Fiance by Friday (23 page)

“I want a campfire.” Cozy firelight and Neil? What could be better?

For a moment, she thought he’d veto her suggestion.

Then he added a bag of marshmallows to the cart.

In silence, they moved through the store. She added sweatshirts for both of them. His was triple extra large and hers a medium…both with a picture of the Colorado Rockies on them. Neil added a small pan and several cans of pull top food, soda, instant coffee, and water.

The clerk at the checkout chatted as he rang them up. “Looks like you guys are going camping?”

Gwen smiled, and remembered to stay silent.

“Looks that way,” Neil said.

“You have bug repellant?”

“We’re good.”

“We try and go a few times a summer.” The clerk looked beyond Neil to her. “Where you headed?”

Gwen noticed the muscles on the back of Neil’s neck tense. “We’ll figure it out when we get up there.”

“Those are the best trips.” The kid told them the total and bagged up their purchases.

“Have fun.”

Neil grabbed the bags. “We will.”

Gwen offered a smile and followed him out the door.

Once in the car she finally felt like she could talk. “Next time you go through the checkout without me. Who knew staying quiet could be so difficult? Not sure how you do it all the time.”

He opened the door for her. “Practice.”

As the road stretched out in front of them, so did the silence. And Gwen wanted a few answers.

“So how much longer are we going to go on like this?”

Neil narrowed his eyes. “Like what?”

“On the road…cheap hotels, and now I need to add camping. How many more days like this?”

“Not much longer.”

“That’s not an answer, Neil.”

“Three, maybe four days.”

That didn’t seem like that long of a time. “Then what?”

“I take you someplace safe.”

“Where will you be? Someplace unsafe?”

Gwen could see him shutting himself off from her. In an effort to bring back his smile, she placed her hand on his thigh. “Why don’t we both go to where it’s safe? Let the police handle whoever killed my neighbors. You do think they were murdered, don’t you?”

“I know they were.”

“How?”

Neil moved around a large semi truck having a hard time going up the steep grade into the Colorado Rockies.

“How, Neil?”

“I just know. You’ll have to trust me.”

“You think I don’t? I’d think after last night, you’d know just how much I trust you.” She kept her eyes on him even though his were on the road. “I’m not a child. I’ve gone along for the ride without too many questions at all. We can both agree to that, right?”

He nodded. Said nothing.

“How is it you know they were murdered and it wasn’t just an accident?”

Neil hesitated before he answered. “The ravens. My l-last mission in the service was code named Raven. The dead birds you found were meant to taunt me.”

“How does a dead bird next to my car taunt you?”

“Our guy’s a coward. He uses women to get to the men.”

“So when I didn’t tell you about the dead birds,
our guy
as you call him, made sure you knew he was causing the problems?” She didn’t want to think of a murderer as
our guy
.

“Exactly. He knew I’d take action.”

“How many people knew about your
Raven
mission?”

Neil stretched his neck as he drove. Gwen knew she was pulling this information from him, that it didn’t come freely. Now that she had him talking she wasn’t about to let up. It might be the only time she learned anything.

“Very few. It was a covert mission. We were an elite group.”

“How many men were in your company?”

“Seven.”

She rubbed her forehead and tried to see what Neil did. “Six men went on the mission with you. How many others knew you were there?”

“A dozen…maybe less. The bigger the secret, the less people know about it.”

“So it isn’t likely you can ask your government to step in and help.”

“The general rank and file of the government knows nothing about Raven. The secretary of defense, the president…one or two who answer directly to them, and that’s it.”

“Do you think one of the other six men are behind this?”

Neil glanced at her briefly for the first time in their conversation. A flash of pain met his eyes. “There are only three of us left.”

Gwen’s heart leapt. “Oh, Neil…I’m sorry.”

“It happened a long time ago.”

“That doesn’t make it easier. They were your friends.”

He nodded. “The best. Four of us made it out alive. One recently…died.”

“You don’t think that one of your friends did this…do you?”

Neil snorted. “That’s like asking if you think Blake is capable of killing you.”

“That’s preposterous.”

“Exactly.”

“I’ve read my share of novels,” Gwen said. “And it seems the hero is always trying to get into the head of the killer. What is motivating this guy? Why is he after you? Was there something about the mission you knew and the others didn’t?”

“I led the mission. But we all knew our goal.”

“Maybe someone is seeking revenge from the mission itself.” Part of her wanted to ask what the mission was, and then she remembered Neil’s restless night. Perhaps she was better off not knowing all the details.

Neil shook his head. “Raven was a person. And he’s dead.”

The conviction behind his words convinced her that he knew this fact because he’d seen it with his own eyes.

“Did Raven have a brother?”

Neil’s jaw tightened. “He might have.”

Yet her logic didn’t make much sense either. “Of course, if Raven had a brother, how could he know about the code name? I assume Raven wasn’t the man’s real name.”

“It wasn’t.”

“If someone is seeking revenge for Raven…and it’s not directed solely at you, then your remaining colleagues might be at risk, too. Perhaps you should call and warn them.”

He looked over and gave a brief smile.

“You’ve already done that.”

He smiled again.

Gwen relaxed in her seat and stared at the landscape as it thickened with trees with the climb up the mountain. No wonder Neil was so quiet. There was a lot of information to process. Lots of possibilities, but only a few probabilities.

If none of the men in his unit were the killer and Raven was dead, that left someone loyal to Raven, or someone in Neil’s own government who wanted him and possibly the others dead.

Gwen thought of what Neil had said about the recent death of one of the men. “Your friend who died…recently. What happened?”

“Officially a suicide.”

Not unheard of from retired military who lived through combat. “You don’t believe that.”

Neil shook his head.

That left all of this up to a government conspiracy or Raven loyalists…

Government conspiracy ranked in Gwen’s mind as impossible. If Neil mentioned a conspiracy chances were others would think he’d been in one too many gunfights. Post-traumatic stress had a way of making sane men paranoid.

There was no faking dead neighbors and birds left for her to find, however.

Yet in the back of Gwen’s mind, she thought of Karen’s phobia…and how originally they thought the dead birds were directed at her.

“I don’t know what to think, Sam.” Blake looked out over the city from the bay window of his West Coast office. “I trust him. I do.”

“You sound doubtful.”

“What if I’m wrong? What if something sprung loose inside of him and he’s chasing shadows? When we first met, he was less than stable. Granted, he’s done nothing since that made me question anything.” He hated that he doubted Neil now. “The war was hell for him.”

“Does he ever talk about it?”

“No. Only that first night, when we met. A bunch of his guys were blown to bits right in front of him. He blamed himself. That’s all I know.”

“That couldn’t have been easy.”

“No.”

“There’s one thing you can count on,” Sam said. “If he is chasing shadows, eventually he or Gwen will realize there’s no one there and they’ll come home.”

Blake ran a hand through his hair. “Not sure if that makes me feel better. I sure as hell don’t want to think there’s someone out there after them. And the thought of my sister falling for a guy chasing shadows…”

“Are you sure you’re just not worried about your sister falling for anyone? Even Neil?”

Blake moved away from the window to his desk. “Maybe when she was twenty. Now I’d love nothing better than for her to find someone.” A picture of Sam and Eddie sat on his desk and he pulled it closer.
I’m a lucky man.

“Someone stable.”

“Yeah.” Even on a normal day Blake wasn’t a thousand percent sure that man was Neil. He hated that he thought that way.

“Hmm. When will you hear from him again?”

“Dean said we’d hear something tomorrow. Then again in three days.”

“That’s a long time.”

“It’s forever. Dean said they’re keeping the electrocuted neighbors case open as a homicide. They have more questions for Gwen and Neil and they’re not happy they left.”

“They don’t suspect them, do they?”

“Jim and Dean don’t. Can’t say the same for their colleagues.”

“It keeps getting worse,” Sam said.

“It would help if we found the trace he talked about. Dillon hasn’t found anything.”

“Dillon doesn’t have Neil’s background in intelligence. Wasn’t he special ops or something like that?”

Once again, Blake was reminded of just how smart his wife was. “He was.”

“Hmm.” Samantha sighed. “Want my opinion?”

Blake found a smile on his lips. “I can’t believe I’ve escaped it.”

She laughed. “Remind me to slap you for that later.”

“Promises, promises.”

“I think,” she began, “that you need to give Neil the next four days. If you went looking for him now and led whoever might be out there to him you’d never forgive yourself. If there isn’t anyone out there, then I think that will be evident by day four. Neil would never hurt Gwen. And Gwen…well, we all know how she feels about Neil.”

“I sure as hell didn’t.”

“I tried pointing it out to you after Carter and Eliza hooked up. You, my Duke, just don’t listen.”

“I listen.” Maybe not as much as he did before he had a wife.

“Really?”

Sam took some of the daily burden of life off his shoulders. Even now, just talking to her helped calm him down like no one else could.

“I’m pregnant.”

One minute he was broken up about Gwen liking Neil and the next…
What?

“What did you say?”

Sam started laughing. “Wasn’t the stomach flu after all.”

Good thing he was sitting. “Pregnant? You sure?”

“Been there. Done that.”

They’d been less than careful. Tempting pregnancy more than really planning one. But Eddie was toddling and they both wanted more kids. “Oh, Sam. I love you.” He couldn’t stop smiling.

“I love you, too. I thought I’d wait to tell you when I saw you again…but we both know I’m not good at keeping the pregnancy thing to myself.”

“Want me to fly home?”

“Don’t be silly. And I’m not getting on a plane until my stomach settles. I’ll wait to say anything to Eddie until we’re together.”

Blake leaned back in his high back leather chair. “Eddie’s going to be a wonderful big brother.”

“If he’s anything like his dad.”

“I’m smiling…damn happy to know I’m going to be a dad again…and feeling guilty all at the same time.”

“Stop, Blake. If Gwen’s in any real danger there is no one better to protect her than Neil. If there isn’t anyone out there…then at least she and Neil can hammer out the sultry come-hither looks they’ve been sending each other for the last year.”

“I never saw any come-hither anything.” The thought of his sister as a sexual person made his skin crawl.

“You weren’t looking.”

“That’s a blessing.”

“Poor Blake. If Neil knocks her up I’ll have to remind you that he’s the weapons expert.”

“Doesn’t mean I won’t insist on a shotgun wedding.”

“Neil’s an honorable man. He’s not
that
guy.”

“He is if he’s knocking up my little sister.”

Samantha laughed so hard she could hardly talk. “Your
little
sister is older than me.”

Blake growled. “Can we talk about something else now?”

Sam kept laughing. “OK, how about morning sickness. Remember how much fun that was? And diapers. Oh, joy…the fun we get to have.”

Blake found his smile and kept it.

Chapter Twenty