Or are we looking for both?
The whir of the snowplow was louder.
“The sheriff will be coming for us,” Thomas said. “We’ll talk to Jenny and get her to describe the man who took her.” He glanced up at the now-clear sky. “And we’ll talk to Mercer. Find out what the EOD has learned about those victims.”
Before they did... “We need to talk first,” she said as she gave a determined nod.
His gaze instantly became shuttered.
“No more secrets, no more lies.”
He flinched at that. “I haven’t lied to you.”
It almost seemed surreal to have this conversation with him. After everything that had happened the night before, they should have been close. Heck, it didn’t get much closer than being someone’s lover. But there was a wall between them.
Secrets.
And, yes, despite what he’d just said...lies.
“I want to know everything.” They were alone. Now was the time to put it all out on the table. “From the moment that you saw me—running in those woods—until the moment you left me tied in that cabin.” Because, yes, that part was obvious. She’d been left there with a dead man.
The sound of the plow grew louder. They’d tried to call the sheriff earlier, but they still had no service in the area. While they had a few more precious moments of privacy, she needed to hear the rest of Thomas’s tale.
Even though part of her was almost afraid to hear what he had to say.
Hiding from the truth won’t do any good.
“You heard me screaming in the woods, and you found me.” She looked down at her wrists. “I’d been tied up, bound—”
“And he was hunting you.”
Her head whipped up. Thomas wasn’t looking at her. He was staring out at the snow.
“I knew what he was doing pretty quickly. Another hunter always knows....”
She shook her head, but he didn’t see the movement.
“You were leaving a clear trail for him to follow. Broken branches, blood on the rocks. He expected to find you out there, but he didn’t expect me.” His voice was low and rough. “He jumped out of the bushes with a knife, and he went for your throat.”
Her hand lifted to her throat. “The man...the man found with me that day... His throat had been cut.”
Now he did look at her. His eyes blazed with emotion. “I wasn’t going to let him kill you. And, like I said, he expected you—” his right hand flexed near his side “—not me. I got that knife away from him, and he was the one who died.”
Her breath rushed out. “All of that was in the woods? But—but his body was found in the cabin. I was found in the cabin.”
He looked away from her. “I was working a case. Undercover. Domestic terrorists were in the area. I...I couldn’t be found with you. I couldn’t be caught up in an investigation about a missing teen girl and her dead abductor.”
“You left me.” Saying the words...hurt. Her hand lowered to her chest and rubbed over the ache there.
“Yes,” his voice was soft. “I left you. You kept trying to follow me, so I had to tie you up. I couldn’t have you walking from one danger straight into another.”
The pain in her chest seemed to get worse. “You were following orders.” Mercer’s orders. She’d thought Mercer was her friend. They’d met years before when she first joined the FBI. He’d taken an interest in her. Her supervisor had been in awe of the guy, and even though she hadn’t realized quite how powerful Mercer was, Noelle had known he was a man who could help her.
Only he’d actually been the man hiding her past from her.
The pain of betrayal was there, and she wondered if it always would be.
“That’s what a soldier does.” Anger roughened Thomas’s words. “And, yes, damn it, that was what I did.” He swung to face her. “I took you to that cabin. I...called in backup.”