Page 55 of Montana Rain

“Of course these people don’t fuck around,” I said. “They clearly know who Rayne is, after vandalizing her home and office, and they want the flash drive back. Rayne is asleep right now, so I can say I don’t think stealing it back is going to be enough now that it’s been opened. The alarm, digital flare, whatever it was. It basically painted a target on her back.”

Daniel sighed. “Another reason we don’t want to identify Rayne. It’s Emma and Simon all over again. They’ll do whatever they can to make this case. I’ll spare you the details of that conversation. But I don’t doubt they’d be willing to use both you and Rayne as bait to catch more of them.”

Frustration burned in my chest, my free hand clenching into a fist in an attempt to keep from punching the wall. “I’m so fucking sick of it,” I said to myself more than to them. “We need help and information, not roadblocks and manipulation. When I joined the Bureau, they were more about helping people than this bullshit. When Rayne and I can get free, we’ll see what we can do about getting the flash—”

“Stop!” Jude’s yell cracked through the phone. “Stop talking right now.”

All three of us fell into silence, and I closed my eyes. There it was. The nearly inaudible click in the background that gave away everything. We were being listened to, and we’d already talked far too openly.

“Be safe,” Daniel said. “Get out when you can.”

“Will do.”

Sickness roiled in my gut.

We’d brought her out here to keep her safe, and in one conversation, I might have put her in more danger. With the signal being so bad, it was unlikely whoever was tapping could get an exact pinpoint on our location. But the fact that they were still listening at all told me enough. They hadn’t given up, still convinced the drive was in the area. Which it was. And now they knew for sure.

I went back to the stove, where the water was now boiling, and focused on making the rest of our food. Noodles and sauce. As basic as it got. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to eat it now, but for Rayne’s sake, I needed to try.

She was terrified of something bad happening to me simply because she let herself get close, but I wasn’t. I was worried about something happening to her. Before we’d come out here, I’d already been concerned. Now that we’d finally come together?

I would move heaven and earth to keep her safe.

Chapter 24

Cole

I never stayed anywhere without an escape plan.

As soon as I’d arrived, I’d mapped the possible exits without even thinking about it. Ways to get out of the cabin and down the mountain, both in the truck and on foot.

But those plans didn’t account for eighteen inches of snow, another person, or someone who would struggle to walk.

Not to mention, I had an escape plan, but this cabin hadn’t been chosen for its tactical advantages. It was available and suited my needs well enough. Getting involved with the Chicago mafia and having to save the woman I loved from them hadn’t been on my bingo card for my four-month exile.

The woman I loved.

My thoughts spoke the words without any hesitation. It seemed a little crazy for something like that to be true. Where I came from, love needed both time to grow and for one to know everything about the other person.

But with Rayne, I didn’t need to know everything about her. Did I want to? Yes. I looked forward to peeling back the rose-petal layers of her soul and savoring the softness she only showed to me. But I didn’t have a need to know her first. My soul already knew hers, and that was more than enough.

Looking around the cabin, I saw it in a new light. A defensive light. We needed to get ready in case things went badly, but the snow slowed everything down. We had a little time.

Rayne still slept, so I decided to do some of the prep now. With the storm mostly passed, I could make it outside without fear of getting lost. Thank fuck. If anyone had come for us in the middle of the blizzard, we would have been sitting ducks.

Before it was full dark, I needed to get this done.

I took more rope from Jimmy’s stash. It was getting low, and I would replace it before I handed the cabin back over to him. Hopefully the man would be pleased that his hideout worked mostly as intended. With the exception of the wood-fueled generator.

I grabbed everything I could from his basement and around the cabin that could make noise and carefully strung them together. There was only so much we could do without power, and an early warning system was about as good as we could get.

My snow clothes were thankfully dry, and I got into them as quickly as possible. I was losing light, and the snow would slow them down, but I didn’t know how much. If I were coming after someone, even in this weather, I would do it at night.

If it weren’t life-and-death, I might laugh at myself. Out in the snow with rope and clanky utensils, stringing things low between trees. At the moment, I was the stereotype of paranoia.

I did what I could, stringing up the noisemakers and clearing away snow from the edges of the cabin for an easy exit. When I pushed back inside, leg aching from the exertion, Rayne was sitting up, blinking and looking around. The relief on her face was palpable when she saw me. “You went outside?”

“It’s not so bad out there now,” I said with a smile. I took off my coat and the wet pants and went to her. “Listen, we need to—”

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