Paula Graves - Blue Ridge Ricochet

He opened his eyes, looking straight at her, and that niggle of recognition returned. “Who’re you?”

“My name’s Nicki. What’s yours?”

“Dallas.”

For a brief second, she wondered if he’d misunderstood her question. Then the memory that had been flickering in and out of the back of her mind popped to the front, and she sat back on her heels, almost toppling over.

Dallas. As in Dallas Cole, missing for almost three weeks now and presumed by most people as either dead and buried somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains or wintering somewhere on the coast of Mexico, a cerveza in hand and a pretty girl by his side.

The last place she’d figured on running into the missing FBI employee was on Bellwether Road in the middle of Dudley County, Virginia.

Now she could see the resemblance between the man lying in the road in front of her and the missing man whose disappearance had caused a stir all the way from Washington, DC, to the little town of Purgatory, Tennessee, where a man named Alexander Quinn ran a security agency called The Gates.

“Oh, hell,” she murmured.

A frown furrowed his brow. “Where am I?”

“Ever heard of River’s End, Virginia?”

His voice rasped as he answered. “No.”

“Not surprising.”

He struggled to sit up. Not quite sure she could trust him yet, she let him do so without her help, her gaze sweeping over him in search of injuries. She spotted healing bruises dotting his jawline and the evidence of old blood spotting the front of his grimy gray shirt, but no sign of recent injuries.

Mostly, he looked exhausted and cold, and while she was no doctor, she could help him out with those two ailments. “Think you can stand?”

He pulled his legs up and gave a push with his arms, wincing as his left arm gave out and he landed on his backside. “Something’s wrong with my shoulder.”

Could be a trick, her wary mind warned, but she ignored it, following the demands of her compassionate heart. He couldn’t fake the unmistakable look of ill health. Something had happened to this man, no matter what crimes had led him to this place, and the least she could do was get him somewhere warm and dry before feds came swarming into River’s End.

She started to reach for him, planning to help him to his feet, when her last thought finally penetrated her brain.

She pulled back, staring at him with alarm.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, slanting her a suspicious look.

“Nothing,” she lied, even as her mind started scrambling for a solution to her unexpected dilemma. There was no way she could leave him to fend for himself out here in the sleet. There was supposed to be snow before midnight, and the temps were going to plunge into the midtwenties before morning. Dressed as he was, without even a coat to ward off the chill, he’d never survive the night.

But if she took him to the hospital in Bristol...

She couldn’t. They’d call the FBI, who’d want to talk to her. There’d be a lot of terribly inconvenient questions and all her work for the past few months would be out the window.

Or worse.

But how to explain that to the hypothermic, battered man sitting in the road in front of her? “Look, I tried calling 911—”

“No.” His gaze snapped up sharply, catching her off guard.

“No?”

“I don’t need medical help.” His lips pressed to a thin line. “I’m okay. I just need to get warm.”

Well, she thought, that wasn’t exactly a comforting reaction.

“Are you sure?” Not that she wanted to contact authorities any more than he did, but his reluctance didn’t exactly fit the picture of a man wrongly accused, did it?

Maybe that was good, though, considering the dangerous game she was playing herself. Dealing with bad guys was less complicated than dealing with good ones, she’d discovered. Their motives were easier to glean and usually involved one sin or another. Greed, gluttony, lust, hate—oh, yeah, she definitely knew how to deal with sinners.

Saints, on the other hand, were a cipher.

“Let’s get you out of the cold, Dallas.” She pushed aside questions of his particular motives. There’d be time to figure him out once she got him back to her cabin, where she could provide the basic comforts anyone in his condition needed, whether sinner or saint.

Avoiding his bad shoulder, she pulled his right arm around her shoulder and helped him to his feet. He stumbled a little as they made their way across the slickening blacktop to the Jeep, but she settled him in the passenger seat with little fuss and watched with bemusement as he fumbled the seat belt into place. Sinner or not, he apparently took seat belt safety seriously.

She circled around, slid behind the Jeep’s steering wheel and cranked the engine. Next to her, Dallas sighed audibly as heat blasted from the Jeep’s vents.

“Good?” she asked, easing back onto the road.

“Heaven,” he murmured through chattering teeth.

He couldn’t have been out in the elements for long, she realized as his shivering began to ease before they’d gone more than a mile down the road. So where the hell had he come from?

“Should I be worrying about pursuit?” she asked.

His gaze slanted toward her. “Pursuit?”

“Anybody after you?”

He didn’t answer at first. She didn’t push, too busy dealing with the steady buildup of icy precipitation forming on the mountain road. Thank God she didn’t have much farther to travel. The little cabin she called home was only a quarter mile down the road. They’d be there before the snow started.

“There might be,” he answered finally as she slowed into the turn down the gravel road that ended at her cabin.

“Are they nearby?”

“Probably,” he answered.

Great. Just great.

“What did you do?” She glanced his way.

His mouth crooked in the corner. “Because people in trouble usually got there under their own steam?”

She shrugged. “Usually.”

“I broke a rule. I thought it was for a good reason, but as usual, the rules are there for a reason.”

He was beginning to sound more like a saint than a sinner. “What kind of rule?”

“I skipped steps I should have taken,” he said obliquely.

But she knew enough about his situation to know exactly what he was talking about, even if she didn’t let on. “That’s cryptic.”

He smiled. “Yes.”

So. He didn’t trust her any more than she trusted him. Fair enough. She was in no position to quibble.

“Well, how about we don’t worry about rules and secrets, and just get you somewhere warm and dry. Think you could handle something to eat?”

“Yes,” he said with an eagerness that made her glance his way again. He met her gaze with a quick glance, his lips quirking again. “Sorry. I’ve missed a meal or three.”

When he smiled, he was almost good-looking even with his sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, something she hadn’t expected. The only photo she’d seen of him had been his driver’s license photo. Nobody ever looked good in their driver’s license photos.

Dallas Cole, she suspected, would clean up nicely.

Down, girl. He’s not date material, and you’ve sworn off men, remember? Saints or sinners, they’re nothing but trouble.

She pulled the Jeep under the carport connected to her cabin and cut the engine. “Sure you don’t want me to call paramedics?”

His eyes were closed, his head resting against the back of the seat. When he turned his face toward her, his eyes opened slowly to meet hers in the gloom. “I just need to rest a little while. Then I’ll get out of your hair.”

The full impact of what she was doing hit her as she got out of the Jeep and locked the door behind her. Had she lost her mind, taking in a stranger wanted by the FBI? Even Alexander Quinn, a man who prided himself on his ability to read people, wasn’t sure what side Dallas Cole had chosen. For all she knew, this might be a test of her loyalty to the Blue Ridge Infantry.