Tempting Faith

by Susan Mallery

  He shifted his leg and felt a spurt of blood, then the warm dampness as it oozed against his skin. He closed his eyes. With a new bandage and a good night’s sleep, physically he’d be fine. A couple of days and he would be a hundred percent. But what about the rest of it? What about his memory?

  He went over what he’d remembered right before they left the hospital. Salt air. The ocean. He licked his lips as if the taste still lingered. Darkness. He remembered that. And danger. But from what? He strained to see into the gray mist of his mind. Had Dan been there with him? Had he died there?

  Nothing. The past refused to focus. He groaned in frustration. What if he never remembered? Had he killed him? Had he killed Dan?

  Cort propped his elbow on the door and rubbed his forehead. What was his mission? Dan was a fellow agent. Deep inside his memory, something clicked into place. Had his friend gone bad? Had Cort been sent to kill him? If he’d gotten the job done, he should forget it. Had he, though? Thoughts circled around and around, until even what he could remember blurred with the fog.

  “Stop it,” he commanded himself. He would get nowhere like this. Dan was dead. He knew that for sure. The rest of it would come to him. It had to.

  He’d gone too far with the last mission, he realized. He’d felt the warning signs of burnout and had ignored them. He should have turned down the assignment and taken a break. He’d been fighting the war for too long. He hadn’t wanted to be cautious, and now he was paying the price.

  Faith opened the door and slid onto the seat. He ignored her. He heard the click as she buckled her seat belt. He needed a plan. Whatever security he had to provide wouldn’t take up too much of his time. He needed to get back in shape physically, and his memory would follow. First— A bump against his shoulder broke into his musings.

  “Sorry,” Faith said as she rested her arm on the top of the seat and began backing up the truck. “I hate this part.”

  He glanced out the rear window. “What are you doing?”

  “See that big trailer there? It’s supposed to be attached to this truck. That’s what we haul up the mountain.”

  The trailer looked to be about as wide as the truck, maybe ten feet long and eight feet high. The painted sides didn’t bear a logo.

  “What’s inside?”

  “Food.” She adjusted the steering wheel slightly and eased up on the accelerator. “Damn. Why do they have to watch? It makes me crazy.”

  He followed the direction of her gaze and saw a group of old men standing on the porch in front of the feed store. The building itself looked like it had been built during the forties. “What are they waiting for?”

  “Me to mess up. They can’t believe that a mere woman can handle a truck, let alone a trailer. They do this every time I come in for supplies.”

  “You ever mess up?”

  A strand of her long hair fell over her shoulder. She flicked it back with a quick jerk of her hand and grinned. “Nope.”

  He found himself smiling in return. She made a final adjustment of the steering wheel, eased up on the accelerator and waited for the truck to roll to a halt.

  “Did it!” she said and faced front. After rotating her shoulders to release the tension, she bounded out of the cab. “I just have to hook us up and then we’re out of here. You want something more to eat?”

  “No,” he said. Then added a belated “Thanks.”

  As promised, she made quick work of the hitch. In less than ten minutes, the tiny town had been left behind and they began to drive up a steep mountain road.

  Cort shifted in his seat, trying to ease the pain in his leg. Faith handled the truck easily, as if she were used to the winding roads. He studied her strong but small hands as they worked the gearshift. Who was she, and why wasn’t she frightened of him? He’d almost killed her. She didn’t look or act stupid, so what was her story?

  He watched the road ahead. Tall trees, a few of them redwoods, came down to the edge of the highway. Recent spring rains left a carpet of lush new grass.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, staring straight ahead. “For what happened before. I could have hurt you.”

  “But you didn’t. Apology accepted.”

  “That’s it?” He glanced at her. She seemed intent on her driving.

  “What more do you want?”

  Something. He could have done a whole lot more than hurt her. “I almost killed you.”

  “I’m as much to blame. I shouldn’t have startled you. I know better.”

  “How? Jeff said you were a civilian.”

  She gave him a quick smile. “Don’t worry. I am. But I’m used to working with dangerous animals.”

  “It won’t happen again,” he promised.

  “I know.”

  “How?”

  “It won’t happen again, because I won’t startle you a second time. I’m a quick study.”

  He shifted in the seat until he faced her. He propped his injured leg on the hump in the floor that divided the cab in half.

  She rested both her hands on the steering wheel. Short nails, he thought. No polish. Sensible work clothes. He inhaled. But she wore French perfume.

  “How do you know Jeff?” he asked.

  “We met about six years ago. He was friends with the lady I worked for. When Jeff was hurt in Lebanon—” She glanced at him.

  “I know about that,” he said.

  She nodded. “He came to stay with us for a few months. I helped patch him up. Kept him company. That sort of thing. We became friends.”

  “So you’re a nurse?”

  “Not exactly.” She flashed him a smile, then sobered. “I guess when you go through what he did, you remember the people who got you through it.”

  Cort thought about those days. Jeff’s injuries had been lifethreatening, but it was the loss of his wife and child that had almost killed him. Four years ago. Before Jeff had been promoted. They’d worked together several times. Been gone enough for Jeff’s marriage to falter and Jeff to start worrying about it. The worry distracted him and ultimately almost got him killed. He’d made the decision to do whatever it took to save his marriage, then boom. Jeanne and his son were dead.

  Cort shook his head. It wasn’t worth it. Relationships weighed a man down. Caring about anyone got in the way of getting the job done.

  “Tell me about the way station,” he said.

  “We’re about fifteen miles from our nearest neighbors,” she said. “I have three college kids coming in part-time to help. We personally own about two hundred acres and have another thousand of leased forest land. There’s a fence around most of the compound and a main gate at the entrance. We’re pretty isolated.”

  “What’s the way station for?”

  She looked at him. Surprise widened her blue eyes. “I keep cats.”

  “Cats?” He rubbed his pounding temple.

  “Jeff didn’t explain?”

  “No.” He cursed under his breath. Cats? What had his boss gotten him into? He glanced at Faith. In her jeans and shirt, with her sensible work boots and unmade-up face, she didn’t look like his idea of a person who kept bunches of cats, but then when had he ever met one? “So you keep, what, twenty of them in the house?”

  She chuckled. Her smile could only be described as impish. “No cats in the house, I promise. And no more than forty or so at a time. I don’t have the room.”

  “Forty?” He swallowed. Maybe he should have taken his chances with his D.C. apartment and the tourists.

  “They aren’t a bother.”

  “I bet.”

  “Oh, but Sparky does sort of have the run of the place.”

  “Sparky? Does he sleep in the house?”

  “No, he sleeps in the office. He’s our mascot.”

  “Great.” He pictured some flea-bitten alley cat cowering in the corner.

  “He was Edwina’s favorite. Edwina is the lady who used to run the way station.”

  “So there really are forty cats?”

  “And
Sparky.”

  Oh, Christ. Cort leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Why was Jeff doing this to him? His boss was normally a pretty fair guy. Had the last assignment been messed up that badly?

  He allowed himself to get lost in the pain, controlling his breathing and counting out his heartbeats. It wasn’t until the truck slowed that he looked around.

  She’d stopped to make a left-hand turn onto a dirt road. A small sign stated that they were entering the Edwina Daniels Feline Way Station.

  She stared at the entrance. “The gate’s open. I wonder why?” She shrugged. “Maybe the kids knew I’d be coming back.”

  “What’s normal procedure?” he asked.

  She pointed to the small black box attached to the sun visor on the passenger’s side of the cab. “It’s remote controlled.”

  He picked up the transmitter. “Looks like it’s for a garagedoor opener.”

  “It is. We modified it.”

  Which meant the electronic device on the gate could be defeated by a ten-year-old.

  After shifting into neutral, she pulled on the lever that switched the truck from two-to four-wheel drive. “Hold on.”

  He gripped the window frame with one hand and the back of the seat with the other. His fingers rested inches from her shoulder. The truck turned onto the dirt road and immediately hit a huge bump.

  “The gullies got worse with the spring rains,” she said.

  “I’ll bet.”

  They lurched over a rock as, behind them, the trailer hit the first bump. The combined action loosened his grip and jarred his injured leg.

  He swore.

  “Sorry.” Faith gave him a quick glance. “I’ll try to go slower.”

  “Not on my account,” he ground out as fresh blood seeped from the wound. He resumed his hold on the window frame and the back of the seat. This time, a few strands of her hair became trapped under his hand. The soft silkiness distracted him from his pain and he wondered what a woman like her was doing out here, alone except for some college kids and a few dozen cats.

  Before he could formulate an answer, they took a sharp turn to the left and rolled onto a paved road.

  “What the—” He glanced behind at the dirt torture session, then ahead at what looked like a good mile of asphalt. “You care to explain that?”

  “It’s to discourage visitors. We keep the bumps and rocks because they’ll scare off anyone in a car.”

  “Probably lose the whole chassis.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “And the paved road?”

  She shrugged, then moved the lever from four-back to two-wheel drive. “It’s convenient. We have another two miles to go.”

  “You don’t want anyone near your cats, do you?”

  “Only invited guests. The foundation is privately funded. There are about two hundred donors. The bulk of the money comes from Edwina’s estate. We have the donors out a couple of times a year for fund-raisers, but we put planks over the ruts so their limos don’t lose their transmissions.”

  “Smart move.”

  She rolled down her window and inhaled. “Almost home. I can smell it.”

  He rolled down his window and took a tentative sniff, half expecting to smell eau de Kitty Litter. Instead the scent of leaves and earth filled him. The road was plenty wide enough for the truck. Tall trees and thick underbrush lined both sides of the pavement. Birds and rustling leaves filled the quiet of the warm June afternoon. He inhaled again, noticing the sweet scent of flowers. Peaceful. Exactly what he needed.

  Faith chattered about the weather and the house. Cort shifted his position and didn’t listen. He craved a good twelve hours of sleep. Then he would regroup.

  “We’re here,” she said, breaking into his thoughts. They rounded the last corner. He was nearly jerked from his seat when she unexpectedly slammed on the brakes.

  Less than three hundred feet up the road stood a large open area. Trees had been cleared to create a natural parking lot. The pavement circled around in front of a long, one-story building. High bushes and trees concealed everything behind the structure.

  In the middle of the parking area, looking very bright and very out of place, stood a shiny van. The colorful logo of a Los Angeles television station gleamed in the late afternoon sun.

  “I told him no.” Faith shook her head and looked at Cort. “Reporters. One of them called from an L.A. station and asked for an interview. He’d heard rumors about the kittens. I told him I wouldn’t talk to him.”

  Cort stared at her. Did she say kittens? Before he could ask, she’d pulled the truck up next to the van.

  Faith set the brake. Five people glanced up at her. Two looked incredibly guilty, three vaguely surprised.

  “This is private property,” she told the newspeople as she got out of the truck. “You don’t have permission to be here. You’re trespassing. I want you out of here, now!”

  It wasn’t hard for Faith to pick out the reporter. Aside from being indecently handsome, he wore a coat and tie over his jeans. The other two men with him, one holding a camera, the other operating a mike, smiled winningly and began clicking on switches.

  “Hey, I’m James Wilson, from Los Angeles. K-NEWS,” the reporter said, moving next to her and offering his hand. “We spoke on the phone yesterday. What a great story. I’ve got all I need from your assistants, but maybe we could talk for a few minutes. It would really add some depth to the piece.”

  Faith ignored the outstretched hand. “You’re right, Mr. Wilson. We did speak on the phone. I told you not to come up here. The kittens aren’t to be taped or photographed. This is private property. You are trespassing. Please leave.”

  His perfect smile faded slightly. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s simple,” she said. “You don’t have permission to be here, or to write a story. You’re trespassing.”

  “Hey, this was on the wire service. Don’t blame me. Besides, the freedom of the press—”

  “Does not include trespassing. Leave now.”

  “Lady, I don’t know what your problem is.”

  She turned away without speaking. She heard the slamming of the truck’s passenger door. Cort was about to get an interesting introduction to the way station. It couldn’t be helped. Beth and Rob, two of her college employees, were toward the main office building. The low one-story structure stood across the front of the compound.

  “Freeze,” she ordered.

  They froze.

  Faith walked into the building, past the offices, to the supply room. She pulled a bunch of keys out of her jeans pocket and opened a metal locker. Choosing a rifle from the assortment of weapons, she picked it up and held it in her left hand. The barrel had been modified to shoot darts instead of bullets. She put a couple of tranquilizers in her pocket and left the building.

  “This is private property,” she said as she walked back into the sunlight. “I’m only going to say this one more time. You are trespassing. Leave, now.” She loaded one of the darts. “Or you’ll be sleeping for the next twenty-four hours.” The barrel snapped closed with an audible click.

  Behind her, Beth and Rob chuckled.

  The reporter’s handsome face froze. “Listen, lady, there’s no reason to get violent. Mac, Vern, tell her.”

  But his two friends had already abandoned him and were tossing their equipment into the van.

  “Wait for me,” Wilson called. He spun on his heel and jogged to the van, then ducked into the passenger seat.

  Within seconds, the engine roared to life and the newspeople made a tight U-turn, then headed down the drive. Cort stood next to Faith’s truck, leaning his weight on the fender and watching the proceedings with interest. She ignored him, popped the dart out of the rifle and lowered the butt to the ground.

  “Where’s Ken?” she asked, turning back toward the kids.

  Beth, a petite brunette with gold-rimmed glasses, stared at her feet. “Putting the kittens back in their cages.”


  Faith held on to her temper. “Why did you let in the reporters?”

  “We left the gate open for you,” Rob answered. “They just kind of showed up.”

  “You didn’t ask them to leave?”

  Rob shook his head. “Ken said—”

  Faith held up her hand. “I’ll deal with Ken in a minute. Why didn’t you ask them to leave? Either of you?”

  Guilt was written all over their young faces. Faith hired college students because they had enthusiasm and dedication, plus she preferred part-time help. The only problem was sometimes they weren’t as mature as she would have liked.

  Beth stared at her shoes. “He was so nice, and it seemed so exciting that I didn’t think about how you said you didn’t want any publicity about the kittens until it was too late.”

  “You just thought he was totally cool,” Rob said, rolling his eyes in disgust. “Some good-looking older man says a few nice words and you melt like butter.”

  “That’s not true.” Beth flushed with anger. She stood a good eight inches shorter than Rob’s six feet, but that didn’t intimidate her. “I didn’t see you ordering him off the property. In fact, you were real interested in the sound equipment and asked the guy a lot of questions.”

  “That’s better than swooning. You won’t see me on the six o’clock news.”

  “Stop!” Faith held up one hand. “You know the rules.”

  Beth nodded. “You’re right, Faith. I apologize. I should have thought about what would happen. I know the kittens are important to you and the facility. I wouldn’t purposely do something to hurt either.”

  “Me, too,” Rob mumbled, nudging Beth on the arm when she turned and glared at him.

  Faith fought back a smile. Eloquent to the last, that boy, she thought. These kids were basically well-meaning. They’d been caught up in the excitement of the moment. She didn’t like it, but she understood how it happened.

  “I accept your apologies,” she said. She heard footsteps behind her, but didn’t turn around.