He was ready to jump in. She just had to say the word, but he’d bet all the cash on him she wouldn’t.
“I get the chasing part,” he said.
She stopped moving around and shot him a big-eyed stare. “You don’t believe me.”
With Hope, he figured that was as close as he was going to get to a plea for help. He crouched and did the quick math on the best angle to pull her out without dislocating her shoulder. “I didn’t say that.”
“I am not a little girl who needs protecting. Your days of holding that job are over and, in case you missed it, I was never a little girl on your watch.”
“Oh, I noticed.” He jammed his fingers into the hard ground as dirt and peat moss slid under his nails. Ignoring the closeness and the way her arm brushed across his chest, he wedged his hand under hers and dug a shallow tunnel with his knuckles. “For the record, I noticed everything about you. Still do.”
Before he could add to the comment, footsteps echoed around him and boots appeared in front of his face. He strained to look up and got as far as the familiar utility pants.
“Our company is back,” Joel said into the relative quiet of the forest.
She tried to spin around and hissed when her trapped arm stopped her movements. It took another beat for her to get a word out. “Where?”
“He means me.” Cam dropped down to the balls of his feet with his body between Joel and Hope. “What are you two doing?”
With his hand caked with dirt, Joel wrapped his fingers around her bare arm and gave a quick pull. “Rescuing her.”
“I don’t need rescuing.” She popped free and fell back on her butt. Next she rubbed her shoulder joint. “Ouch.”
Joel refused to feel guilty for getting her unstuck when she’d been too stubborn to ask for his assistance. “Good thing you weren’t caught then.”
“Glad we cleared that up.” Cam stood. “She’s right about being followed. There are footprints over there.”
“Any clue about who or why?” Joel got to his feet and put a hand down, surprised when she took it to jump up next to him.
“Some interesting information.” Cam turned his camera around and flashed an image most people would think showed nothing but leaves but really showed an outline of a shoe. “Men’s size eleven. Probably a hundred-seventy pounds.”
She leaned in closer to the screen, her eyes narrowing. “You can tell that from a grainy picture?”
Cam nodded. “And your stalker is an overpronator.”
Joel had to smile at that. “Now you’re just showing off.”
Cam shrugged. “I’m good at my job.”
“Which is what again?” she asked.
No way was Joel entertaining an impromptu debriefing in the middle of an isolated forest. Protocol was very clear. The Corcoran Team operated on a need-to-know basis.
To the world they provided risk assessments and moved in to help if things went wrong. Important but not the complete story. The definition missed the reality of the constant danger and huge amount of shooting.
Fact was, telling the woman he once dated about his current occupation had to violate some rule. “Not up for discussion.”
She sighed. “I’ve been hearing that my whole life.”
A stark silence followed her words. Joel didn’t bother to explain the real-world need for not filling her in. She knew how this game was played. She’d lived with a man known for having secrets. Joel got that she hated the game, but that didn’t change it one bit.
Cam finally broke the quiet with a clap that thundered through the trees. “So, we have someone skulking around the woods.”
“And a missing phone.” She turned on Joel with a finger in his face. “Do not ask me if I’m sure this is where I dropped it.”
Those words died in his throat because saying them could get him punched. “No, ma’am.”
She treated him to a smile then. “That’s new.”
He tried not to notice how it lit up her face. “I’m not always difficult.”
“Yes, you are,” she said.
Cam nodded at the same time. “Not always, but mostly.”
“We should head back and make sure none of these weekend warriors cut off a toe.” Falling back into command mode kept Joel from telling both of them off. “We also need to check out Hope’s knee.”
She glanced down.
Cam nodded. “Maybe this Mark guy wandered into camp and there’s some reasonable explanation for all of this.”
The men started to walk but she stayed still. “What about your helicopter and wherever you were planning to go after stopping in here?”
Sounded like she still wasn’t understanding his assignment here. Joel tried again. “This is my final destination. With you.”
Cam slid his foot over the piles of leaves stacked around them. “And I’m good to hang out for a few hours.”
Her hands went to her hips, and her legs still didn’t move. “You both think something is seriously wrong.”
Joel decided not to sugarcoat this. Sure, the past half hour could mean nothing. Or it could mean Baxter Industries and her dad were right to send in reinforcements. They wouldn’t know until they got back to camp. “Stolen phone and a stalker? Yeah, Hope. Something is not right.”
Her smile came roaring back. “Good.”
He wondered if he would ever understand her mood swings. “How is that good?”
“Because you believe me. You’re not writing this off as some hysterical woman thing.”
Of all the things she could have said, that one came out of nowhere. “I’ve never known you to be hysterical.”
She eyed him up. “You know, you seem slightly smarter about women now. Maybe some things have changed about you since we last went out.”
And he worried the most obvious—how much he wanted her—hadn’t.
Chapter Three
Hope tried to ignore Joel for the entire walk back to camp. His constant stream of questions didn’t make that easy. He wanted to know about the campers and what her plan had been to get the men in and out of camp. She gave the details, even though she really wanted to stop and demand an explanation for why it was so easy for him to walk out of her life.
Then again, maybe she didn’t want to know. Her ego could only take so much, and he had the power to break her. Had from the minute she’d met him.
The forest floor crunched and crackled under their feet. Their steps echoed around her, and Cam whistled as he walked a half step behind her. It all seemed so normal...except for the missing businessman and lost phone. And who could forget the scary stalker?
Amazing how a nice morning could make a left turn into awful so quickly.
She had taken this job to emotionally recuperate. The double whammy of losing Joel and the disaster on her last climbing expedition had sent her world into a tailspin. A new career conducting business retreats and leading simple hiking and camping outings was supposed to be soothing. The way her nerves jumped around was anything but.
“Looks like we’re here.”
The sound of Cam’s voice over her shoulder made her jump and knock into Joel next to her. When her hands brushed against his, a new sensation spun through her. Something like excitement, and that didn’t make her happy at all. She wanted to be totally over him, or at the very least not feel anything. She’d do anything for a bit of indifference at the moment.
She settled for doubling her pace and broke through the trees and into the camp clearing a step before her self-appointed bodyguards. The businessmen sat on logs turned into benches around the fire pit area. They looked up as she approached.
They all started talking a second later. Shouting over each other in an attempt to hold the metaphorical floor.
Yeah, she hadn’t missed this part of their company dynamic during the past hour.
“Where have you been?” Jeff Acheson, the Baxter director of marketing, dumped his plate on the ground and stood up. His distaste for her was on full display, from
his puffing red cheeks to the scowl marring what she guessed most women found to be his perfectly chiseled model face.
She took a long look at him in the bright sunshine and decided he was a bit too buffed and polished for her taste. He had a phony air about him. Probably because he listed his age as thirty-four on the questionnaire she had handed out last night to assess their skill levels, when she knew from the files Baxter gave her the number was more like forty.
That sort of thing struck her as ridiculous. She’d bet he took twice as long to get ready for a big date than she did.
She could still remember the up-and-down sweep he gave her when they’d first met in the Baxter offices. He’d turned on the charming smile back when he thought she was some sort of assistant to the real leader on the trip. That disappeared when she’d made it clear she was in charge.
But he picked the wrong time to get all uppity with her. She wasn’t in the mood. “Is Mark here?”
“What?” Lance Ringer, the Baxter personnel manager, asked.
Lance was the one guy Hope had liked immediately. He was the youngest on the retreat but didn’t try to impress her. He owned up to the fact he hadn’t been camping since he was a kid, more than twenty years ago, and would rather be home with his newborn and wife than out roughing it with the guys. Hope found his honesty refreshing.
“Mark was missing this morning and I went to look for him,” she said, waiting for Joel and Cam to pipe up and feeling a bit dazed when neither rushed to take the lead. “Did he ever come back?”
Jeff took a threatening step in her direction. “Why didn’t you tell us there was a problem before now?”
“Probably because of this type of overblown reaction.” Joel morphed from calm to a shield of muscles in two seconds. He reached around Hope, blocking some of her view of Jeff, and put a hand on his chest. “Back up.”
Jeff tried to push Joel’s hand away. “Who are you?”
“Not relevant at the moment.”
Joel didn’t move and Cam just smiled. Hope was smart enough to know those reactions meant brewing trouble. Joel’s protective nature made it tough for him to back down, and when he was faced with a pontificating blowhard like Jeff, there was no telling what could happen.
“You have a gun,” Jeff said.
Joel motioned toward Cam. “We both do.”
With the tension building and washing over all of them, she decided this might be a good time to make one point clear. “Joel is my assistant.”
She put her hand over his and it dropped away from Jeff. But the battle stance stayed, as did Joel’s unwavering gaze on Jeff.
Cam covered his smile with his hand as he mumbled, “This should be good.”
“What are you talking about?” Jeff asked as he turned his attention back to her. “I thought you were the supposed leader of this outing.”
She said the word assistant and Jeff assumed she was no longer in charge. The man heard what he wanted to hear.
Before anyone said anything else that made her grumbly, Hope made the necessary introductions to keep the chain of command clear. “This is Joel Kidd, my helper, and Cameron Roth.”
Joel cleared his throat. “Helper?”
With a raise of the chin she held her ground. “Yes.”
The silence lasted for only a second before he nodded. “Alrighty then.”
Relief poured through her when he didn’t push it. She turned back to Lance. “Where’s Perry?”
“Who’s that?” Cam asked.
Lance got up and brushed off his pants. He stopped to shake hands with everyone. “Perry Kramer is our sales manager.”
“What does he sell?” Joel stared at Hope when she shoved an elbow into his stomach. “What? It’s a fair question.”
Lance shrugged. “But it’s probably not important information right now.”
Hope heard the rustle of branches and glanced over in time to see Charlie Bardon, the camp owner and cook, break through the trees on the far side of the last cabin. He was out of breath and running his hands over his grimy chef’s apron as he walked.
“What’s going on out here?” he asked.
Joel looked to the newcomer. “That was going to be my question.”
Charlie didn’t look any more willing to back down than Joel. They stood face to face and shared the same former military in-command presence. Pushing fifty, Charlie had been out for decades, but Joel seemed just as determined and set in his ways at thirty-three.
Before this could blow into a full-blown argument, Hope tried to step in. “Mark is missing.”
“I was hoping he was with you.” Charlie turned his attention to Joel. “Where did you come from?”
Joel shrugged. “Annapolis...or are you looking for an explanation about how birthing works?”
The older man’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to be funny?”
“Not really.”
“Okay, enough.” She wasn’t sure who deserved the bigger kick to the shin—Joel for acting disinterested and maintaining his monotone voice through the snide comments or Cam, who couldn’t stop smiling. “Cam and Joel came in by helicopter to help me.”
If possible, Charlie’s scowl deepened. “With what?”
She had no idea how to answer the question, so she skipped it and talked to the campers, trying to ignore the fact another one appeared to be missing. “When is the last time anyone saw Mark?”
Taking a long time and making the movement last longer than necessary, Jeff folded his arms in front of him. “When you two fought last night.”
Joel turned to face her. “Really?”
“He stormed out, saying he was going to the cabin,” Lance said. “But he wasn’t in there when I went to bed.”
“What time was that?” Cam asked.
“Around midnight.”
Charlie blew out a long breath as he talked. “You didn’t think that was odd?”
“He was ticked off that Hope took his gun. I thought I heard him coming in later, but he wasn’t there this morning.” Lance looked at Joel as if he expected backup.
Joel leaned in closer instead. “His what?”
She knew there was no way that comment would slide by. “Gun, and I’ll explain later.”
“Yeah, you will,” Joel said.
But not now. Not when all those eyes focused solely on her. “Go on, Lance.”
“That’s it. I figured he was walking it off or getting something to eat. Honestly, I didn’t think it was a big deal. He got scolded. Get over it.”
Hope didn’t know what to do with any of that information. Mark had gotten angry and stormed off. She knew that before she took off on her search. But maybe she could get an answer to one question. “Were either of you out in the woods this morning?”
She got a lot of head shaking and mumbling but no answers. She scanned the crowd. Only Lance didn’t possess the right body type. He’d joked about gaining more weight than his wife during the pregnancy. Hope doubted that was true, but he was carrying around a few extra pounds that would have made it a bit tough to dodge in and out of the trees.
Still, that didn’t mean none of them had done it. Someone had and the nerves jumping around inside her wouldn’t quiet down until she had answers, the right number of campers and her phone.
“And where were you this morning?” Joel asked the man in front of him.
Charlie didn’t move. “Checking on the food situation.”
From the question Hope guessed Joel wasn’t as willing to believe as easily as she was. Then again, he’d just met the group, and they were down two members.
“Let’s try it this way.” Joel shifted his weight. Not a big move. Barely perceptible but something about it made him appear taller and less willing to play games. “When did you last see Mark?”
Charlie’s gaze bounced from Joel to Cam and back again. “What’s with the weapons? Are you police?”
The look on Joel’s face, the way the corner of his mouth inched up, came close to a smil
e. “Pretend I am.”
Charlie didn’t share his amusement. “I don’t think I will.”
Much more of this and they’d never get to an answer. As it was, Lance and Jeff stared, watching the verbal volleys with their mouths hanging more open with each sentence.
Hope decided to act like what she was—in charge. “Charlie, help me out here. Mark wandered off and now I don’t know where Perry is.”
“I’m pretty sure Perry is in taking a second run at the chow line.”
This time the relief walloped the air right out of her lungs. “So, you’ve seen him this morning?”
Charlie nodded. “About fifteen minutes ago.”
“That’s a relief,” Lance said.
She saw Joel opening his mouth to say something and jumped in first. “But it doesn’t explain the Mark issue.”
Charlie waved her off. Even threw in a “bah” right before he started talking. “He’s just blowing off steam.”
The men kept saying it, but the explanation wasn’t good enough. “I can’t find him and I need him to check in before we do one more thing.”
Jeff swiped his thermos off the ground. “We need to go out looking for him.”
“How exactly?” Joel asked.
The question caused Jeff to go still. “What?”
Hope knew where this was going. She felt the conversation rolling downhill and couldn’t grab a two-second break to throw her body in front of it.
She couldn’t speak for Cam’s expertise, but she guessed it was off the charts. But Joel knew everything about surviving outdoors. He was the one person in the group better at outdoor activities than she was, and that was saying something.
He thrived in this environment. His father had groomed his kids to fight and shoot, readying them for the domestic civil war he insisted was coming.
Lost in paranoia and reeling from the unexpected loss of his wife, Joel’s dad believed the government had lost its way and only small pockets of freedom-loving people would save the world. He went about it by toughening up his kids, making them sleep outside and denying them an education until the state stepped in.
The upbringing was sick and wrong and it shaped Joel in ways she still hadn’t explored. He liked to joke and act as if certain things didn’t bother him, but she knew. But there were times when his gaze would wander and those dark eyes would glaze. He’d go to whatever place he built in his mind to find normalcy. And he wouldn’t let her in.
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