Redemption (4 page)

While they held hands, she’d experienced a connection she desperately needed. For nearly two days she’d felt isolated from the world at large, herself and human contact. John returned some of that to her, along with the realization she wasn’t as alone as she’d been thinking. He may not want her here, but he was doing all he could to help her.

And true to his word, the blizzard stopped later that afternoon. The phone line would take some time to repair, he’d told her, and the cellphone kept dropping his calls. They spent another lazy day in the cabin, but this time she didn’t feel as claustrophobic. This time she kept sliding glances at him hoping… Hoping what? He’d touch her again? He’d reveal a crack in his façade and show a little more emotion?

She stared out the windows, mainly because the scenery changed whereas the walls stayed the same. She liked to watch the blowing wind create snowdrifts, destroy them and build them back up somewhere else. Now that the wind had stopped, the sun peeked through weak clouds and the snow shimmered like a forest of diamonds, causing her to squint against the beautiful glare. Parts of her car were buried beneath inches of snow while in other places metal poked out of the landscape, marring what she considered picture-perfect scenery.

“You want to take a look?” John stood with hands shoved deep into his jeans pocket.

Unable to help herself, her gaze slid over the length of him. Over slim hips, long legs, wide shoulders. He was lean, but well muscled. An outdoorsman compared to a bodybuilder.

She’d never seen his red gold hair combed. Thick, with a touch of curl at the ends, it was always messy, leaving him with a sexy, just-out-of-bed look. His gaze met hers, navy eyes curious but aloof. He always seemed detached, holding himself at a distance. Was it her or was he that way with everyone?

She didn’t know if it was disgust at herself for thinking of him in a way other than rescuer or sorrow that she couldn’t penetrate the barriers he’d erected that made her turn back to the window. She had no business thinking of him in that way. After all, she could possibly be married.

“Let’s go outside,” he said. “No use brooding in here when it’s beautiful out there.”

She leaned against the rough pine-board wall, a half smile tugging at her lips. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” No heat to his words, just idle curiosity. Did nothing get to this man?

“It means you’re the king of brooding.”

“Maybe I have reason to brood.”

“And I don’t?”

“Doesn’t mean it’s good for you. I should know, being the king and all.”

She stared at him for a few moments, arms crossed over the swell of her belly. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

“You call this nice?” He waved a hand in the air. “Nah.”

“Yes. I call this nice. At first you didn’t want me here, did you?”

He looked away. “It wasn’t the right time,” he said.

“I’m sorry if I ruined any plans you’d made.” With a storm brewing, she wondered what kind of plans he would have had. Unless the reason he hadn’t stocked up on food was because he was leaving and had to stop to save her.

His jaw muscle ticked and he still wouldn’t look at her. Then he shrugged again and pulled his hands from his pockets. “Let’s take a look at that car of yours.”

The day may have looked glorious from the inside, but once outside, the cold knocked the breath right out of her. John had given her an old coat of his and her running shoes. He’d been right, they weren’t cheap shoes. She put them on, hoping once again for some flashback. When nothing happened, she fought the disappointment.

The snowdrifts sometimes came to her knees and she had to step high, falling behind John and using his boot prints as a guide. He dusted the car off with a gloved hand, slowly revealing an old black, rusted Corolla. The cold hinges screeched when he opened the door, echoing off the snow-laden trees and rending the air with a sound that violated the peace of the wintry day.

She crouched and looked inside the dim interior. Cracked faux-leather seats, blood on the steering wheel where she’d hit her head. But that was all there was. Nothing to indicate where she’d come from, why she’d ended up here. Disappointed once again, she straightened, rubbing her aching back.

John struggled to the back of the car and opened the trunk. A car jack fell into the snow, leaving a deep impression. “It’s not a rental,” he said. She didn’t know how he knew that, but trusted his judgment.

The sun broke through the clouds again and she squinted against the glare.

She yanked on the steering wheel and slammed on the brake. The car went into a skid. The rear end fishtailed, skating sideways. She screamed as the car sideswiped a tree, bounced off it, spun around and began sliding down a steep embankment she hadn’t seen.

Throwing her hands over her face, she screamed again as the car turned end over end.

When she focused, John was standing in front of her, with a worried expression. “What happened?”

“I remembered the crash.”

“Anything else?”

She shook her head. Why would she remember something so stupid, something that didn’t mean anything?

He must have sensed her frustration. “Don’t worry. It’s a good sign.” He glanced around, his sharp eyes taking in everything and she wondered if he was looking for danger. It seemed strange that danger could inhabit such a peaceful place.

“I’m sorry if I led Suzanne Carmichael to you.”

He swung back to her, his usually expressionless eyes holding surprise. As if he believed her but didn’t want to. “Come on, we better get you inside where it’s warm.” He turned and she followed, but this time he walked beside her, leaving enough distance so their shoulders or arms couldn’t accidentally brush but staying close. “Holly, Hanna, Hope.”

She stumbled, fell to her knees and landed on her hands. Her breath whooshed out of her.

Blood. Blood was everywhere. All over the desk, turning white paper into a splattered mess. Her gaze flew around the room, looking, searching for…

She gasped, her hand flying to her mouth, and rushed forward. He lay on his back on the floor. When she crouched down and grabbed his hand, his eyes opened slowly, filled with pain and regret.

“Hope.” He licked his lips and grimaced.

“Don’t talk,” she said. “Please—”

“Go to Callahan, Hope. He’ll help you. He’ll protect you.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks, mixed with the blood staining his shirt and turning it pink. “No. I need to call—”

He squeezed her hand but the movement lacked strength. He’d always been such a big man, so full of life, humor, love. “Go to Callahan… His address…in the rolodex….take the card… Go, Hope. Don’t let…them follow…”

He closed his eyes, his hand going slack in hers and she knew. She knew.

Slowly the snow seeped into her sweat pants, freezing her kneecaps. She stared at the snow, fully expecting to see blood. Tears raced from her eyes as they had in her vision, and an aching hole opened inside, quickly filling with grief. A soul-wrenching sadness that made her weak.

In the far reaches of her mind, she heard a voice. Someone crouched in front of her, the voice louder, insistent. Hands reached out, hesitated. She lifted her head, her vision blurred from the tears. She opened her mouth but no sound came out.

“You need to get inside,” the voice said. “You’ll freeze out here.”

Callahan. John Callahan. The man she’d been searching for. Not to destroy but for protection. She struggled to stand, the snow beneath her giving way, making her stumble. A far-off noise registered in her mind and she realized she was crying.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay.”

She shook her head. It would never be okay. She didn’t know what had happened, who the person was who had died holding her hand, but he’d meant something to her. Had been special.

They managed to stumble back to the house. Hot air hit her face when John opened the door, making her nauseated. She stood like a child while he stripped off her mittens, pulled off her coat and hat and scarf, then led her to the couch and the warmth of the fire.

He perched on the coffee table in front of her, elbows on his knees, blue eyes boring into hers. “Tell me what happened.”

She focused through the pain, squeezing her hands together until her nails bit into her palms. “I’m Hope,” she said.

He reared back. “What?”

“My name. It’s Hope.”

“Hope.” He had to chuckle at the absurd irony of her name, considering that was the one thing he no longer had in his life. Hope. “Tell me more,” he said.

She huddled into the cushions of the couch and stared into the fire.

He wanted to give her comfort and cursed his inability to simply reach out. “Hope,” he said out loud, hoping her name would pull her from the dark place she had gone to.

She turned her gaze to him but he could tell she didn’t really see him.

“We need to get you dry and warm.” He kept his voice gentle.

She shivered and hunched down. Her hair spread over her shoulders, catching the firelight and turning almost silver in the glow. “There was blood,” she said, her voice detached. “So much blood.”

Like his nightmare. The rivers of blood pooling around him. “How do you know your name’s Hope?” He reached for the blanket thrown across the back of the couch and draped it over her shoulders.

“He said so.”

“He?”

“The man. He called me Hope.”

“Who is this man?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. A small hand came up. Delicate fingers wiped tears from her cheeks. She sniffed and pulled the blanket around her. Again he thought of her wet clothes, how cold she must be. She needed to get dry and warm, but he could tell that until she was ready, she wasn’t going to bother.

“Where were you when he called you Hope? What was he doing?”

“Dying. He was dying.”

John wasn’t surprised, had half expected her answer. No wonder her brain had turned itself off. “Who was he?”

Her bottom lip trembled. “Someone I loved.”

Against his better judgment, he scooted from the table and onto the cushion beside her. He didn’t touch her, but sat close enough he could feel her tremors. “I’m sorry.” He ran a hand down his face. He couldn’t deal with this. He had his own crap to deal with. Yet, he knew he’d never leave her to handle it by herself. Not now.

“He told me to find you,” she said.

“What?” Whoever had died had sent her here? Not Suzanne?

“He said you’d help me. You’d protect me.”

He surged off the couch, already shaking his head. He didn’t want this. But the thought was distant and growing weaker. Something tugged at his heart. Compassion? When was the last time he’d cared?

After Peru, he’d walled off all emotion. For so many years he’d lived and worked, going through the motions but not caring. Deliberately remaining unconcerned, dispassionate. He could almost feel the sound structure of his internal walls groaning, creaking, threatening to topple with each drop of Hope’s tears.

They came faster, her body heaving with the effort to cry, and he knew her own walls had already given way, leaving her vulnerable to a mass of emotions that could easily overwhelm and pull her under. Exactly what he didn’t want for himself.

“Hold me,” she whispered, staring at him with those huge aqua eyes.

“I can’t—”

“Then hold my hand.” She held out a hand to him. Her fingers trembled. “Please,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes, the internal war inside him so strong it made him weak.

“Just my hand, John. I need you.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I’m asking for comfort. I need to feel another person right now. To know I’m not alone.”

Inside him, something cracked, the sound like the trees in the forest after a bad snowstorm, limbs unable to hold the weight any longer. He knew what it felt like to want human contact, the deep need to know someone was there. Before his mind could scream
no
he took her hand.

Hope closed her eyes. After a time, her breathing evened out and the tears dried on her cheeks. Her fingers still held his in a tight grip, so instead of pulling away for fear of waking her, John left his hand in hers and leaned his head against the couch cushion.

His hungry gaze roamed her face, thirsting for a look, starving for more of her touch. Light brown lashes brushed her cheeks, hiding the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen. The flames of the fire highlighted her porcelain complexion and picked out the many different colors in her hair. Silver, touches of gold, strands of blond, all melded together and shimmered in the firelight.

He should try to call Barone again, yet he couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move. For once he wasn’t panicking from the touch of a woman or feeling the fear that something horrible would happen if he touched too long, needed too much. And, oh how he needed. In a physical sense, yes. But it went deeper than that, far deeper. Into a soul that cried out at the solitude he’d forced on it for so many years.

Her fingers relaxed inside his and he knew he could pull away without waking her, but still he didn’t move. He closed his eyes and opened his other senses. The smooth feel of her skin against his, the fire as it warmed him, the crackle of the logs, the comforting smell of burning wood. Hope’s deep, even breathing.

The magic spell, forged by the comforting fire after the blizzard that had blown through his life, began to dissipate as reality slowly intruded. For all they knew she was married, her husband even now searching for her. The thought was like a knife to his gut, and he pulled his hand away, ignoring the hole that opened inside him. He leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees and rubbed eyes that felt like sandpaper.

He left the couch, searched for his cellphone and went outside. There were no deer, just a setting sun bathing everything in a gloomy light. The temperature had dipped into the alarming range, but the winds had stopped blowing. To his surprise, the phone didn’t drop this call and Kate answered on the third ring. After dodging pointed questions about when he was going to visit and how he’d spent Christmas, she finally put Luke on.

“What’s up?” Luke asked.

“I need a favor.” After the debacle two years ago in which Suzanne had tried to frame Kate for Luke’s murder, then tried to murder Kate, Luke had taken over Suzanne’s position as head of the once-secret, now not-so-secret, International Anti-Terrorist Task Force.

“Anything, partner, you know that,” Luke said.

“I need to find out if there’s a BOLO on a woman. First name Hope. From Maryland. Possibly the DC area of Maryland.”

“Uh-huh.” He could picture Luke taking notes as he spoke. “That’s all? No last name? Age? Description?”

As if he could see her through the kitchen wall, John turned and looked at the closed door. “I’d say late twenties. Petite, blonde hair, blue eyes. Around five-five.” Silver hair, aquamarine eyes, with a stubbornness and grit he’d never seen in a woman before. But he held those thoughts back because Luke would tell Kate and she would be at his cabin faster than Delta could carry her here.

“You thinking NCIC or local?” NCIC was the National Crime Information Center, a national data bank of fugitives and missing persons, among other things.

“Local.” If Hope witnessed a murder, even if she were the murderer, the local department wouldn’t put out a national manhunt for her. That kind of thing was reserved for the big guys—terrorists, cop killers and the like.

“Gotcha,” Luke said. “You on your cell?”

“Yeah, but reception’s sporadic. Still trying to dig out from the blizzard. Landline’s down too, but I have a feeling I’ll be moving out soon.”

“Where to?”

“Maryland.”

There was a long pause. John let the silence linger, unwilling to divulge more.

“What’s up, Callahan?”

“Nothing. Just…” Just what? Helping out a friend? Stepping into something he should probably walk away from? “Just following through on something that happened down here.”

“Where exactly are you headed?”

“Once you get me that information, I’ll know. Oh, and I need you to run a plate for me.” He recited the Corolla’s license plate numbers from memory. Almost as an afterthought, he added, “And check on murders in the past week. Not gang related. At least I’m pretty sure its not gang related. White guy. That’s all I know.”

“Callahan, what the hell’s going on?” Luke’s voice was pitched low, probably so Kate wouldn’t hear.

Something stirred inside him. Something he’d buried long ago in the hopes of never feeling again. Excitement. The thrill of a new mission. It was like a long-dead part of him was coming back to life. “Like I said, just following up on some things.” The smile that spread across his face felt alien. Yet it felt good, too.

When he ended the call, he stared out at the landscape and mentally prepared himself to leave his mountain. Something he hadn’t done voluntarily in a long, long time. And something he thought he’d never do again.

Back inside, he checked on Hope, then thawed some frozen steaks and made dinner. It was a good thing they were leaving soon. Food was running low and toast and steak weren’t going to feed that baby of hers.

Thinking about the baby made all kinds of strange feelings churn inside him. It was a constant reminder that she had a life to get back to, people who worried about her, loved her, missed her. The idea that he would return to his cabin after their trip to Maryland to be alone once again should have comforted him, but instead it left him sadly depressed.

He shook those thoughts away, condemning himself as the world’s biggest idiot. He lived in the woods for a reason, steered clear of women for a reason. To think he could keep one small pregnant woman as his own was not only foolish, but possibly deadly.

You don’t really believe that.

Yes. Yes, he did. Something inside him scoffed and that small sound left him shaking so hard he dropped into a kitchen chair to regain the strength in his legs. He stared at his scarred hands, a visual reminder of what he’d been through. One glance in the full-length mirror in his bathroom was proof enough why he needed to stay tucked away in his corner of the mountains.

“When you’re ready to emerge, you’ll emerge,” one doctor had said.

“You’ll kill yourself if you keep going this way,” another had said.

Who had been right?

Two days ago, he’d thought it was doctor number two. Now he wasn’t so sure.

***

Dinner was a series of sounds. Forks scraping against plates, ice tinkling in glasses. The hum of the refrigerator and the crackle of the logs in the next room. No conversation. No banter back and forth. For a man who ate all his meals alone, it nearly drove John crazy.

After dinner, they settled on the couch and the silence followed them, perching on the cushion between them. Hope seemed lost inside herself and John didn’t know what to say to her.

“Do you know what it’s like to grieve, yet not know who you’re grieving for?” she finally asked.

“No.”

She curled into what he now considered her corner with the blanket draped over her legs, her hands on her belly slowly rubbing circles. He watched her hands and wondered if she even realized what she was doing.

“I have no memories of the person who was killed, yet know I need to grieve for him. It’s one hundred—one thousand—times worse not to know than to know and remember.”

“I don’t know about that. I have some memories I’d like to forget.”

“I know.”

“You do?” Her words startled him enough to pull his gaze from her hands to her eyes. They held a wealth of emotion, mostly things she was too young to feel. And he was too old to carry anymore.

“You’re a sad man, John Callahan. I can see it in your eyes.”

A sad man. He had to think about that since he’d never considered himself sad. People said he was gloomy, no fun to be around. Luke, and to some extent, Kate, tended to step lightly around him at times. But sad?

Hope stretched out a hand and he found himself reaching for it. It wasn’t so hard, this touching thing. “We’re a pair you and I,” she said on a sigh. “One who remembers nothing and one who remembers too much.”

***

The banging on his front door yanked John from the deepest sleep he’d had in years. He surged out of his chair and grabbed his gun.

Hope sat up, eyes wide, hair tousled.

John peered out of the front window as he plastered his back against the wall. When he saw his deputy’s car, he breathed a sigh of relief and nodded to Hope before opening the door.

Bill Mercer stepped in, stomping the snow off his boots and brushing it off his shoulders. He clapped his gloved hands together and looked up, pausing when his gaze landed on a sleepy Hope. Shock flashed across the young deputy’s face before he masked it and turned to John and nodded. “We were worried about you all alone up here.” His gaze flickered to Hope again who had scooted to the edge of the couch. “I guess we shouldn’t have been.”

John grimaced, waved Mercer in and closed the door, shutting off the frigid air that had dropped the temperature in the room several degrees. He’d tried to get Hope to go to bed last night but she’d wanted nothing to do with it, adamantly insisting she’d rather sleep in front of the fire. So he’d settled into his chair, prepared to stay up all night and watch her sleep. Apparently he’d fallen asleep as well and he was well aware what the scene looked like to his deputy. For a man with a reputation for shunning women, this was one bit of information that wouldn’t stay quiet for long.

Bill had his hat in his hand, twisting the brim around and looking between John and Hope, a thousand questions in his eyes.

“Everything okay?” John asked.

“Yeah. Real quiet. Everyone pretty much holed up for the storm.” A smile broke across Bill’s wide face. “My guess is there’ll be plenty of babies born in nine—” His voice trailed off.

Ah, hell. Hope was standing. The blanket had fallen to the floor and it was very obvious as she turned to the side that she was pregnant.

Bill averted his gaze, cleared his throat. “Uh, well. The guys, they wanted me to come up. You know, to plow your road. That way if you needed to, uh, get out, you could. But I can see—” His face turned red and he looked at anything but Hope.

John was at a loss for words when Hope stepped forward and offered her hand. “Hi, I’m Hope. Mr. Callahan here—” she nodded toward John, “—saved my life.”

Bill looked at him and he could feel his face heating. “Her car flipped over in my front yard right as the blizzard hit.”