by Paula Graves
She might look like an ordinary woman these days, but she wasn’t.
She wasn’t ordinary at all.
“Okay, if that’s what you want, I’ll go.” Jack’s voice was outwardly calm, but she heard a thread of discord vibrating just beneath the surface. “But I need just one more question answered.”
She sighed. “What’s that?”
“Why on earth do you think you owe me seven thousand dollars when you know as well as I do that I stole that money from you?”
Her stomach knotted painfully. Well, hell.
“Has something happened to you, Mara? You didn’t remember me right away today at the diner. You didn’t remember anything about the money. And right now you’re looking at me as if you’ve never seen me before.” He took a step closer to her, his movement slow and careful, as if he expected her to bolt.
He wasn’t entirely wrong. Even now she could feel the muscles bunching in her legs, as if her body was instinctively preparing for flight.
“A lot has happened,” she answered in a carefully neutral tone. “I lost my sister. I left everything I knew to make a new start. And I didn’t expect to see you here in Tennessee.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s all you’re going to get.”
“Okay.” He reached inside his jacket.
Adrenaline stormed her system again, and she brought up the pistol to bear on him. “Don’t.”
He stared at her, his dark eyes wide. “My God, Mara. What’s happened to you?”
“Take your hand out of your jacket.” To her dismay, her voice trembled. But her hand, at least, remained steady.
“I have a cashier’s check for the seven thousand plus interest. That’s all I was reaching for.”
“I don’t need the money. I don’t want it.”
“I need to give it to you.” His voice sharpened. “I owe it to you, Mara, and if I don’t do this—”
“Give it to a charity.”
His eyes narrowed. “Your place just got trashed and you’re telling me you couldn’t use seven thousand dollars to fix the damage and buy you a new sofa?”
Of course she could use it. She just couldn’t take it. Not from him. Not this way.
“Just give it to a charity. Wounded Warrior Project or Goodwill or St. Jude’s—anything you want. If you want your sins off your conscience, do it that way. I’m not in the business of absolution.”
His dark eyes snapped with a flare of anger, but it was gone almost as soon as it arose. “Fine.” He removed his hand from his jacket and reached up to touch the back of his head, wincing as he did so. When he brought his hand in front of him, his fingers were sticky with blood.
For a second, she flashed back to that night, four years ago, when she’d come home to a house on fire and her sister lying dead on the living room floor. She’d known, in the brief seconds she’d had to make her decision, that there was nothing she could do anymore for her twin. The blood pooling around her sister’s head painted a gruesome picture of what had happened while she was away picking up takeout for their dinner.
Her sister had been murdered, the fire set to cover up evidence.
And, for better or worse, she’d let it burn.
“I don’t suppose you have a first-aid kit handy in all this mess?” he asked quietly, his gaze still focused on his bloody fingers.
The urge to push him and his bleeding head out of her cabin was nearly overwhelming. But he might be more injured than she thought, and the last thing she needed on her own conscience was another death.
“Find somewhere to sit down,” she said, blowing out some of her frustration on a gusty sigh. “I’ll see if my kit’s still in one piece.”
The rest of the cabin had been tossed as ruthlessly as the front room, but whatever the burly man in the camouflage had been looking for, he seemed to have left empty-handed. The first-aid kit was on the bathroom floor, its contents scattered over the gray tile. Most of the kit’s components remained in sealed sterile packaging, however, so she scooped up the pieces and put them back inside the soft canvas kit, then took a minute to wash her hands before returning with the kit to the front room.
Jack had picked up an overturned ladder-back chair from the tiny dining area and sat at the table, wiping his bloody fingers on a paper towel salvaged from a roll that had been ripped from the wall-mounted holder. He looked up when she reentered the room. “I think there may be bloodstains on your rug in there,” he said, nodding toward the area closer to the front door as he pressed the paper towel to the back of his head.
“How’s your balance?” she asked, trying to remember the symptoms of a concussion. He’d never lost consciousness, that she could tell, and he didn’t seem dizzy or wobbly on his feet—all good signs.
“Fine,” he answered. “I don’t have a concussion, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“You can’t know that.” She set the first-aid kit on the table next to him and unzipped the canvas bag.
“I rode bulls for a living for a decade,” he said in a dust-dry tone. “I know the symptoms of a concussion better than I know my own name.”
Mention of his occupation sent a dart of irritation shooting through her. “Rode?” she asked quietly.
“I’ve retired.”
She slanted a quick look at him, taking in the lean angles and chisel-sharp planes of his ruggedly attractive face. “Your decision or the bull’s?”
His lips quirked slightly, cutting deep dimples into both cheeks. “Definitely the bull’s. He landed on me and broke my pelvis in several places. Doctors managed to knit me back together, but there are injuries even an insane cowboy like me can’t gut his way back from.”
His tone was neutral enough, but just as before, she sensed a darker emotion roiling under the surface.
“Bummer,” she murmured, not meaning to sound as flippant as she did.
His gaze clashed with hers. “Yeah.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said quickly, looking away.
“Let me take a look at your head,” she suggested, feeling both a flutter of guilt and answering anger for letting herself give enough of a damn about this confounding man to feel guilt in the first place.
Jack turned his head away from her so she could take a look at his injury. She bit back a gasp.
There was a split in the skin at least two inches long, the ragged edges of the wound raw and bloody. His thick, dark hair had absorbed a lot of the blood, but enough was still flowing to feed her alarm.
“Jack, you need stitches. And probably a CAT scan.”
And she needed, more than anything, to get this man out of her house before he figured out the truth.
Chapter Three
“Do you have anyone I can call?” Mara’s husky voice drew Jack’s attention away from the medical forms he was busy filling out one-handed. His other hand was still pressing her bloody towel to the back of his head, where the jagged tear in his scalp continued spilling fresh blood. The clinic was busy, and a nurse had already come out to examine the wound and check his pupils before she deemed him in no great rush for treatment. A receptionist had then traded his insurance card and copay for a clipboard with three pages of medical forms to fill out.
He hadn’t made it to the third page of the forms yet, but if the first two were anything to go by, he’d be spilling his sexual history, cataloging every freckle, mole or scar he possessed and outlining at least three generations of genealogy before he was done.
He looked away from the paperwork to answer Mara’s question, relieved at a chance to stop writing. “My brother-in-law and his wife are with me here in town, but I don’t want to worry them—”
“It’s just—I have things to do.”
He slanted his gaze toward her. “You’re planning to leave here alone?”
Her brow furrowed. “Yes.”
“Someone tried to kidnap you, Mara. Hell, we should have gone straight to the
cops instead of coming here.”
She frowned. “Keep your voice down.”
He glanced around the full waiting room. Nobody was paying them any attention. “You’re not planning to ignore this, are you?”
She looked away, not answering.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“No.” Her voice remained soft and controlled. “You don’t know anything about my life or my options. Don’t pretend you do.”
“What makes you think whoever attacked you this afternoon isn’t waiting for you at your cabin right now?”
“I’m not your concern.”
She was right. She wasn’t his concern, or shouldn’t have been. But the thought of letting her leave the clinic by herself was enough to make his chest tighten with alarm. “If you don’t call the police, I will.”
Her glare was lethal. “I’ll tell them the intruder was you.”
“What?” He stared back at her, certain he’d misunderstood.
“If you call the police,” she said in a calm tone, “I’ll tell them you were the intruder who trashed my place. That you’re an ex-boyfriend who stalked me here all the way from Texas and wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Anger built in his gut, hot and painful. “You’d lie about me to the police?”
Her gaze snapped toward him. “Only if you force me to.”
“What the hell happened to you?” He lowered his voice, matching her tone. “I get that you probably hate me for the way I treated you, but you were never a liar.”
“How would you know?” She looked down at her clasped hands. “You never really knew me at all, did you? You only ever saw what you wanted.”
“I know you were kind.” He watched her fingers twisting around each other, noticed the short, unpainted nails and wondered when she’d stopped getting manicures. It had been one of her few indulgences, her biweekly manicures. She’d been nearly obsessive about nail polish, eager to try all the newest colors and styles. “You were sweet and honest.”
“Kind, sweet and honest gets you kicked in the teeth,” she murmured.
“You mean, by drunk and stupid cowboys.”
She angled her gaze up at him briefly but didn’t answer.
“I guess I deserve that.”
Her gaze dropped to the clipboard in his lap. “If you don’t finish filling those out, the doctor will never get to you.”
With a sigh, he turned his attention back to the papers and answered the rest of the questions. He half expected her to bolt the second he turned his back on her to bring the forms to the reception desk, but she was still sitting there in the corner of the waiting room when he returned.
“You said your brother-in-law and his wife. She’s not your sister?”
“No. You know she’s not.” He stared at her, wondering how she could have forgotten the things he’d told her about Emily. She’d held his hand late into the night when he first shared the story of his sister’s murder and how it had ripped away what was left of his family.
How could she even ask such a question?
“Mr. Drummond?” A pretty blonde nurse stuck her head through the door leading back to the examination area.
Jack turned to Mara. “Please stay until I’m finished with the doctor. Let me ride home with you and make sure the cabin’s secure.”
She just gave a brief nod toward the waiting nurse. “Don’t lose your place in line.”
With one more backward glance at Mara to make sure she wasn’t already making her escape, he followed the nurse back to the exam room.
* * *
HE THOUGHT SHE was going to bug out on him. She could tell by the wary look in his eyes as he glanced her way before following the nurse through the door.
He was right. She was.
She waited another minute to make sure he wasn’t going to dart right back out to the waiting room to check on her, then grabbed her purse and headed out the clinic door. Her heart pounding frantically against her breastbone, she looked up and down the street, trying to figure out where to go next.
Rain clouds gathered in the west, swallowing the setting sun. A few fat raindrops splattered her car’s windshield as she slid inside and sat for a second, willing her nerves to stop jangling.
She hadn’t even had a chance to think about the man at the cabin, or what he’d wanted, thanks to Jack Drummond and his damn inconvenient head wound.
How had Jack found her cabin? Did he follow her from the office?
Why hadn’t she noticed him following her?
She was losing her edge. Letting Alexander Quinn’s calm competence and promises of protection lull her into a sense of security as false as everything else about her life. The woman she used to be would never have put her trust in an ex-spook with his own agenda.
She’d have trusted no one.
She had to go back to the cabin. She had to make sure the intruder hadn’t had a chance to come back and breach the security of the safe room where all her work was hidden, and then, if everything was still there, she had to store it safely until she could get out of Purgatory and find her next bolt-hole.
She parked her car on a shallow turnaround just off the gravel road leading to her rental cabin, going the rest of the way on foot so she wouldn’t announce her arrival, in case the intruder had come back. She kept her Smith & Wesson pistol in her shooting hand, her finger on the index point above the trigger the way Quinn had trained her to carry a loaded weapon. She supposed she owed him that much gratitude—over the course of the six years since she first met the man in a Colombian hellhole, he’d equipped her to handle the trouble she always managed to find.
Her cell phone vibrated in the front pocket of her jeans. After an initial jarring rattle of nerves, she ignored the hum and it finally subsided. Probably Quinn checking on her. She’d call him back so he didn’t worry.
But not before she was packed and ready to get the hell out of Tennessee.
The cabin lay silent about thirty yards ahead of her, just visible through the thicket of trees. She went very still, watching and listening. The gathering storm was rolling in on a gusty northeastern wind, the mostly bare limbs of hardwood trees rattling like bones amid the whisper of evergreen boughs swishing back and forth.
But she heard nothing coming from the cabin. Pausing a moment longer, she tried to tap into the old instincts that had kept her alive so far. But she didn’t feel any threat coming from the place she’d called home for the past five months.
She walked toward the cabin, scanning the woods around her for any unseen threat. She’d made it within fifteen yards of the cabin when a flash of sunlight on chrome snagged her gaze, and she stared with dismay at the big black Ford pickup truck tucked just off the road near her house.
Jack Drummond’s truck. Of course. In her stupid haste to hurry home and get packed up for her move, she’d forgotten all about Jack Drummond’s damn pickup truck.
She looked away resolutely. Not her problem. He could get his brother-in-law to bring him to pick it up when he was through at the clinic. Surely she’d be out of here by then. At that point, it wouldn’t matter what Jack Drummond thought.
She’d locked the front door to the cabin when she left earlier to take Jack into town to the clinic. It was still locked, and after a quick look around the cabin, she reassured herself that she was alone this time.
Shoving the pistol into the compact concealed-carry holster snapped to the waistband of her jeans, she stopped in the middle of the front room and surveyed the mess. Thanks to Jack’s bleeding head wound, she hadn’t even had a chance to pick up the ruined cushions or shattered lamp stand.
She wondered how he was doing, and the fact that she was sparing even a second of thought to the irritating man just pissed her off even more. Shoving her concerns aside, she crossed to the mahogany armoire that took up most of the back wall of the dining area and opened the door.
Inside, where most visitors might assume she kept her dinnerware and linens, was a second d
oor, fitted with an electronic keypad. The perks of renting a cabin from a former spook, she thought with a grimace as she punched in the code and the door lock disengaged.
Beyond the steel-reinforced door lay a small room about the size of a walk-in pantry, which was apparently what it had been at one time. There had been shelves lining the walls when Quinn bought the place, he’d told her, but he’d removed them to make room for her computer equipment.
Equipment she was about to have to destroy, just as soon as she finished loading her files to the secure flash drives she’d purchased.
And the sooner she got to work, the sooner she could leave the dust of Purgatory, Tennessee, behind her.
* * *
“SHE DITCHED YOU at an urgent-care clinic without even waiting to see if you had a head injury?” Riley’s eyebrows nearly reached his hairline as he walked with Jack out to the clinic’s parking lot. “Good Lord, son, what did you do to the woman?”
“Besides steal seven grand, gamble it away and humiliate her in an Amarillo honky-tonk?” Jack grimaced as he climbed into the passenger seat. The wound in the back of his head had required six stitches and still hurt like hell, despite the local anesthetic. Or maybe that was just his conscience.
“And now you have to go retrieve your truck from her backyard.”
“Well, technically, it’s just down the road.”
“Any chance she’ll key the paint job and slash your tires?”
Before seeing Mara again, Jack would have said no. But she had changed in the past four years. Drastically. “Let’s just hope she got her revenge by leaving me wounded to fend for myself.”
Riley’s side-eye glance was a thing of sarcastic beauty. “Poor you.”
“Seriously, Riley, a big man dressed in camo attacked her right there at her cabin and she didn’t want to call the cops.” Jack shook his head and immediately regretted it as the stitches pulled, sending a stinging pain through his scalp. “What the hell is going on?”
“Maybe you should call the local cops and make a report,” Riley suggested. “The guy assaulted you.”