The Marshal's Witness (7 page)

Chapter Eight

After backtracking several miles to lay a false trail, Ryan turned the bike deeper into the forest, bumping over fallen logs and working his way to increasingly higher elevations. Even though he and Stuart had hiked the main trails in this area, he’d never been in this particular section of the mountains before. He had to stop several times to consult his map and
GPS tracker to navigate his way to his destination, one of the highest peaks in the Smoky Mountains National Park.

Riding all the way to the top would take far too long, and wasn’t necessary. All he needed to do was find a high enough area not completely covered in trees, so he could get the lay of the land and a view of anyone pursuing them. Fortunately, today was one of the clearer days.
The smoky haze that often covered this mountain range was thin enough that he’d be able to see for miles around.

When he reached a rocky rise that would allow him an unobstructed view, he parked the bike beneath a stand of trees and killed the engine.

Jessica started behind him. “Are we there yet?”

Ryan glanced back at her, steadying the bike so she could dismount. He frowned when
she hid a yawn behind her hand.

“Did you actually fall asleep while we were riding?” he asked.

She blinked as if trying to focus, reminding him of one of the screech owls so common in this area. “I guess I did.”

The thought of her falling off as the bike bumped over the rocky terrain made his stomach sink. “From now on, you’re riding in front so I can hold on to you.”

“O...kay,”
she slurred. She slid off the bike and plopped down on the ground. Before Ryan even had the kickstand down, Jessica had slumped against a tree, closed her eyes, and lapsed into soft snores.

So much for her
having his back
and making sure no one snuck up on him like she’d promised at the shack. Ryan grinned and shook his head.

He squatted down, unsnapped her chinstrap, and cradled her
against his chest so he could take off her helmet. When he turned back to face her, he found himself in a lip-lock.

His shock turned into a shudder when her fingers curled into his jacket and her soft mouth moved against his. All his reasons for not trusting her, all the terrible things she’d done in her past, faded beneath the achingly soft fullness of her lips on his. He groaned and clasped
her to him, deepening the kiss, urging her to open her mouth.

Her head fell back and she snorted loud enough to startle a bird in the oak tree above them.

She’d fallen asleep while he was kissing her. She was probably asleep the entire time.

His ego took a dive, and his face heated. Served him right for his lack of discipline. He could picture his father and brothers shaking their
heads with disapproval, berating him for dishonoring the family’s generations of law-enforcement officers by consorting with the enemy.

Even if he could ignore his deep-seated family traditions, he could never reconcile himself to Jessica’s past. She hadn’t just looked the other way when working on the DeGaullo accounts. She had actively helped him, using her accounting skills to cover his
money laundering. Ryan could never trust a woman like that. Without trust, there was nothing to build on, no common ground, no possibility of a future.

He shook his head again at his crazy thoughts. It’s not like he had a choice, anyway. Once the mole in the Justice Department was found, Ryan still had to get Jessica off this mountain alive. If he managed that feat, she’d go right back into
WitSec. The only way he could be with her then was if he went into WitSec too, which meant never seeing his family again.

That was one sacrifice he would never make.

For anyone.

He gently lowered her to the ground, straightening slowly while he struggled to get his traitorous body back under control. It was several minutes before he could walk again without the pleasure-pain of
his erection pressing against his jeans. If Jessica had this kind of effect on him now, he couldn’t imagine what touching her would be like if she were a fully active participant.

It would probably kill him.

He grinned again when she let out another loud snort and rolled over onto her side, snuffling against the pine needles.

Ryan prepared a bed of moss and leaves for Jessica to
sleep on while he climbed the rocky rise a few feet away. He covered the makeshift bed with the blanket from one of the bike’s saddlebags. Then he gently lifted her in his arms. He frowned at how light she was, how delicate and vulnerable she seemed. She couldn’t afford to miss many meals. If they were stuck in these mountains for more than a few days, he’d have to hunt for something more substantial
than granola bars to keep her strength up.

The dark circles under her eyes told him how exhausted she was, how desperately she needed to sleep, but he had to wake her, at least for a minute. He remembered how panicked she’d been at the shack when she was convinced he was trying to abandon her. If she woke up and found him gone, she might panic again.

He lowered her to the blanket and
gave her a gentle shake.

“Wake up, sleeping beauty.”

Her lashes fluttered open, her sleepy lids at half-mast.

“Are we there yet?” she asked, echoing her earlier words.

Ryan’s fingers curled into his palms. This woman was far too adorable for his peace of mind. “I’m going to climb that rise—” he said, pointing off to his left “—to take a look around. I won’t be far. I should
be able to hear you if you call out, but take my gun just in case.”

Having realized earlier that Jessica had a strong aversion to guns, Ryan didn’t give her a chance to argue. He swiftly tucked his Glock in her jacket pocket, zipped it closed, and hurried away from that disturbingly tempting mouth of hers.

* * *

J
ESSICA
FROWNED
AND
stared toward the trees where Ryan had just disappeared.
When he’d woken her up, she’d been dreaming that he was kissing her. The dream was so real, his kiss so soft and gentle, it had made her pulse leap crazily in her chest and her belly tighten in response. Even now, the memory of that dream sent a delightful shiver down her spine.

For a moment, she’d thought the dream was real.

It wasn’t of course. Her mind was just fuzzy, drunk from lack
of sleep, blending dreams with reality. Ryan would probably be horrified that she’d even considered that he might want to kiss her. He wouldn’t want to taint himself by associating with a woman like her, a woman he considered—by his own words—almost as bad as DeGaullo.

She pressed her lips together. She was far from perfect and had made some terrible mistakes. She might not like that Ryan
had prejudged her, like everyone else. But she couldn’t really blame him. Maybe he was right and she
was
as bad as DeGaullo.

She rubbed her tired eyes and shifted her weight, only now realizing she was lying on a soft blanket. At least Ryan respected her enough as a human being to offer her that small comfort. She wiggled to get comfortable, and her arm bumped against the bulge caused by
the gun Ryan had stuffed into her jacket pocket. Her lips curled with distaste. She’d seen firsthand how devastating a gun could be, and she loathed the necessity of having one.

A twig snapped behind her. Jessica bolted upright, clawing for the gun as she squinted into the shadows.

* * *

W
HEN
R
YAN
REACHED
the crest of the rocky incline, he belly-crawled across the top. If someone
was on the trails below and looked up, he didn’t want them to see his silhouette against the bright blue sky behind him.

Tugging on the string looped around his neck, he pulled out his binoculars from where he’d tucked them inside his jacket. The mountains blazed with autumn color. Dozens of hiking paths snaked out in every direction, forming a network of gold lines amongst the trees.

From this vantage point, he could just barely make out the shed he and Jessica had been in earlier this morning, as well as a handful of other structures scattered around the mountain range. Most were abandoned, their doors sagging open, the aged gray wood warped or missing.

But not all of them were abandoned.

Some of them had cars parked out front, and cool-weather flowers spilling out
of planters beside the front doors. Although he and Jessica had come a long way from his house, which was too far away to see, they still hadn’t escaped the dangers of civilization.

He debated ditching the noisy bike, worried that the sound might carry in the mountains. But he needed to get Jessica to a more secluded, defensible position, with only unoccupied mountains at his back. The only
way to get deep enough into the mountains to find a place like that, quickly, was on the bike. For now, he decided the benefits outweighed the risks. He’d hold on to the motorcycle a bit longer.

Half an hour passed and he still hadn’t seen anyone following them on the trails. He risked a quick phone call to the one person nearby that he trusted, a man who’d been his best friend growing up
in Colorado, and who’d fought by his side on too many missions to count—Stuart Lanier.

Stuart readily agreed to snoop around and use his contacts to try to find out who the major players in the WitSec fiasco might be.

“Tell me where you are,” Stuart said. “I can send some of my men to pick you up. You can hide out at my place until this blows over.”

“I’m disobeying a direct order
by not turning Jessica over to the Justice Department right now,” Ryan said. “I don’t want to get you in trouble with the law by giving us safe haven. Just dig around, see what you can find out. That’s the kind of help I need right now.”

“Fair enough. But you’ve got my number.”

“I owe you,” Ryan said.

“Nah, you’ve saved my butt more times than I can count. Later, man.”

Ryan
hung up with a promise to call back tomorrow. He stowed the phone, then took one last look around. He was just about to put his binoculars away when he spotted movement. Off to the west, a few miles away, a couple walked hand in hand along the edge of a stream. Ryan traced his binoculars behind them to see where they’d come from. He located their campsite, little more than a half mile from where
he was. The couple definitely wasn’t roughing it. They had an enormous camper hooked to the back of their pickup truck. Next to that, they’d strung a clothesline high up in the trees with a full load of laundry drying in the sun.

Scanning back to the couple again, Ryan considered the woman’s size. She wasn’t quite as petite as Jessica, but she was close enough for his purposes.

Time
to go shopping.

* * *

J
ESSICA
SCREAMED
AGAINST
the hand covering her mouth.

“Hush, it’s me, Ryan.”

She slumped in relief, pressing her hand against her chest as Ryan released her.

“Why did you sneak up on me?” she whispered furiously, her embarrassment at her reaction making her voice much harsher than she’d intended.

Ryan’s eyes widened and he plucked the gun from
her hands. “You do realize that thing is loaded, right?” He examined the gun before shoving it into his jacket pocket.

Jessica flushed. “Well, of course I know it’s loaded, not that I realized I was pointing it at you. I keep hearing noises in the woods. I’ve been waiting an eternity for you to come back, scared to death a bear or a mountain lion would come along and eat me.”

Ryan’s
mouth tilted up at the corner. “Lions and bears? Were there tigers, too?”

“Do
not
make fun of me,” she warned.

He held a hand across his heart in mock horror. “Wouldn’t dream of it. And I was only gone for two hours, not an
eternity.
Here.” He picked something up off the ground and held it out to her.

“Clothes! Oh, my gosh, jeans and a shirt!” Jessica grabbed them from him, but
her pleasure at having clean girl clothes instead of Ryan’s baggy hand-me-downs faded as suspicion took hold. “Did you steal these?”

“I borrowed them without permission, but I left money to cover what I took.” He pointed down at the ground. “I brought you some hiking boots, too. They might not be your exact size, but they should fit better than those floppy tennis shoes you’re wearing. I
got you another pair of jeans and another shirt, too. They’re in the saddlebag.”

Jessica squealed in delight and grabbed the boots. They were only a half size larger than what she normally wore. She grinned, so pathetically pleased that she stood on her tiptoes and kissed Ryan full on the mouth.

He stiffened and she immediately pulled back, her face heating with embarrassment. “I’m sorry.
I shouldn’t have done that. I wasn’t thinking.” She hugged the clothes to her chest and wished she could find a hole to crawl into.

“I’ll give you a minute to change.” Ryan’s voice was oddly strained. He turned and disappeared into the trees.

Jessica plopped down on the forest floor, mortified. Twice now she’d made a fool of herself over Ryan. First, brushing up against him in the bathroom.
And just now, kissing him. What was she thinking? She
wasn’t
thinking. That was the point. She was still exhausted in spite of her nap, and her brain wasn’t working like it should.

She changed quickly, briefly worrying about the fact that she didn’t have a bra to wear beneath the T-shirt, which stretched across her breasts like a second skin. Well, it shouldn’t matter, not really, not when
she’d have her coat on most of the time. And Ryan obviously didn’t think about her
that
way. She could probably walk around naked in front of him and he wouldn’t even notice.

She tugged her bulky jacket on. The fact that the coat was too big didn’t bother her at all like the clothes had. That extra material made her toasty warm, an important concession when the cold wind whipped against her
on the motorcycle.

A fallen tree became her chair as she tugged on the boots and tied the laces with quick jerks. When Ryan returned, he was pushing the motorcycle. She ignored the hand he held out to help her to her feet, preferring not to feel him stiffen in disgust again when she touched him. She could only take so much humiliation in one day.