Rocky Mountain Manhunt. Cassie Miles
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in the fire, then break them open, these little nuts fall out.”
“Sounds like a lot of effort.”
“Oh, it is,” she said. “I spend most of the daylight hours foraging. And I have to hike all over the place to do it because I don’t want to completely wipe out the ecosystem in front of my cave.”
“Because it’s bad for the environment?”
“And I didn’t want anybody to find me.” She poked at the fish in her cooking pot. “Why don’t you sit down and relax?”
Though he had the feeling that he was losing focus on his goal of getting her away from this place, Liam allowed himself to be seduced. He sat on a flat rock at the opposite side of the fire pit and watched as she efficiently arranged leaves and stems on a woven plate made from twigs.
“You made those plates,” he said.
“When I figured out how easy it was to weave young branches and reeds, I made a bunch of things. It gave me something to do at night, when I couldn’t forage.”
Given enough time out here, he suspected she might really create a home for herself. Her little space was swept clean, and she’d placed dried flowers among the rocks for decoration. He pointed to a tall woven vase just inside her cave. “What’s that?”
“My calendar.” She brought the woven vessel closer so he could see inside. “There’s one pebble for every day I’ve been here. I try to choose a rock that looks like the day.”
He reached inside and ran his fingers through the stones. “I see several black ones.”
“Dark days.” Hunkered down opposite him, she plucked out a caramel-colored stone. “This is today. It reminded me of a tiger, and that seemed appropriate because today I caught a fish. I was a huntress.”
“And you held me at bay,” he said.
“Yeah.” She gave a self-deprecating wink. “I’m really fearsome, huh?”
“I wouldn’t use that word to describe you.”
“No? What word would you use?”
“Resourceful,” he said. “Smart.”
She cocked her head to one side and grinned. “Keep going.”
When she wasn’t holding a gun on him, she had a vivid charm and enthusiasm. “Pretty.”
She rolled her eyes. “Now you’re making fun of me.”
“I’m not,” he said. “You look good to me.”
“Apparently,” she drawled, “you don’t get out much.”
But he wasn’t lying. He thought she had a great, expressive smile. And he liked the healthy tan color of her skin that contrasted with her cornflower-blue eyes. Even the weird hairdo worked for him. With the dark roots, and blond on top, she reminded him of some kind of exotic, tufted bird.
She passed him a plate with a miniscule shred of trout and weedy leaves. He took a taste. The flavor of the roughage was a cross between grazing and gnawing on a tree limb, but it’d be ungrateful not to eat the food she’d gone to such trouble to gather and prepare.
Rain attacked her plate with gusto. Though she wasn’t transported into ecstasy, like when she’d eaten the candy, she took regular bites and chewed thoroughly.
She glanced at his plate and raised an eyebrow. “Not hungry?”
“I eat slow.”
“If you don’t finish your greens, no dessert. That’s what my mother always used to say.”
The mention of Elizabeth Carradine-Rowe reminded Liam of his mission. He needed to get Kate out of here.
Glancing through the sheltering trees, he saw that dusk had begun to settle. Soon it would be too dark for him to attempt a takeoff in the Cub. “I can’t leave after dark,” he said. “I can’t see the hazards to the plane.”
“Tonight will be dark,” she agreed. “It’s a new moon tonight, only a skinny crescent.”
“Come with me. We can go now while there’s still enough light.”
“How many times do I have to say no?”
“I won’t leave without you.”
“Then we have a standoff,” she said. “You can’t force me to come with you. And, it seems that I can’t make you go.”
He set his plate aside and leaned back against the boulder, settling in. “Guess I’ll have to spend the night.”
For an instant, her eyes sparkled. He could tell that she was enjoying his company, no matter how resistant she pretended to be. “Don’t think—for one minute—that you’ll be sharing my sleeping bag.”
She stacked his plate on top of her own and went about her business, briskly informing him about the rules of the camp. No more wood on the fire. Food scraps must be carried far away and buried so they wouldn’t attract animals during the night. “And if you need to, um, relieve yourself, go a long way from camp. I don’t want the smell around here.”
“We don’t have to do this,” he said.
“I’m sure there are other ways, but I prefer—”
“Come back to Denver with me,” he said. “Tonight you could sleep in a bed. With a soft comforter. You could take a long, hot shower.”
“Not interested.”
The light was fading. He had only a few minutes to convince her. “What about your memory? A psychiatrist could get it back. Hypnosis or something.”
“It might be better if I don’t remember.” Her words held a disturbing ring of truth. “All I need to know, deep in my heart, is that I’m in danger. I’m the prey, and there are hunters coming after me. Can you trust me about this?”
“I trust you, Rain.”
Her face lit up. “You called me Rain.”
“The name suits you.”
He was drawn toward her by a compelling force. More than anything, he wanted to make her smile again and again. He wanted to hold her, to protect her from danger—be it real or imagined.
As she sat near him, the faint glow of sunset and the dying campfire illuminated the planes of her face. Her full lips parted as she breathed, softly and steadily. Gentle shadows outlined her high cheekbones and her sharp jawline.
Rain. He was struck by the realization that he liked this feral woman. He admired her gritty determination, no matter how misguided.
“Just for the sake of argument,” she said, “tell me what you know about Kate’s family.”
“The Carradines are a legend in Denver. Old money.”
She gave him her full attention. “So we’re rich.”
“Very.”
Liam tried to remember all that he could. In the early 1900s, the Carradines started with a general store. Kate’s grandfather turned it into a successful franchise of outdoor-sporting-goods outlets, Rocky Mountain Suppliers.
“And my father?”
“He took the business worldwide.”
From RMS, the Carradines built an empire with varied dealings in land development and housing, both in Denver and the mountain resorts. Though they sponsored charity events, RMS wasn’t known for their efforts to protect the environment.
“That can’t be right,” she said. “My dad was concerned about the environment. And so am I. In fact, I was working on a project. It was a wilderness camp for disadvantaged kids. My primary contact person was Rachel Robertson, a fantastic woman who runs a homeless