by Jane Toombs
“But—the baby?”
“I’ve got a gun—and Joker. There won’t be a problem now, anyway. That scumbag meant it to be a hit-and-run kidnapping and he failed.” Steve strode off, heading down to Hanksville again, leaving her alone.
She stepped off the trail, taking cover in the pines before easing down with her back against a tree trunk, not caring that the ground was still damp. How could Steve be so certain the kidnapper wouldn’t return? He’d claimed he didn’t know the man, but was he telling the truth?
She found it impossible to believe it was a random act. To her way of thinking, that man had wanted Heidi, not just any baby. But how would he have known the baby Victoria carried was Heidi? The only possible conclusion was because he’d seen her with Steve and he knew who Steve was.
He must have been waiting in his car in the gas station when they came into the village together. She hadn’t noticed it at the time, but why would she? There were usually cars in a gas station. The would-be kidnapper’s had definitely come from there, all right.
Was all this fact or was some of it a wild imagining she’d conjured up? She thought it was true. Even if it was all in her mind, though, Steve owed her some answers.
Quiet as she was, a squirrel overhead spotted her and began chittering, annoyed she’d invaded his territory. It occurred to her that, if an attacker listened to the birds and animals and understood their calls, he could find a person trying to hide in the woods.
No one’s searching for me, she told herself firmly, trying to calm her thudding heart. By the time Joker came bounding up to her, she’d almost succeeded. She rose and, when Steve hove into view, carrying a bag with what must be the oil cans, she made her way back to the trail.
As they started up, she said, “We need to talk about—”
Steve cut her off. “Save your breath for the climb. I intend to.”
It irked her that he was probably right. She didn’t want to wait, she wanted answers now. But she subsided, aware she wasn’t likely to get any until he decided the time was right.
It was nearing dusk when they reached the cabin. Heidi needed to be changed and fed and so she took care of that while Steve poured oil into the van. When the baby was settled in the cradle, Victoria cornered Joker outside and took a careful look at his side. A crease, Steve had called it—accurately as far as she could tell—because the bullet had barely broken the dog’s skin and there was hardly any bleeding. To Joker’s obvious disgust, she washed the shallow injury with soap and water to be on the safe side.
“What a brave dog, you are,” she told him as she finished and turned him loose.
He went right back to licking his wound.
She walked over to Steve who was still fooling around underneath the van’s hood. “Everything okay?”
He glanced up, frowning. “Nothing wrong I can find. Providing I got the oil into her in time, she’ll take us down the mountain and beyond. Damn that malfunctioning warning light.”
Victoria stared at him from the other side of the van. “Are you telling me we’re leaving here for good right now?”
“First thing in the morning. We’ll pack tonight.”
“Then it was Heidi he was after.”
Steve slammed down the hood.
“If you meant that as a warning to shut up,” Victoria continued, “you may as well forget it. You owe me information. What happened today scared me half to death. How can I try to protect the baby when I’m totally in the dark as to what’s going on?”
He jerked his head toward the chairs in front of the cabin and they headed for them. “I don’t like the idea of leaving tonight,” he said as they sat down. “The dark makes it hard to spot danger.”
“What danger?”
“I made another phone call when I picked up the oil. A helicopter will arrive in the morning. There’s no clearing for it to set down up here so we have to drive to Aylestown.”
Victoria took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Don’t confuse me with helicopters. Start at the beginning. Who was that man Joker bit?”
“Don’t know him personally, but I do know he works for Heidi’s father. What I can’t figure out is how Malengo got onto the fact we were somewhere near Hanksville. You couldn’t have let anything slip because you haven’t been near a phone.”
Though, anatomically, hearts can’t sink, Victoria had the dismal sensation hers was doing just that. “I—uh—did send a letter from the Hanksville post office about my mail along with the key to Alice a few days ago,” she admitted.
Steve came halfway out of his chair. “You what?”
She bristled. “How was I to know that was dangerous ? If you weren’t so closemouthed—”
“Alice being your psychologist apartment neighbor?” he asked.
She nodded. “But—”
“It wouldn’t have been hard for them to find out you were the nurse who left the hospital with me and the baby. Once they had your name, it’d be a snap to locate your apartment. Which they did do, because they were waiting there when I retrieved your medical kit from your car. They followed me. I lost the tail. But that’s why we came to the cabin—because it was only a matter of time before we were no longer safe in the town house.”
“Alice wouldn’t tell anyone where—”
“How about a fake ‘postal inspector’?”
Victoria blinked. “That sounds so—so organized.”
“Malengo’s one of the crime kingpins. Unfortunately we haven’t managed to nail him with a specific count yet.”
“Oh, no!” Victoria’s hand flew to her mouth. “Are you telling me Heidi’s father is some kind of master criminal?”
“Bingo. With all sorts of connections.”
“And now that his flunky has seen us in Hanksville, you think he’ll find the cabin, find us, if we don’t get away. Am I right?”
“More or less. In the light of today’s happenings, people in the village are going to be leery of talking to strangers so it’ll take him time to learn about the two cabins up here. We’re safe enough tonight, but no longer. Sooner or later he’ll find out which cabin is Willa’s, so that’ll pinpoint us. In the morning, as soon as it’s light, we’re off.”
Victoria took a deep breath, doing her best to assimilate all this. “Kim ran off with a man she knew was a criminal?” she asked finally.
“Kim was good at denial—she had a tendency to accept only what she wanted to hear. I can’t be sure, but my take on it is that she didn’t fully realize what he was until after she got pregnant. Something must have unrolled in front of her that she couldn’t help seeing, want to or not.”
Victoria nodded. “What you’re saying is Kim wanted her baby but she didn’t want a criminal raising the child.”
“That’s how I call it. Kim was a good-looking woman, but Malengo had an ulterior motive in acquiring her. He knew who I was and he thought she might be a source of info about the agency.”
“Through you? Closemouthed Steve?”
“I didn’t say he got much, if anything.”
“Oh, poor Kim. To give someone like you up for a—” Victoria paused as she realized what she was saying and flushed. Good grief, next she’d be admitting she loved him.
Damn it, she didn’t. Did she? How could she love a man who couldn’t trust her enough to tell her the truth right from the beginning? Who even now was probably only feeding her bits and pieces?
Steve gave her a wry grin. “Yeah, even in my Bluebeard persona, as you call, I’m no scumbag.”
“I guess I’d better start packing,” she said.
“Good idea. You’ll be leaving most of your things in the van, we’ll load them in tonight. In the morning, the agency helicopter will pick you and Heidi up in Aylestown. You’ll only be able to take necessities on the flight.”
She stared at him. “What about you?”
“I’ll stick with the van.”
“But what if—?”
“They want Heidi, not me.” His
voice turned grim. “And they bloody well aren’t going to get her. Or you.”
“Where are we being taken?”
“To a safe place. I’ll join you when I can and we’ll sort things out then.”
“Sort things out? What things?”
He rose from the chair. “Like you said, better start packing.”
She’d been told all he thought she needed to hear, Victoria thought, refusing to give way to annoyance. This was no time to fume over Steve’s inability to share information, even though she was sure not everything was classified and he could have told her more had he chosen to.
Later, with everything they didn’t need for immediate use packed in boxes and loaded into the van, Victoria decided to clean out the refrigerator for their evening meal. She was peering into it, muttering to herself, “Eggs, bacon, butter,” when Steve came up behind her.
“Did I hear bacon and eggs?” he asked. “Sounds like my kind of supper. I’ll do my thing with them again.”
“Never let it be said that I stood in the way of a true chef,” Victoria told him, sounding far more lighthearted than she felt.
This may be the next to last meal we eat together, she thought as she set the table. There’ll be a breakfast of sorts and then—what?
The future stretched ahead, unknowable for the moment but a future she was almost positive wouldn’t include Steve. Or Heidi. She bit her lip to keep tears from forming.
Once the meal was over, they shared the cleaning up until Heidi began to fuss. Almost simultaneously each said, “I’ll take care of her.”
Victoria and Steve stared at one another, something intangible passing between them, felt but impossible to identify. A she’s ours bond? Or that and more?
“Go ahead,” Steve said finally. “I still have to clobber together some kind of a carrier for Bevins so he won’t be all over us in the van.”
As he watched Victoria lift the baby from the cradle and hold her close, a lump came into his throat. How was he going to be able to give up what they’d had here in the cabin? The divorce from Kim had been a quick ax chop—not painless, but quick to heal.
What was between him and Victoria wouldn’t be easily forgotten. He might be able to find a way to keep Heidi but Victoria was her own free agent. Though he’d come to love the baby, without Victoria it wouldn’t be the same.
Nothing would be the same without her.
Pull yourself together, Henderson, he warned himself. You still have to get them to safety—concentrate on that.
Leave tonight? He shook his head. Waiting for the chopper was the safest for Victoria and the baby. If he took off now with them in the van, they might well be intercepted between here and Maryland, with a possible shoot-out.
He doubted Malengo could assemble enough men to attack the cabin and get them up here from Maryland, until some time tomorrow. In any case, Malengo had to find the cabin, and that was easier done by daylight.
Not that Steve expected to sleep much tonight.
As he finished up in the kitchen, he all but tripped over Joker who was obviously looking for a handout. Steve had scraped all the leftovers together onto a piece of aluminum foil and, breaking his rule of never feeding the dog in the kitchen, he set foil and all on the floor.
Joker gave him one disbelieving look before gobbling everything down fast, before Steve changed his mind.
“I’m counting on you to be our watchdog tonight,” Steve told him.
When he finished putting together a crude cat carrier, he tested it by shoving Bevins inside, to the cat’s obvious displeasure. Though the kitten pawed at the release lever, it held. Satisfied Bevins couldn’t work his way out, Steve released him. What he was going to do with the cat and the dog, he didn’t yet know, but he sure as hell didn’t intend to abandon them.
After tying Joker outside, he settled into his chair, but instead of reading, he watched Victoria playing with the baby and marveled at how much they resembled one another.
“No wonder that woman in the general store took you for mother and daughter,” he said. “Anyone would.”
Victoria didn’t answer, turning her face from him. He rose, crossed to the rocker and saw tears on her cheeks.
“How can I give her up?” she said brokenly.
He reached for Heidi, doing his best to swallow the damn lump that had returned to his throat. After depositing the baby in the cradle, he took Victoria’s hand, pulled her up from the rocker and wrapped his arms around her.
He held her while she wept, patting her back and trying to tell her everything would be all right. The words refused to work their way past the lump, and so he was reduced to making soothing sounds.
How can I give her up? he asked himself.
The question haunted him even after Victoria stopped crying, pulled away and said, “I have to wash my face.”
When she came out, he said, “We still have tonight together.”
She stopped and gazed at him in silence, waiting, it seemed, for more.
“We need tonight together,” he added.
Still she waited.
“I need to spend tonight with you,” he said finally.
Victoria smiled encouragingly but didn’t move.
He pulled at an imaginary beard. “Would the beautiful maiden I see before me dare to venture into Bluebeard’s embrace? Would milady care to share a night with him?”
“Why, Sir Bluebeard,” she replied, “I thought you’d never ask.”
He reached out and hugged her to him, then let her go reluctantly. Bevins was prowling around and Heidi was still awake. Best to wait until cat and baby were bedded down for the night to avoid interruptions.
And they’d use the downstairs bedroom. He was fairly confident Malengo wouldn’t surprise them but, on the odd chance he might be wrong, the loft was not the place to be tonight.
As if she knew he wanted her to go to sleep and was teasing him, Heidi cooed, made bubbly sounds and waved her hands and feet in the air. Steve lifted her from the cradle and stretched out on the floor with the baby lying facedown on his stomach.
“Look how well she can hold her head up now,” he said to Victoria.
“Yes, she’s growing before our very eyes.”
“Got a long way to go yet, haven’t you, blue eyes?” he told the baby.
Bevins padded over to check out this new situation. He sniffed at Heidi, then climbed onto Steve’s chest and began licking the baby’s hair down flat to her scalp.
“Hey, she’s not a cat,” Steve protested.
Bevins gave him a-lot-you-know look and continued his grooming until Steve plucked him off and sat up, shifting Heidi to his shoulder. She promptly burped and spit up a bit of curdled formula onto his shirt.
“You’re my messy little girl,” he told her.
Victoria smiled at the fondness in his voice. Steve loved Heidi and would keep her sate. Or as safe as he could. She sighed, not wanting to condemn a dead woman for making a mess of things. It was difficult not to blame Kim but, after all, once Kim had learned the truth about Heidi’s father. she’d done her best to escape with her as yet unborn child.
How Steve had changed since the baby came into his life! And what a tragedy it would be for him and for Heidi if he was unable to keep her.
I’m positively not going to get all weepy again, she told herself family.
Keeping any melancholy from her voice, she said, “So you see Heidi survived her first encounter with a cat, after all.”
“I’m not any too sure he thought she was human,” Steve said.
With knees bent, he now had the baby propped against his thighs and was making faces at her. She smiled at him once and then her eyes began to droop shut. Victoria walked over and held out her arms. Steve handed Heidi over and, after making sure the baby was dry, she settled her into the cradle and rocked it gently back and forth until, as Willa would say, Mr. Sandman came.
When she turned around, Steve was standing behind her. “I’ve taken care of
Bevins for the night,” he said, “so we’re temporarily sans baby and cat.”
The implication in his words made her tingle with anticipation but, at the same time, for some reason she felt absurdedly shy.
Steve took her hand and raised it to his lips. Her heart melted. And when he kissed her palm, running his tongue up between the webs of her fingers, the rest of her melted, as well.
“I remember when you hurt your shoulder,” he said, “and I had to take off your shirt. It made me want to undress you all the way. Which is what I intend to do right now.”
“Not unless we get to take turns,” she said. “That’s only fair.”
“What’s all this fair play business?”
“Equal rights.”
“Whoa, heavy artillery.”
“A gal needs every advantage she can find when she’s dealing with Bluebeard.”
“Okay, I’m convinced. Do we toss a coin to see who goes first?”
Chapter Thirteen
Standing face-to-face with him in the main room of the cabin, Victoria smiled teasingly at Steve. “No coin tossing,” she said. “I’ll even be generous and let you remove your own shoes.”
He promptly kicked his moccasins off his otherwise bare feet.
She removed her tennis shoes and socks, saying, “Pretty exciting so far, right?”
“How do you know your bare feet don’t turn me on?” He led her to the couch and sat down with her.
Lifting her feet into his lap, he began playing with her toes, running his fingers into the sensitive skin between them.
“That tickles,” she said, giggling.
He slid his hands around first one of her feet, then the other, massaging his way from toes to heel and back. She sighed with pleasure, closing her eyes.
“My intent isn’t to put you to sleep,” he said.
“It’s just that what you’re doing feels so good.”
He continued his massage, finally saying, “What about some kind of exchange here?”
Victoria opened her eyes. “Ever had your feet massaged?”