Cornered
With only the rustling of clothing as noise, her body and then her legs disappeared into the dark hole above. A second later her face popped into the space. “Be careful.”
He shut the door before she could say anything else. Now to bury the obvious entry. After a short mental countdown, he jumped, using the wall as leverage, and grabbed the handle. The yank pressed the hard metal into his palm but didn’t come off. He only managed to knock the handle loose.
The second lunge cut his palm but did the trick. With a crack the handle fell off. He stuffed it into his pocket and hoped the shadowed hallway would do the rest to provide cover.
Then he moved. The corner at the end of the hall qualified as the perfect place. He could squat down and wait for the inevitable. Problem was, Julia sat right above. A stray bullet could ricochet and hit her, and he couldn’t let that happen. That meant moving into the open, being more vulnerable, but he’d take the chance.
The kitchen worked as an alternative. He pivoted around the edge of the small island and hunkered down by the stove. Now began the game to see who would flinch first.
These guys didn’t disappoint. One kicked in the front door and another stormed in the back. With the size of the house, they could have run right into each other if they hadn’t stopped their momentum. They whispered and traded theories on his location. Cam heard it all.
Not seeing them, he had to concentrate on the voices and the footsteps to plot their positions. He had two in the small family room and one unaccounted for. Close enough.
When one came within range of the kitchen, Cam still held his position. Not moving. The preference was to take them alive. Much easier to question a breathing man than a dead one. Then the one who acted like the sidekick almost stepped on Cam’s hand.
He sprang to his feet with an arm wrapped around the guy’s throat as he faced down the one dressed as the police chief. The one who had all the facts and who’d sat in the office, pretending to be the police chief, which raised a lot of questions.
“Put the gun down.” Cam issued the order as he backed his hostage into the family room and away from the hallway where Julia hid above.
The fake chief wore a smile that could only be described as feral. “You have been a problem.”
No kidding. That was exactly what Cam got paid to handle. “Not the first time I’ve heard that.”
“Lower the weapon and we’ll let the woman live.” One gave the orders while the other tightened his hold on Cam’s arm to keep from being choked.
They’d seen her or guessed. Either way, them knowing limited Cam’s options even further. Pretty soon he’d be down to about one.
Still, there was no reason to make it easy for them. “What woman?”
“Don’t play dumb, Mr. Roth.” That sick smile widened. “Yes, I know your real name.”
That wasn’t good at all. That wasn’t the name he’d given as cover for the witness pickup. If the guy knew who he really was, he likely knew that the Corcoran Team was on the island. The mission could be blown. The same mission that was supposed to be exploratory only and not combat.
Just what they needed—more danger.
Cam’s heel hit the back of the sofa and he stopped. “Where’s the real police chief?”
“You need to stop asking questions and listen.” The guy used a man-to-man tone, as if they were having a chat about everyday things. “You have five seconds before me and my men tear this place apart and grab the woman. Then we’ll see how fast you talk.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing that.” The third man stepped in from a room in the back.
Cam guessed he had found a window. Didn’t really matter how he got there. Problem was, the odds had just switched to three against one. Not impossible but not his favorite. It meant he’d have to kill two and take his chances with the third.
He had to stop the chief first. “One more step and I snap your man’s neck.”
“You think I care?” He brought up his gun and fired.
The shot exploded in front of Cam. He felt a jerk and then the man he was holding fell at full weight against Cam’s chest. He dropped him with a thud to the floor and came up firing. He nailed the one in the hallway in the shoulder and knocked him back. The chief dived to the side and Cam dropped down as he scrambled around the couch.
The scene moved in slow motion, but Cam knew it took only a few deafening seconds. As shots continued to ring out, he blocked the hammering of adrenaline through his body and the grunts and heavy breathing filling the room.
He turned to get off a covering shot and took a quick inventory: one dead guy on the floor and the chief missing. The wounded shooter stood in that back room and fired random shots into the family room that kept Cam ducking. He was about to take a diving shot when he saw the crawl-space door drop. Not the whole way but enough to be noticed if anyone was looking.
The creak of the hinges had the shooter looking up. It was the distraction Cam needed. The guy shifted just enough to aim his gun into the dark hole, and Cam fired. Nailed him in the head this time and sent him crashing into the wall and then sprawling to the floor.
Cam jumped to his feet and searched the family room and kitchen. The place looked like a war zone. Shot-up walls and broken glass. A shredded curtain and papers scattered everywhere. He didn’t even know where half the stuff came from.
But a clear inside didn’t mean they were safe. He checked the porch and scanned the front of the property for any signs of the fake chief fleeing into the woods but didn’t see anything, including the truck that had been out there a few minutes ago.
“Julia?” He didn’t bother whispering or covering. The men knew she was there and now all but the fake chief lay dead on her floor. “Talk to me.”
When she didn’t say anything he stalked to the end of the hall and looked up. The gun appeared first, then her face. “That was pretty awful.”
Her voice shook, but she wasn’t throwing up, so he took that as a good sign. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
The shaking grew stronger and he worried about shock. “Any chance you could be more definitive?”
“My legs are never going to hold me to come down again. Maybe I’ll just live up here.” She glanced down at the guy lying below her, and her eyes widened. “Did you... Is he dead?”
“Very.” And Cam didn’t want her staring at the guy. Nothing good could come out of that. He tucked his gun into his waistband and picked a position that had her looking at him and away from the still body.
But she was already glancing over his head. “You killed two?”
“One. The guy in uniform took out his own guy and got away. So much for loyalty.” Cam lifted his hands and caught her, easing her to the floor and not letting go until she found her equilibrium. “You need to grab a bag and change your clothes, or at least your shirt.”
“Why?”
“You can’t stay here.” He pointed around the room. “This is a mess and I don’t know why the guy was shooting, so I need you off Calapan.”
“Normally I’d get indignant and tell you not to order me around, but I’m okay with it this time.” She handed his gun back to him.
He slipped it into the back waistband of his pants. “I knew you were smart.”
“We need to get to the ferry.” She wiped her hands on her thighs and blew out a long breath. “We can take my truck.”
Looked as though she had more bad news in front of her. He winced. “Was it blue?”
“Was?”
Cam didn’t see a vehicle outside. Unless she had a secret hiding place, they could add another criminal charge to the fake chief’s list. “The one who got away took it.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Are you kidding?”
In light of the past few minutes, the response struck him as overblown. Probably had something to do with the reaction to violence. She didn’t double over or hide in a corner, but she did latch on to odd things. He could handle that. “I’m thinking a stolen car is not the worst thing to happen to you today.”
“It’s a two-mile walk to the ferry and we only have four a day. We miss it and we’re trapped here. On this island.”
The bad news just kept coming. He pushed aside his plans to hunt the shooter down and focused on this problem. There was only one solution—call in the cavalry.
He glanced at his watch and pushed the button. The one that sent an emergency signal out to the rest of the men. “We’ll rendezvous with my team and get you to safety.”
“Alive?” She managed to load that one word with a heap of sarcasm.
He didn’t let her tone derail him. “My promise to do everything to keep you safe still stands.”
“I’m holding you to it.” She stared at him as if needing further reassurance.
He didn’t have anything other than his word, which was pretty damn solid, so he nodded. “Good.”
Chapter Three
Julia led him through the woods. The trees soared above their heads, blocking the late-afternoon sun and casting a chill over her. Light filtered through the branches and spots of sunshine highlighted parts of the rough terrain, but for the most part they had to rely on her sense of direction as a guide.
As a kid she’d used the forest area as a playground. There she could hide from her father’s alcohol-fueled rages and all the yelling. She’d breathe in the scent of the wet ground mixed with pine and be surrounded by calm, if only for a short time.
Being there now qualified as the exact opposite of calm. Her stomach tumbled and her nerves jingled, making her jump at every little sound. The chirping birds and the swishing as the wind blew the leaves around, usually soothing, just had her twitching.
Cam walked next to her, keeping their pace brisk. Every time she stumbled over roots or overturned rocks, his arm shot out and he steadied her. She appreciated the assist but really just wanted to get on a ferry and head for Seattle. Her father’s estate and the selling of the house could wait. She’d figure out the truck and how to remove dead bodies later.
She shivered at the thought. When her brain hiccuped over the destruction and seeing all that blood, she turned to the very real issue that she had to let someone in authority know. That would lead to questions she couldn’t answer and the possibility of getting in trouble.
But the police could question her in her small apartment back in her Belltown neighborhood, because she was officially done with Calapan Island. This time forever, because nothing and no one bound her there now.
The place was gorgeous but had never been anything more than a scary death trap for her. That used to be metaphorical in many ways; now it was literal. She’d had to walk over dead bodies with her backpack on her shoulders to get out of her father’s old house.
But really, right now she needed something to take her mind off all the terror and violence. Mr. Tall, Dark and Oh-So-Good-Looking beside her needed to step up and help on that score.
“Say something.” She issued the order and then went back to stepping over mounds of this and that on the ground.
He shot her a side glance before returning to his never-ending scan of the area around them. “Your shirt is bright purple.”
Not exactly what she’d had in mind, but the comment was potentially annoying and right now she’d take that over noticing his firm jaw and general hotness. “You’re critiquing my wardrobe?”
“I was hoping you’d pick something that blended in.”
A solid response, but not a request she could make happen. “Every shirt I own is a bright color.”
He looked at her again, but this time his gaze lingered. “Why?”
“Because I’m tired of blending in.” She’d spent her entire youth trying not to draw her father’s attention at the wrong time. Since he drank almost nonstop, that had turned out to be always.
But she was an adult now and refused to be defined by her father’s issues. She just wished she’d been stronger on that point and had confronted him before he fell out of his boat, hit his head and died. His death left her with a mix of guilt and regret and more than a little bit of anger over all she had lived through and the baggage she still carried around.
Cam shrugged. “I thought you picked it because you looked so good in bold colors. They suit you.”
Her sneaker slipped and she lost her footing. One wrong step and she turned her ankle as she bit back a string of profanity.
“You okay?” He faced her with both hands on her forearms.
She bit her lip. It was either that or grimace. “Yeah.”
“Julia, I need to know the truth here.” His expression went blank and his voice grew serious. “I can always carry you, if needed.”
“That is not going to happen.” She balanced her body against his, digging her fingernails into his arms as she shook out the sore ankle.
“You sure?”
“It’s just a twinge.” One that made her vision blink out for a second and her head spin.
When she moved her foot to the right, pain screamed through her. She’d done this a million times. Years ago she’d stopped running because of weak ankles. Well, that and because of her absolute hatred of running. But she knew the pain would ease if she stayed off it for a few hours and iced it down. She sensed neither was an option.
“By your own calculations we have about a mile and a half left to go.” He looked up. “Daylight will fade and the ferry schedule will get in our way.”
“Can we flag down a car?” A risky thought with gunmen racing around, she knew, but it was an option. Cam with all his superhero skills might be able to tell a legitimate driver from an undercover gunman. At least she hoped so.
He stared at her in that way a man did when he thought a woman had lost her mind. “In a tree?”
For a second she forgot he didn’t know the area. Despite the could-charm-any-woman dimple and cute face, he fit in here. Had an outdoorsy look to him, and his clothes blended in. Certainly better than she did.
“There’s a dirt road for emergency vehicle use only. The wildlife enforcement guys and police travel it.” As soon as she said that last part, an alarm bell rang in her head.
“I’m not exactly looking for a run-in with more police or people pretending to be police.” His fingers squeezed around her arms, then eased again. “But if the path is clearer you’ll have an easier time, so we can try it.”
Last thing she wanted to do was drag the danger out. Sooner or later the ankle had to go numb anyway. “I can keep going.”
One of his eyebrows lifted. “Your choice is the emergency road or I throw you over my shoulder.”
The shoulders, the face, the general hotness—she liked it all. The bossiness? Not so much. “You need to work on your negotiation skills.”
“Why? I just won, didn’t I?” He guided her to an overturned log and helped her sit down.
Before she could say anything or think of a comeback, he dropped to one knee with his hands up her pants leg. Warm hands slid along her calf, then down to the top of her short socks. With a gentle touch he rotated her ankle one way, then the other.
The whole thing left her breathless. She didn’t even scream when the sharp shock of pain radiated up her leg. For a guy who could turn and shoot without blinking, he could soothe by the simple touch of skin to skin.
She swore her vision blurred a little as she watched him, but somehow she found her voice again. “You could leave me here and go get the FBI.”
“Tempting.” He shot her a smile that could melt butter.
“We can’t take the shoe off or it will swell.” She was just babbling now.
“I know.” He stood up and held out a hand toward her. “Come on.”
She struggled to stand and almost called a halt to the whole project until he put her arm around his neck. The move let her fall into his side with him shouldering most of her weight and not putting any but the barest bit on the toes of her hurt foot.
“Better?” he asked.
This close she could smell him. A mix of wind and woods. Very compelling and weird, since smelling guys was not really her thing. She worked in an office and answered phones. She dated, but not much since breaking up with the accountant who had waffled between boring her and scaring her as he drank scotch after scotch after dinner each night.
She managed to nod. Not that Cam waited for her to be healed or even ready. He had them moving again, this time at a slower pace, but not by much. They wound around piles of rock and across fallen branches.
With each step, the end of his gun dug deeper into her side. She didn’t complain, because he was almost carrying her, all while watching the area and stopping every few minutes to check for something only he could hear.
When they reached the dirt road about ten minutes later, she slumped even harder against him in relief. “Here it is.”
“This?”
She couldn’t really fault the disbelief in his voice. She looked first down one side, then the other. The path was overgrown in parts. In others she could see the faint outline of tire tracks. But mostly they looked at mud and stones. Pretty big stones.
But she couldn’t come up with another option. All the roads, some better than others, required a hike. Some of them serious hikes, complete with rappelling. She could barely walk. Jumping up and down mountains was out.
“It’s the best I could do on short notice,” she joked even though there was nothing amusing about their current situation.
He stared at her for a second as if trying to figure out her mood, then nodded. “This should be a bit more stable for you.”
She didn’t see how, but now wasn’t really the time to argue. “Sure.”
She moved away from him and put some weight on the sore ankle. It felt all twingey and only a few steps from shattering, but she tried to trick her mind into thinking it was no big deal. “I’m fine.”
“That’s convincing.” He reached out and this time it looked as if he planned to carry her. “Come on.”
The rumbling broke her concentration. The grinding of an engine and thumping and thudding as the wheels covered the trail. She’d never been so grateful to hear a vehicle. “A car is coming.”
He stood stock-still. “No.”
“What?”
“Truck.” He wrapped his fingers around her elbow and pulled, half dragging her back into the cover of the overgrown trees.
Her feet slipped and the aching turned to a harsh pounding in her foot. But that was nothing compared to the knocking in her chest. Her lungs seemed to want outside her chest.
Pebbles skidded under her sneakers as she tried to gain traction. “How can you tell?”
“Different sound.” He slipped an arm around her waist and lifted. “Come on.”
Her body took flight and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders to keep from falling. She wanted to scream and argue, but that engine noise and the ambling of the truck drew closer.
They’d gone about ten feet in when Cam turned and dropped. His knees buckled and they went down. She landed on top of him in a bone-crushing thud. His landing had to be harder against the rough ground, but she didn’t have time to think about it because the world started spinning.
He flipped her until she lay underneath him, covered head to toe by firm, muscular male. She looked up and followed his gaze. They lay sprawled behind two stacked logs. Peeking through the sliver of space between them, she could see the tires and a flash of blue.
It was her truck or one that looked very similar. Her fury at being robbed mixed with the very real horror of being found out here. She’d heard the threats the men made about her to Cam. They didn’t need to use the exact words for her to know being caught by those guys was not an option. She’d go out shooting instead.
The truck door opened and black shoes came into view. The leg bottoms of the police uniform. Footsteps echoed on the dirt path as the guy walked from one side of the car to the other. When he bent down to touch something on the ground, her breath caught in her throat. Not a single cell moved within her body.
Cam also froze. His eyes darted as he watched the movements, but even his hands stayed still. He had a gun in one and she had no idea when he had brought that back out again after checking her ankle.
What felt like hours passed. Finally, the guy stood up again. She still refused to breathe. Her fingers tightened on Cam’s shirt, balling wads of material within her tight fists.
She heard keys jingle. Probably her keys. And whistling.
The jerk.
When the guy got back into the truck and the engine revved, she finally let the air rush out of her lungs. Her head fell back against the cool ground and she inhaled the scent of peat moss. Getting her heart to stop racing seemed impossible.
It took another few seconds for the tension across Cam’s shoulders to ease. Still, he didn’t move. His head lowered and he looked down at her with his mouth hovering over hers. “You okay?”
She shook her head because that was all she could get out.
Chalk it up to the adrenaline or the moment or that face, but she gave in and did something totally unlike her. Her hands smoothed up his chest to his cheeks, and then she brought his mouth even closer. When he didn’t bridge the gap between them, she did.
Her lips touched his and at first he didn’t react. Didn’t make a sound or do anything. Then his fingers slipped into her hair and held her still as he deepened the kiss. The touch hit her with a jolt of mind-blowing fever. He kissed her long and hard until that dizziness came roaring back.
When he lifted his head again, she could barely hold her neck up. Her hands dropped to the ground beside her head. “Wow.”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
But she had to be smart. “The kiss was a onetime thing.”
“That’s a shame.” The corner of his mouth kicked up in a smile. “What was it for?”
“Not letting me die.” Seemed simple enough to her.
Some man pretending to be a police officer was looking for them, and Cam hadn’t hesitated. He’d tucked her body under his and kept her safe. He’d already killed a man rather than let him touch her. She didn’t know how to thank him for those things or how to deal with the confusion rattling her, since he was the one who’d brought the danger to her doorstep in the first place.
“Now what?” She felt as if she kept asking that, but it still seemed relevant.
He brushed her hair away from her face. “We find my team.”
“Are they like you?” She tried to imagine a whole group of hot undercover guys with guns, and her mind couldn’t process it.
He frowned at her. “You don’t get to pick another team member to stay with you.”
“I didn’t say—”
“You’re stuck with me.”
“You don’t want to pass me off?” She really hoped he’d say no.
“You do talk a lot.” His thumb rubbed over her temple.
Much more touching and she’d forget they were outside and in danger and return to the kissing that felt so good. “You don’t like talking?”
“Strangely enough, I’m starting to.”
Chapter Four
She looked like death by the time they got within a quarter mile of the ferry landing. Cam called in the team to have them rendezvous at a new position because he doubted Julia could make it much farther.
Not that she complained. No, she never made a sound except for a grunt here and there. But when they started down the grassy hill behind them, he heard her sharp intake of breath and called a halt. No way could she take the slope from here to the water, and she all but punched him when he mentioned again the idea of carrying her.
He liked her spunk and the well of energy she kept finding. Most men he knew would have dropped at the sight of two dead guys on their family room floor. She’d hung in there.
But she needed rest, which was why they sat at a picnic table behind a grocery market with her sore ankle resting on the bench next to him. The employees likely used the space for breaks, but right now he claimed it.