The Protector

by Marliss Melton

  “You said no one followed us,” she reminded him.

  “They didn’t. We’re good. I’m just a little out of touch.” He hated to admit he had a problem, but that had to be it. Too much time alone had left him paranoid.

  She seemed to accept his explanation, lapsing into thoughtful quiet.

  Or had someone who knew the Commander’s plans leaked them to the FBI? That might have been the case if Stanley didn’t play his cards so close. A more likely scenario was that the FBI had put a tracking device on Eryn, the fuckers. It was probably in that gargantuan purse of hers.

  Eryn wasn’t going to like it, but when they got back to the cabin, he’d have to do a strip search.

  Right. A vision of him yanking her clothes off and feeling her up flashed through his thoughts like a jag of lightning. If she was his, he’d do that every day, several times a day till he could keep his hands off her. Made him envy the bastard who eventually claimed the privilege.

  Imagine being the love of her life.

  He sucked in a sharp breath. One thing was certain: It wouldn’t be him.

  Eryn trailed Ike into the cabin. Conscious of his brooding silence, she went straight upstairs to put away her purchases then came back down to help him with the groceries.

  “I’ve got this,” he said, his head buried in the refrigerator. “Go get your purse,” he added unexpectedly. “I need to search it.”

  She drew up short and stared at him. “Why?” Surely he didn’t think she was carrying more drugs around.

  “I want to know if the FBI’s tracking you.”

  What? She groped for the chair, needing something solid to hang onto. “But you said—”

  He turned and looked at her. “I know what I said. Indulge me.” He jerked his head, gesturing for her to fetch her purse.

  With rising foreboding, Eryn trudged back upstairs to retrieve her purse. She didn’t know what was worse: Ike being out of touch with reality or the FBI tracking them.

  By the time she brought it down, Ike had put most of the food away.

  “On the table,” he instructed, closing the cupboards and stacking the paper bags.

  Eryn’s purse had been a gift from her father who’d found it at an Afghan bazaar. It had more pockets and pouches than the Hindu Kush had caves. Unsnapping and unzipping every compartment, she stepped back and let Ike look.

  And, boy, did he look. There wasn’t a pocket or pouch or metal catch that didn’t suffer his scrutiny. He sifted through wrappers and pens, an address book, a fingernail file, paper clips and credit cards, the tampon with the worn wrapper. Eryn fidgeted. Okay, maybe it was time to toss out extraneous stuff, only you never knew what you might need if you got kidnapped.

  She swallowed an inappropriate giggle.

  Ike found a business card from Special Agent Jackson Maddox. He studied it dispassionately before putting it back.

  “What are you looking for, exactly?” she asked him.

  “Transceiver or a GPS device. Metal or plastic-coated. Might be circular or rectangular, about an inch in diameter.” Several minutes later, he gave up. “I don’t see anything suspicious,” he admitted. Frowning thoughtfully, he handed her purse back.

  “Then they’re not following me,” she concluded.

  He cut a glance at her attire. “I need you to take your clothes off. I mean, change your clothes,” he added, a ruddy stain rising up his neck. “Bring me what you’re wearing.”

  “You think they hid something in my clothes?” she asked too horrified to analyze his blush.

  “In your clothes, in your skin. Do you have any new cuts?”

  Her jaw dropped. He had to be kidding. She shook her head wordlessly.

  She thought she detected a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. “Bring me your clothes,” he said again.

  Shocked and wondering if the FBI could have stooped to sticking implants under her skin, Eryn replaced the contents of her purse and dashed back upstairs.

  Stripping her clothes off, she examined her body as well as she could without a mirror. Nothing suspicious caught her eye—no strange incisions, just lots of bruises from falling down the stairs. Twice. With a shrug, she dressed in the new underwear Ike had paid for, while reminding herself to pay him back. Trying on the new jeans and the violet sweater, she looked critically down at herself.

  The sweater was snug in the chest; the jeans too baggy. But what did you expect when you shopped at Dollar General? With a mutter of disgust, she gathered up her dirty clothes and carried them downstairs.

  Ike was examining the dog’s collar, paying special attention to Winston’s ID tag. He straightened to inspect her offering as she laid it on the table.

  Squirming self-consciously, Eryn watched him examine the seams and pockets of her jeans. After a while, he set them aside, sifted through her underwear and camisole, then picked up her black bra. Watching him run his thumb along the underwire flustered her. In his rough hands, the satin garment looked especially delicate, sexy. She darted a furtive glance at his profile and noticed his neck was ruddy again.

  “Don’t see anything,” he muttered, dropping the bra like a hot grenade.

  She strove for normalcy. “So I can wear this stuff again once it’s washed?”

  “Sure.”

  She looked around, a little worried. “Um, how do you wash your clothes here?”

  “By hand,” he said, with that same suggestion of a smile at the edges of his mouth.

  He had to be teasing her again. “You mean, down by the creek on the rocks?” She could only hope she was being facetious.

  “You have a problem with that?” he asked, his green eyes glinting.

  Nope,” she said, affecting false confidence and a mountain twang. “Once the laundry’s done, I’ll just hoe the garden and bottle some moonshine,” she told him, angling her face to his.

  The smile lurking at the edges of his mouth deepened, putting a bubbly feeling in her chest. “You do that,” he said with a slow nod. “But not before you cook some vittles, woman.”

  Eryn laughed aloud at his impersonation of a mountain man. “Wow. It’s scary how well you do that,” she remarked.

  “Yeah, well…” All traces of his smile disappeared, puncturing her bubble of contentment. “I’ve been here a while.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that.

  He tipped his head at the refrigerator. “Go ahead and start.” And then he turned toward a kitchen drawer, pulling out what looked like a bag of beef jerky. Calling for the dog to follow, he left the cabin without a word of explanation.

  Curious, Eryn crossed to the window to observe him. He strode to the middle of the yard where he turned and faced the dog. The sun cast comical shadows onto the virgin grass. “Sit,” she heard Ike command, and the dog immediately sat.

  Eryn snorted. Ike was going to try to put Winston through obedience training? “Good luck with that,” she murmured, watching a little longer before recalling she had a meal to cook.

  Maybe Ike would resent her less once he tasted her cooking, she considered.

  **

  “So, gentlemen, let’s tell Sheriff Olsen, here, who lives on Overlook Mountain, since he doesn’t seem to have a clue.” Brad Caine’s mocking tone filled the cramped meeting room in the basement of Town Hall, where the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office was located.

  Embarrassed by his supervisor’s rudeness, Jackson glanced at the bushy-browed sheriff and realized the man wasn’t the least bit intimidated.

  “Maddox, you start,” Caine said.

  Jackson glanced at the notes in his hand, information supplied by their analysts an hour earlier—none of which had come as a surprise to him. “The landowner’s name is Isaac T. Calhoun. Prior to March of last year, he worked for the U.S. Navy as a SEAL sniper. He served in Africa, Iraq, and Afghanistan and is credited with eighteen kills. Last March, he resigned his commission and purchased sixty-three acres on Overlook Mountain.”

  “You know, Sheri
ff,” Caine interrupted. “It might pay to get to know the constituents who voted you into office.”

  Sheriff Olsen slid him a hard look but, again, said nothing. Caine gestured for Ringo to take over.

  “Right, ah, according to the Rockingham Treasurer’s Office, Mr. Calhoun owns and operates a business here called ITC Survival and Security Training. He teaches tactical defense and survival strategies to private citizens, corporations, and law enforcement officials,” Ringo added, giving special emphasis to the latter. “Calhoun is paid up on his taxes and has no outstanding debts.”

  “Sounds like a sterling citizen,” Caine mocked. “Have you ever taken his course, Sheriff?”

  “No.”

  “But some of your subordinates have.”

  The Sheriff shrugged. “What do you want with him?”

  “Sorry, but that’s a matter of national security. We’d like to talk to someone in your office who’s taken ITC Survival and Security Training,” Caine requested.

  “My deputies are all on patrol. I’m understaffed out here.”

  “Right,” Caine sneered. “I can see that it’s a busy place.”

  The small room fell quiet. The Sheriff scratched his bristled chin. “You might try talking to my nephew,” he suggested, finally. “Works for security over at the ski resort.” He jerked his chin in the direction of Massanutten Mountain, a well-known vacation spot for yuppies living near the capital.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Dwayne Barnes.”

  Caine gestured for Ringo to take down the name. “You wouldn’t happen to have a record of the firearms in Mr. Calhoun’s possession, would you, Sheriff?” he asked off the cuff.

  Olsen belted out a short, startled laugh. “This ain’t the city, gentlemen,” he countered. “Out here, it’s a man’s constitutional right to bear arms.” He abruptly pushed his chair back. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got a job to do.”

  “Does Calhoun teach ordinance?” Caine persisted.

  “Don’t rightly know,” said the lawman, heading for the exit. “You’ll have to ask Dwayne that question.”

  “What’s the best way to get a hold of him?”

  Olsen looked over his shoulder. “You’re the FBI,” he said. “Reckon you can figure that out.” Without another word, he marched from the meeting room, leaving the door ajar behind him.

  “Well, I can see that the LE won’t be any help,” Caine murmured, referring to the local law enforcement. “What’s the saying?” he smirked. “There’s honor among thieves?”

  “So what’s next?” Ringo asked him.

  “We interview the nephew,” Caine decided, glancing at the name Ringo had jotted down. “But I want you to find some dirt on him first. We’ll get more out of him that way.”

  Jackson rubbed his aching eyeballs. Caine wouldn’t recognize honor if it jumped up and socked him in the nose.

  **

  No tracking device could only mean one thing, Ike assured himself. The FBI was not tracking Eryn; that hadn’t been their RV at the shopping center. He was just overly precautious given that it was Stanley’s daughter he was protecting.

  Still, his gut insisted that he needed to keep vigilant. He couldn’t afford to underestimate the FBI, who had gobs of information and spy satellites at their disposal. He couldn’t, for a moment, let his guard down. And the only way to stay sharp was to train.

  Given the paucity of trainees, Ike had turned his attention to Winston. The dog looked to be half German Shepherd. Surely he could be trained to stave off attackers, the way the military trained their K-9 units. Ike had seen how it was done. Moreover, training the dog would help to keep his thoughts off Eryn, whose spunky personality was undermining his resolve to keep her at arm’s distance. He’d almost busted a gut when she’d talked with that mountain twang. Made him want to keep her up here all to himself, pregnant and barefooted.

  Don’t go there, he warned himself. But all he could think about was how strange and stimulating it felt to have her around. He couldn’t dwell on the past, not while every cell in his body was aware of her in the here and now. His mind, meanwhile, seemed incapable of tactical thought.

  Fortunately, Winston remained focused throughout their first training session. Within an hour’s time, he could reliably sit, lie down, stay, fetch, and drop. But as the aroma of sausage and garlic wafted from the cabin, even the dog lost focus.

  How much longer? Ike wondered, his stomach rumbling.

  As he tossed the stick a final time, Winston watched it sail through the air, falling just short of the blackberry bushes. “Stay,” Ike said.

  The dog whimpered.

  “Quiet.” Ike glanced at his watch. Forty five seconds seemed interminable, even to him. “Okay,” he said, releasing the dog to shoot across the yard and claim his prize.

  Trotting back with the stick, Winston indulged in a game of keep-away, exacerbating Ike’s desire to go back inside the cabin. Giving up on the hopeless canine, he chased his shadow to the cabin, eager to see what Eryn had concocted.

  The stillness inside prompted him to make a stealthy entrance. Spotting Eryn asleep on the couch, he edged around for an unguarded look.

  She had obviously just meant to rest for a moment and succumbed to exhaustion. She lay in an ungainly sprawl, with one arm out-flung, a smudge of tomato sauce on her cheek, her legs splayed. Amber hair cascaded over the sofa’s arm, glinting with copper, bronze, and golden highlights where they caught the sunlight.

  Looking at her made Ike’s chest feel tight and his groin feel heavy. The urge to bend over and trail a hand through her silky hair had him curling his fingers toward his palm. He stood entranced for several minutes, content to watch her breasts rise and fall under the tight yellow sweater.

  But then his gaze trekked helplessly lower, over her trim waist to the gap between her parted thighs. He could just imagine how warm and soft she felt there. Inhaling deeply, he imagined he could smell her woman’s scent, a musky perfume that exacerbated his arousal. What color was her pubic hair? he wondered, growing harder, still.

  You’ll never know, asshole. Women like Eryn didn’t bother with guys like him. It might have sounded like she was flirting with him last night, but she wasn’t. She had more sense than that, choosing lovers who were intelligent but tender, capable of offering her the stability she was used to.

  Ike had never questioned his intelligence. But when it came to his mental state, he’d been as stable as a mine field this past year. And he’d always been about as tender as a drill sergeant.

  Dampened by his self-assessment, he tore himself away from drooling over her and stalked to the bathroom, shutting the door intentionally loudly. He heard Eryn lurch from the couch and run for the stove.

  “Shoot, shoot, shoot!” she cried, sounding distraught. The oven door groaned open. “Oh, yes!” she added, releasing a delicious aroma.

  Ike met his gaze, dark with desire, in the speckled mirror. Get it under control, man.

  Her appeal was eroding his resolve, and he couldn’t let it. If he wanted Stanley’s respect back, he needed to return his daughter to him, unscathed and untainted. That meant keeping his distance, no matter how badly she got to him.

  Chapter Seven

  Farshad studied the leader of the Brotherhood of Islam with contempt that he kept hidden behind a pious smile.

  “Why does the media say we take credit for the bombing?” Imam Abdullah Nasser railed. He stood in the robes of a cleric before the kneeled gathering of devoted followers. “Did I order the persecution of General McClellan’s daughter?” His indignant voice echoed under the mosque’s domed roof.

  The congregants, the majority of them moderate Muslims, murmured that he had not. Farshad tried to guess which young man in attendance was the one he was cultivating to replace Itzak.

  In the online chat room where the extremists gathered every other night, his name was Vengeance. Farshad had coaxed him into a more private arena to feel out his loyalties. Eventua
lly, he had passed him the user name and password to a fictitious, email account where they shared emails with one another, saving them in the draft folder without ever having to hit SEND.

  Over the course of a week, Farshad learned that his new recruit was Shahbaz Wahidi, a twenty-three-year-old auto mechanic and a lover of violent video games. Shahbaz had been born in America, but his parents, illiterate and uneducated immigrants, had found themselves no better off in D.C. than in Pakistan. Isolated from their relatives, disillusioned and embittered, they had taught their son to hate everything American.