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An odd smile creased his lips. “Thanks, but you keep it.”
She nodded and watched him walk away, shielding herself behind the tree. From this vantage point she could watch the scene unfold, not that she had a great escape plan. Hiking back up the trail meant crossing paths with the bear, but sticking around meant being interrogated by the real assassin, if that’s who the stranger was.
If it was the man hired by LaRouche and Harrington, that meant Will, a single father of two girls, was walking into trouble.
For Sara.
“No,” she whispered, and peered around the tree, wanting to go to him, to tell him not to take the chance.
A gunshot echoed across the property.
And Will dropped to the ground.
THREE (#ulink_1d74f32a-3398-5f12-a86d-79349e0a7fdc)
Will hit the dirt, thinking Sara had come after him and took her best shot. But that didn’t make sense. She was smart enough to know it was safer where he’d left her, camouflaged by the trees.
Sara might be confused, but she wasn’t foolish.
He struggled to slow the adrenaline rush flooding his body.
“Hey, sorry about that,” a man’s voice said.
Will eyed a man’s hiking boots as he approached.
“I saw a mountain lion and wanted to scare him off.”
Will stood and brushed himself off, irritated both by the hiker’s decision to discharge a firearm and by his own reaction to the gunshot. It was a defense response developed from growing up in a house with a volatile, and sometimes mean, drunk.
“I’m B. J. Masters.” B.J. extended his gloved hand and Will shook it.
“Will Rankin.”
B.J. was in his late thirties, wearing a top-quality jacket and expensive hiking boots. He didn’t seem like an amateur hiker, nor did he seem like the type to be hunting a helpless woman.
“Whoa, what happened?” B.J. motioned to Will’s face.
Bruising must have formed from Sara nailing him with the gun.
“Embarrassing hiking moment,” Will said. “Would rather not go into the details. I noticed you were in my cabin.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” B.J. said, glancing at the ground. “I thought maybe it was abandoned, but once I went inside I saw your things and the fire going. Didn’t mean to trespass.”
“No problem. You on a day hike or...?”
“Yeah, I’m scouting places to hold a retreat for guys at work. I’m with Zippster Technologies out of Seattle.” He handed Will a business card. “I was surprised to see a cabin in this part of the park.”
“A well-kept secret. Where are you headed today?”
“Squawk Point.”
“That’s a nice area,” Will said.
He eyed Will’s cabin. “You rent the cabin through the park website?”
“I do.”
“I wonder how many guys could fit in there?”
“Probably eight to ten,” Will said. “After that it might get a little crowded.”
“Yeah, well, probably not big enough for our team.” B.J. gazed across the field, then back at the cabin. “But a nice area, for sure. Well, thanks for not calling the cops on me for breaking and entering.”
“Actually, I dropped my phone in the creek. Don’t suppose I could borrow yours to call my girls and let them know I’m okay?”
Will figured he’d call SAR.
“Wish I could help you out, but the battery’s dead. This new-model smartphone is worthless.”
“What if you run into trouble?”
“I’ve got a personal locator beacon. Besides, what trouble could I possibly get into out here?” He gazed longingly at the mountain range.
“You’d be surprised,” Will muttered.
“Well, nice meeting you.” B.J. extended his hand again.
“You, too. Have a good day.”
With a nod, B.J. headed for the trail.
Will went to the side of the cabin and pretended to get wood for the fireplace. Once B.J. was out of sight, he’d retrieve Sara and bring her to the cabin. Made no sense letting B.J. know of her presence, especially if the men who were after her questioned random hikers about seeing her.
When he’d found Sara just now, he noted her pale skin and bloodshot eyes. At least she was walking around, and maybe even thinking a little more clearly than before.
That woman was tough, no doubt about it, tough and distrusting.
Will wandered to the side of the property to search for a cell signal. The sooner he could get Sara medical attention the better.
He pressed the power button, but the phone was still dead.
He gazed off into the distance. B.J. was turning the corner, about to disappear from view. Will waited until he could no longer see the hiker, then started for the trail where he’d left Sara. She was already on her way down, clutching the gun in her right hand.
“Who was that?” she said.
“A techie from Seattle scouting out retreat spots.”
“And you believed him?” She scanned the area.
“Sara, it’s okay.” He reached out.
His mistake.
She jerked back as if his touch would sear her skin. “Get inside.”
He put up his hands and prayed for patience. What more could he do to make her feel safe?
“Are you hungry?” he said, going into the cabin. “I thought I’d heat up some red beans and rice for supper.”
She followed him inside and shut the door. “I’m fine.”
“I didn’t ask if you were fine. I asked if you were hungry.”
“Stop being nice to me.”
“Would you rather I be mean to you?” He pulled out supplies for dinner.
“He could have been working for Harrington and LaRouche,” she said.
“Doubtful. He gave me his business card.” Will offered it to her. She took it and sat on the bed, still clutching the gun.
He pulled out a pot and found a can opener in a drawer. “As soon as the phone dries off, I’ll get a signal and call SAR, but it might not be until tomorrow morning.”
“Go ahead. Ask me,” she said.
“Ask you what?”
“What I’m doing out here, and why men from a tour group I was assisting with are after me.”
“My goal is to get you back to town for medical attention. If you want to tell me what’s going on, that’s completely up to you.”
He heard the bed creak and her soft groan drift across the cabin. She was hurting. The adrenaline rush from her encounter with the bear had probably masked her pain, and now that she considered herself relatively safe, she was feeling every ache, every pinch of pain.
“How about some pain reliever?” he asked.
“Yeah, probably a good idea.”
“Check my backpack, side pocket,” he said, pleased that she was accepting his help. “You’ll find a small container with ibuprofen and vitamins. Probably wouldn’t hurt for you to chew on a few vitamin Cs to boost your immune system.”
Filling the pot with water, he went to the fireplace to warm it. He didn’t look at her for fear he’d scare her again, that she’d retreat behind a wall of paranoia and fear.
“Wouldn’t hurt to drink more water,” he suggested. “To help the dehydration, and probably the headache.”
She grabbed the water bottle off the bed and sipped.
“Why are you here?” she said.
“It’s my cabin, at least for a few more days.”
“Why don’t you leave me alone?”
“That wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of me.”
“Gentlemanly, huh?” she said.
“You sound as if you’ve never heard the word before.” He stirred their dinner.
“Or I haven’t met many—” she paused “—gentlemen.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“It’s life.”
He dropped the subject, not wanting to antagonize her with a philosophical discussion on how men were supposed to be gentlemen, especially to women, that men weren’t supposed to think solely of themselves.
And abandon their children to a volatile mother.
Whoa, shelve it, Will. This getaway was supposed to be about easing the resentment from his heart, not battling the scars from childhood.
Out of the corner of his eye, Will noticed Sara shivering as she popped off the top of the ibuprofen bottle.
“If you remove your wet jeans we can dry them by the fire,” he offered.
“No, thanks.”
“Okay.”
“No offense, but I won’t get very far without my pants.”
“Nor will you get very far if you come down with pneumonia.”
“Okay, Dad.”
He sighed. “Sorry, guess I clicked into parent mode.”
He refocused on the water heating in the pot. For whatever reason, she still couldn’t completely trust him.
Understanding comes from walking in the other person’s shoes. Reverend Charles’s advice when Will struggled to understand Megan. No matter how hard he’d tried, he couldn’t make sense of why she’d pushed him away.
Since he and Sara would be stuck in this one-room cabin for a while, he tried seeing the world from her point of view to better understand her reactions. She seemed clearheaded, not as delusional as before, and she feared someone was out to harm her. That was her reality. He had to respect that fact. She was also wounded and stuck in a remote cabin with a stranger who, in her eyes, was somewhat of an enigma because he considered himself a gentleman.
The fact that the thought of a good man was so foreign to Sara probably intensified her distrust.
Will realized that in order to take care of her, he needed to respect her space, and not act aggressive or domineering. He hoped she would open her mind to the possibility that he truly wanted to help.
* * *
Gripping the gun firmly in her hand, Sara found herself struggling to stay awake. Not good. Things happened when she slept.
