Accidental Affair – Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

by

Leslie McKelvey

Laine Wheeler threw an arm across her dog’s chest and stood on the brakes as the rockslide tumbled quickly toward her.  As the Range Rover shook she discerned arms and legs flailing, and realized with alarm that it wasn’t a bunch of boulders rolling down the steep embankment.  It was a person.  The front end of the SUV dipped as it shuddered violently to a stop, and the individual landed in a crumpled heap not six feet from her front bumper.

Heart knocking against her breastbone, she exhaled sharply, then looked at Maverick, her half-dog, half-wolf sidekick who seemed as startled as she.  Maverick woofed softly and put a paw on her arm.  Laine took a deep breath, grabbed a handful of thick, gray and white fur, and turned her gaze forward.

The person hadn’t moved.  She glanced first left then right toward the tree line and wondered if there were more people where this one had come from.  Both sides of the two lane highway were edged with ten foot wide shoulders hemmed in with 20 foot high embankments topped with thick pine and evergreen.  When no other bodies came somersaulting down the embankment, she turned her eyes back to the unknown acrobat.

What the hell was going on?  Laine blinked as her pulse ratcheted up a couple of uncomfortable notches.  There were no lakes or rivers nearby, and the closest campsite was more than 20 miles away, so what was this person doing out here, literally, in the middle of nowhere?  Staring at the rumpled figure she waited, but he, or she, didn’t move.  Was this a carjacking?  An attempted kidnapping?

She gulped and frowned.  “Don’t be ridiculous, Laine.”  She glanced at the dog, whose wise, golden eyes were fixed on her.  “What do you think, Maverick?  Is this a carjacking . . . in the middle of nowhere?  And who’d want to kidnap me?  My former in-laws?”  A short, sharp laugh escaped her.  “No, they’re happy enough I left Chicago.”  Her gaze was drawn back to the person in the road.  “Maybe they want you, Mav.”  The dog whimpered.

Her brain was working at warp speed, trying to wrap itself around what she’d just witnessed.  No matter which idea she entertained, none was a reasonable explanation for the body lying in the road, none that boded any good anyway.  She felt the adrenaline hit her bloodstream and took several deep breaths, then opened the door and stepped out.

“Stay there,” she said to the dog.  Maverick woofed again and did as he was told.

Laine took a step then stopped.  What was she doing?  The side of a deserted highway was no place to be a hero.  She looked at the prone figure for a moment, debating with herself.  A low, pained moan escaped the person, and the mournful, gravelly sound spurred her.  Laine squared her shoulders.  Right place or not, she wasn’t the type to run, and she knew there was no way she was going to just leave an injured person in the middle of the road.  She ran around the front of the Rover, looked down at the person for a split second then knelt at their side.  It was a man dressed in camouflage pants and a khaki shirt, and from the stained, disheveled state of his clothes it looked like he’d been rolling in the dirt well before his tumble down the embankment.  He lay on his side with his back to her, he wasn’t moving, and the silence hung heavy.  She waited a few moments, and as each second ticked off her alarm grew.  Laine hesitated then pressed two fingers into his neck to check for a pulse.  It was weak and thready but it was there, and she sighed in relief.  Grasping his shoulder, she rolled him onto his back.

Dark red blood stained the upper left side of his chest and Laine drew back, startled.  That she had not expected.  It took her a second to compose herself, and she reached for the collar of his shirt to get a look at the wound.  Before she could peel back the material his fingers snaked around her wrist.  She jumped and fell onto her backside, her heart nearly exploding from her chest.

“Please.”  His grip tightened slightly.  “Get the bag and get out of here.”  He spoke in a hoarse whisper.  “They’re not far behind me.”

Her heart jumped and she glanced toward the tree line, images of high-powered rifles exploding in her head complete with gunshot sound effects.  “Who?”

“It doesn’t matter.  Just get my bag and get it to the FBI.”  His grip tightened.  “What’s in that bag is more important than me.  Get it and go.”  He paused and took a breath.  “Please.”

A finger of fear traversed her spine but she shook it off.  He had obviously hit his head on the way down the hill, and blood loss was no doubt affecting his mental faculties.  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Laine replied, her voice much stronger than she felt.  She glanced at the ridge again.  “I can’t just leave you here.”

“They’ll kill you,” he croaked.  “You have to get the bag and go . . . now!”

Laine paused and that finger of fear scratched again, harder.  She looked at his dirty, bearded face, searching for signs of the madness his words hinted at, but all she saw there was pain and weariness.  She hesitated a moment, then frowned and squared her shoulders.  “I’m not leaving you on the side of the highway to bleed to death.”  She wound his right arm around her shoulders.  “Come on, you’re going to have to help.  I can’t lift you on my own.”

She knew it was survival instinct more than a conscious decision on his part, but he gathered his feet and, with her help, managed to stand.  He swayed but she held him upright and maneuvered him toward SUV.  She propped him against the side of the Rover, opened the door, and let him fall onto the seat.  He moaned in pain, but pulled himself all the way in and curled into a ball.  She looked at him for a moment, a shard of doubt worming into her.  Her left brain wondered if there was anything to his story, while her right brain scoffed.  The delusional always thought someone was after them, and this was Montana after all.  Nothing exciting or wildly outlandish ever happened here.  Then again he was bleeding.  Perhaps he wasn’t so delusional.

A growl from the front seat drew her attention and Laine looked at Maverick.  The dog stood, hackles raised, teeth bared, eyes focused on the injured man.  At that moment, he looked more lupine than canine, something Laine had rarely seen.  He was usually such a friendly dog, despite his wolf DNA.  She frowned at him.

“Down, boy,” she said in a soothing voice.  “It’s okay.”

The dog looked at her for a moment, as if incredulous, but he gradually relaxed.  Maverick remained standing, his attention focused on the newcomer, but he wasn’t coiled to spring anymore.

“The bag,” the man croaked.  “Please.”  He paused and took a breath, a grimace of pain darkening his features.  “They can’t get it.”

There they were again.  A shiver of apprehension made her insides clench as Laine wondered who “they” were, and what was in the bag he was so adamant about protecting.  A host of questions blossomed on the tip of her tongue, but another look at the front of his bloody shirt reminded her of what was more important.  He needed medical attention, and soon.  Laine walked back to the front of the Rover.  A few feet onto the shoulder lay a black duffel bag which had seen much better days.  She went over to it, and as she bent to take the worn handles the dull drone of multiple ATV engines reached her ears.  For some reason her senses immediately went into overdrive.  Laine paused and listened intently, her anxiety expanding with each passing second.  The quads weren’t right on top of them yet, but they were headed her direction and coming fast.  She’d grown up in this area and knew four-runners were the preferred vehicles of hunters, fishermen, and campers, but there was something ominous about this sound, though she couldn’t explain what.  That inner voice she had learned to listen to urged her to move her ass.  She grabbed the bag and tossed it through the open passenger window.  Maverick ducked and gave her a reproachful look as the duffel cleared the headrest and landed on the floor behind her seat.

“Sorry,” she said to the dog as she climbed in and buckled up.  “You can have half my steak, okay?”

The thrashing in the trees grew louder and she heard male voices shouting, though she couldn’t understand what they were saying, at least not yet.  Instinct told her she didn’t want to know, so she stomped on the accelerator and the Rover leapt forward.

She kept her eyes on the rearview as they sped away, and to her great relief no legion of commandos came bursting out of the pines to take her aim at her.  Nevertheless, she didn’t let up on the gas until she saw the sign for Evergreen Springs, nearly twenty miles down the road.

“How you doing back there?” she asked as they passed the county line marker.  She glanced in the rearview mirror and watched as he struggled to a sitting position.  Fresh blood continued to wet the front of his shirt and his face was pale and drawn.  He vaguely resembled an actor whose name she couldn’t recall at the moment, tall and athletically muscular, with brown hair, straight brows, wide-set eyes, and a square jaw.

“I’ve been better,” he ground out.  He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the headrest.  “Where are you taking me?”

“You need a doctor,” she said automatically.

His eyes shot open and his head snapped up.  “No hospitals.”  His head fell back, and when he spoke again it seemed he was speaking more to himself than her.  “They’ll be watching the hospitals.  Monitoring the police bands, too.”

“Who are they exactly,” Laine asked cautiously, humoring him, “and why did they hurt you?”

He grimaced.  “Let’s just say we play for different teams.”

“And what teams are those?”

“The less you know, the better,” he replied.  “Just . . . please, no hospitals, no cops, or I’m a dead man.”

Laine thought for a moment.  “Tell me something,” she said.  “Are you a good guy or a bad guy?”  She watched him and waited for a reply.

“I’m a good guy,” he replied.

“Of course you are,” she said.  “Then again, if you were a bad guy, you wouldn’t tell me, would you?”  He met her gaze in the rearview mirror and a chill went up her spine.  His eyes were clear and gray, the color of charged storm clouds, and something in them told her even if he was a good guy he was more than capable of being bad.

“No,” he said, “I wouldn’t.”

He glanced down and she followed the direction of his gaze, gulping when she saw the pistol he held across his abdomen.  It was a 9mm with a suppressor on the muzzle.  This time, instead of a finger of fear, an entire hand grabbed her heart with icy claws and squeezed.  Pictures of all the people she loved flashed through her mind’s eye as she cursed herself for a fool, tightened her grip on the wheel, and waited for the shot she wouldn’t hear.

“If I was a bad guy,” he continued, “I would’ve simply shot you and taken your car.”

“You didn’t have a gun when I found you,” she pointed out.  “If I hadn’t gotten your bag, you’d still be unarmed.”  It was silly to argue with an armed man but she needed to fight against the adrenaline telling her to stop the car and run.  Panic and tears seemed the logical choice, but being raised by a Special Forces father and a grandmother who was an emergency room nurse had drilled the ability to blubber right out of her.  Therefore, instead of crying or becoming hysterical, she chose to debate him.  He held the weapon toward her and let go of it, and the 9mm landed on the console between her and Maverick with a soft thump.

“Actually, I did have my gun,” he told her.  His voice betrayed his weariness, and he closed his eyes.  “It was strapped to my leg, not in my bag.”

Laine let this revelation sink in.  With a deep breath, she picked up the gun, checked to ensure the safety was on and put it in the console.  It was silly to be relieved when the lid closed, hiding the weapon from view, but she almost sighed out loud.  She could feel her own pulse in her throat as blood sped through her veins, and she reached out to grab a handful of fur.  Maverick seemed to sense her distress and moved closer.

“Is this where you tell me where to go then kill me when we get there?” she asked.  “I’m some sort of . . . doomed taxi driver?”

“I just gave you my gun,” he said.  “That should tell you I’m not going to kill you.”  He paused and sighed.  “You saved my life.”

The silence stretched out and her uneasiness grew.

“Okay, talk to me,” Laine demanded, unable to stand the quiet.  “Is there someplace I can take you, someone who can help?  What happens now?”

“Right now,” he said, “I think I’m going to pass out.”

Laine looked over her shoulder as he lost consciousness and slid down the seat.  “Shit.”  After checking her mirrors, she pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the Rover.

She crawled into the backseat and checked his vitals.  When she tried to get a look at the wound the fabric of his shirt stuck to the bloody flesh and she scowled.  “Dammit.”  She grabbed her water bottle from the drink holder in front.  Liquid splashed over his chest, neck and face as she poured it over his shoulder but he didn’t even flinch.  That, more than anything, scared her.  She carefully massaged the wet material and then slowly peeled it back.

Laine sucked in a breath.  He’d been shot in the shoulder a few inches left of center just beneath the collarbone, and from the amount blood on his shirt and crusted around the entry wound it had happened a while ago.  The fact the bullet hole continued to seep worried her, and since there was no exit wound, the fact the slug was still in his shoulder worried her even more.

“Shit, shit, shit.”  She looked at Maverick and he whined softly.  “Well boy, looks like this one’s on us.”  Maverick’s expression was solemn.  “Can you handle it?”  One wag of his plumed tail was all she got.  Laine checked the wound again and sighed.  “Right.  Home we go.”

 

*  *  *  *

 

Ripley stood in the middle of the two lane highway.  He looked left, then right, and then left again, his temper dangerously close to the flash point.  He gripped the AR-15 and wished the weapon would snap in his hands.  Perhaps the sound of cracking metal and composite would bring his rage down a notch.

“What do we do, sir?” his second in command asked from a good eight feet away.

Ripley turned and looked at the man.  The four other soldiers made a pretense of combing the surrounding area, but Ripley knew it was only a pretense.  It was obvious their quarry was no longer in the vicinity.

“What do we do?” Ripley repeated.  “What do we do?”  He fixed the man with a scalding stare.  “We find him, that’s what we do, Calember.  Is that too much for you to handle?”

Calember returned his stare with one of cool composure.  “Satellite might have caught an image, sir.  We’ll have to hump it back to base, see if West got a fix.”

Ripley stood toe to toe with Calember and leaned over until their noses nearly touched.   “Call West.  Tell him to have an image ready and waiting when we get back.  I want to know who picked Vaughn up, where they went, and what they’re having for dinner tonight so we can join them for dessert.  Is that clear?”

“Crystal,” said Calember as he pulled a satellite phone out of a pocket.  He turned and walked away as he dialed.

Ripley stared down the empty highway and cursed himself.  They’d had him.

“And we’ll have you again,” he said under his breath as he focused down the road.  “I’ll be damned if I’m going to let one man stop me.”  After a few moments he realized Calember had crossed the invisible eight foot radius line into his personal space and was watching him in silence.  Ripley glared at him.  “What?”

“West is on it, sir,” Calember reported.  “I gave him the coordinates and he said, if we have anything, it will be ready by the time we get back.”

Ripley put his hands on his hips and stared at the ground.  “Good.”  He slowly lifted his head and met Calember’s eyes.  “Next time you have Vaughn in your sights, don’t miss or I’ll be putting a bullet in your brain.”

Calember didn’t even flinch.  “Understood, sir.”  He gave him a curt nod then turned to the others.  “Form up.  Back to base.”

 

*  *  *  *

 

Jack Vaughn came awake suddenly but remained absolutely motionless, uncertain of where he was and who was there.  His head throbbed as he tried to remember what had happened.  The last clear picture he had was of marching into the forest with the rest of his squad.  The remaining images were disjointed, fragmented.  He listened intently and felt a mild surprise when he heard a low voice, humming as if from far away.  As the mental fog cleared he became aware he was on his back in a bed, his chest was bare but he was covered with a blanket.  The blanket smelled of cedar, a pleasant smell, and his left arm was in a sling.  Also, there was someone close by.  He waited, eyes closed, as the presence moved nearer.

The bed dipped and he felt soft skin pressed briefly to his brow and cheeks.  Hands.  Those hands smelled like Vaseline Intensive Care lotion with an underlying scent of, oddly enough, surgical soap.  In his line of work surgical soap was something he had become well acquainted with.  Was he in a hospital?  He listened intently as the hands moved to his shoulder.  A hospital would be abuzz with staff bustling and monitors beeping and moans of the ill or injured.  There was none of that.  Above him was the soft patter of rain, rain on a roof.  No, this was no hospital, but where was he?  He searched his memory but all he could recall were Technicolor shards that made no sense.  Somewhere in there was a maze of trees, the smell of dirt, dizziness, and the drone of ATVs.  His heart rate picked up a few points, but before he allowed himself to become overly concerned he continued his sightless assessment.

He heard the gentle strains of classical music.  Beethoven, or was it Mozart?  Beethoven, Fur Elise to be exact.  Ripley was not a fan of classical piano and Jack’s pulse dropped a point.  One item identified, he started to work on another.  He breathed deeply and evenly, and the aroma of steak made his mouth water.  He also detected apples and cinnamon, and sautéed onions, a strange combination though far from unpleasant.  They hadn’t had any meals worthy of salivation at the camp that he could recall and his heart rate eased down again.  Slowly, he opened his eyes a fraction of an inch.

The woman didn’t notice his scrutiny.  She concentrated on dressing his shoulder, the tip of her tongue held tight against the center of her upper lip.  Ripley definitely hadn’t allowed any women at the camp and Jack almost sighed with relief.  The pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together.

He guessed she was in her early to mid thirties, quite attractive with wide hazel eyes, high cheekbones and long chestnut-colored hair pulled into a ponytail.  She wore jeans and a t-shirt, and around her neck was a delicate silver chain from which hung a silver pendant shaped like a penguin.  He carefully looked down at her hands.  Her fingers were long and slender with short, neatly trimmed nails, and he could imagine those fingers moving over a keyboard, or skin, with graceful ease.

Seeing the clean, white bandage on his shoulder brought it all back; the race through the woods, the bullet which had, thankfully, missed his head and vital organs, the seemingly endless chase leading to the painful tumble down the embankment to the road.  He remembered an SUV stopping just short of running him over.  He had been helped into a car by someone in a ball cap, and he wondered if the woman was his rescuer.  He hadn’t gotten a good look at the driver, but he did remember the voice, a woman’s voice.  Is there someplace I can take you, someone who can help?  His gut told him he was looking at his savior.  And his bag . . . that item he had nearly died protecting.  His pulse returned to its previous gallop.  Where was it?

A dog approached the bed and the memory of being growled at surfaced.

“Hey, Mav,” the woman said softly.  “He’s not nearly so scary now, is he?”

The dog sniffed his hand, turned and walked away, and Jack recalled the voice which had soothed the savage beast before.  Those dulcet tones had come from the driver who had saved him, and now he knew without a doubt that person was this woman.

“You stopped for me,” he whispered, fully opening his eyes.

She paused in what she was doing and looked at him closely, the way a doctor would look at a patient.  When she’d given him the once over, she returned to bandaging his shoulder.

“You left me little choice,” she said wryly.  “You rolled in front of my car, so it was stop or run you over and I just washed the Rover.”  She wrinkled her nose.  “And then there was all that talk about bad guys and they’d be coming to get you.”  She laid a strip of tape over the gauze.  “I couldn’t very well save you from the villains in the woods just to leave you at some hospital to be murdered by an assassin disguised as an orderly.”  Her tone was flippant but her expression was still serious, and he wondered if she was mocking him.  “That would give all good Samaritans a bad name.”

“What is your name?” he asked.

She hesitated then extended her hand.  “Laine, Laine Wheeler.  Everyone who knows me calls me Laine, so I guess that includes you now.  The dog is Maverick.”

He grasped her fingers firmly.  “Laine,” he repeated.  He held onto her hand for a few moments.  “Thank you, though I have a feeling you will regret stopping to pick me up.”

A shadow passed across her golden-green eyes which told him she’d already considered that.  Instead of commenting on what he’d said, she turned to pick up a small, metallic bowl and gave it to him.  He palmed the slug she’d removed from his shoulder and looked at it, a 9mm.  He was a lucky man indeed.  Had it been a bigger caliber, or had Calember had time to take aim with his rifle, Jack knew he’d more than likely be dead.

“You a doctor?” he asked.

She dropped her gaze and stood.  She was tall, at least 5’9″, with a shapely figure. “No,” she replied in a taut voice, “I’m a vet.”

He glanced down at the meticulous bandage, and when he tested his shoulder there was only minimal discomfort.  “You do pretty well for a vet.”

She walked around the room, straightening as she went.  “Well, over the years I’ve discovered people and animals aren’t so very different.”

“No,” he agreed.  “They’re not.”

He watched as she picked up the torn remnants of his bloody shirt, twisted it in her hands, then crumpled it up and tossed it in the nearby fireplace.  The rest of his clothes were already burning on the hearth, and he was surprised he hadn’t noticed the fire until this moment.

She seemed nervous now that there was nothing more for her to clean.  Jack looked at her as she stood there, arms crossed over her chest, eyes focused anywhere but on him.

“My name is Jack,” he told her.

She nodded.  “Hungry Jack?”  A small smile tipped the corners of her generous mouth.   “I mean, nice to meet you Jack.  Are you hungry?”

“Actually,” he began, “I’m starving.  Something smells fabulous, so please tell me chicken broth and green Jell-o aren’t the specials of the day.”

Her smile widened just a bit and she shook her head.  “I’ll be right back.”

She walked through the open bedroom door and Jack noticed Maverick had taken up a post just outside.  The canine stared at him with guarded interest, and his expression seemed to say, “I’m watching you, bud.  Make one wrong move and you’ll be dealing with me.”

“Don’t worry, boy,” Jack told him.  “I won’t bite.”

He could hear her moving around and tried to sit up.  Heat shot through his shoulder and he sucked in a breath.  He waited for the pain to subside, then carefully eased up and used his good arm to stuff pillows behind his back.  He realized with sudden surprise that not only was he bare-chested, he was completely naked.  He glanced at the dog, but the animal hadn’t moved, nor had his expression changed.

“Chill,” Jack said.  “I won’t hurt your mistress.”

Or will I?  Jack wondered if Laine Wheeler realized how drastically her life could change now that he had entered it.  He was part of a different world, a world glamorized in movies and TV shows, but a real, brutal, uncertain and very dangerous world.  Rarely did his path cross with civilians, especially not under these circumstances.  Now it had, and he wasn’t entirely sure what to do about it.

Nearly eight years of his life had been spent to get him where he was this day.  Two years in prison had helped cement his cover first with the motorcycle club, and then with Ripley and his men.  His ‘conviction’ had also cost him his family.  He remembered the look of shame on his father’s face and swallowed hard.  The tears in his mother’s eyes had almost been his undoing, but he’d had a job to do.

Until the previous day he had lived and worked alongside some of the most hardened criminals he’d ever encountered, men who had committed every type of crime from embezzlement and fraud to rape and murder.  He didn’t want to help them, he wanted to put them behind bars, and pretending to be one of them had taken its toll.  At this point, having his cover blown was almost a relief.  Now, he didn’t have to pretend anymore.

His train of thought derailed when Laine entered the room carrying a wicker breakfast tray.  She frowned when she saw he’d sat up by himself, but he was too busy with the aroma of beef and onions to care.  He hadn’t had a decent meal in weeks.  Ripley’s cook hadn’t been much of a cook, and his stomach growled loudly.  Laine quirked one arched brow and smiled, then sat the tray across his lap.  Before him was a generous serving of what looked like New York steak topped with sautéed onions and mushrooms, roasted red potatoes and green beans with pieces of bacon.  A bowl with cinnamon apples was the finishing touch and he licked his lips.  She’d even cut the food into bite sized pieces for him.

“Wow,” he said as he inhaled the heady fragrance.  “Hospital food sure is improving.  Are you certain you’re not an angel?”

Both brows rose and she blinked.  “Um, no, definitely not,” she said.  She shook her head slightly.  “An angel wouldn’t make you feed yourself.”

“Yes, she would,” he replied, indignant.  “Angels help you help yourself.  They’re not supposed to . . . do it for you.”

Her eyes narrowed a fraction.  “I’m glad you think so.  This way you won’t be disappointed.”

As she turned to leave, several questions popped into his head.  What day was it?  How far were they from Ripley’s base?  “Wait,” he said.  When she looked at him over her shoulder, he met her curious gaze.  “Where am I?”

She regarded him silently for a moment and tipped her head to the side, her brows drawing together.  “Northern Montana, outside a town called Evergreen Springs about 20 miles south of the Canadian border.”  Without another word she left the room.  Maverick, on the other hand, didn’t move.