7. Savannah
Iwoke up very much alone in the middle of a double-size air mattress. By the gray light, I judged it was early morning, pre-dawn. I untangled myself from my sleeping bag and glanced over the edge of the makeshift bed. Ben’s sleeping bag was rolled up and tied, ready to go. After his teasing about a shared bed or, heaven forbid, back seat, he’d behaved like a complete gentleman and slept on the ground. I hated him for that, but I refused to spend one second contemplating that fucked-up mixed message between my body and my brain.
The infuriating man, whom I definitely did not want sharing my bed, was nowhere to be seen.
From outside the tent, sizzling, maple-smoked bacon beckoned. That solved the mystery of where my tent-but-not-bed companion was. I slid off the mattress, rolled and secured my own sleeping bag, and pulled a pair of jeans, a bra, and a T-shirt out of my backpack. I quickly changed out of the gray sweatsuit I’d slept in. I wouldn’t mind a quick shower to wake me up, but my protector-turned-drill sergeant had allowed time for quick showers in the national park’s public facilities last night. I doubted he’d be that indulgent again.
Besides, he’d locked us both into the women’s building because he refused to let me out of his purview, and I did not need a repeat of that. I’d had my own shower stall and dressing room, but standing naked under water, knowing he was doing the same on the other side of the thin wooden wall, had been intense. And it was probably the reason for a restless night’s sleep full of erotic dreams that hadn’t evaporated with the morning light. Then again, the sun hadn’t officially risen yet, so there was still hope.
I pulled on my boots and stepped out of the tent. The air was cool and crisp and heavy with the scent of pine trees. And the view, even through the gray haze, was stunning. Beautiful blue pine cones crouched in close around the small ring of our campsite. Majestic purple mountains along the horizon in every direction. A navy blue sky edged in pink just above the highest peaks. We were in a national park somewhere in Idaho, which was technically part of the Pacific Northwest, as Ben had told me as we drove last night. He’d traveled here before on a weekend camping trip when he’d been stationed an hour outside of Seattle.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Ben said quietly.
“It’s not that late,” I quipped, then bit my lip. He was putting his ass on the line to help me, so maybe I didn’t need to be hostile from the very first exchange of the day. “I meant you should have woken me if we needed to get going.”
He quirked up one side of his mouth and glanced at the bacon frying on the camp stove. “I did wake you.”
We stared at each other. I couldn’t look away from those deep brown eyes that didn’t miss a thing. I sure as hell hoped it was too dark for him to see me blush as the memory of one of my dreams flashed into my mind. I was staring up into those eyes as we shared one shower stall, his naked body pressed to mine.
I ripped my gaze away from him and focused on the distant horizon. “Purple mountains majesty,” I blurted out because it was the first thing that popped into my addled brain. I cleared my throat. “It fits. It’s gorgeous, don’t you think?”
I glanced over my shoulder.
He hadn’t stopped watching me. One side of his mouth slowly arced into a half-grin. “Not gonna touch that with an 80-meter rappelling rope.” He angled his head toward a plate of eggs on the picnic table next to where he’d set up the stove. “Come eat, before it gets cold.”
I glanced to the west, in the direction of the campground’s restrooms. “First, I need to use the facilities.”
“Not on your own. Give me a few minutes to put the food in the trunk. We don’t want to come back to find someone else eating our breakfast.”
“Bears.” Shit. I glanced into the forest, hoping there was nothing big and scary lurking nearby.
“Not necessarily. There are lots of critters around here who would love a free meal.” His voice was quiet and soothing. He was trying to keep me calm.
It was working. Mostly.
“How long will this take?” I sounded cranky again. “Sorry, I just really need to pee.”
“If that’s the only problem, you can step behind those trees.”
It seemed like a good time to bring up the factoid about me not being a pee-in-the-woods kind of girl, but then I remembered that the bathroom facilities were a ten-minute walk away. I glanced at the tree line. “What about the potential bears?”
“None nearby,” he assured me, “but just in case...” He picked up a spray can and threw it to me.
I caught it in two hands and read the label. “Maximum-strength pepper spray. Is this what you use on bears?”
“And other threats.”
I didn’t ask a follow-up question about that.
“You’ll also need this.” He tossed me a baggie with a pack of tissues in it. “We’ll carry everything out with us when we leave.”
I blushed, and in the brightening dawn, I was sure he saw it that time. But my bladder wasn’t getting more cooperative with the passing minutes, so with bear spray in one hand and wipes in the other, I trudged off into the trees. And just like that, I became a girl who pees in the woods.
Back at the picnic table, I washed my hands with sanitizer, splashed my face with cold water from a gallon jug, and sat down to enjoy a powdered egg and shelf-stable bacon breakfast. After the first bite, I sighed appreciatively.
Ben, still standing by the stove, asked, “You know what would go great with this breakfast?”
I could only speak for myself. “A hot cup of—”
He held out a steaming mug to me.
“Mocha?” I asked, but I already knew the answer from the coffee-and-chocolate smell.
“Field mocha,” he said.
“What’s that?” I cupped the mug in my palms, warming my hands and inhaling the life-giving scent.
“Instant coffee, instant cocoa, and powdered milk.”
I hesitated, but what the hell? This was probably the closest I’d get to a real cup of coffee for the day. I sipped carefully, then blew on the liquid and took a bigger sip. “That’s good.”
“I aim to please.”
“I remember.” The words were out of my mouth before my brain could engage.
Ben’s back stiffened, but he didn’t turn toward me or, thankfully, make a suggestive comment in response to mine.
I cleared my throat, which seemed to be my new go-to move for trying to take back whatever stupid thing I’d said. It wasn’t working. “I mean...the coffee...” My mind rummaged around for some innocuous anecdote and latched on to the first thing it found. “Mai got me into drinking coffee during our senior year of high school, and when I’d stay over Friday nights, we’d wake up to a full pot of coffee Saturday morning that you’d set up before leaving for football or cross-country or tennis practice. I know it was for your mom, but it benefitted us, too.”
He still had his back to me as he packed up the camp stove. “It wasn’t just for my mom.”
Thanks a lot, brain.So much for innocuous. It would have helped to remember sooner that my senior year—Ben’s sophomore one—had been when we’d suddenly noticed each other as more than Mai’s friend or brother. Or at least the first time I’d let my conscious mind go there. We’d exchanged smoldering glances more than once when no one else had been watching.
Something inside his backpack, which was propped on the picnic table, chirped. He pulled out an iPad. “Speaking of Mai.” He sat down beside me, close enough to share the device but not to touch me, and tapped the screen to receive the call.
“Hi, guys.” Mai’s voice came through loud and clear, but the screen remained black. “I can’t give you a visual right now, but I’m here with a friend, Pasco.”
“Morning, Mai,” Ben said. “Good of you to help, Pasco.” He looked totally comfortable speaking into an abyss.
I glanced between Ben and the screen. “Hi, Mai. And, um, Pasco.”
“Call me Jack,” a man said. “You’ll be able to put my pretty face to the voice soon enough, but for now, Ms. Lindstrom, I have some good news for you.”
These people got straight to the point. I followed their lead. “Please, call me Savannah. I’m ready for good news.”
“We aim to please,” Mai said.
I pressed my lips together and avoided so much as a glance in Ben’s direction, but in my peripheral vision, I could see he hadn’t so much as flinched. Stoic bastard.
“First things first,” Mai continued. “Our surveillance of your condo building and offices hasn’t turned up anything suspicious.”
“So I’m not—or wasn’t—being watched?”
“We can’t be sure of that,” Jack answered. “But since Mai put me on the case twenty-four hours ago, the feeds have been clean. Twelve hours before that was a different story, though.”
The screen jumped to life and a blurry, black-and-white video played across it.
“What are we looking at, Pasco?” Ben asked.
The screen split into three feeds, all with the same grainy quality. But the same person, a thin, smallish man or maybe a boy, was in all three. He wore dark clothes and a black beanie and seemed to be aware of the cameras and how to avoid showing his face.
“Unidentified male spotted at three different locations within a five-block radius of Savannah’s building,” Jack answered.
In two of the feeds, he stood at the counter, paying for a pile of something. I squinted and leaned closer. “Is he buying burner phones?”
“All the burner phones in the stores,” Mai answered. “But pay attention to the feed on the right.”
The man-boy slid two of three plastic-packaged phones off a metal hook and laid them aside, then removed the third. He pried open the package, took out the phone, and punched on the keyboard. Although I still wasn’t sure what I was watching, a chill ran down my spine.
“He’s getting the phone number,” Ben said, answering my unasked question.
“From one specific phone,” Mai added. “And leaving with all the other burner phones for sale in the vicinity.”
A few puzzle pieces shifted into place, but the full picture wasn’t clear to me. “The first place I went was sold out of them. The guy mentioned they’d just sold the last ones earlier that evening.”
“Now look at the date-time stamp on the feed to the right,” Jack said.
“Friday night, 8:40 p.m.,” I said out loud.
“Ten minutes before your first text from Devlin Masters,” Mai said. “Thirteen minutes before he suggested you get a burner phone and get the hell out of town.”
“Son of a bitch,” Ben said.
I looked at him. “Why son of a bitch? What does all this mean?”
Ben met my gaze. “It means you were set up to buy that specific phone because Devlin already had the number.”
I pointed to the screen. “No way in hell that’s Devlin.” My business partner could be an asshole, but he couldn’t possibly be this big of one.
“It’s not your business partner in the video,” Jack agreed, “but we can’t rule out this person working with him. My best guess is this is a random kid he hired to do his leg work. After he bought all the phones, this guy entered a CCTV blind spot, then we lost track of him. Probably got into a car after going dark.”
“What kind of skill set would the kid need to have knowledge of the blind spots?” Ben asked.
“Minimal IT skills,” Jack said.
“He could even have relied on observation,” Mai added. “Public CCTV and private security cameras are there to discourage bad behavior as much as record it. They’re usually pretty obvious.”
I clasped my hands in my lap and stared down at them.
“This is a good news-bad news-good news story,” Jack said. “So, leaving you with more good news. There’s no sign you’re being tailed.”
“That’s great news,” Ben said.
I felt the weight of his gaze on me, but I didn’t respond. I didn’t have the emotional energy to celebrate with the rest of them. If Devlin was associated with the kid buying all the burner phones, what the hell was he really up to? How much danger was I in? And how in the hell would I save my business from whatever this mess was?
The other three exchanged goodbyes, and then the screen went black. Ben sat quietly while I gathered my courage. I drew in a hitching breath, then another. My vision blurred, and I blinked hard. I fought the tears, but they came anyway. Ben wrapped his arm around my shoulders. I didn’t have the energy to fight both the crushing disappointment of what Devlin was doing and the comforting warmth of Ben’s quiet support, so I leaned into him. When he drew me closer and pulled me onto his lap, I didn’t resist. I pressed my cheek against his chest and took comfort in the strength of his arms and the steady thrum of his heartbeat.
Yes, he was my ex. Yes, I’d declared him dead to me on more than one occasion. And yes, I’d nearly turned tail and run when I’d spotted him across the crowded airport. But he was here, now, when I needed him.
And then need slid sideways into want.
I gripped his shoulder, then slid my fingertips up his neck and into his hair. His big, warm hands flattened against my back. I tilted my head up to look at him. He stared down at me, drowning me in those dark eyes. I inched forward, touched my lips to his, and kissed the hell out of Ben Hayes.