Set title

by O’Donnell, Laurel

  Lightning lit the sky again, forming a bright halo of light on the ground. This time, Jordan didn’t look up. She kept her attention riveted on the forest, memorizing the way ahead in the momentary burst of tight.

  The rush of the river sounded close by, much stronger and more ferocious than she remembered. It had rained fiercely the night before. The water was probably much higher than normal.

  Thunder boomed, rocking the ground beneath her feet

  She slipped again in her hurry.

  And fell flat on her stomach right onto the path. A sense of profound relief filled her. She glanced down the sodden, muddy trail and broke into a tired smile. Jordan rose to her feet.

  But she froze as she heard a faint cry over the rush of the river. She paused, glancing around, wondering for a moment if she heard anything at all. She took a step down the path.

  The cry came again, distant but unmistakable. A cry filled with fear. A child’s cry. It had come from near the river.

  Mary Kate.

  Jordan glanced down the path that would lead her to her children, and then toward the child’s cry. With a muttered curse, she made her decision.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The child’s cry came again, this time much closer.

  Jordan pushed past the bushes near the river’s edge. Lightning speared the sky, illuminating the rushing river. A strong current churned down the river. Then the light faded and the night fell once again.

  “Mary Kate!” Jordan shouted above the rushing waters.

  The scream came again from Jordan’s right. She turned to look for the girl, but the darkness was thick and consuming. “Where are you?” she shouted.

  “Help!”

  Jordan rushed forward, following the voice, almost tripping over a splintered tree in her frantic haste to get to the child.

  “Help!”

  Jordan followed the fallen tree toward the river. Its end was well in the rushing water. But what caught Jordan’s attention was a small head barely visible above the water’s surface. Mary Kate lifted a hand toward Jordan, but then slipped. Her face went under the rapidly moving river.

  Jordan’s heart leaped into her throat, but the little girl re-emerged seconds later, gasping and sobbing, her small hand still clinging desperately to a tree limb.

  Jordan raced to Mary Kate, sloshing through knee-high water, then thigh-high water, to reach her. She grabbed the child as she got close. Mary Kate’s small hands went around her immediately, clinging to her soaked dress.

  “I’ve got you.” Jordan attempted to pull Mary Kate up and out of the churning water, but Mary Kate caught on something and screamed in agony. Jordan quickly lowered her back down.

  “I’m stuck,” Mary Kate said, desperately. “My leg is under the tree. It knocked me into the water when it fell over.”

  Jordan held Mary Kate firmly to her with one hand and followed her leg with her other hand to where the girl was trapped beneath the fallen tree.

  Suddenly, large drops of water began to hit the river around them. Jordan looked at the sky with growing alarm as the downpour began. The river was going to rise again, probably very quickly. “I have to get you out of here,” Jordan told her. “Can you hold yourself above the water while I move the tree?”

  Mary Kate nodded. “I’ll try.”

  Jordan released her, and the girl was just barely able to hold her head above the raging waters, clinging to a branch just above her head. Jordan hurriedly moved over to the tree next to Mary Kate. “When I lift it, move your leg out, all right?”

  Mary Kate nodded.

  Jordan positioned her hands on the bark, doing her best to wrap her arms around the thick trunk. Heavy rainfall continued to pelt them both. She tried to lift the tree, but it would not budge. Jordan wrapped her arms around the large tree again, fighting for a better grip, and tried to pick it up. It would not move.

  She sat in the churning waters and placed her feet against the tree, trying to get more power into her shove by bracing herself against the ground. She pushed with all her strength, but it was not moving even an inch. Her hands sank into the soft river bottom, the mud not letting her get a good position.

  Mary Kate slipped and went under the water again.

  Jordan scrambled to her and grabbed her, pulling her up. Mary Kate was sobbing now, her tears mixing with the chilling rain. Jordan held her tightly. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry. It will be all right. Everything will be fine.”

  “I’m scared,” Mary Kate whispered, her tiny voice barely audible amidst the noise of the river and the rain.

  “I know,” Jordan answered. “Here. I’ll dig your foot out. Hold yourself up.” Jordan touched Mary Kate’s leg and again followed it down to her foot. She began to pull the mud out from beneath her foot and away from her leg. But the more she struggled with the mud, the more the heavy tree just pushed Mary Kate’s leg deeper into the muddy bank.

  Mary Kate went under the water again and Jordan had to reach over and grab her. “Hold yourself up,” she ordered.

  “I can’t,” Mary Kate wept. “I can’t.”

  Jordan went to her and sat in the river, holding her. The girl wept in her arms. Jordan wanted to cry with the futility of it all, but she refused to give up. She held the girl to her, letting her rest for the moment. The water felt as if it were getting colder and higher by the second. Jordan looked desperately around the area, searching for something, anything that might help her. She spotted a group of large rocks near a tree on the shore.

  “Mary Kate,” Jordan said. “I have to go for help. I’m going to move one of those rocks over here. You can hold yourself out of the water on it.”

  “No, no. Don’t leave me.”

  “I’ll be back, Mary Kate. You have to be brave. I’m going to get Fox.”

  “Don’t leave.” Mary Kate’s little fingers dug into her arm.

  “Please, Mary Kate. I promise I’ll be back.” She almost choked on the words as tears rose in her eyes. “Do you believe me?”

  Mary Kate struggled to answer, but her sobbing prevented any words from coming out. All she could do was nod.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you,” Jordan whispered, kissing the top of her head. “But I have to go now.”

  Mary Kate screamed as Jordan released her. Jordan had to steal herself against the child’s fearful wails as she moved to the rocks. She looked over them quickly, finding the largest one. Jordan bent to it and tried to pull it toward her. For a moment, the big stone refused to relinquish its hold in the ground, but then it jerked free of the mud with a loud sucking noise, almost sending Jordan to her bottom.

  Lightning ripped through the sky and thunder rumbled almost immediately after it, drowning out Mary Kate’s fear-filled cries.

  Jordan pushed the rock through the mud, tumbling it end over end. She slipped and fell to one knee, but quickly recovered and pushed the rock toward Mary Kate. The girl was floundering in the water, trying her best to keep her head above the river, but Jordan saw the weariness in the girl’s slouched shoulders.

  She pushed with all her might, through the thick mud that threatened to stop her progress, refusing to let the mud and rain win. When she reached the water, the rock moved easier and she pushed it to Mary Kate’s side.

  When the girl grabbed it and was able to lift her head out of the water, her cries lessened. She moved up as much as she could on the rock, resting her body against the stone.

  Jordan straightened when Mary Kate was situated. “I’ll get Fox,” she told the girl, wiping a strand of brown hair from the child’s cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

  Mary Kate bravely nodded her head, looking at Jordan with the trusting eyes of a small child. The rain splattered against her cheeks, washing away the last of her tears.

  Jordan smiled bravely back at her, admiring the little girl’s courage. She squeezed her hand once quickly, then turned and headed off to find help.

  Jordan dashed into the dark forest, the mud, much worse t
han before, sucking at her slippered shoes. Her dress was heavy with the river and rainwater. Disgusted with her slow movement, Jordan peeled off her shoes and tossed them aside. Then she pulled up her skirt and held it in one hand, fending off the branches with the other as she raced through the trees.

  Thunder rumbled around her, but she paid it no attention. A flash of lightning lit up the forest, and Jordan knew she was heading in the right direction. She waited until she could no longer hear the rush of the river behind her before she began to scream, “Fox!”

  She had to move faster. Mary Kate didn’t have a lot of time. The river was still rising. The rain was coming down in heavy sheets, and Jordan had to swipe the rain from her eyes every few seconds just so she could see. “Fox!”

  What if she couldn’t find Fox? The thought came unbidden. She had to have another plan. She would keep going until she reached the castle. Surely someone there could help. “Fox!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. With any luck at all, she would run into Fox or Beau or Pick first. “Fox!”

  She burst from the forest into the meadow. She was soaked through to the skin and her dress felt as if it weighed a hundred extra pounds. Desperation seeped into every pore of her body, along with the chill the rain brought with it. “Fox!” she screamed, looking out across the meadow.

  But a flash of lightning revealed only an empty field, the high stalks of grass bent over in the wind and thick rain. Jordan dashed into the field, running as hard as she could toward the castle. Her lungs felt like they were going to explode, and her legs ached from the exertion. But she pushed on. She swiped the rain and hair from her eyes and dashed toward the castle. Mary Kate needed her. Damn it, she wouldn’t let the girl die.

  Jordan stifled the tears threatening to overwhelm her.

  “Fox!”

  Jordan raced toward the castle, but for a long frustrating moment it seemed no matter how fast she ran, she wasn’t getting closer to the crumbling walls.

  Then Jordan was at the drawbridge. Her heart was hammering so hard inside her chest she found it difficult to catch her breath. She paused for only a moment before hurrying inside the castle, rushing through the outer ward and then the inner ward to the Keep. Relief filled her as she entered the Keep. There would be help here.

  She burst inside and raced toward the meal room, screaming, “Fox!”

  It wasn’t Fox that emerged from the meal room. It was Scout. She was casually eating a piece of rabbit, seemingly without a care in the world.

  “Oh, thank God!” Jordan gasped. “I... I found Mary Kate. She’s trapped.”

  Scout’s gaze swept her impassively.

  “She’s trapped,” Jordan repeated.

  Scout didn’t move, didn’t blink. She bit off another piece of rabbit and slowly chewed it.

  “Did you hear me? I need your help to free her. She’ll die!”

  Something darkened in Scout’s eyes and she turned her back on Jordan, beginning to move back into the meal room.

  Jordan seized her arm. “She’s your daughter. Don’t you care?”

  Scout ripped her arm free of Jordan’s hold. “I want nothing to do with her.”

  Jordan’s jaw dropped. Outrage and horror seared through her. “What kind of woman are you? She’s your daughter!”

  Scout pushed her face close to Jordan’s. “Who are you to judge me? You don’t know what it’s like to have your legs held open while a man pushes his cock into you! Do you?” Scout snarled. “You don’t know what it’s like to find out you’re pregnant with a rapist’s baby! Don’t you dare judge me!”

  Shock and repulsion warred with Jordan’s sense of urgency and desperation. “Mary Kate had nothing to do with that. She’s just a child.”

  “She’s his child. I can’t stand to look at her. Every time I do, I’m reminded of what happened, of what he did to me. I hope she dies. Then I can be done with both of them.” Scout whirled away from Jordan and moved back into the meal room.

  No, Jordan thought helplessly. No. There was no one to help her. She ran back out into the rain, racing out of the castle. She had to keep moving. Keep looking. Keep thinking. Think of another plan.

  But suddenly another image rose before her eyes, the memory of Maggie’s still form as she lay on the bed. Dead. The image transformed. Maggie’s face became Mary Kate’s. She, too, was lifeless and still, dead. Tears rushed into Jordan’s eyes. She tried to swipe them away, tried to erase the memory from her thoughts, but they lingered to torment her. God, help me, she begged silently. She couldn’t lose Mary Kate, too.

  An immense tidal wave of helplessness threatened to overtake her. She wanted to just collapse and sob, but she couldn’t. It would paralyze her completely. She had to do something.

  She paused at the drawbridge, trying to collect her thoughts, trying to come up with a plan. But she couldn’t. The rain only made the night that much bleaker and that much blacker.

  Jordan began to run back toward Mary Kate. She would at least try to free her again, even though she knew it would be useless. “Fox!” she screamed again and again, racing toward the forest.

  Her time was running out.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jordan raced through the field, sobbing. She could feel her hope diminishing, but she refused to give up. Fear threatened to well up inside her, clawing for her soul, waiting to drag her down into despair and defeat.

  Fox, she silently begged. Where was he? Her vision blurred as she scanned the forest ahead and prayed Fox would find her. She opened her mouth to scream for him again, but only a sob came forth.

  Lightning flashed over the field. Jordan tripped on a rock and fell onto her hands and knees in the mud. A sob raked her body, and it took all her willpower to push herself to her feet.

  The rumble of thunder boomed over her head. More lightning lit the sky, followed by a piercing boom that shook the ground. Jordan jumped and looked left, where the crack had originated.

  For a moment, Jordan thought it was a hallucination.

  On the hill to her left, silhouetted by the lightning, was a rider. Hope surged inside her. She waved her arms, desperate to get his attention.

  “Help!” she cried as thunder boomed overhead, rocking the land. “Help!”

  For a long moment, the rider didn’t move.

  He can’t hear me over the storm, Jordan thought. Frantic, desperate, Jordan raced toward the rider. “Please!” she called.

  The rider slowly rode toward her. In the darkness he was barely visible, but as they moved closer to each other, she saw his long black hair, his strong shoulders. “Fox,” she gasped, almost crying out her joy.

  He came to a halt just before her, staring down at her in confusion.

  “Fox,” she cried. “Mary Kate. She’s trapped by the river.”

  Fox looked toward the river, then reached down and grabbed Jordan around the waist, pulling her up into the saddle before him. He spurred his horse toward the river, moving around the forest. “Where?” he demanded.

  “Just off the path,” Jordan instructed. “South of the willows.”

  Fox urged his horse faster with a slight kick, holding Jordan close to him as the horse charged forward.

  Jordan turned her head slightly so he could hear her. “A tree fell, trapping her leg. When I left, she was just able to hold her head up out of the water. The river is rising.” As if in reply, lightning streaked across the sky.

  The horse reared slightly and Jordan grabbed the pommel.

  Fox steadied the horse with a firm hand and urged it on, moving across the path and into the forest.

  Jordan tried to see beyond the dark shapes of the forest trees. But suddenly, tears blurred her sight. “I couldn’t move the tree, Fox. I couldn’t help her.” Her voice cracked as she thought of her helplessness, her weakness.

  “You did enough,” Fox said softly, kindly.

  He nuzzled her wet skin, and Jordan thought she felt his lips against her temple. She was afraid to look at him, afraid it ha
d been nothing more than the brush of a wet leaf.

  The roar of the river sounded as they moved toward it. Jordan listened for Mary Kate’s cries, more fearful of the silence.

  “Where?” Fox demanded.

  Jordan was silent, listening for the girl. What if she was too late? Jordan shook her head. “She was close to here.”

  Fox reined his horse into a walk. “Mary Kate!” he hollered.

  Jordan’s heart pounded in her chest. Dread consumed her. Why wasn’t she answering? Fear closed around her body so completely she couldn’t even get her lips to call out her name.

  “Mary Kate!” Fox called.

  Desperately, Jordan slid from the horse and moved to the river. They had to be close. Jordan scanned the dark river bank, but couldn’t see. She prayed for lightning so she could find the tree.

  “Mary Kate!” Fox called again, just behind Jordan.

  Jordan moved closer to the water, searching. Despair was settling over her shoulders, moving through her veins, freezing her blood.

  “Fox!”

  Jordan whirled at the cry, running up the riverbank toward the shout. Relief speared her heart. Fox raced ahead of her, splashing into the water.

  Mary Kate was just holding her head out of the rushing water, clinging to the rock Jordan had moved. Jordan collapsed by her side, grabbing the girl and holding her, rocking her slightly. She stroked Mary Kate’s hair, relief filling her. A sob escaped her lips as she held Mary Kate tightly. They had made it. She would be all right!

  Fox bent and attempted to lift the tree. “When I lift, Jordan...”

  Jordan nodded.

  Fox groaned and attempted to lift the tree. But it remained on Mary Kate’s leg.

  Jordan released Mary Kate, making sure the child was positioned on the rock so her head was above the water, and moved to Fox’s side. She put her hands beneath the tree.

  Lightning lit the sky and the rain pelted them.

  “Ready? Go,” Fox said.