No Stranger to Danger (13 page)

"Why did you do this?" she asked. A fat tear fell from the corner of her eye as she marched up to him and slapped him in the face.

Logan did not so much as flinch, so riveted to the sight of her. There were so many nights he had lain awake, thinking of her just like this. His eyes fell to her breasts, tempting him from under the thin slip. The tightly pearled tips thrust against the material hardened his cock. Logan ran his tongue over his lips, remembering her light-pink nipples. She had the nicest breasts he had ever seen, and his fingers itched to touch.

He looked down to the shadow of her panties beneath the peach sheer-satin material and swallowed hard at the straps rising on her hips. His fingers crushed into fists at his sides.

"Do you have any idea what being here with you does to me? I can't sleep in that bed, Logan." She threw a finger behind her wildly to point above stairs. "I can't. All I can think about are the questions you still haven't answered, the memories we shared. I thought you loved me." Her voice cracked.

"Shut up, Mara," he said. The thread he dangled from was becoming precariously thin by the moment.

"You drove me crazy I loved you so much." She gasped on a hot sob, tears streaking down her cheeks. "Why did you have to bring me
here
? Did you forget what we shared in this cabin? There has to be somewhere else we can go."

Logan closed the space between them excruciatingly slow, a sizzling of intensity between them building and snapping like raw waves of electricity, and then he did something he couldn’t resist. He reached out, softly brushing her cheek with the back of his fingers before he roughly shoved his hands into her hair, to the back of her head, and dragged her into his body.

The soft warmth against him unraveled his wits. The press of her belly against his cock unleashed something wild inside him. She gasped when she felt
him
against her, her eyes flaring before they softened. She ran her fingers under his arms, to his chest and clutched fistfuls of his shirt.

"Why wouldn’t I remember?" he rasped. "I left you because I loved you, Mara. Not because I forgot about you." He scanned her eyes and brought his thumbs up over her cheeks to rub away the wet streaks. "I haven’t forgotten this place." He shook his head slowly and moved his hand so his thumb could brush her lips. "And I didn’t bring you here to torture you with memories. Go back to that bed and let's leave the past where it belongs, before one or both of us gets hurt."

Her eyes searched his, and she moved to take his wrists in her hands, her fingers closing around his skin. She pulled his hands from her and flung them away.

"Aren't you listening?" she asked, her voice quivering. "It's too late for that. Being here hurts deeper than anything Conyers could do to me."

Another tear rolled down her cheek before she turned to leave him once more.

Logan watched her as she went up the stairs, only turning back when she reached the top. The look she gave him was both a plea to come to her, to soothe the pain he had caused, but also a mirror of the impasse between them. It was almost as though she dared him to climb over that steel wall she had erected and tear it down.

Logan swallowed the urge to go to battle with that wall.

There were some things that just were not meant to be.

Chapter Fourteen

0600 hours, Saturday

Outside Pigeon Forge, Tennessee

Mara edged the bedroom door open just a crack and tilted her head to peek down. The cabin was dead quiet. She took a breath and pulled the door open just an inch more, looking down over the little landing into the living area before she pulled the door open the rest of the way.

Logan's long legs stretched out in front of him on the chaise, crossed at the ankles as he slept with a cap Butler had provided over his face. Mara bit her lip as she took a few steps. When he did not wake up, she reached back for the door and closed it just as quietly.

She tiptoed down the stairs, and across the living area, all the way to the door without notice. When she was there, she looked behind her. Logan had not stirred, but it was little wonder with the lack of sleep he'd had in days past. She bit her lip to keep from smiling.

So much for Mr.
Invincible's
super sneaky spy senses.
Ha!

Mara slipped the lock aside and fitted the cool metal of the knob into her palm, she pulled the door open, just enough to get out, and still looking at her sleeping ex-husband, she stepped backwards out the door for a peaceful breath of morning air.

Something thin caught against her ankle.

Mara gasped, her eyes flaring wide as she stumbled backward, her side catching the doorknob and she cried out at the blunt impact, scrambling to catch herself. The more she stumbled, the louder the racket she made.

Logan flew up from the chaise the first instant and leveled the gun he had gotten from Butler in her direction. Mara hit the floor faster than a scalded cat and curled into the fetal position.

"Don't shoot!" she screamed.

"Mara?" he said with the slightest surprise and more than a hint of annoyance. "
What
are you doing?"

Mara looked up from the floor, holding her hands out. Her shoulders fell in relief as she picked herself up.

"Shit, Logan!" she exclaimed, brushing her hands and smoothing back her hair. "What the hell is that?" she asked turning a semi-circle, looking behind her at the jumble of fishing line and an assortment of objects from the kitchen. She gave her head an exasperated shake. "Can’t a girl go outside? I didn’t know I was your prisoner."

"No," he said, snatching the door from her and pulling her inside "A girl can't go outside when there are dangerous people looking to kill her. A girl does as she's told and keeps her head down."

Mara looked up at him. She had not even been aware he had come closer. Logan gave her a scowl, a blaze of fury in his eyes.

"Where were you going?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

She gave him a little burst of her own annoyance. "Out for air. That room is dusty and stale." Among other things, she added silently. Mara crossed her arms, too, glancing to the open upstairs room. She gave him a huff.

Last night had been pure torture, deeper felt than anything Conyers could do to her as she told Logan last night.

She flushed hot at the reminder of the night before and everything now laid out between them—not that that was everything, but it was definitely a start.

"You should have just asked and I would have taken you out," he said, a bit calmer now, and raked a hand through his hair.

Mara flushed with indignation. "I'm not a damn dog that needs to be taken out for a walk." She turned and took the doorknob and thrust the door wide open. "I'm afraid we're short a leash anyway." Mara stepped over the line and out onto the porch, closing her eyes in the fresh morning light and inhaled a deep breath of the purest mountain air she had ever breathed.

Logan was right behind her, his presence leaking with irritation.

"I could have shot you. Did you even think of that?" he asked. "The line wasn't there to keep you inside." He raked a hand over his face.

Mara cut a glare over her shoulder. "Of course not. You only know how to forge lines that keep me out."

Logan blinked at her a moment, and she turned back around.

"Are we still talking about the fishing line?" he asked, pointing over his shoulder.

Mara turned with a brief glare.

He sighed, staring back for
 
a moment. "Sleep well?" he asked, his voice a little closer than a moment before
.

The timbre sent a shiver up her spine as Mara looked out from the porch.

She loved getting up early in her own home to sit out in her wicker chairs on her patio overlooking the mountains, to listen to the forest waking up, to the sound of nature.

It wasn’t the same with Logan at her back.

The growly man completely distracted her from anything serene, by one ploy or another.

"Not really," she said. She still was not exactly happy about where they were.

"Gone are the tears from last night. You never were pleasant in the morning," he said dryly.

Mara snarled. "Fu—" she started, but Logan clamped a hand over her mouth so suddenly she blinked back her surprise, the salty taste of his palm in her mouth as he'd caught her opening her lips on the next syllable. She clamped her lips shut under his hand and gave him a throaty growl.

"
Sssh
," he hissed, scanning the drive.

Mara heard it, too, and froze. The distinct sound of gravel crunching under tires gave her pause. She hung onto Logan's arm, forgetting her momentary anger with him and looked up, curving her neck against his chest to see him.

He let her go so suddenly she stumbled back. "Get back inside," Logan said, shoving her at the small of her back as he herded her back into the house. He was close behind her and shut the door, locking it. He quickly skirted around the table to the living room to retrieve his weapon.

Mara turned circles as she watched him prepare for whatever and whoever was coming up that drive.

"What do I do?" she asked.

"Get somewhere safe. Upstairs." He ticked his head in the direction and then peeked outside, waiting. "Go," he urged.

Mara nodded, but something unexpected struck her, an odd feeling surfacing.

She paused, her stare riveted to the man at the window.

She didn’t want to leave him to this alone.

"Let me help," she said.

He turned a frown on her. "Go. I don't need help."

Mara's back stiffened, and she pinched her lips together.

She wanted to protect him, but he turned her away.

She shook her head, turning for the stairs, but noticed the two rifles leaning up against the railing, loaded and ready to go. She twitched her lips to the side, questioning her sanity a moment. Logan wasn’t watching. She took one and skipped up the stairs, turning at the landing to give Logan one more look.

Mara didn’t go into the bedroom to cower at his instruction. Instead she turned the corner to the small alcove and jumped to catch the attic string to pull down the stairs.

A veil of dust hit her squarely in the face and set her to coughing, blinking, and rubbing the sediment from her eyes. Mara caught the steps and pushed them down as she rubbed her face into the crook of her arm. There was a window she could shoot from if needed, one she could cover the entire front of the cabin from.

Luckily, she had not forgotten the many trips to the shooting range with Logan in the past.

Mara hurried up the attic steps, stepping inside and balancing across the rafters to the hexagon window set in the middle of the outside wall, under the peak of the roof. The window was about as high as her ribcage and sent a tiny portal of light slanting in across the mostly empty room. She dropped down to peer outside as she pulled the charging handle back on the rifle.

No one was there in the drive yet, so she pushed the window open so that it swung out from the center.

Mara positioned the weapon and crouched down to look through the sight.

****

Logan slipped from the window in the back of the house and dropped five feet to the ground. His boots hit hard but silent, and he started around the side of the house toward the drive.

When he met with the corner of the cabin, he paused to look around, and instead of seeing a vehicle approach, he caught the gleam off the windshield of a parked, black Suburban.

Logan dropped back around the corner of the cabin and pulled back the slide on his M-9. He listened, edging closer to the corner again. He peeked around and caught a blur of dark green as a leg disappeared around the trees to the right of the drive entrance.

"Damn it," he breathed, rushing to the other side of the cabin and quickly glanced around the corner. It was clear, and he darted around the building. He looked, caught sight of the man, and fell back flat against the cabin.

Only one man?

Either Conyers had lost his damn mind, or there were others somewhere else.

Mara flickered through his thoughts. He hoped she had done as he'd said.

Logan looked around the corner again, and a bullet whizzed past his head. He fired a shot and fell back.

"Fuck me," he said, lifting to fire again.

Another shot hit the side of the building, and he shot back.

Logan looked around the corner again, but the man was gone.

He snarled.

"Where did you go?"

Logan looked again. The entire front was empty, no movement, no gunfire.

It was a gamble, but he stepped out, moving his weapon from side to side quickly. He cleared areas as he went, panic ratcheting up his spine the longer he went without seeing the man.

Logan looked to the cabin. The door was closed, the lock not broken.

He could have gone around the other side of the house.

A moment of fear for Mara stilled him.

And so did the cold muzzle against the back of his head.

Just as he opened his mouth to speak, a shot ricocheted from the cabin out into the yard, the blast dimming as the sound trailed off into the mountains.

"What the fuck?" Logan growled, whirling to find the man lying in the middle of the yard with a hole in his chest. He blinked several times, watching as blood began to flood from his assailant's mouth. Logan then turned his gaze upward, scanned the area for any sign of any other operative.

Nothing. No footsteps, no advancing movement.

Furious, Logan looked to the window where the muzzle of the AR stuck out.

"Get down here," he called up to Mara, ready to throttle her. She removed the muzzle from sight and stuck her head from the window. As their eyes locked, Logan pointed to the ground at his boots, and she backed from the window.

Logan scraped a hand through his hair and then ran his hand over his face.

She could have shot him.

Logan shut his eyes and sighed hard. He shook off the intensity riding him and holstered his weapon.

He
stooped
by the body, the man's eyes now blank. Logan ran his hands over the pockets on the man's pants, looking for a wallet or any ID. Not finding any, he stood and rolled the man over with the heel of his boot, then reached down to the back pocket. He found the man's wallet and pulled it out, turning it in his hand. The black leather looked new.