Chapter 14 #2
Before she could formulate questions neither of them could answer, he spoke. “Keep an eye on her. She’s…special.”
His gaze locked with Jolie’s, and hers swam with tears. Her chin trembled, and he jerked his stare away, clearing his throat.
The older woman’s expression turned gentle. “You can count on me.” She headed back out. “Soup in fifteen. I’ll be back with those blankets too. Holler if you need anything, all right, dear?”
“Thank you,” Jolie called to her back, but the woman was already gone.
When she left, silence rushed back in. Jolie looked at him with damp eyes.
He closed the distance between them and took her hand. The moment his fingers closed around hers, pain lanced through him. Leaving after everything felt like peeling skin off live flesh.
He squeezed her fingers once. Just once. “I’ll call you later tonight to kick off our routine.”
Her smile was a mix of sadness and hope. “You’d better.”
He smiled because if he didn’t, he’d shatter.
He wanted to kiss her so badly he ached with it. Instead, he forced himself to release her hand and step away.
At the threshold he looked back.
She stood in the lamplight, arms folded across her chest like armor.
It was the last image of her that he’d carry with him.
* * * * *
Since the day she ended up on that military base, the only thing that mattered to Jolie was to get back to her life.
At least, she’d thought so.
Now she was alone in a motel room aching for the man who had just walked away. He’d given her all the pretty promises—that he’d call, that this wasn’t over.
But wanting a man and belonging in his world were not the same thing. She fit perfectly in Archer’s arms. She wasn’t sure she fit anywhere inside his life of rules, danger and deployments.
She thought of the jagged script on his forearm. Sierra. He’d told her he got it before he ever stepped foot onto the mountain, like he needed the promise of belonging before he’d earned it.
Jolie stared at her phone for a full ten minutes before forcing herself to pick it up.
Her thumb shook over the screen as she started the group call.
Jake answered first. “Jolie?”
Tanner came on right after him. “Jesus Christ, Jolie.”
Then Lara’s voice crashed into the line, high and tight and already halfway to tears. “Where were you all this time?”
Jolie plunked down hard on the edge of the bed, the floral cover scratchy beneath her hands. “I’m okay,” she said because that was what they needed most. “I’m okay, guys.”
“But where were you?” Lara pressed.
Jolie closed her eyes, picturing a place no one would ever believe if she told them about it.
She could not tell them the truth. Could not explain military bases buried under abandoned resorts and ghost ops teams.
She could never explain the man who’d just left her with promises too fragile to trust and too precious not to.
“I climbed to the top of a tower to get a photo and ended up stuck in a blizzard. I had to be rescued and then I got snowed in at the lodge they took me back to.”
Silence throbbed in her ears.
Jack’s response came first, suspicion ringing in his tone. “That sounds fake.”
“It’s not fake.”
Tanner cut in. “What lodge?”
Jolie scrambled for answers. “One up in the mountains. Remote. The roads were impassable and phone towers were down. It’s why I had to get word through the authorities that I was okay.”
Lara made a skeptical sound that only baby sisters could perfect. “You’re lying.”
Jolie let out a weak laugh. “Simplifying.”
“That means you’re lying.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and gave them enough truth to sound believable. “It turned into a bigger ordeal than it should have, and I needed help getting back out.”
I left part of myself there.
“What kind of help?” Lara asked.
Jolie stared at the wallpaper and thought of Archer’s face when he said this didn’t feel over.
“The kind involving a hot guy.”
That would give her siblings a bone to chew over and distract them from the rest. It worked.
Lara gasped. “Did you get his number?”
Jolie issued a short laugh that broke on the edges. “He got mine.”
Her brothers made exaggerated kissy noises into the phone that had them all cracking up.
“Disgusting.” Jake was clearly enjoying himself, just like old times.
“Our sister gets lost in the snow and somehow still finds a man,” Tanner teased.
“I was not lost!”
Her cheeks hurt from smiling, but inside she was in so much pain she could barely sit still. One half of her was filled with joy and relief at hearing the people she loved most in the world.
The other half was gutted by Archer walking out that door.
Lara, of course, cut straight to the point. “Are you going to see him again?”
Her smile faded. “Probably not.”
Three silent responses filled her ear.
“It’s fine,” she rushed to say, hoping her voice sounded believable. “I’m just tired. It was a lot.”
Tanner exhaled. “Come home.”
She swallowed around the thickness in her throat. “I am. I’m on my way home as soon as I can get a flight. I’ve had enough adventure for a whole lifetime.”
“Stina’s been texting me. She said to tell you the restaurant is holding your job for you,” Lara said.
Her heart squeezed with affection for her friend, but all of her emotions were crashing in on her and she felt wrung out.
Jake made her promise to text when she left. Lara begged for a photo of the hot guy who rescued her. Tanner told her he’d pick her up at the airport.
By the time she ended the call, her chest felt even tighter than before. She loved them all so much. But she ached so damn bad for Archer.
She set the phone on the bed beside her and sat there with the sound of her siblings’ voices echoing in her mind.
Somewhere in the motel, a door slammed. A shovel scraped on the sidewalk as someone removed snow.
The world felt ordinary in all the wrong ways.
She breathed in, then out, and tried not to think about Archer, but it was impossible not to imagine him already back on base, already unreachable.
A knock sounded at the door, and she jerked upright.
Probably the motel woman with her luggage, or the promised soup and grilled cheese, or more blankets because she clearly believed all emotional crises could be softened by carbs and warmth.
Jolie crossed the room and opened the door without checking, too lost in her thoughts.
A man stood there.
Not the motel woman.
Not anyone she recognized.
He wore a dark coat dusted with snow, and his expression was empty in a way that made her stomach bottom out before she ever saw the gun held low against his thigh.
Aimed straight at her.
“Come with me.”
Her blood turned to ice.
For one stupid second she thought of slamming the door, calculating the amount of time it would take to deadbolt it, but he already had his boot wedged inside.
“Move,” he growled.
She moved.
Fear made everything sharper—the whine of the wind blowing across the front of the motel. The pounding of her heart in her ears.
He stuck the gun in her ribs with a growl. “Don’t fight me or I’ll kill you right here.”
Her heart thundered faster and she managed a jerky nod.
He marched her across the parking lot. Her hands were still free, and she lifted one behind her back, folding her thumb across the palm, tucking her fingers down—the alleged universal sign for help she’d seen once in an online video.
She prayed someone in this place might see and recognize the sign.
Nobody stopped them.
A couple in winter coats stepped out of room eight carrying a bag of takeout and barely glanced her way.
“Don’t scream either.” He pressed the hard steel of the gun into her back.
Panic—hot and useless—flashed through her. No one was going to save her.
He hustled her to a low, ugly utility vehicle half spattered with muddy slush. It had four tracks instead of tires, built for navigating deep snow.
He shoved her into the front seat.
No. She wasn’t leaving without a fight.
She opened her mouth to scream, but pain slammed across her face and she tasted blood. Too stunned by the blow to react quickly, she was helpless when he caught her wrists and jerked them behind her back.
Plastic bit into her skin as he zip-tied them tight.
She twisted and tried to issue another scream but only got out a low croak, which he silenced again with another backhand. The couple in room eight heard nothing, and Jolie’s hopes of being rescued dropped even more.
He tightened the ties another notch until pain shot up both arms.
When he climbed behind the wheel and started the vehicle, she sucked in breaths through her nose and forced herself to think about anything but the blood dripping down her chin.
Oh god. Her phone was on the bed at the motel.
No way to track her. No way for Archer—or anyone on the Sierra team—to locate her.
The realization hit with a force that made her gag.
“Puke on me and you’ll be missing those pretty white teeth,” her captor growled.
Her heart battered her ribs.
Think!
The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a long, lethal-looking syringe.
Every muscle in her body locked.
He swung it toward her neck.
She looked at his face, memorizing it for a police lineup. If she ever got out of this alive.
Her mouth went dry. “Now what?” she shot out. “What are you going to do, buddy?”
He drove the needle into her neck. “Now you sleep.”
“I liked the hood better,” she muttered under her breath.
He narrowed his eyes at her, icy and dead.
The drug hit faster than her adrenaline could fight it off. The inside of the vehicle blurred fast, and the shape of the man hovering over her doubled.
She fought it with everything she had.
Archer.
He’d call. He’d find out she was missing. He said he’d find ways.
As the dark closed over her, Jolie clung to one last, desperate thought.
If ever there was a time for Archer to give up control, it was now.
He’d better break every rule he had.