The Rogue Hunter (24 page)

Sam was nearly to the cottage when her phone began to ring. She glanced at the readout, scowling when she saw that it was Mr. Babcock, but didn't answer. She had an emergency situation here and he would just have to wait. It wasn't like she had any news for him anyway. While she'd taken the time to call the O.P.P. station again before they'd set out for their ride, Sam hadn't been able to get ahold of Belmont. The man seemed to be avoiding her. Much as Mortimer was now, she thought grimly as she entered the cottage and saw that the bathroom door was closed.

"Mortimer?" she called, hurrying to the bathroom door. "You have to let me see. We might have to take you to the hospital."

When she got no answer, Sam cautiously opened the door, afraid he'd passed out and lay in a huddled mass on the floor of the tiny room beyond. Instead, she found it empty. Frowning, she pulled it closed again and turned to the hall.

"Mortimer?" Sam stopped at his door and tried to open it, surprised when she found it locked. She hadn't realized there even
were
locks on the doors. Concern creasing her forehead, she called, "Mortimer, open the door."

A moment of silence passed and then he answered, "I'm fine, Sam. I just nicked my forehead on a rock. I'm just drying off and changing and then I'll come out."

Sam stared at the door with disbelief. She'd seen him plummet into the water. And she'd seen the blood when he'd climbed back on his machine. He'd more than nicked it.

"Mortimer—" she began grimly.

"How about we head into town for lunch?" he suggested, and then added in teasing tones, "We can stop at the O.P.P. station afterward so you can beat up Belmont for taking so long to return your calls. I'll help."

Sam stared at the wooden surface of the door with bewilderment. His voice really did sound perfectly fine.

"Why don't you go change so we can go into town for lunch?" he added. "I'll be out in a minute. I promise I'm all right."

Sam let her breath out on a sigh. Maybe he really hadn't been as hurt as she'd first thought. Still, she asked, "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'd open the door and show you, but I'm naked at the moment and can't be responsible for what happens if I do."

Sam's eyes widened incredulously at the threat, but she found herself backing away from the door. If he was healthy enough to say something like that, he was probably all right. Then she cursed as her phone began to ring again.

"I'm going to take this and then get dressed. But shout if you start feeling woozy or anything," she ordered, and then moved into her room to answer her phone.

It was Mr. Babcock, calling during the court lunch break to check on things. Sam explained that there was no news yet and promised to call Mr. Babcock back as soon as there was any, then tried to rush him off the phone so that she could change and check on Mortimer again. If he wasn't out of his room by the time she'd changed, Sam thought, she might very well try to jimmy the lock or something to get in to see for herself that he was all right.

Unfortunately, Mr. Babcock insisted on updating her on the status of the Latimers' flight, which was that they were still grounded at the airport. He then felt it necessary to fill her in on what was happening in court since she'd been involved with research and interviews on the case. He must have spent his entire lunch break talking to her because it was more than half an hour before she could get him off the phone. Any other time, Sam would have been jubilant. It probably meant good things for her career that he was bothering to talk to her, but at that moment, she didn't much care about anything but seeing that Mortimer was all right.

Hanging up with relief, Sam tossed the phone on the bed and quickly dragged off her life jacket and swim-suit, and then pulled on clothes. When she rushed out into the hall, however, it was only to find Mortimer's door open and his room empty.

Frowning, Sam moved out into the kitchenette/living area, but he wasn't there either, so she hurried out of the cottage. The first place she looked was the SUV. When he wasn't there, Sam followed her instincts down to the boathouse and rushed in to find Mortimer on his knees on the walkway, leaning down to peer at the bottom of the front of the Sea-Doo.

Breath leaving her on a relieved whoosh, Sam hurried to his side. "What are you doing?"

"Just checking to be sure I didn't damage the Sea-Doo. Much to my amazement it appears I didn't," Mortimer added, his head remaining down.

Sam shifted impatiently beside him, eager to see his head.

"Are you ready to go to lunch?" he asked, finally straightening, and she immediately moved closer, eyes narrowing as she noted that there was no injury on his forehead.

"It's about here," he said dryly, pointing to a spot an inch or so beyond his hairline.

"Let me take a look at it," Sam said, stepping forward and reaching for his head, but Mortimer caught her hands in his as he got to his feet.

"I'm fine," he insisted firmly. "I don't even have a headache. I must have just grazed my head in passing as I fell."

Sam really wanted to see the wound for herself, but she could see that he appeared fine. He had good color and his eyes were clear. Sighing, she gave in with a nod.

It seemed obvious he was one of those men who couldn't abide fussing. Letting her hands drop to her sides when he released them, she said apologetically, "I'm really sorry. I should have warned you about the buoys and what they're for."

"There's nothing to be sorry for," Mortimer assured her, urging her out of the boathouse. "I had some idea that the buoys must warn about something being there, but I thought it would be a fishing net and the Sea-Doo would skim over it. It didn't occur to me that it might be something else and not safe until just before I hit it. That's why I slowed down. My original intention was just to glance down as I rode over it."

Sam grimaced, still blaming herself.

"How the hell did a huge boulder get out there anyway?" he asked as they started up the trail toward the cottage.

Sam shrugged. "All these lakes were carved out when the glaciers passed through. I guess some of them left little bits of rock uncarved."

"Hmm," Mortimer muttered, and then fell silent.

They stopped long enough in the cottage for Sam to retrieve her purse, but then headed straight out to the SUV.

Minden was a small town, but they found a little bistro on the river. It was busy, and they had to make do with a table inside instead of enjoying being outside on the terrace. Mortimer didn't say anything, but was secretly relieved.

"How are you feeling?" Sam suddenly asked, drawing his attention to the fact that she was eyeing him with concern.

Mortimer grimaced and rolled his eyes. "I told you I'm fine. I don't even have a headache from the—"

"I didn't mean that," she interrupted, and then explained, "You looked a bit relieved rather than disappointed that we couldn't sit outside, and I just recalled that Bricker said you have a sensitivity to the sun. We've been outside most of the day so far and—"

"Oh, that," Mortimer waved her concern away. "It was shady under the trees while we were searching the woods."

"It wasn't shady on the lake though," she pointed out.

No, it certainly hadn't been shady on the lake, he acknowledged to himself. And he'd been just starting to notice the effects of the sun and thinking he should suggest heading back so that he could down a bag or two of blood when he'd spotted the buoys. After his little accident, the sun had been the least of his worries. He could hardly say all that to Sam, though, so merely shrugged and said, "I'm fine."

She frowned and opened her mouth to ask something else, but he forestalled her by asking, "What made you want to be a lawyer?"

Sam blinked, startled by the abrupt change of topic, but then sat back and considered the question seriously before saying, "
Twelve Angry Men
."

Mortimer blinked in surprise.

"It's a movie," Sam added.

"I know," he said.

"Oh." She seemed surprised, but then shrugged and said, "Well, the jurors held that boy's life in their hands. And the way Henry Fonda's character affected and swayed the other jurors mesmerized me. I wanted to be like him. I wanted to fight for truth and justice." She gave an embarrassed smile and added, "Of course, there's no such thing as a professional juror. Lawyer was the next best thing." Shrugging, she glanced away and then back and asked, "What about you? What made you choose your career?"

"I wanted to fight for truth and justice too," he admitted wryly.

Sam frowned and tilted her head. "So you joined a band?"

Mortimer blinked and then sat up abruptly, recalling the lies they'd told as a cover story. "Oh, no. Well, that was just—I mean I wanted that, but…"

"But music was where your heart was?" she suggested when he fell silent and just stared helplessly at her.

"Yes." He almost gasped the word, relieved beyond measure that she'd helped him off the hook like that. The waitress chose that moment to arrive at their table. Mortimer took the menu she offered, and assumed a rapt expression as she rattled off the day's specials to them, but didn't hear a word she said. He was busy berating himself for the stupid slip he'd made. Mortimer had been an enforcer for more than a hundred years and should be beyond such mistakes.

The waitress finished speaking and left them to consider the menu, and Mortimer turned his attention to the food listed there. The names were meaningless to him. He had no idea what a club sandwich was, or a BLT, but the short descriptions beneath were more helpful. Almost too helpful. Several sounded delicious, and he was now struggling to pick one. Mortimer finally managed to narrow it down to two, but that was as far as he could go. Rather than continue the struggle, he decided he'd order both of them and set the menu aside.

A glance to Sam showed her still considering the restaurant's offerings. She had laid the menu open on the table before her and was poring over it as if searching a map for the X that marked where the buried treasure would be. Mortimer found himself smiling faintly at her concentration and wanting to kiss her. He'd actually like more than that. He'd like to move around the table, lift her out of her chair, lay her back on the table as he had on the rock last night, and kiss and lick his way from her mouth, down her throat, to each breast, across her belly, and then kiss his way between her legs and—

"Are you ready to order?"

Mortimer blinked as his imaginings shattered and he found Sam had finished with her menu and set it aside and the waitress had returned to get their orders. Letting his breath out on a slow sigh, he waited as Sam placed her order. He then placed his own and handed over his menu. The moment the smiling server was gone, Mortimer glanced back to Sam. Unfortunately, he found his mind immediately flooded with images of the meal he'd like to make of her—it was a biting optional meal.

"Is something wrong?" Sam asked with a frown.

"No, of course not," he said quickly.

"Oh." She managed a smile. "You were looking at me a little strangely. I thought maybe I had something on my face or something."

"No," he assured her, and then sought his mind for something to say to distract him from the rather lascivious images trying to reclaim his thoughts. He needed something unsexy to talk about, and the most unsexy thing he could think of was parents, so he said, "Decker said he'd been told that your parents died in some sort of accident?"

"Yes," she said quietly, her expression turning sad. "A car accident on the way home from the movies on their anniversary."

Mortimer winced, thinking maybe this hadn't been such a good topic. He did want to know this stuff. He wanted to know everything about Sam, but it was a beautiful sunny day, they were out at a restaurant, and this seemed to him to be rainy-afternoon, cuddled-up-in-the-blankets, his-holding-her-close-after-amazing-mind-blowing-sex-type talk.

"You said your parents are dead?" Sam asked suddenly, managing to nudge his mind off the idea of amazing, mind-blowing sex with her, which was where it had seemed to stop a moment ago.

Clearing his throat, he nodded. "Yes."

"Was it an accident too?" she asked.

Mortimer stiffened and asked warily, "What makes you think it wasn't natural causes?"

Sam appeared surprised and then pointed out, "Well, you can't be much more than twenty-eight or twenty-nine, Mortimer. So unless your parents were extremely old when they had you, the chances of their both being dead from natural causes seems unlikely."

"Oh yes, of course," he muttered, giving himself a mental kick. "They died together. In a house fire."

Sam reached out to clasp his hand where it rested on the tabletop. She gave it a brief squeeze of sympathy and then started to release him, but Mortimer turned his hand over and caught her fingers with his own, holding on to her. Her eyes jerked to his with surprise, and he had the mad urge to tell her the truth about his parents. About everything, but of course he couldn't.

"How old were you when they died?" Sam asked, leaving her hand in his.

Mortimer had been six hundred and eighty-eight years old in 1898 when his parents died. He said, "Eighteen."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sam squeezed his hand again. "That's how old Jo was when our parents died."

The waitress chose that moment to appear with their food, and Sam retrieved her hand and sat back out of the way as the girl set down their plates and drinks.

"Thank you," Sam murmured as the girl finished and turned away. She then raised an eyebrow at Mortimer's two plates with two sandwiches and two heaps of fries and asked, "Are you related to Bricker?"

The question surprised a laugh out of Mortimer, but he shook his head. "No relation at all, though I don't blame you for thinking so at the moment."

"Hmm," Sam said dubiously.

"Perhaps I'm sublimating my other hunger for a hunger for food," he suggested with a wicked grin, and chuckled when she got what he was hinting at and flushed a dark red. He regretted his teasing, though, when she then turned her attention to her food and gave up talking for eating. He suspected his teasing had upset her a bit, though he wasn't sure why. Sorry about that, he let her eat in peace.