by Zoe Chant
"We should be getting back to the cabin," she sighed.
"Afraid so. We've been gone long enough."
She sat on a log and watched him dress, enjoying the ripple of his muscles and his animal-like grace. It felt so peaceful here, as if Ghost was a whole world away. For the first time in days, she wasn't afraid. She knew that the feeling of safety could turn out to be an illusion. Ghost still might find them here. But right now, with the morning sunshine warm on her hair, it seemed impossible that anything could disturb the tranquility of this place.
The scars on Derek's side were a reminder, though, of the violence that could intrude on their lives at any time, in any place.
"So what happened with you and Ghost, anyway?" she asked. "He sure does seem to have it in for you."
Derek grimaced as he reached for his T-shirt. "I guess you could call it a professional difference of opinion. At least in the beginning."
"How so?"
Derek pulled the shirt over his head. As his head emerged, he said, "I used to work for a firm providing private security services to international clients. Most of what I did was protecting infrastructure—dams, bridges, that kind of thing, either employed directly by various governments or working for utility or oil companies. That's also where I know Keegan from, by the way."
"He was a security contractor too? Or, no ... you said he was an engineer. Which is still pretty hard to imagine."
"Yeah, I worked with a crew protecting bridges and things, while Keegan was the guy building 'em. Or doing the surveying and design, anyway. He was a really outdoorsy guy then, the kind of guy with a calculator in his pocket and a gun on his hip. One part brainiac, one part Indiana Jones. He liked working on his own in remote and sometimes dangerous places. I was surprised he came back home and became a cop, but I guess you never know what's going to float someone's canoe."
"And what about Ghost? I'm going to guess he didn't work with you. Or did he? No—if you were protecting bridges, I bet he was the guy blowing them up."
"Got it in one." Derek checked his gun and re-holstered it, then offered a hand and helped her up off the log. "I'm not gonna say everything I did was always the kind of thing your mom would approve of. My company got me the jobs, and I went where they told me and did what needed doing. But mostly, I was a guard. A protector. Ghost, on the other hand, was the kind of person who'd get hired by insurgents to blow things up. He was a sort of a professional agent provocateur for hire."
"And you fought." She slipped her hand into his. It seemed so unreal, speaking of battles in far-off places when they were walking in this sunlit forest, serenaded with birdsongs.
"We fought. We clashed a few different times. The last time I saw him was a few years ago, in the Andes Mountains in Peru. We nearly killed each other."
"That's how you got the scars?"
Derek nodded. "After that, Ghost went to ground, or at least he went off to bother someone else for awhile. I wondered if he might be dead. But I was getting out of the game by that point, too. Decided to come back to the States, started working as a security guard and bodyguard rather than the quasi-military stuff I'd been doing. I hadn't even really thought about Ghost in years, until he turned up in town."
Gaby shivered. "I just want him gone."
"Well, hopefully some of the stuff he's been up to lately will put him away for a good long time. He's wanted in a few different countries, but as far as I know, he wasn't wanted here—until now. I'm sure Keegan's already in the process of putting together a case against him."
"Good." She leaned into his side. "I don't really wish him ill. I mean, I don't hope he'd die or anything. I just don't want him to bother us anymore. Prison is where he belongs."
So I can go home.
Home ... with Derek? She didn't even have to ask the question. She wasn't sure how they'd fit another person into her small apartment, but they'd have to work something out. She couldn't even imagine her life without him in it now.
She gave a soft laugh.
"What?" Derek asked, and she realized it must seem strange to him that she was laughing now, when they'd just been talking about Ghost a moment earlier.
"Oh, just thinking about life. My life. Our lives. I can't believe we've known each other for such a short time. It feels so natural and comfortable to be with you. I can't imagine not having you in my life."
"That's because you're my mate," Derek said. "The one person in the world for me."
She'd heard people talk about soulmates before, but the way he said it—he sounded so convinced. Like he was discussing something that wasn't mere philosophy, but a matter of scientific fact.
"You sound so sure of that."
"I am sure. We're always sure. There's only one person in the world for us, Gaby, and you're the one."
She didn't want to intrude on the warmth of this rare private time by bringing up cruel reality, but ... "I thought that about Sandy's father, for awhile. At least I thought I did."
Though ... had she? Looking back on it, she'd never gotten that feeling of comfort and meant-to-be with Sandy's father. She'd been caught up in the whirlwind of a young woman in love, but there had been warning signs from the very beginning. She'd been aware of them even then.
"It's a shifter thing," Derek explained. "That's something we haven't really talked about yet. We each have a mate, one person in all the world who is exactly right for us. The other half of our soul. We're drawn to them. And you're the one for me, Gaby. I knew it the moment I saw you."
Gaby turned that over in her head. It didn't seem possible, and yet, that was exactly what it felt like. She couldn't deny that feeling of perfect rightness whenever she was with him.
"Does it work that way for humans, too?"
"I don't know," Derek said. "I only know about being a shifter. What do you think?"
"I think ..." She leaned her head against him. "I think I knew the minute I saw you that you were the one for me; I just didn't want to admit it yet. I don't know if every human has a soulmate, a mate, whatever you want to call it. But I know for sure that I do."
Chapter Eleven: Derek
Keegan called in early afternoon on the land line. "Settling in okay?"
Derek was temporarily alone in the living room. Luisa was lying down for a nap, and Gaby had taken Sandy down behind the cabin to show him the spring, while Derek watched them out the window.
"This place is really something, man. I can see why you like it up here."
"Glad you think so. My dad and I built that place after I came back from South America. Sometimes you just need to get out in the woods and let the animal run, you know?"
"I know exactly what you mean." Through the open window, he heard the sound of a child's cries, and for an instant his heart lurched. He leaned forward so he could see Sandy and Gaby, reassuring himself that the squeals were happy ones. Even though there had been no sight or sound that anyone had followed them, and every reason to believe they were safe here, he wasn't about to stop being vigilant.
"Everything okay so far?" Keegan asked. "No sign of Ghost?"
"Everything's fine, except all you left us to eat is boxes of crackers and pancake mix. Someone's gonna have to make a supply run sooner or later."
"Hey," Keegan scoffed. "I wasn't expecting visitors. Anyway, there's a whole crate of MREs in the storage space under the cabin, and I've seen you live on those for months."
"Maybe I can, but I'm not going to expect Gaby to, let alone the old lady and the kid."
Keegan snorted. "There's a little town down the mountain where you can go for supplies. Just be—"
"—discreet, yeah, I know how to do the job, man. So what's the news? Sooner you guys catch Ghost, the sooner I can get Gaby back to her life."
He felt exposed as soon as the words left his mouth; he should have said get back to my life. But that wasn't what he cared about. What was his life, anyway, except some part-time security gigs and a daily workout routine? He didn't even have a pet goldf
ish.
It was Gaby who deserved to be safe, happy, and free.
"He's either gone to ground somewhere close to home, or he's off looking for you guys," Keegan said. "Let's hope for the first option, especially since Ms. Diaz ran him over with your car. Do you have any idea how badly she managed to hurt him?"
"I couldn't tell. She landed a good hit, enough to knock him off me. His healing ability will still take care of it eventually. I'm confident she didn't hurt him badly enough to kill him. He was trying to get up as we drove away."
"With any luck, it'll slow him down if you do have to fight him," Keegan said. "We did pick up his partner on the armored-car heist. Like I said earlier, he's doing muscle work for a local crime family, and as far as I can tell, that's all it is. Just bad luck that you two ended up in the same town at the same time. He's not coming after you because his bosses want him to. Actually, they seem happy to cut all ties. It's personal now."
"Wonderful," Derek said. If Ghost was working under orders, then they could lean on the crime lords controlling him. Ghost as a free agent was a lot more alarming.
"And you're confident he didn't follow you?"
"I know how to shake a tail. How about you? What are the odds someone could find out about this cabin?"
"Slim to none," Keegan said. "Like I told you, it's not in my name. There's no paper trail that would lead to me, let alone any reason for anyone to connect it to you. Stay up there as long as you want."
After he hung up, Derek sighed. He ought to feel better about this, but instead he couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something important.
Maybe it was just that it went against his nature to hole up while the action went on elsewhere. He felt like he ought to be out there helping. He was the kind of guy who got in the middle of a fight, not the kind who went and hid from one. If he was the only person involved, he would've gone looking for Ghost and tracked the bastard down himself.
But he had more than just himself to worry about now. And keeping Gaby safe took priority over anything else.
Gaby came in from outside with a wet and muddy, but giggling, Sandy in tow. "You know, I might not've thought this through," she told Derek with a grin. "Memo: don't let your kid play in the water when you don't have any dry clothes to change him into."
"Didn't you bring some stuff from the apartment?"
"A few things, but they're totally haphazard, whatever I could grab." She helped Sandy take off his muddy shoes at the door, and then picked up the squirming, giggling child and deposited him on the kitchen linoleum. "Now stay there while I find out if there's anything for you to change into."
Derek got another of Keegan's clean T-shirts; they were going to owe the guy laundry and a good cleaning of the cabin by the time they left. Gaby had managed to turn up a pair of spare little-boy shorts in the backpack. "I don't suppose there's a washing machine here?" she asked.
"Sure is. No dryer, though. That's what the line in the backyard is for."
"At least your friend has utilities," Gaby said, toweling off Sandy. "When I saw what the road up here was like, I was worried we were going to be lighting candles and cooking fish on a stick over a campfire."
"Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. Speaking of which, if we want anything for supper other than canned beans and crackers, we'd better make a trip to town for supplies."
"Is that safe?" Gaby asked, looking up at him.
"Long as we don't go around telling everyone where we are. Keegan said there's a little town down the road a ways where we can stock up."
While Gaby went ahead and got Sandy dried off and dressed, Derek went outside and took a walk around the perimeter of the cabin. He stood for a few moments looking off into the woods, scenting the air.
There was nothing here to be alarmed about. But just like the other time at the apartment, his bear seemed to be telling him that something was amiss. Or maybe it wasn't even his bear, just a low-level sense that he'd failed to take everything into account.
He did a quick, routine check of the car, wincing at the damage to the front end from when Gaby had hit Ghost with it earlier. It didn't seem to have caused any structural damage, though; as far as he could tell, the damage was only cosmetic. He tested the pressure in the tires and propped up the hood so he could check the fluids. Working on the car always relaxed him. He did a lot of the maintenance work himself, sometimes with Keegan's help. He'd never done a complete engine rebuild, but he'd always wanted to.
A possible reason for his unease occurred to him. He tended to think of Ghost as all brawn and no brain, but that didn't mean the guy couldn't have a good idea occasionally. What if there was a tracker on the car?
Derek got down on the ground and scoped out the most likely places on the car to plant a tracking device: under the front and rear bumpers, inside the wheel well, on the frame. He didn't find anything. But there were a lot of hiding places on a classic car like this one. And while they were inside Gaby's apartment building, Ghost would've had more than enough time to plant something. Or maybe even earlier, at the coffee shop.
You're being paranoid, he told himself. Still, paranoia had saved his bacon more than once.
Gaby came out on the porch, holding Sandy's hand. "Do you want to leave soon? I'm getting about ready for lunch. We could get a burger or something in town."
Derek straightened up and slammed the hood. "Sure. Is your mom ready to go?"
Gaby shook her head, dark hair bouncing on her shoulders. "She says she'd rather stay here. I think she's really feeling yesterday's activity in her hips, though she won't admit it."
"I don't like splitting us up. Nobody should be left unattended."
But Luisa refused to be budged. "I have my book," she said, holding up a paperback that looked like it came from Keegan's bookshelves. "And I have a nice cup of tea. I will be perfectly fine here. Buy some pork and I'll make us something nice. A man needs meat," she added, glancing at Derek's shoulders.
Derek crossed his arms. "What this man needs is to keep all of you in the same place."
But short of bodily carrying her to the car, there wasn't much he could do. He scribbled his cell number on the back of a gas station receipt. "Here. Cell phones don't work up here at the cabin, but they ought to work in town. Keep the doors locked and if you get the feeling anything's wrong, anything at all, give me a call."
"I will not hesitate to call at a whiff of danger," Luisa promised, and they had to be content with that.
"You said the cabin's safe," Gaby said as she belted Sandy into the Mustang's backseat. "She'll be okay, won't she?"
"I'm sure she will." Derek tried to push down his misgivings, and his frustration; he could see where Gaby got her stubbornness from.
It was nice to have daylight for the drive to town. He hadn't been able to appreciate the scenery in the dark, but it was really lovely now that he could see it. Although summer still had the city firmly in its grip, up here in the mountains the trees and underbrush were starting to show the faintest hints of color among the green: a flash of red here, of gold there. It was going to be a spectacular autumn.
I wonder if I could talk Keegan into letting me bring Gaby out here later this fall, just the two of us. Without Ghost's presence hanging over their heads, he could take Gaby out in the woods, lay her down among the golden fall leaves, take her glorious body in the autumn sunshine ...
"Penny for your thoughts," Gaby murmured.
Derek grinned at her and flicked a meaningful glance into the backseat, where Sandy was occupied with a handheld electronic game. "Probably not a good time to share them. Ask me again later."
She playfully rolled her eyes. "I would complain about your one-track mind, except I'm really enjoying the track it's on."
After a moment, she shyly held out a hand. Derek closed his bigger hand over it and laced their fingers together.
***
The town was called Autumn Grove, according to the sign on the highway. It was a pretty litt
le town, framed by picturesque mountains in the background, with an old-fashioned downtown that looked like it should be on a postcard. After picking up some groceries at the town's small supermarket and a cooler to stash them in, they got burgers at a café on Main Street, the kind with checked red-and-white tablecloths and a menu chalked on a big board behind the lunch counter.
I really like it here, Derek thought, looking across the table at Gaby helping Sandy put ketchup on his fries. He had always liked being closer to the land than he could get in the city, and it was easy to see himself being happy in a town like this. Maybe build a cabin like Keegan's, or get a little house closer to town. A couple of acres of land ... room to shift, and roam ...
Except his decisions didn't only affect him anymore. He looked away from the window and the view of Main Street and the mountains, to Gaby dabbing ketchup off the front of Sandy's borrowed, oversized T-shirt. Did Gaby want to live in a small town or in the city? Did she want an apartment, a condo, a house?
We haven't talked about any of that yet.
But they would work it out somehow. For years now, he'd been looking for a purpose in life, and he felt as if he'd finally found it. He didn't care where Gaby wanted to live. Wherever she wanted to be was where he wanted to be.
Gaby looked up and noticed him watching. She smiled, a little quirk of her lips that brought out the tiniest of dimples in her cheek. "What?"
He thought about deflecting, but went for honesty instead. "Just thinking that I like this town."
"Me too," Gaby said, grinning wider. She dipped one of her fries in Sandy's pool of ketchup. "Which is something I never thought I'd say. I've lived in big cities all my life. But it's just so quiet and peaceful out here. I could go either way, you know? What about you?"
"Same. I don't mind the city, and there are a lot of great things about it. But my—there's a part of me—" My bear, he'd almost said. "—that will always long for the woods."