HelenKay Dimon - Lawless

Joel took off after Hope. She’d stopped, and with his long stride, he caught up fast. When he drew close he saw her standing near a fallen tree, staring at the dirt.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

She looked up, the anger obvious in her tight jaw and the flush of red on her cheeks. “My phone is gone.”

“I thought we already knew that.”

“No, I mean I had it in my hand while I was running—”

“You ran through this?”

“—and stumbled here. I dropped the phone and now it’s gone.”

There was no trail and no obvious signs of a path. Roots poked out of the ground, and the trees had grown to the point where they blanketed the area. Any sane person would watch her step. But she had run. Figured.

He thought about lecturing her but abandoned the idea when she bent down and started patting the rough terrain with her palm. Hope knew the outdoors, loved and cherished the openness. It was one of the things they had in common.

Still, a phone could only bounce so far. “Any chance you lost it somewhere else?”

“No.” She tried to reach her arm under the log. “I’m not exactly easy to spook. I know what I’m talking about.”

“But you are.”

She tugged on her arm but didn’t remove it or sit back up again. Twisting around, she looked up at him. “What?”

“Spooked.” And stuck. He wondered how long it would be before she admitted that. “Your pulse is racing and you’re jumpy. Not that long ago you were shaking and holding that knife like you were ready to slash anyone in your path.”

“Someone was chasing me.” She kept shifting and squirming. The heels of her boots dug into the dirt as she wrenched her shoulder.

Much more of this and she’d really injure herself. Any second now she’d ask for help. Well, most people would. With Hope, who knew?

He was ready to jump in. She just had to say the word, but he’d bet all the cash on him she wouldn’t.

“I get the chasing part,” he said.

She stopped moving around and shot him a big-eyed stare. “You don’t believe me.”

With Hope, he figured that was as close as he was going to get to a plea for help. He crouched and did the quick math on the best angle to pull her out without dislocating her shoulder. “I didn’t say that.”

“I am not a little girl who needs protecting. Your days of holding that job are over and, in case you missed it, I was never a little girl on your watch.”

“Oh, I noticed.” He jammed his fingers into the hard ground as dirt and peat moss slid under his nails. Ignoring the closeness and the way her arm brushed across his chest, he wedged his hand under hers and dug a shallow tunnel with his knuckles. “For the record, I noticed everything about you. Still do.”

Before he could add to the comment, footsteps echoed around him and boots appeared in front of his face. He strained to look up and got as far as the familiar utility pants.

“Our company is back,” Joel said into the relative quiet of the forest.

She tried to spin around and hissed when her trapped arm stopped her movements. It took another beat for her to get a word out. “Where?”

“He means me.” Cam dropped down to the balls of his feet with his body between Joel and Hope. “What are you two doing?”

With his hand caked with dirt, Joel wrapped his fingers around her bare arm and gave a quick pull. “Rescuing her.”

“I don’t need rescuing.” She popped free and fell back on her butt. Next she rubbed her shoulder joint. “Ouch.”

Joel refused to feel guilty for getting her unstuck when she’d been too stubborn to ask for his assistance. “Good thing you weren’t caught then.”

“Glad we cleared that up.” Cam stood. “She’s right about being followed. There are footprints over there.”

“Any clue about who or why?” Joel got to his feet and put a hand down, surprised when she took it to jump up next to him.

“Some interesting information.” Cam turned his camera around and flashed an image most people would think showed nothing but leaves but really showed an outline of a shoe. “Men’s size eleven. Probably a hundred-seventy pounds.”

She leaned in closer to the screen, her eyes narrowing. “You can tell that from a grainy picture?”

Cam nodded. “And your stalker is an overpronator.”

Joel had to smile at that. “Now you’re just showing off.”

Cam shrugged. “I’m good at my job.”

“Which is what again?” she asked.

No way was Joel entertaining an impromptu debriefing in the middle of an isolated forest. Protocol was very clear. The Corcoran Team operated on a need-to-know basis.

To the world they provided risk assessments and moved in to help if things went wrong. Important but not the complete story. The definition missed the reality of the constant danger and huge amount of shooting.

Fact was, telling the woman he once dated about his current occupation had to violate some rule. “Not up for discussion.”

She sighed. “I’ve been hearing that my whole life.”

A stark silence followed her words. Joel didn’t bother to explain the real-world need for not filling her in. She knew how this game was played. She’d lived with a man known for having secrets. Joel got that she hated the game, but that didn’t change it one bit.

Cam finally broke the quiet with a clap that thundered through the trees. “So, we have someone skulking around the woods.”

“And a missing phone.” She turned on Joel with a finger in his face. “Do not ask me if I’m sure this is where I dropped it.”

Those words died in his throat because saying them could get him punched. “No, ma’am.”

She treated him to a smile then. “That’s new.”

He tried not to notice how it lit up her face. “I’m not always difficult.”

“Yes, you are,” she said.

Cam nodded at the same time. “Not always, but mostly.”

“We should head back and make sure none of these weekend warriors cut off a toe.” Falling back into command mode kept Joel from telling both of them off. “We also need to check out Hope’s knee.”

She glanced down.

Cam nodded. “Maybe this Mark guy wandered into camp and there’s some reasonable explanation for all of this.”

The men started to walk but she stayed still. “What about your helicopter and wherever you were planning to go after stopping in here?”

Sounded like she still wasn’t understanding his assignment here. Joel tried again. “This is my final destination. With you.”

Cam slid his foot over the piles of leaves stacked around them. “And I’m good to hang out for a few hours.”

Her hands went to her hips, and her legs still didn’t move. “You both think something is seriously wrong.”

Joel decided not to sugarcoat this. Sure, the past half hour could mean nothing. Or it could mean Baxter Industries and her dad were right to send in reinforcements. They wouldn’t know until they got back to camp. “Stolen phone and a stalker? Yeah, Hope. Something is not right.”

Her smile came roaring back. “Good.”

He wondered if he would ever understand her mood swings. “How is that good?”

“Because you believe me. You’re not writing this off as some hysterical woman thing.”

Of all the things she could have said, that one came out of nowhere. “I’ve never known you to be hysterical.”

She eyed him up. “You know, you seem slightly smarter about women now. Maybe some things have changed about you since we last went out.”

And he worried the most obvious—how much he wanted her—hadn’t.

Chapter Three

Hope tried to ignore Joel for the entire walk back to camp. His constant stream of questions didn’t make that easy. He wanted to know about the campers and what her plan had been to get the men in and out of camp. She gave the details, even though she really wanted to stop and demand an explanation for why it was so easy for him to walk out of her life.