Trusting Love

by Billi Jean

  “Is it that bad?” she whispered, breaking into his troubled thoughts. Her expression was serious, and he guessed his was as well. Of all the times to tell her this… But when was a good time to tell her?

  He scanned the area again and she touched his face to bring him back around to face her. “You can tell me. Even if you think it might be bad, I’ll survive,” she said sadly. “I seem to do that, survive.”

  “I don’t want you to survive, Kris, I want you to be happy. When we’re through with this, if we get through this, I want to start a life with you that makes you happy.” He paused to brush her hair back behind her tiny ear and took time to soak in her beautiful face again. “I want to do all that, but this mission, it’s dangerous. More than I’ve explained. The people after me are on that drug, Kris. They can think quicker, act quicker and damn near do things you think are impossible quicker than you can register them doing them. I once jumped from a rock ledge to another one ten feet away from a standing position, Kris. Over a thousand foot drop. I did it and didn’t break a sweat. Not even an increase in my heart rate at the danger I was taking. That’s what we’re up against.”

  She took that in and straightened her shoulders. “Well, why did you do such a crazy thing like make that jump? It sounds insane to me, I mean—”

  He shook her slightly. “That’s not the point, darling. I did it. I could have done it three days ago too. I think the drug’s out of my system now,” he muttered.

  “Wait, so you’re telling me… Wait, how long were you on this drug?”

  He frowned thoughtfully and finally said, “A little over three years, off and on.”

  “And you weren’t on it in Afghanistan?”

  “Hell, no, that was way before. I was a SEAL in Afghanistan.”

  She nodded and twisted her lips. “So you were a SEAL and survived for years, then some kind of special ops person,” she questioned summing up his work for the black ops as easy as that. “But even though you survived all that, you don’t think you can survive going down to Laramie, getting on a state college campus, and crushing a few flash drives under your boot?”

  He snorted. “Darling, if it were that simple—”

  “Why isn’t it? You said they had no idea there were copies, right? You said they wanted you but had no idea where you were going. So how could they find you?”

  “Holy hell—” He nearly toppled her off his lap.

  She cried out and grabbed his shoulders. “Robert!”

  “Sorry, sorry. Holy hell I’m a stupid dumb—”

  “Stop that!” she said and covered his mouth. “Now, what have you thought of that you missed up until I showed you the amazing powers of a woman’s mind?”

  He laughed and pulled her hands off his mouth to kiss her. “You’re a damn genius, that’s all.”

  “Oh, why thank you for finally noticing,” she teased. “Now, why am I a genius?”

  “Because those men found me with the oldest trick in the book. They tagged me,” he growled. “I should have known. I should have at least checked, but hell that’s the same game I play. I didn’t figure on them being so obvious.”

  “What are you talking about? English, please.”

  He rubbed his hands through his hair and exhaled deeply. “Hell,” he complained, realising how truly stupid he’d been. “They’ve put a tracker on me, somehow. Either on my body or on my clothes. These are my BDUs, so that might be it. They were issued by the base and I picked them up there, but I’m betting on it being on my skin.”

  “I washed those pants. They were filthy and bloody,” she added. “But a tracker allows them to find you and it’s hidden, right? How will we find it?”

  “I have to get these clothes off and look for it.”

  She shook her head at that. “In the snow? As much as I love to see you naked, it’s a bit too cold out. And,” she added, gripping his forearm to stop him, “that means they already know where we are, Robert. That means…”

  “That means they are on their way. So we lead them to somewhere they’d believe we’d go. Sam’s. I’ll make sure he’s safe,” he added quickly. “We go back up and we cross over the creek to get to the other side of the road and go straight up the hill. Maybe they’ll believe we lost our way.”

  “Does that happen?”

  “Getting lost?” he asked, seeing her nod. “Sure, we can get lost. Now, here, stand up for a minute while we see what we can see.”

  “Here? Now?”

  “Yeah, here now. A friend of mine fed his tracker to a dog, but since Rowdy’s with us,” he gave the dog a quick pat on the head, “I guess that’s out as an option.”

  “It most certainly is,” she huffed. “No way are we leaving Rowdy behind, huh, baby?” she whispered to the mutt.

  Rob didn’t bother arguing. Instead, he stripped off his backpack, then his jacket and quickly pulled his sweater and shirt off over his head. “Here, come have a look at my neck and back, see if you can feel anything slightly raised, not normal. It will feel like a piece of tape maybe, but smaller, rounder. If it’s not that, then we’re in trouble.”

  “Trouble?” she asked, rubbing her fingertips over his shoulders then her palms down his back and sides. “You showered, wouldn’t that, you know, screw it up?”

  “Not really, it doesn’t work that way,” he said, fighting the way his body grew immediately heavy, filling slowly with each caress over his flesh, but he stood, enduring the featherlight touch as best he could. Just the feel of her warm hands had drilled his eager cock into expecting more. He grinned at the thought. He’d gone a long time without a woman before, way too long and killed the need with quick, meaningless hook-ups with women he wouldn’t recognise if he spotted them on the street. “I don’t see anything, or feel anything, Robbie, what else should we do?”

  “Here, check my arms.”

  She came around to his front, her eyes so serious, he stood and admired how beautiful she was as she skimmed every inch of his arms and under them, then the sides. She paused at his wounded hip, and sighed softly, unknowingly breathing against his lower stomach and making his erection itch to feel the same. When she brushed her palms along his other side, she paused. She pressed harder and with a frown, she stopped and looked at him.

  “You found it.”

  “What? I did? But this is something under your skin, not on it.”

  He nodded. “I removed one tracker, a long cylinder in my forearm when the first Sentinels went to hell. I was wounded after that and had to be taken in for surgery on my hand.” And Walters had been in the hospital as well, he remembered now. Had he been after the drug even then? He also remembered something else disturbing. A nurse had gone missing from the base—later he’d heard she’d been found raped and murdered. She’d been a nice girl, young, but he remembered Walters hadn’t let up on her, bugging the shit out of the girl until she’d transferred her shifts to another part of the hospital to get away from the man.

  “On your hand?”

  Rob blinked Kris into focus. If Walters laid a hand on Kris, he’d kill him. He’d kill him anyway he decided, watching Kris’ worry grow in her eyes.

  “Yeah, broke it, not a big deal but crushed a few bones. The side took some shrapnel, and they worked on that as well.”

  “And put a tracker there?” she demanded sounding so outraged he smiled and hugged her to his chest.

  “Yeah, I’m guessing so.” He said, silent about his suspicions of Walters. She didn’t know the man and didn’t need to know him. “If not, it’s a piece they missed and when you cut me open, you’ll get that out. Either way, we need to see.”

  She stiffened at his words and like he knew she would, she pushed against him and frowned. “I am not cutting you open again!” she practically wailed, then in a softer voice, but just as frustrated said, “This is impossible.”

  “Yeah, it is. But if you can’t do it, I will.”

  “What?” She swung back around from where she’d stomped over to another
tree to give him an incredulous look. Her gaze dipped down to his hips and she frowned even harder. “And that turns you on?”

  He laughed. “Hell no, that doesn’t turn me on. You were just caressing every inch of my body you could reach—”

  “To find a tracker!”

  “My big guy didn’t care why, darling,” he told her walking over to cup a hand on her cheek. “I’m sorry, really I am. I know how much this isn’t what you want. I promise no more after this, though.”

  “No more what after this? Cutting you open?”

  She was completely in line with her frustration and anger, but they didn’t have time.

  “Look, we need this done. You can go stand over there and I’ll do it. I have before, I can—”

  “No,” she huffed, then grimaced and shook her head. “No, I’ll do it. You would cut too deep, I just know it.”

  He held in his response to that, knowing when to quit. She was so damn adorable, and he felt bad for making her do this, but she was right, he’d mess it up pretty bad.

  She gave him a fierce frown and exhaled through her nose. “Fine. But you owe me much more than a massage. I think I want to be your dessert for, like, hours, until I want to tell you what else to do with your big guy.”

  If she’d suddenly lifted her shirt and given him a peek at her rosy breasts, he wouldn’t have been more shocked or thrilled.

  “Hell, yeah,” he managed to say past the lust and possessiveness thundering through his head. “I’ve only had one small helping of that dessert, and darling, I know I could make a meal out of it.”

  “Well, good, but right now, go sit down so I can figure out how to slice you open with a Leatherman and not kill you from the germs probably coating it.”

  “Damn, you know how to kill a good buzz, huh?”

  She laughed, clearly pleased with herself. “It’s hard, but I try my best.”

  It was hard all right, and he knew damn well how good her best try felt. He sat and shot his hard-on down with a reminder that as soon as they got this done the sooner he’d have days of doing nothing more than sharing his life with Kris.

  Chapter Twenty

  “I see, so he was here for a few days and now he’s gone cross-country after crashing a woman’s Jeep?”

  Eric shoved a fist into the woman’s barn and turned to the empty cabin.

  “Correct. I sent a team after them while I keep a team here to see if they don’t circle back.”

  McNeil had a woman with him. How far could the man go with that kind of baggage? But what baggage? He just might keep her alive after he killed McNeil.

  “We have some disturbing weather coming in, what will you do then?”

  Disturbing weather? Duke sounded like a pussy. “Weather won’t stop us. If the team doesn’t get him, I will. This is in the bag.” It had to be. He’d got a taste of the way the wealthy lived. Now he wasn’t settling for anything less.

  “Good. That’s good. See that you contact me with an update when the men return. If they don’t find him, I am counting on you to.”

  Was there doubt in Duke’s voice? Eric strode to the cabin and entered the dingy place seconds later. “You can do that. I’ll call with an update as soon as I have one.”

  “Good. I’ll talk to you then, Walters.”

  Duke disconnected before he could and Eric stared at his phone. Something had changed, but what, he couldn’t place. Maybe he’d disappointed the man, but with the amateurs he’d sent with him, what did Duke expect?

  McNeil had been here for three days. He’d been wounded, which would have explained how he’d got so far off course, and it would explain the way he’d almost been caught. If not for the horses and dog, they would have had him. Maybe even with his pants down. Eric grinned and walked over to the bedroom. The sheets were all in order, so maybe they hadn’t been going at it.

  “Where are you, McNeil? You gotta know I’m going to find you.” Eric left the bedroom and examined the rest of the tiny place, not finding any more clues. Didn’t matter. The man was heading down the mountain, unaware that Eric had been the one to place a tracker on him when they’d shared a hospital once. The fool didn’t even know he was toast.

  “Have fun while it lasts,” he whispered, eying the picture of a smiling sexy Latina woman holding a baby girl. He set the picture down, left through the front door and headed off to find his team.

  McNeil and possibly the girl’s minutes on this earth were numbered.

  * * * *

  The call of a coyote shocked Kris into reaching for Robert’s arm. He steadied her automatically.

  “Too far from us to do anything but get Rowdy all upset,” Robert said, tipping her head up with a hand under her chin. “You all right?”

  She nodded, even though she should’ve been the one asking him that. Her stomach rolled at the thought because the memory of slicing Robert’s side flashed before her eyes. He’d not said a word about how much it had to have hurt. Instead he’d told her she was doing great in a steady, even tone that had ripped her heart up. She’d had to fight tears the entire time, not from hurting him or from what those evil men had embedded under his skin, but because Robert was so used to the pain he’d been able to stay calm and reassure her.

  “I’m good. Are you all right?” she asked. She hoped he didn’t hear the tears in her voice as she tied off the bandage she’d demanded he let her wrap around his waist.

  “I’m good, darling. I’m a bit tougher than that.” He was teasing her, trying to ease her even now.

  “I know that,” she whispered, turning so he couldn’t see the unshed tears she was barely holding off. She knew he was tough. He’d had to be to survive, but that didn’t make it better to know he could feel such pain and shrug it off.

  “That’s great. Now, this,” he held up the bloody little cylinder, “this we crush. Let them know we’re serious.”

  “What will that do?” she asked.

  “Well, it will indicate I’ve died, but they won’t believe that because it also gauges temperature and a body doesn’t go from ninety-eight point six to zero in a few minutes. So they’ll know I dug it out and that I’ve destroyed it. They’ll track us to where this is, or they’ll gauge where it is, then spread a unit out around this spot. They’ve already got some of the team on us, so they won’t have to send out too many more.”

  She blinked over the quick dose of information and tried to follow him. “So we are going to get caught?”

  “No. We’re going to see what we can do to lead them off this trail and onto another.”

  “But,” she watched him fist his hand around the metal, just like he’d been doing since she pulled it free. Did that mean he wants to separate? Lead them away? He pulled his shirt and sweater up from where she’d put them inside his jacket and pulled them on like his side didn’t hurt at all. He stuffed his jacket on and zipped up before she could wipe at a tear.

  He froze for only long enough for her to draw a breath to reassure him. He reached out and took her shoulder in his hand, watching her close enough she guessed to see her sudden fear. “I’m not leaving you, Kris. We’ll lead them off our trail together.”

  She nodded, not understanding how they could, but so relieved another tear got past her fight to keep it hidden. Immediately he grimaced, but he also brought her into his arms, kissing her on the temple with such tenderness she feared she might break apart. “Shit, didn’t mean to scare you, darling.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Trust me. We’ll lead them away to Sam’s house then circle around to get down the mountain as fast as we can go. We bypass the houses just in case they are already stationed there, waiting. But we try for the truck from the property manager’s cabin further down. If we get his truck, we’re off this mountain and down in town right after.”

  “You’re making it sound so easy, but I know it’s not. I…” She stopped and swallowed what she wanted to say.

  “Tell me. You, what? Tell me, darling,” Robert
murmured, holding her upper arms to make her face him. He was gentle with her, but she knew they didn’t have time.

  “I love you, Robert McNeil, did you hear me before?”

  “I did,” he said, his light eyes so bright they looked like chips of ice, but warm. “Kris, there’s not another woman in this world for me.” He bent and kissed her lightly. “I love you, darling. You’ve got me, don’t you know that? I’m not going to die, not when you’re going to show me how to live.”

  The tears she tried to hold in slipped down past her control but she kept her eyes on his. “Don’t die, Robert. Please. Not after you finally tell me that,” she managed.

  He grinned and pulled her to his chest to hug her tightly. “Darling, I just got myself back in your life and for the first time ever in your arms. I think you know I loved you from that first time we met all those years ago. But if you need to hear it,” he murmured in her ear, “I’ll say it as often as you want. I love you, Kristen. And I plan on proving it too.”

  She nodded against his warm chest. “You have proven it. You already have, but I like hearing it,” she whispered, fighting her tears because she knew they didn’t have time. After a moment more, she managed to brush the last of them off. “I’ll keep up as best I can, just don’t get hurt again, okay?”

  “I won’t,” he promised, letting her step out of the warmth of his arms. “Just be careful, watch what I do and do what I say. No matter what it is or how crazy it sounds.”

  He reached over and picked up the shotgun, trying to hand it to her. She shook her head.

  “No. You keep that. It will slow me down,” she added when he looked like he’d argue. “I’ll start doing what you say as soon as we head off.”

  “Fine, but stay at my heels, and keep Rowdy quiet. Walk where I walk.”

  “I can do that, your feet are big enough,” she said, feeling as if they might have a chance.