- -
- 100%
- +
Hunter raised his hands, palms out, in a nonthreatening gesture. “Easy there. You’re safe now.”
She slumped toward him, and with a gentleness that contradicted the knots around his insides, Hunter helped her up. With him lending significant support, they made it onto the wooden porch. She was a petite thing, dwarfed by him, but she had an athletic build, evidently no couch potato, based on her ability to run miles while wounded and carrying a baby. First thing would be to triage that wound. Then he’d know whether to call for help or treat the injury first.
His training was starting to kick in, for whatever meager satisfaction that knowledge offered. It hadn’t saved the woman who’d depended on him before... No. He couldn’t go there. Not now. Not when he was once again thrust into a situation where lives depended on him. If a killer really was on the trail of this woman and her baby, he had to keep them safe or he might as well die trying. He’d never survive another failure.
Inside the cabin, Hunter guided her to the cushioned sofa. She sank onto it and began cooing to the baby and tickling his plump cheeks, which dialed the fussing back to a thin whine. Of course, the child could be a girl, but the blue sleeper with a train embroidered over the right breast suggested a boy. From this vantage point, gazing down at the top of the woman’s head as she focused on the child, he still couldn’t see her face, but he made out an angry red streak oozing blood on her upper bicep area where the short sleeve of her blouse was ripped. Could have been caused by a branch while running through the forest, but that sort of wound would likely be more ragged and contain debris. This wound was clean and straight—just like a bullet graze sustained from a distance. A burn settled deep in his belly. Some lowlife took a shot at a woman holding a baby.
The wound could wait a few more minutes. He turned on the heels of his hiking boots and tromped across the plank flooring to the two-way radio on his desk at the far side of the room.
“Let’s call for help,” he said. “Then we’ll get that wound cleaned and bandaged.”
“Please, yes.” Her assent carried to him in shaken tones.
The radio frequency was preset to the main park station, where his brother worked. Jace would be able to get law enforcement and emergency services up here ASAP. Hunter keyed the mic and put in the call.
“Umpqua Ranger Station,” a male voice answered. “Remy Nolan speaking.”
Hunter let out a grunt under his breath. Not his brother. A ranger Hunter hadn’t met yet? He thought he’d met them all. Must be a new hire. Hunter identified himself as Jace’s brother, gave his location and then tersely described his issue with the woman and child. Stone silence answered him for several heartbeats.
“Say again?” the man said. “No, never mind. I heard you. I’m just processing this strangeness on top of strangeness.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“There’s been a bomb threat at the North Umpqua Hydroelectric Project. Everyone and their bomb-sniffing dog is there now, including Jace.”
Hunter’s heart lurched. He swallowed against a dry mouth. Jace would be okay. He had to believe that.
“That’s not the kind of danger a forest ranger finds himself in every day,” he told Remy. “I’ll sure be keeping them in my prayers, but right now, we need emergency services to pick up the woman and baby. All I’ve got for transportation is a motorcycle, and that won’t do for them.”
“Understood. I’ll scramble someone as soon as I can.”
“And send investigators to my cousin’s place,” said a soft female voice over Hunter’s shoulder.
“What’s that address?” the ranger answered.
The woman rattled off an address that would put it among the expensive residences just outside the park borders.
“And your name?”
The woman spoke a name Hunter had hoped never to hear again. A chill rippled across his flesh, raising the hairs on his arms and neck. Karissa Landon? Anissa’s twin sister? It couldn’t be!
God, You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?
As if moving through clotted mud, Hunter slowly swiveled, and for the first time, he looked full into the woman’s face, cleared of its veil of hair and forest debris. His heart came to a full stop then stumbled into a gallop. He found himself peering into the same vivid green eyes that haunted his nightmares. Eyes that pleaded with him to save her. Eyes that belonged to a dead woman. This one’s twin. The woman he’d failed to rescue from the fire that ended his career as a Portland firefighter.
How long did he have before Karissa recalled the media coverage, including an unflattering photo of him, and figured out who he was now that she had obviously calmed? Seconds? He braced himself.
But she merely blinked at him, neutral expression morphing into puzzlement. “Are you all right? You suddenly lost half your tan.”
Hunter searched for his voice. Karissa clearly didn’t recognize him. Of course, they’d never met in person, but his picture had been well publicized not long after the horrible tragedy. He’d been clean shaven in those shots, though, and his hair had been short. Now, with a full beard and hair that hadn’t seen scissors in months, not to mention his scars, he probably looked like some kind of holdover from the Gold Rush days. However, he couldn’t count on facial hair to maintain his camouflage indefinitely. At any moment, she would recognize who he was, and she would despise him. Probably as soon as she asked him to introduce himself. He’d put that moment off as long as possible.
“You two still there?” The ranger’s query from the other end of the radio snapped Hunter back into the moment.
“Ten-four, Remy. We’ll be here waiting for the cavalry to show up.” How had his voice come out so upbeat when panic sought to devour him alive?
“Hang tight. Over and out.” The airwaves went dead.
Hunter got up and went for his gun case. He took out the rifle, loaded it, made sure the safety was on and then propped the firearm against his desk. A strangled noise coming from his female houseguest drew his attention. Had she recognized him at last? Stiffening, Hunter forced himself to turn toward Karissa. She wasn’t staring at him, but at his gun.
“How did life suddenly turn so dangerous we might actually have to use that to defend ourselves?” Her hoarse whisper barely carried to him over the fussing of the baby, who was kicking and flailing on the hearth rug.
He lifted one side of his mouth in a grim half smile. “We’ll be ready if we have unwelcome intruders before help arrives.”
The tension around her lips eased marginally, and she jerked a nod in his direction.
“Let’s get that wound cleaned up,” he said and went for his first aid kit.
Soon, he had a bandage on the bullet crease that had nearly ceased bleeding since she was no longer exerting herself. It was impressive that she didn’t cry out, just gnawed her lower lip and kept her gaze averted. As soon as he was done with her, Karissa began rummaging in the diaper bag.
“Thank You, Lord.” She pulled out a can of powdered formula and glanced over her shoulder at him. “You wouldn’t have any purified water, would you? I changed him while you were on the radio, but now this little guy is hungry as a bear. Might as well feed him while we wait.”
“I think I can accommodate.” Hunter ventured a full smile, but her focus had already left him as she scooped up the baby. The little fellow was now alternating between howls and trying to eat his fist.
A few minutes later, the baby was contentedly guzzling while Karissa held him on the threadbare sofa that served as Hunter’s main piece of furniture, other than his bed in the loft, and the steel-topped table where he ate his meals.
Hunter hefted the rifle and kept watch at the window while he prayed for a rescue vehicle to soon emerge from the break in the trees where a one-lane dirt track led into the clearing. In a short while, muted thunder began to grow louder, closing in from a distance. Not thunder. An engine. No—engines, plural, and at least one of them was a diesel. Hunter’s insides tensed. Something wasn’t right. Too many vehicles to pick up one woman and a baby—especially with a bomb threat on.
A large white SUV with the forest service logo on the side panel burst from the tree line, traveling recklessly fast. A second vehicle—this one a black-as-sin, heavy-duty pickup truck—followed nearly on the SUV’s bumper. Both vehicles braked suddenly and skidded to a stop.
What was sticking out through the second vehicle’s windows? Waning sunlight reflected off metal. Guns! Pulse rate skyrocketing, Hunter whirled away from the window toward his innocent and oblivious charges.
“We’re under attack!” he cried as a fusillade of bullets thudded into the cabin’s thick log walls, shattering the window where he’d been standing a split second before.
TWO
Kyle against her shoulder as she worked on burping him, Karissa froze in midpat. Had she heard right? They were being attacked?
Barely had she begun to process the answer when she found herself wrapped in great bear arms. Hugged against a solid chest, she and the baby were half dragged, half carried deep into the kitchen area. The man upended the thick, metal-topped table and thrust her and Kyle down behind its cover.
“Someone’s shooting at us.” The words exploded from her mouth.
“You think?” he growled. His firm square lips thinned into a pencil line as he trained his rifle barrel around the edge of the table toward the front door.
She glared at her protector as if he were personally responsible for the attack. Ridiculous reaction, but there was no one else to glare at as heat in her gut battled ice in her chest. There had been a couple of tense situations on the mission field in Belize when she’d had opportunity to experience this toxic mix of outrage and terror, and she didn’t like it any better now than she had then.
The automatic gunfire lulled then renewed. Karissa cringed at the thwap of bullets striking furniture, the tinkle of glass smashing and a sudden spate of metallic gongs as a ribbon of bullets played off the set of pots and pans hanging from ceiling hooks. Kyle thrashed and howled as she cuddled him close. An impact sent the heavy table scooting a few inches backward toward them.
Then the gunfire suddenly ceased. An eerie quietness descended on the cabin. Even the baby seemed to be holding his breath. Then he suddenly stiffened, and his sweet little face screwed up in preparation for renewed howling. Karissa shushed and bounced him. Gradually, his expression relaxed, and he apparently decided sticking his thumb in his mouth was a better alternative to straining his vocal cords.
The cabin owner’s intense gray gaze bored into her. “Are you both all right?”
Karissa quickly examined the baby, but he seemed unhurt. In fact, his eyelids appeared to be growing heavy. Poor kid had been through a lot of trauma and excitement that he had no way to understand in the past couple of hours.
“We’re good,” she said.
“Not yet, we’re not. They could burst in here any second to check their handiwork, and my rifle is a poor match for automatic weapons.”
A sudden whoosh and a crackling noise overhead sent Karissa’s gaze toward the ceiling. An acrid smell began teasing Karissa’s nostrils.
“What’s going on?” She looked up at her protector.
The mountain man’s bearded face had hardened into a fierce mask. “The good news is they don’t plan to rush in here. The bad news is they’re burning the cabin. If anyone is alive in here, they expect us to run out where they can pick us off like tin ducks in a county fair target-shooting booth.”
Karissa sucked in a breath. “What are we going to do?”
“Not what they expect.” He turned away from her and tugged back a corner of the thin area rug they were squatting on, exposing a portion of a trapdoor.
“Of course! You have a cellar.” Karissa scooted off the rug and allowed him to completely uncover the door.
The man grabbed an iron ring attached to one side of the door and lifted the hatch. Chilly air wafted upward, pebbling the skin on her bare arms. Her wound throbbed. Karissa glanced toward the ceiling, where heat already radiated downward, and then back into the cellar where utter blackness beckoned. Would the smoke penetrate the cellar? Or would the floorboards currently beneath her feet fall in on them, consuming them in flaming debris? Did she want to die in a hole like a rat? What was the alternative?
Karissa met the stranger’s steel-gray gaze.
“Trust me,” he said, voice low and steady, like a rock of dependability...which didn’t match his appearance at all. The shaggy brown hair and beard, along with faded, puckered scars on the left side of his upper cheek and forehead gave the guy a dangerous look—like a true wild mountain man.
What choice did she have but to trust him, regardless of appearance? He’d done nothing but show her kindness, while she’d brought destruction and possible death down upon him. She nodded. He smiled. The gesture softened his forbidding appearance.
“I’ll go down first,” he said, “and turn on some light. Then you can hand me the baby and come on down yourself. But we have to move quickly. This cabin will burn fast.”
How could this guy stay so calm, planning everything out neatly in a situation like this? Karissa’s shivers had become shakes that threatened to destroy the last of her sanity. The crackles from above were turning into a roar, and heat intensified atop her head.
“Let’s do this,” she said between gritted teeth.
The man nimbly disappeared into the blackness. Eternal moments later, a dim light came on, and she was gazing into his upturned face. He reached upward, and she handed him the baby. Strange how handing over her little charge of short acquaintance should feel like such a wrench.
“Now you,” he said, cradling the baby effortlessly in the crook of an elbow. “I’ll steady you if you lose your balance.” He offered his free hand.
Gulping, Karissa clambered down the ladder and found her feet on a cement floor. Immediately, the man returned Kyle to her and pulled the cord to bring the trapdoor down. It landed with a loud whump, sealing them off from the main floor. The light of a single overhead bulb offered only a dim view of their surroundings. Not much to see. Cinder-block walls, one side of which hosted a set of shelves that held fruits and vegetables in sealed canning jars. A long, wooden trough sat against the opposite wall. The black dirt inside it appeared to be the source of the pungent, earthy smell that filled the space that was about half the size of the cabin above.
“Worm farm,” her host said with a wry half grin. “I’ve done a lot of fishing over the past year I’ve been staying here, courtesy of the forest service.”
Karissa frowned. “Is this our big choice? Die down here with the worms when the smoke gets us or the floor collapses on us, or stay above and let the fire take us?”
The man cocked his head at her. “Intelligent questions, but I wouldn’t have led us down here if I didn’t have a plan for that contingency. Follow me.”
He grabbed his rifle and a large flashlight from a nearby shelf and headed toward the corner of the room. There, he opened a metal door that had been hidden from view by the shelving.
“Behold our sanctuary.” He motioned beyond the door.
A small laugh, born of strung-out nerves, escaped Karissa’s throat as she brushed past him into the dimness of a tunnel. “You are the quintessential oxymoron of a mountain man.”
“I’d like to ask you what you mean by that statement, but I think the question will have to wait.”
He pulled the thick door closed after them just as a loud crash from above signaled something, probably the roof, collapsing. The baby jerked out of his almost-sleep and started to cry. Karissa bounced him up and down in the comforting grip of both her arms.
“Follow me,” her rescuer said and led the way up the tunnel.
The flashlight’s beam played eerie shadows across the cinder-block walls. Karissa trembled, as much from tension as the dank chill. At least she could be grateful they weren’t caught up in the heat of the flames above.
Shortly, they came to another iron door. Her guide pushed it open. Karissa stepped into a small room set up with several cots, a small table and shelving that held nonperishable food staples and jugs of what appeared to be water. The temperature in the room was still cool, but at least it wasn’t dank.
“We’re in a bunker,” she stated matter-of-factly.
The mountain man placed the lamp on the table and grinned in her direction. “Good observation. We’re not even directly under the cabin any longer. This is a shelter in case a forest fire gets out of hand.”
“Handy for us.”
He chuckled, a mellow sound that soothed her frazzled nerves. “You can say that again. We’ll hole up here until darkness falls. Regardless of a bomb threat, the smoke should soon fetch real rangers to the scene, so I don’t figure our attackers will hang around long. But if by some chance the real rangers don’t show up, and our enemies aren’t satisfied that we’re dead but they’re hanging around somewhere to make sure, then darkness is our best cover to help us sneak away.”
“Real rangers? You’ve said those words twice. What do you mean?”
The man frowned. “I’m going to jump to a bit of a conclusion, but the guy we talked to on the radio was no one I knew, and I thought I’d met all the personnel at the park over the past thirteen months that I’ve been living here. A bomb scare—and hopefully that’s all it is—would be just the sort of thing to empty out the main ranger station so that an impostor could sit in and wait for a woman running for her life to show up or reach out for help. I can’t think of another way to explain how a truckload of gunmen knew where to come for you less than twenty minutes after our radio call.”
The strength suddenly left Karissa’s knees, and she plopped onto a wooden chair. “I can’t explain it another way, either.” Her voice came out as breathless as if she’d just finished her morning jog.
She swallowed against a dry throat as the implications of the attack on them sank in. She’d assumed she was fleeing from a single, desperate murderer who was trying to shut her up about his crime, but a plot that involved a bomb scare, a fake ranger and a posse of killers was a much larger conspiracy run by someone with far-reaching resources and considerable ruthlessness and determination. Clearly, he didn’t even draw the line at killing an infant. Suddenly, it seemed that her cousin’s murder might be the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
An opened bottle of water appeared under her nose. She blinked, coming out of her daze, and took the bottle from Hunter’s hand.
“Thank you.” She gulped greedily then inhaled a long breath and let it out in short, quivering puffs. “All right then.” She gazed up at her protector’s sober face. “I can’t thank you enough for being here and knowing what to do. I’m so, so sorry for getting you involved in this.”
“What exactly is this?” His tone was sharp, and his eyes narrowed on her.
“I wish I knew.” Tears stung the backs of Karissa’s eyes. “Everything happened just as I told you. I went to visit a cousin I hadn’t seen in—well, forever, found her dead, grabbed the baby, ran away from the killer and here I am. I’m asking the same question you are. What in the world is going on?”
His gaze seemed to sift through her, but at last his facial expression relaxed, and he nodded. “No need to apologize or to thank me. Thank God. This has to be more than coincidence that you showed up on my doorstep.”
An indefinable something in his expression seemed to be trying to communicate a message beyond his words, but Karissa had no idea what that message might be.
“You’re a Christian?” she asked.
“Yes.” The word was terse in a way that almost negated the answer.
Her rescuer looked away and set about lighting a nearby kerosene lamp, considerably brightening the room. Then he pulled a large rucksack off one of the shelves and plopped it onto a chair by the table. Karissa checked the baby in her arms and found him fast asleep. She gently laid him down on one of the cots.
“I’m a Christian, too,” she said. “Fresh off the mission field in Belize, actually.”
“Belize?” The man stopped transferring various supplies from the shelving to the rucksack and stared at her. “You’ve been out of the country? For how long? I mean, what caused you to go there?” The normal deep tone of his voice had morphed upward a few notes, as if the questions pushed through tightened vocal cords.
Karissa’s skin prickled as she studied his tense posture. What had suddenly raised this cool-under-pressure Galahad’s anxiety level? Shouldn’t she try to find out more about this man she was trusting with her and Kyle’s lives?
She forced a smile. “A bit late in our strange acquaintance, but may I get your name?”
The man’s body went from tense to rigid, and his facial expression became one of someone bracing for a blow. “I’m Hunter Raines.” The pronouncement came in a fatalistic tone.
Karissa furrowed her brow. What was the guy trying to tell her without actually telling her? Was the name supposed to mean something to her? Maybe this Hunter Raines had some sort of history that she’d know about if she’d been in the US in the past two years. Maybe she ought to be afraid of him. More afraid than of the killers who had tried to shoot and then incinerate them? Unlikely. Besides, he’d shown every sign of genuine caring and no sign of aggression. She’d lived her life thus far giving people the benefit of the doubt. Why stop now?
She stuck out her hand toward her benefactor. “Hi, I’m Karissa Landon.”
Hunter accepted her handshake, his palm rough, his grip strong without being overpowering. “Yes, you said so when we were talking with Remy on the radio, but I appreciate the formal introduction.”
His expression had gone from defensive to bewildered. Amazing how little that beard hid his reactions when his eyes were so expressive. An intriguingly rich shade of gray, too. Not that she needed to be noticing something like that in this situation.
“To answer your questions,” she said, “I was on the mission field for twenty-four months, living a dream of serving the poor in practical and spiritual ways. I came back three weeks ago on furlough, but, God willing, I plan to return to Belize in a year or so. While I’m Stateside, I wanted to connect with what family I have left...”
The last sentence trailed off as the enormity of her cousin’s murder flooded over Karissa once again. Her head drooped as a soft sob choked her.
“We’ll get through this.” Hunter’s voice was gruff. “And we’ll find out who did that to your cousin.”
Karissa lifted her gaze. “Nobody is promised tomorrow or answers to their questions or even justice. Not in this life. I keep my sanity by clinging to faith that God sees and knows and understands and will bring everything right in the end. If I didn’t believe that, my heart would be withered to dust by now.”
“You’ve been through some tough things, huh?”
“You have no idea.”
Hunter winced and looked away.
“I sense you’ve been through a few things yourself,” she said.
Karissa barely restrained herself from asking point-blank how he got his scars. But if he answered her question, fair play might make her feel obligated to tell him about her parents’ fatal car wreck and her sister’s tragic death in a fire, and how going on the mission field had been a sanity saver at a horrible time in her life. These were not things she wanted to discuss with an almost stranger.
However, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something about her had this guy spooked, and that sense of something being off spooked her. Until she figured out what it was, she was going to have a hard time taking Hunter Raines—extraordinarily competent and courageous as he obviously was—at face value.