That time Cam laughed. “Impressive.”
“What do you guys have?” she asked as she sat on the bed.
The laughter in her voice caught Joel in a spell. Seeing her lighthearted and happy, if only for a few seconds, touched off something inside him.
Near the end they had fought a lot. Then he’d made her cry. He could have gone a lifetime without seeing that, without having her despair rip through him, shredding him from the inside out.
He forced his attention back to the present before the old feelings of guilt swamped him. “Guns, knives.” Joel thought about a man tracking her through the woods. “My bare hands.”
Her head fell to the side and her hair cascaded over her shoulder. “Strangely, I find that comforting.”
A stark silence zipped through the room. It was charged and uncomfortable enough to have him thinking about the big bed right in front of him and Cam squirming as if he wanted to bolt.
He inched toward the door, looking like he was about to do just that. “I should head back to the helicopter and lock it up. Also need to check in with Connor.”
Joel nodded. “Fine.”
“Who is that?” she asked, seemingly unaware of the firestorm she’d set off in the man she’d once dated.
Joel swallowed a few times and thought about every unsexy thing he could to overwhelm the other thoughts in his head. After a few seconds, his control zapped back to life. “Our boss, Connor Bowen. He runs the Corcoran Team.”
“Yeah, like I said, I should contact him.” With his hand against the door, Cam appeared to want to do it right then.
Joel didn’t disagree. He’d been toying with yelling for the cavalry, but he didn’t want to rush everyone in before they conducted a few more easy steps. “Let’s see if we can figure this out first. It’s still possible we have an annoying businessman acting like a spoiled child.”
“How do you explain the gun?” Cam asked.
Joel couldn’t. Not without hitting on options that had his temper spiking. That was the problem. “I’m thinking Mark snuck in here and took the box.”
“What?” Hope jumped off the bed and wrapped her arms around her body.
“I know that sounds bad, but—”
“While I was sleeping? No way.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “Don’t you think I’d hear him?”
Cam winced. “Maybe not.”
She visibly shivered. “That’s just creepy.”
“And one of the reasons your dad wanted me here.” Joel slid that in there in the hope it would cut off any argument he’d get on the helicopter when they flew out of there the second after they located Mark. Thanks to all she’d described about this retreat so far, he’d leave when she did and not a minute earlier.
She held up a hand. “Don’t start.”
Looked like her fear or disgust or whatever it was about the lockbox had disappeared. “Your dad is being practical.” Joel suspected her father was also engaging in a bit of matchmaking, but Joel decided not to share that thought.
“The word you’re looking for is overprotective.”
“Hope, I think—”
She turned to Cam. “So, now what?”
He bit his bottom lip in what looked like a poor attempt to block a smile. “We check the helicopter and do a quick search around the campground.”
Those priorities worked for Joel. “Cam will question the men here at the campground and maybe see if Charlie knows anything or can give us some direction.”
“He knows these woods better than anyone and probably can tell us where someone might hide.” She sighed as she shook her head. “I swear if Mark is just being a big baby and staying away because a woman yelled at him, I’m going to hit him.”
“Absolutely fine, since nailing him with an arrow is out. Unfortunately,” Joel said.
Cam nodded. “Sounds like a reasonable plan.”
She let her hand drop to her side again. “But Mark being a jerk still doesn’t explain the missing satphone and the stalker.”
“You’re sure Mark wasn’t the one following you?” Man, Joel wanted that to be the answer. It was simple and clean, but he knew life rarely worked that way. Not for him.
“The build was all wrong. Mark is stocky and a bit out of shape. This guy was lean and moved fast.”
“I don’t like that at all.” Cam shook his head as he peeked out the small window next to the cabin’s front door. “Heads up—the troops are gathering by the fire pit again. Looks like Charlie is giving them orders.”
“I bet Jeff pays attention to Charlie,” Hope grumbled.