He returned in a couple minutes with a room key and she climbed back onto the motorcycle behind him. He drove past two cabins with assorted Harleys lined up in front of the units and turned left by the third cabin, parking at the door.
“Thank God.” She pulled off her helmet, climbed down from the bike, and stretched her legs. “What kind of bike is that?”
Hunter had his helmet and gloves off. “BMW R 1200 GS Adventure.”
“What does all that mean?” She used the key to open the door and stepped inside, where the smell of disinfectant cleaner and lemon furniture polish filled the air. The lamp on the nightstand lit up when she flipped the wall switch.
“It’s a dual sport that can go on the highway or off-road.” Hunter tossed his helmet and gloves on the first of two beds.
The pine-paneled room was old but clean, and the large space included a small kitchenette area.
“Hold the door,” he called out softly.
She held it open while he carried in his backpack and threw that on the bed, too. “Pull the curtains closed.”
“Where’s Borys?” she asked while she closed the curtains.
“Safe. We always have an exit plan.” He started unpacking clothes and dark plastic packages from his backpack.
She noticed he didn’t share any details, but she mentally shrugged off his obviously limited sense of trust. She could understand his reticence to say much in his line of work. “What about everything in your house?”
Hunter shrugged again. “Nothing there that matters. Borys activated a program that destroyed the electronics we left behind. Sounded like the intruders took care of the rest.”
Her mouth was gaping. She couldn’t believe what she heard.
He acted as though it was no big deal to lose what had to be hundreds of thousands of dollars. “Doesn’t that bother you?”
“What?”
“It sounded like they destroyed your house and probably stole anything of value. Losing all that doesn’t upset you?”
All the intensity she’d seen winding through his movements for the past few hours seeped out in one long sigh. He walked over to her, his hair smashed down and sweaty from the helmet. Dirt streaked his face and weariness lined his eyes.
He placed his palm against the side of her face. “The only thing that would have bothered me was if anything had happened to you.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Jackson Chameleon surveyed the destruction of the home in Montana, satisfied.
“That enough or you want more, boss?” Bulked up from hard labor, Freddie was the superior of the seven men Jackson had hired for this expedition. Ragged whiskers poked out above his stained teeth. Freddie ran weapons and drugs between two Middle Eastern countries and South America and the U.S.
Four men were taken out by booby traps on the mountain Jackson had anticipated. Those four had cleared the way for Jackson and these three.
“Boss?” Freddie repeated.
Boss. An amusing term.
“That will be sufficient.” Jackson cast a quiet gaze at the next man, a North American Indian in worn jeans and a moss-gray chamois shirt who could track the path of a lizard on a bald mountain. “You’re sure no one could follow our trails?”
The tracker dipped his head in abrupt acknowledgment.
“Good.” Jackson ignored the third man, who had lowered his automatic weapon, waiting on instructions.
Freddie had cut the deal for the men and organized the assault while Jackson waited on his Fratelli superior to pull the flight records on the private jet that had transported Abigail. That led him to the helicopter that had transported her next. If not for Fratelli connections within the FAA and FBI he might have hit a dead end there.
Arresting the helicopter pilot and convincing him he was part of a murder investigation to do with the woman he’d transported hadn’t paid off.
Abigail’s rescuer had deep pockets and power.
The helicopter pilot stonewalled them.
But Jackson had a man extract past coordinates out of the helicopter’s navigation system while the pilot was being interrogated. The pilot had made multiple stops that night at equally remote locations.
Jackson had to admire Abigail’s rescuer for his ability to disappear and to keep his identity hidden. But he’d eventually find that, too.
Entangling the pilot with the FAA had allowed Jackson the time he needed to unleash his team before the pilot could possibly send a warning to his wealthy client.
“A job well done.” Jackson applauded his three men. “Now you have a choice to make.”
Freddie frowned. The Native American tracker’s black eyes thinned to evil slits. The third guy—what was his name?—moved his finger to the trigger of his weapon.
Jackson enjoyed this part. “The offer still stands, but it gets better. I only need one of you after today. So you can all take your fifty thousand apiece or you can show me who’s the best among all of you and that person will make a half million on the next job.”
Men who lived and died by their reflexes weren’t slow to make a decision.
The third guy had his finger ready but hadn’t anticipated how fast the tracker could whip a Bowie knife around and shove it into the guy’s heart, then twist.
Number three slid to the floor, pulling away from the knife the tracker wiped on the dead guy’s shirt.
Freddie had his Glock 9mm leveled on his only competition when the tracker stood up and faced him. “Thanks, chief. That made it easy.”
“If you kill me, you won’t live to enj—” A bullet struck the tracker between his eyes.
Freddie sighed heavily. “Hate that. He was a helluva tracker.” He lowered his weapon and faced Jackson. “Guess that makes me your man.”
“I’m not surprised,” Jackson said, congratulating himself on predicting the correct outcome again. He had something special planned for Freddie. Freddie had enemies, including a really nasty one who was not happy about having his drug-running territory poached. “You’re ambitious, right?”
“Abso-f**king-lutely.” Freddie holstered his weapon and dusted off his hands.
“As soon as we get down from here, I have a load of coc**ne for you to move.” This plan lacked true challenge, but Jackson couldn’t waste much time in ridding himself of Freddie.
By tonight, Freddie’s enemy would have a free shipment of coc**ne and Freddie would be in multiple pieces.
With no unnecessary killing performed by Jackson’s hand.
The Fratelli would find no fault with his work.
“What about the bodies?” Freddie followed him outside.
“Leave them. Hand me one of the branches you cut.” Jackson took it and erased his footprints leading back the way he’d come up the mountain. Freddie did the same even though his prints had approached from a different direction, but by the time the authorities identified Freddie his prints wouldn’t matter.
Jackson took one last look at the razed house.
This should show the man with Abigail Blanton that she had nowhere to hide and he couldn’t protect her.
Not from the Jackson Chameleon.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Hunter. Wet and nak*d.
Just the way Abbie wanted him.
But he was standing on the hot-water side of the flowery plastic shower curtain.
Without her.
She sat on the closed seat cover of the commode, finishing her MRE, or Meal, Ready to Eat. Nourishing and not awful, but also not the nice dinner—pizza would have been fine—she’d hoped to eat before finding out what Hunter looked like nak*d.
He vetoed food delivery or leaving the motor court for any reason short of a life-threatening injury.
Did getting her heart broken rate as life threatening?
As if giving her that mind-blowing orgasm hadn’t raised her libido from the dead, that ride through hell had supercharged it.
She’d thought the minute he got inside this cabin he’d pick up where he’d left off after taking her through an out-of-body experience.
He hadn’t so much as kissed her since then.
He had curled her heart into one big gooey glob when he told her he didn’t care about losing a house that had to cost a fortune, but he would have been bothered if anything had happened to her.
She’d been speechless… then leaned foward to kiss him.
He’d backed up and set about putting the room in order, right down to cleaning off the second bed.
Big message there.
He had to be rethinking what happened now that they were on the run. Had to be his agency. Hunter said they’d come after him. So now he’d changed his mind about touching her.
She wanted to act like sex was just sex. To tell him with all sorts of sexual maturity that she was really okay with their using each other to forget about the danger they were in, but that wouldn’t be the truth. She still remembered the guy who had touched her heart six years ago.
She wanted that Samson guy she’d first met and she wanted the new Hunter she now knew.
Could any woman be this stupid twice in her life?
She wanted a man who didn’t exist in the real world. So what? Why couldn’t she have him now? A night, or hopefully two, with Hunter would be worth more than years with another man. She’d told him she knew how precarious their time was, but he’d obviously had a change of heart since then.
The shower raged on with sounds of body scrubbing that had her painting a mental picture of water rushing over his lean and cut body.
She had to get out of this bathroom. She wiped her hands on a damp washrag and tossed the last of her MRE into the wastebasket. A cloud of steam hovered in the small room even though she’d left the door open to the bedroom, as per Hunter’s instruction.
He’d been efficient about every aspect of locking them in tight for the night. That’s when she’d noticed the room had no desk phone. She’d asked to use his cell phone. No cell towers. He promised they’d call in the morning. She hadn’t given him grief since he was trying to keep them safe.
He finished securing the room, not missing a detail, except for how her self-confidence had slowly dissolved.
She hadn’t thought she could embarrass herself any more with Hunter than she had the first time they met, but having him act as if nothing had happened at the cabin after the intimacy she’d shared was tearing her insides to pieces.
She’d had about enough of sitting in this sauna.
Water dripped off a ringlet of hair stuck to her shoulder and streaked down to where Hunter’s oversized T-shirt covered her br**sts. Her too-sensitive n**ples brushed the soft material every time she moved.
Her entire body was too sensitive with him so close.
Worse, her emotions clung by nervous fingers.
She hated to feel insecure.
Hated trying to figure out what went on inside a man’s mind. She hadn’t had this problem in six years.
Not since she’d made up her mind men were not to be trusted. Hunter was the first one to come along who challenged that belief.
She trusted him with her life.
Her heart was the part in danger.
The shower stopped running.
“Go to the bedroom now that I can hear you,” Hunter said.
She stuck her tongue out at the still-closed shower curtain, sighed, and walked out to the bedroom, where the temperature dropped ten degrees. Goose bumps prickled her skin.
“Leave the lights off,” he called just before she reached for the lamp.
Fine. She pulled the covers back on one bed, climbed in, and covered up. The sheets were like ice. She kicked her feet to warm them and hugged her body. The window unit was silent. Had he set the heat at all?
She wasn’t getting up to check. He could deal with that since the wall unit was on his side of the room, next to the other bed.
The bathroom door closed partway, leaving a six-inch gap where she could see a sliver of mirror.
The urge to check out his reflection in the mirror showing through the crack in the door proved too great to ignore.
She leaned to her right. Reflections of his masculine upper body blinked across the mirror. She propped her head on her elbow.
Why not enjoy the show?
Hunter flipped the towel out of view and crossed his arms behind his head, flexing left, then right.
God, what a body. Even that tasty little view.
Muscles rippled in his chest and abdomen. A true eight-pack. Narrow hips.
If the mirror was just a little lower… she’d get the full Monty. He bumped the door with his hip and she lost all her view but an inch.
Abbie rolled over and punched the pillow, then plopped down on her stomach.
Her teeth chattered. She reached for the other half of the bedspread and flipped it over to double up her covers. Once her body heat warmed the sheets, she started drifting to sleep with one thought.
Be a cold day in hell before he ever gets to touch me again.
She dreamed of men in the dark and automatic weapons and motorcycles screaming through the night… but the wind didn’t chill her this time. The air was hot.
Fire burned across her skin sensually.
Her n**ples hardened with need.
She moaned at the ache building between her legs.
Abbie came awake, her heart pounding from the most erotic dream she’d ever had—
A finger brushed her beaded nipple.
—that was still going on. She shivered in delight.
“Miss me?” Hunter whispered next to her ear.
Wait a minute. Did he think he could just climb into bed and rub that… uh, hmm, hot piece of male against her… and not explain why…
She was on her left side, facing away from him. He was holding her against his heat, touching her from top to bottom.
Every hard inch of him touching her.
“You smell delicious.” He kissed her neck and rubbed his erection along her bottom. His fingers were busy with her br**sts again, teasing her mindless.
She opened her eyes to a dark room. Not being able to see heightened her sensitivity. Turning her to face him, he brushed his lips over hers. A potent kiss that worked to persuade her hormones to give him a chance to dispel her concerns.