SB01 - The Guardian's Mission Page 2

  She swung a fist in his direction, and he grabbed it, tugging her so close he could feel her body trembling with fear. He wanted to tell her it was okay, that he was one of the good guys and that he’d make sure she got out of this alive, but Johnson was jogging toward them, and Tristan had no choice but to play the part he’d been perfecting for months.

  He gave her a little shake, hoping to convey the urgency of the situation. “What’s the deal with trying to run off on me, Sunshine? I thought you were over our little spat.”

  “Let me go—” She jerked against his hold, and he tightened his grip, afraid he might leave a bruise, but figuring a bruise was better than a bullet.

  “I guess you’re still mad. Which is too bad, because difficult women aren’t my thing. For you, though, I might make an exception.”

  “You’re insane. I don’t kn—”

  He pressed his lips to hers, cutting off her words in the only way he could think of that wouldn’t make Johnson suspicious. Warmth, softness, the sweet scent of chocolate. He inhaled, drinking in the scent, the sound of rain fading, his heart leaping.

  Pain shot up his leg as she slammed her foot down on his instep.

  Again.

  He maintained his grip, but jerked back, staring down into her eyes, surprised by his own reaction to the kiss and to the woman. Johnson was hovering near his back, just waiting to pull his weapon. There was no time for wondering about the woman who was staring up at him. No time for anything but action.

  He leaned forward, holding her tight when she would have wrestled out of his grasp, and whispered in her ear, “If you don’t want the day to get a whole lot worse, calm down and play along. Otherwise, we’ll both be six feet under come daybreak. Understand?”

  She didn’t, of course. She’d wandered into her worst nightmare and all she’d be thinking about was escape.

  Tristan, on the other hand, was thinking about turning potential failure into success. As long as Johnson didn’t suspect the truth, the woman would be fine, the mission could continue and nearly a year working undercover and playing a role he had no liking for wouldn’t go to waste.

  “Do you understand?” He hissed the question into her ear, hoping she’d sense just how important the right answer was.

  Maybe she did. Or maybe she was too scared to argue. She nodded, her eyes wide with fear, sandy curls plastered to her cheeks, the baseball cap she wore sodden and dripping. She looked young, vulnerable, scared.

  “Good.” He kept his voice low so that it barely carried above the rain. “Here’s how we’re playing it. I’m Sky. You’re my girlfriend. Got it?”

  She nodded again, her gaze darting toward Johnson who was moving closer, apparently trying to hear their conversation.

  “Whatever you say, Sky.” Her voice shook, but she looked right into his eyes.

  “Good,” he said, speaking louder for Johnson’s benefit. “Like I told you before, we’ve got this gig this afternoon. The rest of the night is ours.” He squeezed her hand, hoping she’d take it as it was meant—a gesture of reassurance.

  “You didn’t tell me the gig would involve hiking in the rain. I came here to have fun. I’m not having fun. I’m going home.” She huffed the words, managing to sound irritated and angry rather than scared. As if she really had been out on a lark with him and was annoyed that things weren’t going the way she’d expected.

  Not only did she seem to be gaining control of her emotions, she also seemed to be trying to take control of the situation. She’d offered a plausible explanation for walking away. Maybe Johnson would believe it and let her leave. “Go, but don’t think I’ll be calling tonight. I’ve got better things to do with my time than chase after a fickle woman.” Tristan pulled keys from his pocket and tossed them her way, trying to play the part well enough to be convincing.

  She caught them, her eyes widening a fraction. “I wasn’t planning on waiting by the phone. See you around, Sky.”

  She pivoted away, the picture of an irritated woman, and Tristan started to believe they’d won this round. She’d return to civilization, report what had happened to the authorities. By that time, the raid would be over and the police would be able to tell her what she’d walked into and how close to death she’d been. Maybe she’d think twice the next time she went hiking through the Blue Ridge Mountains alone.

  He should have known things wouldn’t be so easy.

  “You’re not going nowhere. You wanted to come along. You’re coming.” Johnson moved in close, pulling a gun and pointing it at the woman, then Tristan. He’d use it, too. Kill them both the same way another person might swat a fly.

  In other circumstances, Tristan would have tried to disarm him, but these weren’t other circumstances. There was an innocent civilian to worry about, and he couldn’t take chances with her life. “Cool it with the gun, man. You keep swinging it like that and someone could get hurt.”

  “Your lady friend keeps causing trouble and someone will.”

  “I’m not causing trouble. I’m saying I want to go home, but if you’re going to get hot about it, I’ll tag along with you two instead.” She shrugged as if she really didn’t care, her movements confident and easy as they started moving again.

  Who was she? Not your typical civilian, that was for sure. No panic. No begging or pleading. If Tristan hadn’t known better, he would have thought she was a fellow agent. He took a harder look. Short. Pretty. Athletic build. Dressed in jeans, a nylon jacket and hiking boots, she looked like any other weekend camper, but most normal people were tucked inside cozy houses sitting beside blazing fires, not traipsing through the mountains in frigid rain.

  Normal?

  As if he knew what that was anymore.

  Living undercover didn’t leave room for normal. It only left room for the job. And right now the job suddenly included the woman trudging along beside him. He kept a firm grip on her arm as they walked. No way could he let her go running off again. Not when he knew Johnson was just waiting for an opportunity to get rid of her. Permanently.

  She slipped and nearly went down on her knees, but he managed to tug her up before she landed. “Careful. The leaves are making things dangerous.”

  She laughed, the sound choking out and cutting off almost before it had begun.

  Surprised, Tristan scanned her face. Rainwater slid down smooth cheeks, freckles dotted her pale cheeks, gold and green mixed in the depth of her eyes, soft lips pressed together.

  Lips he’d kissed.

  Lips that had been softer and warmer than he’d expected.

  Whoa! That wasn’t the direction his thoughts should be heading. He forced his attention back to the moment, to the mission, to his role. “I’m glad you’re keeping your sense of humor, Sunshine. It makes life a lot easier.”

  “I wouldn’t call it humor.”

  “No?”

  “No. I’d call it hysteria, and if I wasn’t afraid your friend would pull out his gun and shoot me dead for it, I’d probably be laughing uncontrollably right now.”

  “You’re right to be worried about that. Johnson isn’t known for his self-control.”

  “Maybe if you’d tell me what’s going on—”

  He pressed a finger to her lips, cutting off her words before she could say something that would get them both in trouble. Johnson might seem oblivious to the conversation, but Tristan knew him well enough to know he didn’t miss much. Not when it had to do with the business he was in. The business of death. “Nothing is going on that we haven’t already discussed. You need to relax and enjoy the experience.”

  “Right. Sure. Enjoy it.” She wiped rain from her eyes, or maybe those were tears. It was hard to tell with so much water pouring from the sky.

  Up ahead, Johnson was shoving through more brush, leading them northwest toward the abandoned logging camp that served as meeting place and auction house for Johnson’s boss Buddy Nichols’s gunrunning activities. There’d been other auctions before today, other buyers leaving with wea
pons meant to kill and maim, weapons that even the most sophisticated armor couldn’t stop.

  Today, though, was going to be different. Johnson might think Tristan was clueless about their destination, but informants had been willing to leak the auction’s location to the ATF for a price. A few hours. That’s all that stood between the men who were dealing in illegal weapons and justice.

  Tristan smiled with grim satisfaction, holding a thorny branch back and motioning for the woman to step past. One gunrunner, one gang leader, one weapon at a time, he was doing what he’d pledged to do after his brother had been shot and almost killed—evening the odds, adding one more good guy to the fight against the bad guys. Now, though, he had something else to think about. Someone else. An unknown player in an unpredictable game.

  As if she sensed his thoughts, the woman glanced his way, her expression hiding whatever she felt. “How much farther?”

  “Not much.”

  “Which could mean anything.” She frowned, wiping at her face again. Rain. Not tears. Tristan was pretty sure of that.

  “Which means we’ll be there soon. Then this will be over and we’ll be out of here.” Anything else was unacceptable. Anything else could leave one or both of them dead. “Just keep your head together, Sunshine, and everything will be fine.”

  “Hurry it up, you two. We’ve got places to be.” Johnson shot a look over his shoulder, his flat eyes settling on the woman.

  Tristan didn’t like the surge of interest that blazed in his eyes, the flash of heat that brought the only hint of life he’d ever seen into Johnson’s gaze.

  He dropped his arm across Sunshine’s shoulder, praying she wouldn’t jerk away and give Johnson something else to speculate on. “Pick up the pace then. We’ll keep up.”

  As Johnson turned away again, Tristan let his arm slip from Sunshine’s shoulders, grabbing her hand instead, squeezing gently and silently sealing their partnership. Whether she liked it or not, they were in this together. Lord willing, they’d make it out together, too.

  THREE

  Martha told herself she shouldn’t be comforted by the warm, callused palm pressing against hers, or by the well-muscled arm brushing her shoulder. Somehow though, she was. Which proved just how scared she was. She didn’t know Sky, and she didn’t trust him.

  What she did trust were her instincts, and right now they were telling her that flat-eyed, freckle-faced Johnson was a killer. The gun he’d pulled had been a Glock 22, a weapon so powerful that the bullet would kill her before she had time to realize she was dying.

  The thought made her shiver.

  She didn’t want to die today. She wasn’t going to die. She had too many things she still wanted to accomplish. That cross-stitch project she’d planned to make for Dad and Sue’s anniversary but had never finished. The missions trip to Mexico. The vacation to Australia she’d been dreaming about since she was old enough to have dreams. The ten pounds she wanted to lose so she could fit into flirty little summer dresses.

  Not that her size was going to matter when she was lying inside a coffin.

  Don’t even go there, Marti.

  You are not going to die.

  At least, she hoped she wasn’t going to die. Who knew what God’s plans were? She sure didn’t. Every time she thought she had a handle on what He wanted for her life, He spun her around and started her in a new direction. Case in point—Brian. She’d been so sure he was the one, so certain God had brought them together. Funny how easy it was to believe something was right when you wanted it badly enough. Even funnier how little all of that mattered in light of the fact that she might not survive the next few hours.

  Rain continued to fall as they picked their way along an overgrown road, the raindrops like tears that streaked the earth and trees, muddling the colors so that they blended and bled. Probably washing away any evidence that Martha and the two men had passed this way, too. She glanced around, trying to get her bearings, and realized with a start that they were heading toward an abandoned logging camp. She and her dad had hiked this way many times before, even staying overnight in the cabin that had once served as an office. There wasn’t much left of the place—a couple of rusted trailers, the cabin. Another half century and the entire place would be overgrown and covered with vegetation.

  What kind of business would take place so far from civilization?

  What kind of men would be there?

  Not the kind of business she wanted to be involved in. Not the kind of men she should be around.

  Yet here she was, going where she didn’t want to go, with men she shouldn’t be with, and she had absolutely no idea how to get out of the situation.

  Any time you’re ready, Lord, I’m open for suggestions.

  She hoped for sudden inspiration, a quick solution to her troubles. She got nothing.

  Her fingers itched to unzip her pack and pull out one of her chocolate bars. A little sugar, a little energy and maybe her brain would start functioning and she could figure a way out of the situation. She started to shrug out of the pack, but froze as Sky speared her with a hard stare. “What are you doing?”

  Johnson must have heard because he turned, his dead eyes jumping from Martha to Sky and back again. “What’s going on?”

  Don’t panic. Be a ditzy, stupid woman who thought it would be adventurous to wander through the Blue Ridge Mountains with Sky and his friends.

  She forced herself to let the pack slide the rest of the way down her arms. “Just thinking I’d have a snack.”

  “A snack?” Sky’s jaw twitched, his blue eyes boring into hers.

  She forced strength back into legs that had gone wobbly and did her best to act as if she didn’t know how much danger she was in. “Yes. A snack. A girl’s got to eat. Right? It’s not like you gave me a chance to have lunch before we left.”

  “Let me give you a hand with that.” Johnson yanked the pack from her hands, his eyes gleaming with the hard gaze of a predator and filling Martha with cold dread.

  “Knock yourself out.”

  He rifled through the pack, then thrust it at Sky. “No more stops.”

  “Or else” hung in the air, unspoken, but Martha heard it clearly enough. She was also pretty sure that if she looked hard enough, she could see the outline of Johnson’s gun beneath the lightweight jacket he wore. It would take only seconds for him to pull it, fire it and wash his probably-already-stained-with-blood hands of the situation.

  Fear loosened her muscles and joints and made walking almost impossible. Only Sky’s firm grip on her hand kept her going. She wanted to go home to her little cottage in the woods, sit on the front porch and watch the sunset behind the mountains one last time; bask in the colors, the feel, the scent of it. Crisp, cool, alive. She wanted to hug her father, tell him she loved him, kiss his leathery cheek just once more. Wanted to go out with her girlfriends, have a slice of Doris’s apple pie, inhale the scent of laughter, the heady aroma of joy.

  Hot tears worked their way down her cheek, mixing with cold rain.

  “Chocolate?” Sky’s question pulled her away from her maudlin thoughts.

  She glanced at the candy bar he was holding out and knew she’d choke if she tried to eat it. “I changed my mind.”

  “A little energy will do you good.” He unwrapped the chocolate, pressed the bar into her hand. “Eat and stop worrying.”

  To her surprise, he wiped the hot tears from her cheeks, pressing his palm against her chilled flesh, his voice warm as a spring day. “Everything will be okay. I promise.”

  “Promises are a dime a dozen.”

  “Not mine. You will be okay. There is no other option.” He stared into her eyes as if he could pass his confidence to her with a look.

  Then the moment was gone. He reached for the candy bar, broke a piece of chocolate off and popped it into his mouth. “Looks like we’ve reached our destination. Showtime.”

  With that, he hiked her pack onto his back and pulled her toward the skeletal remains of
the logging camp.

  Fear was a terrible thing. It made thinking impossible. It made smart people act dumb. And that’s exactly what it was doing to Martha. She wanted to yank her hand from Sky’s and run, but that would not only be the stupidest decision of her life, it would also be her last. Sky would catch her before she got three feet away if Johnson’s bullet hadn’t already knocked her to the ground.

  The way Martha saw it, she’d done enough stupid things in the past few months to last a lifetime. First she’d dated a guy who had a reputation for being arrogant and thoughtless. Second, she’d continued to date him even after she’d begun to suspect those rumors were true. Third, she’d decided to run and hide rather than face more pity from her friends and family when she’d finally broken things off with the jerk.

  Now she was officially done with stupidity.

  It was time to be smart. That meant waiting no matter how much she wanted to run. Eventually she’d have a chance to escape. She had to believe that.

  Up ahead, thick trees opened into an overgrown field filled with the remnants of a once bustling logging camp. Martha hadn’t been there in years, but from what she remembered, things hadn’t changed much. The place was just a little older, a little more overgrown, a lot more creepy. Then again, maybe Martha was just more creeped out. To the left, an old trailer sat atop a cinder-block foundation, graffiti bleeding down the side in reds and blues and greens. Stumps and fallen logs stood to one side, skeletons of the life that had once been there.

  In the distance, the clapboard cabin where Martha and her father used to stay stood blurry and gray in the pouring rain. Several men moved toward it ahead of Martha and her escorts, their tension filling the clearing and adding to Martha’s fear. She didn’t much care for the men she’d already met. She definitely didn’t want to meet more.