the mountains a soft blue-green hue filtered by the ever-present haze of mist. Even down here in the lower elevations, the hardwoods were starting to sprout the first leaves of spring, and within a few short weeks, the place would be alive again after the long winter.
But there wasn’t enough greenery to hide him from the woman in the Mazda car a hundred yards ahead of him, so he stayed as far from her as he could until she turned off the highway and seemed to drive straight into the woods.
Slowing the truck as he neared the point where the Mazda car had disappeared, he saw there was a narrow two-lane road leading through the woods to points unknown. Probably the lake, he deduced, having caught a glimpse of sunlight sparkling off the water’s surface just before the woods grew denser, blocking the view.
Even as he turned onto the two-lane road and followed it, he wondered if Hannah and Riley had been right to worry about him. What the hell did he think he was going to accomplish by following her from work? Was she going to be more receptive of his need for restitution if she thought he was nuts?
He started looking for the first place he could turn the truck around and head back out of the woods, but as he drew close to what looked like a gravel driveway, he spotted the little blue Mazda car parked in front of a small cabin nestled in the center of a tiny clearing in the woods. The woods in front of the cabin thinned out until they reached the sandy shore of the lake about fifty yards from the cabin.
He pulled the truck to a stop at the edge of the driveway and let the engine idle a moment as he considered his options. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted movement on the cabin’s front porch.
It took a second to process what he was seeing. A second more to let his sluggish brain catch up with the adrenaline rushing through his body like water pouring through a breach in a dam.
Then his cowboy instincts kicked in and he was out of the truck and running toward the violent struggle playing out on the cabin porch.
Jack wasn’t currently armed, his Colt M1911 stashed in the locker in the bed of his truck. But the man struggling with Mara didn’t appear to be armed, either.
And Jack didn’t plan to give him time to go for a weapon if he was.
The sound of his boots crunching across the gravel didn’t seem to have any effect on the wrestling match going on between Mara and her captor, but when Jack hit the first porch step, the man in camouflage froze for a moment.
That was when Mara struck, first with an elbow straight to the man’s solar plexus, then followed up with a hard stomp on the man’s instep and a simultaneous fist to the groin.
Slipping free of the man’s suddenly floundering grasp, Mara flung herself away, giving Jack a clear shot. He hit the larger man at a full run, slamming him back into the cabin wall.
But a second later, the man in camo fought back, knocking Jack away with one brutal punch in the center of his chest. Jack fell backward, tumbling hard down the porch steps. His head hit the gravel with a jarring thud, and what air was left in his lungs after the man’s first punch exploded from his chest on impact against the hard-packed soil.
For a second, Jack could see nothing but stars on a deep black field. But slowly, the sparkling darkness faded into waning daylight filtering through the thick canopy of trees surrounding the cabin.
And in the center of his vision, the barrel of a big, lethal-looking Smith & Wesson M&P40.
What small amount of air had managed to reintroduce itself to his lungs froze in place. He let his gaze move up the barrel to the small hand closed around the grip, then farther upward until he was staring into a pair of angry blue eyes.
“Are you with him?” Mara asked, her voice shaking but her hand steady.
“What?” he croaked, barely finding enough breath to answer.
“Are you with him?” she repeated, keeping the pistol trained on him as she nodded toward the woods. Her hair was a mess from the pillowcase the man had tried to use as a hood, and her eyes looked bloodshot and wild. He had a feeling she’d put a bullet into him first and ask questions later if he so much as blinked his eyes the wrong way.
“No. You didn’t see me trying to stop him?”
Her lips pressed to a thin line. “Maybe you’re trying to trick me.”
“I’m not trying to trick you.”
She didn’t look appeased. “Get up.”
He eased himself to a sitting position, wincing at the ache in his head. He felt something warm slithering down his scalp. “I think I’m bleeding.”
She didn’t look interested in his self-diagnosis. “Why did you come here? Are you stalking me?”
“No.” At her look of skepticism, he added, “Not intentionally.”
“Why did you approach me at the diner?”
He grimaced as she leaned toward him, bringing the barrel of the M&P40 even closer to his face. “Could you please put that thing away before you shoot me?”
“Not a chance,” she answered in a flat tone. “Get up. All the way up.”
He eased to his feet, aching tension knotting the muscles of his back and abdomen. “I’m definitely not with that guy. And I’m not a stalker, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.”
For a second the corner of her lips twitched. But he chalked it up to a nervous tic, because the last thing he saw in those sharp, watchful blue eyes was anything approaching humor.
“You followed me here.” It wasn’t a question.
“I did,” he admitted.
“Why?”
“To see where you were going.” As an explanation, his answer was pathetic. That it was also true was of little importance.
“You’ve accomplished that,” she said in a flat tone. “Now leave.”
There was a curious note to her husky voice, a hint of vulnerability peeking through the tiny crack in her mask of contemptuous calm.
“Do you know who that guy was?”
She didn’t answer, which he supposed was answer enough.
“What are you involved in, Mara?”
He waited for an angry glare. But it never came.
“You need to leave. Now,” she said, her tone unyielding. But she lowered the pistol to her side.
“Are you in trouble? Is there someone out there just waiting for me to leave to take another crack at you?”
Her only answer was to turn toward the cabin door.
Despite the throbbing pain in his head, he forced himself up the steps, reaching the door just before it snapped closed behind her. He stuck his boot into the narrowing breach, stopping the door from shutting.
She glared at him through the narrow opening, but at
