“Sorry,” she said.
He waved off her apology. “What goes down must come up—right?”
He had the speaking of what goes down must come up look in his eye. Any other night she might have taken him up on the offer.
“I’d better get back to check on my sister.”
“Yeah, sure.” He walked her to the door like the gentleman he wasn’t. “I meant to call.” He made an awkward attempt at an apology.
“It’s okay. I was just in town for the weekend.”
“I had a good time at Disneyland. And, you know, afterward.”
He meant after they’d ditched Cara and Nash to come back to the bachelor pad. Which was what they’d nicknamed the place because four junior officers—all Navy SEALs—rotated in and out of the apartment.
“Me, too.” She dropped her gaze to her feet to surreptitiously get another look at him in his boxer shorts. It’s not as if she was in that big of a hurry to leave.
“How long are you in town this time?”
“Just the weekend again.”
“You want to meet up tomorrow for lunch?”
“Nouri,” Nash bellowed from the couch. “Quit trying to hook up with my sister-in-law. That’s an order.”
Mal flashed Kip the “call me” sign as she stepped outside. He nodded with a smile on his face. His loss if he didn’t take her up on her offer. He was twenty-three. She was twenty-three. She wasn’t interested in anything more than a hookup with a hot guy. Besides, she didn’t even know for sure she was going to be assigned to the FBI’s San Diego field office yet.
If she was, then she’d decide if he was boyfriend material or simply a convenient 2:00 a.m. booty call. Or maybe they’d even become friends—with benefits, of course.
God, he was hot. She could feel his eyes on her ass all the way to the car.
She turned to get in and waved over the top of the car.
Sometimes it was just about the sex.
* * *
NASH THOUGHT IT couldn’t get much worse than being held at gunpoint by a geriatric vigilante until the local law showed up. The woman climbed out of a Jeep Cherokee with the county sheriff’s badge on the door.
“Grandpa, lower your weapon.”
“Him first,” the old geezer said, still pointing at Nash with his rifle.
“Sir, would you mind?” she asked politely with a hand on the butt of her holstered weapon.
Nash lowered his weapon to the ground. Since he’d been standing there for at least fifteen minutes with both his arms and his rifle over his head, no, he did not mind lowering his weapon at all.
“Told you poachers had moved in,” the old man said to his daughter. Nash could only assume that she got both her looks and disposition from her mother.
“We’re not here to hunt,” Nash denied, well aware that hunting season was over. “I’m just here with my family.”
Mal couldn’t have timed it better or worse when she stepped out onto the porch just then. She came outside looking thoroughly ravished—and as if she’d been crying.
“Evening, ma’am,” Lady Law said, though it was closer to dawn. “I’m Sheriff Rainey Law and this here is my grandpa. I was just speaking to your husband.”
“He’s not my husband.”
Lady Law was immediately on alert, her hand back on the butt of her gun as she positioned herself between them.
Nash wondered for a moment if Mal was about to give him up.
“He’s my former brother-in-law.”
“I see,” she said, packing a whole lot of judgment into those two words. Aimed directly at him. “Your brother-in-law,” she corrected, “was just telling me you’re vacationing up here. The thing is we don’t get many vacationers up around here this time of year. In the spring and summer, maybe. Some hunters in the fall. But we’re too far off the grid for skiers. I’m going to have to ask how you know the owners.”
“Oh, and the other thing is,” the old man said, “we’ll know if you’re lying. We know all the owners around here. Even the ones that don’t live here year-round. All my granddaughter has to do is make a phone call.”
“Grandpa, please. Let me handle this.”
“We’re not friends of the owners,” Nash volunteered. “We’re friends of the Calhouns,” he lied. But it was a credible lie. “Bruce married into the Zahn family. You can call him and check if you’d like, but I believe Bruce and Mitzi are still on their honeymoon. Or maybe it’s just that they’re newlyweds, because when he handed me the keys he told me not to bother him. We served in the marines together, you know, before Bruce lost his leg. I’m just back myself. Looking for a little peace and quiet.”
There was just enough truth to the story that Lady Law appeared to be buying in to it. Though she seemed to be curious about the relationship triangle that would include his sister-in-law and son.
Pops not so much. “That doesn’t give you junkies the right to steal medicine from my animal clinic.”
“We didn’t steal any medicine,” he said. Now, that was just a bald-faced lie. Good thing he was such a good liar. Good thing he had lots of practice telling lies. His life often depended on it.
“Grandpa, please. Folks, I don’t want to keep you from your beds. I just need to check some ID so that I can write it up. Plus, any drivers or hunting licenses, gun permits,” she said, looking at him. “Then I’ll be on my way.”
“I took the antibiotics from your clinic,” Mal confessed before Nash could come up with another credible lie.
Was she crazy?
* * *
MAL STOOD FRAMED by the open door hugging herself. She’d slipped into shoes and had thrown on a sweater over her pajama pants and tank top. She glanced at Nash, who stood outside on the porch being interrogated by the local sheriff.
An elderly gentleman, rifle down by his side, stood with a foot on the bottom step, staring up at her. She didn’t even know Ben was up, but how could he sleep with all this commotion? The boy raced past her to stand at his father’s side.
The lady lawman looked the three of them over. Her concerned gaze came to rest on Mallory. She must look a mess, judging by the way the woman put herself between her and Nash and then put a hand on the hilt of her weapon.
Of course she didn’t know what Nash had already told the woman. But everything coming out of his mouth right now was a lie.
Mal was sick of the lies. And the mistrust.
While she’d never been on the run before, she didn’t believe that skirting the law was always the best option. Besides, she had a feeling their luck was about to run out. And maybe having the local law on their side was a better option than lying and continuing to go it alone.
“I broke into your clinic and helped myself to antibiotics,” she said to the man. “Would you like to come inside?” she invited.
The sheriff seemed surprised, to say the least—a confession and an invitation to search.
Nash cast Mal a murderous look.
Inviting the law into your home was the same as giving them permission to snoop without probable cause or a warrant. Plus, she’d also just confessed to a crime.
But this wasn’t their home no matter how good the lie was that Nash had created, and sooner or later the sheriff was going to figure that out. And she didn’t know what Nash would do if and when the woman did see through the lies—and she didn’t want to find out. So far he hadn’t hurt anyone, that she knew of anyway, while they’d been on the run, and she’d like to keep it that way. She did not fancy being an accessory to murder.
She turned and went inside, followed by Ben, who Nash had a hold of, and then Nash. Next the sheriff and the elderly gentleman came inside, in that order. The old man didn’t shut the door until she indicated that he do so.
“Please sit.” She gestured toward the c
hairs around the table. “Anyone care for coffee?” she asked, moving into the kitchen. No one took her up on either offer.
“I’m Special Agent Mallory Ward with the FBI. This man is a protected witness in my temporary custody. He is also my brother-in-law. And Ben is my adopted son and biological nephew.” Mal swept their shocked gazes. “My badge is in my pocket. May I?” she asked, not wanting to be shot while reaching for her badge.
The sheriff nodded. “Slowly,” she cautioned.
Mal pulled out her badge wallet and handed it to the woman.
Nash looked like a big ball of frustration right now. He stood by with tight lips and his arms folded in front of his body. No doubt thinking she was a poor excuse for a fugitive—which she was. She was the law and she believed in the law.
“I know you have to run my badge number to check out my story, but I’m asking you not to.” She hoped that pleading their case would gain them some sympathy and maybe even an ally. And gather some information in return.
“Nash is set to testify in federal court next week. There are people who want to make sure that doesn’t happen. Two federal marshals have been...incapacitated.” She censored the word killed for Ben’s benefit.
“What’s incapacitated mean?” Ben looked up at her.
Mal crossed her arms over his shoulders and hugged him close. “We’ll talk about that later, Ben.” Then she turned back to the sheriff. “So, what do you say?”
“I don’t know, Mallory,” the sheriff said. Mallory thought it was a good sign that the woman called her by her first name. “You’re asking for my blind faith. I won’t enter your badge number into the system, but I am going to be checking out your story.” She made a few notes and then wrote down Mal’s badge number. “You won’t mind if I put a deputy on watch?” It wasn’t really a question.
“Yes, we do mind,” Nash said.
The sheriff ignored him. “If your story checks out I could have a U.S. Marshal up from Denver in less than twenty-four hours.”
“Great, we’ll all be incapacitated.” Nash seemed barely able to keep his mounting frustration in check. “If you make any inquiries...we’re all in a lot of trouble.”
“The thing is,” Mal said, “we don’t know the good guys from the bad guys.”
“And they shot out our window,” Ben added.
“I’ll send that deputy around,” the sheriff said.
“Unless he’s Special Forces–trained, forget it,” Nash said.
The old man chuckled at some inside joke. “Why antibiotics?” he asked.
“What?” The question was so off topic it caught Mal off guard.
“Why’d you need antibiotics?” he asked again. “The boy sick?”
She shook her head. “Nash was shot. He’s better now, but he was fighting an infection.”
“Mind if I have a look?” the old man asked.
Nash looked as if he did mind.
“Humor an old country doctor. Horses aren’t the only thing I’m good at stitching up.”
“And that’s my cue to leave,” the sheriff said. “Before I add unreported gunshot wound to my list of transgressions. Good night, Grandpa. I take it you’ll find your own way home?”
The old man waved her off. “Just get my bag out of the truck before you go.”
“And do not bother sending that deputy around,” Nash said.
“The deputy is already here,” the sheriff said.
The old man chuckled. “I’ll take that cup of coffee now. And you,” he said, pointing to Nash. “Would you mind taking that shirt off for me?”
Nash removed his shirt with a scowl on his face.
Mal walked the sheriff to the Jeep Cherokee and Ben followed. “Thank you,” she said.
The sheriff grabbed a black bag out of the backseat. “Don’t thank me yet.”
CHAPTER FIFETEEN
“WHAT THE HELL you been doing, son?” the old man asked as he got a look at Nash’s torn sutures.
Nash stole a glance at Mal. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “Running, I guess.”
Mal set coffee mugs down in front of them and pulled up a chair next to the doc. No one was going back to bed tonight. Except Ben, who’d fallen asleep on the couch.
“How bad is it?” she asked.
“The stitches are professional enough. Though I suspect they aren’t.” He looked at Nash as he said, “And they’re infected all right. I’ll get him started on a course of the right antibiotics, remove the sutures and get him started on some larva therapy before I stitch him back up. Unless you fancy gangrene,” he said to Nash.
“Larva?” Mal asked.
“Maggots,” Nash answered.
“Maggots!” Ben popped up. Apparently he wasn’t asleep.
“Come help me make breakfast,” Mal said to Ben. “Since I don’t think any of us will feel much like eating later on.”
* * *
AFTER BREAKFAST, THE doctor—veterinarian—borrowed a snowmobile and left to go get his sterile larvae. And Ben headed upstairs to get dressed.
Mal and Nash were alone for the first time since, well, since he’d called out her sister’s name during sex. Mal found she had a hard time looking him in the eye and an equally hard time taking her eyes off him when he wasn’t looking.
“I thought you said you didn’t know the owners,” she said, picking a safe topic and trying to satisfy her curiosity at the same time. “How did you know this cabin belonged to my friend Mitzi Zahn’s family when I didn’t even know that?”
He shrugged. “Something you said once.”
She hadn’t seen Mitzi since high school. Even then they hadn’t gone to the same high school; they just knew each other through JROTC and then various drill team and rifle competitions. After high school Mitzi had joined the navy, and Mal was ashamed to say they hadn’t kept in touch.
“How can you remember something I said years ago when I can’t even remember conversations I had last week?”
“You were sixteen or seventeen and made a big fuss about not being able to go on a coed camping trip. The details stuck.”
“Oh, God. I do remember that. So this is that cabin.” She looked around the now familiar cabin with new eyes.
She’d been seventeen and her parents had refused to let her go on the unchaperoned camping trip at Mitzi’s family cabin. While most of her peers were already eighteen, others—like her—were not quite there yet. But none of the other parents had made a fuss—none. She was the only one not allowed to go, and she’d never gotten together with Brett Daniels, because he’d broken up with her over it.
It was just another demonstration of Nash’s pure genius. He’d shifted their plans on the fly and had been able to pull the location of the cabin out of his memory. Familiar, yet not familiar enough that anyone would associate either of them with it—since she no longer kept in touch with Mitzi, and neither of them had ever been here. And yet he was able to come up with a credible story about knowing the owners.
“But how did you know all that recent stuff about Mitzi getting married? What did you say her husband’s name was, Bruce Calhoun? And he’s a marine?”
“Read their engagement announcement in the paper.” He nodded toward the hearth. “The stack is about six months old. Local and Denver. I was totally bullshitting about the wedding. I have no idea when it is or was.”
“You don’t think I should have told the sheriff about us?”
“I had it under control. But what’s done is done.”
“I was afraid you might hurt them,” she confessed.
“Why would I hurt an old man and a woman? The worst that would have happened is she’d have kicked us out as vagrants and we’d have been looking for a new safe house.”
That’s what this was, a safe house.
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She felt safe here. Wished she could stay safe here forever. It had been kind of nice to shut out the world.
She’d almost be sorry to leave it when the time came. At least now she knew who to thank for her safe haven and it would give her a reason to get in touch with an old friend. Mal realized how friendless and empty her life had become only now that she faced a future without any old friends.
Because as much as she wanted to she knew she’d never be able to get in touch with old friends like Mitzi again.
* * *
“COOL!” BEN SAID when the doc returned with the maggots.
Apparently the use of larvae was quite common not only in veterinary medicine, but also in modern biotherapy medicine. The sterile larvae were contained in a cage, like dressing placed over the wound. It would take two days for the debridement and disinfection process.
In other words, it would take two days for the larvae to chomp away the dead tissue.
If he’d been wearing that the other night, they never would have fallen into bed. There were just some things a girl couldn’t get past. But Nash didn’t seem bothered by it at all—though it had to feel weird. Ben was absolutely fascinated by the whole process, and the old doc was his new best friend. The things he was teaching Ben would certainly put him ahead in science once Ben went back to school.
If Ben went back to school.
Of course, he was going back to school.
Maybe not to his old school. Actually there was no maybe about that.
Since they’d never be going back to their old life.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NASH TURNED THE police scanner down as Mallory walked into the kitchen. He knew the device would come in handy eventually. “I’m going into town.”
“What’s up?”
“Probably nothing.” Nash glanced over at the old man as he said it. They exchanged a look that made Mal feel excluded from whatever was going on. She and Doc had been playing board games with Ben.
Mal followed Nash to the door. “Probably nothing?”
He put a jacket on over his hoodie. “Just going into town to check on something. May stop by the sheriff’s office to see what she’s uncovered. And I need to use the burn phone to arrange for my ride to New York. Can I get you anything?”
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