Читать книгу Rock-A-Bye Rescue - Karen Whiddon - Страница 13

Chapter 2

Jamming her feet in boots, Lila grabbed her father’s hunting shotgun from over the fireplace and rushed outside. “Hey!”

The man in the dark coat jerked his head around.

She raised the shotgun and aimed at him. In an angry voice, she shouted, “You’ll be putting that ax down now, then getting the hell off my property.”

The man didn’t move, only stared at her with dark eyes. He sported a couple of days’ growth of facial hair, and though the beard was trimmed and neat, the look still gave him a rugged edge. When he only glared at her for long seconds, her pulse picked up an increasingly ragged cadence.

Rather than backing down, the man seemed to grow larger, his body bowing up as he slowly squared his shoulders and moved into a defensive position.

“Put the gun down.” His voice grated like steel on flint.

Lila tightened her grip, and a chill rippled through her. He still clutched the ax with one hand, and his free hand balled and flexed aggressively.

She’d thought the shotgun would be enough to scare off a casual thief. She forced enough spit into her dry mouth to swallow. “I said put the ax down and get the hell off—”

“Lila?” His voice was still deep and gruff, but now full of intrigue.

A prickle chased down her spine. He knew her name? “Wh-who are you?”

He took a couple steps closer, the ice and crust of snow crunching under his boots. “Is that you, Lila?”

She re-aimed the shotgun even as she stepped back from him. “Who are you? What do you want?”

He angled his head toward her and narrowed his eyes even more. “You put that shotgun away, and we’ll talk. Otherwise, I’ll have to take it from you the hard way.”

Something in his stance, his size and the lethal look in his eyes told her he could easily get the shotgun from her if he wanted. Assuming she couldn’t get a shot off first. Her father had taken her hunting, taught her to shoot. But it had been years since she’d fired a weapon, and she wasn’t sure she had the nerve to shoot a man if she had to. Mistake number one. She could hear her father telling her, “Never pick up a weapon you don’t have the skill and will to use.”

A tremble raced through her, one she felt sure he saw.

A muscle in his tense jaw twitched. He raised his free hand and uncurled his fingers. “Come on, Lila. Hand it to me.”

“No.” She forced starch into her stance and lifted her chin. “Tell me who you are. How do you know my name?”

He seemed a bit deflated by the notion she didn’t recognize him. “We spent summers together, our families. My parents’ cabin, my cabin now, is on the other side of the ridge.” He motioned to the steep hillside behind him.

The only other cabin in the area when she was a teenager had belonged to the Hamiltons. She had, indeed, spent summers with the family. With the Hamiltons’ son. A memory tickled her brain. A schoolgirl crush. A boy with a wickedly handsome face and devilish grin. The police showing up at their summer’s-end cookout to arrest the boy.

Her stomach swooped, and her breath stuck in her throat.

“Dean?” she rasped.

He lowered his head in a slight nod, his eyes still vigilant.

Now she scrutinized him, looking for any resemblance to the troubled and reckless teenager she’d known years ago. The inky hair and dark eyes were the same, but the sinewy body had been transformed. His shoulders were broader, and through the gap in his open coat, she could see the evidence of a tautly muscled torso. Even his hands were large, strong...virile.

She gave her head a quick shake as if to banish the inappropriate response from her mind. She may have had a youthful crush on him as a teenager, but Dean Hamilton had proven himself the wrong sort of guy. His frequent scrapes with the law had landed him in a juvenile boot camp. She had no interest in getting entangled with another man like her ex, a man with no integrity.

“So...you do remember me.” He arched one black eyebrow, and Lila’s pulse fluttered.

“So...you’re still a thief,” she countered.

Now his brow furrowed in a deep, angry V. “Thief?”

She indicated the ax with the barrel of the shotgun. That split second of diverted attention was all he needed to surge forward, startling her, and seize her weapon.

When she skittered back from him, her foot slipped on the ice. Lila gasped as she lost her balance, and just as quickly as he’d disarmed her, he whipped a hand around her back and caught her under her arm, keeping her on her feet. With a firm tug, he hauled her up against his body, anchoring her until she could get her feet under her again.

The rapid transition from armed defender to vulnerable captive left her breathless. Lila shivered and raised wary eyes. “I-I’m okay. You can let g-go now.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Maybe I’m not ready to let you go.”

His dark gaze roamed over her face, then down toward her chest. A gleam she could only call predatory shimmered in his eyes. “It’s been a long time since I held a woman this close. Especially one as pretty as you.”

Pressed against him as she was, she’d bet he could feel the heavy drubbing of her heart against her ribs. “I’d guess not. Not a lot of female company in prison,” she gibed, then immediately regretted it.

His grip tightened, and his eyes grew even darker and more threatening. “I wouldn’t know, seeing as how I’ve spent the last ten years with the Army’s Special Forces defending our country.”

She blinked her momentary confusion and doubt. “Defending... You were in the military?”

“Is that really so hard to believe?”

“I—” Staring at him, with his solidly muscled body and grim countenance and with her ax in one hand and her shotgun in his other, he did indeed have a bellicose appearance. “No. I just thought—”

“That I could have only ended up in prison.”

She huffed defensively. “Well, can you blame me? When I knew you, you were on that track! The last I heard of you, you’d been sentenced to juvenile boot camp for stealing a car.”

“Borrowing.”

“What?”

“I was only borrowing the car. I’d have brought it back if I hadn’t been stopped by the cop and dragged into jail.”

“Your kind of borrowing was still illegal. You earned your time at the boot camp.” She realized he still held her against his body, and while she appreciated the warmth, having stormed outside without a coat, his proximity did strange things to her ability to think straight and calm her jittery pulse. She planted her hands on his chest and shoved away from him. He released her with such force that she stumbled again, her feet sliding a little before she found her balance.

“True enough. And in hindsight, I have no regrets about my time at the juvie camp. It set me on the right path.” He held out the shotgun, but when she tried to take it from him, he didn’t let go. “Don’t ever point a gun at someone you aren’t truly willing to shoot, or you might find that you’re the one who ends up dead.”

She stiffened. Her father had warned the same thing, but from Dean it sounded ominous. “Are you trying to scare me?”

He lifted an insouciant shoulder. “If that’s what it takes to drill some gun sense into you.”

“I know how to handle a weapon.” But even she heard a shade of doubt in her tone.

He slanted a dubious look at her as he released the gun and stepped back. “I need to use your ax. I have a large tree limb about to fall on my cabin. It would also take out my power lines if I don’t remove it before it breaks free.”

“So you were going to borrow my ax without asking?” She braced a hand on one hip, squeezing the shotgun barrel in her other.

“I’d rather borrow a saw,” he said, clearly ignoring her sarcasm. “That’d be the proper tool for the job, but your shed was locked, and all I found by your woodpile was the ax.” When she rolled her eyes in frustration, he added, “For what it’s worth, I’d been told no one lived here anymore. I didn’t know there was anyone home to ask. I’d heard your parents were in Florida now or something.”

“They are. I moved here a couple months ago after—”

“Shh!” His chin jerked up, his expression shifting abruptly to one of alarm and confusion as he scanned the area and zeroed in on a window of her cabin. “Do you have a baby?”

“No,” she said automatically before remembering her charge. “I mean, I’m caring for one. I—” Then she heard the shrill cry over the ping of sleet and crackling of icy branches in the woods. “That’s... Eve is awake. I have to—” She pointed toward her front door as she backed away, distracted by the baby’s cries.

Dean’s face was still tense as he jerked a nod. “Go on.”

She started toward the cabin, walking as fast as she dared on the slippery ice. She heard the crunch of a second set of footsteps and thought for a moment Dean was leaving. But as she neared her porch, she realized he was right behind her. Wheeling around to face him, she shot him a glare. “What are you doing? Why are you following me?”

He paused on the bottom step to her porch and angled his head slightly. “I thought I’d wait inside, out of the cold, while you tended to the baby and got the key to the shed.” He gave her a sardonic half grin. “But that seems to be a neighborly kindness you don’t want to offer me.”

Eve’s crying grew louder, once again dividing her attention. “Fine,” she grumbled, “come in. You can wait in the kitchen while I check on Eve.”

She turned and hustled inside, leaving him to see himself in. Eve was sitting in the crib, her hand in her mouth, slobber and tears soaking her face as she wailed. “Poor girl. Don’t cry, sweetheart. I know you’re scared.”

Lifting the infant into her arms, Lila noticed her muscles were tight with stress, and she moved with a jerky stiffness. Eve was sure to pick up on her tension, so she inhaled slowly and blew out a cleansing breath. She found a clean burp cloth and used it to dry Eve’s face.

Dean Hamilton was in her kitchen. Dean, who was not a lanky trouble-making teenager anymore, but a man with a warrior’s body and a stern countenance. A man with dark, watchful eyes, whose piercing gaze sent sensual tingles through her blood.

She had to get rid of him. A bad boy, and former crush, was not the kind of man she needed to get involved with, even peripherally. She would loan him the saw—heck, give him the saw—if it meant getting him out of her house and out of her life. She rubbed Eve’s back, and the girl’s shrieks calmed to whimpers. Holding the baby on her shoulder, she headed out to deal with Dean.

“Are you remodeling?” he asked as soon as she reappeared in the hallway.

“No. The cabin still belongs to my parents. I haven’t changed anything.” She tipped her head to the side. “Why?”

“I smell paint.”

She flashed a quick half grin. “That’s from my canvas. The landscape I’m doing.”

Lila carried Eve into the living room and directed his attention to the back window, where her easel was set up. She was so used to the scent of paint, she didn’t notice it anymore.

Dean stepped into the living room from her kitchen and peered at her work space, a corner of the living room by the window that provided the best natural light. His gaze narrowed on her work in progress, and after studying it a moment, his brow lifted. “You did this?”

She pulled a face. “No. Eve did.”

He shot her a withering glance and added, “I just mean...this is good.”

She chuckled wryly. “You sound surprised.”

Dean lifted a shoulder as he faced her painting again. “I am. I didn’t know you were an artist.”

With a grunt, she carried Eve into the kitchen and started opening cabinet drawers. His heavy footsteps on her hardwood floor told her he’d followed, confirming her inner prickle of awareness. She shot a look over her shoulder. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me. Eleven years’ worth.”

“Likewise.”

She inclined her head in a silent touché.

Patting Eve’s back, she continued searching the kitchen. Where was that damn key? “Look, you can borrow the saw or...whatever you need. Just...” Go.

When she cut a quick glance toward him, his expression said the unspoken dismissal was understood well enough. Guilt pinched her. She was being terribly unneighborly, as he’d accused, and he had said he’d served in the military. For his service to the country alone, he deserved the benefit of the doubt. A chance to prove he’d changed. He’d—

“Ow!” she yelped in surprise when she felt a dull pain at her shoulder. She glanced down at Eve and laughed. “Did you just bite me?”

“That’s how I saw it,” Dean volunteered as he strode closer. “How old is she? Six, seven months?”

Lila rubbed the damp sore spot near her neck and eyed Dean as he approached. “Yes. Almost six months.”

“I’m guessing her mood and her biting means she’s cutting a tooth or two?” He moved all the way up to her, and for the first time, she smelled the clean aroma of soap and a hint of wood smoke on him. Such ordinary scents, and yet he made them...sexy.

Lila swallowed hard and mentally shoved aside her hyperawareness of him. Forget the inky beard shading the sharp angles of his face and his bister-colored eyes. She’d only noticed these details about him because she was an artist, not because his face had a manly beauty that enthralled her and begged to be captured in paint.

She shrank back a step when he raised a hand toward her.

Undeterred, Dean closed the distance and reached for Eve. With a gentleness she wouldn’t have imagined his large calloused hand could have, he cradled Eve’s chin in his hand and poked his thumb in the girl’s mouth to feel her gums. His expression softened as he looked into Eve’s eyes. “Your mouth hurts, doesn’t it? I feel that tooth coming in,” he said to the infant in an adult tone.

Eve chomped down on his finger in response, earning a lopsided grin from the man who’d been as gruff as a bear with a sore paw to Lila earlier. Maybe because you pointed a gun at him and were snarly yourself?

His dark brown eyes shifted to hers, and Lila experienced another prickling in her veins like an electric current.

“Get this kid a cold rag to gnaw on or something.”

Lila shook herself from her daze and glanced around for the diaper bag of supplies Miriam had left. “She probably has a teething toy.”

“You don’t know?”

“She’s only been here a couple of hours. I’m fostering her over the weekend until her extended biological family is contacted.” She craned her neck to look past Dean. “Do you see her bag on the stool over there?”

Eve tuned up again when Dean moved away. Clearly the little girl was as intrigued by him as the big girl was. Lila kissed Eve’s head and swayed in a way intended to soothe the baby. “It’s okay, sweetie. We’ll get something for those sore gums.” Then to Dean, who had located the diaper bag, she said, “I’ll take it.” She held out her hand, while propping the baby on her hip.

He only cast her a dismissive look as he pawed through the bag and dug out a well-chewed toy.

“Is there any teething gel in there? If not, I think I have some in the nursery.” While Dean searched the bag again, she asked, “How do you know about teething babies?”

“Men can’t know about babies?” His eyes narrowed. “Or just men who should have been in prison the last eleven years?”

Her mouth tightened. “Look, I made a presumption based on the last information I knew about you. I’m sorry. I was wrong to assume the worst.”

Pulling out a tube of ointment, he uncapped it and passed it to her. “I spent a lot of time in Iraq with a family that had a baby. You pick things up.”

She took the teething gel, but had her hands full with the baby. Mothers must have to practice juggling to manage a baby while doing all the tasks involved in child care.

Dean noticed her conundrum and stepped forward, taking back the gel and squeezing a dab on his finger.

“I—” she began, then said, “Thank you.”

As he rubbed the medicine on the baby’s gums, Eve focused her baby blues on the man with the unshaven jaw and intense brown eyes, and her fretful expression lightened. The baby made a gurgling sound that Lila would have sworn was a flirtatious coo. And why wouldn’t Eve be dazzled by Dean’s handsome face and tender touch? Lila had been intrigued by him since she was fourteen and first received one of his rakish grins.

He gave the baby’s cheek a quick stroke with a crooked finger and recapped the teething gel. After tossing the tube on the counter, he wiped his fingers on a kitchen towel. “Now...the key to the shed? This storm isn’t easing up, and I’d like to get back to my cabin before the path gets too icy.”

She swallowed her retort about his impatience and ingratitude and took Eve into the living room, where her baby seat was. She settled Eve in the infant carrier and almost had her settled with a teething toy when her phone rang.

The harsh ring of the landline her parents had put in the cabin thirty years earlier startled Eve, and she gave a piercing shriek of displeasure.

Lila gritted her teeth, wanting to howl her own frustration as she strode over to the kitchen counter to answer the call. She held a finger up to Dean, asking for one more minute. “Hello?”

“Lila, it’s Miriam Webber.” Even over Eve’s plaintive whining, Lila could hear the tension in Miriam’s voice.

“Yes, hi. Did I forget something?”

“Oh, no. It’s...is Eve all right?”

Lila grimaced. Having her charge crying in the background didn’t make a good impression on the foster program caseworker. “She’s fine. Just fussy and fighting sleep.”

“Right. Well, that’s not why I called.” Again Miriam’s tone vibrated with anxiety as clearly as Eve’s cries did. “Lila, I have FBI Special Agent Dunn with me. There’s bad news, and...well, I’ll let him explain.”

Lila’s gut rolled. Bad news? What could have—?

“Ms. Greene? This is Special Agent Dunn.” The man’s deep voice was dark and grave. “I wanted to give you the heads-up that I’ve asked the local police to station an officer at your place. They should be there shortly.”

Lila’s pulse quickened. “At my cabin? Why?”

Dunn cleared his throat. “The van transporting several of The Sword cult leaders hit black ice and rolled over. The van driver was killed, and both Kent Pitts and his brother, Wayne, escaped custody.”

Lila gasped. “Oh, my God! How? Weren’t they handcuffed? Weren’t there extra guards with them?”

A grunt of frustration rumbled through the line. “The US marshal riding in the back with the prisoners was injured and knocked unconscious, but whether before or after the accident is unclear at this point.” Another growl. Clearly Dunn was disgusted with the situation, and Lila held her breath, knowing on a gut level that the worst news was yet to come. “The Pitts not only used the incapacitated marshal’s keys to free themselves from their restraints, they stole both his and the driver’s sidearms. And...the marshal’s phone. Ms. Greene, the phone had text messages regarding the placement of Eve and your contact information...including your address.”

Lila sat heavily on a bar stool near her kitchen counter. Her blood whooshed past her ears, making it hard to hear the special agent.

“Ms. Greene, I’m sorry. It is unconscionable that these men escaped from custody, and a full investigation will be conducted as to what happened.”

She huffed a humorless laugh, her mind reeling. “An investigation? H-how does that help me now?”

He sighed. “It doesn’t.” Another heavy pause. “Ideally, we would move you from your location. But with this storm coming, I’m afraid it won’t be safe to relocate you once the officer arrives. Ma’am, you need to lock your doors. The other cult members being transported with the Pitts tell us the brothers intended to go after Eve and Caleb, the other infant rescued from the scene this morning. We believe their intention is to kill the babies.”