here," a third— and familiar— voice said.
"Relax, Frank. Rushing these jobs leads to mistakes. We just set the fires and paddle away as if we have all the time in the world. The whole place will be fully engulfed before anyone even knows it's burning. And with the fire department already exhausted, it'll be nothing but smoldering ashes by morning."
Anna sucked in her breath on a shudder. They were going to burn down Fox Run? Apparently Frank had decided that if he couldn't find the agreement, he would make damn sure nobody found it. She scanned the camp, looking for any signs that Ethan or the others were close by, also listening to this conversation.
The talking shadows rounded the side of her house and stopped not a hundred yards from Anna, where the filtered moonlight exposed the three men. One guy was definitely Frank Coots, another of the men was dressed more urban and spoke with a distinct Boston accent, and the third guy was dressed as a local, though Anna didn't recognize him from town. Was that Ron Briggs? He looked… well, he didn't look at all scary to her.
"Frank, you start several fires all around the house," the Boston accent said. "Gary, you head to the saw shed and cookhouse and torch them. I'll hit the other outbuildings," he said, walking onto her porch and opening the door to her generator shed. "Bingo," he said, reaching in and pulling out what looked like one of her cans of diesel fuel.
Those dirty rotten bastards; they were going to use her own fuel to burn down her mill! And t
he Boston guy had called the local man Gary, not Ron. So where in hell was Ron Briggs? Had he been replaced because of his incompetence?
Two men suddenly stepped out of the shadows from different directions. "I think we've heard enough, gentlemen," John Tate said, his gun and flashlight pointed at the obviously surprised arsonists. "You're under arrest."
The local guy, Gary, bolted for the woods, only to suddenly fall flat on his face with a strangled yelp. Anna watched Ethan grab the guy by the collar and drag him back to his feet. "What's your hurry, Gary?" Ethan drawled. "The party's just beginning."
"Now, John," Frank Coots said, holding his hands high in the air, his eyes the size of silver dollars. "This isn't what it looks like."
The Stranger in Her Bed Page 24