by Paula Graves
* * *
THE SNOW STOPPED around midnight, but the electricity didn’t return. The cabin had been built to keep out the cold mountain winds, but with only the fire in the hearth to keep the place warm, it hadn’t taken long for the temperature inside the cabin to drop precipitously.
“This is the last of the quilts,” Olivia told Landry as he sat in silent misery by the fire. Without talking about it, they’d both settled on the thick rug in front of the hearth, huddled together for warmth.
What they hadn’t done was speak any more about the past, about the mistakes they’d both made that had led them from the closest of companions to the awkward strangers now sitting side by side under a mountain of handmade quilts.
She’d made it seem that the end of their relationship was entirely his fault, but that wasn’t fair, was it? She had her own demons, had made her own mistakes.
“I should have confronted you when you just left without a word.”
He made a low, growling sound deep in his throat. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“I guess not.”
He sighed. “I was always a mess. I never should have inflicted myself on you in the first place.”
“It never felt like an affliction.”
He slanted a skeptical look at her, making her smile self-consciously.
His own lips curved in response. “You can say it. I may be a mess, but I can be honest about my shortcomings.”
“I had my own shortcomings. I never felt good enough for you.”
He uttered a profane denial.
“No, it’s true,” she said. “You came from a rich family, and I was from Hick City, Alabama—”
“My rich family left me so screwed up, I walked away from you.”
“And my poor family left me so screwed up, I let you go without a fight. Because I’d always figured you’d go, sooner or later.” She looked down at her hands, at the short nails she used to wear long and well manicured, and realized so much of the life she’d once lived had been a disguise, a facade she’d invented to make herself feel good enough for the rest of the world. “Little Sand Mountain rednecks like Olivia Sharp don’t get to be with rich Savannah boys like Cade Landry. Not for long.”
She felt the anger rising off him, as tangible as the waves of heat flowing from the hearth. “You were always the better person, Olivia. You have to know that. You were smarter, stronger, wiser—”
“I never felt that way. And the first time things between us went sideways—”
“I proved you right by walking away,” he finished for her.
A soft buzzing sensation from her hip pocket startled her. She’d figured the power outage would have created cell-phone coverage issues, as well, but when she checked the phone display, the signal was strong. “It’s Quinn,” she said with a glance at Landry.
He nodded at the phone. “Take it.”
She answered. “Sharp.”
“Quinn,” he responded as bluntly. “Is the new bike still parked outside your cabin?”
He knew. She hadn’t really doubted he would. “Actually, it’s back in the mudroom by the kitchen. Didn’t want the snow to rust it.”
Quinn sighed. “Damn.”
“What do you have against my new bike?”
“Someone’s looking for it. Someone with a wallet full of credentials and the full force of the United States government behind him.”
Damn it. “You’re not suggesting I put the bike back out in the snow to fend for itself?”
Quinn dropped the games. “Landry’s a wanted man. If the FBI tracks him to your place—and given his little trip to the bank in Barrowville, it’s really only a matter of time before they do—things could get very uncomfortable for you both.”
She looked at Landry, who was watching her with troubled eyes. “Any suggestions?”
“I realize travel at the moment is hardly optimal, and you should have at least another couple of days, because the FBI isn’t likely to try to make it up the mountain before the snow thaws. But if I were in your place, I would be planning not to be there by the time the roads are passable again.”
“Understood.”
Quinn hung up without saying goodbye. She closed her own phone and shoved it back in the pocket of her jeans.
“Something’s happened,” Landry said.
“The FBI is looking for you here in Tennessee. Quinn doesn’t think they’ve tracked you to the bank in Barrowville yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”
Landry pushed to his feet. “I’ll get out of here.”
She scrambled up, catching his arm as he reached for his boots. “They won’t come tonight. Or tomorrow, most likely.”
“That’ll give me time to get far away from here.”
“Don’t,” she said, her heart suddenly pounding wildly.
He looked down at her fingers closed around his forearm. “Don’t what?”
She swallowed hard, forcing the words from her tight throat. “Don’t leave me behind again.”
Chapter Six
“Forget I said that.” Olivia took a step back and let go of his forearm, turning away.
Landry didn’t let her retreat. Not this time. He closed the distance she’d opened up, until the heat of the fireplace filled what little space remained between them. Its glow bathed her face with gold and added sparkling glints to her blond hair. Desire snaked through him, but he ignored its sibilant seduction. Wanting her wasn’t enough. It had never been enough.
Maybe that had been the problem. Wanting was easy. Visceral.
Trusting—that was the hard part.
“I can’t forget you said that.” He laid his hand on her shoulder, keeping the touch light and undemanding. But her gaze snapped up to meet his, her blue eyes darkening with arousal as if he’d caressed her.
He still had that effect on her, just as the mere sight of her made him long for her touch.
“This is a mess of my own making. You’re not part of this. I can go, and you can pretend I never darkened your door.”
“I can’t pretend that.” She looked away quickly, as if she could hide the desperation her eyes had just revealed. But it was too late. He’d seen the fear. It echoed the same desperate emotion burning in the center of his chest.
Need. Pure, unadulterated need.
He needed her. His partner. Set aside everything else—the desire, the complicated history, the perceived betrayals and the two-year separation—and the partnership remained, a connection between them that time and distance hadn’t been able to sever after all.
“You were a good agent,” he said. “A damn good one, actually. And I need my partner one more time, okay? I won’t deny it. But it’s still your choice. I’m not a good bet here. I’m in a mess and I can’t even offer you ironclad proof that I’m telling you the truth.”
She turned slowly to face him. “I believe you.”
Her simple declaration jolted through him like an electric shock. “Livvie—”
She held up her hand. “I believe you came here to protect me. That’s what I believe. But I’m going into this with my eyes open. And the second you keep secrets from me and tell me a lie, that’s it. I’ll know it. And you’ll be out there on a shaky limb all by yourself, because I’ll be going to the FBI and telling them everything I know. Including your last whereabouts.”
He couldn’t hold back a smile of relief. That was the Olivia Sharp he’d known and loved, the tough-minded, no-nonsense agent who’d watched his back and saved his ass more times than he could count.
“Fair enough,” he said, holding his hand out to her.
She looked at his outstretched fingers for a tense moment then clasped his hand in hers and gave it a firm shake. “I think we’re safe here until morning. So let’s
pack up the supplies we’re going to need to hike up the mountain in half a foot of snow and then get some sleep so we can head out before daylight.”
He should have known she’d have a cabin full of survival gear and supplies. Olivia Sharp had set the standard for preparedness during her years in the FBI field office in Richmond. She already had a prepared “bug out” kit, as she called it, containing camping supplies, tools and a 72-hour supply of Meals Ready to Eat as well as changes of clothing.
She had a second backpack stored in the hall closet. Within a half hour, she’d added another three-day stock of supplies and food to that backpack, as well, filling in the blanks with clothes from his duffel bag.
“The cold will be a pain, but these hills are full of places to find shelter,” she said in a tone that was all business. He mimicked her brisk attitude as he carried the two backpacks to the front room and set them near the fire while she retrieved extra weapons for them, adding a compact Glock 19 to her Mossberg and handing over a spare pistol.
He looked at the Kimber Stainless II pistol in his palm and smiled. “You remembered.”
“It was two years ago, not two decades,” she said in a flat tone. “It’s loaded, and I put extra ammo in your kit. Now let’s try to get some sleep before morning, okay?”
She settled down on a bed of quilts and pillows that had been warming by the fire while they’d gathered supplies, her back to Landry.
He tucked the Kimber in the borrowed backpack and sat down beside her on the makeshift bed. “We should sleep back to back,” he said, glancing at her quilt-covered form.
“Knock yourself out,” she murmured.
He stretched out beside her and covered himself with a quilt, as well, easing back until his body collided with hers. “Sorry.”
“Shut up and go to sleep, Landry.”
Stifling a smile, he tucked the quilt tightly around him and closed his eyes. There were only a few scant hours before morning, and they both needed as much sleep as they could muster.
But he had a feeling, no matter how few hours remained between him and dawn, this was going to be one of the longest nights of his life.
* * *
DAYLIGHT WAS STILL an hour or two away, nothing more than a faint gray glimmer in the eastern sky, when Olivia woke. The fire had died down to warm embers, allowing a bone-aching chill to settle over the cabin’s front room. Only the solid wall of heat pressed against her back kept her from shivering and burying herself more deeply beneath the two quilts covering her from chin to toe.
The hot body behind hers shifted and uttered a familiar groaning sound that made her breath catch in her throat.
Landry.
“You awake?” His voice was like rumbling thunder, muffled by the quilts.
“I am.”
He shifted, turning over until he was practically spooning her. “I think my fingers fell off during the night. Can’t feel them.”
She rolled over to face him. His green eyes met hers with sleepy humor, and she felt something hot and tight release inside her, allowing her to breathe deeply again. “You’d better find them,” she said with the hint of a smile. “You’re going to need them.”
He brought his hands out from beneath the quilt and touched her neck. His fingers were like ice.
She batted them away, laughing despite herself. “Stop!”
“Cold hands, warm heart.”
Her smile faded. “We need to hit the road soon.”
He sighed. “If we can find the road.”
They ate a breakfast of protein bars and left the cabin while it was still mostly dark out. As Olivia had hoped, once they got past the clearing around her cabin and into the woods, the snow was thinner on the ground, thanks to the shelter of the trees overhead.
“Keep an eye on the trees,” she warned as Landry fell into step behind her. “Limbs can snap without a lot of warning.”
“Duly noted.”
She’d tasked him with hauling the crude travois she’d fashioned from a rake handle, a hoe handle and a canvas tarpaulin, which she’d loaded with the supplies she’d packed into a waterproof duffel in case they had to find shelter before they reached their destination.
“What is our destination, exactly?” Landry asked as they headed deeper into the woods.
“Well, for tonight, I want us to reach a place called Parson’s Chair.” When he didn’t say anything else, she turned to look at him. “No comment?”
His green eyes narrowed as he met her gaze. “I come from Georgia. I have no standing to make fun of strange place names.”
She smiled. “It’s a tall outcropping that kind of looks like a tall, straight-backed chair, hence the name. But beneath the chair is a large cave that will give us shelter if we can reach it by nightfall.”
“And if we can’t?”
She turned and started walking faster, tugging her jacket more tightly around her. “Let’s just make sure we do.”
* * *
PARSON’S CHAIR WAS near the top of Fowler Ridge, the southernmost peak of the two mountains that flanked Perdition Gap. On a warmer day, with good weather, Olivia could reach the outcropping within a three-hour hike. She and a couple of the female agents at The Gates had made the hike several times over the summer.
But climbing the winding natural trail in subfreezing temperatures, with a slick carpet of snow underfoot, was turning out to be a grueling test of endurance. She had nearly fallen once already, and as she neared the halfway point of their hike, she heard the sound of a hard thud and a guttural curse behind her, turning in time to see Landry slide almost ten feet back down the mountain on his side, the travois he was pulling tumbling with him.
She reached for the end of the contraption, where she’d strapped the poles together, and caught it before it went over the side of the trail, keeping a sharp eye on Landry as he struggled out from beneath the travois and regained his footing. As he crawled back up the mountain, she held out her gloved hand to him, and he grasped it with a grim smile of gratitude.
“Clearly, I don’t have any pack-mule DNA in my ancestry,” he muttered as he joined her near a clump of boulders.
She shrugged her backpack off her shoulders and settled on one of the smoother rocks. “Let’s rest a minute. Rehydrate and warm up.” She pulled out a thermos of warm broth she’d stowed in the backpack before they’d left the cabin that morning.
Landry settled on the boulder beside her, retrieving his own flask. They drank in silence for a few moments before he closed the flask and put it back in his pack. “How much farther?”
She looked at him and saw with alarm that he was wiping blood from the side of his face with the sleeve of his jacket. Rising quickly, she eased his hands away to get a better look at the injury. It was a nasty scrape that started in the middle of his cheek and went into his hairline, disappearing under his black ski cap.
“It’s just a scratch,” he protested.
“It’s bleeding like crazy,” she growled, grabbing her backpack to find the compact first-aid kit she’d put inside.
“Seriously, it’s a scratch. My head’s not even hurting.” He winced when she pressed an antiseptic pad against the scrape.
“The travois is obliterating our tracks, for the most part, but if you’re leaving a blood trail, I’m not sure the snow we’re supposed to get tonight is going to be enough to hide it.”
He closed his eyes. “And we’re about to spend the night in a cave.”
“We’re not unprepared.”
He opened his eyes, giving her a curious look. “When did you learn all this doomsday prep stuff, anyway?”
“I was born with survival skills,” she murmured, mopping up the blood from his face. The scrape continued oozing, but it wasn’t as bad as the bleeding had made it look. She tucked the used wipe in
to a disposal bag and shoved it back in the pack, then made quick work of applying adhesive bandages along the length of the scrape. “All better.”
He caught her hand as she was about to let it drop away from his face, pressing her palm against the day’s growth of beard scruff on his jaw. Dimples flirted with his cheeks. “But do I still have my boyish good looks?”
He was flirting with her, the beast. And worse, she was falling for it, hard. Damn his charming hide.
She tugged her hand free of his grasp and picked up the first-aid kit. “You’re assuming you ever had boyish good looks.”
He put his hand over his heart, feigning injury.
She put the first-aid kit in the backpack and swung it up on her shoulders. “We should get moving again if we want to reach Parson’s Chair before nightfall.”
She didn’t wait for him to gather his things before she started hiking up the trail again. Behind her, she heard the sounds of his scrambling to catch up, and she took a little pity on him, slowing her pace until he had.
“You’ve developed a cold side.” His voice drifted to her on the icy wind.
“I’ve always had a cold side.”
As the trail widened, he moved up until he was walking side by side with her. “Not like this. Is it because of me? Because I’m not worth it.”
She slanted a look at him and saw he was serious. “Trust me when I say you are only a single line on a lifelong list of reasons not to let myself be vulnerable to other people.”
“You never talked much about your past.”
“It wasn’t important.”
“It should have been.” He caught her wrist as she continued forward, forcing her to turn and face him. “I should have asked.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, tugging free of his grasp once more and continuing up the mountain. What was done was done, and there wasn’t a thing either of them could do to change it.
* * *
SNOW STARTED FALLING again late in the afternoon, a blizzard of tiny flakes at first, creating a fine mist that looked like the tendrils of mist that gave the Smoky Mountains their name. But within an hour, the flakes grew larger and the snowfall thicker, reducing visibility to almost nothing.