one bedroom and bathroom upstairs, and one big open room downstairs, with a kitchen at one end and the living area at the other. There’s another bathroom downstairs, next to the utility room. It makes more sense for you to be on the main floor. And there’s a wraparound deck that will be great for you to get your exercise without having to walk on uneven ground. It’s not luxurious, but it’s pretty new, and I’m not a slob.”
Mariah was silent, picturing the home and him in it, when he added, “We’ll be okay. No pressure to do anything but relax and get well. Understand?”
Relieved that he’d finally brought up the issue of nothing personal expected between them, she could finally relax. Whatever happened, she was grateful to be with someone she trusted.
* * *
Up in the high country on the other side of Rebel Ridge, Jake Doolen, his sons and their bloodhounds were still trying to pick up the bear’s tracks, desperate to find it before it attacked and killed someone else, but the signs were scarce to nonexistent. It was as if the bear had just vanished.
As far from the hunters as it could get, the bear was carrying an arrow in its rump, and the wound was infected, making it impossible for it to hunt as it once had. It was sick and in pain—two issues that drastically increased the danger quotient. Within hours of first sensing the dogs and the hunters it had made an about-face and begun moving in the opposite direction. If the Doolens didn’t find it in time, it would emerge from the reserve and right into populated territory.
Four
The sun was already sliding toward the western tip of the mountaintop by the time Quinn and Mariah reached the cabin. Her first glimpse of the site he’d chosen for the simple A-frame made her think Quinn was still in soldier mode. He’d set the cabin in the middle of an open meadow that was surrounded on all four sides by trees, with only one road in and out.
In fact, the original homestead had been built in this same place nearly a hundred years before for essentially the same reason: distrust of the federal government in general. The first Walkers to live here had believed that if you couldn’t be found, you couldn’t be counted, and if you couldn’t be counted, then you were off their radar. That mind-set still lingered in some of the more remote areas of Rebel Ridge and the rest of the South.
“Home sweet home,” Quinn said, as he pulled up to the cabin and parked.
Mariah couldn’t quit staring. All it needed was some gingerbread on the eaves and snow on the roof, and it could pass for a fairy-tale cottage from a picture book. The deck was deep and wrapped around the cabin on three sides. The railings were strong and sturdy, built for sitting or leaning. And just like that, all the tension she’d been feeling was gone.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” she said.
Pleased that she hadn’t freaked about the isolation, Quinn relaxed, too. The first hurdle was over.
Mariah opened her door, carefully swung her legs toward the side, then slowly slid out of the seat.
“It feels good to stand up.”
Quinn quickly circled the Jeep and slid an arm around her waist to steady her.
“The ground can be a little rough. Hang on to me until we get up the steps.”
Mariah didn’t argue. The last thing she wanted was to bust her nose before she got in the house, although it wouldn’t be the first time she’d taken a tumble since she’d been wounded.
Once they got up on the deck, Quinn stopped to unlock the door. It swung inward on silent hinges, revealing a large open room with a two-story ceiling and a shiny hardwood floor. The walls were cedar paneled, and the massive stone fireplace at the far end of the room was a statement in itself. She could imagine being snowed in up on this mountain with a fire blazing and Quinn at her side, then shook off the fantasy. No need dwelling on things that weren’t going to happen.
“You must love living here.”
“It’s okay for a hillbilly, I guess.”
She frowned. “I wasn’t making fun of you. I only called you that because I…liked you, and because you always called me twerp.”
“Well, you were a twerp. Now you’re a corporal,” Quinn said, and started to tousle her hair when he felt the scar on her head and stopped short.
“Ooh, sorry. Did I hurt you?”
Mariah traced the crooked ridge of scar tissue with absent fingers.
“No.”
“How bad were you hurt?”
“Bad enough. It makes me nuts that my memory’s scrambled,” she admitted.
“But that means if I tell you that you always used to rub my feet and scratch my back, you’d have to believe me.”
She laughed out loud, startling herself with the sound. It had been a long time since she’d felt like laughing.
“Sorry, mister, but I’m not that bad off. I’m not the foot-rubbing, back-scratching kind.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Quinn said. “You were damn good at scratching certain itches.”
“And so were you, but that doesn’t mean we’re picking up where we left off, right?”
“Right.”
“So stop making me nervous and show me around, okay?”
“You get the fifty-cent tour, which means all of the downstairs. If you get strong enough to walk up the stairs on your own, you’ll get the other half.”
He proceeded to show her the bathroom, the little utility room next to the kitchen, then the kitchen itself. He stopped by the kitchen table to sort through the things Ryal and Beth had left for him, then moved to the sideboard and took a cell phone out of a drawer.
“As soon as I charge this up, it’s yours. It’ll keep me in touch with you, and you with the outside world, when I’m at work, okay?”
Another niggle of worry had just been laid to rest. “Very okay,” she said.
“I assume you know how to use a gas stove?”
“I can turn one on and off and I can use a can opener, but cooking like Beth cooks…no way.”
He frowned. “I didn’t haul your cranky ass all the way up here to cook for me. I just need to make sure you know how to heat a can of soup when I’m not here. Understood?”
She stifled a grin. “My cranky ass?”
He ignored her and led her out onto the back deck.
“This is a good place to critter watch or, if the weather’s nice, read a book.”
Now she was the one frowning. “Critter watch as in cute critters, right? Not killer bears?”
“Definitely not killer bears,” Quinn said, but he wasn’t entirely truthful. He didn’t
