It was dark in an unfamiliar place, he had Autumn and Thor to protect and they were on the Huntsman’s hunting ground. He hated to admit it, but Nathan knew when he was outmatched.
* * *
Nathan took Autumn’s keys from her clammy palm and opened the door to her cabin. She walked inside, her face frozen in horror, her body tensed and her hands shaking. He guided her to the couch in the living room.
“Sit down. Let me fix you something to drink.”
She nodded numbly and he retrieved a glass of water, setting it in her hand. She took a few small sips.
“I’ll call Ford.” As much as he hated to involve the FBI, they had equipment and crime-scene investigators who could lock down the scene and look for footprints and evidence. If it was the Huntsman, he might have left evidence behind, having been startled at the appearance of Autumn and Nathan.
Nathan pulled a throw blanket off the back of the couch and wrapped it around Autumn’s shoulders. He took the lighter from the mantel and lit one of the starter logs she had set in the hearth. After the fire had spread the length of the log, he laid a few pieces of wood around it, hoping it generated some warmth.
“You know how to start a fire,” she said quietly. She kicked off her shoes and they hit the floor with matching thuds.
“I took a class on it in FBI school.”
“Really?” she asked.
He sat next to her on the couch and slid an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against his body. He intended the gesture to offer comfort, but it had the unintended side effect of feeling good. Too good. “Nah, it’s something I picked up.” Nathan pulled out his satellite phone and dialed Roger Ford. Ford answered on the first ring. After explaining the situation, Nathan disconnected the call without waiting for Ford to bark commands at him.
Thor trotted over and sat next to the growing blaze, soaking in the heat. Autumn shifted next to Nathan on the couch, drawing her knees to her chest and leaning in to him.
After a time, the cabin grew warmer and her tremors faded.
The sharp knock on the door had Autumn jumping to her feet. Nathan caught her before she raced for the door. “Let’s be cautious, okay?”
Autumn nodded her agreement. Nathan peered through the peephole, and seeing a park ranger on the porch, he opened the door.
The man stepped inside, pulling off his hat revealing bleached blond hair. His goatee was dark and neatly trimmed. “I received a call from Special Agent Roger Ford to check in and see if everyone is okay.”
Autumn slipped past him and hugged the man. “Ben, thanks for coming out so late. I’m sorry you were pulled into this.”
Nathan watched the interaction, unsure of the relationship between the two. They seemed close. Were they friends? Something more? Earlier that night when he’d suggested they pretend to be a couple, she hadn’t mentioned she was otherwise involved with someone.
Nathan shoved aside his jealous line of thinking. It didn’t matter what relationship Autumn and Ben had. It was irrelevant to the case, and justice for Colleen was all that mattered.
Nathan stepped back, allowing Ben farther inside.
Ben threaded the brim of his hat through his fingers. “I have a couple more guys coming to the scene and the FBI should be here soon. If the media hears about this, I’ll try to keep them off your backs.”
Nathan lifted a brow. “You think the media already knows about this?” If they did, how?
Ben shrugged. “If the sheriff and the Feds turn on their flashers and start piling up the mountain, someone is bound to notice. There’s nothing up here but the Trail’s Edge, and that will have people curious.”
Small towns. Nearly every place Nathan had been in the past few months had been near a small town where the residents kept watch for their own.
Autumn wouldn’t like reporters poking around. Would this bring a fresh wave of rumors crashing down on her, giving her more reasons to isolate herself at the campground? Though she hadn’t mentioned the reasons why, she seemed to want to isolate herself at the Trail’s Edge. Being away from it made her nervous. Was it social anxiety or something more?
Ten minutes later, another car pulled in to the campground. Nathan watched from the front window. “Your rangers are here.”
“That’s my cue. Let’s lock this place down for the Feds,” Ben said.
Ben stepped away from Autumn and joined the other rangers, leaving Nathan and Autumn alone.
“Will you stay with me? At least for now?” Autumn asked.
Nathan slipped his arm around Autumn’s shoulders. He wanted to be outside, listening to whatever he could gather from Ford. “I’ll stay with you.” It would be at least thirty minutes before Ford arrived. He couldn’t put Autumn’s needs above Colleen’s.
Nathan steered her to the couch and sat down, pulling her feet onto his lap. He rubbed her feet, trying to force her to relax. “You’re safe here.”
“Ford didn’t think he would come back,” Autumn said.
If the intruder had been the Huntsman, it could be another break in his pattern. More erratic behavior, which ultimately meant more dangerous behavior. Or perhaps they were filling in the missing details of their profile. “He has never killed on two separate occasions in the same location.”
Autumn rubbed her temples. “That’s not comforting.”
He agreed with her statement, but didn’t add to her lost sense of security. “We have no reason to think he returned to the Trail’s Edge to harm anyone.”
Autumn shot him a look. “How do you do this?”
“Do what?”
“Stay calm. Have a job hunting killers,” Autumn said.
His sister had asked him the same types of questions. Colleen had been a dental hygienist. She’d built her life around her two kids, and she’d thought Nathan would have the same fate and not spend his days looking for murderers. His devotion to his job had ended his marriage. His ex-wife couldn’t understand what he did and why it was important. He couldn’t talk to her about the horrors he saw, and it had slowly destroyed communication between them. “I can’t let the Huntsman kill anyone else.”
Autumn seemed eager to talk, so Nathan listened as Autumn spoke about the Trail’s Edge. Nervous chatter, but it seemed to be calming her.
The Feds arrived with sirens screaming and lights flashing. They weren’t concerned about keeping their presence under wraps.
Autumn drew the blanket closer around her.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
“A little. It’s getting better.” She reached out her hand and laid it on his.
The casual touch evoked an immediate physical response. Desire turned into the hot blaze of arousal. It wasn’t the time or the place, yet his body had its own ideas about what was important now. Spending the evening with her, touching her, being alone with her had set anticipation to a slow simmer.
Nathan drew his hand away. He couldn’t allow this heat between them to roar out of control.
Autumn leaned toward him. “Do you think he’s still here? Watching me?” She came to her feet, dropped the blanket and walked to every window in the cabin. She checked the latches and pulled closed the curtains, overlapping them so no one could see inside.
“This place will be swarming with Feds in a few hours. Unless the