Chapter 4
A blast of arctic air hit Nick like a freight train.
He staggered at the force and bent into it, pushing through three feet of snow to the side of the B and B where Mary’s room was located.
Disturbed snow only confirmed his concern.
Someone had come through Mary’s window while she’d been in the shower.
And from the looks of the footprints leading away, he’d gone back out the same window.
Which didn’t explain the man in the hallway who’d run into Mary before exiting through the back door, a much more civilized approach than the window.
Nick trudged through the snow as fast as he could, following the footprints into the woods.
Every so often, he looked over his shoulder to keep the light from the B and B in sight.
The snow blew sideways in near-blizzard conditions.
Although he’d like to catch the guy, he didn’t relish getting lost in the storm.
An engine roared to life in the distance and the noise diminished as if moving away.
Sounded like a snowmobile. Another engine revved and followed the first. Had the two men been working together? And what did they want with Mary?
Figuring the men were out of his reach, Nick hurried back to the B and B to ensure that Santa’s daughter was safe. He also wanted to inspect her room for any tampering or clues as to why someone would be there.
The blue-eyed woman met him at his bedroom door still wearing her robe.
The towel had been removed from her hair, and wet tresses lay finger-combed into sleek, damp strands reaching all the way to her waist. Her rounded gaze darted from him to the exit and across the hall to her room, where her door stood open.
“Who was it? Did you catch him? No, of course, you didn’t or you’d have been gone a lot longer.
You scared me to death.” She slapped her open palm against his chest. “Running out of here like some cop on a mission. And what’s with the gun?
” She backed up a step and glared at the hand holding the weapon. “Why are you carrying it?”
He shrugged, stalling. “Doesn’t everyone carry a gun in Alaska?”
“Rifles and shotguns when they’re hunting or out on the trails, but not so much the handguns.” Her eyes narrowed. “Just what are you doing here in North Pole? You don’t really know my father, do you?”
Busted. Now, how did he back out of this? “I don’t suppose this could wait until morning?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “No way, cowboy.”
Nick sighed and cupped her elbow. “Come on. Let’s check out your room, and I’ll tell you what I know.”
Mary resisted only a minute, her eyes still narrowed as if she didn’t trust him any more than she trusted the men who’d invaded her room. The thought disappointed him, although why, he didn’t know. In his line of business, he was always living a lie to infiltrate the situation.
“I’m watching you, Nick St. Claire, or whatever your real name is. And I’m trained in self-defense so don’t try anything.”
A smile tugged at Nick’s lips. “So noted.” Mary Christmas was no pushover.
He bet she meant it about the self-defense training.
He stepped into her room and stood perfectly still, staring at everything as it lay.
As far as he could tell, there wasn’t anything odd or out of place.
Her suitcase leaned against one wall, the clothing she’d worn earlier littered the bed, and a minimal assortment of toiletries lay scattered across the dresser.
“Can you tell whether anything has moved from where you originally set it?”
Mary’s arms dropped to her sides as she inspected the room. “Everything looks the same except the water on the floor from the melted snow.” She opened the dresser drawers one by one. “No. Nothing in here is different from when I unpacked.”
When Nick caught a glimpse of lacy black panties and a matching bra, his heartbeat stuttered.
He could picture the beautiful Mary, dark lace resting against pale skin and nothing else.
With a gulp, he turned his attention to the rest of the room.
“What about the bed?” From one leap of the imagination to the next, he could have stuffed a sock in his mouth.
Her color high, Mary moved toward the queen-size mattress. “I don’t remember turning back the covers.” She touched a hand to the pillow.
Nick snagged her wrist, arresting her movement before she could lift the pillow. “Let me.”
Shrugging off his grip, she stepped to the side enough to allow him close to the bed. “Are you worried someone planted a bomb under my pillow?” she asked, her indignant tone fading with each word.
“Not really, but better safe than sorry.” He lifted the pillow.
Mary gasped.
A small box wrapped in shiny red wrapping paper lay against the crisp white sheets.
The fear Mary had felt only a moment earlier dissipated. “Dad.”
“This box?” Nick frowned. “Do you think your father left it?”
“It has to be him.” She reached out, grasped the gift and tore off the paper.
Nick grabbed the wrapping paper as it fell to the floor, lifting it with the tips of his fingers. He wrapped a tissue around the foil paper. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to keep this.”
She shrugged, staring down at the small white box resting in her hand. A smile lifted the corners of her lips for the first time since she’d learned of her father’s disappearance, denting Nick’s indifference like a head-on collision.
In a voice almost too soft to hear, she whispered, “We used to play a game called find the present when I was a child. He’d wrap a clue in the gift and hide it somewhere. When I found it, I had to guess what it meant and follow it to the next clue.”
Mary lifted the lid of the box and pushed aside a fluff of tissue paper. Buried inside was a shiny silver key.
“Any idea what the key belongs to?”
“No.” When she reached out, he caught her hand, wrapping his warm fingers around her cold ones.
“Wait, there might be fingerprints.” He continued to hold her hand, his shoulder rubbing against hers.
“They’ll be my father’s.” Mary pulled free of his fingers.
He maintained his hold. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, of course.” She held up the tissue where words had been scrawled in pencil. “That’s his writing as well.” She squinted as she read the message. “The past holds the secrets. What do you suppose that means?”
“I don’t know but let me have the key. Maybe we can lift a print off it.
” He snatched a tissue from the box on the dresser and carefully lifted the key from the box.
“I’ll be right back.” Nick gave her a quick glance and then strode across the hall to his room, where he retrieved a fingerprint kit from his suitcase.
“I tell you, it’s my father’s handwriting. I’d know it anywhere.” Mary followed him across the hall and closed the door behind them.
“Still, it doesn’t hurt to check prints against the databases.”
“My father is not a criminal.” Mary crossed her arms over her chest, her chin jutting out at a stubborn angle. “Aren’t those databases geared toward criminals?”
Nick would rather she stayed back in her own room, but given the circumstances, he didn’t throw her out. Instead, he set his gun on the bed dresser and got down to the business of lifting the prints. He’d send them to their office back in Texas and see if they could find a match.
“I get it. You’re not going to answer my question, are you?”
“Nope.”
Mary wrapped her arms around the middle of her cotton-candy-pink bathrobe. “Are you a cop or FBI agent?”
He glanced up for a brief moment, a flash of memory pulling his lips into a tight line. “Former FBI.”
“So, you’re CIA or something like that?”
His attention returned to the fingerprints. “Something like that.”
She shook her head. “I’m standing here in my bathrobe talking to a stranger, and I don’t even know if he’s one of the good guys or the bad guys.” Mary chewed on her bottom lip, her brows furrowing into a worried frown.
“I like to think I’m one of the good guys,” he said, returning his concentration back to his task. “For the most part.”
“Yeah, sure. And I guess it was a coincidence you showed up at the airport when I did, my father disappeared and someone broke into my room.” Her hands fisted and she propped them on her slim hips. “How do I know you’re one of the good guys? Do you have credentials to prove it?”
He completed his task before he stood. “I’m going to wash my hands, and then I’ll tell you what I can.”
“I get it, you’re not going to tell me anything.”
“Pretty much.” He pushed past her, strode through the doorway and down the hall, where he washed his hands in the communal bathroom.
All the while he picked through what he knew to come up with what he could tell her.
He hoped it was enough to appease her. As a government SOS agent, he wasn’t at liberty to divulge his true duties.
By doing so, he placed his entire organization in jeopardy and he wouldn’t do that, no matter how pretty the girl was. And Mary was a knockout.
However, since the government version of SOS had been disbanded, he wasn’t tied to those rules anymore. It still felt strange to be working in more of vigilante form for now.
Mary paced inside Nick’s room. Despite her misgivings, she couldn’t or wouldn’t believe the man was one of the bad guys.
So far, he’d been nothing but polite and helpful.
Although she didn’t believe he was on the wrong side, she knew he was holding back information and she meant to extract it, one way or another.
That he’d avoided the truth made her angry.
She stoked her anger, letting it build with each passing minute.
Her gaze landed on the gun he’d laid on the dresser, a thought forming in her head.
By the time Nick walked back into the room, Mary had braced herself, ready for anything. She held the gun he’d carried in both hands and pointed it at him. “Now, tell me what you know or I’ll shoot you.”