Janice Kay - Hide The Child

“I know, but—”

Vicky nodded. She poked the brush and other things into the duffel and said, “I can carry this out.”

Gabe stepped forward. “No, I don’t want you outside. I’ll take that.” When he saw Trina reaching for Chloe, he shook his head. “And her. Joseph said you’d been hurt.”

She had no doubt his blue eyes saw right through her pretenses. “I have burns on my back.” With sudden alarm, she remembered that he’d have to renew the ointment and bandages for her. A stranger, and male. Very male. With enormous hands that would come close to spanning her back.

That tingle couldn’t be what it felt like, not under the circumstances. Especially since she knew perfectly well that no touch would feel good. Despite the gauze, she’d swear the thin cotton of the scrub top was scraping her burns every time she moved. “Can you carry...?”

His lifted eyebrow mocked her question. Yes, he could carry both, and probably pile on a whole lot more. He undoubtedly did on a regular basis, come to think of it. She’d read that soldiers often packed over a hundred pounds even in the desert heat of the Middle East.

“You’re not parked out in front, I take it,” she said.

“No. I drove through the neighborhood to see if I could spot any obvious surveillance. Even though I didn’t, I left my truck in a neighbor’s driveway. Didn’t look like anyone was home. We’ll cut through the trees out back.” He hesitated. “You need to leave your phone behind. Better if it’s at your office than with you. Or here.”

Trina felt a spurt of panic. Her phone was the only possession she had left. And without it...she’d be even more isolated. But she didn’t argue, knowing how easily smartphones could be traced.

“Josh will be home for lunch,” Vicky said. “I can have him take it.”

Gabe said simply, “Good.” Trina hadn’t said a word, but he seemed to take her compliance for granted.

She lowered herself gingerly onto the edge of the sofa. Standing had had her light-headed, but putting pressure on her burns was worse. “Chloe, this is Gabe. He’s a friend of my brother’s. He’s going to carry you, since you don’t have any shoes.” She now did, but they were in the duffel, and they hadn’t had a chance for her to try them on. Since she knew Gabe wanted to move fast, it was a good excuse.

“Hey, little one,” he said, sounding extraordinarily gentle as he bent over her.

With him so close, Trina could see the dark shadow of what would be stubble by evening, the slight curve of a perfectly shaped mouth...and a white scar that angled from one clean-cut cheekbone to his temple, just missing his eye. That was an old one, she felt sure, not the wound that had him on leave. Her teeth closed on her lower lip. If he turned his head at all, they could almost—

No, no, no! Don’t even go there.

The muscle in his jaw spasmed, and she held herself very, very still. Lowering her gaze didn’t help, not with impressive muscles bared by a gray T-shirt. And then there was his thigh, encased in worn denim.

Maybe he’d turn out to have a girlfriend living with him. Joseph wouldn’t necessarily know.

“Here we go,” he said calmly, and scooped up Chloe, tucking her against his broad chest and rising to his feet. A moment later he’d slung the duffel over his opposite shoulder, and looked at Trina with raised brows as if he’d been twiddling his thumbs waiting for ten minutes. “Can you walk?”

“Yes.” She jumped up too fast. His hand clamped around her upper arm, making her suspect her eyes had done whirligigs. She blinked a couple of times and repeated, “Yes. I’m fine.” Slight exaggeration, but she could do this.

He studied her for longer than she liked before releasing her. “Okay.”

Vicky trailed them to the back door and locked it behind them. Gabe paused only for a moment to scan the landscape, then strode toward the trees. With so little undergrowth on this dry side of Oregon, the lodgepole and ponderosa pines didn’t offer much cover, nothing like a fir and cedar forest would have on the east side of the Cascades where Trina had grown up. Gabe paused now and again and looked around, but mostly kept moving. At first, she was disconcertingly aware of how silently he moved, while she seemed to find every stick or cone to stomp on. Crackle, pop... A jingle teased her memory.

She couldn’t hold on to such a frivolous thought. She felt his gaze on her a few times, too, but didn’t dare let herself meet his eyes. The pain increased with each step until Trina felt as if fire were licking at her back again. Sheer willpower kept her putting one foot in front of the other. She stumbled once and would have gone down, but he caught her arm again.

“Almost there,” he murmured. “See that black truck ahead?”

She didn’t even lift her head. He nudged her slightly to adjust her course, but without touching her back. Trina didn’t remember how much she’d told her brother about her injuries.

She almost walked into the dusty side of a black, crew-cab pickup. He unlocked the door, tossed the duffel on the back seat and placed Chloe there, too. She looked tiny on the vast bench seat.

“I don’t have a car seat for her anymore,” Trina heard herself say. Right this second, that seemed like an insurmountable problem.

“I’ll drive carefully.” He buckled a lap belt around Chloe, who stared suspiciously up at him. Then he closed her door and opened the front passenger door. “In you go,” he said quietly, that powerful hand engulfing Trina’s elbow. “Big step up.”

He didn’t quite say “upsy-daisy” but coaxed her and hoisted until she was somehow in. He closed this door with a soft thud, too, rather than slamming it, and was behind the wheel in the blink of an eye, firing up a powerful engine. When she made no move to put on the seat belt, he did it for her, not commenting on her grip on the armrest or the way she rolled her weight to the side.

He backed out and accelerated so gradually she was never thrust against the seatback.

“How long?” she asked, from between gritted teeth.

“About half an hour. Do you have pain pills?”

“Yes, but...”

“Take them. Are they in the duffel?”

She nodded.

Gabe reached a long arm back, his eyes still on the road, and tugged the duffel until it was between the seats. The bottle of water he handed her was warm, but it washed down two pills.

“You okay, Chloe?” she asked.

No answer, but Gabe’s gaze flicked to the rearview mirror. “She’s nodding,” he said quietly.

“Oh, good.” She thought that’s what she’d said. The words seemed to slur. Leaning her cheek against the window, she closed her eyes.

* * *

SHE DROPPED OFF to sleep like a baby, Gabe saw. That’s what she needed. He was sorry he’d have to wake her up when they got to the cabin.

The little girl was not asleep. She sat with her feet sticking straight out in front of her, her arms crossed and her lower lip pouting. Eyes as blue as his watched him in the rearview mirror. Clearly, she expected the worst. He kind of liked her attitude. He tended to expect the worst, too. That way you were prepared. Optimists could be taken by surprise so easily.

Once he made it onto the highway, he could relax a little. The couple of vehicles he could see in the rearview mirror hadn’t followed them from town. At this time of morning, most traffic was headed south into town, not north out of it.

He checked on the kid, to see her eyelids starting to droop, too.

Another sidelong glance made him wince. Trina’s contorted position had to be miserably uncomfortable. Burns, Joseph had said, without being specific. Gabe would have known they were on her back even if she hadn’t told him, since she’d done a face-plant on the window to avoid making any more contact than she could help with the seat. Twisted as she was, he saw a thickness that could only be bandages. Or, hey, Kevlar, but that wasn’t likely.