Page 31 of Trapped

“Sir?”She roused from the bed, her voice groggy.“What’s happening?”

“I don’t know.”I wandered closer to the window.“Wait there a moment.”

“Why are you whispering?”She was sitting up in bed then.“If it’s the emergency services, that’s good news.”

“Yes,” I concurred, offering her a smile she probably wouldn’t be able to see.“But let me check.”Just in case…

I averted from saying the final three words, but I heard them resounding in my head as I peered out of the window still cast into darkness.I hadn’t shaken the lingering sense of mistrust that all was not well in the woods outside the cabin, and the sudden blinding light source had done little to assuage my concerns.

“Check for what?”Confusion reverberated in her voice.“We should let them know we’re here.”

“Wait!”I hissed, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness outside.“I don’t see anyone.”

“Well, someone must be out there!”She sounded indignant.“Unless the local wildlife has discovered searchlights.”

“Quiet!”Glancing back, I enunciated the word irritably.Trust Erin to choose that moment to erupt into fresh sarcasm.“I’m not sure it’s the emergency services.”

I edged back slowly in the shadows, crouching as I passed my bag.My gun was in there somewhere—the one thing that might hold off any potential attackers—and I needed to locate it without further enflaming Erin’s concern.She already sounded beside herself with anxiety and had intimated her disdain for my being armed.The last thing she needed was to know I anticipated a need to defend us.

It didn’t take me long to find the weapon.Even in the dark, my mind recalled where I’d kept it.My fingertips grazed over its outline as I switched off the safety, my pulse accelerating as I spun and headed back for the door.

“Keep quiet.”Turning back to the bed, the weight of my stare landed on the space I knew she was huddled, even though I couldn’t make out her face in the gloom.“I need to make sure we’re safe.”

Lengthy seconds passed as I edged forward, my senses amplified as I listened for any sign of danger.In that oppressive quiet, I dared to dream that Erin might be right, that the emergency services were just beyond the door, waiting to help us.

My instincts, though, said otherwise, and just when I’d decided to move the unit and check outside myself, the sound of the door being kicked open shattered any illusion about the visitor’s benign intentions.Dread spiraled as the unit in front of the door toppled and the wood smashed back on its hinges, the noise of it yielding a screech around the cold, exaggerated silence.Everything about the latest developments was wrong.Nobody who wanted to help would enter without knocking and calling out first.

Facing the intrusion, I was greeted by gusts of subzero winds before the silhouette of a man emerged from the icy gloom.

“Rosen.”

Any doubt that the newcomer was male was obliterated in that second, his deep, throaty resonance echoing despite the incoming gale.His choice of vocabulary was telling too, informing me he was from an older chapter in my life, a time when I was known only by my surname—a choice I’d purposely avoided ever since being forced out of my career.

A tiny mewl escaped from Erin, the first sign that she finally understood how perilous the latest twist in our tale could potentially be, and the thought of her spurred me on to speak.

“Stay back!”I warned, waving the gun in front of me.“I’m armed and more than ready to use my weapon.”

“Oh, I bet.”The smug tone that met my ears was accompanied by the clicking of another weapon as its trigger was engaged.“And guess what?I’m armed too, asshole.Ready to play Russian roulette?”

“Who the hell are you?”I was more than ready to play, but I recognized that if I got shot, I left Erin to the whims of whatever crazy loon had broken into the cabin.

Stepping forward, I was determined to protect her no matter who the idiot was.It was true I didn’t own the ranger’s cabin, but storming it with force in the middle of the night was not normal behavior.Whoever he was, he was a threat.

“How about that?”The jerk chuckled as though there was an audience there to receive his alleged comedy.“He doesn’t even remember me.”

And then and there, his voice jolted a memory my brain had held latent for years.A recollection of a man who’d once pretended to be my ally, but who’d betrayed me at the first opportunity he’d got—my old boss at the unit, Miles Hawkins.

“Hawkins?”

Spitting his name into the shadows, I could hardly believe what was happening.The man who’d feigned an interest in my career until he’d decided to let me take the rap for a mistake he’d engineered was there in the middle of the woods, but I couldn’t figure out how or why.The finger cradling the trigger quivered at the uncertainty.Hawkins’ arrival had spun everything out of control.“Why the fuck are you here?”

“Your message said you were in trouble.”His dark laughter swirled around me.“And you know me, Rosen.I always look after my own.”

Chapter Twelve

Urgency

Erin

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