Rubin turned to look at his brother, not knowing how to feel about someone invading their cabin and actually working on it. No one had ever done anything to the Campo cabin other than a Campo. He stepped into the middle of the room and took a long, slow look around, taking in everything. His brother took his back, doing the same. It was a familiar position, but they were looking at a very unfamiliar cabin.
Their cabin didn’t even smell the same. Coral honeysuckle was rare to find in the mountains and yet the cabin definitely held the subtle fragrance, mixed strangely enough with the scent of daffodils. His mother called them jonquils. All along the neighboring holler where they grew freely, they referred to them as Easter lilies. There was no hint of a musty smell at all. The loft held a new mattress. He could tell because it didn’t stink of the usual rodents that had burrowed their way inside the foam. A sleeping bag covered the top of the mattress.
Someone hadn’t been taking things from their cabin. Someone was living there. That someone was female. There were no flowers, but that fragrance told both men the occupant was a woman.
“I’ll get rid of any sign outside that we were anywhere near the place,” Diego said.
Rubin nodded. He was uneasy. When he was uneasy, it usually meant something was very wrong. “Be careful, Diego. I’ve got a bad feeling.”
“I’ve got the same bad feeling. Stay away from the windows.”
Rubin didn’t need the warning. He waited until his brother had slipped outside. Once Diego was out of the cabin, he felt better. He had never seen anyone who could match his brother’s ability in the forest. At least he knew Diego would be safe. He crouched low, squatting, the way his father had taught him, relieving pressure on his spine while he studied the interior of the cabin, inspecting every corner.
The floors were spotless. There was a handwoven rug at the foot of the ladder leading to the loft where the bed was. Four years earlier, they had roughed in a shower and toilet. It had been very rough. They had been used to an outhouse and an outdoor shower when they came to the mountains. The shower was still open, but it was much nicer. The floor of the shower had been set in smooth, polished stones over the plastic around the drain they’d roughed in. They had packed in a brand-new porcelain toilet when they came that year and it was spotless.
The kitchen sink was immaculate. The small gas stove had been thoroughly cleaned. That had been brought up only last year. Ordinarily, they made do with a small grill they kept in the shed around back. The woman who was living in their cabin believed in cleanliness. She hadn’t made things worse, but she had made changes to the kitchen and the bathroom, and even fixed the ladder going to the loft.
Rubin glanced up at the ceiling. They were planning on reroofing this trip. There had been water damage and they hadn’t been able to do more than patch the roof before they had to leave last time. There were no water marks on the ceiling. The wood had been replaced. That wood had been there since he was born. Even with water stains, his father and brothers had hauled that wood from the forest, trimmed it, notched it and put it in place. It had lasted all these years. An outsider had taken it down and replaced it. It didn’t matter that she’d done a damn good job. That was part of his family legacy—all he and Diego had left other than the graveyard behind the cabin.
At least she hadn’t touched the two rocking chairs their father had carved so long ago. Diego and Rubin had kept them in pristine condition. Each year they’d returned, they’d polished the wood and treated it so no insects would bore into it and ruin it. The seats were wide and very comfortable. The armrests were the perfect height. Had anyone stolen or harmed those rocking chairs, he might have considered hunting them down and shooting them. He definitely would have hunted the thieves to retrieve the chairs.
In the dresser built into the wall going out to the mud porch—that had been the practical place to store extra clothing when they had no indoor shower—he found two pairs of jeans in the second drawer. They were a small size. Three tank tops, all dark colors, and three others in light colors. Four T-shirts in dark colors. Socks. Two sweaters. A puffy vest. The top drawer held leggings and a tank only.
She didn’t have much in the way of clothing. Not summer gear. Not winter gear. What the hell was she doing up here? He was planning on asking her. She hadn’t brought her own tools. She was clearly using their tools right out of the shed.
He spotted the backpack pushed inside the pantry where they normally stored potatoes. It was darkest there. He pulled it out, unzipped it and began pulling out the contents. She didn’t have much there either. A pair of running shoes. A first-aid kit, but it was pretty sparse. Lightweight flashlight and batteries. Knife in a leather scabbard, this one lethal looking. Pocket knife that she should have had on her if she was running around in the woods.
On the bed was a sketch pad, charcoal drawing pencils and colored pencils. She was a good artist. Lots of flowering plants. He knew all of them. Knew where they were located. Most were quite a bit off the beaten path. She could easily get lost if she was off chasing flowers and mushrooms, lacy ferns and shrubbery through the forest, especially if she wasn’t native to the area. Most were medicinal plants. She obviously knew something about homeopathic medicine.
Where the hell was she? The sun was long past setting. He was beginning to feel a little worried about her, which was stupid since he didn’t know her and she’d been trespassing. He inhaled again, the scent of coral honeysuckle filling his lungs. It was a beautiful flower, one rare for the mountains. Extremely rare. He wondered if she was a transplant just like that flower, rare like the fragrance permeating his cabin.
For some reason he couldn’t quite identify, he was beginning to lay claim to the woman. Maybe because she was in his cabin and that fragrance was filling his senses. He was essentially a loner. He preferred it that way. He and Diego always stayed close to each other, and they stayed close to the Fortunes brothers, but in terms of letting people know who he was, that just didn’t happen.
He was intelligent enough to know he’d suffered too much loss early in his life. He didn’t believe anyone would stay, so he locked his emotions away and he fiercely protected Diego, just as his brother fiercely protected him. Still, for all that, that scent was wreaking havoc with his senses and his protective instincts.
The flutelike notes of the nightingale added to the sounds surrounding the cabin. Rubin listened to the rich ballad, the male crooning to a female. The sky had turned a variety of dark purples and deep blues long after the sun had disappeared, leaving the sky to the moon. Diego, in the form of that nightingale, had warned Rubin he was about to have company. Diego had perfected the art of singing like any bird he’d heard at a very young age, so much so that he could draw them to him.
Rubin moved into position in the middle of the cabin, waiting for his brother to tell him if she was coming to the front door or the back. The song started again just a few moments later, the male clearly persuading his potential ladylove to accept him. The notes doubled up if one listened closely, which meant his transplant was coming in through the back door. Not surprising if she’d been traipsing through the woods.
She could easily be a potential enemy sent by any number of foreign nations anxious to acquire a GhostWalker. She could also have been sent by Whitney. He wanted his soldiers back, particularly the ones with special talents. He often pitted his supersoldiers against the GhostWalkers to see which of his experiments would live through the battles.