This didn’t look like one of Craven’s thugs.
“Lady?” he said. “You stranded?”
“You could say that.”
“She definitely ain’t fit for these mountains and back roads,” he said with a snort.
He would be right. The car wasn’t much when she bought it at a corner lot for a grand. She’d left her new Lexus, and cell phone, back in California. She’d bet her eye teeth they both had trackers on them, and she would have been located before she crossed the state line.
“Think you could lower the light some, Miss? I can rightly say I’ve lost what was left of my eyesight.”
She lowered it some, but only a few inches, enough that he could safely move his hand away from his face. His bushy eyebrows were scrunched with…concern? Curiosity? Maybe he was scoping her out too, wondering if she were safe.
“I don’t have a chain to pull you to a gas station,” he said. “And I don’t have a gas can.”
“Th-that’s okay. There’s something wrong with the engine.”
“How ‘bout I give you a lift. Cooper’s Hawk ain’t but three-four miles up the road.”
“Mommy?”
Helena swiveled and found Freya standing in front of the swamped car, barefoot and wrapped in her blanket. “It’s okay, sweetie.” She swept up her daughter into her arms.
“Now who do we have here?” The man scratched his scruffy whiskers. “I have a grandkid about your age, little girl. It ain’t safe you two being out here on this road. Lucky I came along when I did.”
“Thanks for telling me.” Once the sarcastic words had left her mouth, she felt a swarm of guilt. She reminded herself that she couldn’t take her frustration at the circumstances out on an innocent person. “You’re right.” He didn’t realize how much so.
“What’s happening, Mommy?” Freya rubbed the remaining sleep from her eyes.
“Our car broke down. We’re fine though. This nice gentleman has offered us a ride into town.”
Freya blinked. “You said we can’t take rides from strangers. Do we know him?”
Out of the mouths of babes.
Helena wanted to make up a white lie, but she’d learned from past experiences that Freya was at the age she could put two and two together. “No, but we don’t have a choice. Trust me, okay. Now let’s grab your shoes and the backpack from the backseat.” She looked at the man who seemed a bit impatient, or maybe gruff was his normal attitude. “Give us just a minute, sir. I’m just grabbing a few things.”
If she’d had any other choice, Helena would have refused the ride, but she couldn’t take Freya out on the dark, unsafe road for a hundred feet let alone miles. If they waited here they could end up in the hands of the wrong person. Instinct warned her it had been one of Craven’s men who showed up at the diner.
Grabbing the for-emergency-only backpack she kept in the car, and her phone and keys, not that anyone would drive off in the junker, and helping Freya put on her shoes, they finally climbed into the passenger seat of the truck that didn’t look in much better condition than her car.
“I didn’t get a name,” the man said after he put the truck in drive with a loud scraping of gears.
“Neither did I.”
“Frank Bowl. And you are?”
“Freya—”
“She’s Freya and I’m Helena.” Helena had told Freya many times not to share too much information with strangers but at five years old she couldn’t comprehend the importance of ambiguity.
Making sure Freya was locked securely in the seatbelt between her and Frank, Helena clicked her own into place then wrapped her arm around Freya’s shoulders to draw her close. The first mile or so was spent in silence as they drove over the deep potholes that made the shocks on the truck grind and squeal in resistance and springs in the worn seat to poke Helena’s bottom.
“Where you two heading?”
“Heading to my aunt’s.” She gave the rehearsed answer.
“Cooper’s Hawk? I probably know her.”
“No. In Billings.”
“You’ve got a long way to get there. Where you from? You don’t sound like you’re from this area.”
Helena guessed these were natural questions any stranger would ask when they were giving someone a ride, but she didn’t like being in the spotlight. “New York.” She lied.
“Look, this might not be any of my business and all, but there aren’t many accommodations in Cooper’s Hawk, and it don’t look like you two will be getting where you’re heading too soon. The B&B might work, but if not there’s a shelter in the town. It ain’t much but it’s warm and dry.”
“No,” she answered a little too quickly. She laughed, hoping to ease the sudden awkwardness. “I’m sure there’s a car shop close to get my car back on the road. We’ll be okay.”
“Not tonight, you won’t. Shop closes at dark, just about like everything else in these small towns. I live up in the mountain. I was coming back from visiting my son. Why’d you get off the highway?”
Although Helena believed the man was simply being friendly and concerned, she couldn’t ignore the flood of anxiety in her. If he didn’t mean them any physical harm, he could call law enforcement. She’d learned over the last six months that people were as suspicious of a mother and daughter traveling as she was of people. The last thing she and Freya needed was someone snooping around and asking questions.
Just stay calm.
“For gas. I saw a sign, but I didn’t see a station.” It was best to stick with the truth as much as possible.
“Damn. That gas station has been gone for years. Bulldozed and forgotten.” He gave them a side glance. “I figured as much.”
“My Ethel, that’s my wife, makes me sleep in the doghouse when I lose my manners. If she found out I just dropped you and this little one off in the night—”
“Looks like we’ve reached town. You can pull over here and Freya and I can walk the rest of the way.”
“I can take you on up further.” Those brows were scrunched again.
“No. No. We can walk. We’ve already taken up too much of your time.” She already had her hand on the doorknob.
“Miss…Cooper’s Hawk isn’t—”
“Please. Let us out. I don’t want to be a bother.” The hair on her neck lifted.
“Fine. Fine.” He pulled over.
She opened the door. “Come on, Freya.”
“But Mommy…”
“Freya,” she said firmly, shoeing her daughter out. “Thank you for the ride. sir. I really do appreciate it.”
“Yes, ma’am. You keep heading straight and you’ll get to where you’re going. Watch the curves.”
“Thank you.” She closed the door, watching the taillights fade into the darkness.
“Mommy!” Freya tugged Helena’s hand. “My shoes. I left them in that man’s truck.”
“Oh no! Freya, why did you take them back off?” Helena squeezed the bridge of her nose, feeling an ache starting in her forehead and sweeping around to her temples. Now was not the time to get a migraine. When she dropped her hand, she saw Freya’s puckered lip, the warning sign she was about to dissolve into tears. “It’s okay. You didn’t know.”
When she thought things couldn’t get any worse, she felt a fat drop of icy liquid land on her cheek. Then another on top of her head. Just their luck. It was starting to rain. Within seconds, sprinkles had turned into a downpour.
Grabbing up Freya and covering her head with the blanket, Helena glanced around the area. The only thing she saw were the rows of pine trees and the unknown.
Two
Run! Run!
It’s a live bomb!
Suddenly the ground shook underneath him as shards of metal and other debris whipped past his head. Blood puddled around him and it took him nearly five seconds before he realized it was his…and it was coming from his hand. He’d been hit. The wound was bad, but other nearby painful screams and moans drew him to look around the cluttered street.
Blinking against grit and blurriness, he focused on the bodies. Everywhere. Some were locals and some were not.
His men…
They were down.
With pain radiating down his arm and in his stomach, he reached for his radio, but it wasn’t there.
With great effort, he pushed himself to sitting. He watched a local man dig himself out from the debris while a village woman screamed in pain, holding her child limp in her arms. He listened, but he couldn’t hear anything…
A distant rumble brought Hank Hawke awake and lunging up to a sitting position, panting for breaths. Springs popped in the mattress in resistance to his shifting of weight. Sweat dripped from his forehead and he swiped away the moisture with the back of his hand. His heartbeat fired like a machine gun, pounding at his ribs, making it difficult to draw air into his lungs. He automatically searched for his gun under the pillow, but he came up empty handed. That brought him to his knees, combing through the darkness, using all his senses as he attempted to gain his bearings on his location.
Lightning flashed outside the window and he jerked his gaze in that direction. The weather and another nightmare had awakened him, and his gun remained safely locked in a box on the top shelf of his closet.
He blinked, his eyes finally adjusting to the dimly lit room.
A scorching pain ripped through him and he grabbed his left hand with his right. He was having phantom pain in his missing fingers again. Minutes passed until finally the ache waned and he could start thinking clearly. Years had passed since he’d been stranded in the enemy village where he and his unit had been wiping it clean of bombs, but the nightmares of that gruesome day in Afghanistan when he’d lost two fingers and took shrapnel to his gut still haunted him. He’d lost men that day and he carried immense guilt for what transpired. How could he have missed the bomb? He’d gone over the sequence of events until his mind swam. He’d searched every nook and cranny of that godforsaken place and somehow he’d missed it…
Dropping his head back onto the pillow he laid there a while longer, listening to the calming splattering of the rain hitting the tin roof, allowing the remaining tension in his muscles to dissipate.
He was home—if one could call it a home. He’d lived in the small apartment above Pelican Hawke Bar since he bought it and remodeled. He didn’t need much more than a place to rest his head. Recently, he’d bought a cabin on TripEase Mountain and spent his spare time, as limited as it was, fixing it up, hoping that eventually he’d move there. His therapist told him it wasn’t a good idea to eat, breathe, and live at work because it lessened the chances that he’d have any personal life.
Snorting, he rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Hell, he hadn’t done the things he enjoyed—fishing, kayaking, axe throwing, holding a soft, curvy woman—in so long that he couldn’t remember what some of those activities felt like. He’d been seeing someone for a while but they’d fizzled months ago. Looking back, it never did amount to anything more than a toss in the sheets when she was in town. They never spent the night together, which she’d always complained.
Reaching over and swiping up medicine bottles from his nightstand, he shook out the proper dosage into his palm and swallowed the pills with water. It had taken a few years, but he’d managed to get on a regimen of taking his meds, and feeling like he’d put PTSD behind him, at least most of the time. On occasion the nightmares snuck their way in, but they were less intense and farther apart. He couldn’t remember the last time he woke up huddling in the bathtub or closet, even once outside in the damp grass, not remembering how he got there.
Rubbing his stomach over the healed scar where a piece of metal had lodged inside the muscle, the old injury still gave him fits, mostly when it rained, but each day that he woke up on the right side of the ground he was grateful. Not everyone got the same chance.
After the explosion that nearly killed him, he’d come back to friendly soil a retired military man, which had been a good thing because he’d been a mess—inside and out. With the help of a psychiatrist and physical therapist he’d overcome a handful of large hurdles. He called himself a “work in progress” and he’d found coping skills that didn’t involve a bottle.
Now he put his abilities to good use in the Landing Search & Rescue team. Saving people made Hank feel useful and he and the team certainly kept busy rescuing people off the mountain.
Pushing off the damp sheet, Hank lowered his bare feet to the wood planked floor, feeling the vibration of music playing downstairs. What in the hell time was it anyway? Ten P.M. His intention had been to take a nap but instead he’d slept for three hours after getting back from a missing person mission on the mountain. A hiker had wandered off the beaten path, fell off a ravine and thankfully they found her before the weather had taken its toll. Many missing hikers weren’t so lucky.
He got up and dragged the sheets off the mattress and tossed them into the laundry basket on his way into the bathroom. Turning on the knobs in the standup shower, he stepped under the spray and stood under the hot stream until he turned to a prune, but at least his body aches were gone. Switching the water off, he reached for the towel on the hook and inhaled the cotton scent. Since he’d hired a local cleaning lady to come in and clean the bar and tidy up his apartment, he found the biggest perk was fresh smelling linen. He’d never liked digging in the hamper for a towel because he’d forgotten to do his laundry.
Dropping the towel, he went to the drawer and took out his usual, a pair of worn, frayed jeans and a team T-shirt and pulled them on, slipped into his favorite boots and grabbed his Stetson as he left the apartment. Taking the back stairs into the small, confined kitchen, he greeted George, the bar cook, who’d just slapped a burger on. It sizzled and hissed against the flattop grill, filling the space with savory goodness and making Hank’s mouth water. His stomach growled and he counted back the hours to the last time he’d eaten, minus the granola bar he’d had out on the trail but consuming anything of substance hadn’t happened since dinner yesterday.
“Hey, boss.” The short, round, balding man saluted Hank with two fingers to his forehead and an enthusiastic grin. Hank couldn’t remember meeting anyone who had a comparable positive attitude with the cook. “Can I get you anything?”
“When you get a chance will you put me a burger on?” Hiring George had been the best move Hank had made since he’d opened Pelican Hawke. Good help was hard to find in the small town and George had proven that not only was he loyal, but he knew his way around the kitchen. He also never complained, and rightly, the man could have about the lack of kitchen space. If business continued as it had been, Hank’s plans were to expand the bar and kitchen area.
“Will do.” George flipped the patty and went back to whistling.
Pushing through the metal swinging door, Hank scanned the usual Friday evening crowd sitting at the tables and the bar. Jazz, the pink haired bartender who had tattoo sleeves, and some riddled over her arms and chest, hopped back and forth between filling drinks and taking orders to help the waitress, Jeannie. Jazz handled the chaos like a pro. When she saw Hank, she gave him a semi-wave and dimpled grin that made her lip ring glisten in the neon light advertising one of the beers they had on tap.
“Looks like you have things in control here.” He liked her and respected her calm attitude. When anyone got out of line, he knew she could handle them. Very seldom did anyone stir up trouble because they knew Hank had little patience for bullshit, but on occasion they had a few rowdy folks who came in and pushed some buttons. “Been busy like this all evening?”
“Yep. Just the way I like it.” She popped off the cap to a Budweiser and slid it down the bar.
“She’s a feisty one, this one here,” Owen Barker said over the rim of his bottle.
“How are you, buddy?” Hank greeted the bushy-haired, scraggly-bearded man who sat at the same stool every time he came in, which was quite often since his wife Dorothy passed away last year.
“Doing fine, sir. Bought myself a new lawnmower last week. A riding mower at that,” he said proudly.
“’Bout time. Just think of all the extra time you’ll get to spend with the grandkids now.”
“They’re too busy to hang out with the old man.” He snorted.
Hank felt bad for the man. Married for more than fifty years, three kids, several grandkids, he shouldn’t have time to hold down a barstool three nights a week at Pelican. “Jazz, I’ll be in my office if you need me.” He left the bar, stepped down the hallway into the office that seconded as storage and shut the door. Dropping into the chair behind his desk he clicked on the row of security monitors with camera views inside the bar. An owner could never be too careful.
A knock came on the door. “Hank, I have your burger.”
“Come in, George.”
The door opened and he set the tray of cheeseburger, fries and can of Coke on the corner of the desk. “There you are. Just the way you like it cooked and piled high with cheese, lettuce and tomato.”
“Man, that looks good. As always.” Hank couldn’t wait to sink his teeth in the meal. The second the door closed he snatched up the burger and took a big bite, savoring the juicy flavor. Hank shoved another bite into his mouth and wiped his mouth at the same time the image of a curvy brunette on one of the monitors caught his attention. He leaned in closer as he watched the woman stride over to the bar and offer Jazz a half attempt at a smile.
With a click of the mouse, he enlarged the grainy image.
Her matted hair framed her heart shaped face and her clothes hung like wet rags off her slender, almost too-thin, frame. The threadbare jacket she wore was a poor excuse for rain protection on a night like tonight.
Jazz pointed in the direction of the restrooms and the woman walked out of range of the cameras.
Hank eased back into the cracked vinyl chair and stretched his legs, cradling the pop can, waiting for the woman to reappear. Downing the Coke, he crushed the aluminum and gave it a toss toward the wastebasket in the corner. He missed by an inch. “Damn.” He was losing his touch.
Cowboy Hank (Cooper's Hawke Landing Book 3) Page 2