Blue Ridge Ricochet. Paula Graves

      “How did you end up out there in the woods?”

      The question he’d been waiting for ever since she’d stopped to help. “It’s a long story.”

      “And you don’t want to tell it?” In her voice, he heard a surprising thread of sympathy. He looked up and saw her sharp eyes watching him with understanding.

      “Not at the present,” he admitted.

      “Okay.” She turned her attention back to her soup.

      That was easy.

      Too easy.

      He didn’t know how to deal with someone who didn’t seem to want—or need—one damn thing from him. Especially after the ordeal of the past few weeks. He didn’t know how to relax anymore, how to sit quietly and eat a bowl of soup without waiting for the next blow, the next trick.

      He knew his name was Dallas Logan Cole. He was thirty-three years old and had spent the first eighteen years of his life in Kentucky coal country, trying like hell to get out before he was stuck there for the rest of his sorry life. He was a good artist and an even better designer, and he’d spent the bulk of his college years trying to leave behind the last vestiges of his mountain upbringing so he could start a whole new life.

      And here he was, back in the hills, running for his life again. How the hell had he let this happen?

      “I guess those are the only clothes you have?”

      He looked down at his grimy shirt and jeans. They weren’t the clothes he’d been wearing when a group of men in pickup trucks had run his car off the road a few miles north of Ruckersville, Virginia. The wreck had left him a little woozy and helpless to fight the four burly mountain men who’d hauled him into one of the trucks and driven him into the hills. They’d stripped him out of his suit and made him dress in the middle of the woods in the frigid cold while they watched with hawk-sharp eyes for any sign of rebellion.

      Rebellion, he’d later learned, was the quickest way to earn a little extra pain.

      “It’s all I have,” he said, swallowing enough humiliating memories to last a lifetime. “Don’t suppose you have anything my size?”

      Her lips quirked again, triggering a pair of dimples in her cheeks. “Not on purpose. I can wash those for you, though.”

      “I’d appreciate that.” He was finally warm, he realized with some surprise. Not a shiver in sight. He’d begun to wonder if he’d ever feel truly warm again.

      She picked up his empty bowl and took it to the sink. “The bathroom’s down the hall to the right. Leave your clothes in the hall and I’ll put them on to wash.”

      “And then what?”

      She turned as if surprised by the question. “And then we go to bed.”

       Chapter Two

      Dallas gave Nicki an odd look. “To bed?”

      She looked up quickly, realizing what she’d just said, and couldn’t hold back a grin. “Not together, big guy.”

      He smiled back. “Yeah, I didn’t figure you meant it that way. But this cabin’s not very big. Do you even have a second bedroom?”

      “No,” she admitted. “But I have a sofa. And extra blankets. So go on and take a shower. Or a bath, if you like. The tub’s pretty big.” She bit back a smile at the thought of Dallas Cole folding his lanky body into her tub.

      “Still the problem of clothes. Or the lack thereof.”

      “I probably have some sweats around here somewhere. I borrowed them from my cousin the last time I stayed at his place.” Anson was only a couple of inches taller than Dallas, so surely his old sweatpants would fit him well enough. “Go get cleaned up. And let me know if you find any wounds you need treated.”

      The wary look he shot her way sent a prickle of unease racing up her neck. He was one more person who didn’t quite trust her version of the truth.

      And why should he? Why should anyone? She was lying through her teeth about what she was doing in River’s End, wasn’t she?

      There’d been a time, not so long ago, when lying came as naturally to her as breathing. Life was one big story to be told the way she wanted it to happen, and inconvenient truths were discarded like yesterday’s trash.

      But she’d learned the hard way that the truth always came out, and usually at the worst possible time. She just hoped the truth about her assignment here in River’s End didn’t come out until she was somewhere safe and far, far away.

      * * *

      DALLAS LET THE SHOWER run as hot as he dared and stood under the needling spray until he couldn’t stand on his trembling legs another minute.

      Wrapping a towel around his hips, he sat on the closed commode and willed his strength to return. The last thing he wanted to do was face-plant in front of Nicki again. She pitied him enough already.

      As the steamy heat of the bathroom dissipated, cooler air washed over his damp skin, raising goose bumps again. He grabbed a second towel from the nearby rack and dried off before he pushed to his feet.

      Standing in front of the mirror over the sink, he wiped away the condensation to take his first good look at his physical condition after nearly three weeks of captivity.

      He’d lost weight. At least fifteen pounds. Maybe more. The people who’d imprisoned him in the cellar of their mountain cabin had used deprivation to try to break him. Sleep, light, food—all had been withheld in an attempt to get him to tell everything he knew about a man named Cade Landry.

      He wondered if Landry was still alive. From what little he’d learned from the men who’d held him captive, getting their hands on Landry was a big damn deal.

      But they hadn’t gotten any information from him. Maybe they’d thought he was soft because he was nothing but a support staffer at the FBI, working a job that didn’t require him to carry a weapon or stay in fighting shape.

      They’d been wrong.

      Not that he felt anywhere close to fighting shape at the moment. The mirror was merciless, revealing not only his prominent ribs but also the rainbow of bruises and scrapes he’d acquired during his time with the Blue Ridge Infantry.

      He made himself turn away from his self-scrutiny and opened the bathroom door. Cold air from the hall assaulted him, and he wrapped the second towel around his shoulders.

      “There are clothes on the end of the bed, across the hall.” Nicki’s voice drifted into the hall from the front room.

      “Thanks.” He entered the bedroom and found a small stack of clothes at the end of the bed. There was a pair of black sweatpants that wouldn’t have fit him three weeks ago but now snugged over his hips as if they’d been made for him. She’d also laid out a couple of oversize football jerseys. He grabbed the darker of the two and shrugged it on. It fit only marginally better.

      He dropped to the edge of the bed, tempted to lie down and sleep for a few days. But there was the matter of the pretty brunette down the hall. All the way through his shower, he couldn’t stop thinking about what a stroke of fortune it had been to walk into the path of a woman who hadn’t asked any inconvenient questions. Who hadn’t insisted on calling the police when he asked her not to. What absolute luck.

      Problem was, he’d never put much faith in the notion of luck.

      Why hadn’t she asked him more about who he was and how he’d found himself facedown on a mountain road in the middle of a sleet storm?

      He looked around until he found the scuffed oxfords he’d been wearing since he’d been run off the road somewhere north of Ruckersville. The dress shoes looked incongruous with the