sounds like the perfect place to hide,” Blaine murmured. “He has to be there.”
Maybe he was. “But just finding Mark won’t prove him guilty of the robberies.”
“I’m hoping to find more than Mark. I’m hoping to find the guns, the cash. Hell, if it’s so remote, it might be their hideout.”
And that meant that he might find not just Mark there, but the other robbers—if Mark really was involved.
“You can’t go alone,” she warned him. “Not if there’s any chance that it’s their hideout...”
Because they weren’t going to want to be found. Blaine hadn’t died in the fire, but that didn’t mean that he was safe—especially since he kept willingly risking his life.
* * *
BLAINE COULDN’T TAKE her along for so many reasons, but he missed Maggie when she wasn’t with him. He worried about her. The doctors had assured them that she was fine. They had even released her.
In his opinion, that had been too soon. But then, keeping her in the hospital wouldn’t have ensured her safety. Someone had nearly abducted her from an ER. Had nearly burned her up in the home of an FBI agent.
Maggie wasn’t safe anywhere.
Hell, he couldn’t even trust her safety to a friend like Ash. She’d gotten to him. So he’d left her in the protection of the one person he knew who could not be sweet-talked or manipulated.
Maggie would be safe.
But as his SUV bounced over the ruts of the two-lane road leading to the cabin, he wondered about his own safety. The place wasn’t just remote. It was isolated. He had seen nothing but trees for a long while. This was the kind of place where serial killers would bring their victims, so nobody could hear their screams for help.
Blaine shuddered with foreboding. But maybe he was just overreacting, as Maggie kept insisting. Maybe Mark wasn’t involved. Maybe he was just taking a time-out from his jealous wife and his drunken father and the loss of his brother...
Maybe the guy really had nothing to do with the robberies, and Dalton Reyes’s informant had identified the wrong guy. As Maggie had pointed out, a lot of guys looked like Mark Doremire. Andy had. Hell, even Ash did.
Even though he would have to start all over looking for suspects, Blaine almost hoped Mark had nothing to do with the robberies. If he didn’t, Blaine could just check in with him and make sure that everything was all right with the man.
Then he could return to Maggie and ease her worries about her letters to Andy inspiring the robberies. She already took on too much responsibility for everything that had happened. Maybe that was his fault, too—for being so suspicious of her. Maybe he should have told her that he trusted her.
Instead he had pulled away from her. Physically and emotionally. He needed distance. He needed perspective. Hell, maybe if Mark wasn’t at the cabin, Blaine would hang out for a while. He would try to regain his lost perspective.
But he worried that time and distance wouldn’t change his feelings for Maggie. He would probably always love her. And she would probably always love Andy.
Finally some of the trees gave way on one side of the two-track road, making a small space for a little log cabin. Blaine couldn’t see any vehicles. Only a small space of the dense woods had been cleared for the cabin, so he doubted there were any vehicles parked around the back.
Maybe Maggie had been right. Mark wasn’t here. Coming here had probably been a waste of Blaine’s time. Because no matter how much distance he gained, he was unlikely to gain any new insights.
Still, he shut off the SUV and stepped out of it. He would take some more time to enjoy the silence.
To clear his head.
But the silence shattered as gunfire erupted. And Blaine worried that he was more likely to lose his head than clear it.
Maggie had wanted to meet Buster, but not like this—not riding along in the Michigan state trooper’s police cruiser. At least Buster had let her ride in the passenger’s seat and not the back.
The woman had pulled off into a parking lot, and now she studied Maggie through narrowed eyes that were the same bright green as her brother’s. She was blonde, too, but most of her hair was tucked up under a brown, broad-brimmed trooper hat, so it wasn’t possible to tell if it was golden, like his, or lighter.
She was older than he was but not more than a few years. And she was even less approachable. Maggie, who usually had no problem making conversation, had no idea what to say to the woman, so an awkward silence had fallen between them—broken only by an occasional squawk of the police radio.
Finally Buster cleared her throat and remarked, “Blaine has never asked me to guard anybody for him.”
“I’m sorry for being such an inconvenience,” Maggie said. “I know you’re too busy for babysitting.”
“I have four hyper kids and an idiot husband,” Buster shared, “so I’m used to babysitting.”
The heat of embarrassment rushed to Maggie’s face. She hated feeling so helpless and dependent.
But then Buster continued, “This isn’t babysitting. Nobody is trying to kill my kids or my husband—except for me when they piss me off too much. You’re in real danger.”
Maggie felt safe, though, with Blaine’s older sister. She had an authority about her—the same authority that had Blaine easily taking over the bank investigation and her protection duty.
“Blaine is the one in danger now,” Maggie said, as nerves fluttered in her belly with the baby’s kicks. “He’s trying so hard to track down those robbers.”
“That’s his job,” Buster said. “He’s been doing it for a while. And he’s been doing it well.”
Maybe he was right about Mark, then. Maggie hadn’t wanted to believe Andy’s brother capable of violence, but she was on edge and it had less to do with how Buster was studying her and more to do with the danger she felt Blaine was facing. “I’m still worried about him.”
“I see that...”
With the way she had been staring at Maggie, she had probably seen a lot. More than Maggie was comfortable with her seeing.
Buster continued, “I see that you love him.”
Maggie’s breath shuddered out in a ragged sigh. She could have lied—although she sucked at it—and said Buster was mistaken. But she wasn’t a liar. And maybe it would relieve some of the pressure on her chest—and her heart—if she admitted to her feelings. “Yes...”
“You could have denied it,” Buster said.
“Why?”
“Because you haven’t told him yet,” his sister replied. “And he’s the one you should have told first.”
Maggie shook her head. “I can’t tell him at all.” Ever.
“Why not?”
“Because he doesn’t have the same feelings for me that I do for him,” Maggie said. “And I would just embarrass him.” The way she had at the hospital when she’d clung to him, refusing to let him leave without her.
“Blaine doesn’t embarrass easily,” Buster said. “Trust me. I’ve tried.” She chuckled. “He has three older sisters. He may not get embarrassed at all anymore.”
Maggie laughed, too, as she imagined a young Blaine enduring his siblings’ teasing and tormenting. He had probably handled it as stoically then as he handled everything now. Her laughter faded. “It may not embarrass him, but it would make it awkward for him. He’s