by Joan Swan
“Just a spark,” he said. “There’ll be a couple more.”
And there were. They lit up Teague’s face in quick, bright flashes. The engine finally cranked over, and as he drove leisurely from the parking lot, Alyssa watched the growing spectacle in front of the pet store. Vehicles screeched to a stop at all angles surrounding the store. Doors flew open and officers crouched for cover as they drew their weapons. Off to the side, men in F.B.I. Windbreakers stood questioning the store clerks.
A complex blend of fear and relief whipped inside Alyssa like a firestorm. All those police, gunning for Teague. For her, too. And as if they were invisible, she and Teague slipped right out onto the main road, where a sign directed them immediately onto the freeway.
Her mind was already miles ahead, on the road to that safe haven Teague had promised, when the car jerked to a stop. Alyssa flew forward. She threw a hand out to catch herself on the dashboard. The impact jarred her chest. Before she could gather enough air to let out a scream, Teague’s arms came around her. One hand pressed her face to his shoulder, the other slipped beneath Alyssa’s jacket and rested across her ribs. Heat penetrated deep into her body, relieving the pain enough to turn the scream into a gurgle.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “Shh, shh, I’m sorry.”
Within twenty seconds, the pain had vanished. Before she started to feel the desire that always seemed to follow, she pushed back, still breathing hard and fast, and wiped at the tears on her cheeks, unable to remember them falling. “What happened? Why’d you stop?”
He wasn’t looking at her, but over her shoulder, out the window toward the multitude of flashing lights and milling people. “Thought I saw someone ... Nothing. Stupid.”
But it wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t stupid. Alyssa could see fear in Teague’s eyes.
The car started forward again, Teague now focused out the front window. “Fasten your seatbelt. Please,” he added.
As he took the on ramp to the freeway, Alyssa looked back over the crowd. All she could see was a bunch of cops and a few guys in dress shirts and ties. They all stood near the storefront, conferring, interviewing, taking notes. But there was one man, dressed in civilian clothes—khaki cargo pants, long-sleeved shirt over a tee underneath, brown work boots—standing off to the side. He had his arms crossed over his chest and his butt planted against the grill of an F.B.I. vehicle. His gaze scanned the parking lot from beneath a tan ball cap. And as he turned his head, one of the lights flooding the lot shone across the side of his face, illuminating the dark red scar spiking over his jaw and the absence of at least part of his right ear.
“Who is that?” she asked.
“No one.”
“What happened to his face?”
Teague’s head snapped sideways, his eyes sharp on Alyssa’s. “What about it?”
“What do you mean, what about it? He’s missing an ear.”
Teague turned green. He rubbed his hand over his mouth and closed his eyes for an extra-long second.
“What?” she said. “You didn’t notice? Little hard not to notice. That is who you were looking at.”
“I was hoping ...”
“You were hoping it wasn’t who you thought it was.”
His hand slid to his scalp and rubbed. “Fuck me.”
“Stop saying that. And why does one man upset you more than a hundred cops?”
Teague didn’t answer. He remained silent as he drove, his hands busy in a familiar wringing of the steering wheel, his brow heavy in thought.
As Alyssa’s mind turned back to the fiasco they’d just fled, nausea rolled in her belly. She’d just walked away from her chance to escape, and she wasn’t sure if the queasiness stemmed from missing the opportunity or from nearly getting the opportunity.
At the first exit, Teague veered off the freeway and drove half a block to a gas station-slash-mini mart. Her muscles tensed, jutting another round of pain through her torso.
“Can we stop somewhere else?” Alyssa asked. “Anywhere else? I think I’m suffering PTSD.”
He parked around the corner from the front door, jammed the car in park and got out without a word. The slam of the door made Alyssa flinch. Instead of coming to her side of the car, he walked directly into the store without looking back.
A fresh sense of uncertainty tightened her chest. He’d left her in the car unattended and uncuffed. She looked out the window at a vacant office building with a FOR RENT sign out front, then to a darkened church next door, the parking lot empty. There was no immediate shelter within running distance, but she should still run. She should. So what kept her there?
He wasn’t gone long enough for Alyssa’s heart to slow to a regular rhythm, let alone for her to form an answer to the question. He approached her side of the car carrying a bottle of water and a newspaper. Popping the door open, he pulled the antibiotics from his pocket and twisted the top off, then held both out to her. When she took them, he closed the door without saying a word and walked around to the driver’s side.
He slid into his seat and sat there staring straight ahead without putting the car in drive. His fingers fiddled with the edge of the newspaper in his lap.
Alyssa downed a healthy dose of the fish meds, hoping they didn’t kill her, then looked at him again. “You’re kind of freaking me out.”
“What the hell is PTSD?”
“Post-traumatic stress disorder.”
He rolled his eyes, then turned to look at her with a quick snap of his head. “Why’d you do that? At the pet store?”
“I just ... I don’t know. You made it clear you’d die before you went back to prison. I ... I ...” Didn’t want to watch you die. “I didn’t want to see anyone get hurt.”
The paper crinkled in the quiet car as he dropped it on Alyssa’s lap. “Too late for that.”
Her gaze fell on the front-page photos of herself and Teague. They’d used her smiling medical graduation photo alongside Teague’s mug shot, his mouth tight, his eyes defiant. The stark contrast between their images couldn’t have been more blatantly designed to elicit sensationalism.
The headline read, ESCAPED CONVICT FOUND STABBED. The subtitle said, ANOTHER STILL ON THE RUN WITH CONFIRMED ACCOMPLICE.
“I can’t believe this. How does this happen?”
“I told you how it happens.” He backed out of the parking space and navigated onto the freeway. “It’s Titus—the older guard. You can’t do anything about it now, but when the time comes, I’ll give you enough evidence on the bullshit he pulled inside prison to use as leverage to get him to retract his accusations about the escape, make a public apology or something. Extortion, drug running, more crap than you’d ever believe. And if that brother of yours is half the attorney you say he is, he’ll be able to put Titus away until he’s a very old man.”
“That’s like putting a Band-Aid on a severed limb.” Alyssa recognized his effort to make amends, but it was way too little, way too late, especially when he’d only added fuel to the fire. “And then there is your money transfer.”
He tipped his head in concession. “Yeah, there is that.”
She rolled the paper into a tube and chucked it into the backseat. As the sun set against a dark blue sky, sinking behind majestic pines, Alyssa knew her life had changed forever.
“Are you going to tell me who that guy at the pet store was? I think after everything I’ve been through, I deserve to know what I’ve really been dragged into here, and I’m getting the impression it’s even uglier than it looks on the surface. Which is pretty damn ugly.”
Teague’s mouth twisted in consideration. “Let’s focus on one thing at a time.” He shook his head slowly. “I can promise you, that, Dr. Foster, is one bridge you’d prefer not to cross.”
ELEVEN
Teague took the Fallen Leaf Road exit off Highway Eighty-nine and slowed until he was crawling alongside the lake. He checked the rearview mirror for other vehicles, but the road remained empty. The sun slumped behind the Sier
ra Nevadas, casting deep shadows over the valley. As a boy, exploring the surrounding terrain with his best buddy, Quaid Legend, he’d dreaded the loss of sunlight. As a man, with a hostage and a shattered escape plan, he welcomed the darkness.
The car’s headlights lit the strip of asphalt, but Teague couldn’t see much more than the glow from an occasional porch lamp along the roadside. A recent snowfall had left a few inches of ice over the mountains, and a plow had scraped the white layer off the road and piled it along the borders.
Teague passed the familiar sign: WELCOME TO FALLEN LEAF LAKE, POPULATION 423. The little place had grown since he’d last visited, five years before. Fortunately, 421 of those 423 residents were fair-weather part-timers. They’d all be gone by now. The other two inhabitants were the mom and pop who ran the general store and lived in a dinky cabin on the opposite side of the lake.
The Legend family cabin came into view while Teague was still several hundred yards away. Relief crept in, but he choked it off. That sighting at the pet store made him realize there would be no relief until he was deep in Mexico with Kat.
Vasser. Lieutenant Colonel Jason Vasser. The man who’d interrogated Teague while he’d been in the hospital after the explosion. The man who’d sat in the back of the courtroom during Teague’s trial.
The fact that the guy was still hovering five years later brought all the strange circumstances surrounding Desiree’s death and the trial swarming back to Teague’s already overwhelmed brain.
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath.
His instincts were leading him down a very ugly path. He’d spent years trying to figure out who had set him up and why. The thought it could possibly have been someone connected to the Department of Defense—or so Vasser had claimed at the time—was just too enormous to contemplate.
As he scoured the area for signs of life, something dark and heavy and sinister hovered over Teague’s shoulders like a sooty blanket. He didn’t expect the cops to look for him here. At least, not initially. And by the time they dug deep enough to consider this place a possible hideout, Teague would be across the border, sipping iced tea, while Kat splashed in the warm waves.
Vasser, however, was another story entirely.
He turned off the headlights and eased off the gas until the car was barely moving and turned into the drive. Stopping halfway up the snowy gravel path, he reached for the gun he’d stashed between the seat and the door panel. With his other hand, Teague flipped the lights on and hit the brights.
The little house appeared in a wash of halogen. No movement. No shadows. No sound. No footsteps or tire tracks in the snow. The porch sat barren. The forest-green shutters were closed and locked over every visible window. A little of Teague’s tension eased as he studied the familiar cabin. By the looks of the place, Quaid’s family didn’t have any plans to return until the first thaw, sometime around May. And Teague didn’t feel the least bit guilty about using the cabin. Quaid would have supported this crazy-ass scheme one hundred and ten percent.
The thought of his long-time friend and fellow firefighter still pinched his heart even five years after Quaid’s death. That warehouse fire had damaged the lives of every team member, and the injustice still burned. But he pushed aside the pain and anger, just as he did every day, because there was nothing he could do to change the past.
He left the engine running, the heater on, and climbed out of the Honda. The icy air stung his skin and scraped his throat. With the headlights illuminating the area, Teague held the gun down by his thigh and walked the perimeter of the building, flipped the breakers and found the spare key.
Inside, he pulled space heaters into the two bedrooms and the open living area, turning them on full blast before returning to the car. Alyssa was still asleep. He opened the door and nudged her shoulder.
“Wake up, sleeping beauty, I’ve got a real bed for you.”
She shifted, grimaced, moaned. Sympathy pains twined through Teague’s body. The first few days after an injury were always the worst, and he expected the infection to wipe her out before the antibiotics kicked in.
“I know,” he said as he tugged on her arms to turn her toward him. “You’ll feel better tomorrow.”
Her eyes cracked open, hazed and dull, then immediately fell closed. “Where are we now? Siberia?”
“Funny. Somewhere safe. With heat and water and beds and food.”
She struggled to her feet, then swayed. Her hand fell against the car to steady herself and a shiver rocked her body. Teague leaned down, tucked one arm behind her shoulders, the other behind her knees and lifted. She relaxed against his body without complaint and laid her head on his shoulder.
Teague climbed the stairs, kicked the front door closed and carried Alyssa into the first bedroom. He dropped her feet to the floor and supported her weight with one hand as he drew back the covers with the other.
She fisted her hands in his shirt and kept her face snuggled against his chest. “Sleep with me.”
His breath froze in his lungs. Dick rose to attention. Muscles contracted. Heat raced beneath his skin. That hadn’t been the sweetest whisper he’d ever heard. The kind from his dreams. That had been his sick psyche, torturing him again.
“Please?” The test of his inner strength, his character, his moral fiber continued. “I hurt, I’m freezing, I ... just ...”
She sighed, the heat of her breath sliding along his skin. He curled his fingers in the covers to keep from curling them into her hair. Kept his body still to keep from rocking and rubbing against her.
“Make me stop hurting.” She turned her head, pressed her cheek to his chest and tipped her chin so the tip of her nose grazed his jaw. “Make me forget.”
Her hands roamed down his chest, fingers feeling along the muscles of his belly before finding their way beneath his shirt. His stomach muscles jerked. His struggling mind knotted. Warm palms, strong fingers. Rubbing, touching, enticing.
“I know you can,” she whispered against his throat.
Hell, yeah. His dick throbbed. Demanding.
Her lips pressed. Kissed. Lifted. Moved. Pressed again.
His mind filled with those secrets he’d shown her earlier. The slide and dash of tongue. Nip and scrape of teeth. Brush and suckle of lips.
Her hands slid around his ribs, nails scratching skin all the way to his back as she aligned her body with his.
Yes. Please. Yes.
No. Don’t. Stupid. Don’t.
His dick jerked hard. Possessed. Angry.
“Teague?”
A fist grabbed his heart and squeezed. For the love of God, why did she choose this moment to call him by name?
He dropped the covers, and pulled her fully into his arms. Her hands slid up his back along his spine and a long, satisfied sigh exited her lungs. He closed his eyes, swallowed the regret thick in his throat and savored the feel of her slim, strong body against him. Beneath one hand was the narrow waist, curve of spine, swell of hips. Beneath the other, slim shoulders, graceful neck, silk fall of hair.
“You need sleep,” he said. “Not me.”
He had no idea where that had come from. Some small, sane sliver of himself. Surely not from the animal standing here ready to devour her.
“I know what I need.”
Damn, but she was stubborn. He leaned away, pushed her back by the shoulders. As he expected, her gorgeous eyes were dark and angry and confused. Even hurt.
He cupped her face, ran his thumbs over her cheeks, regret thick in his throat. “But you don’t know who you’re asking to fill those needs.”
“Maybe I do. Maybe that’s what you’re afraid of.”
An arrow pierced Teague’s gut: bull’s-eye.
He pointed at the bed. “Sleep.”
She turned away, dropped to the bed and curled onto her side, arms tucked to her torso, knees tight to her belly. Teague slid off her shoes and covered her with the comforter, then pulled two more blankets from the closet and added them to the pile. W
hen he was done, she was nearly invisible beneath the mound.
He left her there with mixed relief and regret. She was too damned perceptive. Too damned insightful. Too damned intelligent. Add to that gorgeous, sexy and freaking willing ... and he had definitely taken the wrong woman.
Teague swapped the Honda for the four-wheel-drive Jeep Cherokee Quaid’s family kept in the detached garage behind the house.
Inside, he got to work filling the hearth, trying like hell to get Alyssa and all she’d offered out of his mind. He forced his thoughts toward the reason he was here, toward the attic access panel over the kitchen entry door. That’s all it took to replace the attraction with apprehension.
He’d stored all his precious memories of his past life in that space. More importantly, he’d hidden everything he needed for his new life up there before his trial had started, just in case.
As the fire caught and the sizzle of wood replaced the silence, Teague stood, dusted off his hands and headed toward the kitchen.
The big question that started his heart hammering against his ribs—were his documents still there?
Alyssa was on fire. Flames raced up her leg and across her belly. Panic clawed at her chest. She dropped to the ground, rolled, kicked, and slapped at the fire searing her knee, her thigh, her belly. A figure appeared, a shadow moving toward her. Just as she called out for help, his face came into view.
Teague.
He stood at a distance, firelight reflecting off his skin, lighting his eyes with an eerie glow as he watched her struggle. He reached out to her, but instead of helping, a fireball illuminated the palm of his hand. The flames shot from his fingers and hit Alyssa in the chest. Heat exploded.
Alyssa’s eyes popped open. Air rasped in and out of her lungs, fast and painful. Disoriented, she pushed up on her elbows and immediately suffered a stab to her side.