Fugitive Hearts. Ingrid Weaver
Dana turned back to her room. If John Becker had Morty’s seal of approval, her qualms about his character had to be misplaced.
It was hard to tell when the night ended and day began. Beyond the white drift that piled against the window, the snow swirled as if from an endless gray tunnel. Between gusts, Remy glimpsed the shadows of other cabins and the hulking outline of the resort’s main lodge, but he didn’t see any lights. There was no sign of anyone else. The place was deserted.
Well, almost deserted.
He should have realized there would be a caretaker. Too bad about the woman. If not for Dana Whittington, this place would have been perfect. Half Moon Bay Resort was isolated enough to provide concealment, yet close enough to the small town of Hainesborough to allow him access to what he needed. That’s why he’d decided to head up here when he’d gotten out. He could have holed up comfortably in one of the outlying cabins. It had been fifteen years since he’d been at the resort, but he remembered every detail of the layout.
After all, he’d helped to build it.
He’d been eighteen and full of hope and ambition when he’d arrived here the last time. He’d seen the construction job as his ticket to the future, the first step toward his dream of making something of himself. He was fresh from the juvenile detention center, and he’d wanted to prove that the people of Hainesborough were wrong, that he was nothing like his old man, that he wasn’t the boy they thought he was.
Ironic, wasn’t it? He had come full circle. He was once more at Half Moon Bay, once more hoping to prove everyone wrong.
Only now the stakes were a hell of a lot higher.
Drawing in a steadying breath, Remy looked away from the window and turned his attention back to buttoning his shirt. His fingers still felt like slabs of wood, aching and unmanageable. He tried to make a fist. Pain screamed through his joints, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been the night before. Ignoring the discomfort, reining in his impatience for his weakness, he curled his fingers into his palms until he had worked out the stiffness. Not 100 percent, but it would do. Clumsily he pushed most of his buttons through the holes, fastened the stud on his jeans, then braced his hands on his knees and stood.
So far this morning he hadn’t fallen down, but he still wasn’t steady on his feet. If he could hole up here until tomorrow, he would stand a better chance of finding some other base to operate from. In the meantime he had to make sure Dana kept on believing he was just some hapless traveler who had arrived here by chance.
He staggered to the wall where the overcoat he had stolen hung from a peg. The day planner Dana had mentioned finding was in the left pocket. Remy forced his aching fingers into motion once more and flipped through the pages, scanning for any clues to the identity he was temporarily assuming. There wasn’t much personal information. Too bad Becker hadn’t kept his wallet in his overcoat—
Remy drew in his breath. He still wasn’t thinking straight. If there had been a wallet, there would have been identification. Photo identification. If Dana had seen it, his game would have been up before he’d regained consciousness.
He shoved the notebook back into the pocket where he’d found it, then looked at the closed bedroom door. He paused to listen for any hint of movement from within, but there was none. With one hand on the wall for support, he moved around the cabin, taking stock of anything else that might present a risk.
There was no television that he could see, but there was a CD player with a radio in the living room and a battery-powered radio in the kitchen. He didn’t want to waste time searching for tools, so he took a butcher knife from the cutlery drawer, pried open the back of the kitchen radio and disabled it.
A check of the phone revealed there was still no dial tone. He couldn’t gamble on the lines remaining down for much longer. He improved his odds by severing the input wire from the receiver, a sloppy but effective way to ensure it would remain out of order. He hesitated over the CD player, not wanting to do more damage to Dana’s property than he needed to. In the end he merely cut the connection to the antenna—he knew without that, the set wouldn’t be able to pick up a signal this far north.
A door creaked open behind him. “Oh! I didn’t expect to see you awake already.”
Remy straightened up from the CD player and turned around, using his motion to conceal the knife behind his back.
Dana stood in the doorway of her bedroom, her arms filled with a stack of loose papers and what appeared to be a large sketchbook. A bulky sweater came to the top of her thighs, obscuring much of her figure, but the black leggings she wore revealed long, slender legs. And despite himself, Remy felt his pulse move into a slow, steady throb.
He must have been in worse shape last night than he had thought. When he had looked at Dana then, he had only seen a threat. Now he was aware of much, much more.
Her hair wasn’t merely blond. It was warm gold, somewhere between the color of wheat in August and aspen leaves in October. It tumbled around her face to brush her shoulders in sensuous waves. Her eyes weren’t merely blue. They were pure cerulean and stunning enough to steal his breath.
And somehow, she looked familiar. He had the feeling he had seen her face before…
No, that wasn’t possible. If he’d met her, he would have remembered. Any man would.
What had happened to Dana Whittington? Why would a beautiful woman with such a gentle touch choose to live by herself up here in the middle of nowhere?
Not that it should matter to him, he reminded himself. How she looked, who she was, made no difference. One more day, that’s all he wanted. By then he should be able to move on. “Good morning,” he said finally.
“How are you feeling, John?” she asked.
“Better, thanks.”
“I can see that,” she said, placing the papers and sketchbook on the drafting table. “I’m so glad.”
She wasn’t lying, he realized. She really was pleased that he was recovering.
No, she was pleased that John Becker with the fancy coat and the fat appointment book was recovering. Remy tightened his grip on the butcher knife. “I didn’t get the chance to thank you last night,” he said, taking a step backward. He had to find someplace to ditch this knife before she saw it—things would be far easier if he could avoid a confrontation.
“No thanks are necessary, John. Up here, everyone looks out for their neighbors.”
God, he hoped not. That’s all he needed, some nosy neighbor showing up to check on her. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Dana. I’ll be gone as soon as—” His words ended on a sharp curse. Instead of the hardwood floor, his foot came down on something soft. There was a sudden, high-pitched screech.
Damn! He’d forgotten about that cat. It had been following him around since he’d gotten up.
“Morty!” Dana cried, racing forward in a futile attempt to reach her pet.
Remy shifted quickly to avoid bringing his full weight down on the cat. Morty streaked away unharmed in a blur of orange while Remy staggered sideways, off balance and unable to catch himself without revealing the knife.
“Oh, no!” Dana exclaimed. She was by his side in an instant, sliding her arm around his waist and propping her shoulder under his arm. It was a position that was becoming much too familiar…and more comfortable than he would have liked.
She still smelled like lilies, he thought, feeling her hair brush his cheek. And she had a surprising amount of strength in her slender frame. He deliberately swayed against her as she helped him over to the couch. Allowing her to believe he was worse off than he actually was might help to lower her guard, and that could prove to be an advantage. He collapsed onto the cushions more heavily than necessary.
Her cheeks pinkened with her efforts as she disentangled herself from him and straightened up. A memory from the night before