He began patting around the bed. “I need my phone. Do you know where it is?”
“It’s broken, remember? You were asking for it before the fever.” She got the pieces from the table and brought them over to him. “It got crushed in the fall or the river.”
He muttered another curse before standing, completely naked and a little unstable, and walked to the window.
“It’s too late. Damn it. I didn’t expect this.”
Natalie had no idea what he was talking about. “Expect what?”
He didn’t answer, just rolled his shoulder and stretched his arm as if to test the usability. It had to have hurt him, but he didn’t complain. Then he walked over to the couch where she’d hung his clothes—getting steadier with every step—and got dressed.
“Ren, what’s going on?” Obviously she was missing something important. She struggled to keep her voice calm.
He walked to her and cupped her face in his hands. “We have to go. We’re going to be walking out this afternoon.”
“We are? Why? Where?”
He closed his eyes like he was in pain. More than just the pain in his shoulder. Something deeper. “We’re closer to a town than we originally thought. I saw some smoke a few miles away before I fell in the river. So get together whatever you can so we can walk out in about thirty minutes.”
“Are you sure we’re that close to civilization?”
He walked over to her and leaned his forehead against hers. “Yes. I’m positive. I just wanted a little more time with you alone before giving you back to the rest of the world. And then the mountain lion...”
He still looked pained. She knew he wasn’t telling her everything. But what he was telling her was enough.
She smiled and kissed him softly. “I don’t think I wanted to go back to the rest of the world, anyway. Go do whatever it is you need to do. I’ll be ready in thirty minutes. I trust you.”
Chapter Sixteen
I trust you.
The words echoed through Ren’s mind as he stepped outside the cabin and moved quickly through the trees where he kept the lockbox with items he thought he might need: his Glock, Omega badge, a set of handcuffs.
Another phone right now would be pretty damn handy, too. Although it would be too late to call off the agents Homeland Security had sent.
He’d run out of time while he was unconscious. He knew they were here to take Natalie. To confine her in a windowless box of a room and force her to tell them every single detail about her life with Damien Freihof.
He remembered parts of what she’d said to him while he’d be in and out of delirium with fever.
I married a monster.
Buried in the snow.
Perfect shell.
I love you.
He slammed the bottom of his fist against the tree, gritting his teeth at the reverberations that coursed through his arm and wounded shoulder. It was no less than he deserved.
Natalie was completely innocent. She was good and gentle and kind. Brandon and Andrea had tried to warn Ren of that from their first meeting with her, but he hadn’t wanted to believe it.
And now Homeland Security wanted to take her in and break her. Not through physical torture, but they wouldn’t need to usethat. Because there were so many ways someone as gentle as Natalie could be broken.
Like learning she’d given her heart to and trusted the wrong person.
He clamped down on the howl that wanted to rip from his throat. Because at the end of it all, it wouldn’t be Homeland Security’s brutish methods that would break Natalie.
It would be Ren’s attention and kindness.
