“Luck,” he said and headed toward the bed-and-breakfast office.
The pleasure of the kiss was still vibrating through him when he opened the door and stepped into the small, cluttered office. The place was over-heated and smelled of dust. In the corner a television was blaring a local newscast. The clerk behind the counter was leaning back in his chair, asleep.
Zack walked up to the counter and hit the bell with his palm. The clerk jerked awake, his feet hitting the floor at the same time his eyes opened. “Didn’t hear you come in.”
“Sorry to wake you,” Zack said, using his best East Coast inflection. “Do you have a room?”
The kid stood and walked to the counter, stretching. “We got one cabin left.”
“That’ll do.”
The kid slid a form across the counter. “Fill this out.”
“Certainly.” Zack set his phony wallet on the counter, then set to work filling out the form with false information.
“Where you headed?” the clerk asked.
“Convention in Boise.” Because he didn’t want to partake in idle chat, he quickly finished the form and fished several bills from his wallet. “What time is checkout?”
“Noon.”
Zack looked at the cuckoo clock on the wall. That would give them a few hours to shower and sleep. After that he wasn’t sure what to do. Maybe after he got some rest he would be able to think straight. After all, he was working on thirty-six hours with no sleep and very little to eat.
At the door he stopped and turned to the clerk. “What are the chances of my getting some food?”
“Not good,” the clerk said.
Zack crossed back to the counter, dug a twenty-dollar bill from the wallet and laid it on the wood surface. “You sure about that?”
The clerk’s eyes widened. “I’ve got a hot plate in the closet. I could probably dig up some soup.”
“I’ll wait.”
Two minutes later Zack left the office with a hot plate and a family-size can of vegetable soup in tow. It wasn’t much, but it would sustain them until they could get a decent meal the next day.
It seemed as if the temperature had dropped twenty degrees in the few minutes he’d been inside. He glanced across the snow-covered parking lot toward the picnic table where he’d left Emily. A chill passed through him when he found the table empty.
Where the hell was she?
He crossed the small lot at full speed. At the picnic table he slid to a stop—and froze. She was curled on the bench, asleep. Relief made his legs go weak. She was lying on her side with her arms wrapped around her body, so beautiful it hurt just to look at her. And an emotion that was part affection, part something he didn’t want to acknowledge, went through him.
Setting the soup and hot plate on the table, he bent and scooped her into his arms. Her eyes fluttered, widened.
“It’s just me,” Zack whispered.
She looked around quickly, as if trying to orient herself. “What—”
“You fell asleep.”
“I just closed my eyes for a second.”
“It’s all right.” He bent slightly toward the bench. “Grab that hot plate and can of soup, will you?”
“You can put me down, you know. I can walk.”
“You’re wiped out.”
She didn’t protest when he turned and started toward cabin number six. Nestled amongst a few winter-dead cottonwood trees at the rear, the cabin was relatively private, out of sight from the road and the office.
On the wooden porch Emily slid from his arms and Zack unlocked the door. The single-room cabin was rustic, with a corner woodstove, pine-plank floors and rough-hewn cedar beams. A small iron bed dressed in a white down comforter and several Southwestern-themed throw pillows dominated the room. A door to the left opened to a small bathroom with a stand-up shower. A sliding door to the right revealed a postage-stamp-size closet.
“Home, sweet home,” Zack said, switching on the light and stepping into the room.
Emily came up beside him. “Not exactly the Hilton, but it will do in a pinch.”
He watched her carry the hot plate to the table by the single window. Zack knew his mind should be on how he was going to get them out of this mess. On how he was going to find the mole at MID- NIGHT while at the same time eluding the people from Lockdown and Signal Research and Development. But watching Emily, he found he couldn’t think about anything except the way she moved, the radiance of her face, the way she’d tasted when he’d kissed her.
He walked up beside her and eased the hot plate from her hand. “Let me take care of that.”
“If I stop moving, I’ll collapse,” she said.
“That’s the idea,” he said. “Take a shower. I’ll warm the soup. Then we’ll get some sleep.”
“Are you forgetting there are people with guns looking for us?”