His own family’s excuse for a homestead was a shack in comparison to the manor house. But the cabin had been all his drunk of a father could maintain, sitting amidst acres of north Georgia woods that belonged to someone else. Cole’s dad had once been the caretaker for the Cassidy property. Among other things, he’d tended the currently leafless pecan grove that the January moon was now illuminating, setting a moody backdrop for the mansion and the lake beyond.
As a very young boy, Cole had earned two dollars a bushel from Old Man Cassidy, collecting the nuts that fell from those trees. And he’d loved every second of the chore. Almost as passionately as he’d resented returning to this place now.
He’d kept up the cabin, once his dad finally killed himself with alcoholism and liver disease. It had become a safe house to land in sporadically between the various federal task forces Cole rotated through. Technically, he worked for the FBI. But almost from the start of his ten years with the Bureau, his tendency to circumvent regulations and his reputation for closing impossible cases had led him to specialize. He’d become the closest a federal officer could get to a free agent. He was on near-continuous loan from the Bureau doing undercover work for state and local law enforcement, infiltrating gangs and organized-crime syndicates, collecting evidence and turning marks for federal stings.
Ten years of living on the edge had left a slew of enemies in his wake. His High Lake cabin was an off-the-grid stronghold during rare patches of downtime. Ramshackle-looking on the outside, inside he had everything he needed to protect himself from nearly every type of threat. Every threat, that was, except for his present responsibility to keep an eye on the woman who had once again taken up residence in the Cassidy place.
It didn’t matter that the Victorian estate house had seen better days since Cole first left the mountain as an angry young man. The mansion was still as impressive as when he’d stared across this same stretch of woods as a boy. And it continued to represent his very first lesson in how twisted life could become when you bought into dreams as if they were real.
After Matthew Cassidy’s death, Cole had made his way back whenever he could, only because Matthew’s heir, the estate’s new owner, had never once returned herself. An insignificant bit of intel had assured him each time that he’d have the mountain entirely to himself.
Now his first—hell, his only—dream, the only woman he’d ever loved, was back on High Lake Mountain to torment him. And it was his job to keep track of her every move.
Six months ago, he’d pushed as hard as he’d dared to take part in this investigation—in an advisory capacity, consulting from afar as an expert on the principal suspect. Because he’d flat-out refused to believe Shaw was guilty of the charges being drawn up against her. That day at the hospital, when Federal Marshals Service Chief Inspector Rick Dawson had proposed this new assignment, Cole could have declined. Instead, a glutton for punishment, he was a newly minted special deputy marshal, responsible for being Shaw’s High Lake watchdog. He’d accepted the detail, because any other agent would have considered ensuring her security here less of a priority than collecting additional evidence that she was guilty of treason. Alleged treason.
In the Bureau’s eyes, this was a light babysitting detail. One that was going nowhere. But regardless, Cole had been farmed out to Dawson. He was to monitor the isolated environment Shaw had been restricted to in her house, with orders to intervene only if someone other than the marshal who delivered her groceries every five days approached from the surrounding acreage. Cole’s own network of electronic sensors, installed on the property years ago to ensure his personal safety, gave him a leg up. He could detect anything that moved beyond the house’s perimeter. But just as important to the U.S. government, Cole could be certain that Shaw herself didn’t leave the premises or contact anyone the task force hadn’t vetted.
Being certain was Cole’s forte. So was cutting emotional ties, once a place or person had ceased to be useful to him. He was an ace at it, thanks to Shaw.
After losing her and the future they’d promised each other, he’d ruthlessly hammered away at an uncompromising world until he’d put himself through college and been recruited into the Bureau. He’d built a career out of becoming whomever he had to be next in order to get away clean from whatever he was leaving behind.
Except now, he was once again playing the part of himself. And being back in the heart of Rabun County and Shaw’s messed-up life wasn’t sitting any better now than it had when he’d bolted from the mountain fifteen years ago.