Asking For It (42 page)

Kate shoved the phone into her belt, went to Sugar's muzzle and explained she was taking a little walk. She then started off on foot and very, very quietly, crept down the trail.

It was because she was taking such care not to make a noise that, fifty yards down the trail, Kate was able to hear voices. She stopped in her tracks. Barely breathing, she strained to listen. Unfortunately, she couldn't make out a word. But with a chill of dread, she recognized one of the voices as Griffith's.

What was going on? And why was she so certain it was bad?

Since Kate couldn't see the flashlight now, the voices had to be around a bend in the trail. Telling herself that nobody could actually hear the thunderous pounding of her heart, Kate quietly edged closer.

"...don't see how I'm a problem," Griffith was saying. He sounded eerily calm. "Um, maybe you could enlighten me."

Kate heard Bert LeBow's voice next, low and rusty. "I think you know how you're a problem,
mister
Blaine. But I'll humor you. Long about last July I ran into one o' your engineers while I was out squirrel huntin.' He was nosin' around up above the camp, by the head of the stream. He was ever so excited to tell me all about your big plans."

"Ah," Griffith said. "The stream. That's right. It goes by your cabin, doesn't it?"

"You thought you could take my water, but you can't. You won't."

Kate could hear Bert's voice tighten. The chill along her back spread to her chest. The stream, running past Bert's house... It had never occurred to her. Bert depended on that water even more than she did. He couldn't afford to move somewhere else, particularly once the value of his cabin dropped because it had no water supply.

Griffith's voice went very soft. "You're the one who kidnapped me in August."

"Warn't too difficult." Bert audibly preened. "Your company address was on the Internet, which the lady at the lib'ary in Taft looked up for us. She even got us a pitcher of you, from a magazine article. Joe got his truck outta hock and we drove to LA. Easy. Camped outside your office and followed you home." Bert let out a breath. "You didn't even look to one side or the other when you got out o' that elevator. Never even saw us comin.'"

"No," Griffith agreed. "I didn't."

"That farm tranquilizer Micky got me was supposed to kill you," Bert complained. "'S why we dumped you at the camp. Ta make it look like Kate did it. She had as much reason as us to want you dead."

"Yes," Griffith said. "It was a good plan."

"'Cept it didn't work." Bert sounded bitter. "You didn't die. Coulda knocked me over with a feather when I saw you up at the camp, alive as day and
cozyin' up to Kate
."

"She didn't know about my plans."

"No lie. Boy — " Bert released an admiring breath. "You are one kinda operator."

"So it seems."

"Then I put that rattler in the cabin with you. An' I was nice about it. I made sure you were all alone in there." Bert emitted a disgusted sound. "But that didn't work, neither."

"It was a great idea, though," Griffith allowed.

"Yeah." Bert sighed. "But a Winchester should work better'n a good idea."

During this conversation, Kate inched her way closer to the voices. Her brain was a whiz of frantic and contradictory plans of action. She should wait and see what happened. She should throw something heavy to one side and create a distraction. She should go back up the trail and call Rita to send someone immediately; a helicopter holding a troop of SWAT officers would be nice.

Only the idea she had to stay calm enough to save Griffith's life kept her from freezing completely. She'd seen the animal skins nailed up outside Bert's place. He had no trouble killing things.

"There's only one problem with using the rifle," Griffith remarked.

"I know. It's mine. But I got that worked out. I'm thinkin' Kate came and borrowed it from me. Ever'body knows she hates you now. The sheriff will find it hidden under some straw in her barn."

"Ingenious," Griffith said. "But that wasn't the problem I meant."

Bert hesitated. Meanwhile, Kate nudged her face past the bush blocking her view. She could just make out the edge of Bert's left shoulder. Now, what should she do? Her heart slammed. Griffith was acting so calm, so cool — and he was the one with a rifle pointed at him. She had to calm down, too. Think.

"What's the problem?" Bert asked at last, suspicious.

"It's simply unnecessary to shoot me. Possibly even self-defeating. You see, I'm not building the housing project the engineer told you about in July. I'm not diverting the stream."

"Yeah, yeah. I heard that story." Bert sounded spectacularly unimpressed.

"It's not a story," Griffith told him. "After spending two weeks at Camp Wild Hills and...meeting Kate, I couldn't close the camp."

Bert made a rude sound. Kate held her breath.

"That construction trailer?" Griffith said. "It's a place from which to supervise the building of new cabins for the camp."

"Five miles up the hill?" Bert asked, rightfully dubious.

"No. The plan is to build a second site, down at the bottom of the hill. Adding stables. The kids could ride up and down the trail, trading bunks, trading horses. Or maybe there would be tents at the lower site, more roughing it. Oh, I didn't have it all worked out. I needed Kate to tell me what would work."

Kate closed her eyes. Is that what he'd planned? A second camp site? Horses? But unsure what would please her, needing her input, input she'd repeatedly refused to give him. Her chest went hot and tight.

"Hell." Bert sounded impressed now. "You really
are
a operator. Ta come up with a story like that on the spur of the moment."

"It's not a story. Come down to the trailer with me. I'll show you the blueprints."

"You'd like that, wouldn't ya."

"I can prove it to you."

By inching forward a bit more, Kate could see Bert shaking his head. "Don't think you can fool me,
mister
Blaine. You already tried feeding that line o' crap to Kate. If she didn't believe you, then I'm sure not goin' to."

Kate saw Bert raise his rifle. Her heart — everything — seemed to come to a stop. Bert wouldn't believe Griffith now because she'd made it clear
she
didn't believe him. She'd refused to go into the trailer, and Bert had obviously seen that. By stubbornly clinging to her guilt over her brother's death this afternoon, she'd made Griffith out to be a villain to the man now holding a rifle aimed at his chest.

A whole new load of guilt threatened to swamp her. It was her fault, this deadly situation was her fault.
Oh, God, oh, God
. But she sucked in a breath, and pulled herself together. Guilt wasn't going to get the job done. She needed to get past it and take action. Now.

Kate saw the muscles under Bert's T-shirt bunch as he got ready to pull the trigger. She leapt, aiming for Bert's shoulder, wanting to tilt the aim of the gun.

"What the — ?" Bert exclaimed, and reeled just the way Kate had wanted him to, sideways. The rifle went off with an enormous cracking sound. Kate didn't have a chance to worry Griffith might have been shot. He was on Bert like a tornado, arms swinging: swift, silent, skilled. The rifle tumbled to the ground amid Bert's surprised gasps.

"Get the gun," Griffith commanded, a curt order that didn't stop the motion of his arms.

Kate slipped in and grabbed the firearm. She hissed as her fingers met the hot part of the muzzle. She quickly moved to hold the butt end.

"You okay?" Griffith asked this, sounding soft and concerned, even as he landed a debilitating punch to Bert's mid-section.

"I'm — I'm fine." Kate couldn't take her eyes off of Griffith's astonishing proficiency. With two more well-placed blows, Bert was reduced to unconsciousness. "How did anyone ever manage to kidnap you?"

The corner of Griffith's mouth twitched as he rose from Bert and faced Kate. "I told you it wasn't easy."

"And you were teaching Orlando how to do this?" Kate held out the rifle as Griffith stepped toward her.

An odd look crossed Griffith's face as he saw she was holding out the firearm. After a brief hesitation, he took it. "Yep."

Kate was shaking. Now — now — she was going to fall apart. Or she would have, if Griffith hadn't had the foresight to wrap his free arm around her. She threw her own arms around him and squeezed as tightly as she possibly could. God, he felt good: alive, healthy...
good
. "Oh, Griffith. Griffith."

"It's okay, now. Everything's okay. Man, you have great timing." Kate could feel that Griffith, too, was trembling.

She lifted her face. "I was on my way down the hill to see you, to let you show me your blueprints."

A laugh escaped Griffith.

"They really do show everything you said to Bert, don't they?" Kate demanded. "Stables, more cabins?"

"Well..." Griffith grimaced. "I'm not certain what they show, anymore. Having no idea what I'm doing, I've got the architect up to Alternate E."

Kate's laughter was a deep rumble. "I bet I could cut that down to one or two options."

"I had a feeling you'd be able to."

Kate's rumbling laughter turned grim. "God, if I'd only let you show them to me this morning, Bert might have believed you. He might never have felt the need to go after you today."

Griffith's smile faded. "It's possible." He continued slowly, with his eyes close on her. "But we can't run our lives based on what some madman might do."

Suddenly, as if the skies had opened up, Kate got it. Yes, she'd fallen in love with Eric, but
she
hadn't agreed to help embezzle money from the dealership.
She
hadn't run away from a sheriff's transport bus.
She
hadn't pulled the trigger of that gun-happy deputy.

Kate closed her eyes and buried her face against Griffith's side. She squeezed even tighter. "I love you." She drew in a breath. "And thank you for being so stubborn."

"It's a failing of mine." Griffith sighed and held Kate just as close as she was holding him. "I hate to lose."

Kate laughed and sobbed and squished against him. She felt free: free to love and be loved.

It didn't matter that in one hand the man she loved held a rifle or that a sad case gone too far lay unconscious a few yards away. When Griffith lifted Kate's chin to kiss her, Kate felt utterly safe, and completely in the right place.

She kissed him back.

~~~

"I wasn't sure we'd ever get to sleep tonight." Ricky yawned extravagantly. Lying on his back in the narrow camp bed in Bunkhouse Three — the warmest of the bunkhouses, Kate had promised him — he had one arm around Deirdre and the other bent behind his head.

"The sheriff's deputy was rather...confused," Deirdre agreed.

Ricky barked a laugh. "Diplomatic way of saying he was slow-witted."

Deirdre turned toward Ricky and placed a palm on his bare chest. "You have to admit the situation is rather complicated." She and Ricky had driven his car hurriedly up the road after hearing the rifle shot. They'd found Kate and Griffith standing guard over an unconscious man Ricky told Deirdre was named Bert LeBow, a ne'er-do-well who shacked out in a cabin on the other side of the hill. Minutes later, while Deirdre and Ricky were wide-eyedly trying to find out what had happened, the sound of a siren had pierced the night air, struggling closer.

It had taken awhile, but eventually the deputy who'd arrived in the patrol car had sorted out who was the bad guy — not Griffith, after all. He'd taken statements and, after receiving the promise everyone would stay in the area for more detailed interviews the next day, he'd carted Bert off.

"Did I mention you're helping me live out one of my earliest fantasies?" Ricky turned so that his lips touched Deirdre's.

"You mean the fantasy of finding the woman of your dreams and knowing she loves you as much as you love her?" Deirdre kissed him, just as lightly and teasingly as he was kissing her.

"Actually...I was thinking of the fantasy of having a naked woman in my bed at camp." Ricky touched Deirdre's lips again, but this time flicking his tongue between them with wicked intent.

"Oh. How romantic." Deirdre meant the words to come out dry, but ruined the effect by giggling.

"I love you," Ricky murmured.

Deirdre hitched a breath, but managed to sound cool. "Are you sure you're not just trying to get into my pants?" But she wrapped her arms quite willingly around Ricky as he smoothed his hands down her naked back.

"Well, there is that." Ricky sighed, clearly liking the feel of Deirdre's rear end beneath his palms. "But a lot more. It's good to need you, Deirdre. Because it makes me realize how much you do for me, how much...I can be when I'm with you."

"Oh, Ricky." Deirdre closed her eyes as a marvelous warmth flowed through her.

"We're together now, aren't we?" There was an endearing note of uncertainty in his voice.

"We're together," Deirdre assured him, dimly marveling that she, the wallflower, was reassuring him, the dashing Romeo.