Taken and Tamed (11 page)

“How could you make something this good from a sack of flour and a lump of that white goop?”

“Bless your Yankee heart, chile’. This is jist down-home Southern cookin’.”

“You’re awfully good at that accent. I still haven’t picked it up, even after ten years down here.”

“I grew up hearing it. My granny lived in the mountains of northern Georgia. We’d come down from Ohio and spend summers with her when I was a kid. She babysat while my mother went back up north and worked extra shifts to help make ends meet. She died when I was eleven. After that, we were on our own.”

“Do you come from a big family?”

“Nope. There were just the two of us, and my mom.”

He grew quiet and Cass thought back to the story he’d told her while masquerading as Zander Coleman. About growing up in a bad neighborhood back in Cincinnati, going after his sister’s attacker when he was only a boy. She’d recognized at the time that it had the ring of truth. She shook her head, wondering how many other painful memories Nico had locked away.

“Come on.” He’d pulled himself out of his reverie and was yanking on her hand. “We’re going for a walk in the woods.”

“I can’t do that!” She looked down at her expensive black slacks, already covered with snags from her mad dash through the woods. “I’m not dressed for it.”

“No problem. There are clothes upstairs. I think Dave’s wife Jeannie left a pair of jeans here and I know I can find you a shirt. Rod won’t be here for a couple of hours. You obviously haven’t spent much time in the woods and it’s a gorgeous spring day. It’s time we went for a hike.”

“But I don’t have any shoes.”

He had the grace to look ashamed. “She left a pair of hiking boots too.”

“You mean all this time I could have put on a pair of shoes and walked right out the door?”

“You were my captive, remember? I wasn’t about to outfit you with mountaineering gear.”

“
Someone
definitely deserves a good spanking,” she muttered under her breath as he walked away.

He came back downstairs a few minutes later toting a shapeless pair of mom jeans, a blue and green plaid flannel shirt, and boots that looked like they’d hiked the entire Appalachian Trail. Tucked inside the boots she found a thick pair of white socks.

Cass shot him a dark look and disappeared into the bathroom to change. She came back out a few minutes later. She had on lipstick, mascara, and a dusting of powder thanks to the touch-up supplies she kept in her shoulder bag. She’d brushed her hair and it fell around her shoulders in soft golden-bronze waves. The jeans were a little large around the waist and a little short. She hid that by tucking them into the boots, like an urban commando.

She wore the flannel shirt as a jacket, collar turned up Elvis-style, buttons undone, and sleeves casually rolled to her elbows, with her own white t-shirt underneath, tucked into the waistband of the jeans.

Nico took one look at her and laughed. “Okay, you look gorgeous. But this is not a fashion shoot. We’re going into the
woods,
babe.”

He came over and began lecturing her as he tweaked her outfit. “Jeans tucked into the boots. That’s good. That way chiggers can’t crawl up your pant legs and bite you. The sleeves—you’ll want to pull them down like this and button the cuffs. Otherwise your arms will get scratched all to hell from the briars. And the sexy neckline? Don’t get me wrong. I love it. But ticks can fall down from the trees and burrow into the skin on your back where you’ll never see them. So let’s button the shirt up all the way too. Do you have a rubber band? Because you may want to tie back your hair so spiders don’t get into it. They string webs between the bushes and sometimes you can walk right into one without seeing it.”

Cass stared at him in horror, her mouth opening and closing. Finally she managed to blurt out a few words.

“There’s no fucking way I’m leaving this cabin! I’d be taking my life in my hands the minute I set foot outside the door.”

He grinned. “Okay, maybe I did lay it on a little thick. But all those creatures are out there—along with the most incredible beauty you’ve ever seen. And you can’t enjoy that if you’re getting bitten and scratched. Besides, I found a scorpion in the bathroom this morning. So you’re no safer in here than you are out there. Now button up and let’s go.”

“Scorpion?”

“Just a baby. Their sting is no worse than a bee’s.”

“Great! Now I’m afraid to pee indoors too.”

Laughing, he led her out the door and across the yard. He went first, tromping down the thick undergrowth at the edge of the woods. Cass was surprised to discover that the tangle of weeds and saplings and briars disappeared once they were under the canopy of trees. Except for the steep incline, walking was easy. The leaves overhead hadn’t unfurled yet and sunlight streamed down, awakening patches of wildflowers on the forest floor.

Nico bent to show her a cluster of delicate white flowering stalks. “This is the only time of year that you’ll see flowers deep in the woods. In the summer, the leaves cast so much shade that nothing blooms except in the clearings. All you’ll find springing up on the forest floor are pine seedlings and ferns and patches of moss. This plant is black cohosh. The Cherokee Indians who lived around here used the roots to treat a whole host of female problems.”

“If you grew up in the inner city, how did you learn so much about the woods?”

“Granny taught us when we spent summers with her. She’d fix a huge batch of her biscuits in the morning, split some, put a slab of ham in between, and pack them for lunch. We’d head out into the woods all day. She harvested roots and berries, made all sorts of old-fashioned remedies from them.”

He pointed to another plant. “See that? It’s wild ginseng. The roots sell for as much as $500 a pound.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. There’s a whole black market trade that’s sprung up in the mountains. It’s illegal to harvest ginseng in the national forests without a special permit, so poachers wear camouflage and sneak around in the woods at night, both in the national forests and on private land, digging up the plants to sell. I ran into a few of them back when we were hunting Rudolph out here.”

He spread his arms wide. “Welcome to nature’s pharmacy. The Indians had uses for just about every plant and tree you see. Scientists are finding that some of their cures are just as effective as prescription drugs, without the nasty side effects.”

They walked on, heading steadily uphill. Cass had to stop every now and then, bent over at the waist, hands on her knees. “If I did this… every day…” she gasped. “I’d never need to go to the gym. This is a much better workout than a Stairmaster.”

Nico backtracked and took her by the hand. “I’ll slow down. I forget you’re not used to the altitude.”

“Or the exercise,” she huffed. “All I do is sit in front of my laptop for ten or twelve hours a day.”

“Just a little farther. There’s something I want to show you.”

He alternated between coaxing her and bullying her to the top of the ridge. Leg muscles screaming, she stumbled the last few steps, straightened up, and looked around.

The view here was even more spectacular than from the cabin. The land dropped off sharply in front of them, offering a panoramic view. Far in the distance, a small town lay along the banks of a narrow river winding through a valley dotted with different colored squares of green. All around it, the mountains rose and fell. She counted seven different layers receding into the distance, the closest a deep blue-green from the pines and hemlocks. Then grayish blue, the next almost purple, fading to a misty mauve. The farthest peaks merged with the clouds on the horizon until it became impossible to tell where mountains ended and sky began.

She turned to Nico, eyes dancing with excitement. But before she could say a word, he put his finger to his lips and pointed. Thirty yards away, twin fawns stepped into a patch of sunlight. They had soft reddish-brown fur dotted with white spots on their backs. Barely taller than her knee, they moved delicately, lifting their spindly legs clear of the ground cover with each careful step. Nico leaned in to whisper in her ear.

“Twins are fairly common among white-tailed deer. These two are practically newborn. They’ll keep those spots for another three or four months. You can bet mama is hiding nearby, keeping an eye on them.”

Cass watched, transfixed. They stopped at the same moment and bent their heads to nibble on a clump of tender green shoots. One deer suddenly froze. Its ears perked up and it began darting wild-eyed looks all around. Cass held her breath as the fawn stared straight at her. Apparently she posed no threat, because the deer bent its head again and resumed eating.

A squirrel chattered in the branches overhead and the fawns bolted, disappearing into the woods.

“That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen! I’ve never been so close to animals out in the wild. They looked like something straight out of a Disney movie.”

Nico smiled. “I’m glad you got to see that. We’d better be heading back. Rod will be here soon to pick you up.”

“I never thought I’d say this, but I hate to leave,” Cass admitted as they headed back down the mountain. “It’s so quiet here. I haven’t heard a honking horn or a blaring radio or the neighbor’s yapping dog in two days. Just birds. I never knew there were so many different bird songs.”

He nodded. “It grows on you, doesn’t it? At first, when I was a kid, I thought I’d go stir-crazy when we came to the mountains. Nowhere to go, nothing to do. Then I found out how much fun it was to be alone in the woods. I’d pretend I was Daniel Boone exploring a new territory or an Indian brave sent out to prove his manhood hunting bears and wolves with nothing but a bow and arrow. I’d see how close I could sneak up to a deer before it took off. No one made fun of me, no one picked on me or threatened to beat me up.”

He waved a hand around. “Now I treasure the fleeting blocks of time I get to spend in the wilderness. It centers me, makes me remember what’s really important.”

Cass looked up. All around her, massive tree trunks stood like pillars in a cathedral, soaring fifty feet or more before spreading out into a canopy overhead. Rays of sunlight broken by the interlocking branches far above cast a stained-glass pattern on the forest floor.

Cass gave in to an impulse, took a deep breath, and reached for Nico’s hand. For the first time in her life, she bowed her head, let go of all her lists, her worries, her obsessive Type-A tendency to be in control and plan every minute and gave herself permission just to
be
. She had no idea what the future might hold for either of them. For now, it was enough to share this moment together.

He lifted their clasped hands to his mouth, grazing her knuckles with his lips. The simple gesture touched her heart.

The trip back was much easier, downhill all the way. Cass kept stopping to snatch up a pretty rock or a scrap of bark or an oddly shaped seed pod that had survived the winter intact. She’d arrange them on her desk back home as talismans. Survivors of the hardships life dealt—just like her.

Nico pointed through the trees. “There’s the cabin. I’m going to head out back and split some more wood. I want to replace what we’ve used so Dave doesn’t get up here and have nothing to start a fire with. You’re okay from here, right?”

“I’m fine. Go on. I’ll be there in a minute.” She’d spied some brilliant orange blossoms on a bush about fifty yards away. Nico said they were wild azaleas. Flame azaleas, he called them. He’d given her his knife and said it was okay to take a few stems as long as she didn’t harm the main branches.

She crouched down to cut a low branch heavy with blooms and caught a glimpse of another flash of color in the thicket at the edge of the clearing. How odd that she hadn’t noticed it when they headed up the mountain. It was pink. Not the soft pastel of springtime. This was a shocking, bright pink. Neon pink.

Those crazy shoelaces saved his life.

“Look out!” Cass’s voice, frantic.

He ducked down and rolled behind the woodpile, drawing his gun from where he’d tucked it in the back of his waistband. Two shots rang out, blasting the log he’d been cutting into pieces and scattering him with wood chips.

“There’s nowhere to go, Zander. You might as well turn yourself in. I’ll do my best to get you reinstated into the witness protection program. It’s your only hope. Even if you manage to get away again, Big Tony will hunt you down. He can’t let an informer stay alive. Not if he wants to maintain control of his organization.”

Nico risked a peek over the pile of logs.

Katherine Jacobs stepped out from behind a tree at the edge of the woods. In front of her, like a shield, Cass stumbled forward, Katherine’s gun to her head. She clutched a handful of small branches ablaze with bright orange wild azalea blossoms. She must have been picking them when she spied Katherine’s pink shoelaces and managed to shout out a warning.

“I don’t know if this woman means anything to you or not, Zander. But I have to believe if you didn’t care about her at all, she’d be dead by now. So I suggest you toss your weapon out, then step forward with your hands on your head. Otherwise I’ll have to shoot her.”

“Sorry, Katherine. Don’t have my weapon on me. I can’t hold a gun and chop wood at the same time.”

“Fine. Then take off all your clothes and come out stark naked with your hands up. That way I can be sure you don’t have the gun hidden on you somewhere.”

Nico’s laugh boomed out. “Katherine, you little slut. I always thought you had the hots for me. But you didn’t have to go to this extreme. I’ll be happy to get naked—if you do the same.”

“Shut up, Coleman. I’m running out of patience. I’ve been driving around this godforsaken wilderness for hours trying to find this place.”

“You’ve got a problem, don’t you, Katherine? Big Tony must be furious with you for letting me escape in the first place. But even if you manage to kill me, you really don’t expect to walk away from this, do you? You fucked up. And Tony doesn’t tolerate mistakes. He’ll send someone after you as soon as you notify him that the job is done.”