Lawless

Amazing how a nice morning could make a left turn into awful so quickly.

She had taken this job to emotionally recuperate. The double whammy of losing Joel and the disaster on her last climbing expedition had sent her world into a tailspin. A new career conducting business retreats and leading simple hiking and camping outings was supposed to be soothing. The way her nerves jumped around was anything but.

“Looks like we’re here.”

The sound of Cam’s voice over her shoulder made her jump and knock into Joel next to her. When her hands brushed against his, a new sensation spun through her. Something like excitement, and that didn’t make her happy at all. She wanted to be totally over him, or at the very least not feel anything. She’d do anything for a bit of indifference at the moment.

She settled for doubling her pace and broke through the trees and into the camp clearing a step before her self-appointed bodyguards. The businessmen sat on logs turned into benches around the fire pit area. They looked up as she approached.

They all started talking a second later. Shouting over each other in an attempt to hold the metaphorical floor.

Yeah, she hadn’t missed this part of their company dynamic during the past hour.

“Where have you been?” Jeff Acheson, the Baxter director of marketing, dumped his plate on the ground and stood up. His distaste for her was on full display, from his puffing red cheeks to the scowl marring what she guessed most women found to be his perfectly chiseled model face.

She took a long look at him in the bright sunshine and decided he was a bit too buffed and polished for her taste. He had a phony air about him. Probably because he listed his age as thirty-four on the questionnaire she had handed out last night to assess their skill levels, when she knew from the files Baxter gave her the number was more like forty.

That sort of thing struck her as ridiculous. She’d bet he took twice as long to get ready for a big date than she did.

She could still remember the up-and-down sweep he gave her when they’d first met in the Baxter offices. He’d turned on the charming smile back when he thought she was some sort of assistant to the real leader on the trip. That disappeared when she’d made it clear she was in charge.

But he picked the wrong time to get all uppity with her. She wasn’t in the mood. “Is Mark here?”

“What?” Lance Ringer, the Baxter personnel manager, asked.

Lance was the one guy Hope had liked immediately. He was the youngest on the retreat but didn’t try to impress her. He owned up to the fact he hadn’t been camping since he was a kid, more than twenty years ago, and would rather be home with his newborn and wife than out roughing it with the guys. Hope found his honesty refreshing.

“Mark was missing this morning and I went to look for him,” she said, waiting for Joel and Cam to pipe up and feeling a bit dazed when neither rushed to take the lead. “Did he ever come back?”

Jeff took a threatening step in her direction. “Why didn’t you tell us there was a problem before now?”

“Probably because of this type of overblown reaction.” Joel morphed from calm to a shield of muscles in two seconds. He reached around Hope, blocking some of her view of Jeff, and put a hand on his chest. “Back up.”

Jeff tried to push Joel’s hand away. “Who are you?”

“Not relevant at the moment.”

Joel didn’t move and Cam just smiled. Hope was smart enough to know those reactions meant brewing trouble. Joel’s protective nature made it tough for him to back down, and when he was faced with a pontificating blowhard like Jeff, there was no telling what could happen.

“You have a gun,” Jeff said.

Joel motioned toward Cam. “We both do.”

With the tension building and washing over all of them, she decided this might be a good time to make one point clear. “Joel is my assistant.”

She put her hand over his and it dropped away from Jeff. But the battle stance stayed, as did Joel’s unwavering gaze on Jeff.

Cam covered his smile with his hand as he mumbled, “This should be good.”

“What are you talking about?” Jeff asked as he turned his attention back to her. “I thought you were the supposed leader of this outing.”

She said the word assistant and Jeff assumed she was no longer in charge. The man heard what he wanted to hear.

Before anyone said anything else that made her grumbly, Hope made the necessary introductions to keep the chain of command clear. “This is Joel Kidd, my helper, and Cameron Roth.”

Joel cleared his throat. “Helper?”

With a raise of the chin she held her ground. “Yes.”

The silence lasted for only a second before he nodded. “Alrighty then.”

Relief poured through her when he didn’t push it. She turned back to Lance. “Where’s Perry?”

“Who’s that?” Cam asked.

Lance got up and brushed off his pants. He stopped to shake hands with everyone. “Perry Kramer is our sales manager.”

“What does he sell?” Joel stared at Hope when she shoved an elbow into his stomach. “What? It’s a fair question.”

Lance shrugged. “But it’s probably not important information right now.”

Hope heard the rustle of branches and glanced over in time to see Charlie Bardon, the camp owner and cook, break through the trees on the far side of the last cabin. He was out of breath and running his hands over his grimy chef’s apron as he walked.

“What’s going on out here?” he asked.

Joel looked to the newcomer. “That was going to be my question.”

Charlie didn’t look any more willing to back down than Joel. They stood face to face and shared the same former military in-command presence. Pushing fifty, Charlie had been out for decades, but Joel seemed just as determined and set in his ways at thirty-three.

Before this could blow into a full-blown argument, Hope tried to step in. “Mark is missing.”

“I was hoping he was with you.” Charlie turned his attention to Joel. “Where did you come from?”

Joel shrugged. “Annapolis...or are you looking for an explanation about how birthing works?”

The older man’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to be funny?”

“Not really.”

“Okay, enough.” She wasn’t sure who deserved the bigger kick to the shin—Joel for acting disinterested and maintaining his monotone voice through the snide comments or Cam, who couldn’t stop smiling. “Cam and Joel came in by helicopter to help me.”

If possible, Charlie’s scowl deepened. “With what?”

She had no idea how to answer the question, so she skipped it and talked to the campers, trying to ignore the fact another one appeared to be missing. “When is the last time anyone saw Mark?”

Taking a long time and making the movement last longer than necessary, Jeff folded his arms in front of him. “When you two fought last night.”

Joel turned to face her. “Really?”