“I’d have to agree.” There was color in her normally pale cheeks, and her blue eyes were even brighter than normal. Rubin resisted pulling her into his arms, but he was blocking the door to the mudroom.
You two going to stand out there staring at each other like two lovebirds or come in here and eat while it’s hot?
She’s looking particularly beautiful, so standing out here and staring at her, deciding whether or not to kiss her, seems like a better idea than having you lecture me about taking precautions like leaving the cabin without my rifle.
Good grief, Rubin. Kiss her already and then come inside and eat before it gets cold.
Rubin sighed. “He’s whining about the food being hot.”
“Why aren’t we going inside?”
He was blocking the door. “I’m debating whether or not kissing you again would get us in trouble.”
Diego flung the door open. “Enough already. Pancakes taste like cardboard cold. If he has to talk about kissing, the moment’s passed. I’ll explain that to him later, Jonquille.”
Rubin sighed and followed them inside, the sound of Jonquille’s laughter lodging somewhere in the region of his heart.
7
The trail many hikers liked to take to the campground was one that had signs posted everywhere cautioning to check the weather forecast for storms. Diego, Rubin and Jonquille took a shortcut through the woods to get to the trail more frequented by hikers in order to reach the clearing near the top of the mountain. The place was perfect for the kinds of experiments Rubin hoped to conduct.
Rubin and Diego had traveled that route on their way to the cabin, posting warning signs and closing the area, hoping to keep any backcountry campers from hiking to the clearing for the spectacular views. They had the government credentials to close the area, but didn’t want to use them unless it was strictly necessary. There was still a lot of distrust for the government among the locals in spite of a rise in education. The poverty level was still one of the worst, and neither man wanted the local people to quit trusting them as doctors when they returned to check on them year after year.
“I’m not certain what you want to do, Rubin,” Jonquille said when they’d reached the large, mostly bald area rising over the top of one side of the mountain. Trees and brush were sparse. The grass was closely cropped as if it struggled to grow amid the rocks and dirt. “I did read all your published papers. And some that weren’t published.” She admitted that under her breath.
Rubin glanced at her sharply. “Any other papers I submitted were to the military or they were private.”
She bit her lower lip and looked up at him for a full fifteen seconds. “I know,” she finally admitted.
“You hacked into a military site?” he prompted.
“Not exactly. Well. Sort of. Your personal site.” She mumbled the admission. “I’m sorry, I know that’s bad. A terrible invasion of privacy.”
Both men stared at her accusingly. Color stained her cheeks. She squirmed under their gazes. “Look, no one was going to help me. If I was going to be saved, I had to do it myself. The only way to do that was through research. I did as much on my own as I could. I pursued two different avenues, but both dead-ended. That’s when I heard you give a talk. It was inspiring, and I was hopeful again. The only way I was going to learn anything was to find everything you wrote on the subject.”
She sounded defiant and not in the least remorseful, but Rubin couldn’t exactly blame her. He just didn’t understand how she’d managed to hack his research site. He had two of the best computer experts checking his computer and ensuring his password couldn’t be broken. He couldn’t be hacked.
“How?” It was absolutely vital he know.
Both men stood in the open field, the gray clouds overhead, the silence occasionally broken by the sound of birds. She sighed. “You always used the same assistant to do your research at the military research laboratory when you traveled to Maryland to speak there.”
“How do you know he went there? That’s not ever common knowledge,” Diego demanded.
“I’m a GhostWalker too, remember?” Jonquille pointed out. “I might be a flawed one, but I have excellent forged credentials to get onto military bases to work in laboratories. I research. That’s how I was trying to figure out how to undo the enhancements Whitney had done to me. I knew I would have to live with some of them, but thought if I could find a way to ease them, I could be around people enough to use my healing gift and maybe even get my nursing degree or become a doctor. I’d have a chance at having a family.”
Rubin heard the raw pain in her voice, but it still didn’t tell him how she’d hacked his private account. He forced himself to keep looking at her when he really wanted to gather her up and hold her close to him—tell her he was proud of her skills. She’d slipped in and out of the research center often.