Mac had long since paced a permanent track into the packed dirt outside the barn. He hadn’t wanted Kate to come back with him. He’d wanted to handle the delivery without her interference or questions. In fact, he’d been ready to insist she stay behind at the cabin. But the information he’d gotten from Finn had surprised him. He’d encountered a few roadblocks in his attempts to connect Timberline to Shelby or Stan or anyone else in Ralston. That there were any obstacles at all was a red flag in and of itself.
So he’d decided to keep her with him. Now the damn helicopter was late, and even with the sat phone, he was having a devil of a time getting a consistent signal out here. He couldn’t make contact with Finn to find out where the damn chopper was, and it took only a glance at the horizon and the rapid descent of the sun to tell him things were going to get a lot trickier if it didn’t show up soon. They’d specifically chosen a late landing, but this was cutting it close.
“Is there a problem?” Kate had noted him tapping on his PDA. Again.
He flipped the case shut and stuffed it in his pocket. “Other than my partner making me crazy, no.”
She leaned back against the barn, looking for all the world as if she stood around in the middle of nowhere waiting for helicopter deliveries all the time. “I know I keep saying this, but I still can’t believe the three of you are working together.” She smiled. “I think it’s kind of cool, actually. Poetic justice, of sorts.”
“You have no idea,” Mac muttered, looking at the sky once again.
“How do you like Virginia?”
He turned his attention back to her. She’d changed her clothes since this morning. Her hair was back in a ponytail, and her face was still free of makeup. She wore loose jeans and an old college sweatshirt. In deference to the chilly spring evening, she’d donned a canvas jacket that smelled surprisingly like musty stables. Nothing remotely sexy about any of it. And yet he had a hard time keeping his eyes off of her.
“I like it okay. Pretty, rural, peaceful. Can’t say the neighbors like us too much.” He smiled a little. “We don’t exactly fit in with the horse set.”
Kate laughed shortly. “Even Finn? He’s one of theirs.”
“He’s been a black sheep for way too long to be considered one of theirs. It was old news that he and his father didn’t see eye-to-eye. The locals weren’t too happy to hear he divested himself of all of his daddy’s companies either.”
“Do they know what kind of business you’re running out there?”
Mac shrugged. “We don’t exactly advertise. And we don’t exactly care what they think.”
“How do you choose who you help?”
“We just keep our ears and eyes open. You don’t have to look very far these days to find people who need a hand up.”
She regarded him silently for a few moments, and he expected she would have a lot more questions than he might have answers for, but instead, she surprised him by saying, “I guess it’s one of those situations where, if you advertised, people would come climbing out of the woodwork, hitting you up for God knows what.”
“Exactly. Our feeling is anyone we help is one less person in need than before. We can’t help them all, but some is better than none.” He glanced back at Kate. “You never did tell me how you got started working with kids, much less disabled kids.”
“My first roommate in college had cerebral palsy. Although, if you met her, it was hard to think of her as disabled. She was the most empowered woman I’d ever met. I was in awe of her.”
“Was?”
Kate nodded. “Marti passed away my senior year. She’d made it much farther than many facing the same challenge do, and she was really strong about it as the end neared. It was the rest of us who completely fell apart.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. I was, too. I had already decided I wanted to focus my studies on early childhood development.” She paused, then shrugged. “Not sure why, but it had always called to me. Maybe to help me understand the very abnormal one I had, who knows.” She waved her hand at him. “And don’t say it. I know I led a privileged life growing up, but I would have traded the money and private schools for regular parents who actually sat down to dinner with me more often than on holidays and special occasions.”
“I wasn’t going to say a word. We come at the situation from opposite sides of the tracks, but neither of us had the optimal childhood.”
“I’m not comparing my situation to yours. I know you suffered in a far more—”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to make excuses. It’s not a comparative thing in that way.”
She cocked her head and just looked at him.
“What?” he said, letting out a semi-self-conscious laugh. “I mean it.”
“I know you do. Thank you.” She smiled a little. “You have hidden depths, Donovan MacLeod.”
“Aw shucks, thanks, ma’am,” he said dryly.
“That wasn’t a veiled insult. It’s like you said, we don’t really know each other.” She pushed away from the barn wall. “I’m just saying that I’m liking what I’m finding out.”
Mac’s palms began to sweat as she took a step closer, her expression unreadable. He had no idea what her intentions were, and the sound of chopper blades cutting through the early evening air ended any chance he had of finding out. Probably just as well, he thought, wishing he believed it. Instead, he silently cursed the pilot. They were already behind schedule; another five minutes wouldn’t have killed him, would it?
But before he did something he’d probably regret, Kate mercifully turned her attention to the slowly descending whirly bird.
“Shield your eyes. It’s going to kick up dust,” he cautioned her, then went to the back of the truck for the dolly they’d brought with them from the camp. When he turned back, it was with more than a little surprise that he noticed the shiny black helicopter presently putting its props down in the middle of the field wasn’t Trinity’s.
He immediately ran back to the barn, took Kate’s arm, and tugged her inside the barn. “Stay here!”
Keeping the back of his shoulder against the edge of the barn door, he palmed his clutch piece from his ankle strap.
“Why do I—what the hell is that? Why do you have a gun?”
He waved her silent. “Stay back in the shadows and don’t so much as blink unless I call for you.”
“What’s wrong?” she demanded. “At least tell me that much.”
“That’s not our chopper.”
“But—how could it be anyone else’s? Who else would show up out of the blue like—”
Mac didn’t hear whatever came next. He’d just spied the very blond, very shaggy head of the pilot and was swearing quite colorfully as he stepped out of the barn.
Blue eyes widened as the pilot noted the gun. “Fine greeting.”
Mac tucked his piece back in the bootstrap. “I should shoot you right between the eyes.” He motioned to the bird. “That’s the new toy? You work fast.”
“I tried to tell you about it, but you hung up on me.” Finn shrugged, looking far more Peter Pan than the legal eagle he’d once been. “Sorry I’m a little late, but I wanted to give her a spin before I decided on whether to invest, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I couldn’t radio ahead. I was sort of tied up on something else.”
Mac didn’t bother asking what. Or who. Between the three of them, they each pretty much always had something going on. Unless they needed to pair up, they didn’t waste a lot of time explaining things. “Rafe get things rounded up in the city?”
Finn nodded. “Nailed down Frank this morning, recovered Fortenberry’s ashes from our black market collector a few hours ago.” He grinned. “Another satisfied customer and a collector who won’t be…collecting anything else for a little while.” He rubbed his hands together. “On to new adventures.”
Mac had to smile. For all Finn liked to play, the way he viewed it, the work they did was play of sorts. Everything he did was about Trinity and helping people out. Right down to his choice of toys. “New case lined up?”
Finn nodded. “I think I just took one on that might be a real test of my ability to—” He broke off and looked over Mac’s shoulder. “Well, I’ll be damned. She’s even more beautiful than I remember. And reality beats the hell out of anything I dug up on the Internet.” He grinned at Mac. “No nudie pics, nothing. I did my best.”
“I just bet you did.” Mac turned as Kate walked up. “So much for staying in the barn until I called. You know, when I tell you—”
“What to do, I have to listen,” she finished for him. “And I will, when the situation warrants. But I do have two eyes.” She turned a bright smile on Finn. “And though it’s been a very long time, even I recognized this guy.” She extended her hand. “It’s great to see you again, Finn.”
“That goes double for me.” He took her hand in both of his and raised the back to his lips where he pressed a quick kiss, earning a glare from Mac, and a surprisingly girlish giggle from Kate.
Mac cleared his throat. “You get everything on the list? And that report on—”
Finn smacked Mac on the shoulder, never taking his eyes from Kate. “Always business with this guy,” he said to her.
“Me?” Mac said. “Me? Whose idea was the new toy as yet another business investment?”
Finn just grinned. “But it’s pretty sweet, even you have to admit. You’re just jealous because you never learned to fly the damn things with me and Rafe.”
“They aren’t safe,” Mac grumbled, not making eye contact with a suddenly very interested Kate.
“Not real fond of heights, our boy here,” Finn explained. “Almost puked the first time I took him up.”
“That was more a commentary on your flight skills than the mode of transportation.” Or the fact that he’d been pretty damn sure he was going to get tossed out the open door every other second. Sans parachute. “You’re a menace on the roads and in the sky.”
Finn was unapologetic. “I like fast things.” He grinned at Kate.
And Mac had to fight to keep from reacting. Finn was clearly baiting him, but Kate didn’t know that. She certainly didn’t need to know it was working. “Listen, Speed Racer, did you bring my stash of goodies or what?”
“When do I not deliver as promised?” He was still looking at Kate, who—was she blushing?
“Well, when I asked for a full report on Timberline and their Ralston connection, you came up empty-handed.”
Finn reached inside his flight jacket and pulled out a manila envelope, smacked it against Mac’s chest, then stepped forward, effectively putting himself between Mac and Kate. “So, tell me, how has life been treating you, Kate?”
Mac scowled, but managed to stay put as Finn and Kate wandered off toward the barn. “I hate it when he does that,” he muttered, then flipped open the envelope. If Kate’s head was turned by pretty, blond flyboys, then she could have him. Of course, Finn Dalton was a hell of a lot more than a pretty flyboy. And Kate knew it. “Damn it to hell.” He purposely turned his back on the two of them and slid out the envelope’s contents. The rapidly fading light made it hard to read the fine print of the report, and, given the heft of it, it was probably better to hold off and read it when he could process the information.
At the moment, he was more interested in hitting something. Preferably his partner’s too pretty face.
Which, of course, was ridiculous. He loved Finn like a brother, and they all three knew better than to let the occasional—okay, maybe more than occasional where Rafe was concerned—woman come between them. But this was Kate. And Finn had to know how confused and roiled up he was about all this. He glanced back without meaning to. Their heads were bent close, and he could hear Kate’s laughter float through the chilly evening air.
He watched Finn’s body language. He was engaging her, but he was keeping just enough distance between them to keep it impersonal. The three of them rode each other pretty hard whenever possible, and boundaries got pushed all the time, but when it came down to it, they’d never purposely do anything to get in the way of the other. So, more than likely, Finn was just distracting her a little from the tension and gravity of the situation she was in, while giving Mac a chance to look over the report without her looking over his shoulder.
Still, he didn’t have to look like he was having so much damn fun doing it.
Mac slid the report back out, but it took a second longer before he looked away from the two of them. It shouldn’t bug him. Not just because Finn was relatively harmless in this particular case, but because…Mac had no business feeling anything remotely close to the proprietary feelings he was experiencing at the moment. He forced his attention back to the papers in his hand and began reading the lengthy report.
His scowl deepened as he slowly flipped through the papers. Finn had come through after all. He finally slid the papers back in the envelope, folded it in half and jammed it inside his jacket, then grabbed the hand truck. He already knew he was going to need more than the basic surveillance equipment he’d asked for. They still had no definitive proof—yet—but the prickling warning along the back of his neck was enough proof for Mac.
He flipped open the cargo box behind the pilot’s seat and grinned. Finn was one step ahead of him. He quickly went through the gear and made a few mental notes on other things he needed to track down, but for the most part, Finn had anticipated his needs. Mac would have to let him live now, he supposed. He tossed a glance back in their direction. As long as he kept his paws off Kate, anyway.
Satisfied for now, he closed the lid and latched it, then dragged the trunk out and onto the dolly. After that came several long, black canvas duffel bags, which he deposited on the ground, along with two generators. They looked rather small, but he knew they were powerful enough to get the job done. Last, but not least, a small cooler. Mac popped the top and grinned. “All is forgiven,” he said, resisting the urge to grab a cold one. Later. He glanced back at Kate, who wasn’t smiling anymore, and sighed.
Much later.
Finn and Kate walked over to help stow the gear in the back of Kate’s pickup.
“Let me know what else you need, okay?” Finn said, clapping a hand on Mac’s shoulder. “Call it in and I’ll get someone to leave it in your mailbox there,” he said, nodding toward the barn. “Looks like I’ll be heading out in the next day or two.”
“Maybe it’s time to get some extra help in the front office.”
“I know, I know. We keep saying that, but it’s not like we can just put anyone—” Finn glanced at Kate, who wasn’t pretending not to listen, and cut himself off with a quick smile. “Always shoptalk with us, huh? We really need to get a life.”
Finn gave a pointed glance toward Kate, then back to Mac. Mac ignored it. Or pretended to. “What’s not to love about the one we have?”
“True, true. Okay, I gotta roll. Keep Winnimocca safe,” he instructed Mac. “And keep him out of trouble, will ya?” he said to Kate. “Tall order, I know, but somehow I think if anyone can pull it off, you can.”
Kate just laughed.
“Go enjoy your new toy,” Mac told him, shooing him off. “Tell Rafe I said congratulations and sorry I couldn’t be there to help with the roundup. I’d have enjoyed having another…conversation with Mr. DiMateo.”
“Oh, I think they talked it all out,” Finn said with a gleam in his eye. “At length.”
Mac smiled then. “Good to hear. Stay safe and keep that thing in one piece,” he added, nodding to the helicopter. “Gotta protect our…assets.”
“Your concern for my well-being is touching,” he said dryly. “You do the same.”
“Always.”
Both Mac and Kate bent low and backed up as Finn started the powerful blades spinning. Less than a minute later, he was slowly hovering upward, then swiftly dipped to the right and took off into the encroaching night like a sleek, black bat out of hell.
“Must be nice,” Kate remarked calmly.
“Hey, you could have had a raft of them if you’d kept Louisa’s money.”
She smiled sweetly at him. “I’d rather have a run-down camp and yards of mosquito netting, thanks.”
Mac thought about the reports in his jacket, and the dimming smile on her face earlier. “Did Finn talk to you about what he dug up?”
Surprisingly, she shook her head. “I asked, but he said it was better for the two of us to go over everything, that he gave it all to you.”
“He did.”
“Have you read it?”
“Skimmed. What were you two talking about, then?” He realized as soon as the question was out how it sounded, but he didn’t care enough to correct the impression. Mostly because it was pretty much right on target. What was it about her, anyway?
Her mouth curved in a hint of a smile, but she didn’t rib him. “About how he’s been, about Rafe. How the three of you got started in the saving-the-world business.”
“And?” He doubted she’d been frowning earlier because of anything Finn had to say about Trinity. Not only because their business was going quite well, but Finn could charm the wings off a fly without even trying.
She tilted her head slightly, as if to question what he meant, but answered him instead of playing dumb. He really liked that about her. “He asked after Louisa, and about the camp. Told me to listen to my instincts.” Her expression tightened a bit, as if she were internally bracing herself. “It’s Shelby, isn’t it? I mean, that’s what my gut is telling me. He’s somehow behind or involved in…whatever the hell is going on. Do you know what’s going on? Exactly, I mean.”
“He dug up some interesting info, but it’s still at the connect-the-dots stage, and we need more dots to get the whole pattern nailed down. But more information is power, so we’re heading in the right direction.” He motioned for her to get in the truck.
She started to, then stopped. “Wait.”
“What?”
She looked back to the barn. “What was all the measuring of the interior of the barn before? I thought you were having some kind of massive shipment of stuff or something.” She motioned to the contents in the back of her truck. “Hardly worth barn storage.”
“No. But you never know when you might need to hide a helicopter.”
“Oh, well—oh.” She paused. “Do we…need to hide a helicopter? Yet?”
He shook his head. “Not yet.” He slapped the top of the truck. “Come on, get in. It’s getting late, and we have a lot to talk about. I’ll drive.”
Not only didn’t she argue, but she remained uncharacteristically silent until they’d driven back through Ralston and were well into the mountains on their way back to the camp. He could have launched into the information Finn had brought, but, to be honest, he was in no hurry to put that look of fear and worry on her face again.
Not that she looked particularly happy or relaxed at the moment. His attention kept sliding over to her as he switched on his high beams and began the climb up yet another mountain. Though only dimly lit by the dashboard lighting, he could still see how she was twisting her fingers, yet otherwise sitting perfectly still. Too still, like someone deeply lost in their thoughts.
He wondered what she was thinking about. Shelby, most likely. But he’d be lying if he didn’t admit to also wondering if he was plaguing her thoughts like she was his. Thoughts that had nothing to do with Winnimocca and everything to do with her little comment about rules made in haste. His mind spun back to that moment at the barn, just before Finn flew in, when she’d made that comment about liking what she was learning about him. On someone else it might have been flirty and provocative, but she’d said it rather straight forwardly, more as a measure of respect.
Which had done nothing to explain why his entire body had begun to tighten when she’d taken that single step forward. Probably it had meant nothing, and she’d just been about to pace back and forth.
And yet he couldn’t get his mind to let it alone. That moment when he’d looked into her eyes and wondered if she was as affected by their forced togetherness as he was. And he wasn’t sure he’d be so chivalrous and self-controlled the next time. If there was a next time. He pictured Finn’s smiling face as he’d chatted Kate up, and her responding giggle. And knew damn well he wanted there to be a next time, and was doubly glad Finn was going to be many miles away when it happened.
“You can tell me,” she said suddenly. “I have to know the truth.”
Still thinking about the two of them, back in her cabin tonight, while he tried to give her the full report and not think about her bed in the next room…he wanted to tell her he didn’t have a clue what the truth was at the moment. Other than he wanted her.
“We’re almost back. Let’s go over all of it then.”
“Shelby’s involved.” She made it a statement, not a question. “Just tell me that much. You didn’t exactly answer me before.”
He didn’t pull any punches with her. “There has been rumored contact between him and Timberline, but nothing we can substantiate yet. Meaning no paper trail to prove it.”
“And?”
He turned the truck into the private drive leading up to the campgrounds. “And, I think we should go scrounge up something to eat, then go over the rest of Finn’s report in detail.”
She surprised him by flashing a brief dry smile. “Because after what I hear, I’m not likely to have an appetite?”
No, he thought, because if I stuff myself with food, maybe it will kill the craving I’m developing for you. “One step at a time.”
She looked as if she were going to debate the issue, or push him for more, but instead, settled more deeply into her seat and shifted her gaze out the window. “You know,” she said, her tone pensive, “I tried to keep myself from caring too much. About whether or not I got to use this property.”
“Why did you?” he asked. “I thought you only wanted it because it might be available at the right price.”
She half shrugged. “It was my only shot, financially. And, the more I thought about the property itself, the more perfect I knew it would be. Part of our program focuses on working with animals and kids together, horses mostly, as well as water therapy. Winnimocca has the stables, the lake. And I know my family wasn’t the best, or even much of a family, really, but this property is ours and has been for a long time. That might not have meant anything before, but maybe it will now.”
She sat up a little straighter, warming to her topic, despite the fear and concern. “When I came up with the idea for the camp…well, to be fair, it was Marti’s idea way back when, but for her it was a pipe dream. For me, once that seed was planted, I could hardly think of anything else. It was because of Marti that I’d gotten involved in studying alternative therapies for kids with disabilities who didn’t always respond to conventional methods. The property was here, it was in the family, it wasn’t being used…and it was perfect for what we needed.”
“Pretty remote location.”
She smiled. “Camps aren’t supposed to be centered in thriving metropolises.”
“I know, but in the case of your campers’ limitations, wouldn’t it be easier if—”
“If they had easier access? Trust me, they’ve conquered bigger challenges. But the remoteness serves several purposes. Not only does it give the kids the experience of being away from home and the enjoyment of a traditional camplike setting, but they oftentimes need the peace and quiet in order to maintain. Lots of noise, traffic, the intensity of hustle and bustle would overwhelm them. I wanted a place where the stimulation, when it came, was controlled. Constructive rather than destructive.”
“So they all stay alone here? No parents?”
She shook her head. “No, parents often stay in situations like this. Depends on the child, the challenges, the camp’s directives. It’ll be on a case by case basis, but the programs are designed to help both.”
He glanced at her before turning up the final stretch of the drive. There was a vibrancy about her now, as she spoke of her dream, her passion, that he hadn’t seen in her since his arrival. It gave more than color to her cheeks; it lit her from within. And she’d been pretty powerful stuff before.
He drove past the other cabins, turning right at the fork, away from the lane leading down to the service entrance, without even flashing to his own past and the multitude of memories just seeing that posted sign would normally evoke. He was too immersed in the present to do much more than notice it.
“You’re obviously not going to run this program alone. Do you have the staff set up?”
“I’ve got a few solid confirmations. Once actual progress is being made on renovations, I’ll have a little more leverage with a few other teachers I’d like to hire. I have most of it outlined, the people, the programs, the animals we’ll need, the scheduling. It’s something I’ve been working toward for a very long time, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have the help of my former department head at the university as well. I couldn’t have gotten this far without Marti pushing me initially, or my chair’s support at the end run.”
He started to ask her one of the other two dozen questions on the tip of his tongue. Her enthusiasm for the subject was contagious, and he found himself sincerely interested in hearing more about the program, in ways that had nothing to do with the case at hand. Instead, he pulled into the space in front of her cabin and killed the engine. “Sounds like you have it all thought out.” He popped open his door and climbed out, needing to get away from her, just for a moment, to break the spell, regroup. But instead, he stopped, turned. “I guess I should have asked sooner, but did we need to stop in town for dinner fixings?”
She climbed out and shook her hair free of the ponytail that had been threatening to fall apart all evening. It was done artlessly, with no apparent awareness of how damn sexy the action was. “Nah, I can throw together something,” she said, massaging her scalp and groaning a little.
A sentiment he could easily second at the moment. “I don’t mind helping.” With dinner, untangling all that hair of yours…
She grinned. “Good, then you can bring the beer.”
“How did you—” He flashed on Finn, heads bent close, her laughter. “Right. Glad to share.” And he was. In fact, he was quite willing to share a hell of a lot more than his beer with her. He tugged the cooler out of the back of the truck, but left the rest of the equipment there.
“Should we stow that somewhere?”
“I’ll get it later. I’m going to stow it in my cabin anyway. There is some assembly required,” he added with a smile. He noticed her instinctive glance…and it wasn’t in the direction of the unoccupied cabins down the hill. She’d instinctively glanced at her own. His body revved up quite nicely to that unconscious suggestion. He fought to quell the reaction. They had a long night ahead of them. And at some point, he had to get back on task. The case had to come first.
Whether or not either of them were going to come later remained to be seen.
He sighed a little as he hefted the cooler and hiked the steps up to her front porch. And to think he’d once loved this job.
At the moment, he was thinking there might actually be a point to having a life outside of work. Novel concept for a guy like him.
She held the door open for him, and he had to angle himself carefully to keep from brushing up against her, but was trapped as Bagel plastered himself all around his ankles with loving adoration. Cruel, really. Worse was the whiff of her fragrance. And the killer was that it wasn’t some fancy perfume. It was the fresh scent of soap and shampoo. Who’d have thought the wafting scent of citrus could give a guy a raging hard-on?
He was so in trouble here.
“Why don’t you review the report in full while I cook something up?” She smiled as she stepped into the cabin behind him, then squatted down to rub Bagel’s quivering belly. “We can eat while I badger you with a million questions and generally make you crazy.”
You have no idea, he thought. No idea at all.