Hide The Child

“I’ll drive carefully.” He buckled a lap belt around Chloe, who stared suspiciously up at him. Then he closed her door and opened the front passenger door. “In you go,” he said quietly, that powerful hand engulfing Trina’s elbow. “Big step up.”

He didn’t quite say “upsy-daisy” but coaxed her and hoisted until she was somehow in. He closed this door with a soft thud, too, rather than slamming it, and was behind the wheel in the blink of an eye, firing up a powerful engine. When she made no move to put on the seat belt, he did it for her, not commenting on her grip on the armrest or the way she rolled her weight to the side.

He backed out and accelerated so gradually she was never thrust against the seatback.

“How long?” she asked, from between gritted teeth.

“About half an hour. Do you have pain pills?”

“Yes, but...”

“Take them. Are they in the duffel?”

She nodded.

Gabe reached a long arm back, his eyes still on the road, and tugged the duffel until it was between the seats. The bottle of water he handed her was warm, but it washed down two pills.

“You okay, Chloe?” she asked.

No answer, but Gabe’s gaze flicked to the rearview mirror. “She’s nodding,” he said quietly.

“Oh, good.” She thought that’s what she’d said. The words seemed to slur. Leaning her cheek against the window, she closed her eyes.

* * *

SHE DROPPED OFF to sleep like a baby, Gabe saw. That’s what she needed. He was sorry he’d have to wake her up when they got to the cabin.

The little girl was not asleep. She sat with her feet sticking straight out in front of her, her arms crossed and her lower lip pouting. Eyes as blue as his watched him in the rearview mirror. Clearly, she expected the worst. He kind of liked her attitude. He tended to expect the worst, too. That way you were prepared. Optimists could be taken by surprise so easily.

Once he made it onto the highway, he could relax a little. The couple of vehicles he could see in the rearview mirror hadn’t followed them from town. At this time of morning, most traffic was headed south into town, not north out of it.

He checked on the kid, to see her eyelids starting to droop, too.

Another sidelong glance made him wince. Trina’s contorted position had to be miserably uncomfortable. Burns, Joseph had said, without being specific. Gabe would have known they were on her back even if she hadn’t told him, since she’d done a face-plant on the window to avoid making any more contact than she could help with the seat. Twisted as she was, he saw a thickness that could only be bandages. Or, hey, Kevlar, but that wasn’t likely.

Since Joseph talked often about his sister, Gabe had known they were close. Funny his friend had never mentioned that she was a beauty, or a shrink of some kind. The stories had all been from their childhood, or repeating some amusing or pointed observation she’d made about life in general, politics and shifting international alliances more specifically. She probably followed the world news with more interest than most people did because she knew her brother was bound to get involved in a lot of the messes.

Gabe wondered in a general way what it would feel like to have parents or someone like her worrying about him. Would he be as anxious to get back in the action if his death would devastate someone else?

Impatiently, he shook off the descent into sentimentality. No family, no reason to think about it.

Instead, he circled back to the beginning. Katrina Marr would be spectacular with makeup, a snug-fitting dress and heels. Face showing strain and streaked with char, hair a tangled mess and wearing sacky, faded blue scrubs and thin rubber flip-flops, she was merely beautiful. With expressive green-gold eyes and hair the color of melted caramel, she was tallish for a woman, slender rather than model-skinny, and still possessing some nice curves.

One corner of Gabe’s mouth lifted. Could be this was why Joseph never mentioned his sister’s appearance. He might give one or more of the guys the idea of looking her up someday while on leave.

Fully amused now, Gabe thought that was just insulting.

But his amusement didn’t last long. To stay vigilant, he couldn’t afford any distraction. Somebody was gunning for the cute kid who’d now slumped sideways in sound sleep—and Gabe had no doubt Joseph’s sister would jump in front of the bullet to save that kid.

His job was to make sure that never happened. Plan A, he calculated: hide them. Plan B: make sure he fought any battles that did erupt. Plan C: take the bullet himself.

Chapter Three (#uf4bc461e-67f1-5e53-9b5d-0989e113ce76)

Trina opened her eyes to a dim room. The window was in the wrong place, she saw first. Light sneaking between the slats of the blinds told her it was daytime.

Her bedroom didn’t have rough-plastered walls, either. Awakening awareness of pain discouraged her from rolling onto her back. Instead, she pushed aside a comforter in a denim duvet cover and gingerly sat up.

It all rushed back. The fire, dropping from a second-story window, the hospital. Complete loss. Wasn’t that what the fire chief had said? Joseph.

Gabe Decker.

This must be his home, or at least his ranch hideout. The wide-plank floor looked like what she’d expect of a log house. A closer look at the window told her it was set in a wall thicker than usual.

And then her eyes widened. Chloe!

Still wearing the scrubs, she didn’t take time to use the bathroom or find her flip-flops. She rushed out into a hall and toward the staircase at the end.

Halfway down, she heard that deep, smooth voice. He was talking to someone, pausing for unheard answers. Telephone?

The vast living room was empty. She followed the voice to the kitchen, where she saw Chloe, perched on a tall stool, watching as the big, powerful man flipped a hamburger in a pan on the stove.

“Is that a yes or no to cheese?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.

He took in Chloe’s nod, then saw Trina hovering. He didn’t smile; the way he looked her over was more assessment than anything. “You’re just in time for dinner.”

“Dinner.” She was dazed enough to feel out of sync.

Chloe swung around, scrambled off the stool and raced to Trina. She threw her arms around Trina’s legs and hugged, hard. That she’d regressed to being nonverbal felt like yet another deep bruise in the region of Trina’s chest.

“I’m glad to see you, too, pumpkin.” Trina found a smile for the little girl, who tipped back her head to look up at her. “Why don’t you start on your cheeseburger while I go back upstairs and, um, at least brush my hair?” And pee. She really needed that bathroom.

“Did you see your duffel at the foot of the bed?” Gabe asked.

“No, I suddenly panicked—” She broke off. “You know how confusing it is to wake in a strange place.”

His expression of mild surprise said he didn’t know. As often as he—and her brother—woke in strange and dangerous places, they probably knew where they were and why instantly, before they opened their eyes. They probably held on to the where and why while they slept.

“Never mind,” she mumbled, and took herself back upstairs to start over again. The woman she saw in the mirror horrified her. Her face was filthy, her eyes bloodshot and her hair a tangled mess. Lovely.

Washing her face helped only a little. She dug the bottle of pills out of the duffel and took one, hoping that would be enough to dull the pain without knocking her out again. Then she tackled her hair as well as she could when raising her arms stretched the skin on her shoulders and back. Her left shoulder ached fiercely, too, as did her left hip. No, those two pillows hadn’t softened her landing on the hard ground much, if at all. The doctor had warned her to expect swelling and colorful bruises.

A ponytail proved to be beyond her. Changing clothes...not yet, she decided. She craved a shower but shuddered at the idea of hot water on her back. Spot-cleaning was as good as it would get.

And once she had something to eat, she’d have to break it to the Army Ranger downstairs that he now had medic duties as well as KP.

He studied her again when she reappeared, small lines appearing on his forehead. Apparently, she hadn’t accomplished miracles.

“Cheese?” he asked.