Smoky Mountain Setup. Paula Graves

an interest in all of his employees,” she said flatly.

      “He’s trying to take down the Blue Ridge Infantry.”

      She didn’t answer, her eyes narrowing.

      “I’m not a traitor, Olivia.”

      “You never told me how you got mixed up with the BRI.” She crossed her long legs and sat back, pinning him with a challenging stare. “I know you tried to help McKenna Rigsby when she was targeted by the Blue Ridge Infantry. You talked to one of our agents, tried to warn him about Darryl Boyle’s involvement with the BRI. But one question never really got answered, once you disappeared—”

      “How did I know about Boyle?”

      “Exactly.”

      He tried to relax, as well, even though he suspected that some of Olivia’s placid composure was an act. He knew his unexpected arrival on her doorstep that afternoon had been a shock to her system, but as usual, she was trying not to let it show.

      “I suspected, when Rigsby supposedly went rogue, that something very bad had driven her there. She struck me as a good agent. She sure as hell hadn’t joined the Blue Ridge Infantry—she hated them with a passion, hated everything they were doing and how they were twisting things like honor and patriotism for their own purposes.” He couldn’t hold back a smile remembering Rigsby’s tirades. “She vented to me. A lot. She was undercover, trying to get close to some of the female militia groupies, so she had to pretend she thought they hung the moon when she was with them.”

      Olivia’s lips curved with amusement. “She’s so not groupie material.”

      “So you know her.”

      “I do.” She didn’t elaborate.

      “Is she okay?”

      Her smile faded. “She’s fine.”

      “I didn’t get to find out what happened to her after she was taken.”

      “Because you were grabbed by the BRI guys.”

      God, he hated the skepticism in her voice, the hint of disbelief, as if he’d have disappeared for a year just for the hell of it. “You don’t believe me.”

      “I never said that.”

      He pushed to his feet. “You didn’t have to.”

      She stood, as well, and caught his arm. “Don’t do this. I’m trying to understand what’s happened to you.”

      “You’re looking at me as if I’m crazy. Is that what you think?”

      “Of course not.” Her grip softened, her fingers sliding slowly down his arm to his wrist, where they settled against his scars. “I just need to know why you stayed away so long. Where have you been?”

      “After I got away from the guys who took me, I headed east into North Carolina.” He gave a little tug of his arm and she let go of his wrist.

      “Why east?” she asked.

      “Because when I got out of that hovel where they were keeping me, that’s the way I was facing. So I ran and didn’t look back.” He looked down at his scarred wrists.

      “Until now. Why did you come back now?”

      He looked at her, saw the curiosity in those summer-sky eyes and blurted the truth. “Because you’re a target. And you needed to know.”

       Chapter Four

      “That’s why you’re here? You thought we didn’t know we were on the BRI’s hit list?” Olivia shook her head, not buying it. “I told you already. We know—”

      “I don’t mean The Gates is the target,” Landry said in a quiet tone that made her chest ache. “I mean you, Olivia. The BRI is trying to get their hands on you.”

      She stared at him, trying to read past the mirrorlike calm of his green eyes. “How would you know this? You said you hadn’t had anything to do with the BRI since your escape.”

      “I didn’t say that.”

      She thought for a moment and realized he hadn’t. She’d assumed it, given that the BRI had taken him hostage and, according to what he had told her, beaten him terribly to get information out of him.

      “Maybe you should sit down and tell me what you know.” She waved at the sofa and sat facing him on the coffee table, crossing her long legs under her. “How do you know I’ve been targeted?”

      He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The action brought him close to her, close enough to touch. All she’d have to do is reach her hand toward him and—

      “I got away from the BRI. But I still know some people who lurk around the edges of that group. People who aren’t on the inside but are close to men who are.”

      A cold tingle rippled through her. “Women, you mean. The groupies.”

      “A couple. Also a few guys who sympathize with the stated goals of the group but don’t like their methods or trust that they’re what they say they are. There are a lot of people in these parts who’ve seen the mess government interference has made among their kinfolk and neighbors. You have multiple generations who’ve known nothing but life on welfare.”

      “The draw,” Olivia murmured. At his quizzical look, she added, “That’s what people here call it. ‘The draw.’”

      “They can’t live without it, but some of them hate what it’s turned them into, too.” He stood up and paced toward the fireplace, leaning toward the heat as if he’d felt a chill. “It makes it very tempting to hook up with people like the BRI.”

      “I know.” She’d grown up poor herself. Had struggled to escape the cycle of poverty and bad choices that had haunted her family for a couple of generations. “People don’t want to feel victimized. Being part of the BRI gives them a sense of power.”

      “There’s a young man I got to know over the past couple of months. Little more than a kid, really. We worked a few day labor jobs together over near Cherokee. His uncle is part of the Blue Ridge Infantry, but this kid is smarter than that. They keep trying to recruit him, but he resists. He’s saving up all his money, planning to go to a technical college over in Asheville.”

      “He’s the one who told you the BRI is targeting me?”

      “Not exactly.” Landry crossed to the coffee table and sat on the edge, facing her. He leaned closer, his gaze intense.

      Once again, the desire to reach across the narrow space between them hit her like a physical ache. She curled her hands into fists and kept them in her lap. “Then what, exactly?”

      “He got me into a meeting where they were planning their next move in the war against The Gates.”

      She stared at him. “You were in a meeting with the BRI and they didn’t shoot you on sight?”

      “Well, they didn’t know I was there,” he said with a grin that carved dimples in both cheeks, sending her heart into a flip. “The meeting was at his uncle’s place, and there’s a big vent in the den where they met. My friend lived with his uncle’s family for a while when his mama was in rehab a few years ago, and he found out that if you listen through the vent in his old bedroom, you can hear what they’re saying in that den clear as day.”

      “He let you listen in? Does he know who you are?”

      Landry shook his head. “I told him I was thinking of joining the BRI because I was tired of how the federal government was taking over every aspect of our lives. He sympathized, but he told me the BRI wasn’t the way to go. They were nothing but trouble and he could prove it.”

      “By letting you listen in on a meeting.”