The Protector (28 page)

Eryn
went rigid. She shot to her elbow. “What? How can you say that?” she demanded.
  

He couldn’t believe he was discussing this with her, though it had been easier to talk about than he’d thought it would be. “I was the OIC,” he said dully.
 

“So? Ike, you told me you let your men cast a vote. What was their decision?”

He rubbed his eyes. “One of them said we should just shoot them quietly. The other four wanted to let them go.”

“So it wasn’t your decision that got them killed,” she said in vehement defense of him.
  

“All right,
Eryn
,” he agreed, with intent to dismiss the conversation. He soothed her back against the pillows. “I’ll be right back,” he added, rolling out of bed to address the condom situation.

As he eased into the bathroom, he shivered at the cool air wafting out of the still-open cellar door. He cleaned himself up quickly then went back into the bedroom, fully anticipating another round of mind-blowing sex.
  

He found
Eryn
huddled under the covers, freshly asleep. Her hair, gilded by the light that framed the blind, lay like a shimmering scarf over her shoulder.

My woman, he thought, rocked by a sudden possessiveness. At least, she was his for now. He wanted to wake her up, to make love to her again like they had all the time in the world. But they didn’t. They needed to leave Overlook Mountain before the Feds came back.

It was better this way. He knew the more he got used to her, the more he would want to keep her. Christ, he couldn’t believe he’d told her about the incident. He hadn’t even thought about it for months, but the current circumstances had made it come rushing to the foreground, as if it had happened only yesterday.

At least she’d defended him. That came as a huge relief. If only her father felt the same way.
 

Resisting the urge to join her, he turned and hunted for the clothes he’d discarded earlier. As much as he wanted to bridge reality with his dreamy relationship projections, he had a job to do.
  

Dressing with haste, he jogged down into the cellar with Winston on his heels. As he lit the gas lamp, he spotted the dog’s collar on the cot and went to pick it up.

He could see, now, how the buckle plate might serve a dual function. Scrounging up a screwdriver, he pried it apart where the two molded halves came together. Sure enough, as they separated, a SIM card, a tiny antenna and a battery, all wired together, fell into his hand.
Sonofabitch
.
He laid them carefully aside. Then he squeezed the two halves back together and buckled the collar onto the dog.

It was time to plan for their exodus. But as he considered what they would need to take with them, memories of the past hour kept interfering with his thoughts.
   

There weren’t any more rules of engagement for eluding the FBI than there’d been for dealing with innocent shepherd boys. All he had were Stanley’s directives to keep
Eryn
away from them and, of course, from the terrorists.

Stanley hadn’t made a clear distinction between the two, but there sure as hell was a big one. Ike had no problem offing terrorists. Firing at a federal agent, on the other hand, could get him convicted—hell, he was probably in trouble already for shooting at Jackson.
 

He couldn’t blaze his way out of the situation. He would have to be clever and resourceful. And he couldn’t let
Eryn
—or any burgeoning feelings he might have for her—distract him from his primary mission.

Stripping off his black sweater, he donned a military issue T-shirt, fresh out of the package. He found a box labeled XL and pulled out a starched set of BDU’s, trading his black attire for woodland patterned camouflage.

Donning battle dress made him feel like he still had options; he was still in control.

In a previously unopened box, he found a small set for
Eryn
to wear. He headed upstairs to wake her up.
 

But when he got there, he couldn’t immediately do it.

He stood over her, riding the ebb and flow of each breath; reminding himself that this thing between them—the perfect chemistry, his deep-down fulfillment—meant nothing. He’d never be more to
Eryn
than a source of comfort and distraction. She was Stanley’s daughter. She deserved the sun and moon, so much more than he could give her right now.
   

With common sense urging haste, he stroked his finger over her cheek. “
Eryn
, wake up.”
 

The corners of her mouth pulled down in a pout.
 

The look made his heart contract.
Sorry, princess.
Time was running out.

Eryn
pried her heavy eyelids open. As she met Ike’s gaze, memories of their lovemaking caused a wave of pleasure to roll through her and made every extremity tingle.
  

“Time to get up,” he said, banishing her contentment. “We have to leave,” he added.
  

She lifted her head off the pillow, noticing his change in attire, the alert manner in which he held himself.
“Already?”
 
she
asked, dismayed.

“Already,” he confirmed.
 

“But...” Her heart sank. She’d hoped they wouldn’t have to leave, after all, that Ike would have thought of an alternative course of action. “Where will we go?”
 

“Somewhere safe.”
He turned from the bed, lifted a folded set of BDUs off his dresser, and tossed them down next to her. “Put these on. We have ten minutes.”
 

She was about to ask a zillion questions when he picked up his laptop and disappeared into the bathroom. She could hear him moving swiftly down the wooden steps into the cellar.
  

Numb with exhaustion,
Eryn
scooted to the edge of the bed to search the floor for her underwear. Recalling how he’d hauled them off her made her blush. She had no regrets about what had followed—none at all. Ike had finally shared the awful tragedy that had changed his life. He’d opened up to her, at last!

Damn the FBI for not just leaving them alone. She’d have been perfectly happy to stay here with Ike for as long as it took them to catch the terrorists.

Shivering in the cool air, she dressed quickly in the BDU’s he’d given her. The stiff, starchy canvas abraded her sensitized skin. There was only one reason he could have told her to put them on, she realized with an unpleasant start. They were going to have to blend with the forest, to hide from the FBI.
   

Realizing she still had no socks to wear, she dashed upstairs to fetch a pair. She ran into Winston on her way back down. “You put Winston’s collar back on?” she called out, perplexed.

“Took out the tracking device.”
Ike’s voice came from the cellar steps. “You were right.”
 

“So where is it now?” she asked.

Stepping in her line of sight, he patted a pocket on his thigh.

“Don’t you want to burn it or something?”

“I have a better plan.” His gaze slid to the dog who sat expectantly at the bedroom door, and all expression vanished from his face.

Eryn’s
gut tightened. She had learned to recognize that look. “What’s wrong?” she demanded.

He met her gaze reluctantly. “We need to leave the dog here,” he announced.
      

“No.” She glanced at Winston with heightened alarm. “Why?”

“We can’t take him with us,
Eryn
. The agents will find him when they search the cabin. They’ll take good care of him.”

“How do you know that? What if they don’t come? We can’t just leave him!” Tears scalded her eyes. “Please, Ike.”

“Don’t ask me,” he retorted, looking away. “It’s not what I want. We have to cross the zip line. We have to rappel down a cliff. He can’t do all that.”
 

“Why can’t we go a different way? You won’t even tell me where we’re going!” She stamped her foot on the floor, using it as an excuse to get her heel in her shoe.

“I told you, somewhere safe.”

“Details, Isaac!” she demanded.

A hint of humor lit his shadowed gaze. “Okay. I have a friend who owns a vineyard twelve miles west of here. We’re walking there. Hopefully, he’ll give us a car so we can drive to Pennsylvania.”

“Pennsylvania?” Her heart sank. “What’s in Pennsylvania?”

“Cougar.
He was supposed to take you in the first place.”

“So you’re just going to pass me off to Cougar?”
After what we shared?

He swung a packed rucksack on his back. “Come on, it’s not like that,” he muttered, avoiding her gaze.
     

“Then what’s it like?” She needed to hear something,
anything
to indicate that last night had meant as much to him as it had to her.
   

“I have to get you away from here, that’s all,” he insisted. Setting his jaw, he went into the living room and reached under the sofa.
  

Eryn
sank weakly onto the edge of the bed, where she met Winston’s questioning gaze. A lump clogged her throat at the thought of leaving him. Attuned to her emotional state, he padded over.
  

“Come on, boy,” Ike called from the door. “Let’s walk.”
  

Winston looked back and forth between them, obviously torn, but the call of nature claimed victory, and he followed Ike outside.
  

“Coward!”
Eryn
shouted, as Ike shut the door soundlessly behind him. Walking the dog was an excuse to avoid communicating.
 

Blotting her tears with a starched sleeve, she looked around. She wondered if she would ever see the cabin again. She’d just started to like it here, especially when Ike went out of his way to heat her bathwater. The peaceful view had lulled her into a sense of security. She’d even forgotten from time to time that someone wanted her dead.

With a sharp sniff, she pushed to her feet. Winston would hate being left behind, but she knew the agents, especially Jackson, would look after him. And Ike would have an easier time getting her out of the area undetected.

For her father’s sake, she owed it to Ike to cooperate. And when the time came to part ways, she wouldn’t cling like a vine, either. She’d known from the start they had no future together.

Ignoring the ache in her chest, she plodded to the bathroom to use the facilities. A glance in the mirror showed a pale-faced woman with uncertainty in her eyes, not at all how she’d looked hours earlier, anticipating making love with Ike.
    

Chapter Thirteen

“Time to run, princess.”
Ike swept the clearing with that all-seeing look that made
Eryn’s
stomach knot. Every tree, every leaf, every blade of grass was scrutinized and dismissed in under a millisecond. Finally, his eyes came to rest on
Eryn
as she hiked her purse onto her shoulder.
 

She nodded. At least she wasn’t toting a rucksack that looked like it weighed sixty pounds.