Hot Pursuit (37 page)

She took a deep breath. “Why would I want to come back there?” she prompted.

“Would you rather stay out there with Micah?”

“I thought he was your friend.”

“He is my friend,” Ben snapped. “There is no one who could protect you as well as he could. I’ve spent the past few days wondering if there is even a reason for me to stay here. Without you here,” he said, then broke off without finishing the sentence. “I guess what I mean is, why don’t you want to come back here? If it’s about the virgin thing…”

“Oh my God!” she bit out, and hung up.

“I’m a fool!” she cried, hanging her head as a wave of sadness and overwhelming emptiness attacked her. “I’m a stupid fool. I read something into what was between Ben and me, and it simply wasn’t there.” Straightening, Zoey stared straight ahead and refused to let any tears fall. There was no point in repeating the short phone call in her head. She would only try to put meaning into his words. It was best to take it all at face value.

The truth of it was simply that Ben didn’t have a problem lying to her. He didn’t consider her someone he should have confided in. He was protecting her, and sex was natural between two consenting adults stuck alone with each other in an isolated cabin. Especially when there was a strong attraction.

And God, there had been such a strong attraction.

“Damn it,” she moaned, letting her head fall into her hands. “Quit persecuting yourself,” she ordered.

Just because he’d led her to believe he was a drifter searching for work, probably seasonal work as she’d believed at the time, when in truth he was a bounty hunter working a case wasn’t cause for her to fall into a major pity party. She should be glad someone had found her who was actually capable of protecting her more than the average person. Her father—no, Cortez—hadn’t found her yet.

When her hands started trembling, she couldn’t make them stop. Ben didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. In fact, he was considering leaving. He thought she was staying away from him because of her own issues. Well, maybe she was. Maybe she had an issue with men who lied to her. Once again the anger rose inside her. It welled up and consumed her, leaving no room for pity or regret.

“I’m not an idiot,” she mumbled, and shoved her hair away from her face. “And I’m not reading something into what was happening between us. Ben just isn’t the right man for me. Of course he wants me to come back there. He is on a case and why not have someone around you who knows the area, that he’s attracted to, to spend time with and have sex.”

But they didn’t have sex. Ben didn’t want a virgin. Okay, she would concede that point and maybe she shouldn’t have hung up on him. Apparently, the virgin thing did bother her a bit, but only because he’d made such a big deal about it. Her being a virgin wasn’t the issue as much as Ben not telling her the truth. He didn’t see that as an issue. Therefore, they were incompatible. At least for having a relationship. They wouldn’t have been incompatible sexually. What he had done to her!

“Oh my God,” she wailed as her body was racked with sexual desire and frustration, knowing sex with Ben would never happen.

Slapping the phone down on the small table next to her, she hopped up and left the back porch. Marching around the side of the house, Zoey ignored the rain that had started to fall. She didn’t care if she had to endure the perfectly happy couple being perfectly happy together. Anything would be better than sitting there fuming over Ben Mercy.

Maggie and Micah were speaking in contented conversation. The two of them were so in tune with each other that they finished each other’s sentences every time they talked. Zoey found that as much amazing as she did irritating.

“Good morning,” Maggie said cheerfully when Zoey appeared in the doorway to the small shed.

Tools of all sorts hung on the walls. Maggie and Micah seemed to have every creature comfort imaginable to man. Just like their cabin, which was rustic on the outside but modern and exquisite on the inside, the small shed wasn’t anything to look at when approaching it. Once Zoey stepped inside the open door, it was a completely different story. The shed was insulated. She immediately felt the warmth. The walls were lined with cork, which made it easy to hang Micah’s many tools. He had a worktable, and several benches made it easy to sit and talk to him while he was working.

Of course, as in Cortez’s home, everything she saw around her had come from criminal activity. And, in this case, it was all blood money. Zoey simply escaped one prison to go to another. Granted, she was treated better here, but she still wasn’t free. Maybe if she hit the road, relocated on her own somewhere far away from Zounds, she would finally be able to live her life the way she wanted.

In the year Zoey had known Maggie she never would have guessed in all that time that Maggie was married to a man possibly more of a criminal than Zoey’s father. Although, hands down, Micah was definitely not as sinister. And he was a lot more famous. The Mulligan Stew assassin was definitely the most notorious criminal of this century, and he had been dubbed as possibly the man responsible for more murders than any man in the twentieth century. The media had claimed that if he remained at large, he would be the most famous assassin of all time. Zoey wasn’t sure what he would be known as if he was ever caught. She forced a smile on her face. Micah and Maggie’s life wasn’t her problem. Her own life needed to be sorted out, and that was enough for her to deal with.

Micah looked at her when she stepped inside the shed, and his intense gaze didn’t seem to miss a thing.

“Sleep any better?” he asked, although his face said he already knew the answer.

“Yeah,” she lied, and wished she’d remembered her coffee, which was still on the back porch. “Figured I’d come find you two.” There was no reason to share her conversation with Ben with either of them. It was sorted out, and she would move forward from here.

“Come sit here and dry off. Saints above, it’s already pouring.” Maggie patted the leather-cushioned bench where she sat. “Put your feet by the heater. It will keep you warm.”

Zoey obeyed, joining Maggie on the bench. A small heater glowed with warmth and did instantly take the chill away.

“Micah is building me a bookcase,” Maggie said, sounding delighted. “I finally can store all the books I keep buying at the bookstore.”

“I need to get some books,” Zoey said, staring at the wood shavings under Micah’s workbench.

“Tell Maggie what you want and she’ll go buy some books for you.” Micah didn’t look up when he made decisions for her but instead ran a pencil over wood with a straightedge.

She was done with men lying, and she was done with them trying to control her life. “I can go buy my own books,” she said, looking at Maggie when she spoke. “I probably will go soon. This weather isn’t going to get any better.”

Micah sighed loudly but continued working. “Sweetheart, please explain to your friend that I can’t protect her if she leaves.”

Zoey was going to lose her temper. She gripped the edge of the leather-cushioned bench and met Maggie’s gaze when she looked at her and opened her mouth to parrot her husband. Zoey spoke before Maggie could.

“I know how to drive myself to the bookstore.” Zoey waved her hand at Micah. “He can continue playing protector once I return. As hard as it’s raining it will be impossible to see me in the car, and I’m in a rental car, not my own car. Cortez doesn’t know about the rental. It’s in Ben’s name. Please tell your husband that just because he is a mass murderer and stuck out here in the wilderness doesn’t mean I am.”

Micah dropped his straightedge and growled, “Tell her I’m not going to kill her in her goddamn sleep.”

“Enough!” Maggie jumped up, shrieking her frustration as she threw her hands up in the air. “The two of you can fight this out. I’m not playing middleman for either one of you. I’ve had it!”

Before turning her attention to Micah, Zoey watched Maggie storm out of the shed and head to the cabin. The shed suddenly seemed smaller when he straightened, got off his stool, and slowly stalked to the doorway.

“Is that the first time she’s raised her voice?” Zoey asked, feeling at least partially responsible for Maggie getting upset at both of them.

Micah kept his back to her and snorted. “Irish Maggie? Are you kidding? We’re both damn lucky she didn’t start throwing things. When that girl gets pissed, her aim is very likely better than mine.”

“I’ve never seen her upset. If she’s been that pissed at you in the past, you probably deserved it.”

Micah turned and faced her. He ran his hand through his thick, long hair and stared absently at his worktable. “I’m no saint,” he muttered.

“No, you aren’t. You’re the furthest possible thing from a saint.”

“I don’t deny who I am, Zoey,” Micah said, sighing. He seemed distracted as he glanced over his shoulder at the cabin, then finally returned to where he’d been sitting and continued to work.

Zoey wasn’t sure why she was glad he didn’t leave her alone in the shed. It wasn’t that she wanted to talk to Micah, but she admitted to herself, she wanted to talk to someone. Why not the man who had known Ben long before she had?

“Now see, that is the difference right there,” she said, leaning back and getting comfortable. A part of her thought she would be smart to go inside and smooth out her friend’s temper. But if Maggie did get as pissed as Micah suggested, maybe waiting just a bit and making a show of doing what Maggie said to do would look better. “You’re a mass murderer, and you admit it,” Zoey continued, shivering a bit as she stated the obvious about him. “Ben is a good, upstanding citizen, with an impressive job, and he lied about it. He made it out as if he were a drifter, coming into Zounds looking for work, when in fact that wasn’t the case at all. I went on about how honest and full of integrity he was, and it was all a lie.”

“He had his reasons for lying to you,” Micah muttered, pressed his straightedge down on the wood, and ran a long line down the length of it. Then glancing at her with that unnerving look he always used, he added, “And I was an assassin, not a mass murderer.”

Zoey slapped the side of the leather-cushioned bench and stood, needing to pace. Which, although it wasn’t the easiest task to pull off in the small shed, she managed as she walked to the open doorway. The moment she stood in it, she was blasted by the cold from outside. Turning, she stalked back, but only as far as the edge of Micah’s worktable.

“What reasons are there to justify lying to someone if you’re supposed to have feelings for them?” she demanded, but instantly wanted to take the question back when Micah leaned back and cocked one eyebrow at her. She diverted quickly, not wanting to hear any of Micah’s logic as to how she had simply created feelings between her and Ben that just didn’t exist, at least not on Ben’s side. “And you killed so many people. You admit it.” She waved a finger at him. “You’re the Mulligan Stew assassin. Does it make you feel better about yourself by giving what you did a fancy title?”

“Ben was protecting you from an ugly and dangerous truth,” Micah said, his voice uncharacteristically soft, almost gentle. “Me,” he added. “And I didn’t choose the title Mulligan Stew assassin; I inherited it. My father and uncle brought skills to the table, skills they sold to the highest bidder long before I ever picked up a gun. They taught me to hunt, and I loved it. Big-game hunting really appealed to me. But I was still a teenager when the thrill got old. I felt as if there was no game out there that would give me the challenge, the adrenaline rush I had grown to crave.”

Micah picked up a measuring tape, rotated it between his fingers, but Zoey didn’t think he saw the tape. He sighed, put it down on the wood, and kept speaking. She swore some of the terrible demons he always kept at bay constricted in his expression when he scowled and stared straight ahead.

“The first time my father and uncle approached me, it was for a friend of theirs,” he continued. “I honestly can’t remember all the details now, but she was a battered wife and the judge was taking her kids and giving them to the bastard who kept beating her. That’s right,” he said, and snapped his fingers. “Her husband had beat her and put her in the hospital several times. I remember we went and picked her up once and I saw how bruised she was.” Micah looked at Zoey. “So much worse than the bruises you showed up here with. But her husband was taking her girls and she was scared he was already sexually abusing them.”

“Oh God,” Zoey murmured.

“I didn’t hesitate when my father and uncle told me what they had in mind. That was the first time,” he informed her. “And the only time I did it for free. Word traveled. No one knew it was me. My uncle and father were very good at protecting me. When I took out that bastard of a wife beater without a soul having a clue who had shot him, my uncle was the one who came up with the idea of searching the country. By then I was in my early twenties. The three of us often sat at the kitchen table and discussed our day. After that, we sat at the kitchen table and plotted the next kill. We became known as Mulligan Stew. No one knew how many of us there were, or if there was just one of us. Those who needed our services didn’t ask questions. Of course, finding lowlives isn’t too hard to do. My father and uncle set up all the jobs. I traveled to the city, took a day or two to stake out how I wanted to do things. There were crooked city officials and politicians, rapists, pedophiles, serial killers, every form of lowlife you could imagine. And each time someone wanted these lame excuses for human beings to disappear, they were willing to pay dearly to have it done. The stakes grew bigger and bigger. The cost to do the job grew as well. And, if you ever watched CNN, you probably know more about my last job than I do.”

“So why don’t you kill Cortez?”

The demons that had contorted Micah’s face disappeared instantly. The look he gave her was cold, almost hateful. “Are you hiring me, Miss Cortez?” he asked in a tone that was chilling.

Zoey leapt to her feet, not remembering when she’d sat back down on the bench. “I can’t. You’re retired,” she said sarcastically, and stormed out of the shed. She couldn’t get out of there fast enough.