Rocky Mountain Pursuit

A trickle of unease ran through her and she uttered a silent prayer asking for God’s reassurance that she was doing the right thing. With everything she had gone through, she couldn’t let down her guard for a second. She was at the mercy of a man with secrets and could be walking into a trap.

Her boots slipped on the porch and he reached out to steady her. His large, muscular arms circled her waist and drew her close. She could feel the warmth radiating from his body. Just for a second she stilled. She was so tired and he was so strong. If she inched in just a little bit, she could lean in to his strength.

Reyna pulled away and gave herself a mental shake. His arms dropped to his side. No matter how desperate she felt or how much she might want to trust him, her life was at stake. He unlocked the house and stepped inside, yet Reyna hesitated. She stood in the entrance, surrounded by darkness, the only light coming from a dying fire in the fireplace. She wouldn’t go inside until she knew what she was facing in there.

He seemed to read all her uncertainties, because he flipped on the overhead light, illuminating the room. No one waited inside to take her into custody. There was nothing scary or out of the ordinary. Just the evidence of a house occupied by one person.

Reyna slowly stepped in and closed the door. He stopped by the fireplace but stood quietly watching her, as if trying to gauge her threat level. Neither one trusted the other just yet.

She glanced around. Reyna had to admit, the room itself was impressive. The ceiling vaulted up to what looked like at least fourteen feet above them. A massive stacked-stone fireplace was the showpiece of the room. Windows facing out toward the drive would enable him to see for miles. No one was coming up to the house unannounced. None of which eased her fears one little bit. Who was he expecting to come after him?

Reyna stole a glance his way. He was still sizing her up. The overhead antler chandelier bathed the room in soft light and she was able to get her first good look at the man she believed to be Jase Bradford. He was incredibly tall and powerfully built, his collar-length blond hair swept back from his face, and he sported a neatly trimmed beard slightly darker than his hair. He was rugged in an outdoorsy, mountain-man way and had the most intense midnight-blue eyes she’d ever seen.

“There are a couple of bedrooms upstairs. You can take your pick. Sheets are clean and there’s a spare bath at the end of the hall. Towels are in the linen closet.”

Reyna didn’t budge. If he was really and truly the man she believed him to be, she needed answers as to why he’d lied to her. He might just have saved her life, but that didn’t mean she trusted him.

“You asked me why I was out on the road tonight and I told you, but what about you? You said yourself the weather was terrible. It had obviously been snowing for hours. Why risk running off the road as I did or get stranded out there alone?”

The corner of his mouth turned up in what passed for a smile. “I’m not the enemy here, Reyna.” Chills sped up her spine at his gravelly tone.

She lifted her chin. “And that’s not really an answer. Stop playing games with me. I know you’re lying about who you are.”

His body grew rigid in response, but he didn’t say anything.

“When Eddie first told me he didn’t believe you were dead, I thought maybe he was suffering from PTSD or something similar. He certainly showed all the classic symptoms. Still, the obvious reason not to believe was that both Eddie and I were at the memorial ceremony for you.”

She stared straight at him. “During those last few days before Eddie returned to duty, he kept insisting you faked your death because someone was trying to wipe out all the original members of the Scorpion team. He told me if anything happened to him and someone came to the house asking questions I should find you. Then I come here and I find someone who looks similar to Jase Bradford, who has the same limp as Eddie’s description of your injuries indicated, and suddenly I’m starting to believe that my husband was right all along.”

She waited for him to deny it. He didn’t, and her heart dropped to her stomach. A single muscle flexing in his jaw was his only reaction, a telltale sign that what she said made him uncomfortable.

After a handful of seconds ticked by. He turned away, gathered a couple of pieces of wood stacked next to the fireplace and then tossed them angrily onto the fire.

It was then that she saw it. The last piece of the puzzle that confirmed the truth. He had a scorpion tattoo on the inside of his left wrist. Eddie possessed the same tattoo. He’d told her the entire team had them. It was sort of a rite of passage. There would be only one reason this man would have it. He was the leader of the CIA’s Scorpion team.

Shivers racked through her, rendering her breathless.

She was right. This was Jase Bradford.

* * *

Reyna looked as if she’d suffered a terrible shock. She had turned deathly pale and was staring at his wrist. She’d seen the tattoo. He regretted again his foolishness in keeping it.

While he tried to come up with a plausible denial, she dug into her pocket, pulled out a photo and held it out for him to see.

He never broke eye contact. “What’s that?” he hedged.

“You tell me,” she said, and shoved it closer into his line of sight.

He took it from her. It was a grainy photo taken a short time before the attack. He remembered the day they’d posed for it as if it was yesterday. His arm rested around Abby’s waist. Eddie was standing next to Jase. Charlie, Brady and Steve Douglas in the background. The picture had been taken on Eddie’s phone by the fifth member of their team. Their Afghanistan guide, Benjahah.

He stared at the phantoms in the photo. They had been invincible back then. They’d liberated a small village from a Taliban stronghold that day, each member of the team so full of life and promise. It was only Eddie’s second mission with the team, yet already he’d become like one of the gang. Now they were all dead with the exception of him.

He glanced from the photo to Reyna. “Where did you get this?”

“I found it inside Eddie’s laptop bag. It’s true. Don’t deny it. You are the person in that photo. You are Jase Bradford. I wasn’t completely sure until I saw the tattoo.” She grabbed his wrist and turned it up for them both to see.

He closed his eyes. Over the past three years, he’d thought about having it removed over a dozen times. But in the end, he’d kept the scorpion tattoo as a constant reminder of the woman he’d loved and the friends who had lost their lives instead of him.

“Eddie had one just like it. He told me everyone on the team got the same tattoo. It was like some sort of bond between you all. He was so excited to get his. So proud to join the elite Scorpions. So honored to work with you.”

He couldn’t move. Her words were like a knife to his heart. He didn’t pull away, couldn’t deny the truth.

Reyna let him go and went for the kill. “Why’d you lie to me and say you didn’t know Jase Bradford after I told you I was Eddie’s wife? You knew he was dead. I wouldn’t be here without good reason. You saw how terrified I was and you lied to me. Answer me...please,” she said desperately. “You owe me.”

His breath hung in his throat as he gazed down at her.

You owe me...

He’d been expecting his past to return for years. As such, he’d deliberately set the house up to be a virtual Fort Knox. Had weapons hidden everywhere on the property. Traps set. He’d gone over every possible attack scenario and figured out a means of escape. Still, nothing he had planned prepared him for the repercussions of facing Eddie’s beautiful, grieving widow.

“At first...well, you looked different from the man in the photo. You’re older. The beard and the hair threw me. When I saw the limp, it all started to add up. With the injuries you sustained that night, your leg would have been shattered, so naturally there would be a limp.”

He tried to regain his cool, but it was next to impossible when he saw the condemnation flashing in her eyes. He didn’t want to have this conversation with her. Didn’t want to have to try to explain why he’d let Eddie down.

“My husband believed in you. He trusted you to help me.” She huffed out an angry breath. “Well, obviously he was wrong. He believed in what you stood for back then...but look where it got him! You left him alone, and the people who took out your entire unit ended up killing him.”

Killing him? She believed Eddie’s death was not in the line of duty. If that were true, then had he and Kyle been wrong about it being the result of the failed weapons raid in Tora Bora?

Which meant...he had been wrong, too. Dead wrong. He thought Eddie was safe at Langley, but that clearly hadn’t been the case. Now, the reality that he was responsible for his friend’s death was almost too much to bear.

A dam broke inside of him. Emotions he thought he’d killed off long ago resurfaced and he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Yes, I’m Jase Bradford.” His tone flatlined. He couldn’t believe he had actually admitted the truth to another living soul. “At least, I used to be. I’ve tried to bury the man I was for so long, but he’s still in here somewhere.” He held his fist to his chest.

Relief fought with shock as she watched him without so much as a word.

“And you’re right... I do owe Eddie. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish I’d never gotten him involved in the CIA.” He smiled bitterly at her reaction. “Your husband was a good man. If he hadn’t met me, he’d probably still be alive today, and for that I am truly sorry.”

Jase regretted again his part in her pain.

“Reyna, I can see you’re scared. I’m guessing you are being threatened because of something that happened with Eddie. It doesn’t matter.” Holding her gaze, Jase tried to swallow back the lump in his throat, but it wouldn’t go away. “Whatever reason brought you here, of course I’ll help you. Eddie was my friend and I’d do anything for him.”

“Thank you.” She moved close, smiling up at him as if the weight of the world had been lifted, and then clutched his hand in gratitude.

“Why are you being followed, Reyna?” he asked.

She hitched in a breath and kept her answer brief. “Because I have something they want.”

Before he could ask what she meant, a noise outside grabbed his full attention. A vehicle was coming up the mountain. He quickly extinguished the lights.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Someone’s coming. Stay here.” Jase grabbed his Glock from the mantel and the thermal-vision binoculars he kept near the door and stepped out into the crisp night. The storm continued to dump snow and ice everywhere, but at least the wind had died down. He listened to the muffled quietness and then he heard it again. Off in the distance, probably five miles still down the mountain, more than one vehicle coming this way.

He scanned the mountainside with the binoculars and spotted movement on the ridge across the valley. His heart leaped in his throat. Had they stationed lookouts or—worse—snipers in case he and Reyna tried to escape before the extraction team arrived? If they had followed her all this way, she must have something extremely valuable to them. Why hadn’t they taken her before now, under less dangerous conditions? Unless they were hoping she would lead them to him first.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of multiple flashes. Jase turned back to the door. The noise of rapid gunfire from an automatic weapon exploded around him. From inside Reyna screamed as a bullet whistled past his left ear. Before he could hit the ground, another grazed across his shoulder, the impact knocking him flat on his back. Blood oozed from the wound and coated his sleeve. A second round of shots took out the engine on the Jeep, along with the tires, rendering it useless.

His pulse kicked into overdrive as he struggled to make sense of it. Had he been wrong about Reyna? She’d seemed innocent enough, but what did he really know about her beyond the fact that she claimed to be Eddie’s wife? Maybe she’d been sent here to find him by the same people who had taken out his entire team. Maybe Reyna Peterson was really just a cold-blooded killer.