Lawless
From the question Hope guessed Joel wasn’t as willing to believe as easily as she was. Then again, he’d just met the group, and they were down two members.
“Let’s try it this way.” Joel shifted his weight. Not a big move. Barely perceptible but something about it made him appear taller and less willing to play games. “When did you last see Mark?”
Charlie’s gaze bounced from Joel to Cam and back again. “What’s with the weapons? Are you police?”
The look on Joel’s face, the way the corner of his mouth inched up, came close to a smile. “Pretend I am.”
Charlie didn’t share his amusement. “I don’t think I will.”
Much more of this and they’d never get to an answer. As it was, Lance and Jeff stared, watching the verbal volleys with their mouths hanging more open with each sentence.
Hope decided to act like what she was—in charge. “Charlie, help me out here. Mark wandered off and now I don’t know where Perry is.”
“I’m pretty sure Perry is in taking a second run at the chow line.”
This time the relief walloped the air right out of her lungs. “So, you’ve seen him this morning?”
Charlie nodded. “About fifteen minutes ago.”
“That’s a relief,” Lance said.
She saw Joel opening his mouth to say something and jumped in first. “But it doesn’t explain the Mark issue.”
Charlie waved her off. Even threw in a “bah” right before he started talking. “He’s just blowing off steam.”
The men kept saying it, but the explanation wasn’t good enough. “I can’t find him and I need him to check in before we do one more thing.”
Jeff swiped his thermos off the ground. “We need to go out looking for him.”
“How exactly?” Joel asked.
The question caused Jeff to go still. “What?”
Hope knew where this was going. She felt the conversation rolling downhill and couldn’t grab a two-second break to throw her body in front of it.
She couldn’t speak for Cam’s expertise, but she guessed it was off the charts. But Joel knew everything about surviving outdoors. He was the one person in the group better at outdoor activities than she was, and that was saying something.
He thrived in this environment. His father had groomed his kids to fight and shoot, readying them for the domestic civil war he insisted was coming.
Lost in paranoia and reeling from the unexpected loss of his wife, Joel’s dad believed the government had lost its way and only small pockets of freedom-loving people would save the world. He went about it by toughening up his kids, making them sleep outside and denying them an education until the state stepped in.
The upbringing was sick and wrong and it shaped Joel in ways she still hadn’t explored. He liked to joke and act as if certain things didn’t bother him, but she knew. But there were times when his gaze would wander and those dark eyes would glaze. He’d go to whatever place he built in his mind to find normalcy. And he wouldn’t let her in.
“Do you know anything about wilderness survival?” His voice stayed deceptively soft as he aimed the question at Jeff.
The other man held eye contact for a few seconds, then broke it. “We studied up before we came out here.”
“Oh, good.” Joel stared at Cam. “They studied.”
She got the point, but the conversation promised to run them right into a brick wall. “Joel, that’s enough.”
Not that he heard her. He continued to stare at Jeff.
She knew the hard truth. None of the testosterone-jousting did anything to help them locate Mark.
“Which cabin belongs to this guy?” Cam asked.
“That one.” She pointed to the building directly next to where hers sat in the middle of the makeshift line. Because she appreciated the assist, she followed Cam’s lead. “Charlie, can you take the guys and put together some provisions? If we’re going to spread out and search for Mark—”
Joel frowned. “Are we?”
“—they need to be ready.”
Charlie started shaking his head before she finished the sentence. “I’m not convinced this is necessary. He’s probably sulking. Struck me as the type.”
“He’s the vice president of finance,” Jeff said, as if that explained everything.
When Joel finally performed that eye roll it looked like he’d been dying to do since Jeff stood up, it was obvious he wasn’t convinced. “So?”
But she had a plan and it depended on everyone agreeing and moving on. “Charlie, if you could, maybe, keep everyone together, that would be a great help.”
He stared at her, not saying a thing. A gust of wind shook the leaves and the sun beat down on the campground, but the silence stretched out. Finally, Charlie began a slow nod. It picked up in speed as it went and seemed to last for a long time. “Ah, got it.”
She blew out the breath she’d been holding. It scratched her throat as it rushed out. “Thanks.”
“Gentlemen?” Charlie motioned for the managers to follow him. “Let’s go find Perry and get packed.”
Joel didn’t speak until the place cleared out and the voices faded as everyone slipped through the path between the cabins and headed for the kitchen cabin and open seating area about thirty feet away before he faced her. “What’s with the search party talk?”
“Some of this crew think they are mountain men. I was worried they’d run off with butter knives and try to slay bears or something equally stupid.” She’d dealt with the type for a long time and developed some skills, the top one being not to let them rally and slide into attack mode.
Cam nodded. “You wanted Charlie to keep them occupied while we searched.”
She looked at Joel, waited for him to say something. She expected a lecture on knowing the parameters of her job and leaving the investigation to him, the professional.
Instead a smile broke across his lips. “Your dad would be proud of your covert abilities.”
The compliment rushed right to her head, making her as dizzy as drinking the finest wine. “You don’t grow up with a former special ops guy and not learn a few things.”
That smile only widened. “Apparently.”
“Besides, Charlie gets it. He knows the kind of people who come out here,” she said, hoping to focus on all she had to do and drag her mind away from Joel. “He can help.”
Cam chuckled. “If Joel doesn’t tick him off.”
Very true. “Well, there’s that.”
They walked to Mark’s cabin. The men’s footsteps matched and she had to push her gait to keep up. They had long legs and moved quickly and quietly. She had a case of nerves that shook her hard enough to knock her over. She wanted to believe there was a reasonable explanation, but as the minutes passed her faith waned.
She used her master key to open the lock. All three of them stepped inside and stopped. Their shoulders touched and they still took up most of the open space.
They kept silent as their gazes scanned from wall to wall. The room consisted of two double beds and a small sitting area. With only a few suitcases, a coffeepot on a hot plate and rows of clothes on hangers inside the open closet, the visual inventory didn’t take long. There was one door, which went to a bathroom only slightly larger than a closet because the shower was outside the cabin in every building but hers.
Joel’s shoes scraped against the wood floor as he stepped farther inside. “There’s not much here.”
She had to take the blame for that one. “I found I have to really limit what they can bring along or some folks come out here with laptops and three suitcases and think someone else will drag it along.”
“Very practical.” Joel rummaged through a duffel bag on the floor and peeked under the cushions on the loveseat.
Metal screeched as she slid the hangers on the old rod. She spotted a few shirts and extra sneakers on the floor. There wasn’t as much as a chest of drawers in the place.
“Blood.” Cam didn’t add anything else. One word and so deathly serious.
She spun around to find Cam standing by the bed closest to the door. “What?”
Joel got there first, but she was right behind. They all crowded around the bed, staring and unmoving. No one touched anything.
She tried not to state the obvious, but she didn’t see anything except crumpled white sheets and a stack of pillows with a clear head indent in them. “What am I looking at?”
Cam nodded in the direction of the bottom of the bed. “The underside of the cover.”
Before she could reach over, Joel put out an arm and held her back. Two steps put him at the small table on the other side of the room. He was back in a flash with a pen in his hand.
With the tip, he lifted off the cover and flipped it back. Dark streaks ran about a foot along the underside. Splotches stained the navy blue blanket underneath. The dark shade hid the color. But she knew.
The dizziness hit her full force and the room spun. She would have grabbed for Joel but he’d crouched down to study the bed close up.
“It’s not a lot,” she said, looking for any positive spin on this horrible find.
“Well, it’s more than a few drops,” Joel said. “Almost like the spill of a glass of something.”
“Are you sure it’s blood?” She wanted them to say no, but she knew they wouldn’t.
Joel stood back up. “Not without tests, but I think we should assume it is until we see Mark walking around here.”
“Maybe he cut himself and didn’t tell me?” She was willing to believe anything at this point, so long as the man was healthy and fine.
“What about this gun?” Joel asked.
The question shot out of nowhere and slammed into her with the force of a body blow. They could add the weapon to the list of things suddenly gone missing.
Dread washed over her and she would have sat down hard on the floor, but Joel reached over and settled a hand on her elbow. Technically, he wasn’t holding her up, but inside she felt as if he were holding her together.
She tried to explain over the knot of anxiety wedged in her throat. “Unbeknownst to me, he brought it along. He waved it around at dinner, acting like a big shot.”
“Guy sounds like a jerk,” Cam said.
She felt obligated to defend him on some level. “He was showing off, but my rules are clear. No weapons.”
Joel shrugged. “I’m armed.”
“So am I,” Cam agreed.
They acted as if they were the only ones concerned with safety. “Yeah, well, that makes three of us.”
Cam smiled. “Really?”
“We all know the most dangerous person in a situation like this is the nervous novice with the gun.” Joel nodded and she took that as approval and kept going. “I can’t have people out here with weapons, or sooner or later one of them will shoot off a hand by accident.”
He looked around the room. Even opened the bathroom door. “So where is it?”
“What?”
“The gun.”
“I have it.” She remembered the fight and what she did. “It’s in a small lockbox in my cabin.” But somehow deep down, she knew it was gone.
Joel stopped in the middle of the room and fixed her with a serious glare. “A hundred bucks says it’s missing.”
Just went to show how alike they were. She knew, he knew. Heck, maybe even Cam knew.
Still, she had to ask. “Why would you say that?”
Joel didn’t hesitate. “Experience.”
Chapter Four
Ten minutes later Hope had her leg wound bandaged and cleaned by Joel and carefully kneeled on the floor of her cabin, putting as little weight on the injury as possible. After a quick check under the bed she sat back on her heels and stared up at Joel. “Can I panic now?”
As far as he was concerned, they’d passed that point one missing businessman ago. “Soon.”
Joel had come out here as a favor. He’d dragged Cam because he needed a ride. Now they had a full-fledged mess on their hands.
Time was the issue. Mark had been missing for potentially twelve hours or more. That amounted to an emergency. The weather had stayed warm, but the breeze had kicked up and the air carried the scent of rain.
From all accounts Mark wasn’t a seasoned hiker. Animals, accidents, falls—the list of dangers went on and on. He could be hurt or worse.
Joel needed to get word to the rest of his team in Annapolis of the potential issue in West Virginia. They might need search and rescue, or air support, and he sure as hell wanted an answer to who was stalking Hope.
Then there was the bigger problem. The lingering sense of something being off. This should have been a routine assignment for Hope. He understood her dad’s worries, and Joel shared them when it came to her safety around a bunch of idiot men in the middle of nowhere, but this felt bigger. Targeted.
Joel didn’t like it, and the frown on Cam’s face and way he walked around, staring at the floor, suggested he wasn’t a fan either. Joel wanted to chalk it up to the mix of guilt and want that pummeled him every time he looked at Hope. She was the one woman who tempted him to give it all up and hunt for a normal ending to his story.
Leaving her was the one time when he’d acted like a complete jerk with a woman and deserved a swift kick. He was lucky she hadn’t treated him to one.
But the tic in the back of his neck wasn’t about his feelings for her. He loved her until he couldn’t see straight. Probably always would. No, this was something else.
He’d been attuned to danger—real danger, not the kind his father manufactured in his sick head—since he joined the military to escape his childhood. He learned to recognize it during his short tenure at Algier Security and honed it at the Defense Intelligence Agency. With Connor’s help and the support of the Corcoran Team, he understood not to ignore it and instead figured out how best to handle it.
And he was into it up to his eyeballs now.
“Let’s do a weapons check.” Joel touched a hand against the gun strapped to his side, then performed a mental rundown of the rest. One at his ankle and the two knives hidden under his clothing, plus the others in the lockbox on the helicopter.
He glanced at Hope. “What do you have?”
“Charlie has a gun.” She stood up next to Joel at the side of the bed. “I have a knife and a bow.”
“Bow?” Cam broke off from his staring to watch her from across the mattress. “Is that really practical?”
That was the kind of talk that usually led to a demonstration. People underestimated Hope. They saw the pretty face and tight body and decided she must be the type to sit on daddy’s piles of money and do nothing.
Joel had made that miscalculation for exactly three minutes before he saw her do a verbal takedown of a guy in her father’s office who called her sweetie. Joel had been about to give the guy a lesson in respect, but she’d handled it.
And he’d been hooked ever since. He found other women attractive, but none of them were her. None came close.
He decided to fill Cam in on the nonprivate part. “She was basically a Junior Olympics champion.”
“Not just basically.” Bending over, she pulled the case out from under the bed and opened it. “Want to see my medals? I have several bows—recurve, long bow and a few compound. You’ll have to trust me that I know how to use all of them.”
Cam stretched and looked over the bed from his side. “Why did you bring one here? That one’s recurve, right?”
She flashed him a smile. “The man knows his hardware.”
“Definitely.”
“Well, I figured I could show the men how to use it. People generally assume it’s easy and have no idea how much strength it takes. And...” Her smile grew to high wattage as she closed the case. “Having a bow and arrows in the room tends to cut down on drunken male idiocy.”
That time Cam laughed. “Impressive.”
“What do you guys have?” she asked as she sat on the bed.
The laughter in her voice caught Joel in a spell. Seeing her lighthearted and happy, if only for a few seconds, touched off something inside him.
Near the end they had fought a lot. Then he’d made her cry. He could have gone a lifetime without seeing that, without having her despair rip through him, shredding him from the inside out.
He forced his attention back to the present before the old feelings of guilt swamped him. “Guns, knives.” Joel thought about a man tracking her through the woods. “My bare hands.”
Her head fell to the side and her hair cascaded over her shoulder. “Strangely, I find that comforting.”
A stark silence zipped through the room. It was charged and uncomfortable enough to have him thinking about the big bed right in front of him and Cam squirming as if he wanted to bolt.
He inched toward the door, looking like he was about to do just that. “I should head back to the helicopter and lock it up. Also need to check in with Connor.”
Joel nodded. “Fine.”
“Who is that?” she asked, seemingly unaware of the firestorm she’d set off in the man she’d once dated.
Joel swallowed a few times and thought about every unsexy thing he could to overwhelm the other thoughts in his head. After a few seconds, his control zapped back to life. “Our boss, Connor Bowen. He runs the Corcoran Team.”
“Yeah, like I said, I should contact him.” With his hand against the door, Cam appeared to want to do it right then.
Joel didn’t disagree. He’d been toying with yelling for the cavalry, but he didn’t want to rush everyone in before they conducted a few more easy steps. “Let’s see if we can figure this out first. It’s still possible we have an annoying businessman acting like a spoiled child.”
“How do you explain the gun?” Cam asked.
Joel couldn’t. Not without hitting on options that had his temper spiking. That was the problem. “I’m thinking Mark snuck in here and took the box.”
“What?” Hope jumped off the bed and wrapped her arms around her body.
“I know that sounds bad, but—”
“While I was sleeping? No way.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “Don’t you think I’d hear him?”
Cam winced. “Maybe not.”
She visibly shivered. “That’s just creepy.”
“And one of the reasons your dad wanted me here.” Joel slid that in there in the hope it would cut off any argument he’d get on the helicopter when they flew out of there the second after they located Mark. Thanks to all she’d described about this retreat so far, he’d leave when she did and not a minute earlier.
She held up a hand. “Don’t start.”
Looked like her fear or disgust or whatever it was about the lockbox had disappeared. “Your dad is being practical.” Joel suspected her father was also engaging in a bit of matchmaking, but Joel decided not to share that thought.
“The word you’re looking for is overprotective.”
“Hope, I think—”
She turned to Cam. “So, now what?”
He bit his bottom lip in what looked like a poor attempt to block a smile. “We check the helicopter and do a quick search around the campground.”
Those priorities worked for Joel. “Cam will question the men here at the campground and maybe see if Charlie knows anything or can give us some direction.”
“He knows these woods better than anyone and probably can tell us where someone might hide.” She sighed as she shook her head. “I swear if Mark is just being a big baby and staying away because a woman yelled at him, I’m going to hit him.”
“Absolutely fine, since nailing him with an arrow is out. Unfortunately,” Joel said.
Cam nodded. “Sounds like a reasonable plan.”
She let her hand drop to her side again. “But Mark being a jerk still doesn’t explain the missing satphone and the stalker.”
“You’re sure Mark wasn’t the one following you?” Man, Joel wanted that to be the answer. It was simple and clean, but he knew life rarely worked that way. Not for him.
“The build was all wrong. Mark is stocky and a bit out of shape. This guy was lean and moved fast.”
“I don’t like that at all.” Cam shook his head as he peeked out the small window next to the cabin’s front door. “Heads up—the troops are gathering by the fire pit again. Looks like Charlie is giving them orders.”
“I bet Jeff pays attention to Charlie,” Hope grumbled.
Cam snorted. “Annoying but at least they’re listening. Good to know they can.”
Sounded like time had run out. Joel didn’t want to spend one more second in planning mode. “Okay, we meet back here in two hours. If we haven’t found anything, we start looking in the other cabins.”
Hope reached down. “I’ll bring—”
No way was Joel dealing with that. “The bow stays here.”
“Fine.” She got up and joined the men at the door. She glanced at Cam. “I thought you had to be somewhere else today.”
He nodded, like he always did. “I’m fine for now.”
“Maybe we should all be in on the questioning. I mean, I already checked the woods.”
Joel knew that would eat up too much time. “This go-round we’ll look for tracks.”
“Want me to do that? It’s more of my specialty than yours,” Cam said.
“We’ll be fine.”
Cam reached for the doorknob. “I bet.”
“Can I have a gun?”
Her question stopped both men. Cam froze and Joel did a quick count to ten. She could handle it, but she was still spooked and he had to be sure she was back in full control before he handed her a loaded gun. Still... “No.”
“Can you shoot?” Cam asked.
“Been practicing since I was ten.”
Joel wasn’t having this conversation right now. He reached around and shoved the door open, bringing the warm breeze inside. “Shooting a person is different.”
Her head snapped back. “Are we doing that?”
He hoped not. “Maybe.”
“And you would know how hard that is.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Yes, I would.”
* * *
THEY’D CROSSED OUT of sight of the campground before Hope broached the difficult subject. Actually, about a hundred feet away she opened her mouth and then closed it again, focusing on the sway of branches against the increasing wind and the clomp of their feet against the ground.
Later they hit the point where she could see sunlight up ahead and knew the helicopter sat a short distance away. She didn’t hold back. “Are we going to talk about it?”
He stopped scanning the trees and large expanse of forest around them to spare her a glance. “About what?”
Men were clueless. “Us.”
He exhaled. “Hope—”
“I know. You don’t have to list off the reasons why we should pretend we’ve never slept together.”
“I never said that.”
“You act like it.”
“And, for the record, it was more than sex.”
“Was it?” She asked even though she couldn’t stand to hear him dismiss their relationship as unimportant—again.
True, they hadn’t been together in what felt like forever. She’d convinced herself she didn’t care and could move on, but seeing him made her realize how untrue that was.
He picked a leaf off a branch that nearly whacked him in the face. “We can’t do this now.”
The world around her barely registered. Not when this topic came up.
She’d heard all of the excuses. They ran through her mind on constant play. They spilled out of her now before she could call them back. “This is the wrong time. I’m the wrong guy. You deserve better. My background is a mess. My job is dangerous.”
He stopped. “Excuse me?”
“Have you invented more reasons? I’ve heard all of those, and none of them sent me running.”
“Wow.”
She debated storming ahead, leaving him floundering, but refrained. Childish wasn’t the answer when what she really wanted was for him to treat her the way a woman deserved to be treated. “Imagine how I felt as you ticked off that list, or some version of it, day after day. You always had a new reason to push away and leave, but you never found one to stay.”
“That’s not true.”
She knew it was because she had lived it. “All those months ago I asked you to move in with me since you were basically staying there every night anyway, and you flew out of town on a business trip the next morning instead of giving me an answer.”