“The dust has been kicked up,” she said in explanation.
“I see that.” He stood, peered into the sink. “And a couple of empty cans of pork and beans, freshly opened.”
“Maybe it was the people who owned the cabin.”
“Maybe,” he said slowly. “But I have to wonder if it was her, and your dog just confirmed it.”
Dani advanced into the room, turned in a full circle. “Where would she go?”
He put a finger to his lips, pointed to the closed door. “That was open when I came in the first time,” he whispered.
She couldn’t deny the streak of fear that skidded up her spine. She swallowed, then moved away.
Will crept toward the bedroom door, put his hand on the knob. He flung the door open and swept the room with the muzzle of his gun as if the girl might run out and tackle him.
Dani tried to tuck her heart back into her chest. “Oh, good grief, Will. She’s a young girl, most likely hurt and very scared. You’re going to give her a stroke. Besides, the wind probably blew the door shut when we opened the front door.” She walked past him into the room.
Sunlight poured into a back window. The boards swung free, probably loosened from the storm. The bedspread was off the double bed, leaving only rumpled sheets. She stared out the window, heart thumping, disappointment lining her throat. “She was here—”
A thump. Outside, on the porch. Will met her eyes, and suddenly she got it. He wasn’t playing at Rambo; he was Rambo. And right now Rambo Will had the little hairs on her neck standing on end. “Get down!”
What?
Only she did, more from reflex than obedience. Then he turned and disappeared, taking her heart with him. Will!
“Drop it!”
“You drop it!”
She fought to untangle the voices.
A shot, splitting the fear.
No! “Will!”
“Dani, stay down!”
Not on her life.
They’d found her. And she’d been careful, just as Kutsi had taught her. Fadima had cleared the log from the window, and she circumvented the regular path down to the waterfront so she hadn’t left a trail. Of course, Kutsi had taught her on the steppe, but she’d applied the principles of stealth. Maybe they’d used the dog.
Fadima stood outside the clearing. In her hands she held a bottle she’d dug out of the cabin owner’s recycle bin, and as she trembled, it spilled lake water onto her shirt. She swallowed a pool of dread and edged back. She’d been looking forward to sleep, to warmth. To another can of beans. Thankfully, she had taken the blanket off the bed.
But if the weapon the man held and the two men who followed him in were any indication of the kind of trouble stalking her, she’d better run.
Now.
“Jim Micah, the next time you decide to bushwhack me, I’d appreciate advance warning,” Dani said. “Are you okay, Will?”
Will sat on the cabin floor, a towel to his nose where Dani’s so-called friend had drop-kicked him while some other high-energy soldier he recognized as Conner Young had shoved a Beretta M9 that looked sickeningly like his own into his face.
If she hadn’t run out and jumped on her friend’s back, Will had no doubt that someone would be seriously injured and in need of a medevac. Maybe even him.
Sadly, he knew these friends—too well—and if he didn’t do some fast thinking, they’d know him too in about five seconds. Wouldn’t that be a great way to tell Dani that he’d been lying to her since he’d known her?
Please, please don’t let Jim Micah remember him. Thankfully, the first time he’d met Micah face-to-face had been in the dead of night during a rescue raid on a terrorist camp on the wrong side of the Iraqi border. The 10th Special Forces was big enough for them not to bump heads or operations too often. If Lew hadn’t been assigned to Micah’s team the day they’d gone out on patrol and been snatched by Kurdish rebels, Will probably wouldn’t be in this mess now.
At least Will was wearing war paint, and had the advantage of this being the last place in the world Micah would expect to see him, right?
Think fast, Will. The only thing that balmed his wounds was that Dani sat next to him, nursing him, while Conner dealt with his own blood and a huge swelling lip.
She glanced at Micah, who looked like he wanted another go at Will if only Dani would get out of the way. He wondered if Micah would have hit him if he’d known he was jumping a fellow Beret. Well, if he’d known it was Will, probably … yes.
Wasn’t this fun?
Micah leaned against the doorframe, scraping Will with a gaze that looked downright poisonous. “One of you over-the-edge jokers want to tell me what’s going on?”
Dani’s gaze snapped to Micah, and Will hid a smile. “Joker? Is that what you call hanging out in the bush for days, nearly getting myself and my dog killed?”
“I’d call it breaking and entering,” Conner said quietly, still every inch the stealthy, deadly type. He didn’t look at Dani when he spoke.
“We’re searching for a teenage girl. She was reported lost a few days ago.” Dani turned to Will, checked his nose. “It’s better.”
He didn’t look at her as he wiped his hands off. “Who are these guys? Your friends?”
“Yes, these are my good friends. Remember that search-and-rescue team I was telling you about?” She gave a grim nod. Then she rose and gave the tall blond a hug. “How are you, Conner?”
Okay, that warm and friendly gesture felt like a sucker punch right to Will’s sternum. He even blinked, as if in pain.
“Jim Micah.” He held out his hand to Will in greeting. However, his gray eyes, hard as flint, held no welcome.
Will met his grasp, feeling like a jerk. Most likely, Micah would be on his side if he knew the full scenario. Except, perhaps, for the part about Will lying to Dani—over and over and over. “Will, local reporter.”
Conner gave a harrumph of disbelief.
Will shot him a look.
“No, he really is,” Dani said and gave Micah a kiss on the cheek. Will felt instantly jealous. “I met him a few days ago. He’s been helping Sarah and me with the search.”
“Really?” Micah said, but it didn’t sound like a question.
“Yeah, really,” Will snarled, surprised at his tone. “I’m just a guy trying to do the right thing.”
Dani stared at him.
He sighed. So much for staying calm, not blowing his cover.
Dani got up and leaned against the table. “Okay, so what are you guys doing here? I thought you were supposed to be planning a wedding, Micah?”
He smiled slowly, his gaze still pinned like a rattler’s on Will. “Lacey’s got that covered. I’m just in the way. Besides, when we got the call about Missy last night, well, we decided to gets a hands-on look at what was going on up here.” He finally loosed his glare on Will and gave Dani a soft look. “She’s doing okay, by the way. Andee flew us up. We arrived after you left this morning and hung out with Sarah. She got nervous when she couldn’t raise you on your cell phone.”
“Yeah, I lost the signal around lunchtime.”
“Hence, our timely arrival,” Conner finished. “I tracked you through the GPS equipment I installed on your cell phone.” He took his own scrutiny of Will. “I still don’t get the interesting SAR getup. You look like—”
“A terrorist,” Micah finished.
Will sighed in relief. “Thanks,” he said, climbing to his feet. “I really like your friends, Dani.”
Micah raised one dark eyebrow. “Dani?”
Was she blushing? She tried to glare at Will, but it didn’t quite work. “They grow on you,” Dani told him.
“Sorta like a wart?”
“Okay, that’s good, soldier. Who are you, really?” Micah took two steps toward him.
Suddenly Will recognized Micah as Iceman, a guy whose reputation preceded him. Jim Micah had been his hero in more ways than Will could count—mostly because of his legendary battle tactics and
his ability to think without his emotions and get the job done.
Will tensed, fishing for some sort of truth. “I’m a reporter. But I used to be in the Rangers.”
Micah frowned as if digesting this information. “So why the getup?”
Will sighed, growing very, very quiet. Even Dani cast him a frown. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
Pain flashed through Dani’s eyes. “What? Will, are you … hiding something from me?”
Will turned away, picked his weapon off the floor. “I’m going for a little walk. Don’t go anywhere ’til I get back.”
Her silence in his wake spoke volumes. He might have preferred a slap across his face.
Conner stepped out beside him, keeping pace as Will left the cabin.
“Go away,” Will said.
“In your dreams. It’s obvious to both myself and Micah, the two former Green Berets in the room, that you are on a mission op here. And we don’t much appreciate your dragging our friend Dannette into it.”
“She followed me.” Okay, that wasn’t quite true. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’re always choices.”
Will stopped, turned. Conner stood eye to eye with him. “Not always. Not this time. Dani was determined to tag along. I couldn’t leave the lost girl out there, and I was afraid if I sent Dani home alone she’d get hurt.”
“Define hurt.”
Will’s jaw tightened. “Snatched.”
Conner didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. “And the girl? What’s she about?”
Will shook his head. “That’s the part I can’t tell you. But feel free to throw Dani over your shoulder and haul her out of here. You’re armed. Just … be careful. And good luck. She knows how to deliver a wallop.”
He got a hint of a smile from Conner. “She hit you?”
Will moved his jaw. “I probably deserved it.”
Conner’s eyes darkened, and suddenly Will saw his own reflection in the man’s gaze—haunted eyes, smeared greasepaint in his goatee, training in his stance, and power in his arms. More than that, he saw his past. Wild Will.
Conner probably saw it too. “You want to elaborate on that?” he said quietly, warning in his tone. “In what way did you deserve it?”
Will held up his hand, took a step back. “Don’t get your dander up. I was the perfect gentleman. She just … doesn’t like reporters.”
Conner frowned. Then finally he said, “That’s right; Dannette doesn’t like reporters. Which means that—” he stared hard at Will—“if she’s defending you, you must have won her trust.”
Will gave a curt nod. “Thank you. Finally. I promise, I have only Dani’s best interests at heart here.” He turned.
Conner’s hand clamped his shoulder, stopping him. “Dannette’s heart is a precious thing, pal. I’m using a friendly tone, but take me very, very seriously. Don’t break it. Or your nose is only the first thing Micah will break.”
Oh, Will had no illusions about how Micah would react. And rightly so. In fact, he was living on borrowed time, and he knew it.
Maybe getting Conner and Micah on his team was the only way to protect Dani from the terrorists.
From himself. From Wild Will.
They’d crossed to the far edge of the yard, out of earshot. Will sighed, looked away from Conner, his chest knotting. “Conner, it’s me, Wild Will Masterson. From the 10th.”
Conner stared at him. Stepped back. Mouth open.
“The girl I’m tracking is part of a top-secret, deep-cover op that went south. I gotta find her. And Dani’s been helping me. I swear to you that I’m only trying to protect her.”
“By making her a target?” Conner kept his voice low, but Will heard the danger in it.
“She’s … so … stubborn.” Will’s frustration spilled out, and he fought to reel it in. “She went out ahead of me, and I couldn’t talk her or Sarah into quitting, so I tagged along.”
“You used them for your own gain.”
Will clenched his jaw. “I didn’t expect her to follow me here today. And when I saw her, I was stuck. I couldn’t send her back, or they’d find her—”
“Who’d find her?”
Will glanced past Conner, toward the cabin. “There are a couple of guys looking for this girl. They tried to take me out during a storm yesterday, and I have this gut feeling they’re still around.”
Conner glanced at the cabin. “We need to get Dannette out of here. But not tonight. We’ll camp here and head out at first light.”
Will nodded, feeling relief loosen his chest. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, Wild. I just don’t want Dannette to be around when Micah finds out who you are—and I’m not talking about your lying about being a reporter.” He shook his head. “Of all the ladies to charm, Wild, you sure picked the wrong one.”
Chapter 16
“SERIOUSLY, MICAH, WHAT are you doing here?” Dani walked onto the porch of the cabin, aware of a chill lacing the air as the sun slunk behind the horizon. They were surrounded by the smell of pine and the sounds of twilight—chirruping crickets and the rush of wind. Micah’s and Conner’s sudden arrival had begun to chip away at her confidence, add credence to the very real possibility that she had helmed a wild-goose chase.
Not to mention Will’s cryptic “I’m not at liberty to say.”
What did that mean? She had the eerie feeling that Will might know more about this missing girl than she did. A smart woman would pack up Kirby and head back to Moose Bend before Sheriff Fadden found out she’d defied him. Again. And, oh, again.
Maybe Will was just protecting his source. And while that stung, that supposition only confirmed the reason for his weird behavior. Will wasn’t an unscrupulous reporter. He did have integrity.
Dani poured out water for her dog and set the bowl down before taking a chair next to Micah’s. The words breaking and entering throbbed in her brain like a second-degree burn.
Micah sat forward in his chair, his arms dangling over his keens. His low, powerful voice hummed under her skin when he spoke, and she couldn’t deny she felt glad to see him. Even if he had tackled Will.
For a second there, she hadn’t known whom she should protect. And that confusion in itself had her heart in a painful tangle. Since when did she side with a guy she hardly knew over one of her best friends?
“Sarah was really worried about you. She thought you might be feeling strung out after the last couple of days, and she dropped a few hints,” Micah said.
“Which you were all too happy to take?” But Dani couldn’t help smiling. The fact that Micah and Conner had tromped through the forest to find her felt nearly like family.
“Lacey came with me to Moose Bend to talk wedding stuff with Sarah and Andee, and … well, a guy can only take so much pink. Who knew that Lacey would turn into a Southern belle, complete with frills and froufrou?”
Dani laughed. She had a hard time wrapping her mind around that image also. Especially since Lacey had made a living as a hard-living CIA agent for most of the past fifteen years. “C’mon, it can’t be that bad.”
He shrugged but smiled, and his expression radiated such joy it felt nearly palpable. The guy turned into a mess of goo around his fiancée, a woman he’d waited twenty years to marry. Dani knew that Lacey could march down the aisle wearing combat gear and a full-metal jacket and Micah would think she was the most beautiful woman on four planets.
She sorta wished she knew what that felt like.
“I am glad to see you, Micah. But only if you’re going to join in the search. I know she’s out here—I can feel it—and the very fact that Will is still here, beating the bushes with me, tells me he believes it too.”
“That’s what you call what he’s doing? Beating the bushes?” Micah asked. “Excuse me for stating the obvious here, but he’s a wee bit strange.”
Dani gave him a mock glare. “He’s nice. And harmless. I don’t know why he’s got makeup on. But he is a nice guy. I think he’s e
ven a Christian. He’s trustworthy and kind and loyal and dedicated. And under normal circumstances when you’re not holding a gun on him, he’s patient. You’d probably like him if you got to know him.”
“Really.” A small smile played at the corners of Micah’s mouth.
“Yeah, really,” she said. “He’s honest—he even told me about his best friend who got killed.”
Micah’s smile dimmed. “How did he die?” Too late Dani remembered that Micah, too, had lost his best friend. Only his friend John had been a CIA agent, and the lady Micah was about to marry had been his accused killer.
“A bombing in Macedonia, I think he said.”
Micah frowned, and she saw his gaze rove the forest beyond her, as if searching his mental files. “Not the Red Cross bombing?”
“I don’t know; he didn’t say. It happened three years ago.”
Micah’s expression turned grim, and something about it made her heart seize. Micah had been a Green Beret for much of his adult life and knew the gruesome details of some of the most brutal terrorist attacks across the world, especially in the eastern European theater. “The Red Cross incident redefined the land-scape of the war on terror, at least for those behind the scenes. Until that point, we thought we were dealing with many tiny blazes around the world that had to be stomped out. This bombing woke us up, made us realize we needed to refocus our efforts.”
Dani shook her head. “I don’t follow.”
Micah rubbed his large hands together and sighed deeply. “In an effort to help the Macedonians deal with the crush of refugees from Albania and Yugoslavia that had fled after Milošević’s reign of terror, the US and most of the NATO countries banded together and funded a huge Red Cross effort. We set up housing, opened hospitals and schools. And staffed them with military from all these nations: Australian, American, English, even Polish and Turkish personnel. The United Nations at work in a very experimental capacity. Obviously also the perfect opportunity to shake all of us up.”
“How?”
“We were attacked, the entire camp—buildings, ware-houses, vehicles were triggered to blow simultaneously. The devastation was …” Micah shook his head, and in his eyes Dani saw the horror of being faced with the ugly realities of the war on terror. “Before the attack, they caught one of the terrorists—actually a refugee who knew that the bombs had been planted. She and her daughter had escaped from the terrorist cell behind it and had gone into hiding at the camp. Their intel gave the soldiers who were on peacekeeping detail enough evidence to start a search. As some of the teams evac’d the camp, another unit did a systematic search.”
Escape to Morning Page 19