Undercover Refuge
“Okay, then,” she muttered. “I guess the only thing to do is to walk until I find some help.”
Wincing at the generally sorry state of her car, she climbed back into the ditch and leaned through the driver’s side door to grab her oversize patchwork bag from the front seat. She eyed her suitcase in the back seat, but decided to leave it. There was no way of knowing exactly how long she’d have to walk, and she didn’t want to weigh herself down too badly.
And besides that, she told herself, you’re going to be able to get help, and you’re going to get back here just fine. It’s not like a wild animal’s likely to come along and steal your clothes and toothbrush.
Feeling slightly more positive, she made her way out of the ditch back to the dirt road. She lifted her hand to shield eyes, glanced in the general direction of the sun and tried to gauge the time. Noon, maybe? And she thought she could tell which way was west. With a determined spin, she took a few steps. Then stopped almost immediately as a growl filled the air. Her eyes widened. She swallowed nervously and started to turn back to her car, half expecting to see that a bear or a wolf had taken an interest in her belongings. But aside from her familiar car, the ditch was as empty as it had been a moment earlier.
Then she clued in.
She closed her eyes and listened. The growl became a rumble, which grew louder and closer. And more familiar.
Slowly—not wanting to let herself give in to false hope—Alessandra opened her eyes and focused her attention toward the end of the road. Not really aware that she was doing it, she squeezed her fingers into fists and bounced a little on the balls of her feet.
Please, please, let it be him.
And suddenly, there he was. Or there his truck was, anyway. Barreling toward her at full, furious speed. Almost as if the fact that he was headed her way made the driver angry.
For a second, Alessandra’s feet stayed rooted to the spot, puzzlement outweighing worry. Why would he come back if it was just going to make him mad? As the truck got closer, dirt flying up hard, Alessandra’s brain gave her a little tap, and she realized that if she didn’t move, there was a good chance she might be mowed down. But she no sooner started to jump out of the way than the blue truck came to a grinding halt, and the driver’s-side door came flying open with a force that matched the speed at which the vehicle had approached. Quick and fired up. It was enough to freeze her again. It was also enough to send a sharp zap of curiosity through her. And the curiosity only deepened as the driver jumped out.
Alessandra watched as he planted his steel-toe boots firmly in the dirt and spread his dark-denim-clad legs hip distance apart, then just stood there, unmoving. She had the impression that he was assessing the situation. And maybe her, too. It was disconcerting, and an inexplicable sweat broke out on her upper lip. But she couldn’t seem to speak. So she just took advantage of the silent, still moment to look him over as thoroughly as he was looking over her.
He was lean, but not skinny. In fact, he had corded muscles on the lower half of his inked arms—just visible because he had his long-sleeved charcoal-gray T-shirt pushed halfway to his elbows. As she stared at the bit of exposed ink, a prickling heat built just under the surface of Alessandra’s skin. For a moment, the warmth threw her off. But it didn’t take long to realize the source. She—or her body, anyway—found him attractive.
She sucked in a breath, tried to calm her suddenly racing heart and forced her eyes to his face. He still wore the dark reflective glasses, and he had a ball cap emblazoned with a truck logo pulled down over his forehead. Even though his cheeks and chin were dusted with a salt-and-pepper beard, what she could see of his skin was smooth and at least as young as her own. The contrast, which created a slightly enigmatic look, did nothing to ease the quick thrum of her Alessandra’s pulse.
But then she spotted something that flew straight at her like a bucket of icy water.
One of the truck driver’s hands hung loosely at his thigh, fingers flexing. The other hand was poised over—but not quite touching—a shiny metal gun.
Chapter 2
Rush saw the pretty redhead catch sight of his weapon. He noted the way her eyes widened nervously, and how—when she tipped her gaze back up—they stayed that way. Not like a deer in headlights. She was startled, but there was no hint in naivete in her gaze. There was intelligence. Some kind of understanding. And an undercurrent of fear, which made Rush feel surprisingly guilty. Though even acknowledging all of that still didn’t prepare him for what happened next.
She jumped at him. So quickly and so unexpectedly that he didn’t have a chance to react the way he should have. The way he was trained to. Instead, he kind of stumbled backward, flailing his arms a little. He actually had to catch himself on the still-open door of his Lada.
The whole thing only stunned him more. No one ever got the drop on him. Not the police coming up against him when he was undercover, and not the guys he turned in at the end of each case. For the sun-kissed redhead to do it now...it was almost unfathomable.
He expected her to continue with her leap. To knock him to the ground and disarm him. So it was another surprise when she simply used her advantage to turn and run. Her flip-flops smacked against the ground in an almost comical way. She cast a final, heartbeat-long look over her shoulder, then leaped over the ditch and darted into the woods.
“What the hell just happened?” Rush growled, staring at the space where the redhead had just disappeared.
Before he could come up with a logical explanation for the way she’d run off rather than taking the clear advantage, a distinctly feminine, distinctly terrified scream carried out of the foliage. The scream did for Rush what seeing the woman waving at him from the side the road hadn’t; it sent his protective instincts into overdrive.
Without a second thought, he set off at a run. His long legs brought him to the ditch, then over it. They carried him through the low brush, then into the trees. There, just inside the first patch of shade, he paused and whipped his head back and forth.
“Hey!” he called, then paused as he realized he didn’t have a name to call. “Uh. Red? You out here?”
He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to scream again, or not. On the one hand, it would sure as hell help him locate her. Let him know she was alive as well. On the other hand, he didn’t have much desire to hear the ear-piercing shriek a second time, and he didn’t want her to have to go through whatever it was that caused it again, either.
“Red!” he yelled a little louder.
A faint reply—words, but not ones he could hear enough to understand—floated up from somewhere just ahead. They had a strange, echoey quality he couldn’t quite place. So he took a few steps forward, then paused again.
“You there, Red?”
There was a few seconds of silence before he heard her voice again, a mutter that made Rush wonder if she was really answering him at all.
“I don’t know if—” She cut herself off, then added another string of incomplete sentences. “God. What if...no. I just—no.”
“Red?” he replied, puzzled this time. “You okay?”
“You know...” said her disembodied voice. “Some of us gingers find that nickname offensive.”
For no good reason at all, Rush felt the need to ask, “Are you one of those gingers?”
She didn’t reply immediately, and he could perfectly picture her face—a face he didn’t even know, for crying out loud—puckering up as she thought about what to say. He could easily imagine her arched brows buckling together in a frown. Even though it was completely impossible in reality, he swore he could practically hear a sigh escaping from her full lips.
“No,” she finally called.
“Okay, then, Red,” Rush replied. “Keep talking so I can get to you.”
The request was met with more silence.
“Now would be good,” he prodded.
She did answer this time, but her tone was somehow muted. “Are you going to shoot me?”
“Shoot you?” he echoed before recalling the reason he was chasing her in the first place.
He nearly laughed. Just a few minutes earlier, he’d been furious at himself for leaving her on the side of the road. Then more furious at himself for being weak enough to go back. He knew damned well it wasn’t because he needed to know why she followed him. Although that would’ve made perfect sense. The real reason was far more basic. Far more base.
From the moment he pulled away, Rush couldn’t stop seeing flashes of her tanned skin. Her throat. Her shoulder. The thin line between her tied-up T-shirt and the waistband of her pants.
If she’d been a sixty-five-year-old man with a bushy beard and dirty old jogging pants, he wouldn’t have turned around. Or maybe he would’ve just stuck around in the first place. At the very least, he would’ve saved himself the trouble of the ridiculous inner argument. Yet there he was, standing in the middle of the woods, searching for his stalker and worrying more about her well-being than he was worrying about his own.
And you forgot all of that?
“Um. Mr...Sunglasses?” The redhead’s voice—a little clearer but still hesitant—dragged him back to the fact that he was supposed to be doing something.
“Mr. Sunglasses?” he repeated, tipping his head to listen for her reply.
“Well,” she said, “it was a toss-up between that and Mr. Blue Truck.”
“It’s a Lada,” he corrected as he took a few steps in what he thought was the right direction.
“A what?”
“The ‘truck’ is actually a Lada.”
“Oh. Does that matter?”
“Well, it’s not really a truck. It’s more of an off-road vehicle.”
“It looks like a truck.” The statement had a stubborn note that made Rush smile.
“It’s not, though,” he said. “Technically.”
“Technicalities are that important?” she asked.
Rush’s smile slipped away. The flippant way she said it made him sure it wasn’t a dig of some kind. She wasn’t aware of his past. She couldn’t possibly have a clue about just how much weight a technicality could have in someone’s life. In his life. But it was still a damned good reminder that he wasn’t in Whispering Woods to make friends. He was there to right a decade-and-a-half-old wrong.
“Is there a particular reason you were following me?” he asked. “Or is stalking something you do for fun on Wednesdays?”
“I wasn’t following you,” she replied.
Her voice sounded impossibly close. Like she should be standing just in front of him.
Rush stopped walking, his eyes narrowing as he searched the dense trees for a sign of her. “You expect me to believe it was a coincidence that you made every turn I made while keeping a few hundred feet behind me?”
“That’s...well. Okay. Yeah. I can see how that could seem like stalking,” she said. “I mean. I was following you. But I wasn’t following you. If that makes sense.”
Weirdly...it did.
“Are you telling me all of this is because you took a damned wrong turn?” he asked.
“I was lost. It happens.” She said it like a shrug.
He considered it. He supposed she could be telling a story to cover up her true intentions. He had plenty of experience with liars, though, and if the redhead was one, she had to be damned near perfect at it. The thing that really tipped him in favor of believing her was her scream. He was damned sure it’d been genuine.
“Are you still there?” she called.
“Yeah. I’m still here. And I’m pretty sure you’re still lost.” He took two more steps.
“I’m not lost,” she told him. “I’m right down—”
Whatever else she said was swept away as Rush took another step, then fell.
Not over.
Not in a tumble or a trip.
Down.
An undignified holler and a stream of curses escaped his mouth. His back bumped painfully over dirt and roots and God knew what else and he scraped his way—down, down, down—into what appeared to be a pit in the middle of the forest floor. At the bottom, he hit the ground hard enough to rattle his teeth and cut away his breath. Remarkably, he was sure he wasn’t otherwise hurt.
He tried to inhale. To regain some sense of control. Instead, when he opened his eyes, the oxygen whipped out of his lungs again. The redhead sat in front of him, and her hair had ripped out of its bun, her lips were parted in surprise, and her gaze—the biggest, bluest one he’d ever seen—was fixed on him. Drawing him in. Holding him there. It gave Rush the strangest conflict of emotion he’d ever experienced.
Part of him was angry all over again. This woman, whose name he didn’t even know, had ruined his whole day. More than ruined it. She’d sent him barreling needlessly through the back roads that surrounded Whispering Woods. Then somehow got him to set aside reason and self-preservation in the name of coming back for her. Both of which stopped him from meeting with Jesse Garibaldi and pared down his chances of making the headway he’d been hoping to make. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she now had him stuck in a literal hole. Probably eight feet down.
But in spite of it all, another, surprisingly forceful part of him wondered if being lost in her eyes might actually be worth it.
* * *
The small space was suddenly much smaller. And for a several moments, the forced intimacy was almost overwhelming. Crouched down the way they were, there was only room for a few scant inches between Alessandra and the man who’d slid to a stop just in front of her. In fact, the space between their knees was nearly nonexistent. Alessandra could feel the heat of his body, the air a conduit from the denim of his jeans to the cotton of her pants. She was sure that the slightest shift would result in a touch. And for some reason, the idea sent her heart thumping.
You should be scared, a small voice in her head pointed out. The man has a gun. And he’s probably even less impressed now than he was when he pulled up in the truck.
Unconsciously, she dropped her gaze to the holster at his hip. The weapon was still there. But it didn’t worry her. Mostly because she spied something that was a greater concern. Something that should probably have been the first thing she realized. Something that seemed impossible to have missed, even in the wild, dirt-flying moment.
The man’s fall had caused an automatic reaction on her part. She’d shot out a hand, maybe to steady him, maybe to reassure him, it was hard to say. Either way, the result was the same. Her fingers were wrapped around his wrist. And for the life of her, Alessandra couldn’t get her brain to make them unfurl to release him.
She drew in a sharp breath as she tried to make her hand cooperate. The inhale was a mistake. Her nose immediately filled with a woodsy, masculine scent. It mingled with the smell of damp, loose dirt. And even though Alessandra had been an ocean girl her whole life—raised on the beaches of the Washington coast—and loved the salt-tinged ocean air, the pleasant, earthy aroma struck a chord somewhere inside her.
Startled by the sensation, she jerked her head up, which earned her the first full view of the truck driver’s face. He was no less attractive up close, either. And there was something about his appearance that perfectly matched his scent.
In the somewhat muted light—filtered and cooled by the trees overhead—she could see that his eyes were deep, deep brown. The color of freshly brewed coffee. Alessandra’s favorite indulgence. A steaming cup on a cool morning. They were just as warm and inviting, too. She’d also been right about his age. In spite of the sweep of gray across his temple and the matching smattering of white in his beard, he definitely wasn’t much over thirty, if at all.
Alessandra’s stare fell to the slash of pink that cut through his thick stubble. His lips. Not excessively full, but somehow appealing. She could easily picture them curling up in a smile. Parting as he laughed at some piece of dry wit. And—in a surprising turn of her mind—she could imagine the feel of them, too. Soft but firm. Warm like his skin under her fingers.
Embarrassed, Alessandra jerked her eyes away from his mouth. But when her gaze found his eyes again, she saw that the warmth she’d spied before was gone. In its place was careful neutrality.
A mask, she thought, even though she had no reason to assume a single thing about the stranger’s state of mind. Or maybe a shield.
But when he spoke, it was with just enough antagonism that she suspected she was right.
“Why in God’s name didn’t you warn me?” he growled.
“I did scream,” she reminded him, at last able to drop her hand from his wrist.
“Yeah. In a way that made me think you’d been attacked. Not in a way that made me think, ‘Hey, I fell into a hole, so be careful.’ Which might’ve been more prudent.”
“Prudence wasn’t foremost on my mind.”
“No?”
“No. I was a little preoccupied with not wanting to get shot.”
“Is there some reason why someone you’ve never met might want to shoot you?”
Try as she might, Alessandra couldn’t stop her mind from slipping to the note and to everything that she’d experienced since finding it. And it made the question strike a nerve.
“Is there a reason why you might pull a gun on someone you’ve never met?” she countered.
He didn’t react, except to divert the conversation from the question by tipping his face toward the opening above them and muttering, “I need to get out of here.”
“I think you mean we need to get out of here,” Alessandra corrected, inching back so she could push herself to her feet and look up. “Because it’s definitely going to take two of us.”
He grunted an acknowledgment, then stood up as well. And even though the opposite should’ve been true, it made the space between them smaller. Or maybe it was just an illusion, created by the fact that now, instead of sitting across from him, she was standing nearly flush against him. They weren’t touching, but she could still feel his strength. He was compact but solid. Probably just barely topping six feet—not that much taller than her own five-foot-nine height. But his body had a palpable denseness. Like every bit of him packed a muscle-bound punch. It was impossible not to be aware of it.
Alessandra tried anyway. She stared up for a second more, and a solution popped to mind. What she needed was a good old-fashioned boost. Of course, getting one would involve deliberately being in physical contact with the gruff stranger. Being near enough to know just how deep that woodsy scent of his ran, and to confirm that he was as solid as she presumed him to be. But it was still the easiest and most logical answer. So she cleared her throat, preparing to suggest it.
But when she spoke, something entirely unplanned came out instead. “I feel like I need to tell you something. In the name of transparency. Because it’s my fault you’re down here. And if I don’t say something, then I feel like I’m doing you a disservice.”
His brown eyes were unreadable when he looked down at her, but he was near enough that she could feel the slight increase in tension in his body.
“All right,” he said evenly. “Tell me.”
“It was kind of a lie,” Alessandra replied.
“What was?”
“I’ve never met a ginger who minded being called Red.”
He stared at her. “Why’d you lie about it?”
She drew in a breath. “I was trying to make a personal connection.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to back it up and explain that.”
“You know...so you’d have to ask my name. And if you asked my name, then you might feel less inclined to...uh...kill me.”
“Kill you?”
“If you happened to be some kind of hired killer.”
His eyebrows lifted marginally, and she swore his lips twitched with a hint of amusement. “If I was a hired killer, and I was hired to kill you, wouldn’t I already know your name?”
Alessandra sagged a little. “I didn’t say I thought it through very well.”
Now one of his eyebrows went even higher, and his response was flat. “Unless I was hired to kill someone else, and you’re a witness. And therefore collateral damage.”
She stood up straighter, her mouth going dry as her eyes dropped to his weapon once more. Why hadn’t that occurred to her?
Maybe because everything you think you know about killers is based on questionable late-night crime dramas on TV?
“Thinking about trying to wrestle it away from me?” he asked in a low voice.
Her eyes jerked up, and she knew her answer was both too quick and too emphatic. “No!”
“Good. Because you wouldn’t be successful. And I’d hate to accidentally get shot in the foot.”
“I wouldn’t...” She trailed off as she caught another twitch of his lips. “You’re just making fun of me, aren’t you?”
His face stayed straight. “I’m actually more concerned for your safety now than I was when I thought you might’ve been eaten by a bear.”
“You are mocking me. But I don’t care. It’s more normal to not know how contract killing works.”
“Hmm.”
“What?”
“You have to admit. It’s not really normal at all to assume someone is a contract killer.”
Alessandra pressed her lips together, forced her mind not to dwell, then sighed and said, “Normal’s relative, isn’t it?”
“So I hear.”
There was a grimace in his words, but he didn’t elaborate on what he meant. And before Alessandra could inquire about it—and she was strangely curious about him and about what his normal was—he turned his attention away from her and back to the opening above.
“What do you think?” he asked.
She craned her neck up to follow his gaze. “I think you should give me a boost so I can climb out.”
“Then what? You find a branch, hang it down and pull me up?”
“It works in the movies.”
His eyes found hers again. “So it’s safe to assume you believe everything you see on TV or in the theater?”
Alessandra’s face warmed. “Are you always this antagonistic?”
“Only when I’m not out shooting strangers.”
“Funny.”
“Good to know that you think so.” His voice was dry. “I’ve been told my humor’s too macabre for most.”
He brought his gaze back to her. His eyes were cool. Assessing. It made her wonder if she’d just imagined that glimpse of heat in them before. She started to shift from one foot to the other, then stopped abruptly as her knee brushed his.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
Up went one of those eyebrows of his. “You’re going to have to do more than bump into me if you want a hand getting up there.”
Even though there was no possible way he meant the words to have the dark, sexy edge that they did, Alessandra couldn’t help but hear some innuendo. And truthfully, it gave her a little thrill.
She forced out a breath and made herself speak in a neutral voice. “Does this mean you’re buying into my idea?”
“It means I’m wondering if I can trust you to stick around long enough to make sure I get out, too.”
“I wouldn’t leave you here.”
“No?”
“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. My car’s in the ditch, remember?”
“That’s true. But I’ve got some rope in the Lada. Keys are in there, too, so...” He shrugged.
She rolled her eyes. “Right. I’ll just steal your not-really-a-truck truck, and I’ll be on my way.”
“You assumed I was an assassin. I don’t think suggesting you might commit a crime of opportunity is on the same level.”
“You’re not going to let that go, are you?”