Isabella could have wept with relief at their rescue. Since then, she’d been tempted to scream with frustration and confusion as Jacob seemed to distance himself more with each passing moment.
She told herself she should be grateful, that his behavior would make it easier to say goodbye.
But it wasn’t working as she stared into the mirror at her own bruised face and tried to be completely, brutally honest with herself.
It was true that her spontaneous combustion at the crash site could be blamed on adrenaline and a survivor’s rush. But something had happened between them while they were stranded out in that wilderness. They had made a connection. Found forgiveness for each other. For themselves.
So what was she going to do about it?
“Nothing,” she said very clearly into the mirror. “You’re going to do nothing about Jacob Powell, because he isn’t your focus. Hope, Becky and Tiff are your focus right now. They’re your duty.”
With that in mind, she showered quickly when she wanted to linger, and pulled on newly bought clothes with little thought to how they fit or looked. She dragged a cheap brush through her still-wet hair and left the plain room without a backward glance.
She paused at the door to a small suite three rooms away, and knocked. Without waiting for an answer, she pushed through and was unsurprised to find Jacob there, along with the eight bounty hunters Cameron had selected for the raid.
They had already discussed and discarded the idea of calling in the authorities. For one, it would take too much convincing and they didn’t have the time to spare. For another, they were unsure of Cooper’s place in all this.
The Secretary of Defense had refused to call in the authorities when conventional hostage wisdom said otherwise. He’d had her discredited with the Service almost immediately, blocking her from providing any help at all. And he’d changed his position on the Lunkinburg controversy right after the abduction.
Was he being held up for political reasons? Or was something more sinister going on? Something more devious?
It was entirely possible that this whole thing had been a setup. That he’d known she had planted the bug and had sent the killers after her. But it was equally possible that Cooper was as much a pawn in this game as she was. That he was trying only to keep his family safe.
They wouldn’t know which until the next day, when they raided the cabin up on Devil Mountain.
Hating the unanswered questions and the potential dangers, she sat on a spongy couch at the opposite end from where Jacob’s weight pressed the cushions down, creating a tilt that threatened to pull her nearer his warmth. She ignored him, ignored the questions that still swirled between them, and fixed her attention on Cameron. “What’s the plan?”
But it was Jacob who turned to her and answered, “We go in just after dawn.”
THEY TWEAKED the plan for nearly two hours while Jacob tried to stifle his restlessness. Cameron ordered in pizza somewhere in the middle of an argument between Mike Clark and Tony Lombardi over the results of their early surveillance, which had revealed no sign of the woman or children, and only a cursory guard rotation made up of two men—identified as Kane Myers and Lyle Nelson, two of Boone’s goons.
“It doesn’t add up,” Mike insisted, leaning forward and gesturing with a can of soda—no drinking before the raid—to make his point. “Boone Fowler isn’t stupid, and his men have good survival skills. Even if they’re getting outside help from King Aleksandr—and I still say that’s a big if—I don’t see Boone being this lax. And then there’s the stance and attitude of the guards. It’s not quite right.”
Jacob’s attention shifted away from the warmth radiating from Isabella, who sat nearby on the small-feeling couch and focused on Mike. “What do you mean?”
The body-language expert shrugged. “They’re vigilant, sure. But they’re not paying as much attention to the nearby woods as they should be. They seem…too casual.”
Jacob shifted in his seat, hyper-aware of Isabella, of the dark circles beneath her mossy-green eyes and the bruise shadows that marred her fine skin. Frustrated by his continued attention split, he frowned. “What do you think is going on? Do you think this is a setup? That the hostages aren’t even in there?”
That was one explanation for why there had been no sign of the woman or children. Another was that they were being held somewhere out of surveillance range.
The third possibility—that they had already been killed—wasn’t one he wanted to consider.
But Mike shook his head. “I don’t know about that. But Boone’s men are too cocky. I think they’ve got another layer of defense, one that we haven’t seen yet.”
The suggestion hung on the air like a menace until Cameron broke the silence with a quiet curse and two damning words. “Booby traps.”
At Isabella’s questioning look, Jacob elaborated, “The MMFAFA, and particularly two of the fugitives— Marcus Smith and Leroy Edwards—are fond of explosives. Trip wires. Man traps. That sort of thing.”
She nodded. “Which leaves us where?”
“Proceeding very, very carefully,” Jacob answered.
After that, Cameron closed the meeting with a brief pep talk and an order for everyone to get a good night’s rest and meet back at the suite at 4:00 a.m.
They had decided to go in the next morning, which would give them the best opportunity to scout the hidden mines. Unfortunately it would leave them exposed once they left the safety of the forest near the cabin.
It was a calculated risk. Hopefully it would pay off.
The bounty hunters mumbled good-nights to each other and to Isabella. Some would sleep. Others would lie awake and plan.
Jacob feared he would fall into the latter category, especially after he watched her walk down the motel row to her room, step inside and close the door without looking back.
He wanted to go after her but didn’t know how. The brash young man he’d been in college would have knocked on her door and charmed his way in, or maybe challenged her to a game of darts.
But the man he’d become, who remembered the taste of her on his lips and the feeling of her coming apart in his arms after little more than a kiss, couldn’t bring himself to walk down the narrow cement strip to her door, couldn’t bring himself to knock or to speak with her once she opened the door.
Because what could he say? What had happened between them in those woods? He wasn’t even sure anymore. The whole experience felt like a dream, like a handful of days outside of reality.
They were back in the real world now, poised to move against Boone and his men the next day. Isabella had insisted on going in with the first wave, because Hope and the girls knew her and because she had a score to settle. Cameron had agreed. Jacob had been outvoted. Concern for her gelled in a nasty ball in his gut, even as part of him tried to look beyond the raid to the future.
If they managed to get through Boone’s booby traps and breach the cabin, if they succeeded in—God willing—finding and releasing the hostages, and if they got out unharmed…what then?
Isabella lived and worked in D.C., which wasn’t an option for him. Even if he could bring himself to move back into his parents’ world, he didn’t want to leave Montana. He’d found a piece of himself there and didn’t want to let it go.
And if they could make it work, did he want it to? The single life was comfortable for him. No bumps, no bruises. The only complications he faced on a daily basis were work-related, and he had the other bounty hunters for backup when he needed them.
A relationship, on the other hand, was one-on-one. Man and woman. Two people against the world, and sometimes against each other.
The prospect shouldn’t have been tempting.
But because it was, and because he didn’t know how to squelch the sense of impending doom, didn’t know whether it was attached to the next day’s raid or the prospect of Isabella going back to D.C. when it was over, he turned and stalked to his own room.
He banged the
door shut, and told himself the gunshot-loud slam was a statement. He wouldn’t be going to her. Wouldn’t complicate an already complicated situation, no matter how much his body begged for hot release, how much his soul yearned for soft comfort.
He showered quickly, trying to scrub away the images of the past few days. Trying to eradicate the memory of the paralyzing fear he’d felt when she’d jumped into the fight with the man in black…trying to wash off her essence, which seemed to cling to him now, like the smell of female flesh.
The smell of sex.
His first winter in Montana, he’d laughed with the other men at the sight of a bull moose in full rut. The poor sod had run around half-stiff all the time, worrying at his small herd of females for the duration of mating season.
These days, Jacob understood how he felt. Since Isabella had marched back into his life, he’d existed in a state of half-terror, half-arousal. He didn’t like it. Couldn’t handle it.
So he’d get her through the next day and do his damnedest to make sure she survived the raid unscathed. And then he’d put her on a plane back to the east coast and out of his life.
At the resolve, he felt a measure of relief, a measure of sadness. But he was convinced it was the right answer, the only answer.
Then he looped the towel across his hips and padded through the empty motel room, past the empty bed, and parted the heavy, light-blocking blinds, not even knowing why until he saw her sitting alone on a picnic bench in a clearing behind the motel.
She sat on the tabletop, her knees drawn up to her chest to conserve warmth, or maybe to provide a shield from the darkness of the forest beyond. A single spotlight illuminated her with light that should have been harsh but instead softened the gleam of her auburn hair and made her seem smaller. Less intimidating, though he’d never been quite sure how he could be intimidated by such a petite woman.
Fear had more to do with emotion than with size when it came to her.
He stayed still, watching her. Though his brain had listed all the reasons he should stay away, he wanted to go to her, to hold her and protect her from whatever lay in the darkness beyond the light. He wanted to wrap himself around her and pull her inside his heart the way he remembered doing years before.
The sane, rational part of him said to shut the blinds and back away. Go to bed and sleep through the night—or stare at the ceiling if that was what it took. He didn’t need this, didn’t need her, because he liked the life he’d made himself. He was a free agent, his own controller. He didn’t want to give anyone else a vote.
But those thoughts were drowned out by the sight of the curve of her cheek, so he stood still and watched.
Then, as if she knew he was there, knew he’d been watching, she turned and looked at him over her shoulder. She didn’t wave, didn’t gesture, and after a long moment, she turned back to the dark forest as though dismissing him.
Or maybe inviting him.
SHE SENSED HIM before she heard his approach. Or maybe that was wishful thinking, her desire for a connection that wasn’t meant to be. It was such thoughts running through her head that had sent her outdoors into the cool California night.
As though he’d read her mind, Jacob draped a jacket across her shoulders before climbing up to sit beside her, his feet on the bench below, his hands linked loosely between his knees.
She expected that at least a few of the bounty hunters were awake and pacing, and imagined that they paused by their windows to watch the scene on the picnic bench outside. But she didn’t feel their stares as she pulled the jacket tighter across her chest and tried not to inhale the masculine scent that rose up from it. Instead she felt cocooned by the night, held together with Jacob in a small, breathless space that contained the two of them and nothing more.
Perhaps feeling the same thing, or perhaps not caring either way, Jacob spoke normally, his voice seeming loud in the night. “We should talk.”
“No.” She reached out and touched his linked hands, and felt a shiver of surprise at the warmth, at the fact that she’d touched him at all. “Let’s not bother. We’ve said what’s needed to be said. You’re sorry about being such a jerk in college, and I’ve realized it was never about me being like my mother. It was about both of us needing to grow up.”
“We’re grown up now,” he said, the words emerging almost reluctantly from his mouth. He looked at her and his eyes were too close. Too unreadable.
She leaned away just a fraction, but enough to feel the cool air move between them, forming an insubstantial barrier. “Yes, we are,” she agreed. “Regardless of what happened at the crash site, we’ve grown up and apart.”
The air seemed to still, waiting for him to deny it, to tell her there was a chance for them, even though she knew there wasn’t.
“I’d say it’s more that we grew up in parallel,” he said.
Tension hummed between then, unwanted, unacknowledged. It burned beneath her skin with the insistent tempo of her heartbeat, and seemed to say. To-night…to-night…to-night.
After tonight, they would be headed in separate directions, one way or another.
She let go of his hand and wrapped her arms around her knees once again, shutting the cold out. Her heart bounded in her chest, but she forced the words as though they were casual. “You owe me a future claim from our dart game in D.C.”
His body stiffened, his eyes sharpened on her and he swallowed almost convulsively. “Yeah.”
The single word sounded as though it had been pushed from his chest by force of will. By passion.
She wet her lips and damned the butterflies in her stomach, the tingle of fear in her fingertips. Not fear of him, or fear of what was to come the next day, but fear of that precise moment.
Fear of rejection.
“Tell me…” She swallowed and tried again. “Tell me what you want. Tell me the truth. What you really, really want.”
His eyes narrowed, as though he hadn’t expected the question, as though he’d expected her to ask for the physical and instead she’d demanded something more difficult.
More emotional.
He looked at her for a long moment before responding. Then the tension drained from his body, from the air between them, and the heat in his eyes was banked behind cool green shadows.
“I want you to stay safe tomorrow. I want to find Cooper’s wife and children alive, and I want Boone and his men captured.” He took a breath, held it for a moment, then let it out. “I want justice, and then I want to get back to my life.”
Meaning that he wanted her out of it.
Trying to tell herself she was relieved, Isabella exhaled, uncurled herself and dropped down from the picnic table. “Good. We’re on the same page, then.” She thought about giving the jacket back, but didn’t relish losing the warmth, so she kept it as she turned for the motel.
Jacob reached out a hand and turned her to face him. “Isabella…”
She backed away. “It’s okay. I understand.”
And she did. She understood that for all the time she’d spent learning to control her emotions, to school herself to strength, he was still tougher than she, still able to walk away from what he wanted to protect himself from caring too much.
From giving up control.
Damn him.
She felt the press of tears, felt the scream build in her soul, and knew she needed to get away, fast, and retreat with her dignity intact. So she turned and headed back for the motel, not turning when he called her name, not turning when she heard his muttered curse.
Not even turning when she didn’t hear his footsteps following behind.
She set her jaw and walked around to the front of the motel. She nodded at Cameron, who sat outside his room with a cell phone to his ear, making soft, meaningful noises to his wife, or maybe his child.
The tears pressed harder, but she held them in until she gained her room.
She, at least, would have her breakdown in private.
But once she was inside
the motel room, the urge to cry vanished, leaving only leaden disappointment behind, shored up by a wash of anger.
Damn him. Even after all these years, he was still a coward. For all his physical presence and strength, he’d been too chicken to tell her the truth and to break it off cleanly back in college, and he was too afraid to chance things now, even for a night.
Angry now, she fisted her hands and spun back toward the door.
It swung open without warning. Jacob stood framed in the doorway, shoulders nearly touching the trim, his face set in a scowl.
Her heart thundered with anticipation, with dread, but she kept her feet planted and lifted her chin defiantly. “Well?”
He stepped inside and kicked the door shut. Before she even registered that he’d moved, he crossed the room and pulled her into his arms. Without a word, without an explanation, without warning of any kind besides the flare of heat between them, he kissed her.
It was a branding, a possession, a bold statement of need that recalled the flash and the flame of them coming together beside the wrecked jet, when she’d ignited to his touch and lost her soul.
Minutes later, or maybe longer, he pulled away, breathing as ragged as hers, and said, “I lied. When you asked what I wanted, I lied.”
She dug her fingers into his forearms, as much to keep herself on her feet as to hold him close. “I know.”
His eyes were clear green as they searched hers, looking for answers she didn’t have. “I like my life.”
“Me, too,” she managed to say, though she had to force the words through a tremble that spoke of her own lie. “So we keep it casual. One night between friends. The mutual release we didn’t get back in the desert.” She looked away so he couldn’t see the flinch in her eyes when she said, “The goodbye we never got to have.”
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