“You’re a very rude man, Ned.”
His lips curled upward at the corners. It was an odd sensation. One he hadn’t felt in a long time.
He placed his hand on the latch to open the solid wooden door, but stilled when Krieger released a low dark growl. Ned sprang into action. “Krieger, to the cellar,” he commanded. He was by Mary Grace’s side within a few strides. He scooped her into his arms and ran to the back of the cabin.
“Wait,” she screeched. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you have to get Tinker Bell, the dog carrier and my backpack.”
Ned shifted Mary Grace to his left side, holding her like a football, wincing when she gasped in pain, and in one fell swoop he ran his arm through the straps of both packs on the floor, grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck and kicked a lower panel on the back inside wall of the cabin. A portion of the wall lifted just as a huge explosion rocked the small structure.
Ned practically dove into the yawning darkness below as a bright orange detonation took place at the front of the structure and his cabin shook under the force. The woman was screaming and squirming in his arm and her rat dog bit his hand while he was trying his best to save them. He had a sinking feeling in his gut that this whole mess wasn’t going to end well.
Throwing up became a real possibility for Mary Grace. She gritted her teeth against the pain in her side as Ned held her tight with one arm while running down a flight of stairs into total darkness. She couldn’t believe someone had bombed the cabin. Was there more than one man following her on the mountain? She was used to reporting the news, not being part of it.
“Hang tight. We should be okay. The cabin is built with reinforced steel under the wood.”
She couldn’t respond. Air hissed through her teeth until he gently placed her on the floor. She took a deep breath as a lantern flickered to life. The light reflected on Ned’s fierce, concerned expression and she took another quick breath to calm herself. A mass of emotions roiled through her. Fear and—she couldn’t believe it under the circumstances—still that annoying attraction to the man currently hovering over her. It wasn’t possible. She barely knew the guy and he had the manners of a warthog, but there it was, the tiniest little flutter in her heart. She ignored it.
Tink whimpered and Ned’s big dog trundled over to offer what Mary Grace assumed was comfort. It worked because Tinker Bell quit shivering and growled when the massive dog licked her on the face. The limp and tattered Christmas bows had disappeared and her sweet little dog looked like a wrung-out dishrag in her previously pristine doggy Christmas sweater.
Tentatively, Mary Grace reached out and laid a hand on the large animal next to her little one. “Sweet Krieger. Nice doggy.” He allowed her to pet him. His fur was long and felt wiry to the touch.
“Mary Grace,” Ned said in a soft tone, “I’m going to have to recon the area. I bandaged your wound before you woke up, but I need to check and see if it started bleeding again.”
Mary Grace didn’t want to talk about the explosion and the men who had just tried to decimate them. Not just yet. She needed a minute. “When we get through this, you’ll have to tell me how you and Krieger met. He seems like a sweet dog, once you get to know him.”
Ned kneeled in front of her and placed the lantern on the hard, cold dirt-packed floor.
“I was wrong about you.”
Her hand stilled in Krieger’s wiry, comforting fur. “What?”
“I thought you were tough, but here you are, wimping out on me at the first sign of trouble.”
Her nostrils flared at the insult. “You don’t know anything about me, so how dare you accuse me of being a wimp.”
He grinned and she realized he had done the same thing to her that his dog had to Tinker Bell.
“I can check my own wound,” she said, embarrassment threading through her words.
Mary Grace lost her train of thought when he smiled again, revealing a set of perfectly aligned, sparkling white teeth. The man definitely wasn’t what he appeared to be and her reporter’s curiosity was roused. Maybe she’d do a piece on him once they were out of this mess. He had a closet full of secrets and she could literally smell a story.
“I didn’t know you were modest.” He actually chuckled. “Don’t worry, the bullet went straight through the fleshy part of your waist. Even though you bled a good bit, it’s not a serious wound.”
“Easy for you to say.”
He stood and towered over her before reaching for something under the staircase. He came out with a pistol and handed it to her. “You said you knew how to use one of these.”
She grasped the gun and looked it over. “SIG Sauer P38. Perfect.”
He chuckled one more time before climbing the stairs. Over his shoulder, he issued a command. “Krieger, protect the woman and dog.”
Before she could protest, he disappeared silently through the hidden doorway.
Her hand shook as she checked to make sure the gun was locked and loaded. She had done her best to hide her true emotions from Ned. She was not only terrified at the situation she found herself in, but worried sick about Bobby. As far as she knew, her brother was a simple computer analyst with the CIA. They had lured him in straight after school by offering to pay off his college loans if he’d work for them for five years. Mary Grace had advised him against it because she knew how naive Bobby was and how political the CIA had become. She offered to help him until he got established, but he was determined to make it on his own.
After rubbing a hand over her wound to make sure it wasn’t bleeding, she picked up the lantern and held it high, checking out the cellar. It wasn’t very large—about half the length of the cabin. Both the walls and floor were constructed with hard-packed dirt, but the interesting thing was the canned food and water stored on crude shelves built against the wall. Matches, several more lanterns and a first-aid kit were there if needed.
Settling her back against the wall, she kept the gun in her hand and her ears peeled for any sound coming from upstairs. Both Krieger and Tink snuggled beside her, and she decided to review the information she had so far. It helped to keep her calm and her mind from wondering whether Ned was okay out there on that freezing, fierce mountain with killers running loose.
She knew next to nothing about the man living on this mountain in the middle of nowhere. Was Ned his real name, and what was his last name? What did he do for a living? Her reporter’s curiosity had been roused and she knew from experience that she wouldn’t stop until she found out everything there was to know about the man.
In her mind’s eye, she went over what she’d seen of the cabin, searching for clues. The place itself wasn’t much to look at. Log walls. A tiny kitchen/living area. The bed she’d lain in was pushed against the wall and there was one door, besides the obvious front door, that probably led to the bathroom.
What struck her was the neatness of the place. It made her think of military precision. An old couch with a ratty afghan folded
