Hold Your Breath (Search and Rescue) (29 page)

“No,” he said evenly, sounding more like his usual self. Weirdly, the normalcy of his voice calmed her a little, and she was able to suck in enough air to stay conscious. “You’re not. Now let’s go.”

Despite her pounding heart and the sweat prickling her skin, she tried to think. If she went with Richard, he’d kill her. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out now. If she stayed, she could be putting Callum at risk. It took a great effort of will not to glance up at the railing of the loft bedroom and give away his presence.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, hoping to stall while her thoughts stopped racing and she could think of an operable plan.

“My assets have been frozen,” he gritted. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t have a choice. There are ruthless men—really ruthless—who need their money. This is the only solution.”

“It’s not a solution!” Despite her efforts at staying calm, the words came out too loudly. “I told you—I don’t have any money. I work as a barista, for Pete’s sake! Killing me won’t accomplish anything.” Her voice shook, but she was too terrified to be embarrassed by her tremors.

“There are accounts under your name.” Richard dragged a hand over his head, disheveling his hair even more. “I needed that bit of insurance, in case something like this happened, but things got complicated. You were supposed to marry Brent. That was the plan. He’d have control of the accounts, and you wouldn’t have to know anything about it. But then you went crazy, broke up with him, and moved to this godforsaken place!”

Although her thoughts still spun like a hamster on a wheel, an idea managed to click into place. “You sent him after me.”

“And you killed him.” His tone was only mildly disappointed, very similar to the one he’d used when she’d gotten a B on a calculus test in high school.

“He tried to kill me first,” she protested, hearing the ridiculousness of the complaint even as it left her mouth. “Twice!”

“Let’s go.” Not even acknowledging her defense, Richard gestured toward the door with his free hand, all while keeping the barrel of the gun trained on her.

“I’ll sign the accounts over to you!” She rushed out the words, not moving from the back of the whiteboard. Maybe it was selfish of her to put Cal in danger, but she wasn’t taking a single step out of the cabin. She thought of HDG and how easy it was for people to disappear in the mountains. There was no way she was becoming one of those undiscovered victims.

“They’ll just freeze those as well,
and
they’ll add charges of tax evasion and fraud.” It seemed as if the more scared Lou got, the calmer Richard was.

Because he has a plan
, she thought.
I need a plan. Think! Think! Think!

“Move, or I’ll shoot you here,” he stated flatly, completely obliterating any chance of rational thought in a wave of utter terror. “I’d rather not have to deal with a body, but I will if I have to.”

“And
I
will deal with your corpse if I have to.” The clipped words made both Lou and Richard whip their heads around to look up at the loft. The barrel of a shotgun was leveled over the railing, aimed directly at Richard. A mixture of relief and complete fear for Callum’s safety rushed through her, weakening her knees.

Richard set his jaw. “Action beats reaction. She’ll be dead before you can pull the trig—” A blast from the shotgun cut him off midword, and he stumbled back, the gun falling from his hand and spinning across the floor. Lou lunged for it, throwing her body over the pistol as if it were a live grenade. All she could think was that her stepfather couldn’t get hold of the gun again, or he’d shoot Callum.

There was another bang, and Lou wrapped her arms over her head, pressing her face against the floor.

“Sheriff! Down! Get down! Arms to your sides!” Although Rob’s words were louder and gruffer than usual, speaking faster than his normal thoughtful pace, Lou recognized him and raised her head. Her stepfather was facedown on the floor, and Rob had planted a knee in Richard’s spine as he handcuffed him.

“Sparks!” Callum’s shout had her scrambling to her feet so she could run to him. He’d beat her to it, though, and she made it only two shaky steps before he snatched her against his chest. The minute she was safely tucked against him, Lou burst into tears.

“I’m sick and tired of people trying to kill us!” she wailed against his shirtfront.

His arms tightened around her as he pressed his lips to the top of her head. “Me too, Sparks,” he muttered, his voice shaking. “Me too.”

“It would help if one of you would answer your damn phone once in a while,” Rob snapped as he hauled Richard to his feet. “An FBI agent called to let me know that they’d discovered Chilton had been funneling money into accounts in Lou’s name. He’d gone AWOL, so the agent figured he’d come here. I tried calling both of you, but evidently, no one answers a goddamned phone in this house.”

As she tried to absorb Rob’s explanation, Lou looked at her stepfather. He appeared more disheveled than before, and a trickle of blood slid down his neck, but he was standing and conscious. He didn’t look at all like he’d just been taken out by a shotgun blast. She frowned and poked Callum. “Didn’t you just shoot him?”

“When I overheard what your fuck-face stepfather was saying,” Callum said without loosening his grip on her, “I just grabbed a gun and some shot and ran.”

“Squirrel shot?” Rob asked.

“Yep.”

Looking down at Richard’s rumpled, wilted, only slightly bloodied form, Rob said, “Guess it was your lucky day.” He sounded a little disappointed.

The cabin gradually filled with more and more people—local deputies, FBI agents, and others Lou couldn’t identify. Honestly, though, she was beyond caring. Even stiff-spined Cal was drooping as he sat next to her on the couch. Their shoulders braced each other, and Lou knew Cal’s support was the only thing keeping her semi-upright. They’d told the story over and over, had been asked endless—and often repeated—questions, and now Lou was beyond tired.

“Rob!” she called across the room where the sheriff was talking to someone wearing an FBI jacket. He moved through the crowd until he was standing in front of them. “Please make everyone go away.”

Apparently, Rob was a magician as well as a sheriff, because he had the house cleared of everyone except her and Cal within ten minutes.

“The stairs look really steep,” she sighed, leaning harder against Callum.

“Yep.”

“And tall.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Almost insurmountable.”

When he didn’t respond to that one, she turned her head to see that he’d fallen asleep. Smiling tiredly, she kissed his relaxed jaw.

“Thank you for shooting my stepdad, Cal.”

* * *

Something was tickling her cheek. Lou gave a sleepy grumble and buried her face in her pillow—her very hard, moving pillow. A male chuckle made her eyes pop open as she jerked up her head. Somehow, she couldn’t remember how, they’d obviously managed to get up the not-quite-insurmountable stairs and into the bedroom.

Callum was smiling at her. Despite the rude awakening, she couldn’t help but grin back at him.

“I’m happy you’re not dead. Again.” She couldn’t seem to keep back the words.

“I’m just happy,” he responded, playing with a few strands of her hair. When he flicked the ends against her cheek, she realized that had been the tickling sensation that had woken her.

Smothering a yawn, she said, “You sound surprised by that.”

He shrugged, concentrating on brushing her hair along her nose. “Just not used to it. It’s nice. Being with you is very nice.” He dropped the strands and kissed the tip of her nose.

“Yeah?” she asked. Whenever he started kissing her, her brain shut down. Lou wondered if there was some kind of scientific explanation for it—maybe he caused an overdose of serotonin or something.

“Yeah.” His lips met hers and clung. As sweet and gentle as the chaste, closed-mouth kiss was, her heart rate increased until it felt like a hummingbird fluttered inside her chest. Callum could give her a heart attack just by holding her hand.

He deepened the kiss, drawing her out of her thoughts about how he made her feel and just making her
feel
. With a sigh, she relaxed into him. Her hand burrowed between them until she could press against his chest and feel his heart beat under her palm. Just like him, the rhythm was steady and calm, although it started to pick up when his tongue touched hers.

A jolt ran through her at the contact, and she shivered, tossing her leg over his hip in an effort to get closer. His warm hand settled on her knee, tracing over her thigh and back down to its original spot. He seemed content with kissing, and so was she, until her blood began to heat. The three points of contact—their mouths, her hand on his heart, and his fingers around her knee—warmed her entire body from the inside out.

Finally, after what could’ve been minutes or hours of kissing, she couldn’t hold still anymore. Lou squirmed, trying to push him to move faster, to touch more, but he wouldn’t be rushed. Every kiss, every touch on a spot that
shouldn’t
be an erogenous zone but seemed to light up anyway, was deliberate. When she finally gave in and stopped trying to hurry him, she allowed herself to appreciate every contact as the gift it was. They were alive. They were together. They were home.

Once she stopped pushing, he started advancing, although still at that slow, easy pace. Callum eased their clothes away, piece by piece, touching each newly revealed area of skin as if it were precious. The curve of her shoulder, the inside of her elbow, the cup of her hipbone—all got the same careful attention.

By the time he eased inside of her, her entire body was alight. She couldn’t stop staring at his face as he moved, looking uncharacteristically but deliciously rumpled with his three-day scruff. Cupping his face in her hands, she led him down to a kiss. It was one of his gentle kisses, but it quickly detonated, matching the intensity of their bodies’ movements as the pleasure built.

Lou came first, although she tried to delay her climax, wanting this intense and gentle lovemaking session to last forever. He pressed into her hard, his hands pushing hers into the mattress, and found his own pleasure.

They took a long time to recover. Lou didn’t want to move. Callum’s weight and heat were comforting, creating a cocoon of safety. Once they left their snug nest, everything would return—death and danger and bad dreams of Brent and Richard. Her family’s betrayal. The continuing search for Willard’s murderer.

Callum ran his fingers down her sides and then slipped his hands under her so he could hug her close.

“You hungry?” she asked. Since her mouth was so close, she couldn’t resist brushing a kiss under his ear. He shivered at the touch, and she smiled, liking that she could draw out that reaction. “Or still tired?”

“Tired,” he sighed, the word sounding a little slurred.

“Then sleep,” she said, stroking the back of his head as his body went limp and heavy. Lou smiled. Her cocoon was safe—for now, at least.

“Oh!” Lou paused in the middle of pouring steamed milk into a cup, twisting her head to look at Callum. Even though her stalker was no longer a threat—and
was
no longer, full stop—Callum still kept the habit of coming into The Coffee Spot for the last hour or so of her shift. Lou thought he might be addicted to the cranberry white chocolate scones. “The insurance agent called earlier this afternoon.”

He flicked a look at the couple impatiently waiting at the counter. Although she wrinkled her nose at him, Lou finished their drinks and rang them up before continuing.

“They’re basically giving me enough to erect that pup tent you were about to stick me and Chad into for the training week.”

“I wasn’t going to…” He shook his head, cutting off his defensive objection. Lou grinned. She always counted it as a win when she was able to send Callum on a verbal detour. “Not enough to rebuild your cabin then?”

The couple lingered, sipping their beverages. Apparently, Lou and Callum’s conversation was interesting enough to delay their trek back to civilization.

“A closet, maybe.” She tipped her head, thinking. “I could build one of those tiny homes. Actually, I don’t think I could afford that. Maybe a teeny-tiny home, if they make them.”

“They do. It’s called a tent.”

“That’s what I thought.” Frowning, she warmed up the scone she’d saved for Callum. “I could get a pop-up camper to pull behind my truck. When I get a truck, of course. That way, I could move my house every few days and experience different views.”

“You’re not living in a camper.” He bit into the scone and chewed angrily.

“Excuse me.” The female half of the eavesdropping couple took a step closer to the counter. “Are there any more of those scones?”

Lou pasted a regretful smile on her face. “Sorry, no. This was the last one.”

“I didn’t see it in the display.” The woman scowled. “I specifically asked if you had any scones, and you said you were out.”

“I had to hold this one back. It was defective.”

“Defective?” Her eyes darted between Lou’s expression of fake sympathy and the small bite of scone Callum hadn’t eaten yet. “It looked fine.”

“I licked it.” Lou heard Callum choke on the last piece of scone, but she couldn’t look at him or she would start laughing. If his airway was blocked, he was going to have to give himself the Heimlich.

The woman’s suspicious expression didn’t ease. “Why did you let him eat it then?”

“Oh, his tongue is in my mouth all the time,” Lou said sweetly, and Callum’s coughing increased. “I didn’t think he’d mind my germs.”

With a sound of frustration, the woman stormed out of the shop, followed closely by the male half of the couple. The bells rang merrily as the door closed behind them, as if celebrating their absence.

“Sparks,” Callum rasped once his coughing died down. “You’re going to kill me.”

“But what a way to go.”

“True.” Grabbing her hand, he pulled her closer and leaned across the counter. “Now give me some of those germs.”

Her burst of laughter was interrupted as his mouth met hers. The kiss was short but intense, and she was dreamy-eyed and breathing hard by the time it ended.

“Stop talking about living in a camper,” he ordered, although his crooked smile softened the harshness of his command. “You’re staying with me at my house, and that’s final.”

She studied him, trying to throw off the brain-numbing aftereffects of his kiss and think logically. “Okay.”

“Okay?” He looked a little startled. “That was, well, easier than I expected.”

“There are conditions.”

“Ah.” Sitting back, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Shoot.”

“I want to contribute. Financially.”

He grunted. Lou was beginning to be able to translate his nonverbal sounds. That grunt was not agreement. She narrowed her eyes. “Nonnegotiable. You know, my neighbor has this nice little pop-up camper parked by his woodpile. I bet he’d let me buy that baby for a song. It’s only, what, fifty years old or so, and once I got the packrats to move out—or at least tamed them a little—it’d be a cozy little nest for me.”

“Fine.
Some
financial contribution.”

The emphasis on “some” concerned her, but she accepted the concession. “I’ll need complete control of the whiteboard until we solve the Willard situation.”

His grin was back. “Agreed.”

Tapping her chin in thought, she gave a nod. “Okay.”

“That’s it?”

“For now.”

He still looked wary. “I’d never try to take away your independence. You know that, right?”

“Of course,” she said. “In the hospital, I had a lot of time to think, and I realized that loving you doesn’t make me weaker. To save you, I dove into a frozen reservoir, killed a guy, and almost died.” He flinched, and she gave him an apologetic grimace. “Loving you actually made me into kind of a badass.”

He extended his hand, as if to shake to cement their deal. When she put her hand in his, he pulled her toward him instead. This time, the kiss was even longer and more thorough. It didn’t end until someone cleared their throat. Loudly.

Pulling back, Lou put on her customer-service smile as she turned to look at the throat-clearer with eyes that didn’t want to focus. “Sorry about that. What can I get… Oh, Ian. Hey.”

He gave a short nod. His expression was grim, even more so than it had been at the bar in Liverton. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Callum stiffen, as if bracing himself for trouble.

“Lou. Callum.” Ian practically growled the terse greeting. “We’ve got a problem.”

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in the Search & Rescue series

Fan the Flames

On sale June 2016