Timeless (7 page)

I look over at Marcus. He’s standing with his hands in his pockets surveying the snowy view with a grim look on his face.

“I don’t think you’re going anywhere anytime soon,” he says flatly.

“Like we’re snowed in?” Tiny fingers of panic crawl up my skin. There’s no way I can spend another second here with Marcus.

“Looks like it. The road down the mountain from the house is steep, and it won’t be shoveled until it stops snowing. Even if I could get to the car, which is doubtful, it’s too dangerous to try and drive down the mountain right now.”

“Doesn’t your car have four-wheel drive?” I ask desperately.

He shakes his head. “Yeah, but that won’t matter in this kind of snow.”

“What about skis?”

He frowns at me. “Are you serious?”

“Dammit!” I say in frustration. “I’m an FBI agent and you’re a Navy SEAL! Surely between the two of us we can think of a way to get out of here.”

“The smart thing to do is wait it out. We’ve still got electricity for now, but even if it goes out I’ve got plenty of firewood and a gas stove. We’ll be fine here until the storm clears.”

I will definitely not be fine here. In fact, I can’t think of anything worse than being trapped in a log cabin with my ex-boyfriend who I just had wild and mind-blowing sex with but who’s made it absolutely clear he’s not interested in doing it again. My ego is bruised, and I’m hell-bent and determined to get back to the resort and find a Band-Aid for my wounded pride.

“I think Five Pines has a shuttle,” I say, pulling out my phone. But the snow has obliterated any cell service I may have gotten in this godforsaken place.

“Ari, you’re not going anywhere,” he says patiently. “Come back inside.”

I trail behind him reluctantly into the warm cabin and follow his lead, peeling off the layers of outwear and laying them near the fire to dry. His gaze boldly travels up my body. I tilt my chin up defiantly in response. He can look all he wants, but Marcus Dunn is never touching these goods again.

“Want to borrow some clothes?” he asks drolly, his eyes dancing. I’m glad he’s fucking enjoying himself. But he has a point. Waiting out a snowstorm in a corset and a risqué pirate outfit isn’t very practical.

“Yes, please.”

“Come on. Let’s see what we can find.”

I follow him into the bedroom, studiously avoiding looking at the bed. On second thought, what the hell? “Did you sleep in here last night?” I ask casually.

“Nah. I slept on the couch.”

Just what I thought. He has no real interest in me. But like any other man, he just couldn’t turn down free pussy.

Since he’s close to six feet tall and I’m five four in bare feet, he doesn’t own a single pair of jeans or sweatpants that don’t look like they’ll swallow me whole. He finally finds me a long-sleeved, red plaid, flannel shirt that comes just above my knees, and with the knee-high socks I’d worn under my stiletto boots, I’ll at least be warm, if not particularly stylish.

I change in the bathroom, and when I walk back into the kitchen Marcus is making grilled cheese sandwiches in a cast-iron skillet over the stove. He turns around as I walk in and his eyes darken as he takes in my makeshift outfit, but he quickly turns back around to the stove, expertly sliding the sandwiches onto plates. He ladles tomato soup into two bowls and sets them on the table.

“Sorry it’s not fancier,” he apologizes.

Ah. That awkward post-coital conversation where you talk to each other with exaggerated politeness and try to pretend you weren’t just going at it like rabbits. Only it hadn’t felt like that to me; it had felt special. But he obviously didn’t feel the same.

I tamp down my hurt feelings. Two can play this game.

“No. This is great!” I say with forced enthusiasm. I take a bite of sandwich. It actually
is
pretty good, or maybe I’m just hungry. “So, tell me about the case you’re here for.”

He entertains me with the details of his case, and before long I’m so involved in talking shop that I’ve forgotten I’m mad at him. His client is a well-known insurance company that insures a jeweler by the name of Bridget Bowden whose business is flying around the country with her inventory of jewelry and diamonds to call upon the nation’s wealthiest clients who like to buy exclusive and expensive jewelry for their wives and mistresses from the comfort of their billion dollar offices. Whenever Bridget travels, the policy states that she must be picked up from her home, where she operates her business, by a private security driver who transports her to the airport. She’s picked up at the destination airport by another driver who takes her to her meeting, and then back to the airport where the process is repeated in reverse.

She’s based here in Denver, as is her driver. According to Marcus, several months ago, as Bridget was preparing to fly from here to meet with a client in New Jersey, she answered her door expecting to find her driver but instead was accosted by two men who forced their way into her apartment, tied her to a chair, beat her, and stole two million dollars’ worth of jewelry.

“Wow,” I breathe. “So who’s your witness? Not Bridget, right? I’m sure you’ve already gotten her statement.”

“Actually, I came to talk to the driver.”

I raise my eyebrows quizzically. “Was he there?”

“No. A neighbor heard her screaming and came to see what was wrong. When the neighbor arrived, Bridget’s jaw was fractured, her nose was bloody, and the men who’d attacked her were gone. Her driver showed up a few minutes later and called the cops. When I talked to him yesterday, he said he’d been running a few minutes late because he’d stopped at the store to get a pack of cigarettes. The security cameras at the store and his credit card receipt verify that’s where he was.”

“So…” I prompt. It sounds fairly straightforward, but I know from personal experience that insurance claims involving millions of dollars are usually not quite as clear-cut as they seem.

“I’d bet money on it being insurance fraud, but I just can’t put the pieces together. I’ve heard rumors the driver has some mob connections, but I haven’t been able to prove it. I’d hoped talking to him would help, but it didn’t.”

“So what makes you think it’s fraud?”

His dark brows furrow in thought. “I can’t put my finger on it. Just a hunch, I guess.”

“Any leads on the men who attacked her?”

“Nope. No one saw anything. They just disappeared with the money. If they were even there at all.”

“You don’t think she was accosted?”

“Well, she clearly was. She had the cuts and bruises to prove it, and the whole right side of her face was swollen. I had originally thought she and her driver were in on it together and maybe she let him tie her up and beat her, but he wasn’t there so it couldn’t have been him. But she’s given very vague details on the men who accosted her.” He shrugs. “But enough about my case. I’m probably boring you to death.”

“Actually, you’re not,” I admit. “This is what I love best about being an FBI agent. I love the challenge of trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together. It’s addictive.”

He asks about my job at the FBI, and I tell him about the early days of trying to prove myself and finally finding an unlikely but life-saving comradery with the female agents who’ve become my second family in Austin. Unlike most of the men I’ve met, Marcus is a very good listener, and I can tell he’s truly interested in everything I tell him. So good that I find myself opening up to him about how hard I worked to overcome the misconception that I only got the job because my dad was the director, and worse, not being able to find a man to date who wasn’t intimidated by my job and my father’s position.

“What about you?” I ask curiously. “No wife or kids?” I remember he’d been married once, before we met, but it had ended when he came home from a deployment and found she’d cleaned out their apartment, leaving him with nothing but a note.

I must have touched a nerve, because his face becomes completely closed.

“No,” he says matter-of-factly, his eyes shuttered. “I’m not the marrying kind.”

He gets up and takes his dishes to the sink.

“Make yourself at home,” he says curtly. “I’m going to take a shower.”

I finish my sandwich and put my own dishes in the sink as I hear the water start to run in the next room. I can’t help imagining Marcus in the shower, his naked body slick with water. The man has the most delectable body I’ve ever seen, all smooth skin and carved muscles without an ounce of fat. He may be older, but he has the physique of a twenty-year-old, which I know he works hard to maintain.

I groan. The next twenty-four hours are going to be pure torture. There’s got to be a way to get back to the lodge. Marcus said Five Pines is only about ten miles from here. If the roads were a little clearer, I could run it.

I wander around the small cabin, trying to think of something. Anything! I do find a bottle of good whiskey sitting on the counter that might come in handy if all else fails. Then, as I’m staring out the window, I see a small, covered area off to the side of the house where firewood is stacked, and like a gift from the morning after fairies, what looks like the wheels of an ATV peeking out from under a tarp. Aha. Victory! It’s easily accessible, and those things were built to be driven in the snow.

I take a quick glance around the room, looking for keys. As a highly disciplined military man, I have no doubt Marcus keeps all of his keys systematically organized somewhere. Sure enough, on the wall next to the kitchen cabinet is an iron key rack in the shape of a moose head. There are four sets of keys hanging from it: the keys to his sport utility, what looks like a small padlock key, and two sets of identical keys that must to go to the ATV.

I can still hear the shower running, but I’m going to have to be quick; I’m pretty sure Marcus wouldn’t approve of my plan. I’m pretty sure
I
wouldn’t approve of my plan under normal circumstances! But I’m desperate to leave, my heart hurts, and my ego can’t handle another twenty-four hours of this. I grab the key. It’s always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, and I’ll make sure the ATV gets returned to him tomorrow.

I tiptoe into the bedroom and tug on the sweatpants lying across the bed that Marcus was wearing this morning, pulling the string as tightly as I can around my waist and rolling up the legs. I quickly pull on my stiletto boots—not ideal, but at least they’ll keep my legs warm—and the fleece jacket, hat, and mittens Marcus had loaned me earlier. Then I slip out the door.

It turns out there are two ATVs, but lady luck is on my side because the key I grabbed works in the first one I try. In no time at all, I’m churning through the snow down the driveway and toward freedom, huge walls of snow flying up behind me as the wheels try to make purchase in the icy snow.

Marcus had mentioned that his cabin was off the same major road as Five Pines, just ten miles further up the mountain, so I figure if I just follow the road down the mountain, I can’t miss it. Unfortunately, the road is blanketed in snow, making it hard to tell where it is. But once I orient myself with the line of trees and the narrow path in between them, I figure it’s a pretty straight shot.

The road is both steep and slippery, and despite the fact that the vehicle is made for snow, I find myself fishtailing more often than not. And the damn snow keeps falling! I can barely see two feet in front of me and it’s freezing. I can’t believe just yesterday I thought the snow was beautiful.

I’ve been steadily chugging along the road through the blinding snow for what I estimate to be about a mile when the road comes to an abrupt fork. Because the snow flurries have gotten heavier, obscuring my vision, I don’t see it until I’m about to plow into a tree. Although I know better, pure instinct has me slamming on the brakes. The ATV skids several feet sideways and I scramble to turn into the slide but I’ve lost control of the vehicle. It hits something buried under the snow and comes to a complete halt, but physics prevail and I go flying over the handlebars.

I land in a thick drift of snow, which is kind of like landing on a soft, cold pillow. I lay still for a minute, trying to slow my heart rate, figure out what just happened, and determine if I’m still alive.

I hear the sound of a motor approaching and then Marcus’ voice. “Ariana! Ari! Are you okay?”

His gorgeous face appears above mine, his forehead creased with worry. “Don’t move,” he barks.

“I’m fine,” I insist. “The snow was soft.” I sit up to show him that I’m okay and brush some of the snow off my jacket. He starts carefully moving my legs. “Does this hurt?”

“No. I’m okay! I promise.” I look over at the ATV. “I hope I didn’t damage your ATV.”

“The hell with the ATV,” he growls. “It’s replaceable. You’re not.”

He scoops me up into his arms and he’s so warm and solid and safe that I can’t help but snuggle closer to him. He carries me over to his ATV and gently sets me onto the seat. “You okay to ride back? You need to get out of the cold.”

I nod. His obvious and genuine concern for me is starting to make me feel guilty. “I’m not hurt.”

He shoots me one more doubtful look and then climbs on behind me. His arms band around me as he grips the handlebars, his powerful thighs hugging mine as he starts the vehicle. I lean back against his solid chest. Marcus has always been able to effortlessly make me feel protected and taken care of.

He drives us slowly back up the mountain road, careful to stay in a track of packed snow that he must have made when he followed me. My tracks, although almost covered by new snow, look erratic in comparison. There’s clearly a method to driving in this kind of snow that I know nothing about.

Back at the cabin, he parks the ATV under the carport and bundles me back into his arms to carry me inside. It’s not until I’m standing in front of the fire that I realize how cold I really am. Marcus pulls off my hat and gloves and starts rubbing my hands briskly with his strong fingers to get my circulation going as I stand there shivering. But the worried look in his eyes is finally gone; I must have finally convinced him I’m not hurt.