Runaway Heart

by Saranne Dawson

  He silenced her by pressing a finger to her lips. Her annoyance faded quickly, buried beneath the onslaught on her senses. The gesture seemed so absurdly intimate, so incredibly erotic.

  Okay, she told herself. So maybe he needs a diversion right now. She was willing to give him that, even though she hated baseball. But a few minutes later, he turned off the radio.

  “I think I’m safe for a while,” he said as though no time at all had passed since her question. “Kenny, the guard, was watching the game in the visitors’ lounge. It’s a tie game, the top of the seventh. He probably won’t check on me until it’s over, so it could be an hour or more before they start looking for me.”

  She stopped at a convenience store at the edge of town to buy some antibiotic ointment Zach put his seat into a reclining position and pretended to be asleep. As she waited to pay, she glanced out and satisfied herself that even if the clerk looked out, he would see nothing more than a shadow in the passenger seat. But he barely glanced at her, let alone her car. He was watching the game on a small TV behind the counter.

  Then they were on their way again, taking back roads with little or no traffic. Zach pulled off his shirt and applied the ointment to the ugly wound on his arm. She kept her eyes on the road, but even so, she was totally aware of his lean, hard body so close to hers. His every movement sent tiny frissons of heat curling through her. And soon they would be alone in an isolated cabin.

  Very little conversation passed between them except for periodic discussions of their route. He seemed relaxed, which annoyed her because she still expected to discover a roadblock around every curve.

  He broke the silence to ask her to pull over at a dark and deserted service station. Then, after she had done as requested, he asked for her driver’s license. She reached into the back seat for her purse and pulled it into her lap.

  “Why do you need it?”

  But her question went unanswered as he took the identification and got out of the car, then turned back and asked her for a quarter. She gave him that, and he went to the pay phone on the wall outside the station.

  Who was he calling? Why did he need her license? C.Z. was becoming very annoyed at his habit of ignoring her questions—and answering them in his own good time. She could tell he’d reached whoever he was calling, and she waited impatiently for him to return to the car and explain himself.

  The adrenaline rush she’d felt during the escape and the fear that they would be stopped were dying away. In their place came the harsh, implacable reality of what she’d done. And along with that came the belated realization of just how little she knew about him.

  He returned to the car and handed her the license. “My folks will be sending some money in your name. They’ll wire cash, so it’ll be safer—no check to show up in your bank account.”

  “What did you tell them?” she asked curiously.

  “Just that I’ve escaped. I can’t tell them where I’m going because sooner or later someone might question them. But I need money, and I can’t get at my own—what little I have left.”

  His final words held bitterness. While it was true she didn’t know him well, she was slowly learning a few things, at any rate. He kept his own counsel, and he hid his feelings well most of the time.

  “They must be very worried about you,” she commented as they resumed their journey.

  “It isn’t the first time. They haven’t stopped worrying about me since I went into the military. My father was a corporate lawyer, and they both wanted me to follow in his footsteps.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I couldn’t see myself spending my life in three-piece suits telling corporate crooks just how far they could go before they not only bent the law but also broke it.”

  She laughed. She couldn’t imagine that, either. In fact, it was impossible for her to imagine him being anything but a cop. Her father had been the same way.

  He lapsed into silence again, and before long all her fears came rushing back. She felt as though she was on some sort of emotional roller coaster, laughing with him one minute and gripped by an icy fear the next. And always there was that awareness of him, the way she felt his presence with every fiber of her being.

  They raced on through the night while C.Z. imagined a huge search being mounted for him. Lights would be flashing, sirens would be wailing—and questions would be asked.

  There were questions she wanted to ask, as well. But she didn’t ask because a part of her feared hearing the answers. What if his story didn’t ring true? And what if his stated intention to clear his name was nothing more than words spoken for her benefit, when what he really intended was to take the money his parents were sending and disappear?

  Her doubts continued to nibble away at her. Each passing mile brought them closer to their destination—and brought her closer to facing the fact that she might have made a horrible mistake.

  He began to study the directions Scott had given her, and suddenly he announced that the turnoff should be coming up soon. She slowed for a sharp curve. Both of them were watching for the gravel road, but still they nearly missed it. She braked sharply, threw the car into reverse and turned onto the unmarked road.

  “If this is it, we should come to a fork pretty quickly,” he told her. And then, when they did, he told her to go left.

  After several more turns, they were on a dirt road just barely wide enough for one car, with the woods pressing close on both sides. Nowhere had they seen any signs. She guessed it was one of those places where if you didn’t know where you were going, you had no business being there in the first place, which pretty well defined her feelings at the moment.

  “Where do those other roads go?” she asked, thinking nervously that it was like a maze back here. If they were on the wrong road, how would they ever find their way back?

  “Nowhere, as far as I can tell,” he said as he studied both Scott’s map and a road map he’d gotten from her glove compartment. “Most of them are probably old logging roads or service roads into state lands. Or some of them could lead to other cabins.”

  “Scott told me that if I ever wanted to get away from it all, this is the place. But I didn’t expect it to be this isolated.”

  They crawled along the deeply rutted road, and suddenly a cabin loomed ahead, directly in front of them at the road’s end.

  “That can’t be it,” she said unhappily as her worst fears were confirmed. “Scott’s cabin is an A-frame.” “We’re on the right road,” he said confidently. “This is the other cabin he told you about. The road to his place must be here somewhere.”

  She cast him a sidelong glance, thinking every man she’d ever known refused to admit being lost. She was about to tell him just that as she pulled into the cleared space in front of the cabin, clearly the end of the road.

  “Back up and aim your headlights in that direction,” he told her, pointing toward the rear of the cabin.

  “Why will men never admit—” She stopped her complaint as she saw that the road continued around the cabin and into the woods at the back.

  “You were saying?” he asked dryly.

  She didn’t bother to reply as she let the car settle into the deep ruts and carry them perhaps another half-mile, where the pseudo-road ended at a small A-frame tucked against the base of a steep mountain and surrounded by tall oaks and hemlocks.

  When she turned off the engine, total darkness descended upon them until Zach switched on the flashlight. She stepped out of the car into a cool, fragrant and very silent night. The beam illuminated only a narrow space as they walked to the door, and somehow that made the surrounding darkness seem even more threatening.

  She unlocked the door. Musty air that smelled strongly of wood smoke rushed out at them. Zach stepped through the doorway first, then played the light over pale wood and a motley assortment of furnishings that had obviously been chosen for comfort rather than for esthetic purposes.

  A disproportionately large stone firepl
ace and chimney rose from the center of the open space. In front of it was a bright, thick rya rug and an assortment of big pillows. Spotlighted by the beam, they gave off an air of sensuality and intimacy that made C.Z. look away quickly.

  A sleeping loft extended from the rear of the house, and beneath it was a small kitchen. Two areas were partitioned off, one at the rear and one along the right side, which she assumed must be the bathroom.

  “I’ll get a fire going,” Zach said. “Why don’t you see if you can find some matches to light those oil lamps?”

  He set the flashlight on a table and moved toward the fireplace, stepping around the pillows to reach for a pile of newspapers stacked neatly next to the hearth. A large stack of firewood was fitted into a wrought-iron rack on the other side.

  For a moment, C.Z. didn’t move as she watched him, thinking again how little she knew about him. But even with the cold, harsh reality of what she’d done inundating her, she still felt that powerful attraction to him. She turned away quickly, before her imagination could get too carried away.

  She found a big box of matches on the kitchen counter, together with several oil lamps. After lighting them, she carried one of them, along with the box of matches, to Zach. He was crouched in front of the grate, laying the fire.

  In the flickering light of the oil lamp his battered face took on a scary harshness, and his pale eyes seemed to glitter as he turned to her. Her hand trembled slightly as she handed him the matches, but if he noticed, he gave no indication as he took them and turned to the fire.

  She turned to the kitchen and picked up the other lamp, then carried it with her to the door that did indeed lead to a small bathroom. Her footsteps and even her breathing seemed to echo in the silence of the house. After closing the door behind her, she stared at her reflection in the mirror over the sink.

  The face that stared at her looked haunted—as well it might, she thought grimly. The large, thick-lashed hazel eyes that regarded her solemnly seemed to be saying they didn’t recognize this woman. Surely this couldn’t be the cautious, by-the-book woman who’d studied hard to gain entry into her chosen profession, who always looked carefully before she leaped into anything. That woman would not be here in her friend’s isolated cabin with an escaped felon she barely knew.

  And yet the other woman was there, as well, the woman who had recognized, at some impossibly deep level, that this man was worth it, that they were bound together in some as yet undefined manner.

  She ran her fingers nervously through her chestnut curls, thinking irrationally about the hairdresser’s appointment she would miss in the morning. And there were errands to run—her VCR to be picked up at the repair shop, clothing to be taken to the dry cleaners, a shopping trip to find a new winter coat.

  It comforted her to think about those ordinary things that made up a normal life, the life that had been hers until yesterday. But now, having made a sudden detour from the familiar path of her life, she found herself in new, uncharted territory.

  When she returned to the main room, the fire was blazing and Zach was nowhere to be seen. Then she heard his footsteps in the loft, and a moment later he came down the spiral staircase.

  “Does your friend own a gun?” he asked.

  “I doubt it. Is one really necessary?” she asked in a voice that sounded—to her, at least—close to hysteria.

  He studied her in silence, then gave her a crooked grin. “Between the army and being a cop, I’ve carried one all my adult life. Believe it or not, when they put me in jail, that’s what I missed the most—not the lack of freedom, but that little bit of extra weight.”

  She nodded. She did understand, though she didn’t like what it seemed to be saying about him. And yet she thought about her father and his ever-present gun. She still had it, packed away with his personal papers she hadn’t yet dealt with. She had given away his clothing and many other items—and yet she’d been unable to sell or give away his gun. It had seemed far more personal than any of those other things.

  Zach wandered into the kitchen and filled a kettle with water, then turned on the stove. “Bottled gas,” he commented. “He probably has that for the hot water, too, but there must be a generator because he’s got some outlets and a refrigerator.”

  “There is,” she told him, recalling that. Scott had mentioned it. “It’s probably back there,” she said, gesturing to the door at the rear of the house.

  Zach went out, and while he got the generator going, she found some instant coffee and fixed some for them, then checked the food supplies. There wasn’t much—canned goods and basics like sugar and salt She’d have to buy some things for him.

  She thought about her own grocery list, tacked to her refrigerator door. At this point, she didn’t know which seemed more real to her—her quiet, organized life or the confusion and danger of the moment.

  Then Zach returned, and when she turned to hand him a mug of coffee, she found him staring at her in that quiet, intense way that never failed to send her thoughts spinning into erotic fantasies. She’d never been quite certain what that look meant—and she wasn’t now, either.

  She felt a sharp stab of longing for the safety of those other times, when she could let her mind roam through her fantasies about him knowing they couldn’t possibly come true.

  They sat down amidst the pillows in front of the cheerfully blazing fire that was already taking the chill off the air in the cabin. The distance between them was probably about the same as had existed in her office, but there the similarity ended. Instead, she was edging dangerously close to some of those fantasies.

  “You should get some sleep and then go home,” he said, his gaze fixed firmly on her. “I’ll have to ask you to come back to bring me the money and some food, but then you’ll be out of it.”

  She was too stunned and too hurt to speak immediately. He was dismissing her, pushing her out of his life. Never mind that she’d been questioning her involvement herself.

  “But what will you do?” she asked. “You don’t even have a car.”

  “I’m going to have to hole up for a while anyway,” he pointed out. “After a week or so, the search will end. They won’t give up, but they won’t really be looking for me all that hard, either. Anyway, there’s an old Jeep in a shed out back. Do you know if it runs?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t even know it was there. Scott didn’t mention it.”

  “It has a current license and inspection, and the keys are probably around somewhere.”

  “But what are you going to do, Zach? I don’t see how you can possibly clear yourself when you can’t show your face anywhere around here.”

  “The first thing I need is a disguise. I’ll figure out something.”

  “Maybe I could help you with that,” she said slowly. “When I was in college, I got involved with a drama group. We all did a bit of everything—including makeup.”

  “I was offering you a way out, C.Z.—not a way to get yourself into trouble.”

  When she said nothing, he went on. “Even now, there’s nothing to connect you to me. You’re still safe.”

  “I want to help you.”

  “Why?”

  She stared at him, once again startled into silence. He was asking the one question she hadn’t been able to answer for herself.

  “Is it because that’s your profession, helping people?”

  She laughed nervously. She’d asked herself that question, too. “My profession doesn’t exactly extend to helping convicted criminals escape from prison.”

  Her ill-considered words hung in the brief silence between them, unable to be taken back, even though she wanted very much to do just that.

  “I mean, I know you’re innocent, but…”

  “Do you know that?” he asked, tilting his head to one side and regarding her thoughtfully. “I never told you the whole story.”

  A chill swept through her, and she hurriedly set down her mug before he could see her hand trembling. His ice-blue e
yes bored into her, and she knew he could see her doubts, no matter how much she tried to hide them.

  “I am innocent,” he said firmly. “If I’d wanted to kill Summers, he’d be dead. I shot to disarm him. That was the only line of defense I wanted my lawyer to pursue. He used my military and police records to prove that I’m a crack shot and that if I’d really wanted to kill Summers, I would have.” He shrugged. “Unfortunately, the jury didn’t buy it—and I can’t blame them for that.”

  He said that Harvey Summers, the longtime county commissioner, had been against hiring him from the beginning. He had wanted Dave Colby, a veteran of the force, to be appointed chief. But Summers was outvoted by the other two commissioners, who were impressed with Zach’s record and felt he could bring a new level of professionalism to a county that was beginning to see an increase in population and an increase in serious crime.

  From the beginning, Summers had tried to make life difficult for Zach, questioning his decisions and pushing him to make arrests without sufficient evidence. Matters had come to a head when the fourteen-year-old daughter of a prominent local businessman was raped. The rapist had worn a ski mask, but the girl thought she knew who he was, a twenty-year-old ne’er-do-well with a record of minor arrests but no previous sexual assaults.

  Zach had taken it slow, letting the suspect know he was under investigation as a way of preventing further trouble while he tried to build a case against him. The young man maintained his innocence and had an alibi of sorts, a friend he claimed to be with when the assault took place.

  Harvey Summers had kept pressing for an arrest, even to the point of ignoring the district attorney, who agreed with Zach. The victim’s father was an old friend of Summers.

  “He and I got into a shouting match over the thing,” Zach said, “in front of a lot of witnesses. I shouldn’t have shot off my mouth, but I was frustrated over the case myself—especially since it was beginning to look like I’d been pursuing the wrong suspect.