Hot As Sin (21 page)

He took one step away from her and turned back suddenly. “Get dressed. We’re leaving. Before the snow gets any worse.”

Gabe issued the order as if she were a soldier and not the woman he’d made love with. Emily didn’t argue, because “Gabe” was gone. The cold man giving orders
was Archangel, and she didn’t want to call down his wrath on her head any more than she already had. He was in no mood to listen to excuses or apologies. Besides, she was good at letting other people take control. It was what she did best, she thought bitterly. That, and keeping secrets.

While she dressed, Gabe checked his Beretta. The 9mm was the only gun he kept at the bar. Everything else was at the cabin. That would be their first stop. He needed more firepower. Patrick had tried it with one gun, and Patrick was dead.

He grabbed a couple of clips from the drawer by the bed and his coat. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” Emily asked as she followed him down the stairs and through the bar, figuring a request for information didn’t come under the heading of argument.

“Away from here,” came his curt reply.

The bar was dark, and Gabe left it that way. Before they’d crossed halfway to the door, the flicker of headlights raked the front of the bar, warming the bottom edge of the high windows. A split second later the lights winked out. Gabe halted and tilted his head, listening for something.

Emily held perfectly still, afraid to breathe and hoping her imagination was creating monsters where there were none. Then she heard it too—the sound of a car creeping into the parking lot. The tire chains chinked faintly as the car rolled over packed snow. But for Emily the most terrifying noise was the muffled creak of the cold metal as the car door was opened.

“Steady,” Gabe whispered. He was already moving
her toward the back when they heard the first lock being jimmied open. A few more seconds and the guy would be in.

Despite the urgency, Gabe moved carefully through the stockroom to the rear door. His gut wanted to stay and take the guy out, but his brain knew his job was to avoid any confrontation until he could get Emma away. Until he could at least put a gun in her hand and give her a chance to protect herself. Now was not the time or the place.

He cracked the back door and waited to see if the guy had a partner. When no one came around the corner, he stepped out and pulled Emma with him. Snow was coming down with a vengeance. Gabe swore beneath his breath. They weren’t going to get far in this.

“Let’s go,” he mouthed at Emma.

It wouldn’t take the man long to discover they weren’t upstairs asleep. They had maybe three minutes to get around to the front and gone before the shooting started. They paused again at the corner of the bar to check for a second man. The parking lot was empty.

“Now,” Gabe whispered.

They sprinted for the truck. Gabe had to grab Emma as she tried to go around to the passenger side. The doors were locked, and he didn’t have time to unlock them both. Cursing he fumbled with the key.

“Hurry,” Emily whispered despite her promise to keep silent. Her fingers itched to snatch the keys away from him. She tried not to crowd him, but she couldn’t help it. Her hand clung to his arm as she looked over his back to the bar. Any moment she expected Bookman or the marshal to come through that door and kill them.

The key slid smoothly in the second try, and Gabe shoved her inside. “Get in the truck and stay down on the floor.”

A second later Gabe was inside. He pitched the Beretta on the seat and rammed the key home in the ignition. He didn’t bother to shut the door or back up. He pushed in the clutch and let the truck roll backward before he started it. Then he shoved it in gear and hit the gas.

The sickening sound of fractured metal told him that he hadn’t quite cleared the mailbox when he turned, but he didn’t slow down until he was sure the heavy snow had obscured their tailgate. Gabe flipped on the headlights. “You can get up.”

Slowly, Emily unfolded herself from her fetal position on the floorboard. Her hands were still shaky, and she was afraid to move the gun. Gabe noticed and moved it for her, placing it on the dash.

“Maybe it was Sawyer,” she whispered as she leaned back against the seat. Her heart was still in her throat. “Maybe he graduated from rocks.”

“No.” Gabe thought about Marsha Jean and the questions. “It’s not Sawyer.”

“Let’s go to the police,” she said suddenly. “Maybe it’s time.”

“And tell them what? We think a U.S. deputy marshal is out there trying to kill us and that the marshal’s office can’t be trusted?”

“Willis would believe us.”

“And what if he does?” Gabe shot back sharply. His attention was riveted to the road, which disappeared into an angry wall of white. Visibility was less than fifteen
feet. “You’ll be right back in the hands of the system that couldn’t protect you to begin with. What kind of sense does that make?”

“But I’ve seen him now. I can identify him.”

“Think, Emma. If they can bribe one agent, don’t you think they can get to another one? Or two? Or however many it takes? They wouldn’t let you testify against Bookman and they aren’t going to let you testify against this marshal. He can burn them just as badly as Bookman could’ve.”

“Then what are we going to do? We can’t go to the police. We can’t go to Marsha Jean’s. And we can’t drive in this storm. Not for long. The roads are probably closed.”

“We’re going to the cabin. That’ll buy us some time.”

The tone of his voice set warning sirens off in her head. “You mean enough time for the storm to be over so we can get out of here, right?”

“No. He won’t wait that long, but we’ll have enough time to prepare.”

“Prepare for what? He can’t follow us in this weather.”

“It’ll slow him down, but he’ll come after us all the same. He has to. We’re loose ends, and he’s a tidy guy.”

“He can’t follow us in this weather!” Emily repeated. “No one could. How is he going to find the cabin?”

“Oh, he can find it. He screwed up with Patrick. This time he did his homework. I guarantee it. I bet he knew all about the cabin before he ever showed up in the bar. But he’s still making mistakes. He figured Marsha
Jean for dumb, and he picked the wrong night. The storm isn’t going to do him any favors. He’ll have to wait for it to let up, and by then I’ll be ready.”

“For what?” Emily asked, although she knew the answer. Gabe wanted revenge enough to turn them both into bait.

“I can take him at the cabin. It’s my playground.”

“What are the rules in this little game?”

“If I kill him, I win.”

“And if he kills you?”

Gabe didn’t answer, his eyes on the road and the worsening snow. Emily shivered, but it had nothing to do with the cold outside.

The cabin was about twenty minutes from town, off a logging road at the end of a long drive. Emily understood why he didn’t call it home. Obviously, the place was built as a poor man’s hunting retreat. Inside, there were two rooms—a living room with a wood stove, and a small room for supplies and gear. No kitchen. No bathroom. Only one window, one door. The springs in the couch were shot so badly that she could see the sagging middle in the dark.

“I bought it for the land,” he explained. “Not the amenities. Sit down and stay out of my way.”

“No problem. I’ll just practice my sitting-duck imitation,” she snapped, then wished she hadn’t. The tension between them was thick enough without her foolishly adding to it. “Sorry. I snap when I’m terrified.”

He didn’t acknowledge her apology. Instead, he went straight to the small room and brought out a gas lantern. When he had it lit, he placed it by a tall metal
cabinet that looked more like a bank safe than a storage cabinet. Emily caught her breath when he unlocked the doors.

“Souvenirs,” Gabe said, anticipating her question. A variety of firearms was mounted on the inside walls. And obviously a few other toys he’d collected over the years. “All of it’s legal. Most of it anyway. No explosives.”

She watched as he took down another pistol like the one he had at the bar and slammed a clip in it. He laid it on a wooden TV tray along with some sort of radio gadgets and what looked like a spool of white thread. Finally he reached for a shotgun—
that
she could identify at least—and a box of shells.

As he opened the box, he told her, “I figure he won’t be able to find the turnoff until the storm lets up. That should be about dawn. I’m going down to the front of the drive to put in an alarm system.”

“Those radio things?” she guessed. “How?”

“Real simple.” He started loading shells. “One of the radio things is a cheap sending device. Anybody with access to Radio Shack can whip one up. Works off a pin. The thread will connect from the device to a tree. When our boy drives in, the tires pull out the pin, and we get the signal on this little receiver. And then we throw a surprise party for him.”

“How do you know he’ll turn in the driveway?”

“He’ll walk most of the way, but he’ll want the car off the road. I would.” Gabe pumped the shotgun, sending a round into the chamber. “Here.” He held out the shotgun.

Recoiling, Emily shook her head. “No. It wouldn’t
do any good. I couldn’t actually hit anything I aimed at anyway.”

“Then don’t aim. Point it at a noise, shut your eyes, and pull the trigger. That’ll be close enough.” He motioned for her to take the gun again. “Lucky for you, in this world close enough counts in three things: horseshoes, atom bombs, and shotguns.”

Slowly Emily took it, awkwardly laying it across her knees. The gun was heavy and alien to her.

“As soon as you shoot something, pump it again like I did.” He scooped up the sending device and thread, slipping out into the snow without a backward glance. “Lock the door behind me.”

He could have been gone an hour or five minutes. Either way, she was terrified every second, terrified he wouldn’t come back. Terrified that if he did, she wouldn’t know what to say or how to break through that icy wall he’d put up. She hated it.

Gabe hollered and came back in the door, she half rose to meet him, not that he noticed the smile of relief she couldn’t keep off her face. He didn’t acknowledge her in any way. Other than to tell her what to do, he hadn’t looked at or spoken to her since Marsha Jean’s call. He acted like a man doing a job for an employer he didn’t even like. It was as if they’d never made love or as if he’d detached himself from his emotions.

Or she’d imagined them to begin with
.

When he had checked the receiver and started a fire in the wood stove, Gabe finally shrugged off his coat and turned the lantern down. “First watch is yours. You take the chair. I’ll take the couch. Wake me in an hour. Or if you hear anything. Anything at all.”

“I don’t have a wristwatch,” she said as she got up to move.

He tossed her his. “Now you do. Dammit! Careful with that shotgun!”

Gabe hadn’t meant to yell at her, but it was either that or pull her into his arms. She looked white as moonlight on snow. And scared. He was a bastard to ignore her, but he couldn’t give in, wouldn’t torture himself anymore.

Every time he gave in, something happened to remind him that there was nothing real between them. At least not for Emma. No trust. No love. Only the danger.

Forcing himself to settle in, he put one Beretta on the wooden tray within easy reach and one on the floor beside the couch. He turned his back to the door and closed his eyes. Sleeping anywhere, anytime, was a talent, but tonight it failed him. He couldn’t remember the magic formula that turned off his brain and let his body rest.

Seconds turned into minutes before he finally began to relax. In the quiet, he imagined he could hear Emma’s heartbeat along with his own. Then he imagined he heard her voice whispering to him.

“I know this is the wrong place, and God knows it’s the wrong time, and you’re asleep …”

Gabe’s eyes snapped open at the tiny sniff that sounded so real, so muffled. She was crying as quietly as a woman could cry.

“… but I’m scared to death that whoever’s out there is going to kill you before you forgive me for Patrick. I keep seeing him, lying there, needing me. And I
keep asking myself why I didn’t stay. Why I didn’t hold his hand and close his eyes. Gabe, I am so sorry I left him, but I couldn’t … I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t pull that trigger. I tried. God knows I tried.”

When he rolled over and sat up, Emma jumped so high she almost upset the shotgun, which was leaning against the wall. Her eyes were huge glittering circles of tears as she stood there, catching her breath. “I—I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s all right. You don’t have to— It’s all right. I understand.”

“I never meant to hurt you,” she promised, and licked a tear off her top lip. He’d never seen a woman who needed someone to hold her more than Emma needed him then.

He rested his forearms on his spread thighs and clasped his hands together. The only way he could keep his heart in one piece was to keep hands off her. Whatever she felt toward him was aroused by the need to feel alive, and not by love. It was a natural reaction. He didn’t blame her, but he couldn’t let it happen again.

“We called him Wile E., you know,” he said, speaking of Patrick. “Wile E. Coyote. He was never very bright, but you couldn’t kill the son of a bitch.” His voice broke, and he realized that he never should have started this story. It was his turn to cry. “You could blow him up … drop him off a cliff … you could even shoot him. But you couldn’t kill him. He was invincible.”

“Gabe.…”

When she crossed the room and touched his arm, he was lost; he needed her as much as she needed him.
Right or wrong, he had one more chance to love her, and he took it. He told her he loved her with his mouth and his body, but not with words. That would have only made it more difficult to let her go when the danger was over.

She wasn’t his, but when he came, he came inside her.

At the first gray light of dawn the alarm system did its job.

“Show time.” Gabe turned off the receiver and cracked the door for a peek as he talked. “You take the shotgun and get into the supply room. Don’t come out until I tell you to, and if anyone but me tries to open that door, shoot them. Pump the shotgun and shoot them again.”