Conceal, Protect

by Carol Ericson

  When the appetizers arrived, J.D. ignored the flip-flop of his gut and prepared for his next assault on Pierpont to preoccupy his attention.

  He dropped another oyster on his plate and snapped his fingers. “Pierpont—banking, right?”

  “Steel.” Pierpont slurped from a shell.

  J.D. gulped some water to keep from gagging. “Was that your grandfather? Great-grandfather?”

  That set Pierpont off just like J.D. had known it would. If there was one thing his rich buddy, Gage, had taught him, it was that the wealthy, especially old wealth, enjoyed talking about their money and how they got it. Pierpont proved to be no exception.

  As Pierpont rambled on about his family’s money and interests, they ordered their food, and J.D. got a steak to erase the fishy taste of the oysters.

  By the time the waiter returned to take their dessert order, Noelle put her foot down, both figuratively and literally as her heel ground into the toe of J.D.’s boot before he could ask Pierpont another question.

  “I don’t think Bruce is an expert on desserts, so I’ll take the key lime pie, please.”

  J.D. jerked his thumb toward Noelle. “I’ll have some of her pie and a coffee, please.”

  After Pierpont put in his order, he excused himself to use the men’s room.

  When he turned the corner toward the stairs, Noelle turned on him. “What are you doing?”

  “Finding out about Pierpont.”

  “So run him through a search engine or ask me. I already know all this stuff about his family—ad nauseum. Once you get him wound up, you can’t turn him off.”

  “I’m trying to get a measure of the man, see if he’s the stalking type.” And make sure he doesn’t unearth my identity.

  “How is learning about his great-grandfather’s investment in steel mills doing that?”

  “You never know. People slip up.”

  “You know what?” She held up her hands. “I thought you were good at this spy stuff. Now I have serious doubts. I want to find out what he’s doing here. He’s never fully explained that.”

  The waiter delivered their coffee. “The desserts will be right up. Would you like two forks for that key lime pie?”

  “Please.”

  Pierpont returned before they could continue their discussion. He tipped some cream into his coffee cup. “And what about you, J.D.? Your family’s in ranching?”

  Noelle tapped her spoon on the side of her water glass. “I hate to break up this little bromance, but I’d like some answers of my own, Bruce.”

  Atta girl, Noelle.

  Pierpont looked up from swirling the cream into his coffee in what looked like a perfect spiral. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Why did you follow me out to Colorado?”

  “I thought we discussed this. I was in the market for a ski vacation and your presence in Buck Ridge seemed fortuitous.”

  “Why is my presence necessary for your ski vacation?”

  “Just because Alex left us doesn’t mean I’m any less interested in helping you turn that guesthouse into a studio. That’s one investment I’d like to make.”

  “And I thought we discussed this before. I don’t need your help to turn it into a studio.”

  “I know. I know.” Pierpont paused as the waiter put the two desserts on the table. “The money you got from Alex’s life insurance should be put aside as a nest egg or invested. You shouldn’t use it for the studio.”

  Noelle clutched her fork, the knuckles of her hand turning white. “It seems right.”

  Sighing, Pierpont sliced a neat triangle off his piece of fudge cake. “Guilt.”

  Noelle’s hand jerked and her water glass tipped over, soaking the white tablecloth. She tossed her napkin on top of the stain. “Excuse me, J.D. I’m going to use the ladies’ room.”

  J.D. rose from the booth, and as Noelle squeezed past him, a tear glistening on her check caught the low lights of the restaurant.

  Pierpont didn’t seem to notice as he surgically removed another bite of cake from the slice in front of him.

  Noelle hadn’t touched the key lime pie before she stormed off, and it didn’t seem right to start without her. J.D. folded his arms on the table. “What did you mean—guilt?”

  “When Alex got murdered, Noelle collected his life insurance, but she hasn’t spent a penny of it in two years. I assume it’s because she feels guilty.”

  J.D. knew all the facts about Noelle’s life but none of the emotion that went along with those facts. “You mean like survivor’s guilt? ‘Why him and not me?’”

  “Not—” Pierpont balanced the tines of his fork on the edge of his plate “—really.”

  “She can’t believe she could’ve stopped the murder.”

  “Not that either.”

  J.D. was ready to punch Pierpont in the face if he didn’t get to the point. He uncrossed his arms and leaned back against the seat. “Are you going to tell me or what?”

  “She felt guilty because she didn’t love Alex anymore.”

  J.D. schooled his face into neutral lines. Pierpont’s words surprised him, but he wouldn’t give the weasel the satisfaction of knowing that. “How do you know all this?”

  “I was there.” Pierpont resumed his dismantling of the cake. “I saw how it was.”

  “How was it?” If Pierpont tried to tell him Noelle loved him instead, he would punch him in the face.

  “I was friends with both of them. Alex started out with a bang, but Noelle’s star started to surpass his. Her art was getting more attention, and Alex responded like the petulant boy he was.”

  “He took out his frustration on her?”

  “Yes.” Pierpont popped the last morsel of cake into his mouth.

  “Not physically?” J.D.’s hands bunched into fists under the table.

  “Nothing like that, but he started getting controlling—watching her every move, monitoring her emails, texts, following her to work. It drove her nuts, especially after escaping from that mother of hers.”

  Mother? J.D. knew nothing about Noelle except the facts and figures on paper. Her mother lived in Arizona with a sister. Come to think of it, she and her mother must be estranged if she didn’t go to her for comfort.

  “So she fell out of love with him.”

  “If you ask me, she never did love him, but this new side of sweet Alex put the nail in the coffin—so to speak. She asked him for a divorce, and he refused. That was the state of their relationship when someone pumped a few bullets into Alex.”

  Noelle emerged from around the corner, and J.D. cleared his throat.

  Pierpont stabbed his fork in the air above the key lime pie. “Are you going to eat this?”

  Noelle hovered at the table, her eyes slits. “Still getting to know each other?”

  “I’ve been drooling over this pie waiting for you to get back.” J.D. stood up to let her back in the booth.

  “You could’ve started without me.” She waved her napkin at Pierpont. “Didn’t seem to bother Mr. Etiquette to start without me. And finish without me.”

  “Was that bad manners? I really didn’t think you were going to eat it, my dear.”

  “I am.” Noelle stabbed the fork into the pie, demolishing the perfect dab of whipped cream in the center in the process. She stuffed a huge piece in her mouth, her violet eyes tracking between him and Pierpont while she chewed.

  J.D. claimed his own forkful before she laid siege to the whole piece.

  Pierpont wrinkled his nose. “Glad to see you got your appetite back after marching off in a huff. I only spoke the truth. You have no reason to feel guilty about Alex’s death or spending his life-insurance money, if that’s what you want to do.”

  “Cut it.” Noelle drew the fork across her throat, looking as if she’d like to be holding it against Pierpont’s.

  She and Pierpont patched things up over coffee as they discussed plans for the studio. Noelle might not want Pierpont’s money for the project, but she didn’t mind
his ideas.

  At the end of the meal, Pierpont grabbed for the check and scribbled on it, charging the meal to his room. “I insist. If you won’t let me fund the studio project, I can at least buy you dinner.”

  “Thanks, Bruce. We’d better get going. Buck Ridge is expecting even heavier snowfall tonight.”

  “Are you sure you two don’t want a nightcap? If you’re going to become a wine snob, you’ll have to drink more than two glasses, J.D.”

  “Another time—not when I have to drive down the mountain.” J.D. snatched the coats from the hook and helped Noelle into hers.

  He’d tried to keep his wits sharp, but Pierpont didn’t have the same goal. He’d consumed another bottle of wine, mostly on his own, and the hard questioning attitude he’d brought to the table had disappeared in direct proportion to the wine.

  J.D. planned to avoid these little get-togethers in the future. Pierpont would get nothing from him. Not until J.D. was ready to come clean to Noelle on his own.

  Pierpont walked them out as far as the lobby and then retreated to the lounge for that nightcap.

  The icy wind slapped J.D. in the face, and his eyes watered. He drew the brim of his hat lower over his forehead.

  “Ooh.” Noelle’s word formed in the air. “It’s cold.”

  “Better pull that Russian getup of yours over your ears.” He turned toward her and tugged the bottom of her hat toward her chin.

  Then he kissed her, cold lips against cold lips, but it lit a fire in his belly. He could always blame it on the Shiraz.

  Still gripping her hat, he pulled her even closer, his mouth warming to the task. The tip of her freezing nose jabbed his cheek. Then her elbow jabbed his midsection—and the fire went out.

  “Whoa. Maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

  Seemed like a great idea one minute ago. “Sorry. Two glasses of wine and I turn into a slut.”

  She giggled, which stoked the embers again. He’d never heard her giggle before.

  “Let’s get out of this miserable weather.” He put his arm around her waist to guide her to the truck, and she didn’t jab him with anything else.

  With Noelle snug beside him, J.D. started the engine and got down to the business of getting them safely back to the ranch.

  The road down the mountain had a few twists and turns, but his four-wheel-drive vehicle hugged the icy asphalt. Their dinner with Pierpont had run late, and they had to share the road with only a few other cars.

  A pair of headlights glared behind him, and he adjusted his rearview mirror. “Must be some idiot who doesn’t realize you don’t use your brights in the snow.”

  Noelle yawned. “There are a lot of idiots like that out here during ski season.”

  The headlights pressed on. Bigger. Brighter.

  J.D. licked his lips and glanced at the speedometer. Nope. Not going any faster.

  On the next straightaway, J.D. pulled the truck to the right, flirting with the shoulder. If this maniac wanted to pass him, he could give it a try.

  The car stuck with him and followed him into the curve. J.D.’s tires fishtailed a little on the ice, and he eased off the accelerator.

  “Whoa.” Noelle grabbed the edge of her seat. “I think the plows better get out here.”

  The car loomed behind them, but J.D. kept his speed steady. Maybe the driver had been drinking at the lodge—even more reason for him to slow down.

  The snow flurries created a white sheet over the windshield, so J.D. took the next turn even slower. He could see the headlights of the other car closing in, but he couldn’t even make out the car itself.

  The truck jolted and skidded toward the edge of the mountain road.

  Noelle yelped. “What was that?”

  Before J.D. could respond, the car behind them smashed into their bumper again.

  “What’s going on?”

  “A car ran into us—twice, but we can’t pull off here. I can’t even see where the road ends and the drop-off begins.”

  The headlights behind them disappeared. J.D. said, “Did he go off the road?”

  The next assault came from the driver’s side, as the rogue car bashed into the truck’s side bumper. The force of the hit sent the truck into a spin on the icy road.

  Noelle screamed.

  J.D. fought to control the wheel, steering into the skid. Metal on metal screeched as the passenger side of the truck raked the guardrail.

  The truck lurched forward and plowed into something solid. The air bags deployed with a thump, and the truck screamed to a halt.

  “Are you okay, Noelle?” He cranked his head to the side, his cheek scraping the air bag. “Noelle?”

  The air bag had Noelle pinned to the seat, but her body was slumped to the side, her head against the cracked window.

  “Noelle?” J.D. reached across the seat, and her head fell back, a trickle of blood oozing from her temple.

  “If she doesn’t come out of this, Zendaris, you’re a dead man.”

  Chapter Ten

  The voices were coming back. They had faded away, and now they murmured and swirled around her, just like the snow. She stuck out her tongue to catch some.

  “Noelle?” Warm fingers pressed her cheek, and she inhaled the distinctly masculine scent of J.D. “She’s awake.”

  “How’s your head feeling, Noelle?”

  Her head? Blinking, she reached up, her fingers stumbling across a bandage. Her temple throbbed beneath it, and she closed her eyes. The darkness behind her lids soothed her.

  The accident.

  She struggled to sit up, but firm hands patted her back down. “It’s okay. We’re going to load you into the ambulance now.”

  “J-J.D.?” She chattered out the name, a sudden chill seizing her neck and jaw.

  A gloved hand grabbed hers. “I’m right here. I’m riding in the ambulance with you.”

  Her world jerked and swayed, and she squeezed her eyes shut tighter, but they were just rolling her stretcher to the ambulance.

  The ride to the hospital was a blur of the EMT asking her questions about the day of the week and the president in between pokes and prods from various medical instruments. And J.D. Always J.D., murmuring soothing words, touching her hand and adjusting the sheet covering her body.

  As long as they didn’t pull that sheet over her face, she figured she was okay.

  Later, it could’ve been minutes, it could’ve been hours, her stretcher zoomed through the emergency entrance to the hospital and down a shiny corridor that resembled more snow.

  She was still woozy and a little nauseous, but she was able to answer the doctor’s questions, and she remembered the accident itself up until the point where the truck hit the guardrail. That’s when she must’ve smacked her head against the car window.

  She even remembered floating in and out of consciousness as J.D. pulled her from the car and the sirens from the ambulance wailed to the rescue.

  When she got back to her room after the CAT scan, J.D. crept in and pulled up a chair.

  She opened one eye. “Concussion—nothing more.”

  “That’s enough. You had me going there for a while. You’d come to and then check out. Scared the hell out of me.”

  “How are you?”

  “I’m fine.” He rolled up his sleeves and held up his arms, bent at the elbow. “Just some abrasions from the air bag.”

  “The other car?”

  “Took off.”

  “What? Like a hit-and-run? Because it was totally his fault, unless he was skidding. But then, why take off?”

  J.D. shifted his gaze downward, his thick, dark lashes dropping. “I don’t think it was an accident, Noelle.”

  “You mean he was drunk, or...” The nausea hit her again and she gagged.

  “Water?” J.D.’s hand hovered over the plastic pitcher next to her bed.

  She nodded, her eyes never leaving his, although he avoided her stare.

  He handed her the cup, and she took a sip. Then she wiped the
back of her hand across her mouth.

  “You mean someone tried to run us off the road on purpose, don’t you?”

  “After all that’s happened, it’s too much of a coincidence to believe otherwise. If the other car’s brakes failed or it hit an icy patch, why would the driver take off after we crashed?”

  “Maybe he’d been drinking and was afraid he’d get cited for a DUI.” She pleated the sheet with shaky fingers. She didn’t want to be having this conversation.

  “If he was drinking and driving, he would’ve stopped the first time he bumped us.”

  Crumpling the sheet in her fist, she said, “But why? Why would someone stalking me want to kill us?”

  “Incapacitate.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t know that bumping a car like that into a guardrail would kill the occupants of the car, but it would incapacitate us. It knocked you out.”

  “But why? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  J.D. jumped up from the plastic chair so quickly it tipped over and fell to the floor, bouncing once. He paced to the window, plowing his fingers through his hair.

  The frustration emanated from his body in waves, so palpable she could feel it washing over her, merging with her own frustration into a crescendo ready to crash and engulf them both.

  Throughout the chaos of the past few days, it comforted her to know that J.D. had taken on her problems as his own. He wanted to nail her stalker as much as she did.

  And he’d kissed her. His interest in her had surpassed the mystery of the break-in and the text message. Or maybe the danger had been drawing them closer. She didn’t mind, although that kind of immediate attraction posed a danger all its own.

  He continued staring out the window, lost in his own thoughts.

  She coughed. “If they wanted to incapacitate us, they were successful. So why did they force us off the road and then leave?”

  “They didn’t leave—not right away.”

  J.D. rubbed his chin with his knuckles, and she held her breath, which caused her head to pound even more.

  “A patrol car happened to be following us some distance back. He drove up on the scene, saw my truck smashed against the boulder by the guardrail and saw another car, emergency lights flashing, pulled over ahead of us.”