Mountain Retreat. Cassie Miles

she saw him plowing through the mob of law enforcement officers like a running back crashing toward the goalposts, she stood and adjusted the black POLICE windbreaker draped over her shoulders so he couldn’t see the bandage.

      His thick black hair—though neatly trimmed—stuck out in spikes. The lines in his face seemed to be etched more deeply, and he looked much older than his thirty years. This was a part of her fiancé that she didn’t know. She’d never seen him in action. The battle-tested marine who had experienced the devastation of war and who risked his life on a daily basis was a good, brave, admirable man. She wanted to be closer to him, but he kept his warrior spirit hidden.

      As he approached, she could tell that he intended to embrace her, which was really going to hurt her arm. She held up a hand, bringing him to a halt.

      “This wasn’t my fault,” she said. “Phillips wouldn’t give me a weapon, and I was trying to obey orders and go back to the vehicle, but others kept arriving and—”

      “Were you wounded?”

      “It’s nothing serious.” She turned away from him, hoping to hide the bandage. “A couple of stitches and I’ll be good as new.”

      Gently, he removed the windbreaker. When he saw the bandage, he inhaled a sharp gasp. “You need medical attention.”

      “Several other people have been wounded. The EMTs have their hands full.”

      “You’re pale, Sidney. Have you lost a lot of blood?”

      “I don’t think so.” But she did feel a bit dizzy and unsure on her feet. “I took a pill.”

      “You could be going into shock.” He wrapped the windbreaker around her again and held her against his chest in such a way that her left arm was untouched. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so damn sorry.”

      “It’s not your fault.”

      “I never should have left you alone.”

      Agent Victoria Hawthorne, wearing her own black windbreaker with CIA stenciled across the back, charged toward them. “Get in the back of the ambulance, both of you.”

      Glaring at her, Nick gestured toward the battlefield on their front lawn. “How the hell did this happen?”

      “A misjudgment,” she snapped. “Do what I say. I need to get you both out of here.”

      “Where are we going?”

      Angrily, she gestured to the back of the ambulance. “Let’s move. We’ll talk on the way.”

      After Sidney refused to lie on the gurney, Hawthorne shoved it out of the way and they sat on plastic-cushioned seats with minimal seat belts. Wall space and drawers held an array of medical equipment, including oxygen tanks, defibrillators and stethoscopes. She reached for a blanket to cover her bare legs and settled back on the seat as they pulled away with the siren blaring.

      Hawthorne barked into her cell phone, snapping out instructions to her staff. Sidney figured that if anyone should be offering an apology, it was the thin, angry senior agent. She was the one who gave the okay for Sidney to go home without having her house checked out first.

      Her skeletal hand, holding the phone, dropped to her lap. She spoke loudly so they could hear her over the siren. “The only way this operation could be arranged so quickly was with prior knowledge. We have a leak, a mole.”

      “At the CIA,” Nick said.

      “I don’t know. Several other agencies are involved in this operation, including Marine Intelligence.” With a disgusted snort, she shook her head. “I never should have allowed you to come to the house with your fiancée.”

      “Thank God you made that misjudgment.” His voice was cold, hard and angry. Sidney had never heard him speak so harshly. “If I hadn’t been along, she would have walked into this ambush by herself, defenseless and vulnerable.”

      Hawthorne pinched her lips together. “Not necessarily.”

      “They would have taken Sidney hostage, used her to get what they wanted.”

      The ambulance careened around a corner, and she was thrown against his shoulder. Her wound still ached, but she appreciated the warmth of the blanket over her knees and the jacket around her shoulders. A comfortable heat spread through her, and she felt her eyelids begin to droop. Though she had plenty to say to Hawthorne, it was a struggle to merely stay alert.

      “There’s been a change in plans,” Hawthorne said. “We’ll swap vehicles shortly, and you will be taken to the safe house.”

      “I’m not going anywhere without Sidney,” he said.

      “Understood.” She gave a terse nod. “For now, you’ll be staying together.”

       Chapter Four

      Propped up against several pillows, Sidney wakened slowly, cautiously. She peered through heavy-lidded eyes at a dimly lit bedroom with pine furniture. Where am I? Her legs stretched out straight in front of her on a king-size bed with a dark blue comforter. Not my bed.

      Wiggling her butt to get comfortable, she winced at the sharp pain from her left arm. I was wounded.

      Her memory began to kick in. She heard the echo of an ambulance siren. She remembered being moved into the backseat of a car, looking out the window. And there had been horses and open fields and moonlight. And Nick, she’d been with Nick.

      “Not possible,” she whispered. Her throat was dry and scratchy. Her tongue felt swollen. She couldn’t have been with Nick because he was in Tiquanna.

      Carefully, she turned on her side so her arm wouldn’t rub against anything. Nick wasn’t here, and she had to accept that fact. All the denial in the world wouldn’t make a difference. She closed her eyes. If the only way she could see him was in her dreams, she wanted to sleep forever.

      In her mind, she sorted through her memories as though picking from a jewelry box to choose the shiniest bauble. She selected the day they’d met at the mountain cabin that her friend and colleague, Marissa Hughes, and her new husband had purchased in the mountains outside Deckers in Colorado.

      A year and a half ago, it was the summer solstice, June 21, when magic was in the air and young maidens performed candle rituals to see the faces of the men who would be their lovers. Though Sidney didn’t believe in all that mystical stuff, her heart leaped when she was introduced to Nick Corelli, and she went all gooey inside when she gazed into his golden eyes. He shook her hand; the connection between them was palpable. They were meant to be together.

      Eight other people had been staying at Marissa’s cabin over the weekend. Sidney could recite all their names and could report on what they were wearing and what they had for lunch, but her attention focused on Nick. They paired up, and she found herself talking more to him than she did with others. She was positively chatty, which was very unlike her. She tended to be quiet and reserved and a little bit shy. An only child, she grew up mostly in the company of her parents, who were both scientists. Sidney had learned from an early age to amuse herself.

      Nick invaded her quiet world with his gentle baritone, his laughter and his intelligence. Of course, she appreciated his physically imposing presence. No red-blooded female could ignore those muscular shoulders and tree-trunk thighs. His torso was lean and well-built and begging to be stroked. But she was also attracted to his mind.

      Not only did he listen to her, but he actually seemed to care about what she was saying. Her engineering work was too technical to discuss with people who weren’t in the field, and she’d expanded her interests into studies of the lands her firm chose for development, learning the history of the people who lived there and the geological development of these unique places.

      During that first afternoon when she and Nick were getting to know each other, the group went tubing. In big rubber inner tubes, they bobbed along a stretch of the North