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Isabella hurried to hold the door open, then followed them into the kitchen.
As they walked into the room, Jessie squealed with joy and held out her arms.
Dressed in yellow slacks and a matching yellow silk blouse, Savannah had her blond hair fastened behind her head. She looked beautiful and immaculate, too much so to have a baby in her arms. Regardless she caught up Jessie to hug her, eagerly fussing over her and laughing with the baby. Tall, black-haired Mike set down his armload of boxes and packages and bags. His brown-eyed gaze was friendly as he smiled at Isabella.
“We’re here to rescue you. Bet you were counting the minutes.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Isabella said. “Jessie’s a delight and no trouble at all. Did you have a pleasant trip?”
“We had a great time,” Mike said. He flung a broad-brimmed Western hat on a hook and shed a jacket. He wore jeans and a plaid shirt and radiated vitality. Smiling, he turned to take Jessie from Savannah to hug his little girl.
“How’s my baby?” he asked, nuzzling her and making her squeal with laughter as she grabbed fistfuls of his hair. “We brought you something,” he said, looking at the pile of luggage and bags and sacks and boxes he had carried inside and dropped by the door. He picked up a present wrapped in pink paper. “Just for you, Jessie, darlin’,” he said.
Jessie grabbed the present and began to eat the paper. Laughing, Savannah took the present from Jessie. “Set her down and show her how to open it.”
“And here’s something for you, Isabella,” Savannah said, handing a gift to Isabella.
“Thank you, but you shouldn’t have,” Isabella replied, taking a beautifully wrapped box of silver paper with pink roses and tied with silver ribbons. “Before I open this, there’s something you two should know.”
Both of them looked at her with curiosity in their gazes.
“Mike, you’re in for a big surprise,” Isabella said solemnly. “There’s an old friend here to see you. I thought I should tell you before you saw him.”
“This sounds interesting,” Mike said, glancing beyond Isabella and then looking back at her again with a curious expression. “So who is he and where is he and why the fanfare before I see him?”
“Because you don’t know he’s alive. Everyone thought he was dead,” Isabella said quietly, knowing from Mike’s expression that Colin had entered the room.
“Colin!” Mike blinked and his mouth dropped open and he paled. “Colin?” The two men crossed the room in long strides and hugged each other.
They stepped apart. “I can’t believe it!” Mike exclaimed, placing his hands on his hips. “You’re alive and well. Damn! What the hell happened? Why didn’t you let us know? Where have you been?”
“Mike!” Savannah exclaimed. “Give him a chance.”
“This calls for a celebration,” Mike said. “Damn, I can’t believe it,” he repeated, clasping Colin on the shoulder. “You’re real.”
“I’m very real,” Colin replied.
“I keep expecting you to disappear and just be a figment of my imagination.”
“No vanishing act here,” Colin said.
“Let’s celebrate!” Mike exclaimed, grinning broadly. “This is fantastic! Do the others know?”
“No. I wanted to see you first,” Colin replied solemnly.
“I’m glad you did.” Isabella could see Mike studying Colin and she could see some of the sparkle go out of Mike’s eyes and concern replace it. Then Mike smiled and brightened.
“We’re going to celebrate right now!”
“It’s early in the day,” Colin remarked. “We might wait—”
“Let’s break out the champagne now,” Mike decided. He looked at Savannah and put his arm around her. “Savannah, this is Colin Garrick. Colin meet Savannah.”
“I’m so happy to meet you,” Savannah said, extending her hand to shake hands with Colin. “Mike has told me a lot about you and about the times the two of you had together when you were growing up.”
“This is our baby, Jessie, whom you’ve already met,” Mike added.
“She’s cute, Mike, but I can’t imagine you a daddy.”
“I’ll get the champagne,” Savannah offered.
When she left the room, Mike looked at Colin again. Impulsively, Mike stepped close and hugged Colin. “Damn. What happened, Colin?” He stepped away and placed his hands on his hips. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you. I’m glad to see you alive—but when that bomb went off we thought you were done for. I want to hear all about it, but let’s get the champagne. Should I call the others now or later?”
“A little later. Let’s talk first, Mike.”
Mike seemed to remember Isabella and he glanced at her. “You remember Izzie. This is great! When did you get here?”
“Last night,” Colin answered.
Mike’s gaze ran over him. “What happened to you? You look like you were in a cat fight.”
“Sort of. I surprised Isabella.”
When Mike threw back his head and laughed, Colin merely shook his head and shrugged. Mike’s eyes twinkled. “So all those tricks Boone taught you really work?”
“They seemed to,” she said.
“Have you gotten out of practice!” Mike exclaimed.
“Don’t underestimate her. Boone taught her well.”
Mike laughed. “I know Boone did. I’ve watched the workouts.”
Savannah returned with a bottle of champagne and handed it to Mike to open. As Savannah picked up Jessie to hold her, Mike poured glasses of champagne and passed each person one. “Let’s take these drinks to the family room where we can sit and talk.”
As soon as they were in the family room, Mike turned and raised his glass in a toast. “Here’s to Colin. Our survivor,” he said.
“To Colin,” Savannah added.
“To Colin,” Isabella said quietly, and Colin looked at her before they all clinked their glasses together lightly.
“Thank you all,” Colin replied gruffly, a muscle working in his jaw.
Isabella could see that he was struggling with his emotions. She sipped the pale liquid, feeling bubbles tickle her nose.
“To life and Colin being back in the land of the living,” Mike said, giving another toast.
They all touched glasses again and everyone sipped the champagne before setting down glasses.
“Sit, so we can talk,” Mike suggested.
“I’ll be right back. We need a little change here,” Savannah said, taking Jessie and leaving the room.
“I’ll leave you two,” Isabella started to say, but Mike motioned to her.
“Sit down and join us. Savannah will be back. Come on, Izzie, we’re all family.”
She sat on a straight-backed chair as Mike sat on the sofa and Colin on a brown leather chair.
“Before you start, should I call the guys so you only have to tell this once?”
“No,” Colin replied solemnly. “I wanted to talk to you first, but whatever we do, you can’t phone them and tell them. These phones could be tapped and cell phones can be easily monitored. You’ll have to get them over here for another reason. Besides, your lines are cut. I disengaged the alarm system and came in through a window. I just wanted to make certain I wasn’t being followed and I could watch my back better by sneaking around late at night.”
“So that’s when you encountered Izzie.”
“Right. I’m in hiding, Mike. I’m on the run and there’s a killer after me,” Colin explained.
“Go ahead and tell me about it,” Mike said, crossing one long leg over the other.
Isabella listened again, watching Colin and still amazed that he was alive, just as shocked by her reaction to him. She wished she could go back and see him as she had that afternoon at the fair, just as one of her brother’s friends, pleasant to be with, but just another man—who looked old to her at the time. She couldn’t view him with that casual response now. He was ruggedly handsome and something in him made her want to try to reach him, to find the carefree man he once had been.
Every time she thought about him going into seclusion in some wilderness and shutting himself off from people and real living, it saddened her.
Forget it. He’s doing what he wants and you can’t save him, she told herself.
He glanced at her and then back to Mike. “The military asked five of us—and, with one exception, we don’t know each other’s identities—to work in a stealthy, covert group to try to catch the spy. I know one because at one point I worked with him. Brett Hamilton.”
Mike shook his head. “Not anyone I ever knew.”
“When I insisted on getting out of the military, my superior asked me to continue in the operation awhile longer,” Colin explained. “They gave me a contract,” Colin revealed, telling Mike something that he had not told her.
Isabella was shocked by this new information because she hadn’t expected to hear that the military had wanted to keep him on in that manner.
“There is someone in the military who knows where I am now.”
“Adam Kowalski?” Mike guessed.
Colin nodded. “Adam—you’re on the mark.”
“Kowalski is a reliable man. I can imagine either Adam or perhaps Mason VanDoren, one of the other officers we’ve worked with, on this case. What about Peter Fremont?”
“Our old friend with the agency,” Colin replied.
Isabella remembered meeting the friendly, tall blond Fremont when he had been in Special Forces with Boone. She also recalled meeting Mason VanDoren years ago.
“I report to Adam. And I’ve worked closely with Peter—he’s the one who pushed to get me to join the agency when I got out of the military. Even he doesn’t know that I’m going through Stallion Pass.”
Mike stood. “I think it’s time for the next step in this operation.”
Isabella watched him and wondered if another change was about to come into her life.
Chapter 4
“Let’s get Boone and Jonah over here,” Mike said. “I can call them on my cell phone. I think they might as well hear this now.”
“I can call my brother if it would help,” Isabella offered.
Mike nodded.
“Tell him to bring Erin and I’ll tell Jonah to bring his family—we’ll throw steaks on and have a party. You can tell them I want to celebrate an investigation that I just closed.”
“Did you close one?” Colin asked.
“Yep. I did, so if anyone checks out my story, it’ll hold.”
Isabella left the room to get her cell phone to call Boone. She went back to thrust her head into the family room. Mike and Colin were talking in low voices. “Boone and Erin are coming,” she said and left to find Savannah who was in the kitchen, feeding Jessie.
“Did they run you off?” Savannah asked.
“No. I just thought they ought to be alone. Do you know you’re going to have a houseful of company soon?”
“I’m not surprised. I’m sure the guys want to get together.
“Right,” Isabella replied. “Mike said to ask the families, so Erin and Kate and Henry are coming.”
“Great! That’ll be fun,” Savannah said. “I’ll get Jessie fed and cleaned up and then I can enjoy everyone.”
“I can feed her if you want to do anything else.”
“Sure. If you don’t mind,” Savannah said, giving the small spoon to Isabella who took Savannah’s seat.
Over two hours later, after they had finished eating, they all sat in the family room while Henry played a game and Jessie dozed in Mike’s arms. All through dinner the men had reminisced about good times. While most events they discussed had been comical, Isabella knew they were avoiding the scary and painful memories.
Mike stood. “We enjoy the wonderful company, I think it’s time that Jonah, Boone and I have a chat with Colin. So if y’all will excuse us, we’ll adjourn to the library.”
With jokes about happy to be rid of the men, the four friends left. At the door Colin glanced over his shoulder to meet Isabella’s gaze. Taking a deep breath, he turned and followed Mike to the library.
As soon as all four men entered the room, Mike closed the door. Colin looked at titles of books on the shelves, seeing many familiar ones, having buried himself in books and reading a lot of the time when he had been recuperating from his wounds.
They sat and Mike gazed expectantly at him. “Okay, Colin, level with us. What’s up and what kind of danger are we in?”
Colin spent the next thirty minutes covering the time since the blast during the aborted mission until the current moment. When he finished, he looked somberly at his friends.
“I hope none of you is in any danger. I had also hoped seeing you might trigger my memory, but so far, it hasn’t. That doesn’t mean it won’t.”
“So you’re leaving here to go to some remote spot and stay in isolation?” Boone asked with a frown.
“Don’t tell me it’s no way to live. I’ve heard that enough from your sister. I can slip out of here in the dark and be far away before dawn. You guys, just take care of yourselves and be aware there may be danger.”
