They moved toward the direction Lucky and Nadia had taken just as Nadia stumbled out of the trees.
Blood trickled down the side of her face and soaked her shirt. “You asshole,” she rasped at Lucky, wincing and grabbing the side of her bleeding head. She gestured to the woods, wavering on her feet. “You left me out there. Alone.”
Tern reached Nadia first, wrapping an arm around her to keep her on her feet. Gage was suddenly at Nadia’s other side. They helped her to the stumps around the fire pit.
“What happened?” Tern asked, as they lowered her to a sitting position. She held Nadia steady while Gage handed her his water bottle.
Nadia took a long drink, shutting her eyes and then slowly blinked them open. “Someone pushed me.”
Tern shared a look with the men hovering around them. “Are you sure you were pushed?”
Nadia went to nod then seemed to think better of it. Pain shimmered in her eyes. She gestured at Lucky who had the decency to look guilty. “I was hiking behind this dingbat. I told him to slow down. And then suddenly someone grabbed my pack from behind and flung me down the side of the mountain.” She closed her eyes and held her head in both hands. “I must have blacked out. It was hell getting back here.”
Robert moistened a t-shirt he’d pulled out of his pack and knelt down in front of Nadia. Gently he wiped at the blood drying on her face and neck. “It seems to have quit bleeding,” he said. “Head wounds are a bitch. I’m sure it looks worse than it is.”
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Gage asked.
Nadia slowly swiveled her head toward Gage as though just noticing him for the first time. “I don’t…think so.” She turned her hands over. The palms were scuffed up, the skin torn, with bits of dirt imbedded in the wounds. “I think I’d better lie down.” Her head rolled on her shoulders and she slumped, unconscious.
Gage caught her in his arms before she hit the ground, picking up her small hundred and twenty pound frame. She seemed more fragile than normal in his muscled arms. “Let’s get her to her bed.”
Tern rushed to lead the way to their cabin, flinging open the door ahead of Gage. He turned sideways to enter the cabin, and gently laid Nadia on the cot Tern indicated.
Robert had followed them in, while Lucky and Mac stayed just outside the door. Robert knelt beside the bed and continued to clean the wound. “Tern, in my pack is a small first aid kit.”
“On it.” Tern hurried out of the cabin but didn’t miss the look the men shared. She quickly found the first aid kit and returned. The blood on Nadia’s face was gone, revealing a huge goose egg.
“Oh, God.” Tern gasped.
Gage stepped toward her as though to comfort, but stopped, and shoved his hands in his front pockets instead. “Swelling’s a good thing.”
“He’s right,” Robert said. “I’d be more worried if there wasn’t any.” He took the first aid kit from Tern. “Thanks.”
“What can I do to help?” she asked, suddenly feeling at a loss of what to do. She needed to be busy or else the things battering the closed door in her mind were going to crash through.
“Help me get her out of these,” Robert said. “When she wakes up, the last thing she’s going to want to see is her bloody clothes.”
Gage took that as his cue to leave. “I’ll be outside if there’s anything you need.” He spoke to Tern but Robert answered him.
“We need more water. Hot water.”
“You got it.” One last look at Tern, and Gage left them alone.
Tern heard the murmured voices of Mac and Lucky join in with Gage’s. Mac’s uneasiness this morning came back to haunt her.
Tern worked on unlacing Nadia’s hiking boots first and then she and Robert carefully changed her out of her dirty and blood-stained clothes into a pair of warm, comfy sweats and loose t-shirt with the UAF Nanooks on the front. They didn’t speak until after Gage brought them warm water and they washed the evidence of Nadia’s fall away.
“She’s going to have some bruises,” Robert commented, pointing to Nadia’s scratched arms and the tops of her legs. “Must have been one hell of tumble. No sign of anything broken. She’s damn lucky.”
“Do you think she was really pushed?” Tern finally asked the question that was foremost in her mind.
Robert shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen signs of anyone else about. But I highly doubt she’d have tossed herself over the mountainside. Maybe her backpack snagged on a tree limb and caught her off balance? She could have overcorrected and fell.”
“I like that explanation much better.”
“Not what happened,” Nadia muttered, her eyes still closed. “I was pushed.”
“Nadia, how do you feel?” Tern knelt next to the bed.
“Crappy.”
“Will she be okay?” Tern asked. Robert had worked as an EMT for a time before he’d gone into business for himself and opened a Sporting Goods store. Tern didn’t know what she’d do if something happened to Nadia. She was like one of her sisters.
Nadia moaned and swore as he checked her eyes and vitals. “She’s going to have one hell of a headache—”
“Already do. Shh,” Nadia whispered.
“—and be sore for a couple of days.” He gave Tern a reassuring smile. “Lucky’s the one I’m worried about.”
“Yeah,” Tern agreed. “He’d better head for high ground.”
“Might want to give him a heads up,” Nadia said.
“We’ll be outside if you need anything,” Tern said.
“Got any tequila?”
“No alcohol until we know you’re out of the woods.” Robert said.
“Funny, doc,” Nadia said.
Tern and Robert made Nadia as comfortable as they could, and then joined the stoic men gathered around the fire that one of them had started. It was maybe mid-afternoon by her best guess. Seemed as though more time than that had passed since they’d all sat around enjoying breakfast.
Gage’s eyes captured hers and she was the first to look away. She’d taken a tumble along with Nadia. Only hers was along the line of stupidity.
“Did anyone get to their caches before the warning shots?” Mac asked.
Lucky reached into his pocket. “This was all that was in the one we found before Nadia…” He handed over a box of matches to Mac. “There’s a note inside you don’t want to miss.”
Mac opened the matchbox and took out a piece of paper. “No matches. Rob, I hope you have a lot of fuel in that lighter of yours.” He dropped the empty box into the fire and unfolded the note. Whatever was written on it had Mac’s face turning to stone. “Another GPS coordinate and a message.” He glanced around the group, and then turned back to the note. “Reveal your secrets or suffer the consequences.”
Silence followed the statement.
Mac reached into his pocket, pulled out another piece of paper, and passed it around. “This is what Robert and I found.”
There is a murderer among you.
CHAPTER SIX
“What the hell kind of joke is this?” Gage asked, his voice hoarse. He had to work hard to swallow.
“If Nadia was pushed, it’s no joke,” Lucky said.
The message had been typed with a computer on generic white paper, giving no clue as to who had written it. With no choice, Gage handed the note to Tern while dread writhed inside him.
“Who would go through this kind of effort?” Robert continued. “The caches we’ve found so far weren’t set by an amateur. This took planning.”
“Which is why I’m concerned. From day one this game hasn’t run like a competition,” Mac said.
“Only because you declared that we break into teams,” Robert said, flip-flopping his argument. “Maybe you’re the one who’s set this up.”
“What do you think would’ve happened to Nadia today if she hadn’t been part of a team?” Mac demanded.
“Maybe being with Lucky wasn’t so lucky,” Robert said. “He could have pushed her. Did anyone think
of that?”
“Hey!” Lucky said. “Wait a damn minute.”
“Lucky is a Buddhist.” Tern jumped to his defense. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Thanks, Tern,” Lucky mumbled.
“What about you, Tern?” Robert taunted. “I don’t know these guys from Adam. But we’ve all known you.”
“Are you really going to go there?” Tern asked, her body going still.
“I hate to say this, but Robert has a point,” Gage said. Even though part of him wanted to pull her into his arms and protect her from the anger and blame coming off Robert. It was way past time this was addressed. “The only thing we have in common is you.”
“I was with you, remember.” Hurt simmered in her dark eyes for a minute before she blinked it away.
Like he’d ever forget. The taste of her, the feel of her under his hands as his body took hers, and was lost within her soft heat. Lost was a good word to describe him right now. He shouldn’t have made love to her. Who was he kidding? He hadn’t made love to her, what they’d had was a fast fuck against a tree. He hadn’t shown her any affection, his need for her too raw, too animalistic. He had a lot to ask her forgiveness for.
“All I said is that you are the common denominator,” Gage said. “In order to figure out what we’re dealing with, we’re going to have to look at our relationships with you.” Her relationships with these other men ate at him. They’d held her, had also known the ecstasy of being in her arms.
Tern glanced from Robert to Mac and then to Lucky. She ended with him. “You think I’m some sort of a black widow, and I’m after killing the men I’ve slept with?” She said it as a kind of joke as if hoping to dispel the thickening atmosphere. If anything, it darkened the mood further. “Oh, come on. What would I have to gain?”
“Who’s to say you have to gain anything,” Robert said. “You’ve proven to be fickle before. Remember that night you were with me but went home with him?” He pointed to Lucky.
“Why you son of a bitch.” Tern jumped to her feet.
“Tern, sit down,” Mac barked. “Robert, apologize.”
“The hell I will.”
“Enough,” Gage said. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.” Tern sat, but Robert folded his arms across his chest, a smug look on his face. He’d been waiting to drop that bomb, Gage thought.
“Tern, what did you and Gage find in your cache?” Mac asked.
Tern’s face flamed and she dropped her head as if hoping her hair would hide her reaction.
“The gunshots interrupted us before the cache was located,” Gage answered for her. “I’ll head back up there.”
“Not alone.” Mac grabbed his shotgun. “Wait until I get back with Leroy and then I’ll go with you.”
“What?” Lucky raised his head. He’d seemed to have meditated out most of the conversation. “Where are we going?”
“I need to see where you lost Nadia. I want to look around, see if there’s evidence of her being pushed.” Mac double-checked the shells in his shotgun, snapping it shut with a flick of his wrist. “We need to find some clues on who’s setting us up. Robert, you and Gage stay here and keep an eye out.” It went unsaid that he meant protect the women.
Tern crossed her legs, obviously resenting the implication that she and Nadia couldn’t take care of themselves, but she kept her mouth shut.
Mac and Lucky left. Robert regarded Tern with open suspicion.
“Oh, to hell with this.” Tern stood and stomped off toward her cabin.
Gage looked at Robert. “You’re an asshole. I bet it didn’t take her long to figure that out and dump your ass.” He got up and followed Tern. She emerged from the cabin almost as quickly as she’d entered, holding a change of clothes and a bag of toiletries.
“Where are you going?”
“I thought it was obvious.” She held up the items bundled in her arms.
“You heard Mac. You aren’t going anywhere alone.”
“Listen, I’ve done a fair job of squashing the reality of what we did earlier. In order to keep up the pretense, I need to wash off your scent.”
He grabbed her arm as she tried to push past him. “Not alone.”
“Let go of me.” She waited until he released her. “Gage, get this clear, you don’t have any rights to me. If I want to wash, I’m going to wash. If I want to sleep with every man here, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Try it.” Gage stepped closer, his chest brushing hers. She sucked in a startled breath, but didn’t step back. “You make one sexual move toward any one of them and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
“You left, throwing away any rights you had toward me.” Her voice broke and the pain in her eyes had him wanting to hold her, beg her forgiveness for what he’d done six months ago and how he’d treated her today. But he couldn’t.
She was right. She was no longer his to lay claim to. And when she found out why he’d left, she’d look at him with contempt as well as with the pain he’d caused her. “Tern—”
“Leave. Me. Alone.”
“I can’t.” He hardened his jaw. “Not until the threat has been neutralized.”
“If you don’t give me some space, I’ll be the biggest threat you’ve ever come across.”
He watched her stomp away, giving her about twenty paces before he followed. No way was he leaving her unprotected if there was a threat waiting out there. He had a lot to think about with what had happened between them today. His plan to stay away from her until he’d worked her out of his system was obviously a fool’s plan. She’d been able to push all his buttons today until he’d lost control. They should talk about what happened, but he didn’t think she was open for conversation right now and he didn’t know what to say.
Tern returned to camp, clean, but still in a foul mood. She hadn’t been able to relax in the hot spring during her scrub fest. Not with Gage standing guard a few feet away in the bushes. The man needed to take lessons from Mac. Covert he was not. She hoped he’d enjoyed the view.
Gage entered camp a few minutes after her, making it look as though they’d planned a clandestine affair. Robert glared at her. She ignored him, too, and escaped inside her cabin.
Nadia was still sleeping. Tern nudged her until she responded and then let her fall back to sleep. She took more time than needed to put away her bathing supplies, braid her wet hair, disposing of her dirty clothes and torn underwear in the laundry bag. She even took time to straighten the cabin. She’d thought about grabbing one of Nadia’s books, but her empty stomach sent her back out with the men. Plus, she wasn’t in the mood for a romance novel.
Not when she wanted to maim someone.
Gage was the first one she saw. Why couldn’t the man take himself off somewhere? She needed a break from his wary eyes.
“Let’s make lunch.” The men would think better on a full stomach too. Food might do all their tempers some good and besides, Mac and Lucky would be ravenous when they returned.
“What’s left to eat?” Robert’s tone had a whine in it that made her want to slap him.
“There’s rice, remember,” Tern said. “We still have the smoked salmon. I suggest we get the rice going, and I’ll take a stroll around to see what else I can add.” That would keep him busy and not brooding like he was doing now. Brooding wasn’t going to help any of them.
He scoffed. “I don’t know how to cook rice.”
“Well, here’s your chance to learn. Two parts water to one part rice. Simmer. Don’t boil.” Just because she knew her way around a campfire didn’t mean all the cooking chores were going to fall to her.
Tern headed toward the forest.
“Where do you think you’re going now?” Gage called.
“Let’s not do this again.” Did he have a death wish? “I’m going to gather more food for dinner.”
“Stay in view of camp and make it quick.”
She bit back a retort. This overprotective crap was getting old, fast. Taking orders was an ex
ercise she didn’t subscribe to.
Tern concentrated on picking greens for a salad, staying in view of camp. Finding a thicket of willows, she freed her pocketknife from the scabbard on her belt and cut strips of bark. With her supplies bundled in the pouch she’d made from hiking up her shirt, she headed back to camp. She felt the searing flick of Gage’s glance over her exposed midriff.
She hitched her shirt higher and hoped the sight of her abs tormented the hell out him. She wanted him tied in knots, plagued with thoughts of her as she’d been these last months about him. It was childish and didn’t help the situation, but there it was.
The rice was in the pan, boiling over hot flames when she returned. Again using her shirt, she grabbed the handle and pulled the pot back over coals and not flames. Robert gave her a guilty look.
Did men mess up instructions on purpose so women wouldn’t ask for their help?
She added more water to the rice since too much of it had boiled off rather than soaked in. Once the rice was cooked, she added bits of smoked salmon and then stirred in the remainder of the cheese, making a casserole of sorts. Her stomach rumbled. It wasn’t a meal you’d find in a restaurant or even in her kitchen, but it smelled good, and she was happy with the results. She served it up to the quiet group, along with the wild green salad. Before eating herself, she checked on Nadia, who was still sleeping, her breathing even and pulse steady.
Mac and Lucky returned with Nadia’s backpack.
Both Robert and Gage stood as though at attention for their next orders. Lucky seemed more upset than when he’d left.
“How’s Nadia?” he asked, voice full of remorse and worry.
“Still sleeping,” Tern replied. “I’ve made something to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.” Lucky turned toward Nadia’s cabin, while Mac dropped the backpack and took a seat on one of the stumps.
“What’ve you got?” Mac asked.
Tern dished him up the salmon and rice, and he dug in.
Robert and Gage gathered around Mac, waiting. Once Mac shoveled in a few heaping bites, he started to talk. “Found her pack down an embankment, choked with trees. If it wasn’t for the neon strip of orange, I wouldn’t have seen it. Leroy made the right choice in returning to camp for help. With her knocked out, and no sounds to help him locate her, he wouldn’t have seen her.”
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