Smoky Mountain Setup

Or they could be a trick, she reminded herself sternly as she felt her resistance begin to falter. He could have inflicted the marks on himself to fool people into believing his story.

The fact remained, he’d just stood here minutes ago and admitted he’d been working with the Blue Ridge Infantry. And nobody who worked with the Blue Ridge Infantry was ever up to any good.

“What are you thinking?” Landry spoke in a low, silky voice so familiar it seemed to burrow into her head and take up residence, like a traveler finally reaching home after a long absence.

She fought against that sensation and gripped the edge of the desk more tightly. “That’s really none of your business.”

“You’re not curious?” he asked, his eyes narrowing as he took a step closer to her. “You don’t want to hear all the details?”

She held his gaze but didn’t speak.

“Or maybe you really don’t give a damn anymore.” He spoke the words casually, but she’d known him long enough to recognize the thread of hurt that underlay his comment.

“You’re the one who left,” she said.

“Are you sure I was the one?” He took another step toward her, and she tried to back away. But the wall stopped her.

“You packed your things and left.”

“You’d already left. Maybe not your body, but the rest of you—the part of you that really mattered—” He stopped his forward advancement, looking down at the rough planks of the cabin floor beneath his damp boots. “Doesn’t change the outcome, does it? We both walked away and didn’t look back, right?”

“Why did you come here?” she asked again, not because she believed he’d answer her any more truthfully than before, but because it was better than thinking about just how many times over the past two years, with how much regret, she’d looked back on the life she and Landry had once shared.

“Because I thought—” He looked up at her, pinning her to the wall with the intensity of his green-eyed gaze. “It doesn’t matter what I thought, does it? You’ve made up your mind about me. I get it.” He turned away, heading for the door.

She hurried forward and picked up the shotgun. “I didn’t say you could leave.”

He turned to look at her. “You’re going to shoot me to stop me?”

“If I have to.” She sounded sincere enough, even to her own skeptical ears. But her heart wasn’t nearly as sure.

She’d loved him once, as much as she’d ever loved anyone in her whole life. Hell, maybe she still did.

If he tried to leave, would she really pull the trigger to stop him from fleeing?

“You won’t shoot me,” he said softly. “At least, that’s what I want to keep believing. So I won’t put you in that position.”

“You’ll turn yourself in?”

He frowned. “I’d rather not. At least, not yet. There’s a lot I still need to tell you before you’ll understand exactly what we’re up against and why.”

“What we’re up against?”

He nodded. “I have to assume someone at that bank in Barrowville will remember the name Cade Landry. And why it’s so memorable. They’ll call the authorities to report my visit to the bank. And like you said, it won’t take long for them to connect us. We were partners, Olivia.” He moved toward her, walking with slow, sure deliberation. “Lovers.”

His voice lowered to a sensual rumble, bringing back a flood of memories she’d spent two years trying to excise from her brain. “Don’t.”

“It’s too late to undo it, Livvie. I took a risk coming here, and maybe I shouldn’t have.” He came to a stop just a few inches from where she stood, and she made herself remain in place, though the pounding pulse in her ears seemed to plead for her to run as far and as fast as she could.

Losing him once had nearly unraveled her. If she let him back into her heart—into her bed—again...

“I said I was working with the Blue Ridge Infantry, and that’s the truth. But it’s only part of it.” His hand came up slowly until his fingertips brushed her jawline, sending a shiver of sexual awareness jolting through her. “Did you know they were targeting The Gates?”

She swallowed with difficulty. “Of course. We’ve been trying to bring them down since Quinn first opened the doors of The Gates.”

“I’m not on their side, Olivia. That’s not what I meant by working with them—” He stopped midsentence, his head coming up suddenly. It took a moment for Olivia to hear what he’d obviously heard—a car engine moving up the road toward her cabin.

Landry moved away from her and crossed to her front window, sliding the curtains open an inch.

“Could be a neighbor,” she said quietly, suddenly afraid he was going to bolt, even though a few minutes earlier, she’d been hoping he’d leave and not look back.

It was just curiosity, she told herself, the need to know what he’d been starting to tell her about his connection to the BRI. It certainly had nothing to do with the way her jaw still tingled where he’d touched her or the quickened pace of her heart whenever she looked his way.

“They’re stopping here,” he said bluntly, turning back to look at her. She saw fear in his eyes, raw and wild, and realized she had only a few seconds to keep him from doing something reckless.

She pushed past him and looked through the curtains. The truck that had stopped outside her house was a familiar but, under the circumstances, not exactly welcome sight. “It’s Alexander Quinn.”

Landry groaned. “Your boss.”

She looked at him, wondering how much he knew about Quinn. “You said you’re not on the BRI’s side. Neither is Quinn. If you know anything about The Gates, you have to know that.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s going to turn a blind eye to the warrants out for my arrest.”

“You might be surprised.”

He shook his head and picked up his duffel bag. “I’m going out the back. Just give me a head start.”

She caught his arm as he started past her, not letting go even when he tried to tug free of her grasp. “Don’t run. Not yet. My bedroom is through that doorway. First room on the right. Let me find out what Quinn wants.”

Landry stared at her as if he were trying to read all the way through to her soul. Finally, the sound of footsteps on the front porch spurred him into action. He went through the doorway and veered right into her bedroom, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

Olivia took a deep breath just as Quinn knocked.

Showtime.

* * *

HER ROOM SMELLED like Olivia, that half-sweet, half-tart scent he’d never been able to identify as anything other than her own unique essence. For a few seconds all he could do was breathe, fill his lungs with that scent, store it away for another drought like the two years they’d been apart since he’d left Richmond—and Olivia—behind.

The bedroom was small and sparsely furnished—a bed, a chest of drawers and a small trunk at the foot of the bed. The bedding was simple and neat—two pillows in pale blue cotton cases, sheets that matched and a thick quilt that looked handmade.

Despite the tension running through him like currents of electricity, despite the muted sound of the door knock just a room away, Landry couldn’t stop himself from smiling. It faded quickly, but the flicker of sentiment remained—she hadn’t really changed in the past two years if she was still decorating with handmade quilts.

She made the quilts herself, a secret she’d kept from her fellow FBI agents with the ferocity of a mother bear guarding her den. “If you ever tell anyone about this,” she’d sworn when she’d finally let him in on her secret, “I will hunt you down and kill you.”

The sound of voices drifted down the hallway. The rumble of a male voice, barely discernible, followed by Olivia’s alto drawl.

“New bike?” the male voice asked.