CHAPTER 27
The rest of their days off passed in a state of lazy relaxation and easy companionship. He and Erin hadn’t come right out and talked things through after that explosive session by the pool, but they hadn’t had to. Not yet.
Tim had never been more grateful for Matt. For the maturity and strength his friend had shown as he eased back on the sexual overtures, following Tim’s lead as promised.
Erin . . .
She continued to observe everyone around her far closer than Tim had ever seen her before. More importantly, though, she softened. Not a diminishing of her bold and sometimes demanding attitude, and she didn’t lose her wicked sense of humour, but when he turned his gaze on her, it was if there were no longer any walls between them.
She’d accepted him as he was. Accepted herself, and was willing to move toward accepting them.
Somehow in the midst of the casual conversations and board games the three of them shared, the sense of more continued to grow. More of them—of Tim and Erin as a couple. The sex didn’t stop, the games and the exploring didn’t stop, but even the casual activities seemed more intimate.
It wasn’t about exploring the limits, not like it had been when they were young. He wasn’t in a hurry to do anything else too wild sexually, not for a bit. Watching her tentative but complete surrendering of her trust was enough of an incredible thing. Like stepping into a honeymoon stage of their new relationship, fresh and intoxicating without the need to add additional kink.
Tuesday afternoon they stood at the front door of the rental waiting for Matt’s ride to arrive to take him to Calgary. Erin kissed him full on the lips, and he tangled her up for a moment in his arms, enveloping her in a huge bear hug and squeezing tight.
“I’m going to miss you,” Erin confessed.
“Door is always open, even if Tim’s not with you,” Matt promised. “And I will be coming to Banff in the near future. You can count on it.”
Tim held out a hand, but when Matt took it, Tim pulled his friend close and gave him another enormous hug, patting him heartily on the back, doing that guy thing. “You’re one in a million. Don’t be a stranger.”
“Are you kidding?” Matt glanced at Erin and winked, a moment passing between them.
Tim kept silent, then waved his friend off, Erin tucked against his side.
The return trip to Banff passed quickly. Erin curled up next to him on the bench seat, her fingers linked with his. “Thank you for introducing me to Matt. He’s a good friend.”
It was as good a time as any to clear one issue up.
“He’d like to be more than friends.” Tim smiled as Erin lifted her head from his shoulder to turn to stare at him. “You figured that out, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but . . .” She shifted farther away, disbelief on her face. “He’s attracted to you, yet you seemed completely oblivious.”
“Because while there’s a physical attraction, that’s not what Matt really needs. A lifelong friend is far more important than a temporary lover.”
Her gaze shifted out the window, as if processing his comment.
Tim adjusted his hand on the wheel, speaking softly. “It’s part of knowing what I want as well. He can’t give me what I need long term.”
“So you pretend not to even notice the hints he’s giving?”
“He doesn’t usually give hints anymore,” Tim admitted. “That was because you were there. Maybe he felt your presence would distract me, and he was safe to show a little more of what he usually keeps hidden.”
“Maybe he was hoping for more,” Erin pointed out. She caught his eye. “Is he happy?”
“What do you think?”
She stroked his fingers softly. “Yes. Even though he wishes for more, he knows what he’s got is very special.”
“And I’ll never take that from him.” Tim squeezed her hand, turning on the signal to head down the center of town toward her house. “Besides, he knew there was someone I’d been hoping to get back together with. Someone who had a special place in my heart.”
“Matt knew about me?”
Tim nodded. “Of course. I’d talked about you often.”
“Huh.”
He pulled in front of Erin’s small bungalow, the tall pine trees that lined the block casting shadows over the snow covering her front lawn. He caught her before she could wiggle away to the other side of the truck. Fingers firmly wrapped around the back of her neck, slowly easing her forward until their lips were only inches apart. “Let’s get your things, then head to my place. I have some ideas for the evening.”
Her kiss was as eager as his. Total involvement, a melting under his touch that made the hurts and time apart fade into nothing but the here and now. Their past was put aside. The future grew brighter by the moment, and that was what he wanted to concentrate on.
Breaking apart to crawl from the truck took effort when all he wanted to do was sit there and neck like some love-besotted teenager. Erin slipped out his door, her fingers still linked in his as if she couldn’t get enough of him, either.
Stupid, crazy emotion like he hadn’t experienced in years blasted his brain into near incoherency. He scrambled for something to say other than blurting out I love you far too soon and with far too little fanfare.
“Someone’s shoveled the walks.” Tim stifled his groan at the fake perkiness in his comment, then laughed as Erin sounded just as stilted as she replied.
“Since I never know when I’ll be gone, I pay the teen next door to shovel and mow.”
They grinned at each other, sheer happiness soaking through as Erin led him up the steps and unlocked the door. “It won’t take me long to pack a bag.”
“You need me to go through the fridge?” Tim asked.
She tossed her keys on the side table, then headed down the hall. “You can look, but there shouldn’t be anything rotting. I only shop for fresh stuff a day or two at a time, and our last call-out happened before my shopping day.”
He’d just stepped into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge door when a burst of unexpected sound rang from her room.
“Erin, you okay?”
No answer.
Tim moved quickly down the hall only to jerk to a stop as a familiar, but unwelcome, face reappeared.
Ken held a gun straight in front of him, forcing Tim to back up.
Adrenaline and fear shot through him instantly. “Shit.”
“Yeah, shit.” Ken waved the gun, continuing to close the distance between them. Erin emerged into the hallway, her arms locked behind her as John manhandled her forward.
“Don’t hurt her,” Tim snapped, a hand raised before him in caution. Erin’s eyes had gone wide, her lips a tight line as Tim backed into the living room and the others crowded around him. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but we don’t want any trouble.”
“You should have thought about that before you took off. Now where is it?” Ken asked.
“Not trying to be a smart-ass, but where is what?” Tim frantically rolled through escape options, discarding them as quickly as they came to mind. If it had been only one person with a gun, he might have risked rushing the man, but two?
Waiting was the only option.
Ken kicked the grey-striped backpack Erin had abandoned to the floor the other day. “There was another one of these in the helicopter. Where is it now?”
Erin shook her head. “I don’t know for sure. Either in the back of the truck, or at headquarters. I can’t remember if that’s one of the bags we dropped off the other day.”
“Both of you, drop your cell phones.”
Ken waited until they’d reluctantly followed his directions.
“Take her outside to check the truck,” Ken ordered John before facing Erin. “Don’t try anything. Your boyfriend stays with me as insurance.”
Tim cleared his throat. “I need to give her the keys for the canopy. They’re in my pocket.”
“Slowly,” Ken said.
“I’m not stupid,” Tim assured him. He pulled out the keys and held them in an open palm. “Get whatever it is you need, and go. We just want to get on with our lives, and you’re welcome to get on with yours.”
Erin took the keys from him, her eyes haunted. They’d seen John kill a man—Ken had ordered it. It wasn’t going to be that easy to simply walk away a second time. But saying that out loud wasn’t going to help anyone.
One second, and the world had turned.
Tim watched the laughter and hope in Erin’s expression fade to misery. Fear. Tim did the only thing he could. He lied like an ace.
“Do what John tells you. We’ll be okay.”
The woman he loved stepped outside and took all the warmth with her, leaving him alone with a gun pointed at him, and a horrifying fear that this was one situation he wasn’t going to be able to talk his way out of.
* * *
Erin moved slowly toward the car, desperately taking in everything around them as John silently escorted her, his grip on her arm steady. She wasn’t aware enough of who drove what in her neighborhood to identify an unexpected vehicle, but they had to have gotten from the ranch to Banff somehow.
The gun had disappeared, but she wasn’t positive she could escape his hold easily. Breaking his grip and running was out of the question, not with Tim still in the house.
“Do you want me to open the back?” she asked, the keys dangling from her fingers after undoing the two side locks holding down the back canopy window.
“I don’t see the pack in there,” John snarled, leaning against the truck and glancing in a side window. “Yeah, open it.”
She lifted the canopy and dropped the tailgate, but the only things in the back were the two small gym bags they’d had with them on their holiday. “We must have dropped it at headquarters with the rest of the gear from the chopper, but I’m not sure.” Desperate to make sure there was a reason for them to stay alive.
John growled his frustration. “Get in the back,” he ordered, jerking the keys from her fingers.
Shit. Erin moved slowly, but followed his directions, bruising her knees on the hard metal, bare fingers cold on the chilled truck bed. He put his hand on her hip and shoved, toppling her off balance. By the time she’d made it upright, he’d flicked up the tailgate, dropped the canopy cover, and locked her in. She had plenty of room to move—the canopy cover was as tall as the roof of the truck cab. There were windows on all four sides, but being able to see wasn’t reassuring at the moment.
She was still trapped.
“Don’t make a fuss. We’ll be bringing out your boyfriend, and if we find a group of neighbours gathered, it won’t be good for anyone.”
John walked back to the house, head pivoting from side to side as he kept an eye on the nearby houses. Erin checked as well, but it was early enough in the day that most of the people in her area were still at work, and there were no children on this section of the block, thank goodness. Last thing she needed was to have kids get involved.
Tim appeared in the doorway, Ken immediately after him. John closed the door, and the three of them headed toward her.
Only Ken split off, taking Tim with him. The two of them got into a second truck parked just down the street, Tim behind the wheel. Erin struggled to see anything that might be helpful—license number, truck model.
Loud banging made her jerk back from the glass.
John scowled in at her. “Stay down. We’re going to your headquarters, and if you’re telling the truth, we’ll be gone in no time. You do anything stupid, I call Ken.”
Erin lowered herself into the corner, head below the level of the windows.
John could still see her through the double glass separating the truck cab from the canopy, but she was out of reach. And out of control when he shot forward from the curb with a jolt that rolled her toward the tailgate.
Erin thrust out her arms to brace against the truck sides.
She stayed low, counting corners as John followed Tim. After the first few, though, she got lost when they didn’t head in a straight line toward HQ, instead taking smaller residential streets to go through most of town.
There was only so much distance to travel in Banff, though, and they were going to be at the business park end soon enough. What was she going to do?
She crawled on her belly, easing toward the tailgate so she could double-check the canopy locks, but there was no way to disengage them easily from the inside.
The road under the tires switched to gravel, and she knew they were almost there. She checked her watch. Five P.M. There shouldn’t be anyone at HQ at this time of day—not with them being on a break.
She risked a peek over the edge as she shuffled to a safer position near the cab, and braced for the brakes to be slammed on.
Alisha’s car was in the parking lot, which made sense once their training on the coast registered. There were no signs of anyone else, and Erin’s heartbeat slowed one notch. At least more of her friends wouldn’t be unnecessarily involved with these crazy people.
John parked, the second vehicle pulling in beside them.
She sat up, hands pressed to the glass. John ignored her as he stepped past, joining with Ken as he led Tim to the front door of the building.
Tim punched in the security code, then glanced over his shoulder a bare second before he was pushed into the building. The three of them vanished from sight, and Erin swore violently.
This was one of those moments when there was no way she could sit and wait. Whatever it was that Ken and John were looking for, they had no reason to worry about keeping Tim safe once they’d found it.
She had to help him.
Erin changed position and put her feet on the canopy cover over the tailgate. Raising both feet at the same time, she slammed her heels into the glass. The entire flap shuddered.
She did it again, harder this time, carefully aiming at the extreme corner where the small turned lock was the only thing holding the lid down.
With a horrid noise, the lock broke and the glass twisted. She was still trapped, but there was a small space open between the two closures.
Erin scrambled forward, put her shoulder to the glass, and with it wedged open, snuck her hand out to undo the tailgate. The metal slammed downward loudly, and she rolled out as quickly as possible. It might be wasted energy to hide that she was free, but she closed the tailgate before twisting her way to the side of the truck and staying out of sight from any casual glance out the HQ windows.
Half the battle. She was free. Now she had to get into HQ and find a way to save Tim.
Only that.
She ran for the side of the building, her feet sinking into the snow on every step. There were plenty of tracks, though, and she followed a set as the snow got deeper. Not until she was safely out of sight up against the side of the large industrially built structure did she stop to make some plans.
There was more than one way to get into the building, including doors that would set off the silent alarm Marcus had installed. Tim had shut off the main-door alarm, but she’d bet anything that was the only one he’d turned off. The snow complicated matters, but it was more her concern of wanting to go quickly that made her breathing hitch and her heart race.
How long before they found the backpack and whatever they were looking for? How long before Tim became a burden to deal with?
Erin slipped to the hangar door, pausing before she reached the spot when the motion-sensor light would be triggered. Instead, she carefully climbed on the storage units stacked outside the door, moving upward as close to the building as possible until she could reach out and unscrew the bulb.
Down on the ground again, she struggled to open the storage combination lock in the dark, fumbling as she squinted at the tiny, faint numbers. She got the door open and rushed in, tapping her fingers on the shelves until she’d found the flashlight stored there.
Her other prize? The spare key for the door off the training-yard side.
Silence lay thick over the industrial area with only the rare car driving through other buildings, their tires muffled by the snow on the road. The noise of the Trans-Canada Highway was far enough away to be nothing more than a faint hum.
The sense of being alone was nearly overwhelming.
You’re never alone. You’re in my heart.
Tim’s voice whispered inside her head, and it was more than enough to drive the courage she needed to the forefront again. Erin climbed over the chain-link fence defining the training area and made her way to the door. Once she got inside, ideas of how to help Tim were still foggy, but she was going to do the one thing she knew would help—set off the alarm—and the rest she’d make up as she went along.
Slowly, silently, she turned the key. The door opened an inch at a time as she pushed it, careful to slip inside before the wind could pick up and announce her presence.
On the wall beside her, the small green light that shone when the alarm was armed had turned to a faintly blinking red.
Erin closed the door behind her and stepped into the dark unknown.