Sarah stared out the window into the night.

She wondered if the darkness would ever warm her again, invite her to amble pleasantly in its somber beauty. All she saw now was the sinister shadows that held unspoken threats.

I miss you, she smirked joylessly at her once-friend. No, she did not see any near reunion with the dark.

-Excerpt from the popular novel Felicity read her first night at the cabin.

“Please ensure that all common areas are covered. Include as many entrances into and egresses out of each room as possible. The feed will need audio as well. Please take special note of any unexpected visitors, preferably male, who enter the house and into which rooms they pass.” – Internal ProtoComm memo, offering instructions for the installation of the surveillance system at the home of Brendon and Felicity Miller.

“I have to contact Nick,” Felicity insisted as they passed through the last town before Canmore.

“Absolutely not,” Jase snapped at her.

“I'm sorry; I need to contact my brother. Last time I delayed calling him, he was about to go to the FBI. If he does that, you may wind up in trouble with ProtoComm and the law. And neither of us wants that.”

Jase smirked. Apparently, neither possibility bothered him too much. “You afraid they'll think you're in league with me?”

Glaring at him, Felicity pursed her lips. “Of course not. I'll just tell them you kidnapped me,” she corrected.

The smirk turned into a grin. “Or I'll tell them you kidnapped me.”

Despite herself, Felicity laughed. “I'm too much of a saint,” she offered tongue-in-cheek. Felicity knew the truth about herself. She wasn’t any worse than other people, but she wasn’t any better. Some of her “good behavior” stemmed from good intentions, but some stemmed from cowardice. Certainly, most of her noble strength grew out of her love for her children, the debt she owed them, the gratitude she owed God. But that didn’t make her a saint.

Jase paused, peering out at the passing landscape, the mountains visible in the near distance. For some reason, he seemed suddenly sentimental. “I'm sorry,” he explained. “This whole thing is just so wrong. That someone like you would have to go through this...”

“Because apparently I married the wrong man.” She turned out her own window, his sudden melancholy proving contagious. The sick feeling crept over Felicity again. Every time she thought of Brendon, her heart ripped in half, half wanting to wipe him off the planet and the other half wanting to go back to him and pretend that nothing had happened. What would he do if she just showed up at the house when he returned?

Without preface, Jase reached over and placed his hand on hers where it rested on her knee. Part of her wanted to draw back, not willing to encourage any expectations. Still, he seemed so sincere. And Felicity could use some sympathy at the moment. Not that it means anything, she assured herself. Jase merely acted as a painkiller - Vicotin for the heart. He's a powerful drug, though, she admitted, glancing down at their hands as he laced their fingers together. She felt herself in danger of becoming addicted. At a point in her life where she felt death creeping over her, Jase promised a spark of life, and desperation tempted her to give in to anything that kept her alive. She forced her eyes back to the scenery, keenly aware of the heat of his skin against hers.

“I know that most people live their whole lives without suffering something this crazy,” Jase broke the silence. “And for it to happen to you? I mean, you spend every ounce of your energy caring for other people. You should win awards and have admirers. Not wake up in slavery. Not someone like you.”

“Someone like me?” Felicity scoffed. “Such a saint…” she murmured sarcastically, peering back at their hands, disgusted with herself for caving so easily to her baser self. Jase saw the motion of her head and turned to look at her. Suddenly self-conscious, she gently pulled her hand from beneath his and leaned toward the window, as if trying to relax. Whatever vibe radiated from him, though, told her that he had read significance into her words. She didn't even know the significance of her words, but she hoped he would read less than she felt. Even if she did want him a little, she didn't want him to know it.

Jase waited several minutes to answer her original question. When she thought about it later, Felicity couldn't help wondering if he did so in order to render her request impossible.

“You can't call Nick,” Jase insisted, “but if you write him a message, I'll email it to him. I can hide my tracks pretty well as long as I don't use my own equipment.”

Felicity sighed. Nick was her only contact with what her life had been, and giving up contact with him seemed to immerse her fully in the new, risky world that had smothered her other, more naive self. Of course, she understood why she had to sever ties for the time being. Plus, she just didn't want to argue with her only chance of a companion. Story of my life. Grabbing Jase's phone, she typed out a quick note on his notepad. Jase could send it when he felt safe; Felicity made sure to use Nick’s public email and not disclose any important information.

As if they didn't have a care in the world, Jase wound his way slowly down a maze of bucolic roads, some seeming to lead nowhere until they curved deceptively onto another country lane. Unlike Felicity's makeshift map application on her cell phone, Jase's satellite GPS had no reception problems out in the middle of nowhere. Even knowing they weren't lost, though, the hills began to make Felicity dizzy. Not naturally a weak woman, Felicity found herself exceptionally disoriented because the sense of helplessness seemed so new to her. Maybe if I were one of those mewling, fainting women, I could handle this better. It would be familiar territory. Or, she thought, maybe motherhood really had made her soft, like Jenna believed.

“You're going to stay at my place near Banff.” Jase broke into her reverie.

“You have a place in Banff?” she interrupted.

Jase laughed. “Not exactly. Bill owns extensive land up here, and he regularly conducts ProtoComm business from his residence here. So, coming up here is convenient for Bill – the guy who has a private jet so he doesn't have to worry about airfare. When I went to work for Bill, he called me up here often enough – security issues for all of his high-dollar guests that got a place. I don’t like staying where Bill is and always being under his eye. So I got a place outside of town.”

“You like to be the one with eyes everywhere,” Felicity leveled.

Jase shrugged. Pausing, he glanced at her with concern. “I will need to be gone a lot during the day. As far as Bill is concerned, I just made a two-day trip to purchase equipment, and I need to make a show of installing that equipment.”

For a moment, Felicity’s heart dropped. What would she do alone with her thoughts? The first couple of days had proven so brutal. Then Jase had shown up, and Felicity had found her mind filled with enough upheaval that she didn’t have room to worry about anything. Her face must have shown her emotion.

Jase again reached his hand to hers. “Let me get you something to distract you. I mean, I obviously have a television, and you can stream content, but I also have access to a large book collection. What do you like?”

His consideration moved Felicity, and she forced herself to calm. “Thank you,” she smiled, as he returned his hand to the wheel. “I do love books. Anything classic. Jane Eyre, anything Dickens or Austen. Les Mis, Tolstoy. I'm not difficult to please. Just stay away from modern trashy romances.”

“Nothing with bare-chested male models on the cover?” he snickered.

When Felicity laughed, too, the feeling opened something in her chest that Brendon's betrayal had smothered for the past several days. For the first time since her abduction, Felicity relaxed. She and Jase spent the next half-hour in such a nerdy, mind-bending, philosophical conversation about books that Felicity completely lost herself in pleasure. Contrary to what she would have expected, Jase seemed familiar with all of her favorites. Though he admitted to preferring modern classics like Hemingway and Catcher In The Rye, he possessed complex knowledge of all the more antiquated literature as well.

Occasionally, during a lull in the conversation, Felicity heard her fear tapping on the underside of her mind. She couldn't remember the last time she had clicked so well with someone: college? Certainly not in her pre-children career. Not with Brendon. Not that she hadn't talked to him, but he merely tolerated her passion for great literature. He never appreciated it like she did. Not like Jase obviously did.

Felicity sighed silently as Jase expounded on the moral value of the transformation of Jean Valjean from criminal to saint. Ironic, she mused silently. Or perhaps strategic, she corrected. But even the thought just made her laugh at the contrast. Everything superficial had spoken to the fact that Brendon would be the perfect match for her. She built her life on it. Instead, this person who came from a background so thoroughly different from her own; he matched her in a way Brendon never had.

A marriage of convenience, she thought wryly to herself. Maybe it would feel good to pretend for a while. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt anything.

As they approached Banff, Jase seemed to notice her abstraction. Instead of trying to pry her out of it, he satisfied himself with one glance toward her. Then he stared, mirroring her silence, over the steering wheel and toward the horizon that rose to greet them.

They continued in silence until Jase turned onto a steep dirt drive that jagged immediately into a copse of thick trees and brush, obscuring its course from anyone driving by on the road. Littered with rustic, battered signs which read “No Trespassing,” the barbed-wire fence evinced comparisons with the forsaken rural drives she had passed when in transit across the Arizona desert - the kind she wouldn't dare transgress for fear of ricocheting bullets. Rather than nullifying the forbidding comparison, the obscurity of the trees and brush increased the sinister feel of the landscape. Add to that the hovering darkness of the woodland hills, and Felicity couldn't help but feel like she had been dropped into a suspenseful movie where ghosts lurked behind every tree.

Despite her usual bravado, Felicity gulped.

Jase glanced at Felicity and grinned. “Do you think this will keep curious people away?”

“Yes,” she agreed reluctantly. “But will it keep the right people away.” She could see the ease with which a malevolent person could escape detection as he flitted through the thick underbrush that surrounded and invaded the rough gravel path to the dwelling.

“As always, an excellent and insightful concern,” he smirked. “Don't worry. No one knows about this place.”

Somehow, that knowledge didn't bring her any peace of mind, and she glanced nervously at Jase. Visions of crazy ax murderers and other generically evil characters flashed through her mind. She rather felt more vulnerable for the isolation. Adding to her discomfort, she realized that not only was she stuck in the middle of nowhere with Jase, she was glad she was stuck with Jase. Stupid, stupid, stupid, her fear shook its head at her, as if it had been nagging her and she stubbornly wouldn’t listen. Now do you believe me? it chastised. No, she actually didn’t. Instead, she wanted to hole up and cuddle in front of the fireplace with Jase. She bit her lip and glanced at him, but she quickly forced her eyes forward. Not going there, she insisted.

Shaking the vision from her head, she kicked herself back to reality. “Where do Bill and Brendon think you're staying?” she demanded. “What if they come to look for you and can't find you?”

“That's why I have to be gone during the days. I'll spend my time trading back and forth between ProtoComm's headquarters and my normal in-town residence. I need to seem the same as usual. I won’t come here until after sunset; I know how to get around in the dark.”

Somehow, the fact didn't surprise Felicity at all. Didn't everything macabre prefer the dark? You keep telling yourself he’s dark until you believe it, she upbraided herself. Sure, she intellectually knew that Jase had problems, but she had begun to feel completely safe with him. The only unsafe thing about him was how much she enjoyed him.

After about half a mile of rough terrain, the brush began to clear a little. A few seconds later, the trees and bushes ceased entirely, revealing a small clearing, about a quarter of an acre in size. Toward the back of the small clearing, a very small house, more like a large shed or a small cabin, sat perched on a raised foundation. The wood siding had once been painted white, but the darkness and moisture of the forest seemed to have invaded the porous texture of the wood and inserted its green variations into the paint's surface. A small overhang covered the door, just enough to protect oneself from rain while placing a key into the lock.

Felicity shivered.

“Are you cold?” Jase queried solicitously. “It's pretty damp out here.”

“No,” she replied quickly. “No, um...I just have these flashes.” She hugged herself.

“Come on,” he responded, his tone reassuring. “You'll be safe out here for a while. And I'll

figure something out. I promise.”

As he spoke, Jase opened his door and moved around to hers, and before she realized it, he had opened her door and had her hand in his. Without asking permission, he pulled her to her feet and caught her around the waist to steady her. Despite her intended disinterest, she found herself breathless at the intimacy of the gesture. She stepped back a step, uncomfortable with his proximity, and turned abruptly toward the door, extricating herself from his still firm grasp around her waist.

She would have preferred to hold his hand as she traipsed across the gloomy span, but she wouldn’t let herself. Felicity needed space to think now that an extended time alone with him loomed ahead. Did she intend to let the flirtation he had begun in Phoenix continue? After all she had been through, how could she even consider it?

Undoubtedly, Jase had helped her. He had not harmed her, he had saved her from the man at the hotel, he hadn't turned her in to Bill. All of those factors spoke in his favor, as did her growing knowledge of his intellectual prowess. Not just gritty practical intelligence, but refined philosophical sophistication – without pretense. If she had found him in different circumstances, she held no doubt that she would have admired him.

Interrupting her thoughts, Jase caught up with her then and grabbed her hand despite her reluctance. He led her up the steps and to the door.

“It's not as scary as it looks,” he grinned impishly at her and opened the door.

At first, Felicity could tell little about the shrouded house because all the interior lights remained unlit. When Jase did turn on the lights, though, her paradigm of Jase shifted.

From the first moment that Felicity had met Jase, he had carried himself as suave, sophisticated, with only an occasional lapse into humanity after he had come to “rescue” her from Quito. The cabin, though, did not ooze sophistication. Instead, it glowed with charm. Cozy, homey charm.

An old-fashioned braided rug curled warmly in front of a cast-iron stove. In the same room across the space of the living area, an antique recliner reposed next to a camel-back sofa whose tapestry spoke age. To her left, she could see a shallow hallway, but could not see to where it led. Despite the age of the furnishings, no thick layer of dust blanketed the visible surfaces, as Felicity would have expected in a rarely-used cabin. Instead, everything looked neat - and even somehow smelled clean, a quality that old homes and furniture rarely possessed. Examining the details, Felicity realized that the living area doubled as a kitchen, the stove both for heat and cooking.

“How old is this house?” she wondered.

“The house itself is about a hundred years old, but most of the furniture is much older.” The grin again, “Not the recliner. It's an original Barcalounger.”

Felicity barely reined in a laugh at the unexpectedly enthusiastic declaration. Was Jase Hamilton closet nerd? What was a Barcalounger, and why did Jase even hold that kind of knowledge? Her lips twisted in an attempt not to smirk at his eagerness.

Even with her amusement, though, Felicity lost sight of Jase and his unexpected humanity as soon as she sat down on the little couch. Jase had made his way to the kitchen area and was describing some hidden luxury that she couldn’t quite grasp, and fatigue suddenly lay a blanket across her normal astuteness. Though the day had only reached noon, a sudden lethargy overwhelmed her, almost as compelling as the night that, drugged, she had felt herself laid into an abductor's car.

She couldn’t ignore that fact that Jase admitted to drugging her that day, and suspicion washed over her mind at her sudden exhaustion. She clearly remembered, though, eating nothing but restaurant food in the past 24 hours, and she never left her food alone with Jase. Common sense flashed for a moment, and she abruptly realized that she had not felt safe in many days. The drug that now tugged at her consciousness was not a narcotic; it was safety. She believed herself safe, and her body grasped at the opportunity to finally rest.

She strained to listen to Jase's initiation into the amenities of the house. One bathroom, a small cupboard beside the stove, an antique refrigerator, a table and chairs for two: all charming and, under the present circumstances, soporific. Felicity began to doze as visions of by-gone eras floated before her vision. She woke from a dream in which villains with Colt 45s wearing black suits and Fedoras chased her in black Model-T Fords, and she found herself upon waking surrounded by their furniture contemporaries, including an ancient quilt that Jase had obviously covered her with at some point. She almost felt like she had run into one of the homes that lined the streets in her dream.

She had been dead to the world from the moment she nodded off on the couch until she awoke to full alertness, who knew how long later. Unsure whether or not Jase had left her, Felicity sat up quietly from her repose, peering around her and trying to shake off her sleepiness. The sun glared at her through the large living room window. She wondered that no curtains filtered its brilliance, but a slight tint minimized the visual discomfort. Rising, Felicity crossed to the tiny cupboard and refrigerator that comprised the kitchen. Inside the cupboard, she found various cans and boxes, all fresh, but uninteresting. The refrigerator held similar various nondescript staples, nothing particularly exciting except for several variations of French cheese. Perhaps Jase not only spoke French but enjoyed French culture. Felicity shiver with a moment of pleasure at the thought.

More than anything, the cabin created a contrast in Felicity’s mind. Jase seemed poised and polished, but his private sanctuary wore an earthiness, an organic cool so different than polished ProtoComm. From Brendon to Bill to Jenna, and even the oily Jack Buckley – a superficial sheen flashed and shivered across their personalities, their appearances. Even with his chiseled physique and his careful portrayals, he stood apart, a vigilant creature inside the armor he claimed he wore. The concept both attracted and terrified Felicity.

If he intended her benefit, she doubted that any other person could manage it quite as successfully. If he did not though, or if his other motives interfered with his better angels, then Felicity could not imagine with what ease he could manipulate someone like her – a woman, alone, damage, betrayed, and fearing for her life. I would be a fool to hand him control.

Well, she just wouldn’t. She would force her mind away from him and keep her eyes on the practical world before her eyes. Turning from the kitchen, she crossed to the little hallway she had seen before. Directly in front of the doorway into the hall perched a small bathroom, unremarkable in any way except for the quaint claw-foot tub and hand-held shower. It reminded her of the Victorian romances with dramatic heroines. She wondered whether those women had struggled with hopelessness before their hero returned and saved the day.

Jase's hero credentials were sketchy at best, and Brendon had relinquished the role. No. No unlikely hero presented himself to remedy Felicity's bleak situation, though Jase brought some really good looks to the secondary character category. Felicity smirked. So, she needed to focus on how she, herself, would salvage the unglamorous reality that remained available to her.

Turning to her right, Felicity entered a small bedroom, complete with a painted wrought-iron bed and small wicker dresser. The bed wore a patchwork quilt in red and white, matching red curtains decorating the small window which overlooked dense trees. Pleasant, but not particularly noteworthy. The other bedroom proved comparable, but opposite. Instead of painted wrought-iron, the bed's frame was dark, sturdy wood. The diminutive dresser matched. She plunked her bag down onto the bed. Opening the top drawer, she noted several neatly-folded men’s shirt, obviously Jase’s.

His and hers, she mused wryly. At least he didn’t sleep with every woman he brought to the cabin.

Returning to the living/kitchen area, she noticed for the first time a small faded wooden cabinet to the right of the couch, unobtrusive because it fit so perfectly with the other furniture. Its contents, however, shocked Felicity with their modernity. An understated stereo sat on the top shelf, a remote control and several CDs on the lower. A cable sat next to the disc player, ready for MP3s, but she had no access to that technology at the moment – Jase had crushed her phone. Felicity picked up the remote and pressed play. Somehow, inexplicably, the room behind her filled with the sudden sound of rich, warm music. The abrupt appearance of the velvet sound literally made her jump.

Turning to face the room, Felicity searched futilely for the source of the music in the walls. Fascinated, she took one moment to search out the name of the CD which played.

Mahler's Fifth Symphony, she mused as she placed the case back on top of the stereo.

She then stood and wandered, somewhat bemused, into the other rooms to see if she could find more hidden treasures. The music followed her first into the bedroom on the right, and then into the bathroom. Shutting the bathroom door, she found that though the music played at a subtle level, she could still hear the tune clearly. She saw no place to hide speakers.

Running her fingers along the tiny chest that held the sink, she noticed that the faucet had no handles. She moved her hands from the rough grain of the aged wood to the polished copper of the faucet and nearly screamed when the water began to flow at her touch. Deceptive, she reflected, completely taken aback by the advanced state of technology in such an archaic dwelling. Amused, she wondered to herself if the stovepipe stove would turn into a convection oven. She turned off the water.

At that moment, a slightly panicked cry sounded from the living room.

“Felicity!”

“I'm right here,” she responded, somewhat embarrassed at his urgency. “I'm fine. I was just exploring, trying to find out the other luxuries you have hidden here,” she ended wryly.

“Surely you didn't expect me to exile you to sparse misery,” he greeted her as she opened the bathroom door. “You fell asleep before I could fill you in on all the good stuff.” He grinned.

“Where are the speakers?” Felicity asked, probing the walls with her eyes.

“Heating vents. Did you really think that a room this small needed so many vents?” he explained as she turned toward the living room.

“I guess not.”

“Did you see the rooms?” he wondered, and he reached to open his bedroom door.

Felicity lurched past him, shock apparent on his face. “I did,” she fumbled, grabbing her bag off of his bed. “I was just…” she couldn’t really formulate an answer to why she had put her stuff in the room so obviously his. She stepped the few steps to her room and threw the bag inside the room.

Other than a smirk at her obvious discomfort, Jase did not acknowledge her awkward display. “Oh,” he continued as if nothing had happened, “and wait till you see this.” He darted across the living room to the paneled window frame and, to her surprise, one side of it opened on a covert hinge. He reached into the hole and pulled out another remote.

“Push this button,” Jase commanded.

Stepping behind her, he reached around and placed the remote into her hand, his arm supporting hers as they pointed toward the huge window. With his chest pressed against her back, his warmth served the dual purpose of stirring a visceral pleasure within her and taking the chill out of the air.

Though her instincts tried to suppress her reaction, the sensation of his heat behind her, his arm brushing across hers, his fingers playing gently around hers – the sensation stunned her.

Of course, she was no innocent, not pristine and untouched. Still, the last time anyone but Brendon had touched her, she had been a youth, and her partner had also been a youth. Innocent, curious – not like Jase. Felicity held no illusions about Jase and his past; he had not obscured his usual behavior.

Jase was not innocent, and neither was Felicity. For all intents and purposes, not because of the affair but because of Brendon’s attempt on her life, Felicity was no longer bound to her legal husband. It wasn’t exactly guilt that withheld her desire to lean back into the heat of Jase’s chest, to use their joined hands to pull his arm around her.

No, the idea was neither morally nor sensually offensive to her. What held her back was the rational understanding that she could not make herself vulnerable to someone she did not trust. Turning to him, welcoming his kisses, following her appetites – the actions that followed would strip Felicity of her objectivity, and she could not risk muddled thinking at the moment.

So, she tried to pretend that she felt nothing. Jase pointed to the proper button and, using his arm to direct Felicity in the right trajectory, he waited unmoving while she pushed it. Unfortunately for her resolve, a glow seemed to burn through her at the sensation of his closeness and his skin on hers.

Unexpectedly, the window transformed into an opaque television screen, the glass itself inexplicably forming pixels and colors. The perfect view from a position on the couch. The wonder of it erased her discomfort at Jase's nearness for a moment – a very dangerous moment.

“What do you think?” he hummed, his lips so close to her ear that the warmth of his whisper caressed her neck. Apparently, he had sensed her vulnerability. Like a predator, her brain tried to tell her.

Her breath caught for a moment, and she closed her eyes in pleasure. Then desperate to stop her thoughts, she whirled quickly to face him, realizing too late that he had stepped closer to her as she turned. Now his face rested inches from hers, his eyes raking longingly across her lips. He licked his own and raised his hand to cup her face.

Her heart sped, but her thoughts warred inside her. If Brendon, who had known her and shared a history with her, could betray her so completely, how could she trust someone she barely knew? She knew the answer – she couldn’t. “Stop,” Felicity whispered, suddenly unable to find her voice. She looked down to break the intensity of the moment.

Visions of the kisses she had experienced in her limited dating career flashed before her eyes, mostly dalliances in college, before Brendon had staked his claim of engagement. At the time, she had barely left childhood behind. No youthful innocence now, she stood tenuously in the compromised determination of a betrayed woman. She felt no confidence in her ability to resist him at the moment, but that was what she truly wanted.

Fortunately for her, Jase had enough honor to respect her word. He backed away a step, trying to catch her eyes.

“Why?” he demanded with intensity, his voice low.

“Jase, I...” She couldn't exactly tell him now that she didn't trust him, how she reserved the right to declare him a criminal, a charlatan. “I'm still married,” she fumbled, searching for something.

“It's Brendon?” Jase scoffed. “The bastard who sold you into slavery?” His disbelief solidified on the last phrase, twisting his voice in disgust.

“Please,” Felicity gasped, turning from him with tears brimming in her eyes. “Please don't say that. You have no idea how badly this hurts.”

“Of course it hurts,” he asserted callously. “Because Brendon Miller hurt you.”

The overt words stung, more than all of the tempered exchanges they had engaged in before. Felicity stumbled her way to one of the chairs by the table and fell into it, doubling over in pain. How did she travel long stretches of peace without thinking about it? She had no idea.

An instant later, Jase fell to his knees in front of her. “I'm sorry,” he pleaded. “I'm so sorry.”

Felicity couldn't move. All of the hollow ache that had plagued her through her entire ordeal coalesced into an acute stabbing in her gut, a reaction to the violence of Brendon's duplicity and Jase's words. Gasping for breath, she held herself tightly as if her arms could squeeze away the misery.

Brendon had rejected her. She shouldn't care – she should know that his betrayal reflected his own character and not her failure, but she couldn't grasp it. Not emotionally. Intellectually, she recognized his culpability, but her heart still pulsed the message that he had known her and deemed her unworthy of love. For several minutes, she just let herself feel the self-loathing that had lived inside of her for a decade at least – if not for all of her married life. Tears streamed from her eyes, and she couldn't even care when Jase seated himself next to her and wrapped his arms around her. Her mind compressed to a hot black coal of despair, and she could form no coherent thought for several minutes as she sobbed out the fury inside her.

Fortunately for her, however, a heart could not deem itself worthless for long and keep beating with a desire for life. She knew she had to live, so she cried out her self-hatred and then sat up and began to breathe deeply to quell the flow.

Jase waited patiently, anxiously, helplessly.

Finally, her breathing calmed, and she was able to straighten up in the chair, her eyes closed against the heat of spent tears.

“I'm sorry,” Jase whispered again as he eased back in front of her and grasped her hands.

Felicity raised her chin and opened her eyes. Breathing deeply through her nose, she looked past Jase to the faceless window before her, too emotional to meet his eyes. “For what? Being honest?” she acceded. “It's not right for me to hold on to him after what he's done to me.”

Jase dropped his eyes. “You've been through a lot, Felicity. It’s right for you to do whatever you need. I'm sorry I pushed you.”

The earnestness in his voice suddenly drove all suspicion from Felicity's mind. If all else proved false, she could hear in his voice that at that moment, Jase cared about her, and that he hated to cause her pain.

She closed her eyes again, smiling wanly and squeezing their joined hands. “Hopefully you don’t get tired of hearing me say this. Thank you,” she whispered, lifting her gaze and locking it on his.

He returned the squeeze of her hand. “I won't do that again. You have my word.” He lifted her chin so she could read his sincerity. “Until you are ready to say yes to me, I won't pressure you. The choice will be yours.”

The next few days fell into a routine which drove anxiety temporarily from Felicity's mind. Not that she considered staying where she was indefinitely, but she thought she might allow herself a respite, a healing moment to recuperate. Having ascertained from their conversation the type of books Felicity preferred, Jase returned to the cabin the first day of her confinement with a veritable library of books, along with a bundle of comfortable and utilitarian clothes. Felicity wondered tacitly where in small-town Banff he had secured quite so many books without arousing suspicion. Maybe he’d gone to Canmore. Of course, he had included a few of his own favorites hoping, he admitted, to sway her to the value of modern authors. His attempt at persuasion evoked a much-needed laugh.

Every morning, Felicity arose to the smell of breakfast and coffee wafting through the intimate doorways of the cabin. The constant sickness in her gut subsided into more of a dull unease. Upon entering the living room, she would hear Jase's invariable greeting, accompanied by a smile and some sarcastic comment about sleeping all day. The familiarity of the situation both soothed and irritated Felicity. Soothed her because it distracted her from her heartbreak; irritated her because she didn't want to be quite so comfortable with Jase. At least not yet.

By 7:30 each morning, Jase had to be out of the house, off to play his role at ProtoComm and hopefully secure escape for Felicity. She held her breath each afternoon as she anticipated some news that he might find a way to get her home. Part of her wondered whether Jase really intended to work toward her freedom - he seemed rather to enjoy the illusory oasis he had established with her.

On her third day in the little cabin, Felicity woke feeling more rested than she remembered in years. Sniffing the air, she closed her eyes again and smiled when the scent of fresh coffee greeted her sense. Once she sat up, the chill air brushed over her tank top and sent a shiver across her skin. She threw on her robe and reached into the drawer for a pair of socks. When her hand brushed the beads, she sucked in a breath.

How had she forgotten?

Of course, she hadn’t actually forgotten why she was confined to a cabin in the middle of nowhere. She had just let current pleasure smother her concerns and press them to the back of her mind. Had Jase done it intentionally? Or was he, out of kindness, just trying to help her deal with a miserable situation?

Either way, she could not let herself forget. For the time being, forgetting Brendon and his betrayal would require forgetting her children – something she would not do. Eventually, she would be able to separate the two, but not until her kids were protected.

With that in mind, Felicity slipped on her socks and began to plan, even as she followed the routine that Jase had no doubt grown to expect. Her first step would come in confronting him about his inaction. If she didn't receive a satisfactory answer, she would take some initiative behind his back. Felicity dug around in her bag, intending to set out on a short trek into the forest to assess the area around the cabin.

Once Jase left, she returned to her room, pulling some of her clothing from a bag to make space for supplies. If Jase found her, she could claim she was unpacking. He'd like that. After pulling out a thick jacket, a pair of convertible hiking pants, a thin turtleneck, and a warm sweater. She folded them, placing them into the bottom drawer.

Again, the beads.

If he despised her so much, why had he bought her the pearls? Why did it matter? All that mattered was that she not forget again. She didn’t know if it made sense, but she needed a reminder. Reaching behind her neck, she put the beads on, recognizing that they now meant something entirely different than when Brendon had first placed them around her neck on that day before the trip. Her last day of ignorance.

Now her desperate mind lay in danger of establishing another delusion, this time with Jase? Never. – Felicity would not be a fool. She still hoped she could return from her trip to Banff in time to pick up her children from their grandparents' house, her future plans fully formed and actualized. Of course, she hadn't figured out how she would explain to them why their daddy would never see them again. Or that they couldn't return to their home. She also didn’t know what she would do if Jase found out, how he might react.

She couldn’t care. Jase claimed that he intended, in a little more than a week, to come up with a solution, execute it, and get her back to her kids. Well, maybe he would or maybe he wouldn’t, but Felicity was not prepared to sit idly by and wait for someone else to determine her future – or more accurately, her kids’ future.

Now that the wounds of Brendon’s betrayal had lost some of their raw edge, Felicity realized that she could not place her entire destiny in the hands of someone else. She had made that mistake for fifteen years – placing her trust in a questionable source. Instead, she to place her faith in someone she could trust.

She could trust Nick, at least in motive.

According to Jase, Nick had not responded to the email Jase had sent. Didn’t seem likely. More likely, Jase hadn’t even the email. Unless the unexpected contact had set off Nick’s conspiracy theory tendencies.

Though no public computer could really be secure, Felicity thought that Nick's personal website would probably be very secure. If she could send a message from an unknown email to Nick on his private email server, she felt fairly certain that he would trust it; plus, it would prove untraceable.

She originally thought to walk into town and knock on the first door she saw, but then she remembered Jase's assertion that ProtoComm could monitor the roads. Unless as a last resort, Felicity would not go anywhere near Banff.

Her next thought took her into a more practically, if not actually, hazardous situation. After donning her prepared clothes, she stepped from the filtered light of the cabin into the sliced shadows of the forest. Taking care to mark her trail on the trunks of the trees she passed, Felicity made her way behind the house, heading what she assumed was south into the forest, along a river. She trudged cautiously toward her undefined goal, praying that she had headed toward someone's house, anyone's house. Praying that she didn't head into a basically endless wilderness. Not having a phone with maps made a huge deficit in her capabilities.

Since Jase would return at approximately 7 p.m., Felicity would have to pay attention to the time in order to ensure that she arrived back with enough margin to shower, change, and hide the evidence of her excursion. About four hours into her journey, Felicity realized she hadn't prepared anything to eat. Her stomach growled angrily. Irritated at herself for such an obvious gaffe, she turned and started back toward the cabin. She did not enjoy the idea of waiting four hours before her hunger could be addressed.

After an equal time in trying to find her way back, Felicity gratefully acknowledged, that her stomach had done her a favor. Had she not turned when she did, she would never have made it to the cabin in time. Although she could easily find her markings on the trees, the process of searching for them took longer than she had expected. The return journey took her until 6 p.m. With relief, she broke through the last of the trees into the clearing and ran, panting, in through the front door. Her heart beat in her throat as she realized the significance of what she had done.

Was she an idiot for trekking through a never-ending wilderness, counting on questionable tactics to reach a questionable result? Even beyond the general danger of her day-long hike, what about the danger she returned to? She had left herself with no margin for error. If Jase had arrived a little early for some reason, he would have found her missing. Even if he didn’t harbor any violence toward her for her infraction, he would definitely be angry. When she processed the thought, it sent a shiver down her spine – she had seen him fight. What did his anger look like? Was it violent? Was it strategically vindictive like Brendon’s? When she had observed Jase’s anger before, they had been on the road, and he had needed to keep his cool so that she would stay with him. Now that he had her isolated, what did she need to fear? Was she a prisoner? Would Jase let her leave if she insisted? She didn’t want to leave yet, though. The cabin was a refuge, wasn’t it?

Steeling herself, Felicity pressed down her fear and assessed her situation. She had survived the day with little ill-effect. She had returned with time to obscure her days activities. Rather than discourage her, if she actually analyzed what she had done, she felt more pride than fear. For twelve years, she had accomplished little. Suddenly, she had managed a pretty amazing feat alone.

When she rushed into her room, grabbing the soft terrycloth sweats that Jase had bought her, she headed into the bath with a smile on her face. She regretted that the cabin did not have a real shower. So much quicker. Slipping off her tennis shoes, she began cleaning them with a washcloth and water.

That will have to do, she conceded as she wrapped them in a towel and placed them to dry next to the sink. Stripping off her clothes, she threw herself into the bath, frustrated at how slowly it filled, and frantically worked, using the handheld showerhead, to remove any twigs or leaves from her hair. Finally satisfied, Felicity pulled the plug to let the water drain and stood to her feet, ready to step out of the bath.

The sound of Jase's voice froze her in her place. So much for not being afraid… Her heart battered against her ribs as it wildly sought to clarify her thinking by increasing the bloodflow to her brain. With his presence, new worries battered her mind. Mainly, had she successfully hidden her tracks? She prayed wildly.

“Felicity?” the voice came again, closer this time. He searched for her, apparently concerned because she hadn't answered him.

She responded tenuously, “I'm in here.”

Clutching the towel tightly around her, she stepped hurriedly but gingerly onto the bathmat and began to dress herself.

“Are you okay?” he wondered, his voice at the door now.

“I'm fine,” her voice was high, her tone more strident than normal.

Removing the towel from the shoes, she tossed it messily on the bathmat. She used the towel she had on her body to wrap her hair. She carefully folded the other towel inward as she saw a streak of dirt left from the shoes she had cleaned not quite successfully. Wrapping her shoes in her clothes, she reached for the handle.

Opening the door, she blocked the opening with her body.

“I'm fine,” she asserted more calmly.

Jase stepped back to let her out, and Felicity sucked in a nervous breath as she saw a confused look pass over his features. Somehow, she had missed something.

“This is hardly your normal routine,” he accused as she carried her things into her room.

“I have routine after three days?” she sassed. “I was just reading a book and lost track of the time,” she called to him from her room.

Something in his eyes as she turned back warned Felicity that she lay poised on a dangerous precipice, one in which Jase did not trust her instead of the other way around.

Rather than wait for Jase to extract information she didn't wish to share, Felicity went on the offensive. “Did Nick answer you today?” She tried to wear an ingenuous expression as she crossed to the table. If he had been lying to her about contacting Nick, as she had begun to suspect, then her interrogation might throw him off her trail.

Felicity watched Jase, his eyes avoiding hers as he sat across from her. “I finally had a chance to send it. It took me some time to get to a computer that wasn’t monitored by ProtoComm.” Though he apparently hoped this would please her, she still sought to distract him from her own deception, so she gave vent to her genuine shock and frustration.

“You just sent that to him today? I thought you sent it days ago! It will be a miracle if Nick hasn’t done something reckless.”

“Felicity, don't be upset.” He reached a hand for her arm. “I'm sorry, I really have tried. But Bill has me under close wraps. Since your abduction and my absence, Bill has kept me on a tight leash. I can't be sure, but I think word of your escape may have reached him.”

Sudden fear gripped her. Had he done something to expose her, placed her in more danger? Just as likely placed himself in danger, her conscience upbraided her. “What makes you think Bill knows?”

“He seems to have enacted some kind of damage control. I've heard rumors around the office. He has put in place factors that will allow him plausible deniability if word leaks of your abduction. I mean, maybe it’s just a failsafe, but I can’t be sure.”

“Or I’m right about Nick and he did something that put Bill on guard.”

“Maybe, but it doesn’t seem to be about Nick – more about me. I've noticed that Bill has shut me out of several important meetings, things I would usually know about. Of course, being the security programmer, I have my methods of finding out information people want to hide. I mean, that's how I found out about you.”

“Jase,” Felicity begged, her excursion forgotten. “I need you to get me home to my kids.”

For a moment, something like guilt passed behind Jase's eyes, and Felicity's suspicion returned. She had no way of confirming anything that Jase said, and she felt entirely helpless to verify any of it. Maybe he didn’t want to send her back.

“I will, Felicity,” he promised, his expression almost resigned. “Just give me time, and I will.”

“Time is one thing I have in short supply,” she countered.

“I know. And if my suspicions about Bill are right, your time may be even more limited.”

Felicity could not know what he meant, but she prayed that he would have enough opportunity to get her out if Bill suddenly showed up at the door.

As if he read her thoughts, Jase placed his hand on top of hers. “I will make sure that I have time to take care of you,” he promised tenderly. “Redeeming you and getting you back to your kids are the reasons that I can still go face Bill every day. Otherwise, I would have packed up and left a month ago, when I first realized the nature and extent of Bill’s operation. I will take care of you, no matter the cost to me.”

Somehow, Felicity hadn’t considered the cost to Jase. Part of her considered that he might have said the words to elicit her guilt, to stop her from pressing him to move. Still, once he had her, had he really needed to manufacture such a complicated scheme to get her back to Brendon – to ProtoComm? Not at all. If it had been a professional move, he just would have handed her over to traffickers again. If he intended some twisted kidnapping scheme, why head back to Banff? Better to keep her as far away from anyone who knew her as possible. Since he had brought her back to Banff, didn’t mean that he meant what he said? Who was this man?

Huffing a sigh, Felicity crossed her arms over her chest. “You don’t make sense, Jase. All this stuff about me, about why you intervened for me. Do you expect me to believe that a man who has purposely closed his eyes to the misdeeds of his coworkers – who had callously enriched himself inhabiting the periphery of the criminal world – would suddenly turn hero, put himself in danger and risk his career to interfere on my behalf?”

Jase peered at the ground, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. He blew out a breath. “Liss, I –” For a minute, it seemed like he wouldn’t answer her, but he steeled himself and turned to face her. “You’re right, of course. I have turned a blind eye, and there’s no excuse for that, but the way my job works, the situation had never been laid out so clearly before me. In a way, I’m grateful that the first time I got to see things up close and personal was to see you.” He met her eyes with a pained expression. “I decided that people like you didn’t exist, and so I wasn’t really crossing any major boundaries. My family wasn’t like you; certainly, my mother wasn’t like you. She guarded her own comfort – supported my father – at the expense of her children. It was…” He blew out a breath, still staring at the ground.

When he stopped talking, Felicity found herself reaching to take his hand. “Jase, I don’t need you to go into all this. I’ve seen your actions so far. That’s how I’m going to make my decisions about you.”

“But I want you to understand.” Jase covered the hand she held with his other hand. “I – you made me doubt everything, my whole life paradigm. How many people like you existed, had been taken out of play by these people I’ve engaged with, because they didn’t have any idea that the world could be so dark. I don’t mean the stupidly naïve ones, the ones who should have known and made stupid decisions that led them into danger. I mean the ones who acted in good faith, who trusted someone they shouldn’t have trusted and paid the price. But it was even worse when I saw you, because you were strong, and you fought back. You stood up for your kids, but you were still respectful of your asshole of a husband. I just can’t –”

“I appreciate everything you’re saying. I’m not sure there’s anything so remarkable about how I’ve lived my life. Obviously, I’ve lied to myself about a lot of my existence – lived in denial. So don’t put me on some pedestal.”

“I’m not.” He gripped her hand tighter, and he met her eyes with a childish fervor. “I don’t think you’re some mythic figure, Liss. I just hadn’t – I was going to say I hadn’t had the chance to see, but that’s not right. I hadn’t believed in good people, so I hadn’t looked. I interpreted information from the perspective that everyone would serve themselves, so I didn’t have any reason to look for anything else. Now I’m doubting myself, Felicity. My whole life. And if people like you exist, and I have these skills and abilities that could protect them, isn’t it my responsibility to do it?”

Staring into his zealous expression, Felicity had trouble doubting his sincerity. Had he really lived his life believing that everyone was greedy and self-serving? What an existence! If it were true – if it weren’t a ploy to play on her sympathies – how could she judge him, especially now that he seemed to have changed his course with the new information? “Okay, Jase. Okay.” She placed her free hand onto their joined ones. “If what you’re telling me is true, then we can go forward with this for now…” Felicity suddenly realized what he was offering her, what he was risking. “Do what you can to take care of me. But let’s see if we can figure out how to manage it without getting you killed.”

He turned to her with melted eyes, and for a moment, she thought he might try to kiss her again. That small, irrepressible part of herself was moved to respond, but Jase seemed to read her ambivalence and thought better of it. Instead, he lifted their hands to his lips.

Without a word, he unlatched their hands and stood up, and she laughed as he stepped to the little stove and began to fix their dinner. How was she going to remain separated if he continued as he had begun? She had never cared about someone she simultaneously considered a threat, and the nagging doubt wouldn’t let her respond with the connection the prior few minutes wanted to create in her. Her mind had learned to be cautious, and it knew her children had to be her top priority. Unfortunately, the human and vulnerable portion of Felicity wouldn’t subject itself entirely to reason, and cracks began to form in her otherwise stalwart defenses.