Chapter 23
23
Something feels wrong.
It gnawed at the back of her neck.
Her agitation growing, Remi tossed and turned, then finally opened her eyes. The room was dark, but light filtered in from beneath the door.
Heart pounding, she sat up and gasped.
Where am I?
Oh ... yeah. Hawk’s place.
Listening to the muted sounds of rain dancing on the concrete outside, she released her pent-up breath and eased back onto the pillow. The storm wasn’t as violent here on the other side of the Olympic Mountains. Was that the reason she felt unsettled? She’d grown accustomed to the crashing waves and now her mind, her heart, missed those sounds. The absence of those comforting noises made her feel displaced.
The sounds. Remi sat up again. She had thought that Hawk reaching for her, his hand, had triggered the memory. But that wasn’t it at all. Hanging from the rope over certain death had been what triggered her memories. It was the rope, not Hawk. She wasn’t exactly sure how or why, but she just knew that’s what it was.
The crashing waves and the rope were sensory details.
She struggled to breathe as the past came roaring back. She dreaded and welcomed it at the same time. Squeezing her eyes shut, she let images overwhelm her mind as violent sensations rushed through her.
Remi was there now, in the past, living it all over again.
They had to hurry and get out. She had to escape. Cole reached out of the helicopter for her and pulled her inside. The next few moments were a blur. Then suddenly the helicopter hovered over water. Remi was falling into the blackness. The darkness. The Baltic Sea?
Another image slammed into her. An explosion in the air. Debris falling to the water.
She gasped. Couldn’t breathe.
Anguish filled her, and she pressed her face into the pillow and sobbed. Everyone had probably died. Remi lifted her face and swiped away the tears. Cole Mercer wasn’t dead. And Remi had survived. Had Cole jumped? Her thoughts remained fuzzy about much of what had happened and why she had even been on that helicopter. Remi wasn’t sure she wanted to know what happened. Sitting up in the bed now, she continued to wipe at the tears that wouldn’t stop coming.
She thought about the Nebraska farm and her childhood. She’d just been a normal kid growing up in a rural community, and then living on the outskirts of Omaha had felt like living in the city. She and Mom had done okay for themselves.
God, I miss that. I wish I was back there and Mom was still alive. Why’d she have to die so soon? If only she was still alive.
Remi would be there with her now. Maybe they would have expanded the house. Added rooms. Created some kind of new recipes they could sell at the local mom-and-pop shops, which would have been a lofty goal for the two of them. Running a bed-and-breakfast had been a big step. But they’d been happy.
And Remi had just been too devastated when Mom had died of a heart attack at forty-eight. She thought about that cold, rainy day when she signed the papers after selling the bed-and-breakfast, then walked into the Army recruiter’s office there on the corner of Main and Chestnut. Maybe she regretted that decision—just a little. She’d grown as a person. Learned so much. But if she hadn’t sold the bed-and-breakfast, she wouldn’t be here now, running from an assassin.
Lord, I know we’re not supposed to think back to the past and wish we’d made different decisions. It doesn’t do any good. But please help me find my way now.
She had no idea what time it was and didn’t want to know. Remi would have preferred to go back to sleep, but her mind was awake now. She hoped to remember everything, but until then, could she piece together what she knew? What did it all mean? At least it was coming back to her, though slowly. And if she figured it out, what would she do with that information?
She had to reach out to someone who could help her, but at the moment, she had no idea who to trust. And she’d really like to know much more about Hawk before she told him everything . Just like Dr. Holcomb had been used as a spy to help her remember, or at least inform them if she did, Hawk could also be a plant.
She hated to consider it, but he’d shown up at a weird time. Could everything that had happened been to gain her trust? How could she truly know? She got out of bed and searched the dresser drawers.
She found nothing interesting in the drawers. Slipping out of the bedroom, she crept down the short hallway to find Hawk sleeping on the sofa, his gun in his hand and resting on his stomach. Well, that was comforting. Not. A digital clock on the kitchen counter told her it was two in the morning. She tiptoed over to the bookshelf and found only a few books. No pictures. Tugging out one of the books on the shelf, she looked at the title. Fatal Traps. She flipped through the pages, forgetting that she intended to remain quiet, and saw that it was about helicopters. No surprise there.
“Why aren’t you in bed, asleep?” He half mumbled the question.
She snapped the book shut. I was snooping. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Interesting reading, don’t you think?”
After returning Fatal Traps to the shelf, she moved around to the sofa. He was still lying down, an arm across his eyes. He looked relaxed and yet on high alert, all at the same time. How did he do that? She wanted to know more about him for all kinds of reasons, but she couldn’t deny that she wanted to know Hawk the man. What would it feel like to have his arms around her, not to protect her but to hold and cherish her? To kiss her?
And with the unbidden thoughts, her cheeks flared. She was glad his arm covered his eyes so he couldn’t see.
She had a vague memory of him walking her to bed. Had he kissed her on the forehead? Nope. She must have dreamed it.
“I’m going back to bed now.”
“Try to sleep. We have no idea what happens next.”
She rushed back down the hallway into the bedroom and closed the door behind her. Once back in bed, she struggled to shut down her thoughts about Hawk. For what seemed like several more hours, she tossed and turned, growing more anxious and agitated. Then finally ... sleep, sweet sleep.
Until she sensed someone in the room with her.