Fan the Flames (40 page)

Biting her lip to keep herself from calling after Lou and begging her to stay and be a buffer, Ellie met George's gaze. “Um…hi.” There was no reaction from the big man, and her heartrate ratcheted up another notch. Her hands were sweating, and she resisted the urge to rub her palms against her thighs. The waterproof material of her pants wouldn't have absorbed the sweat, anyway. “Uh, like Lou said, I need to get to this cabin.” She fumbled in her purse, grateful for the chance to focus on something besides the silent man in front of her. It was almost disappointing when her fingers closed on a folded piece of paper. “Callum printed this map of the cabin's location.” To her embarrassment, her fingers were shaking as she extended the paper toward him. For a horrible second, she didn't think he was going to accept it, but he finally reached out and took the map.

Ellie didn't say anything else until his eyes left the map and met hers again. “Callum thought we'd be hiking for about three days to get from the farthest point on the plowed road to the cabin. We won't be staying there, since we'll just grab my dad and go”—as long as Baxter was there and unhurt and cooperative, but she didn't let herself worry about that right then—“so it'll be about six days. I can pay you five hundred dollars a day.”

After another long silence, George refolded the map carefully. Holding it out to her, he shook his head.

“Six hundred, then.” When he gave another head shake, she started to sweat. “Eight hundred?” She held her breath. If she went much higher, she wouldn't have anything left for unexpected expenses, like food or a flight home.

He extended the hand holding the map another inch closer to her.

To her horror, her eyes began to burn with threatening tears. “He's not well.” Now the quiver in her hands had migrated to her voice, as well. “My dad. He has delusions and hallucinations. When he called me, he said he thinks someone's after him, so he's running to the cabin to hide from them. I'm afraid…” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed. “I'm afraid for him. Not that I think someone's really trying to kill him, but he's out there on his own, seeing things that aren't there. I need to find him and get him somewhere safe.”

Reaching down, he lifted her hand and gently placed the refolded map on her palm. Her fingers automatically closed around the paper as he started to turn away from her.

“Please.” Despite her best efforts, tears escaped, tracking down either side of her face and thickening her words. “I can't make it to the cabin without a guide. I don't even know how to read this map.” Shame burned in her chest, but her desperation was stronger than her pride. “I need your help. Please.”

“You should've told me you needed a wilderness guide to find your dad.” Joseph's voice made her jump and wipe hastily at her cheeks before turning. It was one thing to bare her soul to the silent George, but she couldn't stand to be that vulnerable in front of Joseph. “I work for an outfitter during hunting season, so I do this professionally. Here, let me see.”

When he reached for the map, she automatically jerked it out of his reach. “No…I…that's okay.” The thought of being at Joseph's mercy in the middle of the wilderness made panic rise in her throat. “I'll figure out something.”

“It's already figured out.” This time, Joseph leaned over her shoulder to grab the map. “I'm taking you. I'll even offer you my
friends
and family rate. We'll track down Baxter and bring him back, safe and sound.”

“No.”
How does he know Dad's name? Has he been researching me?
Her fingers tightened as she twisted, holding the paper out of his reach. She was reluctant to let Joseph even see the map. A mental image of him aggressively hitting on her the whole way to the cabin, of sharing a tent with him and his roving hands, flashed through her mind. The thought was horrifying.

He caught her arm, tugging her toward him as his other hand extended toward the map. Before he could grab it, George locked his enormous mitt around Joseph's biceps and hauled him back several feet. Joseph let out a yelp, releasing her as he stumbled to catch his balance.

“What the hell, Holloway!”

George didn't respond except to place his bulk between Ellie and the other man. Relieved to have a buffer—especially such a
big
buffer—blocking the incredibly persistent Joseph, Ellie peeked around his arm. Joseph looked furious, his eyes narrow and his lips tight. The two men stared at each other for a long, tense moment while Ellie held her breath. Finally, Joseph gave a forced laugh, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“Didn't know you'd already volunteered for the job,” he said, sending a fake smile in Ellie's direction. She resisted the urge to duck all the way behind George. “Since when have you started babysitting tourists?”

George didn't say a word, but something in his expression made Joseph back away from them. When he was several feet away, he dropped his hands and turned to leave the training room.

“Um…” When the big man didn't look at her or respond, she cleared her throat. “Mr. Holloway, does this mean you're going to be guiding me?”

He finally rotated until he faced her, but it was a long time before George answered. Although his beard hid the lower half of his face, his eyebrows were mashed together. Ellie wasn't sure if he was annoyed, bewildered, worried, or some completely different emotion. All she did know was that his brown eyes were very striking, and she couldn't take her eyes off of them.

It could've been a few seconds or several minutes that they stood in silence while Ellie barely breathed. Finally,
finally
, his chin dipped ever so slightly. When his short nod finally sunk into her jubilant brain, she hopped forward and hugged him around the middle. He felt as large and as hard as a tree trunk. Once she realized what she was doing, she jumped back just as quickly.

“Sorry! I'm just really glad you'll be guiding me. So, thank you. Thank you very much. When did you want to leave? I haven't bought anything yet, except for clothes.” She waved a hand at her current layered outfit. “Nothing like a tent or anything, since I wasn't sure what I'd need or what you already had or…um. I'm babbling. I'm sorry. I'm just really relieved.”

His shoulders dropped in a silent sigh. Reaching in his pocket, he pulled out a pen and plucked the map from her nerveless fingers. Turning over the map so it was blank side up and using the wall as a writing surface, George scribbled a couple of lines and then handed the paper to her. As soon as she accepted it, he turned and stomped out of the training room.

“Ho-ly cow!” Lou was suddenly standing next to her. “I want every single detail of that conversation, because I couldn't hear a thing over those loud idiots.” She swung an arm to indicate a cluster of men standing on the other side of the training room. “Not a single one of those useless buggers could read lips, either, so I'm dying to know—did he actually say yes?”

Still stunned, Ellie turned toward the other woman and stared at her until the final question penetrated. Only then did she start to smile. “Yes.”

With a squeal of delight, Lou threw her arms around Ellie. Grinning, Ellie squeezed her just as hard. The two women bounced in a circle, still hugging. When they finally stopped, everyone in the room was staring at them.

Too happy to be embarrassed, Ellie just ignored their audience.

“When are you leaving?” Lou asked, reminding Ellie of the scribbled note on the back of the map. She flipped it over and read the scrawled words.

31490 Cty Rd 43. 6am.

“Tomorrow morning.” Meeting Lou's gaze, Ellie grinned and held up the paper so the other woman could read it. “I'm going to find my dad, Lou.”

“Yes,” Lou grabbed her in another hug, crumpling the map between them. “You are.”

* * *

Anderson King glanced at his brother. After only two hours, Wilson was snoring, his head cocked back against the passenger seat. With a shake of his head, Anderson refocused on the motel room door. A familiar mix of exasperation and protectiveness flowed through him. It was the same feeling he'd always had for his brother, ever since his dad had shoved a scrawny, red-faced, bulgy-eyed infant into Anderson's arms with the admonition to “shut the little fucker up.”

When they'd been kids, Wilson never had been any good at sitting still. He'd always been the one to make a sudden movement or a sound when they'd been hunting. It'd been Wilson who used to spook their prey, sending that fish or rabbit or pretty neighbor girl bolting for safety.

Stillness was easy for Anderson. In the service, he'd learned to turn into a statue for hours, become part of the landscape—a harmless boulder, an innocent shadow—until the target stepped into his crosshairs. He didn't feel the need to doze like Wilson, didn't need to fidget or squirm.

So now, while his brother slept, Anderson would wait, motionless. Once she left the motel room, he'd follow. He'd be patient, and she'd lead him right to his latest prey.

Although clean, the motel bed wasn't very comfortable. That plus nerves kept Ellie awake for most of the night. Between thoughts about the upcoming hike and worry that someone would pound on the door, demanding she leave her pilfered room, sleep was impossible. Despite her best efforts at keeping her hands away from her mouth during the endless dark hours she spent tossing and turning, the skin around her fingernails was raw, and her left index finger had actually bled.

In the artificial light of the motel bathroom, she wrapped her gnawed finger in a rough, generic-brand tissue. It wasn't quite five a.m., but she was already dressed and ready to go. Her bleeding hangnail had convinced her to leave early. Sitting around her dark motel room was just shredding her nerves along with her fingers.

She packed up her rental car and left the second room key on the motel room table. The front desk was manned by a tiny, gray-haired woman, who accepted the returned key with a sleepy smile. Ellie's own smile was tight as she wondered if this was the owner who had given Joseph access to her room. As she walked back out into the almost-empty parking lot, she shivered. The wind chased eddies of powdery snow across the icy surface. Besides her car, the only other vehicle was an older van parked in the shadows on the far side of the lot. Ellie walked a little faster.

Once she was in the driver's seat, she entered the address George had given her into her navigation system. Below George's scribbles, Lou had sketched another rough map, just in case her car's GPS failed. The darkness made Ellie worried about missing turns, even with the GPS's prompting, so she drove slowly. The highway was mostly empty, although she saw headlights in her rearview mirror a few times, so she wasn't the
only
one awake—it only felt that way. Despite her concerns about getting lost, the sign for the county road was clear, and reflectors bracketed both sides of the road, making the turn easy to find.

As the GPS counted down the feet remaining to the address, Ellie's hand crept toward her mouth. She caught it before her teeth could do any more damage, and she gripped the wheel tightly with both hands. When she saw an unmarked driveway on her left, just as GPS announced that she'd arrived at her destination, she swallowed hard and turned.

The driveway was longer than her headlights' reach, eventually disappearing into a cluster of pine trees. It wasn't too badly rutted, which was a relief in her low-clearance vehicle, but it was narrow, twisting and turning as she entered the trees. The coating of packed snow made her worry about her car's traction, and she slowed to a crawl. By the time a cabin came into view, she felt as if she'd been driving down the lane forever.

The house looked fairly small, although not as small as Willard Gray's former place. There was a good-sized outbuilding next to the cabin, and the large overhead doors suggested that it might contain a vehicle or two. The driveway widened as she approached the house, and she was able to park on the edge of the clearing so she wasn't blocking either of the garage doors.

Ellie glanced at the clock. Despite her inchworm-like speed, she was still almost a half hour early. Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel again, and she peeled off her clinging hands. Taking a deep breath, she pushed open her door and got out of the car.

As she approached the covered front porch, a light flickered on next to the door. It startled her at first, but when George didn't poke out his head, she assumed it was motion-activated. Feeling guilty for her early arrival, she walked up the porch steps, her boots thumping against the wooden risers.

By the time she reached the top, the front door opened. Interior lights silhouetted George's large form, and she hesitated for a second before taking the last few steps to meet him. Silent as usual, he stepped back, and she took that as an invitation to enter his house.

“Hi.” The word sounded loud in the predawn silence. “Sorry I'm so early. It was hard to sleep, so I figured I'd give myself plenty of time in case I managed to get lost. Your place was easy to find, though, so…here I am. Early.”

He shrugged off her apology as she stripped off her coat, hat, and boots. Once she was down to a more reasonable number of layers, he led the way into a good-sized kitchen. The smell of bacon made her mouth water, and her stomach grumbled as if she hadn't packed it full of barbeque the previous evening. A round table with four chairs held a plate full of food and a coffee mug.

“Oh, I'm sorry!” she apologized again. “I didn't mean to interrupt your breakfast. Go ahead and finish.” Flustered, Ellie wondered if she should offer to wait out in her car.

Instead of taking his place at the table, however, he moved to the stove. She watched as he got a plate from the cupboard and loaded it with scrambled eggs, bacon, and hash browns. He laid it on the table and then returned to pour coffee into a blue mug. When he held it out to her, she accepted the coffee with a smile of thanks. Ellie normally liked her coffee milky and sweet, but she didn't want to be demanding. He was already feeding and caffeinating her. Until they were on their way to her grandpa's cabin, Ellie didn't want to risk changing George's mind about being her guide. She'd do everything she could to avoid giving him the impression that she was high-maintenance.

He put a fork by her place and pulled out the chair in front of it. When he looked at her, she slid into the seat. “Thank you.”

He grunted as he took his own chair, and she looked up from her plate in surprise. That was the first vocalization he'd made in her presence. Maybe there was hope for actual conversation by the time the trip was done? She ducked her head, staring at her eggs to hide a smile.

They ate in silence. Ellie was surprised by how good the food was—the eggs fluffy and the bacon a perfect level of crispiness. Even the hash browns, which usually she didn't like very much, were tasty. The coffee, though…she took a sip and hid her wince. It was probably strong enough to put hair on her chest.

The scrape of George's chair against the floor startled her, and she almost spilled her coffee as she set the cup back on the table. He moved to the fridge and pulled out an old-fashioned-looking glass milk bottle, which he set on the table next to her elbow. She must not have hid her reaction to the coffee well enough.

“Thank you.” She poured some milk into the black-as-pitch beverage, and then added some more. “The food is really good.” Ellie stopped herself before thanking him again. She'd repeated it so many times in the past fifteen minutes that she was afraid she was sounding like a talking doll that could say only one thing when her string was pulled.

As usual, he shrugged off her thanks before finishing his food. Ellie eyed what was left on her own plate. George had given her a lumberjack's portion, plus nerves had tightened her stomach. When she put her fork down and sat back in her chair, he looked between her face and her unfinished food with a frown.

“It was great, but I'm really full.” As she sipped her milky yet still-strong coffee, he slid the plate from her place to his and proceeded to finish off the breakfast she'd left. As she watched him eat from what had been her breakfast, a blush warmed her cheeks. She wasn't sure why, but the act of sharing food seemed almost intimate, like something an old married couple would do. Shaking off her silly thoughts, she focused on the upcoming trip.

“I couldn't get cash yesterday, since my bank doesn't have a branch here.” She watched him, holding her breath, hoping he didn't immediately cancel the trip and kick her out of his house. “I can write you a check, though, if you…um, take checks.”

His head shake could have meant anything from “the deal is off” to “I'll guide you for free.” Ellie decided to go with one of the more optimistic translations.

“Should I just pay you after we get back, then?”

His shrug was combined with just enough of a nod for her to blow out a sigh of relief.

“Do you have winter camping gear?” she asked, and, between bites, he jerked his chin toward two professional-looking backpacks. One was huge, while the second—the one she assumed was hers—was much smaller. “Oh, good. Should I bring my suitcase in here and transfer my things?”

At his nod, she hurried toward the door.

“Wait.”

The sound of an unfamiliar male voice made her stop as if she'd hit a wall. The growly rasp of that one word rippled up her spine, heating her blood and giving her goose bumps. Shocked that he'd spoken, and by her reaction to his deep, rough voice, she turned to see George had left the table and was grabbing something off the counter. He held out a flashlight.

“Oh, right. Thank you.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she imagined the doll with the string on her back again. Flushing, she reached to take the light and hurried back out to her car.

Once she'd dodged through the front door, pulling it closed behind her, her shoulders relaxed. Ellie laughed at herself. How was being outside in the dark, surrounded by a predator-filled forest, less nerve-racking than being inside a warm, cozy cabin with George? He, at least, was not going to eat her.

At that thought, a hot blush warmed her cheeks, and she hurried to her car, trying to rein in her unruly imagination.

Her suitcase was small, since she'd thought she'd be in Simpson only for a night or two, so she'd crammed all of her new clothes back into the Screaming Moose bag. She grabbed the bag, her suitcase, and her purse, and then hauled the entire load into George's house. When she returned to the kitchen, he was washing dishes at the sink, but he quickly dried his hands and came over to relieve her of her burden.

“Thank you.” She grimaced at his back when the words slipped out unbidden, then shrugged. There were worse things she could be repeating over and over. Ellie realized that George wasn't just piling her things next to the backpack. Instead, he'd unzipped her suitcase and was digging through it. He'd already created what she assumed was a reject pile, and her clothes were quickly finding their way into it.

Scurrying over to him, she opened her mouth to object at the intrusion of privacy, and then snapped it shut. Ellie reminded herself of her vow to be as low-maintenance as possible. It was hard, though, and she couldn't hold back a whimper of embarrassed protest as her favorite push-up bra was tossed aside.

His earlier frown at her still-full plate was nothing compared to his current scowl at her now-empty suitcase.

“Most of my new clothes are in here,” she told him, nudging the Screaming Moose bag with her toe. “I'm wearing the rest of them.” She'd put on the same layers as she'd worn the previous evening.

Still crouching, he turned to Ellie and abruptly tugged up the waist of her fleece top, revealing the first of two underlayers. Shocked at the unexpected manhandling, she stood frozen as he lifted her second top, as well, to expose her base long-underwear top below it. With what sounded like a satisfied grunt, George repeated the process on her lower half. Recovering from her startled paralysis, she stepped back, tugging the waistband of her fleece pants out of his grip.

As she stared at him with wide eyes, he turned away from her and started sorting through the contents of the Screaming Moose bag.

“You know,” she started tentatively.
Low-maintenance!
her brain was screaming.
Be low-maintenance!
It was one thing not to be demanding, though, and a whole other thing to allow him to paw her, even if that pawing was well intentioned. “If you'd just
asked
what I was wearing, I would've been happy to tell you.”

George did not respond to that, not even with a silent shrug. She sighed and squatted down next to him. Picking up a pair of wool socks that had landed in what she was pretty sure was the “take hiking” pile, she rolled them together and tucked them into the main section of the smaller pack.

When she picked up another pair of long-underwear bottoms, she saw George was watching her. “I read somewhere that rolling clothes instead of folding them is a more efficient way to pack.” Ellie wasn't sure if that was why he was eyeing her, but she had to guess if he wasn't going to tell her. “Plus, it keeps them from wrinkling.” She pulled a face. “Not that wrinkles will really be an issue on this trip.”

Her explanation must have satisfied his curiosity, since he turned back to sorting her new clothes. Almost all of them ended up in the “keep” pile, and she exhaled in silent relief. He wouldn't have been happy if she hadn't had any appropriate clothes for the hike. They could've returned to the Screaming Moose, but that would've eaten up precious time. Still, the image of George accompanying her on a shopping trip almost made her smile.

Once she'd rolled and stashed all of the George-approved clothes in her pack, she tossed the contents of the reject pile back into her suitcase. While George was focused on finishing the dishwashing, she quickly tucked a couple of her bras into the pack, along with the contents of her purse. There were necessities, and then there were
necessities
, no matter what George thought.

After zipping the now-stuffed pack, she hurried to join him at the sink, snagging a folded dish towel off the counter. She took the newly rinsed plate from his hand and dried it, ignoring his raised eyebrows. After eyeing her for a few seconds, he shrugged and continued washing, handing the items to her to dry.

The sun wasn't up yet, but it was thinking about it, and gray light was creeping through the kitchen window. There was a coziness to their shared chore, and Ellie found herself smiling as she dried the mug in her hands. The first hint of peacefulness she'd felt in days wrapped around her, warming her to her core.

It was over too quickly, and the dishes were done. After George filled water bottles, some with boiling water and some with just lukewarm, Ellie screwed on the lids and tucked them into foam covers. As George attached the bottles to the packs so they hung upside down, Ellie watched curiously. She wanted to ask why he put them on with the tops down, but she figured she'd just get a grunt in response. Plus, she decided she'd better save her questions for really important things, since George was definitely not one to waste words.