But Kendal was watching his feet glide through light and shadow. "I wish you'd stay," he said quietly.
The words pegged Chase right in the chest. "We talked about this already," he said roughly.
Kendal swung his backpack off one shoulder and fumbled with a zipper, his steps slowing. "I made you somethin' to take with you," he announced. Taking a palm-sized object out of his bag, he handed it to Chase.
It took Chase a second to recognize where it'd come from. What used to be a sizable hunk of cedar had been whittled down to a miniature box turtle.
He stopped to inspect it, turning it over with amazement. The high, rounded shell bore hexagonal markings, each painstakingly delineated. Ken had even remembered to carve out three toes on the rear legs. "Wow," Chase said, touched by the gift.
"You said they were your favorite."
And he remembered that? "You sure you want to give it to me? Why don't you give it to your mama?"
"It's for you," said the boy, with gravity.
Okay.
"Thanks," he said again, cradling it gingerly.
"Turtles carry their homes on their backs," Kendal added, meaningfully. "When you look at it, I want you to think about your home."
Jesus.
"I will," Chase said, his voice thick. "Better walk fast," he added, glancing at his watch.
They arrived at the head of the driveway just as the bus came into view. As it pulled away, Chase watched Kendal's face grow indistinct in the rear window. His chest felt full and tight.
If he'd known three months ago that life was going to take this strange little detour, he wouldn't have reenlisted. Even back then, he'd hesitated before signing his name, wondering what he could do with his life that didn't entail living out of a duffel bag. The answer was nothing.
That was then. Right now he could think of plenty of things he'd rather do than jump out of a helicopter into some godforsaken country in order to thin the population. And every one of those things was right here on this ranch, where Sara and Kendal were.
Dean Cannard had just walked into his office when Chase McCaffrey and Serenity Jensen showed up at his door. As with the last time he'd laid eyes on Serenity, she enchanted him. There was something familiar about her, probably because she looked like Meg Ryan. He went for blondes in general, especially slim, pretty blondes with intelligent eyes and a manner of speaking that betrayed a high level of education.
"Well, hey there," he greeted them, waving them in. "Sorry 'bout the cramped quarters. Have a seat."
As they lowered themselves into the mismatched ladderback chairs, he reached for the phone. "Let me call Al, my lead crime scene investigator. He acts as our in-house artist."
Al promptly joined them with a sketch pad and pencil in hand. "Some departments go with computerized composites, but I still think that the hand-drawn ones are more accurate," he explained.
As Serenity described the leader of the FOR Americans, one feature at a time, Dean was content to study her. He liked the gentle way she spoke, with no hint of any kind of dialect. It'd been days since the skinheads had held her for ransom, but she remembered every detail of Will's face, from the sparse hair on the top of his head to the sickle-shaped scar on his square chin. She was observant, like he was.
He wondered if he'd ever have the chance to woo her. That depended, of course, on exactly what her relationship with Chase was.
There wasn't any doubt that they seemed connected, even when they avoided eye contact, never touched. But they had nothing in common that Dean could see. Sara was obviously upper-class. Chase was still a good-ol'-boy, rough-and-ready and also extremely dangerous, given his military training.
"Where are you from, Miss Jensen?" Dean asked, prompted by his curiosity. He was conscious of Chase's blue gaze rising from the sketch-in-progress to skewer him.
"Er, Vermont," she answered, "near the New Hampshire border."
"You don't sound like you're from New England," he pointed out.
"I've moved around a lot," she explained.
She wasn't letting him know much, was she?
"You going to settle down here now?" he pressed.
Chase was definitely glaring at him.
"Yes," she said brightly. "I fell in love with Chase's ranch." She immediately blushed in the wake of her words, which sounded an awful lot like,
I fell in love with Chase.
"Then you changed your mind about Texas," he guessed, enjoying himself. There was nothing like a mystery to intrigue him.
"I guess I did," she admitted. "Will's eyebrows were bushier than that," she said to Al, who angled the tip of his pencil to fill them out.
Dean waited until the drawing neared completion. He'd never seen the suspect before. If he had, he probably would've recognized him, as he rarely forgot a face. "So, when're you headed back East, Chase?" he inquired.
The Navy SEAL took his time answering. "I have a week of leave time left," he said with a steady stare.
"Takes, what, three days to drive that route?"
"A little less."
Dean caught back a chuckle. The man's jealousy was palpable. Too bad he was going to be so far away from Serenity for months at a time. From what Dean could tell about the woman, living on an isolated ranch wouldn't be easy for her. She'd need a man to lean on.
He'd give her two months to pine for her Navy SEAL. And then he'd ask her out to dinner.
"Okay, so what have we got?" Captain Lewis asked the group gathered around the conference table on Saturday morning. Hannah, curiously, was late. Chase had tried to call her cell phone but it was busy.
"Detective Cannard?"
Dean Cannard whipped out the composite sketch that Sara had helped put together yesterday. "This is the leader of the group," he announced, giving everyone around the table a good look. "Every officer in the uniformed division has a copy, and they're scouring the city for 'im, but we still have no last name, don't know who he is."
"What about the other two clowns?"
"Les Wright and Tim Olsen are nowhere to be found," Cannard admitted, with an edge to his voice.
Two bomb squad personnel from Tulsa had been called into the meeting, along with the fifteen SOT members, Chase included. They all sat there looking at each other.
Columbus Day was two days away. The suspects were at large, and the clock was ticking. Chase suffered the premonition that FOR Americans was going to get away with whatever bad shit it had planned.
Hannah burst into the dampening silence like a musical symphony. "Sorry I'm late," she said, bustling in with her laptop slung over one shoulder and papers in hand. Her pantsuit today was the color of a freshly cut watermelon. Nineteen pairs of eyes blinked at her as she handed the papers off to Captain Lewis.
"What's this?" he asked.
"We have a positive ID on Will," Hannah announced. "Do you mind passing out these copies? They're the reason I'm late. Willard Douglas Smith is his full name. He is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War and a member of the Seventy-fifth Ranger Division. He retired in 1992 in Broken Arrow—at least, that's where his pension benefits are sent, to a PO Box address. I'm afraid I wasn't able to find a street address."
Chase hid a smirk behind his hand. Yeah, but she'd found a hell of a lot more than Cannard, who was staring down at the paper in his hand, looking chagrined.
"As for Les Wright and Timothy Olsen, the IRS faxed me their last year's tax returns. Both men worked menial jobs. Tim didn't even make enough income to pay taxes. I've requested five years of returns for Willard Smith. If he worked at all, we'll have a record of his employers, who might be of help in locating him."
Captain Lewis waited respectfully for Hannah to finish. "This is excellent," he admitted. "We'll disseminate this information to the public right away. We should have Willard apprehended in no time. SOT members, you're on call for the remainder of the holiday weekend. I'll keep you posted if anything changes. Flint and Sievers," he added to the bomb squad duo, "I'd like to talk with you a moment longer. Dismissed."
Chase was the first man out of his seat. "I've got to go," he said to Hannah.
"I'll walk you to your car," she said, snatching up her laptop. "Be right back, sir," she said, to Captain Lewis.
Chase glanced at his watch. This morning's meeting had lasted only twenty minutes, but he didn't like leaving Sara at the ranch alone, not even with phone service installed, especially not with the skinheads still at large.
"So, how's it going at the ranch?" Hannah asked, matching his long stride as they headed toward the exit.
"Fine," he said shortly. He'd struggled for two nights straight with the burning desire to sneak down the hall and slip into Sara's bed. But the fear that Hannah was right, that he really was in love, had kept him paralyzed.
Hannah eyed him sidelong. "You can't even leave her for half an hour," she pointed out. "How're you going to leave her for months at a time?"
He came to an abrupt halt, causing her to step back warily. "I told you not to talk about that."
"It's not going to go away."
The aching hunger inside him
had
to go away. He couldn't operate like this in the field. He had to be cool, completely unemotional. He turned toward the exit. "You're invited to dinner tonight," he said, switching topics abruptly as he pushed open the door for her.
"Really?" Hannah asked. "Isn't that going to make Sara uncomfortable?"
"Serenity," he reminded her. He didn't answer her question until they were clear across the parking lot, out of range of anyone who might overhear. "She doesn't know that the FBI gets involved with Amber Alerts," he explained, sending her a warning look. "And she isn't going to find out from you."
"Gotcha," said Hannah, with a wink.
"See you at six," said Chase, dropping into his car.
He left Hannah standing on the curb, contemplating his haste with a lopsided grin.
Hannah arrived at Chase's ranch at promptly 7:00 p.m., which was quite a feat, she acknowledged, giving herself a mental pat, because it was pitch-black already, and there wasn't a single streetlight on any of the roads headed out of town, only the welcoming light on Chase's front porch.
As she knocked on the door, Hannah tried to wipe the little smirk off her face. But then she recalled how often Chase had smirked at her when she'd gone through the wringer, falling in love with Luther a year ago. Payback was such a bitch.
He pulled the door open. Seeing her expression, he gave her a warning scowl. "Behave yourself."
She was hit with the wonderful aroma of chicken enchiladas. The woman coming out of the kitchen taking off oven mitts couldn't be Sara Garret. "Hello," she said, with a shy smile. "I remember you."
It took Hannah several seconds to realize that, yes, she
was
Sara Garret. The eyes and the cheekbones were the same, but that was all. "Holy Toledo," she exclaimed, "you look completely different!" From the hip-hugging, bootleg jeans, to the flattering knit top to the blond tips of her short, spiky hair. "No wonder Chase is crazy about you."
"Dinner ready yet?" he interrupted on a testy note.
"I just need to set the table," Sara rushed to assure him.
"I'll do it," he said, relieving her worried look.
Minutes later, they sat down at the scarred kitchen table, joined by Kendal, a quiet, watchful boy, who vaguely resembled the photo that Hannah had peeked at on the FBI Web site for lost and missing children.
Watching the threesome eat, Hannah couldn't help but notice how comfortable they seemed with each other. Chase kept Kendal's milk cup filled. He made a point of praising Sara's cooking. She, in turn, handed him the salt without his asking. It was like they'd known each other for years.
And yet, Chase had been adamant that Sara was too good for him, from a different world. Hannah set out to prove him wrong. "So, Sara—Serenity," she caught herself, with an apologetic smile, "forgive me if I get too nosy, but what is it that you plan to do for a living?"
"Pretty much what I did before," she replied, "which was to teach English to speakers of other languages. I've checked with the local library, and they said they're fine with letting me use their facilities for tutoring."
"That's great. So you majored in English in college?"
"Linguistics," Sara corrected her.
"She has a master's degree," Kendal piped up, speaking for the first time.
Oh, dear. And here she was trying to bridge the gap. Undaunted, Hannah plowed on. "Linguistics," she mused, glancing at Chase. "You speak several languages, don't you, Westy?" she asked him.
Sara eyed Chase with surprise. "You do? What do you speak?"
Given the wry gleam in his eyes, he knew exactly what Hannah was up to. "Enough Malay to keep myself from getting shot. Basic Thai," he added. "I used to speak Bosnian, but that's rusty."
"And you went to language school for..." Hannah left it to him to fill in the blank.
"French," he finished.
"He speaks French like a native," Hannah boasted. "You should hear him."
Sara looked at Chase like he had horns growing out of his head. "I went to France as an exchange student my junior year," she volunteered.
"Pouquoi as-tu besoin d'apprendre le francais?"
she added, asking him why he'd needed to learn French.
"Not everyone likes Americans," he answered succinctly.
"This past year he pretended to be a French botanist while cozying up to an arms smuggler with a passion for plants," Hannah divulged, noting Sara's intense interest. "Is it okay for me to tell her that?" she asked, sending Chase a wide-eyed look.
Chase just frowned at her.
"A botanist," Sara marveled, with a visible shudder for the danger inherent in such a mission. "I didn't realize that your concealment had to be so complete."
"It was a special assignment linked to a CIA-related endeavor," Hannah explained. "Not his usual thing."
"I knew a lot about plants already," Chase admitted, shifting the focus to his cover. "'Course the varieties in Southeast Asia are different from the plants I grew up with," he acceded with a shrug. "But it wasn't that much of a problem learning what I needed to know."