by Janie Crouch
“Well, hopefully we’ve gotten our share of bad luck all used up. None left for the wedding.”
He kissed her temple. “Nothing with us ever seems to go according to plan, does it?”
She snuggled into him. “Do you think that will be true our whole life?”
“Let’s hope not. I hereby decree that we have officially gotten all our bad luck out of our system. From here on out, no more calamities.”
“I’ll second that.”
They stared into the fire until they were both nice and warm. Tanner put his hiking pants and boots back on as the sun started to set. Sam woke up and the two of them headed to the river for fishing. Tanner explained about the flares so that the boy would know his mother wouldn’t be worried.
They ate enough to at least not be hungry, then gathered firewood to have nearby to keep the blaze going all night.
They used what they could from the rescued emergency pack for pillows and covering. It was going to be a long night, but all things considered, it could’ve been much, much worse.
Chapter Twelve
Both kids were chattering nonstop the next morning as the four of them made their way toward the rendezvous point. They weren’t in any hurry; coming from this side of the river meant they had a much shorter walk than Noah and the women did.
They’d eaten an odd breakfast of fish and protein bars, but it had given them the nourishment they needed.
Eva and Sam were bantering back and forth, talking at great length about all the details they were going to tell their friends—falling into the water, the snake, Sam’s intel about how to avoid a bear.
Tanner met Bree’s eyes, both of them struggling not to smile, as the kids decided that they would leave out any really scary parts so that their friends wouldn’t be so frightened of rafting that they were afraid to try it.
“Wise.” Bree nodded her head as she walked hand in hand with Eva. “You don’t want to overwhelm your friends with too much action all at once.”
They’d gone another mile before Sam lengthened his stride so he could be walking next to Tanner, leaving the females a little farther behind. The kid obviously had something to say.
“What’s on your mind, buddy?”
“Do you think Noah is going to be mad at us?”
“Why would he be mad?”
Sam shrugged. “Because we had all the food and supplies in our boat. And he didn’t really have anyone to help them out. Just Mom and Miss Barb and Miss Francis.”
Tanner swallowed a laugh. “Although I’m sure he would have rather had you there to help him, Noah is capable of handling just about anything. Even three women who don’t know much about the wilderness. Although your mom is pretty darn smart.”
Sam nodded solemnly. “Oh, I know. But she’s...”
Tanner knew the kids had been seeing a child psychologist. He wished he had a doctor’s advice on what to say right now to the little boy. He would just go with his gut.
“She’s what, buddy?”
“Broken,” he whispered, then touched his chest. “On the inside. My dad...he hurt her.”
“A man should never hurt a woman.”
“I know.” Sam’s voice got smaller. “I tried to help, but Dad would lock us in our bedrooms.”
“Hey.” Tanner stopped and crouched down beside him so they could be eye to eye. The girls came up on them, but Bree just kept walking, giving them privacy.
“I know you and I don’t know each other very well.” He smiled and winked at the boy. “Although after our river adventure, I think we have a bond, right?”
Sam nodded solemnly. “Yes, sir.”
“Then I want to say this man to man. Friend to friend. That stuff your dad did to your mom is on him, and nobody else. Not her, and especially not you or Eva. A real man should never raise a hand against a woman. Even if you could’ve gotten out of that room you were locked in, there’s nothing you could’ve done.”
Sam didn’t look like he believed Tanner, but Tanner hadn’t expected him to. It was going to take more than just a couple of sentences from someone the kid didn’t really know very well to unpack all the emotional damage done in this situation. All any of them could do was to continuously reassure Sam, and Marilyn, that they weren’t at fault for Jared Ellis’s actions.
“Hey, you’re not worried that Noah will hurt your mom, are you? Because I can assure you that will never happen.”
“I know Noah wouldn’t hurt her. I just didn’t want him to get mad at her because she sometimes has bad days. Sometimes it’s hard for her to get out of bed. Sometimes she cries.”
God, Tanner’s heart was breaking for this kid. When he and Noah had been this age, their biggest concern had been trying to talk their mom into letting them stay out past when the streetlights came on, and how to do enough car washes and lemonade stands to raise the money to buy the video game they currently wanted. There had been all sorts of laughter and chaos in their house. Never violence, and rarely tears.
“Don’t you worry about Noah.” Tanner stood and squeezed Sam’s shoulder, and they began walking again. “You know Miss Cassandra is our sister, right? And she’s kinda crazy. So Noah can definitely handle your mom, even if she’s not having a good day.”
“Oh, yeah.” A smile broke through on Sam’s solemn face. “Miss Cass is a little crazy. She’s not quiet like Bree Cheese or my mom.”
Tanner rolled his eyes. “You can say that again. Believe me, I had to live with her growing up.”
He told a story of the time Cassandra made him so angry he’d accidentally thrown a baseball bat through a window as they caught up with the girls. It wouldn’t take them much longer to reach the bridge. Probably an hour or two after lunch, the kids would be reunited with their mom and everyone would feel a whole lot better.
They were still a good six hours of hiking to where they’d left the cars, so there would probably be one more meal of eating fish and protein bars and whatever other edible plants he and Noah could find, but tonight everyone would be back together and in their own beds.
A flash of bright light reflecting from up on the ridge in front of them caught Tanner’s attention, but by the time he could pinpoint where it had come from it was gone. A reflection of that type was almost always from something people had brought with them into the wilderness. Animals did their utmost to blend in. People were the ones who carried items that reflected and drew attention to themselves—binoculars, cameras, cell phones...
Rifle sights.
Seeing other people in this section of the wilderness wasn’t completely unusual, although there were much more popular areas for both hiking and rafting. So Tanner wasn’t concerned, but he was definitely aware.
When he saw the brief reflection again fifteen minutes later, on par with their location and pace, then he became concerned.
But not overly so. Yes, there were people ahead of them, moving at the same pace as them, and looking over their shoulder to make sure he and Bree and the kids were still moving. But whoever it was couldn’t mean them harm, or at least didn’t mean to shoot them outright, because they had more than enough opportunity to do it. Their watchers had the higher ground, they were hidden and Tanner was unarmed.
Until there was reason to change the plan, he wasn’t going to. Nevertheless, he subtly picked up their pace.
He saw the reflective glimmer one more time before they curved around the ridge and came to the suspension bridge that would lead them over the river and back to safety.
Except the bridge had been destroyed. Pieces of rope and lumber hung in disarray, still attached to the cliff on the other side of the river, but completely removed from their side.
How the hell had that happened?
The bridge had been around as long as Tanner could remember. The river was relatively narrow at this juncture, so the catenary rope bridg
e had been built across it. The thing had scared him to death the first couple of times he’d crossed it, the way it would sway with each step. It was only as he got older and became more aware of physics and mechanics that he’d come to understand how safe and secure the bridge really was.
Of course, he hadn’t been up here in at least two years, so it was possible there’d been some damage before now and Tanner just hadn’t realized it.
“Houston, I think we have a problem,” Bree muttered. “I hope this isn’t the only way across the river.”
“No, there are three more bridges farther downriver.” And they would go to them—but first he wanted to check this one out. Handing out another protein bar to the kids for them to split, Tanner scooted down so he could get a better look at where the rope bridge had once been secured into the hard rock of the ravine.
When he saw it, he had to swallow his curse.
The bridge itself had definitely been cut by hand. More than cut. It had been completely destroyed. The rings attached to the wall of rock were still solidly embedded, but just beyond the metal the rope had been destroyed. It looked like someone had taken a blowtorch to it.
“Anything interesting?”
The kids were chattering as they continued munching on their bars.
“Definitely wasn’t destroyed by mother nature.”
Bree helped hoist him back up to ground level. “Why would someone want to destroy a bridge?”
That was the real question, wasn’t it? And Tanner had a bad feeling about the answer.
There were three more bridges they could use, but getting to them was going to take them directly through an area that would leave them completely vulnerable, especially if the people who had been tracking them the last couple of hours intended them harm.
“What will Noah and Marilyn do when they get to their side of the bridge and see that it’s unusable?”
“Noah knows about the other bridges. There is a secondary base camp five miles from here. If I were him, that’s where I’d assume we would go.”
Bree had already caught on to the tension in his voice. “Is it time to be concerned yet?”
Was it time to be concerned? At one point in their relationship Tanner would’ve tried to shelter her, to keep the truth from her. But he’d learned the hard way that wasn’t a good idea. Bree could handle herself and was an asset in almost every situation.
He cupped her cheek. “There’s no need to panic. And this could all still be coincidence. But yes, there is reason to think it might be time for concern.”
Eva walked over to them and stood right next to Bree. “Are we not going to get to see Mommy?” she asked, her little lip quivering.
Bree smiled, but it was tight. “We are, pumpkin. We’re just going to need to go to another bridge.”
“Hey, Eva, you’ve been walking a long time. Can I give you a piggyback ride?” Tanner asked with a wink. “Then in a few minutes you can give me one.”
The little girl giggled at his silliness and he took the opportunity to swing her up and around on his back. He gave Bree a nod, which she returned, and then looked over at Sam. “You ready to pick up the pace a little bit, champ? If we’re going to beat your mom and Noah to the next bridge, we’ll have to double-time it.”
More like if they were going to make sure they beat the people who were tracking them, but no need to worry the kid with that info.
“Yeah, let’s go!” Sam responded.
They walked at a pace faster than they’d been going before, but not fast enough to clue in the people watching them that Tanner was onto them. Bree did a great job keeping the kids talking—about computers, no less—and Tanner kept an eye on the ridge above them as the path they were on started to take them closer to the river’s edge once again.
They’d gone about a mile when Tanner saw the light reflected up off the ridge again. When Bree stopped talking for a moment and caught his eye, he realized she’d seen it too. It wasn’t until a couple of moments later when he saw a second reflection from the northeastern ridge that he realized they were actually in trouble.
It wasn’t one person following them—it was two. At least two.
And if Tanner kept them on the path they were walking, they would be moving straight into an area where their followers held all the high ground, and all the advantages. It would make them sitting ducks.
He could be wrong. It could be two sets of hikers just out on their way not even thinking about the reflections their cameras or binoculars were making. It could be hunters up on the ridge, aware of his and the kids’ presence but not intending any harm.
But it could also be someone who had already sabotaged their raft and forced their party to separate.
Tanner wasn’t willing to take the chance.
There was only one way to know for sure, and that was to lead Bree and the kids deeper into the wilderness.
Catching Bree’s eye, he tilted his head to the side and led them off the worn path.
She continued the ongoing conversation with the kids and Tanner didn’t discourage it. Their followers were too far away to hear them at this point.
Away from the clearer path the ground was harder to navigate. Tanner would’ve liked to go much faster, but if somebody twisted an ankle it would definitely slow them down. He hated to add three or four extra miles to an already full day of walking for little legs, but doing this would give whoever was watching them the chance to move on.
Or let Tanner know for certain that they were in trouble.
The kids walked for a while, then Tanner gave Sam a piggyback. Bree, trouper that she was, held Eva for as long as she could, giving the little girl a break. After two miles Tanner swung them back toward the main path again. They walked parallel to it for a good half a mile, and even though he’d kept a close eye out, he didn’t see any trace of anyone following them. Maybe he had been paranoid. A good cop was always a little paranoid, and maybe this time it was nothing.
“How are we doing?” Bree asked as the kids walked a few steps ahead of them.
“I haven’t seen anything to make me suspicious for the last half a mile. I’m thinking maybe I was a bit overzealous.”
She reached over and squeezed his hand. “I like it when you’re overzealous. Although generally you’re not in the middle of the wilderness when you decide to be.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her up against him, kissing her forehead. “Let’s get back on the main path and deliver these kids to their mom.”
They were almost to the clearing they would cut through to get back on the main path when Eva let out a disgusted sound.
“Ew. That’s so gross.”
When Tanner crouched down next to her to see what had gotten her attention, he expected some sort of bug or dead critter. But it wasn’t. It was three cigarette butts.
“Mommy says smoking is gross,” Eva informed him.
“Do people smoke even out in the woods?” Sam said.
“They do if they’re addicted to cigarettes,” Bree responded.
Tanner picked up one of the butts, much to the kids’ dismay.
“You don’t smoke, do you, Lips?” Sam asked.
Tanner brought the butt up to his nose and breathed in. The scent of tobacco was still very present. These butts weren’t more than an hour old.
Someone had been sitting here, waiting. No hunter would smoke out in the open like that. It would scare all the prey away. Someone had been waiting for something much more specific.
“Everybody, back into the tree line,” Tanner said, pushing them rapidly in that direction. He could tell by the kids’ faces that he was making them nervous, but it couldn’t be helped.
They were definitely being followed. And he was afraid not just followed...
Hunted.
Chapter Thirteen
&nb
sp; Bree grabbed the kids’ hands as Tanner led them deep into the thick shelter of the trees.
“I need to go check something out, okay? You guys stay here.” He gave both kids a smile and a wink, which encouraged them a little bit, then turned to her. “I’m just going to see what I can find out. Info gathering only.”
Obviously, his feeling that he was being paranoid had passed, and it had something to do with those cigarette butts. Someone had been there recently.
She nodded. “We’ll be right here getting a little rest in case we need to do more walking.”
The kids groaned at the thought of more walking.
“Whatever’s left to eat in the backpack, go ahead and do it,” Tanner said.
He didn’t elaborate, but Bree could read between the lines: get calories into their system in case we need to run.
She nodded. “We’ll be fine. You be careful.”
With a nod he was gone.
“Bree Cheese, what’s happening?” Eva asked.
“I’m not exactly sure, but I think we might be playing a big game of hide-and-seek.”
The kids obviously didn’t believe her, but they didn’t argue. They got out the last two protein bars and began splitting them, wrapping a chunk for Tanner.
With their bellies the slightest bit full, both kids’ eyes began to droop. Bree couldn’t blame them. They’d already walked at least five miles today. And given what they’d been through in the last twenty-four hours, they probably needed as much rest as they could get.
Bree didn’t have that luxury. She kept her eyes open and her ears attuned for any sound of danger. Not that she knew what danger would sound like, or what she would do if an enemy—man or animal—attacked.
When she got back to Risk Peak, she was going to put some concerted effort into researching wilderness survival.
She grimaced. After she wrote her wedding vows. First, she had to put her researching abilities into that. Or...maybe whatever was happening right now would drag out to a month and they’d have to cancel the wedding. She and Tanner really could just go in front of the judge. It would solve all her problems.