Smoky Mountain Setup (8 page)

He should have believed it all along. He should have told her what he’d read and heard her side of the story. She’d have told him the truth, that she hadn’t painted him as an unstable obsessive, and then maybe—

Maybe what? Maybe they’d still be together?

He’d have found a way to screw it up. He’d never had a relationship last longer than a few months before Olivia. Looking back, he wasn’t sure how she’d put up with him as long as she had.

Maybe her own emotional baggage had made her more patient than she might have been. She’d come from poverty, from an unstable home with a young and irresponsible mother. Her father had been little more than a stranger, and while she’d sworn nothing terrible had happened to her during her childhood, he’d begun to suspect her father’s behavior with her when she reached her teens had made her uncomfortable.

“I was lucky,” she’d said firmly the one time he’d brought the subject up. “My mom might have been a major mess as a parent, but she never let anyone hurt me that way. Besides, after I hit my teens, we moved away from Sand Mountain, and I never saw him again.”

He hadn’t said what he’d been thinking, that maybe her mother had chosen to leave their hometown behind to get her away from her father and his discomfiting behavior.

Whatever the reason, he was glad she’d got out of that situation mostly unscathed.

But she hadn’t got away without emotional baggage, any more than he’d escaped his own troubled youth without deep and lingering trust issues.

An unfamiliar sound drifted toward him through the inky darkness, dragging his mind out of the past and back into the cold, uncertain present.

Not unfamiliar, he realized as the noise came inexorably closer.

Just unexpected.

Footsteps approached the cave at a slow, steady pace, crunching the crusty snow underfoot.

They had a visitor.

Chapter Eight

Consciousness returned to Olivia in a nerve-rattling rush, leaving her disoriented. Something had awakened her. But what?

“Don’t make a sound.” She recognized Cade Landry’s voice, quiet but urgent. “Someone is moving around outside the cave.” His voice was little more than a whisper of breath against her cheek that time.

She tried to sit up and realized she was cocooned in her sleeping bag.

She heard the faint sound of a zipper, and cold air flooded over her, scattering goose bumps across her skin. Wriggling free, she rose to her feet.

Cold steel pressed against her fingers. Her Glock 19. She didn’t bother to check the magazine—she’d loaded it before they left the cabin.

“How do you know someone’s out there?”

As if in answer, she heard the crunch of boots in the snow outside. She went very still and silent, her nerves instantly on high alert.

Landry touched her arm briefly then moved toward the mouth of the cave, staying out of the semicircle of faint illumination that lightened the cave floor just in front of the entrance.

She joined him there, just a few feet from the world outside, peering through the darkness for any sign of movement.

“Do you see anyone?” She felt his question more than she heard it, a huff of warm breath tickling her ear.

“No.”

Suddenly, shockingly close by, a male voice uttered a low oath.

Next to her, Landry’s body reacted with a slight jerk. She put her hand on his arm, recognizing the voice. “It’s okay. I know who it is.”

“Sharp, if you’re in there, I think I just broke my damn ankle.” The male voice outside spoke in a whisper.

With a sigh, she started toward the cave door.

Landry caught her arm, jerking her back against the hard heat of his body. “Are you crazy?”

“I told you—I know who it is.”

“It could be a trap.”

“It’s not a trap,” came the voice from outside, sounding both pained and annoyed.

She pulled free of Landry’s grasp and went outside. Sitting on a low boulder nearby was a lean man with spiky brown hair and a pained look twisting his feral features. He had one leg crossed over the other, massaging his ankle through the hiking boot.

“Hammond, what the hell do you think you’re doing up here in a snowstorm?”

Seth Hammond made a face. “I could ask you the same thing.”

She shot him a pointed look and he shrugged.

“Rachel and I bought a place just up the gap from where you live. I took the baby out to see her first snow and I spotted two idiots climbing up the mountain in a bloody blizzard. One of ’em was dragging something behind him like a pack mule. So I went and got my binoculars. You can imagine my surprise when I saw one of those idiots was you.”

“Funny.”

“Anyway, I thought I should see what you were up to. And who was with you.”

She sighed, looking at her colleague from The Gates. “What if I didn’t want you to know what I was up to and who I was with?”

He eased his foot to the ground. “Well, the good news is, I don’t think I can hike down the mountain to tell anybody what I saw. I’ll probably just sit here and freeze to death, and nobody will ever find out what you’re up to.”

“Do you really think it’s broken?”

“It’s not broken.” Landry stepped out of the cave, taking up a protective stance close to her. “You would have screamed when you put your foot down on the ground that way if it was broken.”

Seth peered up at Landry through narrowed eyes. “You a doctor?”

“No. I’m a guy who’s had a broken ankle.”

Seth pushed to his feet, testing the injured limb. He seemed to be holding his weight easily enough. “What do you know? It’s not broken.”

“Told you it was a trap,” Landry muttered to Olivia.

“It wasn’t a trap.” Olivia looked pointedly at Seth. “Did Quinn send you?”

“No. I told you—I saw you from my house.”

“You’re not seriously trying to sell me that story.”

The look on Seth Hammond’s face was pure innocence. “Would I lie?”

She rolled her eyes. “Uh, yeah, you’d lie. You were a con artist for years. It’s kind of what you do.”

“Con artist?” Landry asked.

“Reformed,” Seth said with a feral grin.

“Or so he says.” Olivia glanced at Landry. “Think we should just leave him out here? Since he’s not crippled or anything?”

“Oh, come on, Sharp. It’s damn cold out here, and I think I hear the sound of a heater running in that cave.”

“Should have packed your own,” Landry said.

Seth gave him a considering look. “Don’t believe I got your name.”

“Don’t believe you did,” Landry agreed.

“Might as well let him get warm or he’ll sit out here whining all night and keep us awake.” Olivia nodded for Seth to enter the cave ahead of her.

Landry caught her arm as she started into the cave after Seth. He kept his voice low. “I don’t like this.”

“He’s a colleague at The Gates.”

“I don’t care. I don’t trust anyone at The Gates except you.”

“But I do. And we’re going to need help if everything you’ve told me is the truth.”

“Of course it’s the truth.”

“Then we don’t need to try to go up against a whole army of well-armed, morally bankrupt rednecks by ourselves.”

Seth’s voice wafted out of the cave. “Got any extra MREs in here?”

“No,” Olivia and Landry called in unison. She looked up at him, struggling against a smile.

He didn’t fight it, grinning down at her, his dimples making an appearance that even the dark night couldn’t quite hide. “I don’t know, Sharp. You and I always made a pretty good team. Just the two of us.”

She took a step back from him, alarmed by the sharp tug of longing that gripped her by the heart. “There hasn’t been just the two of us in a long time.”

His grin faded. “You trust your buddies at The Gates, but you don’t trust me.”

“
You
don’t trust
me
,” she countered, lowering her voice further. “That was always our problem.”

“I guess it was,” he conceded. “And it went both ways.”

She couldn’t argue. “But maybe it’s not too late to learn to have a little trust in each other.” She glanced toward the cave. “I’m telling you, Seth Hammond is a lot of things, but he’s not a traitor. He takes his work at The Gates very seriously, and part of his work is watching the backs of other agents. Including me.”

“So you’re asking me to trust your judgment about a man who claims he hiked who knows how many hours up this mountain just to see what you were doing?”

She couldn’t stop a soft huff of laughter at his dry tone. “Yeah. I guess that’s exactly what I’m asking.”

He looked toward the cave entrance then back at her. “That’s a hell of a lot to ask, Sharp.”

“I know.”

He sighed. “Okay. Fine. We’ll let the huckster join our slumber party.”

“Reformed huckster.” Seth’s voice drifted out from the cave.

“Ears like a bat,” Landry murmured. “Kinda looks like one, too.”

“I heard that.”

“Shut up and grab yourself one of those protein bars,” Olivia called to Seth. “But keep your mitts off my MREs.”

Landry nodded for her to come with him, a little farther from the cave. She followed, trying to hide her growing amusement at his irritation. When they reached the edge of the rock formation that formed Parson’s Chair, he stopped and turned to look at her.

“You don’t think he really just spotted us hiking up the mountain and took it upon himself to follow us all the way up here on a whim, do you?”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“So what do you think? Quinn had him staked out to watch your place?”

“Maybe. Or more likely, he’s tracking us electronically in some way.”

“You mean GPS?”

She glanced back toward the cave. “Some of the equipment I brought with us came from The Gates. I guess there could be trackers inside some of them.”

“Quinn tracks his agents? He doesn’t trust you?”

“We had a problem with leaks. We had a mole in the agency, and Quinn’s very touchy about it. So for a while, he was tracking all the agents to see where they went. I guess it’s hard for him to let go of his CIA instincts.”

“So the hillbilly con man in there might be removing all the trackers while we’re out here chatting?”

She shook her head. “No. Quinn doesn’t care if I find out about the trackers. He’s making a point to me with them anyway.”

“And that point would be?”

“I might be one of his agents. I might even be one of the ones he’s most likely to confide in. But he’s never going to fully trust me. Or anyone else.”

“Sounds like a couple of people I know.”

She made herself meet his gaze. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the dark, she could make out the details of his familiar face, the lean planes of his cheeks and the curve of his full bottom lip, a hint of softness in his otherwise chiseled features. She couldn’t make out colors, but she knew from experience that his green eyes held a touch of hazel, shifting hues with his emotions. Right now, she knew, his eyes would be a deep, smoky green, like a forest pool reflecting the earthy colors around it. A hue of green she’d learned long ago meant he was troubled and tense.

“It’s freezing out here. Why don’t we go back into the cave?” She lowered her voice to an intimate murmur.

He slanted a look at her. “Right now, hearing you talk to me in that tone, I’m really wishing your good buddy the con man wasn’t waiting for us in that cave.”

She felt a jolt of pure sexual thrill whip through her body like electricity. She’d forgotten how easily he’d been able to seduce her out of a bad mood or a fit of anger. One soft, oblique hint of desire in that sexy growl of a voice, and she was on fire from the inside out.

“Landry—”

He smiled, sighed and gestured toward the cave. When he spoke, his voice was soft with understanding. “Come on. Let’s get inside before he eats all our food.”

* * *

L
ANDRY
HADN
’
T
EXPECTED
to get much sleep with a stranger sharing the cave with him and Olivia, but her sense of ease must have been contagious, for he was asleep nearly as quickly as she was and woke to morning light seeping into the cave and the sound of a whispered conversation taking place close by.

“Of course he sent me.” That was Seth Hammond’s quiet drawl.

“He doesn’t trust me?”

“He doesn’t trust sleeping beauty over there.”

“Landry’s not a danger to me.”

“Are you sure about that?”

There was a brief pause before her answer, long enough for Landry’s stomach to tighten.

“Positive,” she answered, and even in a whisper, conviction rang in her words. “He needs my help. I didn’t know how to give it to him before, but I’m not going to stop this time until we figure it out.”

Deciding to stop his eavesdropping while he was ahead, Landry rolled over and made a low, sleepy groaning sound as he stretched.

“Good morning,” Olivia said.

He turned to look at her and his breath caught. Her face was free of makeup, her hair was a tousled mess, but she was still the most beautiful thing he’d seen in ages, and even the presence of Seth Hammond didn’t keep him from wanting to cross to her and take her to bed right there on the icy cave floor.

He managed to control the urge and pushed up to a sitting position. “No more unwanted visitors while I was asleep?”

“No, just me,” Seth said with an unperturbed grin. “Let’s just get this out in the open, okay? I know who you are. I know the FBI is looking for you. And I know Olivia here doesn’t think you’re one of the bad guys. And since my track record with the authorities isn’t exactly clean, I’m in no position to judge your decision to run instead of turn yourself in.”

“How did a guy like you ever get a job with The Gates in the first place?” Landry grabbed his jacket as an icy draft raced through the cave, making him shiver. Olivia had already turned off the heater, and most of the residual heat had dissipated.

Olivia tossed Landry his half of the leftovers from their meal the night before. “Eat some breakfast. We can talk about Quinn’s hiring practices later. We need to get on the trail again.”

“At least it’s downhill from here,” Seth said in a cheerful drawl that made Landry want to throw his breakfast at the man.

Instead, he examined the packets Olivia had tossed to him. Peanut butter and crackers, a toaster pastry, raisins and an oatmeal cookie.

“Yum,” he muttered.

“Food is fuel,” Olivia said briskly as she started rolling up her sleeping bag. “Eat up. Daylight’s burning.”

* * *

H
IKING
DOWNHILL
IN
the snow wasn’t a lot better than hiking uphill, Landry decided a couple of hours later as he hit a slick patch and landed hard on his tailbone. The impact knocked the wind out of him for a moment, and the poles lashed together at the pointed end of the travois cracked hard against his chin.

Olivia and Seth both stopped to help him back up. “You want me to pull the mule cart for a while?” Seth asked, nodding at the travois with a friendly grin.

“Let him do it,” Olivia told Landry in a dry tone, already heading back onto the trail. “Serves him right for letting Quinn turn him into his personal bloodhound.”

Landry handed over the travois poles and caught up with Olivia on the trail. “Are you sure heading into town is the best idea? Quinn clearly doesn’t trust me or he wouldn’t have sent your huckster buddy back there to make sure you were okay in my company.”

Hammond’s voice piped up behind them. “Reformed—”

“Shut up!” Landry and Olivia snapped in unison.

Olivia slanted a quick look at Landry, her lips curving in a half smile. “I don’t know if it’s the best idea,” she admitted, her smile starting to fade. “But it’s the best one I have. You have any better ideas?”

“No,” he had to admit.

“At the rate we’re going, we should hit town in about two hours. Then the pace should pick up because the streets are relatively flat, and you won’t be tripping over hidden stones every few yards.”

“What’s between here and town?”