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“No electricity, but we got the lanterns. There’s a small generator, which I haven’t fired up yet. Saving it.” Archie looked at Kit and the baby. “But now seems like the proper time.”

A generator was more than he could have hoped for. He couldn’t stifle his grin.

Archie handed Cullen a lantern, which he activated, then he bustled outside, and in few moments the generator purred to life. Cullen flicked on the heater and one small lamp and pulled down all the blinds. Kit did not need his urging to scoot close to the heat register with Tot.

Cullen moved a chair from behind the checkout desk and plopped it practically on top of the metal grate in the floor. “Here. You two warm up. I’ll get hot water soon as I can and fix Tot a bottle.”

She sank down with a sigh, flanked by floor-to-ceiling shelves of children’s books.

Archie returned with a cardboard box full of clothes and set it down next to Kit. “Library lost and found,” he crowed. “You wouldn’t believe what people leave behind. Once I found a set of dentures and a six-pack of raisins in the same day.”

“Oh, thank you,” Kit said with fervor as she handed Cullen the baby and took the box.

Cullen offloaded Tot in the arms of a startled Archie, but the old man pulled the tiny girl close and immediately started to talk to her.

“A seasoned grandpa,” Cullen said to Kit. “He’s got seven.”

“And number eight coming in the spring. We almost got ourselves a baseball team.” Archie smiled at Tot. “This one’s a pretty pumpkin. Not bad for your first effort.” He winked at Cullen.

Cullen’s cheeks burned. “Oh, she’s not mine.”

He raised a grizzled eyebrow. “Ah. Well then.” He turned to Kit. “You get the full credit in the looks department.”

“She’s not mine either.”

Cullen chuckled at Archie’s gaping astonishment.

“We’ll explain the whole thing, sir, but Tot needs a dry diaper something fierce.” He fished one from the duffel. “Would you care to do the honors while I fix her bottle? You said you’ve got a microwave in the break room, and Tot hasn’t had a warm bottle since I don’t know when.”

That seemed to snap the trance. Archie spread the towel Cullen handed him on a table and laid the baby gently on her back. “No proper bottles, you poor lamby pie? We’ll get you fixed up with that warm milk. Don’t you worry your angel head about it. Grandpa Archie’s got it handled.”

“Too bad people don’t lose their shoes and socks at the library, but I found a flannel shirt I can wear.” Kit tossed a man’s barn jacket to Cullen. “This one will almost fit you. Better than my raincoat anyway.”

He chuckled and stepped into a minuscule break room where Archie had told him about a microwave and sink. Perfect, since he could keep an eye on them all while he shook up the formula.

While Archie crooned to the baby and undid the snaps on her outfit, he jerked his chin at Kit. “There’s an employee bathroom right behind the checkout desk if you need it, miss.”

“Please, call me Kit.”

“Only if you’ll call me Archie.”

Kit smiled. “Archie it is. I found some clothes that will work for me, but the only baby-sized thing is a sunhat and a toddler-sized snow jacket.”

“I have an idea about that, Kit,” Archie said. “And you need some shoring up too. We can’t have you trekking around in bare feet.”

While the bottle warmed, Cullen prowled the cupboards but couldn’t find anything big enough for Kit to put her feet into for a warm water soak.

His level of respect for her continued to rise.

Their escape had been surreal. Barefoot and without a proper jacket, she’d somehow kept Tot from injury.

He recalled that he’d actually dropped the baby off his roof into her arms. Cold sweat pricked his forehead.

Thanks be to God that Kit had risen to the occasion.

Point of fact, she’d been an absolute dynamo since he’d found her in her wrecked rig.

He’d met a lot of strong women in his day, starting from his mother and extending to a long line of exceptional cops, but Kit topped the list.

Into the last clean bottle went one of the two remaining packets of formula. He found a clean mug, warmed the water, and shook up the milk.

Warmth. Food. That handled, he’d beeline for the phone.

Kit emerged from the bathroom, clutching the flannel shirt around herself. “Thanks for changing her, Mr. Esposito.”

“You will call me Archie, young lady. No arguments.”

With a smile, she reached for the bottle Cullen brought, but Archie took it first.

“Now, let an old soldier handle the grub. I’m a pro. You drink some water, and if you’re hungry, there’s cookies I keep stashed in the break room and a half bag of corn chips.”

“Food of champions,” Cullen said with a laugh.

“Beggars and choosers.” Archie settled Tot on his lap and watched in delight as she clamped onto the nipple. “Look at that. Eating like a professional. Never seen anyone with such a healthy appetite. Phone’s behind the desk.”

Cullen practically sprinted to the ancient rotary device.

It took him a second to remember how to work one, but he kept his back to Archie to conceal his hesitation.

When he untangled his brain, he dialed the emergency number.

A busy signal. He disconnected and tried again. Same result. Not surprising.

Kit drew close, handing him a cookie on a piece of paper towel. She had another for herself.

“Thanks.” He was pleased for some reason that she’d thought of him. “Emergency line’s overwhelmed. I’m going to try my brother.” He dialed. “Ringing.”

Her eyes lit up, a hue somewhere between black coffee and the coat of the most beautiful quarter horse he’d been privileged to own. His stomach was doing flips as the phone rang once, twice. Before it got to three, his brother answered. Blood surging, Cullen gripped the phone. “Gideon...”

“If it isn’t my baby brother. Where are you?”

“Grandlake, ten miles from my cabin.”

“Why?” His brother’s tone sounded lazy, soft, but Cullen wasn’t fooled at the unspoken Why are you there? Why didn’t you evacuate like any sensible person would have? The edge was there under the velvet.

“In a minute. In case we lose connection, I need to tell you some things right away.”

Gideon was quiet as he relayed the information about the crash and their pursuers. “Kit Garrido is here with me and the baby. We nicknamed her Tot.”

“Identity of the dirt bike guy?” Gideon asked.

Cullen fished around in his back pocket and examined the driver’s license he’d seized. “Name’s Kyle Wallace, out of Los Angeles. I like Evel better.”

“What?” Gideon said.

“Never mind. We don’t know what any of the men want with Tot’s mom.”

Kit’s eyes flew wide. “Wait a minute.”

“Hold on, Gideon,” Cullen said.

She pulled the paper from her pocket. “I found this when you took the license.”

Archie listened in as he read to his brother from the paper.

“Gideon, it’s a copy of an article ripped from a newspaper, the Washington Trib , dated June 7, five years ago. No more text except for a caption. ‘Annette Bowman was ...’ and the rest is torn off. Woman looks young in the photo, maybe late teens.”

The static on the line made him work harder to hear. A series of rattling thunks indicated the wind-driven debris was striking the upstairs windows. “Gideon, the mountain’s about to blow.”

“I’m aware.”

Cullen could hear the tapping of keys. “There’s an evacuation area twenty miles south of you,” Gideon said. “National Guard has a command post there, and a helicopter. Can you make it?”

Twenty miles? “Not with a baby and the roads wrecked.”

Kit was still staring at the clipping of Annette on the desk.

Cullen realized it had been a few seconds and his brother hadn’t replied.

“Gideon?” He held the receiver, gut clenching.

“Can you hear me?” He tried again and once more until he gently placed the receiver back in the cradle. “We lost the landline.”

Kit stared at him, and he knew she was wondering the same thing he was. How were they going to get to an evacuation zone twenty miles away? He tried to plaster a hopeful expression across his features.

“On the positive side, someone in the outside world’s got the dirt,” Archie said.

“Yes,” Kit echoed. “Your brother will send help, right?”

“Yes, he will.” But will it be in time?

Archie put Tot to his shoulder and patted her back.

His troubled gaze indicated he wasn’t optimistic either.

Tot fussed for a few minutes while he and Kit ate their cookies and drank a bottle of water each.

He would have liked a second one, but he didn’t know how Archie was fixed for supplies, and they’d need plenty of water to prepare Tot’s bottles until. ..

Until what? What exactly was the endgame now? With extreme effort, they could possibly cover the twenty miles in the ATV, but with the landscape buckling around them? Men in active pursuit? And a baby to protect?

Kit wandered back to the heat register and pressed her toes to it, still obviously cold.

It was almost 2:00 a.m. and she was clearly exhausted, but sleep would have to take a back seat to warmth.

They’d be here through the night at least; might as well secure some creature comforts while they worked on the next phase of action.

“You mentioned a supply plan, sir?”

Archie nodded. “The convenience store across the street. Leonard and Mary run it, and they gave me a tongue lashing for not evacuating, but they said to help myself to whatever before the volcano blew me up.” He jiggled Tot, who was fighting sleep and sucking at the same time.

“Appears to me that since this baby doesn’t belong to you, it’s likely you’re not traveling with a full complement of gear. ”

“That’s an affirmative.” He hesitated. “I can explain...”

“Later. Leonard and Mary’s store’s got a baby section.” Archie eyed Kit’s battered feet. “Some boots too, for the weekend warriors who don’t arrive in this area properly supplied. How about we go take ourselves a lookie-loo?”

“Is it okay to go out there again?” Kit’s gaze flicked to the lowered blinds.

“They can’t have gotten here so quick, if at all,” Cullen said. “But the ground’s a mess. Want to stay put and I’ll be your personal shopper?”

She shook her head. “We should stick together.”

He wasn’t sure if that was the wisest plan, but considering the woman had almost been murdered several times since the previous afternoon, he wasn’t going to quibble.

Archie pointed to Kit. “Meantime there’s a box of Band-Aids and a first aid kit under the checkout desk. Don’t want that cut on your foot getting infected, huh?”

Cullen felt bad that he hadn’t noticed the scrape.

Kit obeyed orders and fetched the supplies, then sat on the floor and folded her legs in a way he could never even come close to.

She disinfected and applied a bandage. Those little toes, so small.

He’d been told his toes looked more orangutan than human.

She caught him staring, and he hastily glanced away.

Admiring toes right now , Cullen? What is wrong with you?

“All right. We can do a supply run, but Tot needs to finish her bottle first.” Cullen was surprised when Archie handed over the baby.

“While she’s topping off her tank, I got me an idea. Be right back.” Archie hustled into a back room, and Cullen heard the hum of machinery.

“What’s he doing?” Kit whispered.

“Dunno, but Archie’s a wily one.” He urged Tot to drain the formula, her luminous eyes fixed on his face under heavy lids.

The wee fingers reached up for his chin, and he lowered his head to accommodate.

The tender touch tore open the wound as he remembered what he’d had and how much he’d lost. Daniela’s infant daughter was gone from his life, just like her mother was, and he missed that tiny tot more than he’d ever thought possible.

Your own fault. He felt Kit looking at him as she repacked the first aid supplies, so he got up under the pretense of burping the baby.

Just rock the baby. Stay in the now , not the what-used-to -be.

“Oh yeah,” he heard Archie crow. With Tot asleep on his shoulder, Cullen found the dusty work area where Archie sat on an overturned crate in front of an archaic-looking machine.

“What is that thing?”

“That, you uneducated rube, is a microfiche reader, which was the bee’s knees in research tools before the invention of the internet. These microphotographs contain entire issues of newspapers.” He smirked. “Newspapers are periodicals containing current events and—”

“I know what a newspaper is, thanks. Tell me what the ‘oh yeah’ was for.”

“Because it so happens that we have two decades of the Washington Trib on microfiche, and this old dinosaur found the article from which your picture of Annette was torn.” He poked a thumb into his chest.

Cullen gaped. “You’re joking.”

“Nope. I figured it was worth looking. Pulled up all the June issues for the last ten years. Got a match on the second one. Easy as pie.” Archie grinned. “’Cuz the only thing better than a marine is a librarian marine.”

“You’re right about that.”

He grinned. “Take a look here.”

Cullen peered over his shoulder at the grainy paper shown on the dim screen.

Archie held up the ripped article Kit had gotten from Kyle’s wallet for comparison. “That there’s the very same article as the piece the motorcycle guy was carrying. See? Photo matches perfectly and the caption.”

Stunned, Cullen scanned the tiny words in the first paragraph, wishing he had his reading glasses, a fact he wouldn’t disclose under pain of death and dismemberment. He looked for the zoom option, but as he bent, Tot complained. Archie took her while he moved in closer.

He read until he got the gist. His stomach dropped to his shoes.

Archie’s grave expression told him he’d read it too.

Kit appeared in the doorway. “What did you find out?”

He exchanged a look with Archie.

What was the best way to tell her that the trouble was even worse than they thought?