Fiance by Friday (24 page)

The air was a lot cooler in the mountains than it was on the desert floor of Nevada and Utah. Neil kept an eye on the clouds. The last thing they needed was bad weather. The tent was dime store quality and meant for perfect weather conditions and not for a deluge of rain. He’d watched the weather report at the hotel, but that was several hundred miles away, and the mountains were known to have their own weather patterns.

Gwen had fallen silent after he’d revealed some of his past. He was surprised at how often she thought logically and came to some of the same conclusions he did.

He’d thought briefly about Raven having a brother…that or terrorist scum like he had been was gunning after them. Neil dismissed the idea almost immediately. Terrorists were great at taking out big targets and creating mass panic. One-on-one wasn’t their style. Not enough airplay on the global platform for their taste.

As for Rick or Mickey holding a grudge…Mickey was out of reach. Probably deep inside again and halfway across the globe. Rick was the one who came to him. Weren’t they both working to find the one responsible for Billy’s death?

Neil knew there was the slight possibility that Rick or Mickey could harbor an issue with him. Billy didn’t take the shot and Neil
knew he didn’t make the call. Both outcomes might make Billy or himself a target with the other guys.

Neil wanted to think longer, work through every possible angle before he gave his cards to anyone. Even Rick.

Neil told himself he hadn’t called Rick the minute his plans changed because he needed to work things out alone. Neil worked solo now. No one else was on his team to depend on. No one else to get killed.

His eyes traveled beyond the spot Gwen had disappeared behind to find some privacy in the woods.

“You’re not solo, Mac,” he told himself. There was someone he cared about depending on him. In harm’s way because of him.
I’m not solo at all.
Only this time when the mission was completed they would both walk away.

He kicked away a few rocks that would make it difficult to relax inside the tent before returning to the car to gather their things. A couple of nights camping in the middle of nowhere with Gwen. Could be worse. He thought of her the night before. He’d fantasized about her more times than he could count. Never did he picture her as responsive as she’d been. He’d made love to his share of women, some he quickly forgot, which probably made him all kinds of a bastard. There were a few he remembered with fondness. But none had left him feeling empty inside when they were gone.

Gwen would change that. He knew that from the beginning. His emotions were involved before he ever touched her. That made his mission even more dangerous. The one after them knew it and would exploit it.

The best thing for Neil to do was grasp the situation with both hands, solidify it, and deal. Once Gwen sat in the ivory tower, he could nail the mother shut and move on.

A twig behind him snapped. His body tensed.

“Setting up the tent?”

Neil sighed. Dropped his hand that reached for his weapon on impulse. He’d pulled a gun on Gwen once. Damn if he’d let it happen again. There was no one out there except them and the deer. “Yeah.”

He emptied the contents of the bag onto the ground and lined up the poles for the tent.

“It’s beautiful up here. Have you been before?”

“Been a few years, but yeah.”

“It’s so quiet. Even more than the desert.”

Neil pulled the deep scent of the pines into his nose. “The highway noise travels for miles in the desert. Up here, the forest muddles the sound.” He closed his eyes and listened. He moved his face away from the sun. “Listen.”

He opened his eyes to find Gwen looking at him with a smile. He walked to her and turned her toward the east. “Close your eyes.”

“What is it?”

“Shhh.” He rested his hands on her shoulders and leaned down to her ear. “Take a few slow deep breaths and just listen.”

Gwen followed his instructions and he joined her in silence. When he closed his eyes, the world of sound opened like a flood.

“Now…what do you hear?”

“Birds. Maybe a chipmunk chirping.”

He heard those too. “What else?” He watched her now, the smile on her face as she listened to the sounds of the forest.

“The wind in the top of the trees…and something else.” She opened her eyes and pointed east. “Over there.”

“A stream if it’s close, a river if it’s farther away.”

“How lovely. We should find it.”

He rubbed the coolness from her arms. “Tomorrow. We need to set up camp before dark.”

“All right.”

“But first. Close your eyes again and tell me what you don’t hear.”

Her eyes drifted close again. Neil glanced at the ground at his feet and saw a twig.

“No cars. No distant horns or sounds of people other than us. No air traffic. Nothing mechanical.”

Neil lifted his foot over the branch and waited. “Anything else?”

She hesitated and started to shake her head.

Neil snapped the twig and she jumped.

“What was that?”

She watched him now, hand to her chest.

“Just a branch. But you heard it because you removed one of your senses. Listen to how I walk, memorize it. And if anyone else approaches you, you’ll know it before you see them.”

Gwen turned and circled his waist with her arms. “No one would dare get close to me with you around, Neil.”

“You can never be too careful out here.”

She grinned, lifted on her tiptoes and kissed him briefly, and settled back to her feet. “I’ll practice. Now, why don’t you set up the tent while I find some firewood?”

He kept an eye on her as she foraged about, gathering wood. It didn’t take him long to construct the tent and set up their sleeping gear.

“I’ve never camped,” Gwen said from several yards away. “Not once. The closest I came was when I was twelve. I had a friend spend the night and we ended up sleeping on the lounge chairs on the patio outside my room at Albany.”

He smirked. “Doesn’t count.”

“I suppose that’s true.” She dumped a few larger logs into her pile and moved away to gather more branches. “There are a few cabins on the property back home. I used to escape to them when I needed time to myself. My mother always wanted people around. There were guests at Albany continually when my father was alive and I often sought refuge in the cabins.”

“Did you get along with your father?” He knew Blake didn’t.

“He discounted me because of my gender. I was someone my mother needed to deal with. Not him. When Blake decided to find his own path, I mistakenly thought my father would notice that I was more than an ornament to be introduced to his friends and then set aside. Naive of me. He was an awful husband and father. If he were born a hundred and fifty years ago, he could have fit in quite well.”

“Sounds like a hard man to live with.”

She placed more wood on her pile and sat on a fallen log. “He was. I probably shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

Leave it to Gwen to worry about a spirit’s feelings. “I won’t tell.” He took a log and carved into the soft earth to make a small pit for their fire.

“What about your parents? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about them.”

Neil hadn’t thought about his parents in a long time and it had been even longer since he spoke of them. “Mom ran off when I was a kid. My dad raised me. He was a marine. Served for twenty plus years before he died.”

“When did he pass?”

“Seven years now. Lung cancer. He chain smoked himself to death.”

“How awful.”

Neil shrugged. “It could have been worse. Once he was diagnosed, he went quick. Count your blessings and all that.”

Gwen smiled and leaned her chin on her folded hands. “What was he like?”

“He was one of the good guys. Dad didn’t have a lot to say most of the time. I knew he cared for me. He had a good group of friends whose wives helped out with me when I was younger. We moved around a lot in the beginning. Settled here in Colorado when he was close to retiring.” Poor bastard didn’t even have a chance to enjoy his retirement. Neil gathered the smaller pieces of wood,
discarding the branches he knew would cause an excessive amount of smoke, and piled them to start the fire.

“He must be the reason you joined the military.”

“It’s the only life I knew. Worked for him. I never thought of being something other than a marine.”

“I’ll bet he was proud of you.”

Neil remembered the photo of him in full uniform. It sat on his dad’s fireplace mantel. “Yeah. He was.” He sparked a match over dry moss and urged the brush to ignite.

Gwen sighed. “He never remarried?”

“Dated a little. But none stuck.” Little by little, the branches caught and Neil piled more on.

By the time the sun was low on the horizon, the fire was large enough to warm them and the food they planned on eating.

They’d pulled on their sweatshirts and sat next to the fire roasting marshmallows after they shared a meal. Gwen did the roasting and leaned against him. She asked questions about life in the military and skimmed over his MIA mother. Now there was a person Neil didn’t bother thinking about. He never knew her outside what his father had told him growing up. According to his dad, they were too young to marry and she wasn’t ready for kids and a life of moving around. Neil was sure there was more to it, but his father didn’t go on about her, therefore Neil didn’t ask.

“I never would have thought I’d be here, like this, with you,” Gwen said as she swirled the stick over the fire.

“It wasn’t planned.”

“I can’t say I’m happy about how we got here, but it’s not possible for me to hate it.”

She leaned her back against his chest and he traced her arm with the tips of his fingers.

He hoped she felt that way later…when the new Raven was gone.

Gwen peeled off another marshmallow, twisted toward him, and fed it to him. He opened his mouth and accepted the treat. Her seductive smile grew bigger when he licked her fingers.

“I’m beginning to believe that you’re like these roasted bits of sugar. A little hard and burned on the outside and all soft and gooey on the inside.”

He finished chewing and grinned. He wasn’t sure he had a gooey inside. But it if made Gwen look at him with such trust, he’d let her believe it.

“You’re the one made of pure sugar, Gwen.”

She relaxed against him once again, this time dropping the stick. “Would you like to know a secret?” When she dropped her head against his chest, he indulged in a sniff of her hair.

“What secret?”

She laced her fingers with his as she spoke. “I always wanted to be a bad girl. You know, the kind who wears leather and drinks whiskey straight from the bottle.”

He couldn’t picture it. “Back of a motorcycle with a tattoo of some guy’s name on your arm?”

“Not sure about the name, but perhaps something. Maybe a belly button piercing.”

Now that he could picture, and the image made him hard. “We can have you pierced in Colorado Springs.”

She giggled. He loved her laugh. “I’d chicken out.”

“I can get you drunk and you’d wake up with it.”

She laughed harder. “Count on you to find the idea appealing.”

“You started it. Belly button piercings are hot.” And when was the last time he’d told a woman anything like this? Never.

“What of you, Neil? Any secrets?”

“You’ve seen my ink.”

“Yes, I have. And I’ll say it is very hot, indeed.” Her accent made it all so clean and proper. “Anything else you didn’t have the nerve to do?”

He squeezed her hand in his and waited for her to look up at him. When she did he leaned down and placed his lips on hers. He twisted her across his lap and continued their kiss. Her taste exploded on his tongue and heated him thoroughly. When he pulled away, her hooded gaze found his.

“I’ve always wanted you,” he confessed.

“You had to know I wanted the same. What stopped you?”

He pushed away a lock of hair from her eyes. “I’m hard inside and out, Gwen. And you’re a princess who deserves a prince.” Not someone like him. Someone who couldn’t sleep at night because his past wouldn’t let him.

She cupped his face in the palm of her hand and her smile dropped. “The princess wants the knight and not the prince. She wants someone who knows what he wants and takes risks to get it.”

“There are no guarantees with me. I’m a risky gamble.”

She kissed him briefly. “I’ve already rolled the dice, Neil. You can’t talk me out of you.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” He knew he was.

She nodded. “Besides, if I wanted guaranteed boredom I would have dated someone in my father’s polo club.”

“Motorcycles versus ponies?”

“You do drive one, right?”

Not in years but he wasn’t about to ruin her fantasy. “At least now I know where you got the leather fetish.”

“Oh, no. That stems from all the adult films I’ve watched.”

“Not a proper princess after all,” he said laughing.

“Certainly not.” Her hand ran down his chest and moved between his legs. “Would you like to see how improper I can be?”

His smile fell and desire shot through him. “Tent. Now.”

She scrambled off his lap and he kicked dirt on their fire before joining her to light hers.

Chapter Twenty-One