Death Cache (24 page)

It was survival of the fittest, and Robert was no longer fit.

Gage reached down and pulled Tern close to him. She gladly went to him.

“Come on,” Gage said. “Let’s get a move on. Robert, you gotta stop that whimpering or you’ll give our position away.”

“Hey, I don’t whimper,” Robert grumbled, but he squared his shoulders and didn’t make a sound as Gage and Tern help him to his feet. He sagged against Tern for a moment before straightening. She expected him to cop a feel, and was disappointed when he didn’t. It meant he was hurt worse than she’d thought. Her stress level shot through the canopy of the trees closing them in.

They traipsed back to the trail of sorts they’d been hiking and continued on their trek. The goal was to get as far as they could today, putting distance between them and their supposed killer.

Everything she’d been thinking seemed all wrong now. Robert couldn’t be the killer. The action, the need to protect, was so quick, so immediate. If he truly wanted her dead, why had he covered her with his body, ready to take a bullet for her?

Her head hurt with all the ‘what ifs’ and ‘what fors’.

They hiked for what seemed like hours before Gage called a stop. Tern’s feet were numb. She hoped they were stopping for the night because she didn’t know how she would put one foot in front of the other if he demanded more from her.

“Thank you, God,” Nadia muttered behind her, slumping against a knoll. The terrain had changed again with the altitude they’d been steadily dropping. They were at the edge of a wide expanse—thin, toothpick trees at their back, an open space dotted with cliffs and boulders in front of them. It was a glacier bed of years past that would take probably a millennium or so for the vegetation to grow back.

“Let’s make camp here,” Gage said, slowly taking off the two backpacks he’d been carrying, his and Robert’s both. He winced—the weight must have been a strain for him over the hours they’d hiked.

The men had taken on extra weight at the beginning so that her and Nadia’s packs were lighter, and now Gage had been shouldering it all.

Robert groaned as she helped him to the ground. She placed her backpack behind him so he had something to rest his head against.

Tern glanced around the open area, grateful to see a stream running a few hundred yards from them.

Gage caught where her attention had been going. “Think there’s any fish in that creek?”

She doubted she had the strength to throw a knife. “Doubt it. Not deep enough.”

“We gotta find something to eat,” Robert started up again. “I’ve been shot. I need to keep my strength up.”

How much food did it take to feed this man? When she was hurt, the last thing she wanted was food. Sleep, on the other hand, begged for her indulgence.

“I’m too tired to eat,” Nadia said, echoing Tern’s thoughts. “I say we sleep and worry about food in the morning. Though I wouldn’t say no to another Almond Joy before bedtime.”

Tern opened her pack, dug out the candy bars, and handed them around. Eating the chocolate shut up Robert for a few minutes, but not for long.

“This isn’t going to tie me over until breakfast.”

“Rob, can it.” Gage said. “Let’s get shelter and then we’ll go hunting.”

“Fine,” Robert conceded.

A flare of warning had Tern sitting up. She couldn’t let Gage and Robert go hunting. The four of them had to stay together.

“Can we build a fire?” Tern asked. “I need to heat water to clean Robert’s wound.” Maybe she could find a minute to talk to Gage if they were gathering firewood.

Gage shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. It would pinpoint our position.”

“I can build a smokeless fire,” Robert said. “And it would help keep any unwanted predators at bay.”

“I’m more worried about the two-legged animals than four,” Gage said. He took a moment and then nodded. “Build the fire. Nadia, gather wood.”

Nadia nodded.

“Don’t wander far,” Gage said. “Tern, could you put your handy knowledge to work and maybe find us something to eat that we don’t have to kill?”

“Sure.” She motioned her head for him to follow her. He caught on without any prodding, doing so without it looking suspicious.

“I’ll give you a hand.” His palm settled on the small of her back. It took everything she had not to lean into him and rest her worries on his broad, strong shoulders as they walked down the slope toward the stream.

They walked in silence, still in view of the others, but with the breeze blowing behind them so their words wouldn’t travel.

Gage regarded her from under hooded eyes. “Why haven’t you asked if I was the one who took your dad’s arctic tern?”

“I trust you.”

He held her eyes and was the first to look away. “You shouldn’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“There are things you don’t know about me either, Tern. Don’t be so quick to trust me.”

“I can’t help it. That isn’t what I wanted to talk about.” She took a deep breath and blurted it out. “I was almost positive the killer was Robert until he took a bullet that could’ve been meant for me.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I was traveling along those same lines. Now I owe the son of a bitch for saving your life. Either Robert is very disciplined, which I don’t see, or he isn’t the killer.”

“Robert reacts, he doesn’t plan. I think you nailed it that the killer is very disciplined.”

Gage shook his head. “I just don’t see him as the one behind this.” He glanced up to where Nadia was gathering sticks.

Tern followed his gaze. “Not Nadia again.”

“She hadn’t fired her gun, but what if she’s working with a partner?”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
F
IVE

“A partner?” Tern sighed and rubbed a hand over her brow. “Gage, that just doesn’t make sense. She’s my best friend. Hell, she doesn’t have the physical strength to kill Lucky or Mac, let alone the desire. What would she gain from their deaths?”

“Take a minute and entertain the possibility.”

“You’re barking up the wrong dog sled. Tell me how she would have been able to cut off Lucky’s head?”

“Partner, remember? Even if she didn’t have someone kill them, she could have surprised Lucky. Granted, cutting off his head is a stretch, but she could have done it.”

“You don’t sound very convinced.”

“I’m not, all right.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I just know that when we go against what she wants, someone ends up dead. What if she set up this whole fiasco? She’d have to have help. Don’t you think it’s interesting that whoever was shooting backed off once Nadia was with us? He could have picked us off one by one, and there haven’t been any attempts since then.”

“I don’t have an answer for that. I know Nadia better than Robert. Better than you. She doesn’t have it in her to kill someone.”

“Believe me, we all have it in us to kill.” He glanced away from her toward the jagged, icy shroud of the Brooks Range looming in the distance.

“Gage.” She put her hand on his arm. “Why didn’t you call me?” He didn’t pretend not to know what she was referring to.

“I couldn’t.” He swallowed. “I knew you would’ve caught a plane to New Mexico, and I couldn’t let you see me like that.”

“I would have understood. I do understand.”

“Drop it, Tern. I don’t want to talk about it.” Ghosts reflected in his eyes before he blinked them away.

A stab of hurt twisted in her heart, and she turned away toward the stream.

“You say you understand, but I don’t want you to. I hated that I took his life, okay, and I hate that, if given the choice, I would do it again. What kind of man does that make me?” Before she could respond he answered the question himself. “It makes me a murderer.”

“You did what you needed to in order to protect those you love. That makes you a hero.”

“Right,” he scoffed. “My sister sure as hell doesn’t see it that way.”

“Give her time. Hopefully she’ll get into therapy.”

“I doubt it. She blames me for her shitty life, not the asshole she married.”

“You’re easy to blame.” When his brows rose in surprise she continued, “What I meant is that it’s easier to blame you than take responsibility for her part in what happened. She married the asshole, remember.”

He studied her for a moment. His eyes softened. “You’re very wise, do you know that?”

She quirked a smile. “I’ve been told.”

He raised his hand to smooth back a section of her hair that had pulled loose of her braid, but stopped before he actually touched her. “I can’t fall for you again.”

“So you’ve said.” She tried to deflect the hurt his words caused, to no avail.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Look hurt.”

“Believe me, I’m doing my best to hide it.”

She turned away and he spun her around. Swearing, he jerked her into his arms, squeezing her to his chest.

“You’re killing me here, Tern,” he said in a voice so low she wouldn’t have caught the tortured words if he hadn’t muttered them in her hair.

“Ditto,” she murmured into the heavy cotton fabric of his shirt, trying to resist the urge to nuzzle.

He swore again, and tipped her chin up. She read his intent, part of her furious he would think of holding her, kissing her, when he said he wouldn’t love her. But when his lips trapped hers, pressing hard in a kiss of desperation that spoke to her own, she couldn’t push him away. His tongue breached her lips and tangled with hers. She groaned, her hands tangling in his shirt, her traitorous body rubbing up against him, trying with every cell to fuse to his.

He wrenched his mouth from hers and buried his lips in the crook of her neck. “What the hell am I going to do about you?”

She didn’t know if he was asking some form of higher being or her. God knew she had no answers.

She freed herself of his arms, even though the action was like ripping off duct tape from a festered sore. “When you figure that out, let me know.”

One last searching look and she moved away from the tempting heat of his touch. She staggered toward the stream, trying to keep one foot in front of the other, rather than fall into a helpless heap and beg him to take her. Part of her was willing to take whatever he could give her. The other wanted everything. If Gage couldn’t give her that, he wasn’t the man for her, but while her head knew this, her body ached.

She bent to gather water in the collapsible bladder she’d brought with her, and caught her reflection in the clear waters of the mountain run off. She was a mess. Her hair was everywhere. Sections were torn free of her braid from tree branches grabbing at her on the long hike. She didn’t have an ounce of makeup to hide behind, and her eyes were deep pools of exhaustion and pain. She needed to distance herself from Gage, protect herself from further heartache, until they could get down this blasted mountain.

She needed to quit thinking of herself and think of Robert, up the hill bleeding and in pain. There was so much more to occupy her thoughts and feelings than Gage Fallon.

Gage stood silently next to Tern and mentally berated himself. He needed to start thinking with his head and not with what stretched out his fucking pants. It wasn’t fair to keep playing with her affections.