instant service was a bit much. Joseph might not have been able to reach this Decker guy immediately. Or Decker might have been in the middle of something he couldn’t drop just like that.
Tap, tap, tap.
Vicky and Trina both jumped. That knock hadn’t been on the front door. They looked simultaneously toward the kitchen.
“It might be a neighbor,” Vicky said after a moment, almost whispering. Trina could tell she didn’t believe it. The elegant homes in this neighborhood were all on lots of a half acre to an acre or larger. Most of the wives were probably professional women themselves, not housewives who casually dropped by for a cup of coffee.
Trina would have gone along with Vicky to see who was knocking, except Chloe lay curled on the sofa. Not asleep, but pretending to be, she thought. And the tap on back door could be a diversion meant to draw the two women away long enough for someone to come in the front and snatch Chloe.
Trina heard voices, one slow and deep. Vicky reappeared, right behind her a massive, unsmiling man who took Chloe and Trina in with one penetrating glance. Her first stupid thought was, how had anyone managed to hurt this man, given his height and breadth, never mind all those muscles?
So she wasn’t at her sharpest.
“Mr. Decker?” she asked.
He nodded. “Gabe.”
“I’m Trina. And this is Chloe.” Who had stiffened, even though her eyes remained closed.
“Okay.” His voice made her think of the purr of a big cat, assuming they purred. Velvety, deep and not as reassuring as she’d like it to be. “You have anything to bring?”
“A duffel.” Vicky had scrounged some clothes from her daughter’s drawers, the one who’d left most recently for college, that would probably come close to fitting Trina. Better yet, she’d produced several outfits of little girl clothing from wherever she’d packed them away with granddaughters in mind. Otherwise...otherwise they wouldn’t have had a thing.
“Oh!” Vicky said suddenly. “I have extra toothbrushes. And surely I can find a hairbrush for you.”
Bless her heart, she came back with both, plus a handful of hair elastics. Something Gabe Decker, with dark hair barely long enough to be disheveled, would not have.
With damp eyes, Trina hugged Vicky. She was grateful the other woman remembered not to hug her back. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you and Josh.”
“We’d have been glad to have you stay, you know,” she said, her eyes wet, too.
“I know, but—”
Vicky nodded. She poked the brush and other things into the duffel and said, “I can carry this out.”
Gabe stepped forward. “No, I don’t want you outside. I’ll take that.” When he saw Trina reaching for Chloe, he shook his head. “And her. Joseph said you’d been hurt.”
She had no doubt his blue eyes saw right through her pretenses. “I have burns on my back.” With sudden alarm, she remembered that he’d have to renew the ointment and bandages for her. A stranger, and male. Very male. With enormous hands that would come close to spanning her back.
That tingle couldn’t be what it felt like, not under the circumstances. Especially since she knew perfectly well that no touch would feel good. Despite the gauze, she’d swear the thin cotton of the scrub top was scraping her burns every time she moved. “Can you carry...?”
His lifted eyebrow mocked her question. Yes, he could carry both, and probably pile on a whole lot more. He undoubtedly did on a regular basis, come to think of it. She’d read that soldiers often packed over a hundred pounds even in the desert heat of the Middle East.
“You’re not parked out in front, I take it,” she said.
“No. I drove through the neighborhood to see if I could spot any obvious surveillance. Even though I didn’t, I left my truck in a neighbor’s driveway. Didn’t look like anyone was home. We’ll cut through the trees out back.” He hesitated. “You need to leave your phone behind. Better if it’s at your office than with you. Or here.”
Trina felt a spurt of panic. Her phone was the only possession she had left. And without it...she’d be even more isolated. But she didn’t argue, knowing how easily smartphones could be traced.
“Josh will be home for lunch,” Vicky said. “I can have him take it.”
Gabe said simply, “Good.” Trina hadn’t said a word, but he seemed to take her compliance for granted.
She lowered herself gingerly onto the edge of the sofa. Standing had had her light-headed, but putting pressure on her burns was worse. “Chloe, this is Gabe. He’s a friend of my brother’s. He’s going to carry you, since you don’t have any shoes.” She now did, but they were in the duffel, and they hadn’t had a chance for her to try them on. Since she knew Gabe wanted to move fast, it was a good excuse.
“Hey, little one,” he said, sounding extraordinarily gentle as he bent over her.
With him so close, Trina could see the dark shadow of what would be stubble by evening, the slight curve of a perfectly shaped mouth...and a white scar that angled from one clean-cut cheekbone to his temple, just missing his eye. That was an old one, she felt sure, not the wound that had him on leave. Her teeth closed on her lower lip. If he turned his head at all, they could almost—
No, no, no! Don’t even go there.
The muscle in his jaw spasmed, and she held herself very, very still. Lowering her gaze didn’t help, not with impressive muscles bared by a gray T-shirt. And then there was his thigh, encased in worn denim.
Maybe he’d turn out to have a girlfriend living with him. Joseph wouldn’t necessarily know.
“Here we go,” he said calmly, and scooped up Chloe, tucking her against his broad chest and rising to his feet. A moment later he’d slung the duffel over his opposite shoulder, and looked at Trina with raised brows as if he’d been twiddling his thumbs waiting for ten minutes. “Can you walk?”
“Yes.” She jumped up too fast. His hand clamped around her upper arm, making her suspect her eyes had done whirligigs. She blinked a couple of times and repeated, “Yes. I’m fine.” Slight exaggeration, but she could do this.
He studied her for longer than she liked before releasing her. “Okay.”
Vicky trailed them to the back door and locked it behind them. Gabe paused only for a moment to scan the landscape, then strode toward the trees. With so little undergrowth on this dry side of Oregon, the lodgepole and ponderosa pines didn’t offer much cover, nothing like a fir and cedar forest would have on the east side of the Cascades where Trina had grown up. Gabe paused now and again and looked around, but mostly kept moving. At first, she was disconcertingly aware of how silently he moved, while she seemed to find every stick or cone to stomp on. Crackle, pop... A jingle teased her memory.
She couldn’t hold on to such a frivolous thought. She felt his gaze on her a few times, too, but didn’t dare let herself meet his eyes. The pain increased with each step until Trina felt as if fire were licking at her back again. Sheer
