by CJ Lyons
“So close? Why didn’t we go there tonight?”
“This blue line between us and my cabin is the Lost River. All those tiny lines stacked one on top of each other on either side of it represent the vertical drop.”
Vinnie waited as he glanced at the map scale, counted the lines and did the math. A yawn came over her, and she was tempted to close her eyes for one second, rest her head on his lap. Just for minute or two, let him deal with the outside world and all the craziness that came with it. She could sink into oblivion, a man’s strong arms wrapped around her, protecting her—God, she missed that feeling so very much.
Lucky must have been good at math. Only a moment passed before he exhaled a bitter, “Sonofabitch.”
Vinnie jerked upright, pushed her fantasy aside.
“You said something about a bridge.”
She tapped another spot on the map. “Here. It’s a suspension bridge—the old fashioned kind. You won’t make it across, shape you’re in. Not alone, there’s no way.”
“Says who?”
His face was beside hers, almost touching as they studied the map. Vinnie pulled away, giving herself breathing room. He didn’t wear cologne, but something about his scent, his warmth was intoxicating. “It would be suicide, Cavanaugh.”
He shrugged with his good shoulder. “I’m not all that easy to kill.”
Vinnie felt cold sweat bead the back of her neck and remembered her premonition earlier. She stood and turned from him, pretended the fire needed tending.
He moved to stand behind her, his good hand resting on her shoulder. She closed her eyes for one long, blissful moment. It had been so very long since anyone had touched her, been this close.
“Hey, Smokey,” he said, pivoting her around to face him once more.
His eyes locked onto hers, and Vinnie felt a jolt of heat that she tried very hard to ignore. Then his gaze dropped to her mouth, and she knew he had felt it as well.
“It’s going to be all right,” he whispered as he lowered his lips onto hers.
Vinnie wasn’t certain if he meant The Preacher, their getting off the mountain alive, or this kiss that sparked through her body like a wildfire through dry brush. She opened her mouth wider, inviting him, answering him, and decided it didn’t matter.
His hand rose to cradle her jaw, stroked her cheekbone in a soft caress that contrasted with the urgency she felt. She shifted her weight, pressed her body against his as her arms wrapped around him, pulling him closer. For the first time in so very long, Vinnie felt warm.
Big mistake, Lucky kept telling himself, even as he sank deeper into her embrace. Very big mistake.
One or both of them might be killed soon—and he had no choice but use Ryan as his backup quarterback to deliver his intel to Rose Prospero. Which meant he would be placing her life at risk, a civilian with no training. What other choice did he have?
None. And making that choice wasn’t going to be any easier by getting emotionally involved with this woman.
Who cared? the basest, most primitive part of his mind shouted.
For the first time since The Preacher had caught Lucky last month, Lucky felt alive, didn’t feel as if he were wrapped in cotton wool, unable to feel anything. He’d been frightened that that dull, cold emptiness would never leave him. Now he’d found someone not only to banish the numbness that had engulfed him, but who could lead him from the darkness.
He looked down into her eyes, loving that she was only an inch or so shorter than him, their bodies fitting together just right. He felt as if he knew her—
A memory jolted through him. A memory from that awful night last month while he was unconscious, left for dead by The Preacher. He’d dreamed of a forest primeval and a regal Lady who ruled it, a woman with alabaster skin and raven hair, eyes dark as night.
Ryan was his Lady, he was certain of it.
No, it couldn’t be. He pulled away from the kiss, gently disengaged her hands from his body and took a step back to clear his mind. It would be a cruel fate indeed to find his dream Lady—the one who led him out of Hell and gave him the will to survive—here in this godforsaken wilderness where there was a very good chance they would both die.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, turning his head away. His thoughts collided, jumbled.
The Preacher, the information vital to saving so many, the blizzard outside, the face of the woman in his vision when he’d been near death, and the very real, vivid image of VD Ryan and how she felt in his arms, how she made him feel.
He looked up at her. She appeared to be stunned, as if ghosts of her own chased through her mind. Of course. Her husband—oh boy, this was a very, very bad idea.
“I shouldn’t have,” he stammered, “I’m sorry, Ryan.”
She shook her head, and her eyes cleared. She surprised him with a smile, the first genuine one he’d seen from her, it lit her entire face. “Don’t be. No one—I mean, it’s been a long time.” Her smile faded somewhat. “A very long time. Thank you.” She turned away to take the pot of melting snow off the fire. “And the name’s Vinnie.”
“Vinnie?”
“Short for Vincenzia.”
Sure, that would have been his next guess. Vinnie. He liked it better than Smokey, definitely an improvement over calling her by her dead husband’s name. “So what’s the D stand for?”
“Don’t press your luck, Cavanaugh,” she said. And just like that, she’d put them both back on even footing.
Lucky finished with the computer, memorizing the files in it. While Vinnie refilled the water containers and brought more wood in, he used his Leatherman to remove the hard drive. Just like a couple of married folk, he thought with a smile as he caught the door with his foot, held it as she came inside with an armful of logs. Well, married folk in the middle of nowhere, about two hundred years ago.
She curled up at his feet, and he had to resist the urge to reach a hand out to stroke her hair. It was thick and luminous in the firelight, he didn’t understand why she kept it confined in a braid. Hair like that was a crowning glory, should be displayed for everyone to see. And certain men to run their hands through, bury themselves in.
With an effort, he pulled himself back from his primitive urges. Damn, no woman had mesmerized him like this before. Maybe it was the adrenalin, triggering a chemical reaction that made him more aware of small details that he’d never noticed in other women. Like the crescent-shaped dimple in her left cheek when she smiled or the way her eyes were set a little too far apart and her nose was just the tiniest bit crooked.
“Here.” He handed her the small metal hard drive that held the memory of the computer. “Keep this where you won’t lose it, no matter what.”
She turned it over in her hand, then reached for a waterproof bag to secure it in. “You memorized everything on that computer?”
He shrugged, embarrassed. “I have a kind of photographic memory.”
“Eidetic memory,” she said with a nod. He looked up at that. “What? I went to college, Slippery Rock University.” She watched as he turned the computer back on. “What are you doing now?”
“Draining the power so that they can’t turn it on, see that the data is gone.”
She rocked back on her heels, looked up at him with a gleam in her eyes. “What are you planning, Cavanaugh? You can’t blow up this cabin, it’s government property.”
He loved the way her mind worked in the same devious directions as his. “Wouldn’t dream of it—not after you said you helped build this palace. Just figure it always comes in handy to have a spare bargaining chip.”
“A bargaining chip that happens to be useless to anyone.”
“Ahh, but they won’t know that.”
“Hopefully not until it’s too late. So, got a new plan yet, cowboy?”
“I was thinking maybe you’re right and we should stick together for awhile.” He hated it, felt like he was dragging her in deeper, but what choice did he have? He pulled the map across his knees, poi
nted to her cabin.
“This is some kind of road, right?” He traced a dark line down from her home to Route 15 below.
“A dirt road. It’s passable with all-wheel drive in good weather. Storm like this, by tomorrow the only way to travel it will be skis or snowmobile.”
“Once The Preacher’s men find your car and know you’re involved, your cabin is the first place they’ll head.”
“So blowing up my car is like an early warning system?”
“You’re getting the hang of this, Vinnie. Our best bet is to get to your place before them, relay the message to Washington.”
“Yeah, but then what? The Preacher’s guys will have us out flanked—this side of the gorge and down below.”
“I was hoping you’d know more places to hide. It’d have to be better concealed than this.” He gestured to their luxurious accommodations.
“I know a few, but there’s no Jacuzzi or room service,” she said with a smile.
“That’s what I was afraid you’d say. Look, I want you to memorize this number, in case anything happens to me.” He wrote down Rose Prospero’s phone number for her. “If you call, they’ll answer, Standard Communications. Ask for Rose Prospero or Billy Price. Tell them The Preacher is planning multiple strikes during the State of the Union address on Tuesday, including ones on the UN, Congress, the CDC, the IRS and Pentagon computers, and the Port of LA. All the details are on that hard drive.” He watched her read the number, her teeth worrying her lower lip as she memorized it.
“This is really bad, isn’t it?” she finally said in a small voice. “I mean I knew it was, but I guess it kind of felt, I dunno, like something out of a book or something—not real.”
Lucky slid down to join her on the floor, wrapped his good arm around her and pulled her close. “This is as real as it gets, Vinnie.”
She laid her head on his shoulder, and he buried his face in her hair, inhaling the lingering perfume of Ivory soap and wood smoke. Scents that were fresh and innocent, unlike anything The Preacher ever touched, so different from the chemicals that surrounded Lucky back home in his lab. Scents that reminded him of why he did what he did, who he might die protecting.
He would stop The Preacher, he vowed. Vinnie was going to make it off this mountain alive. Even if he didn’t.
CHAPTER 12
It was a familiar dream, one that Vinnie found herself reliving every night. She struggled against it as always, but was helpless to stop it.
Michael coming into the convenience store after pumping the gas, his hand brushing against her backside as he passed her to rummage through the candy bars.
The grey-haired Asian storekeeper looking at them both with distrust as she caught the bag of M and M’s Michael threw to her. The storekeeper’s nicotine-stained nails tapping the counter, waiting impatiently to finish ringing up their bill, drawing her attention away from Michael for one split second.
A warm breeze swept past as the door opened and a pock-faced teenager with reddened eyes entered. His smell, that particular musky-oniony smell of a body overloaded with methamphetamine made the hairs on her neck stand up. Then she saw the sawed-off shotgun in his hand.
Michael whirled, alert to her change in mood, the quick movement startling the robber who now stood between them.
Vinnie was certain that if she hadn’t been there, if it had been Michael alone in the store, things would have worked out much differently. He would have kept his cool, talked the crankhead down, or just bided his time and waited for the kid to leave with the thirty-four seventy from the register, then go after him.
It was because of her that Michael was dead. She’d seen the look on his face when he saw the kid aim the gun at her—naked, primal fury.
The kid had no way of knowing that he was a cop or carrying a gun. It was Michael’s expression that had made the kid shoot.
It was over in a heartbeat. Michael never even had the chance to reach for his weapon.
Vinnie was at his side seconds after he was shot, but a shotgun fired at point blank range leaves a huge crater behind as it rips through the heart and chest. There was nothing she could do except watch Michael’s blood gush through her hands, the light fade from his eyes.
Tonight the dream was different.
Lucky was there, his gun drawn, and he stepped between Michael and the shooter. A shot rang through the air, but this time it didn’t boom and thunder, swirling around her, echoing through her, making her tremble like the shotgun blast.
This time the sound was quick, clean and it was the robber who dropped to the floor. Lucky holstered his gun, still between her and Michael. He stepped closer to Vinnie, close enough that he blocked her view of Michael. Then there was only her and Lucky.
His gaze raked over her body, and it felt as if he caressed her with his hands. He was so close that all she had to do was tilt her chin to reach his lips.
And she did, immersing herself in his warmth as their bodies pressed together and his mouth opened against hers. His hands teased her into arousal as they removed her clothing with a feather-light touch, and suddenly she was naked, standing before him as he looked down on her body with approval. His mouth closed over her breast, shooting a flash of heat through her.
In the dream, the rest of the universe faded into blackness, there was only her and Lucky, joined together in a dance of passion that left her breathless.
Vinnie woke with a start. Lucky lay behind her on the bench, asleep, oblivious to the sweat that drenched her or her rapid breathing. She hadn’t had a dream that vivid, that arousing in—she couldn’t ever remember having a dream like that.
She felt ashamed, as if she had betrayed Michael even if it was unconsciously. The symbolism hadn’t exactly been subtle, with Lucky stepping in to give her what Michael no longer could.
She and Lucky were spooned together on the ledge, covered by their coats. She shifted position slightly, prepared to try to fall asleep again, when she felt Lucky’s erection as she moved backward on their narrow perch. Damn, what was she supposed to do about that?
She slipped from his embrace and threw more wood on the fire. As she straightened and turned, she realized that his eyes were on her.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, his voice emerging from the darkness, a disembodied caress that sparked a surge of desire.
The feeling overwhelmed her—as did the possibility that she might actually follow up on it.
She wasn’t ready. She couldn’t do this, she wasn’t going to do this. Vinnie stepped into her boots and grabbed her coat.
“I’m going to the latrine,” she said in a flat tone guaranteed to eliminate any thoughts of passion.
Vinnie walked out into the night, breathing in the crisp air in an effort to clear her mind. Biology, she reminded herself. Primitive responses to stress hormones, designed to ensure the propagation of the species. That’s all either of them were feeling. Nothing she couldn’t handle.
She used the chemtoilet and returned outside. A few stars were now visible, and the snow had tapered to scant flurries. She inhaled deeply. The air felt wet and heavy. There would be more snow tomorrow, maybe a lot more.
A small, keening sound was audible from the trees behind the shelter. She crept through the fresh-fallen snow, moving slowly, following the tiny squeaks. She made out several dark forms burrowed under a dead fall. Fox pups. Hungry, from the sound of them.
The crunch of footsteps behind her cut through the silence. She moved away from the den, gesturing for Lucky to move back as well. He wore his jeans but no shirt, his bandage casting a ghostly glow where it could be seen beneath his unbuttoned jacket. His gun was in his hand.
“What the hell took you so long?” he asked, sliding the gun into his waistband. He reached out with his good hand, took her arm. “I thought something happened.”
“Shh,” she said, leading him to a vantage point where he could see the fox pups. The mother fox, never far away, had returned and stood over her brood, staring at
the noisy intruders. “See them?”
“Fox, right? Don’t they have rabies?” His hand moved to the butt of his gun, and she took it away from the weapon, held it in hers.
“City boy. You don’t understand. There shouldn’t be babies that young this late in the year, but there they are, healthy and thriving.”
He shrugged. “A miracle in the snow, what’s your point?”
“The mother wouldn’t be able to care for them, keep them alive alone—not this time of the year. She’d have a hard time getting enough game to keep herself alive. There he is—” She pointed excitedly at the dark form edging along the hemlock stand. “The father, he must have stayed to help care and protect them. That doesn’t happen—not with this species.”
“Doesn’t happen very often with ours either,” he said, twirling her so that her back ended up against an oak tree, his body pressed up against hers. “That’s what you really mean, isn’t it? Michael left you behind, you think I’m not going to stick around either.”
The gun jabbing into her belly was answer enough.
“You have work to do.” She kept her gaze focused into the sky beyond his shoulder. “Important work.”
“What if I told you that you were important to me?” His breath was warm against her cheek as he leaned his head forward.
She opened her mouth to answer, but he captured it with his before she could reply.
His fingers stroked down her back, snagging the barrette that held her braid in place, then working to free her hair from its restraints. He combed through her long hair with his good hand, trailing along its length. It hit just above her waist now, she hadn’t cut it since Michael died.
He shifted position, aligning their bodies so that they fit perfectly and all thoughts of Michael faded into the night.
She shivered beneath his touch, her hands circling around the small of his back against his warm, bare flesh.