Книга - Hide The Child

Hide The Child
Janice Kay Johnson


A terrified little witnessWhen army ranger Gabe Decker is asked to protect an orphan and her psychologist, Trina Marr, he doesn’t hesitate. Hidden in a remote cabin, Gabe experiences a taste of family life… And when bullets start flying, Gabe puts vows to do whatever it takes to protect them.







A terrified little girl is the only witness

to the murder of her family...

And the killer won’t stop until she’s silenced, too. So when army ranger Gabe Decker is asked to protect the orphan and her psychologist, Trina Marr, he doesn’t hesitate. Hidden in a remote cabin, Gabe experiences a taste of family life...something this brawny ranger never dreamed possible. When bullets start flying, Gabe puts everything on the line—and vows to do whatever it takes to protect his family.


An author of more than ninety books for children and adults (more than seventy-five for Mills & Boon), JANICE KAY JOHNSON writes about love and family, and pens books of gripping romantic suspense. A USA TODAY bestselling author and an eight-time finalist for the Romance Writers of America RITA® Award, she won a RITA® Award in 2008. A former librarian, Janice raised two daughters in a small town north of Seattle, Washington.


Books by Janice Kay Johnson (#uf4bc461e-67f1-5e53-9b5d-0989e113ce76)

A Hometown Boy

Anything for Her

Where It May Lead

From This Day On

One Frosty Night

More Than Neighbors

Because of a Girl

A Mother’s Claim

Plain Refuge

Her Amish Protectors

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Hide the Child

Janice Kay Johnson






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


ISBN: 978-1-474-07948-8

HIDE THE CHILD

© 2018 Janice Kay Johnson

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


For Jeff Hill, consummate woodsman,

reader and generous friend.


Contents

Cover (#ubda1556a-0bce-52f8-8ad4-de1988a337d1)

Back Cover Text (#u3ed318f3-4f19-5f7d-bb1b-38ad26c426b4)

About the Author (#ue08bba43-8827-5b28-b41a-bc34b9295030)

Booklist (#uf2cd946e-3075-57fc-9cc6-59b93b58b98b)

Title Page (#u586bec6c-c629-56f7-90aa-b6b7f75ddc40)

Copyright (#ueade240d-a934-5840-b055-d9640c69a16f)

Dedication (#u75a761e3-03ec-59cc-86c7-eb8d4ef3b70d)

Prologue (#uc42afeb4-4d2e-52b7-8f13-1caca298d22d)

Chapter One (#u245ca1ba-cd8e-522b-bc68-963a08b45fed)

Chapter Two (#u7c46133e-804b-5fca-adc0-f7ddfe6a6e17)

Chapter Three (#uf004f676-5daa-5f52-9262-dace4bd863cf)

Chapter Four (#ueb368d1e-6f2c-5a33-84e4-caefeeee065b)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)


Prologue (#uf4bc461e-67f1-5e53-9b5d-0989e113ce76)

Squeezed into the tiniest space, Chloe tried not to look through the narrow crack where the cupboard door hadn’t completely closed, but sometimes she couldn’t help herself. Daddy was lying there right in front of her. All she had to do was crawl out and—No, no! Mommy said she had to stay here and not make a sound. Not even a teensy sound. Mommy said to wait, no matter what she heard or saw.

But she could see Daddy’s face, and the face of the man who bent over him, too. Except... No! Mommy said.

Hugging her knees to squeeze herself into the smallest ball possible, Chloe closed her eyes. Tears wet her cheeks and she could taste them. She shuddered, trying to hold back a sob.

“Shh. Stay right there,” Mommy had whispered. “Don’t move a finger or make a sound. No matter what. Do you understand?”

She didn’t understand at all, but she was scared, and she was almost doing what Mommy said, even when tears dripped off her chin onto her bare arms. Chloe peeked. Daddy’s eyes were open, but she could tell he didn’t see her. Or anything.

Now she couldn’t see anybody else, but she heard the man talking. There weren’t any other voices, but she didn’t move. She didn’t whimper, even when the house became quiet and stayed quiet for a long time. She had to wait until Mommy came or Daddy woke up.

She didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, even when different people came. They all had the same color of blue pants. Now she saw a man crouching beside Daddy, and even though she didn’t move, she didn’t, he lifted his head and saw her.

Her teeth chattered and she shook all over, but he stepped right over Daddy and opened the cupboard door all the way. He bent low, his face nice, and held out a hand.

“You’re safe now, honey. I promise.”

As he reached for her, the sob burst out, but not another sound.

Mommy said.


Chapter One (#uf4bc461e-67f1-5e53-9b5d-0989e113ce76)

“Shall we leave the frosting white?” Trina Marr had already mixed up a cream cheese icing to go on the cupcakes cooling on a rack. “I might have some sprinkles. Or let’s see.” Being obsessive-compulsive neat, she knew right where she kept the small bottles of food coloring. “Green? Red? Or if we use just a tiny bit, pink?”

The little girl looking up at her nodded vigorously. The pigtails she’d started the day with sagged crookedly.

“Pink?”

Another nod.

Trina had become accustomed to the lack of verbal response. As Dr. Katrina Marr, she specialized in working with traumatized children. Three-year-old Chloe Keif had started as a patient but was now her foster daughter. Chloe still wouldn’t talk, but she relaxed with Trina as she didn’t with anyone else. She’d remained stiff and unresponsive in the receiving home where she was first placed. An aunt and grandparents both were hesitant to take Chloe when she had such problems. Offering to foster had seemed a natural step for Trina, if a first for her.

“Ooh,” she said now. “You know what we could put on top?”

Chloe waited, bright-eyed and expectant.

Trina rose onto tiptoes to reach a jar in a high cupboard. “Maraschino cherries. Have you ever had one?”

A suspicious shake of the head.

“They’re super sweet, like candy. The flavor just bursts in your mouth when you bite into one.” Trina wrinkled her nose. “Don’t tell anybody, but every once in a while when I’m feeling mad or sad, I open a jar and eat every single cherry.” She winked. “Which makes me sick to my stomach, but I don’t care.”

Chloe laughed, then clapped her hand over her mouth, eyes wide with astonishment and...fear? Yes.

It was the first sound to come out of her mouth in the two weeks Trina had known her. She crouched and tickled Chloe’s tummy. “It’s okay, cupcake.”

That almost earned her another smile.

“It was really smart of you to stay quiet when the bad men were in your house, but you’re safe now. Anytime you’re ready, you can start talking. You can make all kinds of noises.” She blew a noisy raspberry. Neighed, like a horse. Revved, like a motorcycle engine.

And Chloe giggled again.

Heart feeling as light as a helium balloon, Trina swung Chloe up to sit on the kitchen counter. “Here, try your first maraschino cherry.” She opened the jar, stuck a fork in and popped one into her own mouth. “Yum.” She offered the next one to the little girl, who sniffed it cautiously, then touched the tip of her tongue to the cherry.

Chloe’s face worked as she savored the taste before she opened her mouth and snatched the cherry off the fork.

Trina waited for the verdict.

“Yum!”

Trina grinned and said, “Then let’s make our frosting pink.” Her mouth fell open. “Wait. You talked.”

Chloe’s freckled nose crinkled mischievously.

Laughing exultantly, Trina swung her to the stool she’d pulled up to the counter. “Now you’re just teasing me.”

The little girl nodded. It was all Trina could do to concentrate on how many drops of red food coloring she ought to add to the bowl of icing to turn it a pretty pink.

Her delight was quickly dampened by the sobering knowledge that once Chloe really began to talk the police would be ready to pounce.

If investigators had a clue who’d murdered her mother, father and older brother in their home, they hadn’t confided as much in Trina or even hinted when pressed by reporters. Admittedly, the crime was not only horrific, it was puzzling. Chloe’s mother hadn’t been raped. Expensive electronics weren’t stolen. Neither was the nearly thousand dollars in Michael Keif’s wallet that had been left on the counter of the island in the kitchen. His Piaget watch, which according to the detective sold for over ten thousand dollars, remained on his wrist. If Michael, a wealthy businessman, had been the target, why had the rest of his family been killed, too?

Chloe wouldn’t have been mute and terrified when she was found if she hadn’t seen her father murdered within feet of her hiding place. With the investigation seemingly going cold, the detectives had latched on to the hope that this preschool girl could crack the case. It was making them nuts that so far, Chloe hadn’t been able to answer a single question.

Trina worried about what the weight of their expectations might do to Chloe. What if she was never able to tell them anything, and had to live with that failure for the rest of her life?

But there was another really scary possibility. Somehow reporters had learned that the three-year-old survivor of the massacre couldn’t say a word. On the local TV news, they’d even flashed a photo of Chloe as the anchor talked solemnly about the mystery and the devastating impact witnessing the horror had had on a little girl. Chloe had said her first word today, and Trina didn’t want anyone else to know. Because...what if this incredibly vulnerable child became a threat a killer couldn’t ignore?

Trina shivered. Pay attention, she told herself. She had to be careful not to turn this frosting bloodred.

* * *

GABRIEL DECKER SWUNG his rope with practiced ease. The loop settled on the ground just in front of a calf’s hind legs, tricky to do in such tight quarters in the temporary corral. The second the calf stepped into the loop, Gabe pulled in the slack, wrapped the rope around the saddle horn and drew the calf toward the fire. Once a pair of wrestlers tossed the struggling calf to his side and pulled off the rope, Gabe would coil it up and go back for another one. Today, four ropers and four teams on the ground were moving things along well. They aimed by the end of the week to have every spring calf branded, dehorned, castrated and vaccinated.

His eyes stung from the dust cloud raised by bawling calves penned in the corral and their mothers milling outside it. Unpleasantly reminded of a dust storm in Afghanistan, Gabe had to keep pushing the memory back. The work demanded focus. At least he felt useful, which he hadn’t much lately. He was irked that he couldn’t be one of the men tossing the calf and holding it down, a task he’d performed by the time he went to live on a Texas ranch when he was fourteen. Size and muscle were appreciated for that job, since even two-to-three-month-old calves could weigh up to two hundred pounds.

Now he was lucky to be able to sit astride for hours at a time, although he’d suffer for it later. Actually, he was already suffering but refused to let anyone else suspect. He’d been wounded before but never taken so long to heal.

This had been a bad one, though. An IED had thrown him into the air and he’d landed poorly, breaking his femur on top of the damage done to his pelvis by the explosion. The doctor had suggested age might be an issue. A twenty-two-year old healed faster than a man closing in on forty, he’d said with a shrug. Gabe knew that, at thirty-six, he was close to aging out of active duty with his Army Ranger unit. But damn it, he wasn’t ready to hang it up yet!

He’d tightened his legs in a signal to his gelding and gripped the rope in a gloved hand to start swinging it, when his partner waved him over to the side of the temporary corral.

Boyd Chaney rested one booted foot on a lower bar and his forearms on the top one. “If you’re hurting, take a break.”

Gabe stared expressionlessly at his friend. “What makes you think I hurt?”

“I know you,” Boyd said with a shrug.

He did. They’d served together for a decade and become best friends. On recent deployments, Gabe had missed Boyd, who had been shot and crushed beneath his jeep when it rolled two years ago. He’d spent the next year in rehab and conditioning, trying to achieve the state of fitness required for their elite ranger unit, but had finally accepted that he’d never pass the physical. Unwilling to accept a desk or teaching job, he’d retired to the Oregon cattle and cutting horse ranch the two men had bought together with an eye to the future.

“I can manage,” Gabe said now, tersely, and reined his horse back into the melee. Even over the bellowing cattle, he heard Chaney call after him.

“Stubborn bastard.”

Yeah, so? Since that was the working definition of a man tough enough to make it as a spec-ops soldier, Gabe didn’t bother responding. He’d make it back. He told himself that every day. Two, three more months, tops. But right now he could contribute here on the ranch. A little pain had never stopped him before, and it wouldn’t now.

* * *

“I’LL BE THERE in ten minutes,” Detective Risvold said.

“No!” Trina was in her office, seizing the chance to make the call between patients. In the past week, Chloe had made enough progress that Trina felt obligated to report that there was hope she’d soon be able to talk about what she’d seen.

Trina was thankful she’d been careful not to tell either of the investigators who called her on a regular basis where she “stashed” Chloe during working hours. That had been Detective Deperro’s word. When he used it, Trina had almost said, Oh, when I’m not home, I keep her in the third drawer to the right of the sink but had managed to refrain. If either of the men possessed a sense of humor, she had yet to see it.

“What do you mean, no?” Risvold snapped. “She’s talking, and you know how much is riding on what she can tell us.”

“I wanted you to know she’s begun speaking.” Already regretting she’d made this call, Trina leaned on the word begun. “She’s not back to natural chattering, and if I even tiptoe toward asking about that morning, she goes silent again for hours. Anyway, how is a three-year-old’s description going to clinch anything for you? If I asked her to draw her father, it would be a stick figure. You do know that, don’t you? What little she can tell you would be useless.” She paused. “Unless you have a suspect?”

The answer was slow coming. “We’re looking at a possibility,” he said grudgingly. “Several 911 calls had come in from that neighborhood in the week before the attack on the Keifs. Someone may have been casing houses.”

“But you told me nothing was taken.”

“The guy may not have had robbery on his mind. He might have been a nutcase looking for the right opportunity.”

Making it a random crime. It happened, of course, but rarely. So rarely she had trouble buying it now. “Do you even have a good description of him?”

“One of the homes he wandered around had security cameras. We have footage. If we have confirmation from the girl about what he looks like...”

Her eyes narrowed. The girl? What was with these guys? Were they deliberately trying not to see Chloe as a real person? Maybe cops had to do that, because keeping an emotional distance was healthy for them, but she didn’t like it. “So you’d arrest him if she says the man had brown hair and brown eyes, and that matches the camera footage. Even though half the men in Sadler meet that description.”

More silence. There were undoubtedly things he wasn’t telling her, but...

“From what I understand, you didn’t recover any weapons or meaningful trace evidence.”

“No weapons, but we have a wealth of fingerprints and hairs we can match to the killer once we have him.”

Usually he said “or killers.” Had he become enamored of the idea of the wandering nutjob? And unless, say, they’d found a hair in the blood, she wasn’t convinced. The Keifs probably entertained. Chloe’s six-year-old brother had undoubtedly had friends in and out, the friends’ parents there to pick them up and drop them off. Maybe in the kitchen to have a cup of coffee. However tidy the house, there were bound to be hairs or fingerprints or whatever that didn’t belong to family members.

But investigating was up to the two detectives. Her obligation was to protect Chloe.

“I’m sorry,” she said firmly. “She’s not ready. I wanted you aware that she has begun to speak, that’s all. When I’m sure she can handle it, I’ll let you know.”

They sparred some more, with her the winner—although she wasn’t so sure she would have been if either investigator knew how to lay his hands on Chloe while Trina was tied up with her patients.

* * *

TRINA AWAKENED WITH a start. Her phone must be ringing, she thought blearily as she reached out to grope for it on the bedside table. If that annoying Detective Risvold was calling again—

Except...did she smell smoke? With returning consciousness, she realized the shrill scream wasn’t the phone. A fire alarm downstairs had been set off, and suddenly the one in the hall up here began to squeal, too.

Trina shot up to a sitting position, fear punching her in the belly. Her eyes watered, and when she inhaled again, she bent forward coughing. There was a sharp undertone to the smell that she knew she ought to recognize.

Chloe!

Trina grabbed her phone and dropped to the floor. She crawled faster than she’d known she could to the door and into the hall. Even in the dark, she could tell the smoke was thicker here, and she heard the roar of fire. Heat radiated from the staircase, and when she turned her head, she saw flame burning up the wall.

No escape that way.

She crawled into Chloe’s room and kicked the door shut behind her. Block the crack at the bottom. She’d read that advice before. A door could slow the flames.

Nothing she could use lay in easy reach. Like Trina, Chloe seemed to be obsessively tidy by nature, which meant no dirty clothes strewed the floor. Trina gave it up temporarily and pushed herself up. Heart beating wildly, she hit the light switch, but nothing happened. Then she ran to the bed and shook the small figure that formed a lump beneath the covers.

“Chloe! Wake up!”

A snuffling sound was her only answer—and if anything Chloe drew herself into a tighter ball.

Trina yanked back the bedcovers. “The house is on fire.” Somehow she kept her voice calm. “We have to get out.”

The three-year-old sat up. “I don’t know how to get out,” she whispered, and then jerked. “Look!”

Trina turned to see the orange glow already beneath the door. How could the fire move so fast? She yanked the comforter off Chloe’s bed and hurried to cram it against the base of the door. Then she said, “We have to go out the window.”

Nothing to it, she thought semihysterically. She unlocked and lifted the sash window, peering down at lawn that in early April was still winter brown and probably rock hard. She could scream for help...but what if men who had set the fire came instead of neighbors?

Gasoline, that’s what she smelled. This fire hadn’t started with a spark in the wiring or a frayed electrical cord.

After shoving the window screen until it popped out and fell, she said, “Come here, sweetie.”

Chloe obeyed, thank goodness. Trina rushed to the bed for the two pillows and, leaning out the window, dropped them to the ground. They looked puny below. What were the odds they’d help break a fall? But she couldn’t think what else to do. Remembering her phone, she picked it up and dropped it, too. It bounced off one of the pillows onto the dark ground.

A sheet. She snatched it from the bed, horrified to see that the door glowed fiery orange and was dissolving before her eyes.

Twisting the sheet into an impromptu rope, she tied one end around Chloe’s waist. Then she cupped the child’s face with her hands. “I’m going to dangle you as far as I can with the sheet, but then I’ll have to drop you. Just let yourself roll, okay?”

“No!” Chloe flung her arms around one of Trina’s legs and held on frantically. “I don’t wanna! Please! Don’t make me!”

Throat tight, chest hurting, Trina said, “We don’t have any choice.” She wrenched a squirming, fighting Chloe away. Maneuvering her out the window was a nightmare, with the sobbing child flailing and trying to grab hold of her again. Finally, she was able to start lowering her.

The sheet ran out sooner than she’d hoped. Heat seared her back. She was out of time. I have to drop her.

But somebody ran across her yard and positioned himself below the window. “Let her go. I’ve got her.”

Trina recognized the voice of a brawny young guy who still lived with his parents on the block. With a whimper, she released the sheet and saw him catch Chloe.

The fire behind her had become so intense she didn’t hesitate. She climbed out, turned and grasped the edge of the window frame...and let go.

* * *

ACHING, STILL FILTHY, grateful for the pain meds that kept her from fully feeling the burns and bruises, Trina sat holding an armful of little girl. Her position was awkward, rocked to one side so that most of her weight was almost on her hip. Her back and butt had been slathered with ointment and covered with gauze before nurses helped her put on scrubs to replace her ruined T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms.

“There’s some blistering,” the doctor had told her. “Minimal, but you had a close call.”

No kidding.

“It’s going to hurt,” he’d continued, “but if you have someone who can reapply the ointment, and if you take the pain medication as prescribed instead of trying to tough it out, I won’t insist you be admitted.”

He hadn’t asked if she had anywhere to go to, given that her house had just burned to the ground, but she’d called one of the two partners in her counseling practice. Josh Doughten and his wife, Vicky, had become good friends. Good enough to be a logical choice for her to call in the middle of the night. Plus, their two daughters were both away at college, so Trina knew they had empty bedrooms. Josh hadn’t even hesitated; he said he would get dressed and come immediately for her and Chloe.

But they wouldn’t be able to stay with the Doughtens long. She couldn’t endanger Josh and Vicky. What Trina wanted to do was jump—okay, climb slowly and carefully—into her car and drive away. Far away.

Two problems with that. Her car had been in the attached garage and was presumably part of the “total loss” the fire captain had described. Problem two? So was everything in the house, from her clothes to her purse, wallet and credit cards. The only thing she’d salvaged was her cell phone. Until she visited the Department of Motor Vehicles and the bank, she couldn’t even pay for a motel. Assuming anyone would rent a room to a crazy-looking woman with bare feet, wearing scrubs and carrying a kid who didn’t look any better than she did.

The police would probably offer her and Chloe protection, but it would come at a price. After all her effort to hold them off, they’d have the access to Chloe they’d been so desperate to get. In phone messages left in the last day and a half, initial begging had progressed to pestering and finally threatening. They didn’t understand the damage they could do to a fragile young child by trying to dig out answers too soon. And yes, Trina sympathized, but the murder victims were dead. Arresting the killers wouldn’t bring Chloe’s family back. But she was alive, and protecting and healing her had become Trina’s mission.

As if she’d conjured them, the two men entered the cubicle where she waited. Risvold was middle-aged and softening around the middle, his blond hair graying. His partner, in contrast, had to be over six feet and was strongly built. His skin was bronzed, whether from sun or genetics, and he had black hair and dark eyes.

His eyes as well as Risvold’s latched on to Chloe with an intensity that made Trina want to shrink back. Her arms tightened protectively.

“I already talked to the arson investigator,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll give you his report.”

Detective Risvold slid one of the plastic chairs to face hers, and sat down with a sigh. Deperro hung back. Good cop, bad cop?

“I’m sure he will, but his job has a different focus than ours,” Risvold said. “So I’d like you to tell us what you saw and heard.”

“Just a minute.” She stood up with Chloe in her arms and left the cubicle. Several people glanced up from where they sat at the nurses’ station. “Excuse me. The police are here to talk to me. Is there any chance someone could hold Chloe for a few minutes so she doesn’t have to be there?”

A motherly looking nurse leaped up and volunteered.

“You won’t take your eyes off her for a second?”

“Promise.”

Fortunately, the little girl was still asleep, a deadweight when Trina transferred her to the other woman’s arms.

Then she returned to the cubicle, where she repeated her story briefly.

“You hadn’t seen anyone hanging around?” Risvold asked. “No car parked on your block that didn’t look familiar? Think hard, Ms. Marr.”

She was really tempted to remind him that she was actually Dr. Marr. Not something she usually insisted on, but this man’s condescension raised her hackles. “The answer is no. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

“The faster we’re able to hear what, er, Chloe saw, the sooner you’ll both be safe.”

Hurting, scared and mad, Trina said, “If I were you, I wouldn’t make her your focus right now. For one thing, it’s obvious your wandering crazy is off the table as a suspect.”

“What do you mean?” Gee, Detective Deperro spoke.

“I mean, would he have it together enough to understand that a small child might be able to identify him? And know where she was staying? Oh, and set the fire without a soul seeing him?”

Deperro’s jaw tightened.

She leaned toward them. “Try looking at your own department, why don’t you? It’s been nearly a month since the murders. Chloe and I have been fine. The day before yesterday, I told you she’d begun to speak, that I thought it wouldn’t be long before we could try asking her questions. Then tonight someone set my house on fire when the two of us were asleep inside. How many people knew what I told you? Who did they talk to?”

“Miss Marr... Katrina.” To his credit, Detective Deperro looked worried. “What about her day care? Is there anyone there who would have talked?”

“No,” she said flatly. “And since even you don’t know where she is, how would the killer have known who to cozy up to for news about Chloe?”

“I’m authorized to give you twenty-four-hour protection,” Risvold offered.

Even without a plan, Trina said, “Thank you, but no.”

He frowned. “But where will you go?”

Long-term? The correct answer was I have no idea. But she only shook her head.


Chapter Two (#uf4bc461e-67f1-5e53-9b5d-0989e113ce76)

Not two minutes after the cops had left her alone, Trina knew what she to do.

Call her brother. Three years older than her, Joseph had never let her down, any more than she would him if he ever needed her. He’d be mad if she didn’t turn to him.

Unfortunately, he’d take at least a day to reach her, but she and Chloe could surely stay with the Doughtens that long. Trina went out to check on Chloe, but the nurse smiled and rocked gently. “If you need to do anything else, she’s fine,” she whispered.

“Then I’ll make a call,” she said gratefully, and returned to her cubicle.

Her brother’s phone rang once, twice, three times. It wouldn’t be the middle of the night for him, or even the crack of dawn. Georgia was three hours ahead, which made it...eight o’clock there.

“Trina?” he said sharply.

She started to cry. She hadn’t yet but couldn’t seem to help herself now. Lifting the hem of the faded blue scrub top to wipe damp cheeks, she said, “Joseph? My house burned down.”

“What? How?”

“It was—” She had to breathe deeply to be able to finish. “Arson. It was arson.”

He swore. “Do the cops think it’s random? There’s no reason you’d be a target, is there?”

She took a deep breath. “It’s a long story.”

“Tell me,” Joseph demanded.

The story didn’t take all that long, after all. He had already known that she was now a foster mom, although she hadn’t explained the background. Now she did.

At the end, she said tentatively, “I don’t know what to do. I was hoping...” She hesitated.

“I’d come?”

The tension she heard told her the answer would be no.

“You know I want to be on the next flight to the West Coast. But I don’t see how I can. We’re wheels up tonight, Trina.”

He was the one who’d shortened her name, to their parents’ frustration. They’d been determined she would be Katrina, but ultimately even they had started dropping the first syllable.

She could call them...but she couldn’t put them in danger, either. Joseph... Joseph was different. He could handle any threat.

“I’ll wire you some money,” her brother said.

“Thanks, but... I have money. I just have to get some ID so I can claim it.”

“Okay.” He was silent long enough that she was about to open her mouth when he said in a distracted way, “I’m thinking. I can ask for an emergency leave.”

“You’d have said that in the first place if it was so easy.”

“Yeah, it’s not. We’ve been training and studying intel on this op for the last month. The major won’t be happy.”

He wasn’t supposed to have told her as much as he had. Her heart sank, but she knew what she had to say. “Then...then I’ll think of something else. I could hire a bodyguard.” From Bodyguards ’R Us? Feeling semihysterical, she wondered whether that was a subject heading in the Yellow Pages. Craigslist? The bulletin board at the hardware store that was covered with business cards? How was someone as inexperienced as she supposed to judge the competency of some beefy guy who claimed he could protect her?

That’s why she’d turned to her brother. She knew he could.

“Wait,” he said, relief in his voice. “I’m not using my head. One of my buddies is half an hour or less from you. I’d have tried to hook you two up, except...we’re not good marriage prospects.”

Despite the fact that she was desperate and in pain, Trina rolled her eyes. “I can find my own dates, thank you.” Bodyguards, not so much. “Why is this guy in rural Oregon instead of at Fort Benning?” Or in some war-torn part of the world?

“IED.” So casual. “Had his stays in the hospital and rehab, but he still needs some time to come back all the way. He and another friend of mine bought a ranch out there in Oregon. I think Boyd was from the area.”

“They bought a ranch.”

“Yeah, thinking of the future. You know? At best, we’ll all age out.”

She shuddered. Usually, she didn’t know when Joseph dropped from the radar, which was fortunate. She worried enough as it was. He’d had regular deployments, but more often conducted raids in hostile territory, the kind of place where Americans were not welcome. She knew he’d been involved in international hostage rescues.

Perfect training for protecting her and Chloe, Trina couldn’t help thinking. “So, do you have this Boyd’s phone number?”

“No, this guy’s name is Gabe. Gabe Decker. Boyd retired a couple of years ago. He might be getting soft. Gabe is deadly.”

“But if he’s injured...”

“He’s on his feet. Even riding, he said last time we talked. Listen, I’ll call him. Where are you?”

She explained that she was still at the hospital, but her practice partner was taking her home temporarily. She told him the address.

“I want you in hiding now,” Joseph said, with the cold certainty of a man to whom her current troubles were everyday. “Keep your phone on, but don’t be surprised if he just shows up. Be ready to go.”

Okay. But wasn’t that what she wanted? Well, yes, but this Gabe Decker was a stranger. Was she willing to trust him? Follow his orders, if he was anywhere near as dictatorial as Joseph could be?

Her inner debate lasted about ten seconds. Because, really, what other option did she have?

The police.

All she had to do was picture Chloe’s sweet face, her freckled nose natural with her red-gold hair. No, Trina didn’t trust the detectives, one of whom must have a big mouth or been careless in some other way with dangerous information.

“I’ll be expecting him,” she said, and offered the Doughtens’ address. Only after she’d let him go did she wish she’d thought to ask what this Gabe Decker looked like.

* * *

GABE’S PLEASURE AT seeing his friend’s number on the screen of his phone took a nosedive as soon as he heard what Joseph wanted. Sticking him in close quarters with a clingy woman and whiny kid, right when he felt especially unsociable. Even so, he didn’t hesitate.

“Anything,” he said, which was the only possible answer. “Tell me what you know.”

Listening, he remained lying on his back on the weight bench where he’d been working out.

Hearing that the sister was a psychologist didn’t make him want to break out in song and dance. He’d had his fill of social workers and counselors both at the hospital and rehab facility. They were positive he had to be suffering from PTSD. Guilt because a teammate had died in the same explosion. Talking about it was the answer. Reliving the horrific moments over and over being so helpful to his mental health. When he balked, that had to mean he was refusing to acknowledge his emotional response to his own traumatic injury as well as Raul’s spectacular death. No chance he just didn’t need to talk about it, because this wasn’t the first time he’d been injured and he’d seen so much death in the past decade he was numb to it.

If this woman thought she’d fix him out of gratitude for his help, he’d make sure she thought again.

His protective instincts did fire up when he heard what had happened to the kid, followed by the cold-blooded attempt to make sure that little girl couldn’t tell anybody what she’d seen that day.

“Why don’t the cops have them in a safe house?” He finally sat up and reached for a towel to wipe his face and bare chest. His workout was over.

“I didn’t ask for details. She sounds wary where they’re concerned, at least about the primary investigator.”

“Okay.” There’d be time for him to ask her about her issues with the police. City, he presumed, rather than the Granger County Sheriff’s Department. For her sake, he hoped the murder had happened within the Sadler city limits. The current county sheriff was a fool, the deputies, whether competent or not, spread too thin over long stretches of little-traveled rural roads. Boyd had nothing good to say about the sheriff’s department.

“I’ll go get her,” he said, to end the call. “You watch your back.”

“Goes without saying.” Which of course was a lie; Joseph would be watching his teammates’ backs instead, trusting them to be doing the same for him.

Still straddling the bench, Gabe ended the call. A quick shower was in order. And then, huh, he’d better think about whether there were any clean sheets for the bed in the guest room. If the kid needed a crib...no, she had to be older than that to be verbal. Formerly verbal. Whatever.

Yeah, and what about food?

As he was going upstairs for that shower, it occurred to him that he’d better let Boyd know what was up, too. He was unlikely to need backup...but thinking about the bastard who wouldn’t stop at anything to save his own skin, Gabe changed his mind.

Having backup would be smart.

* * *

SOMEHOW, SOMEWHERE, TRINA found a smile for Vicky, who had been fussing over her ever since Josh left the two women and Chloe at the house while he went to work.

“I’ll have Caroline cancel all your appointments for today and tomorrow,” he’d assured her. “With the weekend, that gives you four days to figure out what you’re going to do.”

Trina hated the necessity. It was bad enough when your patients were adults, but when they were frightened, withdrawn children? They wouldn’t understand.

Now she said to Vicky, “Thanks, but I’m fine.” More fine if she could take the prescribed pain pills, but she didn’t dare, not if she were to stay alert. If somebody had been watching the small hospital, he wouldn’t have missed seeing her and Chloe leaving with Josh. Following them would have been a breeze. She’d asked Vicky to pull the drapes on the front window immediately, even though she was uneasy not being able to see the street and driveway.

“You look like you might be feverish,” Vicky said doubtfully.

Trina felt feverish. But she couldn’t relax and let herself be miserable until the promised Army Ranger appeared to keep Chloe safe. Really, it hadn’t been much over an hour since she talked to Joseph. Expecting instant service was a bit much. Joseph might not have been able to reach this Decker guy immediately. Or Decker might have been in the middle of something he couldn’t drop just like that.

Tap, tap, tap.

Vicky and Trina both jumped. That knock hadn’t been on the front door. They looked simultaneously toward the kitchen.

“It might be a neighbor,” Vicky said after a moment, almost whispering. Trina could tell she didn’t believe it. The elegant homes in this neighborhood were all on lots of a half acre to an acre or larger. Most of the wives were probably professional women themselves, not housewives who casually dropped by for a cup of coffee.

Trina would have gone along with Vicky to see who was knocking, except Chloe lay curled on the sofa. Not asleep, but pretending to be, she thought. And the tap on back door could be a diversion meant to draw the two women away long enough for someone to come in the front and snatch Chloe.

Trina heard voices, one slow and deep. Vicky reappeared, right behind her a massive, unsmiling man who took Chloe and Trina in with one penetrating glance. Her first stupid thought was, how had anyone managed to hurt this man, given his height and breadth, never mind all those muscles?

So she wasn’t at her sharpest.

“Mr. Decker?” she asked.

He nodded. “Gabe.”

“I’m Trina. And this is Chloe.” Who had stiffened, even though her eyes remained closed.

“Okay.” His voice made her think of the purr of a big cat, assuming they purred. Velvety, deep and not as reassuring as she’d like it to be. “You have anything to bring?”

“A duffel.” Vicky had scrounged some clothes from her daughter’s drawers, the one who’d left most recently for college, that would probably come close to fitting Trina. Better yet, she’d produced several outfits of little girl clothing from wherever she’d packed them away with granddaughters in mind. Otherwise...otherwise they wouldn’t have had a thing.

“Oh!” Vicky said suddenly. “I have extra toothbrushes. And surely I can find a hairbrush for you.”

Bless her heart, she came back with both, plus a handful of hair elastics. Something Gabe Decker, with dark hair barely long enough to be disheveled, would not have.

With damp eyes, Trina hugged Vicky. She was grateful the other woman remembered not to hug her back. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you and Josh.”

“We’d have been glad to have you stay, you know,” she said, her eyes wet, too.

“I know, but—”

Vicky nodded. She poked the brush and other things into the duffel and said, “I can carry this out.”

Gabe stepped forward. “No, I don’t want you outside. I’ll take that.” When he saw Trina reaching for Chloe, he shook his head. “And her. Joseph said you’d been hurt.”

She had no doubt his blue eyes saw right through her pretenses. “I have burns on my back.” With sudden alarm, she remembered that he’d have to renew the ointment and bandages for her. A stranger, and male. Very male. With enormous hands that would come close to spanning her back.

That tingle couldn’t be what it felt like, not under the circumstances. Especially since she knew perfectly well that no touch would feel good. Despite the gauze, she’d swear the thin cotton of the scrub top was scraping her burns every time she moved. “Can you carry...?”

His lifted eyebrow mocked her question. Yes, he could carry both, and probably pile on a whole lot more. He undoubtedly did on a regular basis, come to think of it. She’d read that soldiers often packed over a hundred pounds even in the desert heat of the Middle East.

“You’re not parked out in front, I take it,” she said.

“No. I drove through the neighborhood to see if I could spot any obvious surveillance. Even though I didn’t, I left my truck in a neighbor’s driveway. Didn’t look like anyone was home. We’ll cut through the trees out back.” He hesitated. “You need to leave your phone behind. Better if it’s at your office than with you. Or here.”

Trina felt a spurt of panic. Her phone was the only possession she had left. And without it...she’d be even more isolated. But she didn’t argue, knowing how easily smartphones could be traced.

“Josh will be home for lunch,” Vicky said. “I can have him take it.”

Gabe said simply, “Good.” Trina hadn’t said a word, but he seemed to take her compliance for granted.

She lowered herself gingerly onto the edge of the sofa. Standing had had her light-headed, but putting pressure on her burns was worse. “Chloe, this is Gabe. He’s a friend of my brother’s. He’s going to carry you, since you don’t have any shoes.” She now did, but they were in the duffel, and they hadn’t had a chance for her to try them on. Since she knew Gabe wanted to move fast, it was a good excuse.

“Hey, little one,” he said, sounding extraordinarily gentle as he bent over her.

With him so close, Trina could see the dark shadow of what would be stubble by evening, the slight curve of a perfectly shaped mouth...and a white scar that angled from one clean-cut cheekbone to his temple, just missing his eye. That was an old one, she felt sure, not the wound that had him on leave. Her teeth closed on her lower lip. If he turned his head at all, they could almost—

No, no, no! Don’t even go there.

The muscle in his jaw spasmed, and she held herself very, very still. Lowering her gaze didn’t help, not with impressive muscles bared by a gray T-shirt. And then there was his thigh, encased in worn denim.

Maybe he’d turn out to have a girlfriend living with him. Joseph wouldn’t necessarily know.

“Here we go,” he said calmly, and scooped up Chloe, tucking her against his broad chest and rising to his feet. A moment later he’d slung the duffel over his opposite shoulder, and looked at Trina with raised brows as if he’d been twiddling his thumbs waiting for ten minutes. “Can you walk?”

“Yes.” She jumped up too fast. His hand clamped around her upper arm, making her suspect her eyes had done whirligigs. She blinked a couple of times and repeated, “Yes. I’m fine.” Slight exaggeration, but she could do this.

He studied her for longer than she liked before releasing her. “Okay.”

Vicky trailed them to the back door and locked it behind them. Gabe paused only for a moment to scan the landscape, then strode toward the trees. With so little undergrowth on this dry side of Oregon, the lodgepole and ponderosa pines didn’t offer much cover, nothing like a fir and cedar forest would have on the east side of the Cascades where Trina had grown up. Gabe paused now and again and looked around, but mostly kept moving. At first, she was disconcertingly aware of how silently he moved, while she seemed to find every stick or cone to stomp on. Crackle, pop... A jingle teased her memory.

She couldn’t hold on to such a frivolous thought. She felt his gaze on her a few times, too, but didn’t dare let herself meet his eyes. The pain increased with each step until Trina felt as if fire were licking at her back again. Sheer willpower kept her putting one foot in front of the other. She stumbled once and would have gone down, but he caught her arm again.

“Almost there,” he murmured. “See that black truck ahead?”

She didn’t even lift her head. He nudged her slightly to adjust her course, but without touching her back. Trina didn’t remember how much she’d told her brother about her injuries.

She almost walked into the dusty side of a black, crew-cab pickup. He unlocked the door, tossed the duffel on the back seat and placed Chloe there, too. She looked tiny on the vast bench seat.

“I don’t have a car seat for her anymore,” Trina heard herself say. Right this second, that seemed like an insurmountable problem.

“I’ll drive carefully.” He buckled a lap belt around Chloe, who stared suspiciously up at him. Then he closed her door and opened the front passenger door. “In you go,” he said quietly, that powerful hand engulfing Trina’s elbow. “Big step up.”

He didn’t quite say “upsy-daisy” but coaxed her and hoisted until she was somehow in. He closed this door with a soft thud, too, rather than slamming it, and was behind the wheel in the blink of an eye, firing up a powerful engine. When she made no move to put on the seat belt, he did it for her, not commenting on her grip on the armrest or the way she rolled her weight to the side.

He backed out and accelerated so gradually she was never thrust against the seatback.

“How long?” she asked, from between gritted teeth.

“About half an hour. Do you have pain pills?”

“Yes, but...”

“Take them. Are they in the duffel?”

She nodded.

Gabe reached a long arm back, his eyes still on the road, and tugged the duffel until it was between the seats. The bottle of water he handed her was warm, but it washed down two pills.

“You okay, Chloe?” she asked.

No answer, but Gabe’s gaze flicked to the rearview mirror. “She’s nodding,” he said quietly.

“Oh, good.” She thought that’s what she’d said. The words seemed to slur. Leaning her cheek against the window, she closed her eyes.

* * *

SHE DROPPED OFF to sleep like a baby, Gabe saw. That’s what she needed. He was sorry he’d have to wake her up when they got to the cabin.

The little girl was not asleep. She sat with her feet sticking straight out in front of her, her arms crossed and her lower lip pouting. Eyes as blue as his watched him in the rearview mirror. Clearly, she expected the worst. He kind of liked her attitude. He tended to expect the worst, too. That way you were prepared. Optimists could be taken by surprise so easily.

Once he made it onto the highway, he could relax a little. The couple of vehicles he could see in the rearview mirror hadn’t followed them from town. At this time of morning, most traffic was headed south into town, not north out of it.

He checked on the kid, to see her eyelids starting to droop, too.

Another sidelong glance made him wince. Trina’s contorted position had to be miserably uncomfortable. Burns, Joseph had said, without being specific. Gabe would have known they were on her back even if she hadn’t told him, since she’d done a face-plant on the window to avoid making any more contact than she could help with the seat. Twisted as she was, he saw a thickness that could only be bandages. Or, hey, Kevlar, but that wasn’t likely.

Since Joseph talked often about his sister, Gabe had known they were close. Funny his friend had never mentioned that she was a beauty, or a shrink of some kind. The stories had all been from their childhood, or repeating some amusing or pointed observation she’d made about life in general, politics and shifting international alliances more specifically. She probably followed the world news with more interest than most people did because she knew her brother was bound to get involved in a lot of the messes.

Gabe wondered in a general way what it would feel like to have parents or someone like her worrying about him. Would he be as anxious to get back in the action if his death would devastate someone else?

Impatiently, he shook off the descent into sentimentality. No family, no reason to think about it.

Instead, he circled back to the beginning. Katrina Marr would be spectacular with makeup, a snug-fitting dress and heels. Face showing strain and streaked with char, hair a tangled mess and wearing sacky, faded blue scrubs and thin rubber flip-flops, she was merely beautiful. With expressive green-gold eyes and hair the color of melted caramel, she was tallish for a woman, slender rather than model-skinny, and still possessing some nice curves.

One corner of Gabe’s mouth lifted. Could be this was why Joseph never mentioned his sister’s appearance. He might give one or more of the guys the idea of looking her up someday while on leave.

Fully amused now, Gabe thought that was just insulting.

But his amusement didn’t last long. To stay vigilant, he couldn’t afford any distraction. Somebody was gunning for the cute kid who’d now slumped sideways in sound sleep—and Gabe had no doubt Joseph’s sister would jump in front of the bullet to save that kid.

His job was to make sure that never happened. Plan A, he calculated: hide them. Plan B: make sure he fought any battles that did erupt. Plan C: take the bullet himself.


Chapter Three (#uf4bc461e-67f1-5e53-9b5d-0989e113ce76)

Trina opened her eyes to a dim room. The window was in the wrong place, she saw first. Light sneaking between the slats of the blinds told her it was daytime.

Her bedroom didn’t have rough-plastered walls, either. Awakening awareness of pain discouraged her from rolling onto her back. Instead, she pushed aside a comforter in a denim duvet cover and gingerly sat up.

It all rushed back. The fire, dropping from a second-story window, the hospital. Complete loss. Wasn’t that what the fire chief had said? Joseph.

Gabe Decker.

This must be his home, or at least his ranch hideout. The wide-plank floor looked like what she’d expect of a log house. A closer look at the window told her it was set in a wall thicker than usual.

And then her eyes widened. Chloe!

Still wearing the scrubs, she didn’t take time to use the bathroom or find her flip-flops. She rushed out into a hall and toward the staircase at the end.

Halfway down, she heard that deep, smooth voice. He was talking to someone, pausing for unheard answers. Telephone?

The vast living room was empty. She followed the voice to the kitchen, where she saw Chloe, perched on a tall stool, watching as the big, powerful man flipped a hamburger in a pan on the stove.

“Is that a yes or no to cheese?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.

He took in Chloe’s nod, then saw Trina hovering. He didn’t smile; the way he looked her over was more assessment than anything. “You’re just in time for dinner.”

“Dinner.” She was dazed enough to feel out of sync.

Chloe swung around, scrambled off the stool and raced to Trina. She threw her arms around Trina’s legs and hugged, hard. That she’d regressed to being nonverbal felt like yet another deep bruise in the region of Trina’s chest.

“I’m glad to see you, too, pumpkin.” Trina found a smile for the little girl, who tipped back her head to look up at her. “Why don’t you start on your cheeseburger while I go back upstairs and, um, at least brush my hair?” And pee. She really needed that bathroom.

“Did you see your duffel at the foot of the bed?” Gabe asked.

“No, I suddenly panicked—” She broke off. “You know how confusing it is to wake in a strange place.”

His expression of mild surprise said he didn’t know. As often as he—and her brother—woke in strange and dangerous places, they probably knew where they were and why instantly, before they opened their eyes. They probably held on to the where and why while they slept.

“Never mind,” she mumbled, and took herself back upstairs to start over again. The woman she saw in the mirror horrified her. Her face was filthy, her eyes bloodshot and her hair a tangled mess. Lovely.

Washing her face helped only a little. She dug the bottle of pills out of the duffel and took one, hoping that would be enough to dull the pain without knocking her out again. Then she tackled her hair as well as she could when raising her arms stretched the skin on her shoulders and back. Her left shoulder ached fiercely, too, as did her left hip. No, those two pillows hadn’t softened her landing on the hard ground much, if at all. The doctor had warned her to expect swelling and colorful bruises.

A ponytail proved to be beyond her. Changing clothes...not yet, she decided. She craved a shower but shuddered at the idea of hot water on her back. Spot-cleaning was as good as it would get.

And once she had something to eat, she’d have to break it to the Army Ranger downstairs that he now had medic duties as well as KP.

He studied her again when she reappeared, small lines appearing on his forehead. Apparently, she hadn’t accomplished miracles.

“Cheese?” he asked.

“Please.”

She leaned against a sort of breakfast bar rather than trying to sit on a stool. She studied Chloe, who had made surprising inroads on her burger, which from experience Trina knew was completely plain. She wouldn’t have touched the sliced tomatoes, onions or lettuce Gabe had set out, or the ketchup or mustard, either. What surprised Trina was that the three-year-old didn’t seem wary of Gabe. She shied from most people, especially men, yet was happily eating food he’d put in front of her, her bare feet swinging.

“Did you nap?” Trina asked.

Chloe nodded.

“She was up for a couple of hours in the middle of the day,” Gabe said, “napped again and got up about an hour ago.”

Intrigued, Trina wondered how he’d entertained Chloe for those two hours. The little girl appeared surprisingly comfortable with him. “How long did I sleep?”

He glanced at the microwave. “Nine hours.”

“Really?” She’d have had to be deeply asleep for Chloe to have slipped out of bed without her noticing. “I never conk out like that.”

“I don’t suppose you had a very good night’s sleep,” he said dryly.

“Well, no, but...” Her stomach growled and she pressed a hand against it. “I’m starved. I haven’t had anything to eat since last night.”

“I guessed. Here.” He handed her a plate with baked beans, corn and a cheeseburger on a fat bun. “Chloe declined the beans.”

The little girl wrinkled her nose.

Trina kissed the top of her head. “She’s at an age to be picky.”

“Figured.” He produced silverware, then brought his own plate over to the bar and sat on Chloe’s other side, hooking the heels of his boots on a rung as if it were a fence rail.

After gobbling half her meal, Trina said, “It’s been peaceful?”

He glanced at her sidelong. “Yep. We made a clean getaway.”

“Yes, but... I can’t be completely out of touch.”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

Something about his tone made her wonder how two-way he intended that talk to be. Did he really think Joseph’s sister would be meek and docile? Dealing with him would be easier if she could read him better, but he was so guarded she wondered what it would take to shatter his control. Something told her pain hadn’t done it. In fact, he might have shored up his walls during his lengthy recuperation.

Chloe dropped her cheeseburger without finishing it. She immediately crawled over onto Trina’s lap. Trina held her with her left arm and kept eating.

“I don’t suppose you have any toys around?” she asked after a minute.

Gabe snorted.

“Didn’t think so.”

“Actually... Well, I’ll look around. I said it was okay for Boyd to loan this place out to a friend of his. Ski vacation. He had a family. Don’t know how old the kids were. They might have left something behind.”

Chloe’s head came up. She’d been following the conversation.

Unable to quite clean her plate, Trina finished eating first. “Do you have a satellite dish?”

“Yeah. Hey. Channel three has the lineup.”

She’d seen the living room but not taken it in. She couldn’t describe it as homey, exactly; Gabe had furnished it with the basics but not bothered with artwork or homey touches like table runners or rugs. The sofa and a big recliner were brown leather that made her think of saddles. The clean lines of the oak coffee table and single end table might be Mission style. Built-in bookcases lined one wall and held an impressive stereo system as well as quite a library. A big-screen TV hung above a cabinet that had drawers. Trina went to investigate those.

Among a good-size collection of movies for grown-ups, she found three DVDs aimed at kids: Finding Nemo, A Bug’s Life and Arthur’s Perfect Christmas. Chloe decided on Arthur’s Perfect Christmas. Trina succeeded in getting it started and Chloe climbed onto the sofa and settled happily to watch.

Returning to the kitchen, Trina reported, “Your renters apparently went home without a few of their movies.”

He was loading the dishwasher and glanced up. “Ones she’ll watch?”

How a man could look so sexy doing such a mundane task, she didn’t know, but he succeeded.

“Yep.”

“Then this is probably a good time for us to talk.”

“Yes, except...” She nibbled on her lower lip. “I have a problem.” Actually, she had so many problems they’d add up to a lengthy list, but one thing at a time, Trina decided. “I’m afraid I have to ask you to change the dressings on my back and apply more ointment. Unless you have a mother or girlfriend nearby who could be persuaded to volunteer.”

“Neither.”

* * *

WELL, HELL. SHE was going to half strip so he could stroke ointment over her skin with his bare hands? Might as well ask him to run his hand along a strand of barbed wire. Dangerous. He wasn’t the only one conscious of the risks, either; the pink in her cheeks was from a different kind of heat.

Think of this as a medical problem, he told himself. “How badly are you burned?”

“Not that terrible. According to the doctor, mostly first-degree, spots of second-degree. No worse than a really bad sunburn. The fire didn’t touch me, but while I was lowering Chloe out the window and waiting until I could follow her, flames burst through the door behind me and—” She visibly shied from the memory. “I was just...too close to it.”

“Okay.” He tried to sound gentle, which had the effect of roughening his voice. “How often do we do it?”

“Twice a day until it’s obviously healing. Which shouldn’t be more than two or three days.”

Gabe thought it over. “I don’t want to leave Chloe downstairs by herself. If you’ll pause the movie—”

“Why don’t we wait until she’s gone to bed?”

Yeah, sure. Then they’d be alone, house quiet and dark around them. Her stretched out on his bed, since Chloe would be in hers.

He cleared his throat. “If you don’t need it done sooner.”

“It can wait.”

“All right.” Needing a distraction, he lifted the carafe from the fancy coffee maker that had been one of his first purchases after he’d had the cabin built. “Would you like a cup?”

“That would be great.”

“You okay on the stool, or would a chair be more comfortable?”

“Chair.”

“Hey, hold on.” He left the room, returning after a minute with a heavy-duty parka. “This should give you a little padding.”

He doubled it over, and watched as she sat down gingerly. Looking surprised, she said, “That helps. Thank you. And speaking of... I don’t think I’ve thanked you for rushing to our rescue.”

Admit to his initial reluctance? Or that, on second thought, he’d been glad to have the chance to do something really meaningful? Probably not. Gabe settled for an acknowledging nod.

“I should at least call my insurance agent tomorrow.”

“It’ll have to wait. What phone number would you give him if he has questions?”

“But...”

“A few days is nothing, given the time it’ll take to rebuild.”

She finally nodded.

“I need you to tell me what’s happened so far.”

Looking startled, she began, “Didn’t Joseph—”

Gabe cut her off. “I want as much detail as you can give me.” The cops had one goal; he had another.

She glanced toward the doorway, as if to be sure the little girl hadn’t wandered into earshot. “Did you read about the murders?”

Having a whole family killed, and wealthy people at that, didn’t happen in these parts. The news had likely riveted just about everyone. “Yes,” he agreed, “but I had the impression the cops were holding back.”

“They did tell me something two days ago they hadn’t admitted up until then, but my impression is that they’re stymied.”

Gabe waited.

Trina began to talk, starting with the request from a Lieutenant Matson, who oversaw detectives, that she work with a three-year-old girl who was the only survivor after her family had been killed. “Either she’d climbed into one of the lower kitchen cupboards herself, or one of her parents put her there. When the police arrived, the cupboard door was open a crack, and her father’s body was right in front of her.”

“Once she heard the intruder leave, she might have pushed it open herself to peek out,” he suggested.

“Yes, but they didn’t think so. She was...frozen, almost catatonic. Stiff, staring, squeezed into the smallest ball she could manage.”

He played the devil’s advocate. “Seeing her father...”

“The detective said he’d been shot in his back and lay facing her. She couldn’t have seen the blood or...damage.”

“Unless she crept out, then went back to her hidey-hole.”

“I guess that’s conceivable, but I think it’s likelier that she never moved.” Her expression shifted. “You sound like another detective. Were you an MP, or...?”

“No, we do some of the same kind of thing when we’ve been inserted into a foreign country and discover our intel isn’t accurate. It’s time you and I start thinking like investigators.” He’d realized as much immediately. “If you trust the police, you’d be letting them protect you and Chloe. They offered protection, didn’t they?”

“Round the clock.”

“But you called your brother instead. Why?”

She made a face. “Two reasons. One is that they’re desperate for Chloe to tell them what she saw and heard. They called constantly, dropped by at the office. They were impatient, skeptical. Why wasn’t she talking yet? I overheard one of the detectives saying I was being too soft, that they could ‘crack her open.’ His words. All I could picture was a nutcracker smashing a walnut open.”

Gabe winced, sympathizing with her obvious anger. He could empathize with the cops’ frustration, too, but nothing justified traumatizing that cute kid any more than she’d already been.

“They didn’t like it that I wouldn’t tell them where I ‘stashed’ her during the day, while I worked,” Trina continued, with unabated indignation.

“Where did you?” he asked, curious.

“Some of the professionals and staff in the building went in together, rented a small vacant office and started their own preschool, right down the hall from my office. This way, they can have lunch with their kids, pop in when there’s a slow moment, be there if something happens.” She smiled. “Needless to say, it’s not advertised. They were happy to include Chloe.”

“Smart.” He mulled that over. “Okay, you wanted to keep her away from the cops. What’s the other reason you don’t trust them?”

“Chloe had been talking for about a week—but timidly, and she’d clam up and stay quiet for hours if I said anything that scared her. Since she was progressing well, though, on Tuesday I called Detective Risvold to let him know we were getting somewhere.”

“And Wednesday night, your house was set on fire with you and Chloe inside it, asleep on the second floor,” he said slowly. Rage kindled in his chest.

“I thought the timing was suggestive.” Anxiety filled her hazel eyes, and her hand resting on the table tightened into a fist. Her fingernails must be biting into her palm. “Do you think I’m being paranoid?”

“No.” He started to reach for her hand but checked himself. He wasn’t much for casual touching, and didn’t even know where the impulse had come from. “You have an enemy. Under the circumstances, it’s just common sense to be paranoid.”

Her relief was obvious, her hand loosening. “Thank you for saying that. There’s a fine line. Until the fire, I figured the detectives were insensitive. Maybe neither of them has children. But thinking they’re part of this...”

Gabe pondered that, considering it safer than focusing on his desire to scoop her up in his arms and hold her close. That wasn’t like him, either. Yeah, and she wouldn’t enjoy close contact right now anyway.

“Odds are against the investigators being culpable,” he said after a moment. “Trouble is, unless our guy got lucky and overheard two cops gossiping in a coffee shop, that suggests a killer who has connections in the department.”

“Detective Risvold wasn’t happy with me when I told him his department must have a leak.”

“He was defensive?”

“Maybe?” Her uncertainty came through. “Or worried because the thought had already occurred to him? I couldn’t tell.”

“I’d like to have a talk with him, except I don’t see how I can without giving him an idea where you are.”

“Where you stashed me, you mean?”

He gave a grunt of amusement. “Okay, tomorrow, I need to grocery-shop. I’ll drive to Bend so nobody I’ve met is surprised by what I’m buying. I can stop at Target or Walmart and pick up some toys or movies for Chloe and anything else you need.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if I came? I could definitely use clothes and toiletries.”

“No. We can’t risk you being recognized.” He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to argue. “You can’t tell me you don’t have clients who live in Deschutes County. You could be recognized.”

“The odds of someone I know happening to be in the same store at the right time isn’t—”

“Give me sizes.” He sounded inflexible for good reason; this wasn’t negotiable. He could tell she was irritated, but he couldn’t let that bother him. “You hurt besides,” he pointed out. “Do you really want to try on jeans?”

She grimaced.

“I’ll have Boyd come over while I’m gone.”

Her forehead crinkled. “Joseph didn’t sound as if he completely trusted this Boyd. He thought he might have gotten soft.”

Gabe came close to laughing. “That hasn’t happened.” Just for fun, he’d tell Boyd what her brother said.

Her eyes searched his. “He won’t tell anyone we’re here?”

“He already knows. I needed to be sure he was ready to act if I called.”

When Trina turned her head, he, too, realized the background voices and music from the TV had stopped in the living room. Before either of them could rise, the kid appeared. So much for everything else they needed to discuss. But maybe one day at a time was good enough, Gabe thought. The last twenty-four hours had upended Trina’s life, and Chloe’s for a second time.

“Movie over?” Trina asked, holding out her hand.

Nodding, the kid reached Trina and climbed into her lap. The lack of hesitation spoke of her trust.

That got him wondering how Chloe had come to be living with the psychologist who’d been working with her. That had to be unusual. He’d never had the slightest interest in building personal ties with any of the social workers and therapists who’d made him think of mosquitoes, persistent as hell, whining nonstop, determined to suck his memories as if they were blood.

And maybe that was fitting, because his memories were of blood, so much he sometimes dreamed he was drowning in it.

Dr. Marr hadn’t yet tried to crack him open, but give her time.

“Let’s go run you a bath,” she said to the little girl in her lap. “We’ll dig in that bag and see if Vicky sent any pajamas along.”

Chloe’s eyes widened.

Trina chuckled. “We’ll find something. If nothing else, you can sleep in this top and your panties.” She nudged Chloe off her lap and rose stiffly to her feet. Looking at him, she said, “I need a mug or something I can use to rinse her hair.”

“Sure.” He poked in the cupboard until he found a good-size plastic measuring cup with a handle.

“Perfect,” she said, taking it from him. She’d reverted to looking a little shy. “Let’s march, Chloe-o.”

The little girl giggled. His own mouth curved at the sound. Glancing back, Trina caught him smiling, and was obviously startled. He got rid of the smile.

“This bedtime?” he asked, nodding at Chloe.

“Uh-uh!”

It took him a second to realize the protest had been verbal. “She talks,” he teased.

Trina shook her head. “Now you’ve done it, kiddo. You won’t be able to fool him again.”

And damn, he wanted to smile.

* * *

SOMEHOW TRINA ALWAYS ended up wet even though it wasn’t her taking the bath. Chloe liked waves, and she liked to splash. She did not like having her hair washed or getting water or soap in her eyes.

At home, Trina had had a plastic stool she’d bought for the express purpose of supervising baths and washing Chloe’s hair. Today, she’d knelt on the bath mat. Chuckling as she bundled the three-year-old in a towel, Trina said, “As much as you love your bath, I think you’re ready for swim lessons.”

Chloe went rigid, panic in her eyes.

Going on alert, Trina used a finger to tip up her chin. “Or have you taken them before?”

Lips pinched together, Chloe shook her head.

On instinct, Trina kept talking, if only to fill the silence. “Maybe swim lessons are offered only during the summer.” She should know, but she tended to tune out when colleagues and friends who had children started talking about things like that. Had Chloe been disturbed only because she was afraid to put her face in the water? But Trina didn’t buy that. Taking a wild guess, she said, “Were you supposed to go to the pool that day? When the bad things happened?”

Suddenly, tears were rolling down the little girl’s cheeks. Seeming unaware of them, she nodded.

“Were you going to learn to swim?”

She shook her head.

“Brian?” Chloe’s brother had been six, a first grader.

She nodded again, her eyes shimmering with the tears that kept falling.

“Had you just not left yet?”

Another shake of the head. Trina had a helpless moment that gave her new sympathy for Detective Risvold’s frustration.

But then Chloe whispered, “Brian pooked.”

Pooked. “Puked? He was sick?”

She gave a forlorn sniff. “Uh-huh.”

“Did you see who came to your house, pumpkin?”

Chloe buried her face in Trina’s scrub top. Her whole body trembled.

Trina wrapped her in her arms and laid her cheek against the little girl’s wet head. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m so sorry. You don’t have to talk about it until you’re ready. I promise.”

Worried when there was no response, she used a hand towel to dry Chloe’s cheeks, had her blow her nose with a wad of toilet paper, then briskly dried her and pulled the My Little Pony nightgown she’d found in the duffel over her head. “Okay, let’s brush your hair.”

She found no hair dryer in the drawers and thought about asking Gabe if he had one in his bathroom, but then realized how pointless that would be. All he’d have to do was rub a towel over his head. He probably didn’t even bother to comb his hair.

Well, it didn’t hurt anyone to go to bed with wet hair.

She’d give a lot to have a pile of picture books to read to Chloe to give her something else to think about before she snuggled down to sleep, but she had to find another way.

So she tucked Chloe in, refrained from commenting on the thumb in her mouth, and began singing softly, starting with a lullaby. She knew the words to a couple of country-western songs, a song from Phantom of the Opera, and ended up with Christmas carols. After the first verse of “Silent Night,” she saw that Chloe’s mouth had softened and her thumb had fallen out.

Trina clicked off the lamp and had turned to slip out when she saw the big man lounging in the doorway. When she got closer to him, she couldn’t miss the smile in his eyes.

So she couldn’t carry a tune. Chloe didn’t mind.

He murmured, “Grab your duffel if it has what we’ll need in it.”

What they’d need. Alarmed by her very sexual response to that low, faintly rumbly voice, Trina took a minute to understand. Ointment. Bandages. He wasn’t suggesting whatever she’d been thinking.

Trying to regain her dignity, she detoured to pick up the bag and followed him as he backed into the hall. “My room,” he said, just as quietly, and indicated an open door.

The idea of taking off her shirt and pulling down her pants for him had seemed mildly embarrassing when they first met. Now her whole body flushed at the idea.

Seeing his big bed—it had to be king-size—didn’t help. Faced with that bed, she was only vaguely aware of bare walls, wooden floors and a couple of pieces of plain furniture.

“This going to be messy? Maybe you should lie on a towel,” he suggested, more gravel in his voice than usual. When she stayed speechless, he went into his bathroom. By the time he’d reappeared, she had set out a big package of gauze and one of several tubes of ointment a nurse had picked up at the pharmacy for her.

Gabe pulled back the covers, exposing forest green flannel sheets, and spread a huge towel for her to lie on.

She stared at it, all too conscious of him standing less than a foot away. This was the first time since she’d woken up that she’d lost all awareness of the pain.

Feeling silly, she still asked, “Um...would you mind turning your back?”

Without a word, he swung away.

Trina squirmed to get out of her scrub top. She’d been feeling the discomfort of not wearing a bra, but even if she’d had one, it would be days before she could actually stand to wear it. All but throwing herself down on his bed, she mumbled, “I’m ready.” Except for baring her butt. Well, she’d let him start at her shoulders and work his way down.

His weight depressed the mattress when he sat down at her side. While he peeled off the gauze covering, she turned her head to stare at the far wall and tried to bite back groans.

He swore. “This has to hurt like hell.”

“It does,” she mumbled.

There was a long pause. She heard him take a deep breath...and then he touched her. Stroked her.


Chapter Four (#uf4bc461e-67f1-5e53-9b5d-0989e113ce76)

Gabe glanced over his shoulder as he scratched the blood bay gelding’s poll. “This is Mack.”

Nickering, the horse had trotted over to the paddock fence the minute he saw people approaching. Gabe was hit by a pang of guilt at the thought that the gelding was lonely. Of course he was; horses are herd animals. “Not long until you’re back with your buddies,” he murmured in one flickering ear.

Carrying Chloe, Trina joined him at the fence. “As in Mack truck?”

He smiled a little. “Yeah. For a quarter horse, he’s a giant.”

Her sidelong, appraising glance was enough to stir his body in ways that could be embarrassing.

“Kind of fits you,” she murmured.

He pulled a cube of sugar from his pocket and held it out. Mack inhaled it, his soft lips barely brushing Gabe’s hand. “Put me up on some of the horses here on the ranch, my boots would be dragging on the ground.”

Trina’s laugh lit her face. Held on her hip, the kid jumped when Mack whiffled.

“Would you like to pet him?” Gabe asked. “Mack likes everyone.”

He wasn’t sure the horse had ever met a child, but he trusted the good-natured animal not to bite.

The little girl looked doubtful but finally, tentatively, held out a tiny hand. Mack blew on it, making her giggle, then bobbed his head.

Gabe showed her how to offer a sugar cube, wrapping her hand in his so she wasn’t in any danger of having a finger mistaken for a treat to be demolished by big yellow teeth. Another giggle, this one delighted, caused a strange sensation somewhere under his breastbone. It wasn’t only Trina who awakened unfamiliar feelings. He excused himself on the grounds that he was a natural protector. The little girl’s obvious vulnerability—and her surprising strength—spoke to him.





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