by Elle Kennedy
But what about Mom? Dylan? Had they celebrated the occasion on Cole’s ranch? Was Jim on an assignment? Had Jake returned from his?
So many questions, and not a single answer. All she knew was that she wasn’t sure how much longer she could stand this.
“No,” she said aloud, her hand curling protectively over her belly. “Your mommy will stand it for as long as she needs to. Nothing is going to happen to you, baby. I promise.”
Her blood hummed with a sudden rush of strength. She refused to give in to this hopelessness. She was a Kelley. She came from a long line of strong, confident women capable of surviving anything in their path. This was just a minor hiccup, a rocky obstacle in the road.
“I will overcome this,” she whispered with the lift of her chin.
As if a higher power had decided to applaud her fortitude, a gust of wind shook the window. Lana jumped, her pulse speeding up then slowing as she laughed in the darkness. “Just the wind,” she soothed, rubbing her tummy. “Mommy’s being jumpy.”
But then the window rattled again, and this time, the speedy kick of her pulse had nothing to do with fear. There was someone out there! Someone outside the window, signaling to get her attention.
Deacon? Had he finally decided to get her out of here?
Lana stumbled off the bed and bounded to the window, her blond hair falling into her eyes. She shoved the errant strands away and focused on the dirty windowpane.
Her heart nearly stopped when a shadowy face appeared in front of the glass.
Lana sucked in her breath. It wasn’t Deacon, that much she could tell. The man on the other side of the window had a goatee circling his mouth. The moment their gazes locked, the stranger raised his finger to his lips, urging her to remain silent, but Lana’s throat was so tight with emotion she wouldn’t have been able to make a sound anyway.
She was being rescued!
Chapter 8
Lana’s body was riddled with impatience as her savior took his sweet time liberating her from the cabin. As she watched, he removed a small silver tool from the belt around his trim waist. A glass cutter, she realized. While her heart beat up a storm, she resisted tapping her foot as he dragged the cutter against the edges of the window. He worked slowly, dark brows drawn together in meticulous concentration.
Who was he? Obviously some kind of soldier, judging from the camo outfit he had on, the black wool hat and the endless supply of tools clipped to his belt. Not to mention the rifle.
She suddenly wondered if he’d used the thing in order to get this close to the cabin. A spark of worry ignited in her stomach. Charlie and the others usually walked the perimeter and stood guard, but Deacon hadn’t been back to this room in several hours. What if he’d been assigned to watch the cabin, and had encountered this man outside?
She pushed away the troubling thought. With extreme skill, the man removed the glass, then disappeared from view as he set it down on the ground. He popped up a second later, and for the first time in a month, Lana heard a voice that didn’t belong to Deacon or her captors.
“Lana Kelley?” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
She nodded urgently.
“I’m Rick Garrison.” He tucked the glass cutter back in his belt. “Your father sent me.”
Relief soared inside her. “Thank God.”
“Are you hurt?” Garrison asked. “Can you walk?”
“I’m fine. Please, just get me out of here.”
“Do you have a coat?”
She noticed then that his breath left puffs of white in the air. A chill swept into the room, making her turn to the chair where she’d draped her coat. “It’s bright red,” she told him. “Will that be a problem?”
Garrison nodded briskly, already removing his own fitted black jacket. “Put this on,” he ordered, handing her the coat through the empty square left in the window.
She took it and quickly shoved her arms into the sleeves without bothering to zip up the coat. Then she climbed onto the small desk, biting her lip when the wood squeaked from the added weight. She glanced toward the door. Nobody came. Turning back to the window, she leaned forward, then hesitated when a thought occurred to her. Hadn’t Deacon said there was a motion sensor on her window? Yes, he had said that.
“Motion sensor,” she blurted out, feeling panicked as she looked at Garrison.
“Taken care of,” was all he said. “Come on now. We need to hurry.”
Adrenaline spiked in her blood. Lana went out head first, landing in Garrison’s arm with the grace of a tourist. He steadied her, his dark eyes sweeping across her face to assess her well-being.
“They didn’t hurt you?” he said quietly.
She shook her head.
“Your father will be happy to hear that.” Garrison removed a lethal-looking pistol from his waistband. “Do you know how to use this?”
“Y-yes. My brothers took me to the shooting range a few times.”
Garrison’s fingers were warm as he gently placed the weapon in her hand. He unslung his rifle from his shoulder, holding it with complete ease. “You’re going to have to be extremely quiet. And very quick. I came here by foot, through the mountains, but I managed to leave an ATV up on the trail, about five miles from here. Can you handle that?”
Five miles. Lana tried not to cringe. She wasn’t out of shape by any means, but a five-mile hike in this bitter cold was not going to be pleasant. Still, she was determined to keep up. “I can handle it,” she said grimly.
“See that cluster of rocks?” Garrison gestured to a spot about a hundred yards away.
Lana nodded.
“That’s where we need to be.” He grimaced. “If I tell you to run, you run, all right? I’ve been up in the mountains for days, watching the cabin, and I’ve gotta tell you, these bastards are pros. They don’t have a recognizable routine.”
“Isn’t that good? Professionals usually know what they’re doing,” she said feebly. “This could mean they’re amateurs.”
“There’s nothing amateur about the way they’ve handled this. Uneven shifts, random perimeter checks. Different men each time. They’re smart, made sure that anyone who tried to infiltrate wouldn’t be able to rely on a clockwork rotation. Which means that the moment we head for those rocks, one of them could be coming out of nowhere.”
Lana swallowed. “Okay.”
“Now, I took out two of them, but—”
Her heart lodged in her throat. He killed two men? Terror jolted through her. What if Deacon was one of them? She told herself she was simply concerned about her baby’s father, but deep down she knew there was much, much more to the turbulent wave of fear crashing inside her.
She wanted to ask him to describe the men, but Rick was still talking. “There are still two more walking the perimeter. We need to move, and fast. Are you ready?”
She drew in a breath, releasing it in a visible cloud that drifted in the air. “I’m ready.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
Garrison’s eyes moved across the empty clearing in a sharp sweep. They had the cover of darkness on their side, but Lana didn’t feel invisible. When Rick gripped her arm and pulled her forward, she followed him blindly. Her pulse raced. The gun in her hand felt out of place. She hoped she didn’t have to use it. As their boots crunched against the grass, she cringed, frightened the noise would alert one of her captors, but nobody came after them.
Ten yards. Twenty. She ran alongside Rick Garrison, as the harsh wind slapped her face and whipped her hair around. She spat the long tresses from her eyes and mouth, wishing she’d tied them back in a ponytail, but there’d been no time. As she and Garrison moved in swift, long strides, she couldn’t help but glance back at the cabin.
Remorse gathered inside her. Should she have tried to warn Deacon? If Rick Garrison had found the cabin, the authorities were probably on their way, too. He must have contacted them, right?
She pictured metal handcuffs being snapped around Deacon’s strong
wrists and fought a wave of panic. How would she ever explain to her family that the father of her child was a kidnapper? How would she tell her child that his father was in jail? Or dead. Lord, Deacon could already be dead, if he’d been one of the men Rick “took out.”
Worry about that later. Right now, run!
She kept moving, determined to make it to those darn rocks, but she and Rick were five yards short of their destination when the entire clearing was illuminated by bright light.
Lana blinked from the sudden flash, horror spiraling up her chest as she heard angry male voices boom from behind them. Enormous security lights had been installed in the trees. She and Rick were completely visible now, like two prisoners caught in a spotlight while attempting a prison break.
“Don’t move!” someone roared.
She froze. Rick’s hand was still on her arm, pulling her forward, but then the crack of a rifle exploded in the night air, and he finally came to a reluctant halt, mumbling a stream of curses under his breath.
“Turn around!”
Le Clair’s voice this time, and Lana felt like a disobedient child as she slowly turned to face her captors. Next to her, Rick had raised his rifle. She followed his lead, lifting the handgun and aiming it at Le Clair, but her hand shook wildly.
There were about twenty yards separating them from her kidnappers. Rick stood protectively by her side. Across the clearing, Le Clair, Echo and Tango had their weapons trained on the duo. Kilo was off to the left, a rifle perched on his enormous shoulder. Oscar, the silent one who’d bought her all those things from town, was a few feet from Kilo, also holding a rifle. But where was Deacon?
Her breathing quickened, then relaxed when she spotted Deacon at Le Clair’s right side, the sleek metal of his gun glimmering in the lights bathing the yard. He was alive. Relief coursed through her, then faded abruptly when she realized just how volatile this situation had become.
It was like a Wild West standoff. Next to her, Rick didn’t even blink. Across from them, the five men were equally still.
“Hand the girl over,” Le Clair ordered, his weapon trained on Garrison. “Hand her over, and we won’t kill you.”
“What do we do?” Lana whispered in desperation.
“Shhh.” Rick didn’t even look at her. Holding his rifle with steady hands, he tossed out his own suggestion. “Let us walk away, and I won’t kill you.”
Le Clair’s laugh reverberated in the clearing, bouncing off the massive trunks of the redwood trees. “My, my, aren’t we confident. Five against one, and still so sure of yourself.”
“I’m a trained sharpshooter,” Rick called back carelessly. “I can take all five of you out in less than ten seconds.”
“Yeah, but then you’d have a dead princess on your hands,” Le Clair replied. “Because the second one of us goes down, the others have orders to shoot the hostage. Standard operating procedure, my friend.”
“Is that actually standard procedure?” Lana hissed.
Rick shook his head. “In this psycho’s world, maybe.” He went quiet, his brows knitting together in thought. “I can take them out. If you hit the deck before I take the first shot, I can get ’em all.”
His confidence did nothing to soothe her. He’d said so himself—these men were pros. What if she didn’t go down fast enough? What if she got hit?
What if she lost the baby?
“No,” she choked out.
Garrison had already raised his rifle. “When I say the word—”
“No. It’s too risky!”
“I don’t have all night,” Le Clair shouted. “Give us the girl and you’re free to go.”
Rick had Le Clair in his sights. “Not going to happen, my friend.”
“Rick, please,” she pleaded. “Don’t shoot at them.”
“On the count of three, hit the ground, Miss Kelley.”
“They’ll let you go if you give me up,” she burst out. “If you do this, we’ll both get killed.”
“One.”
“Hand her over,” Le Clair demanded, sounding increasingly annoyed.
Her heart was beating so fast she was surprised it didn’t rip through her chest. “Rick, please.”
“Two.”
Her kidnappers shifted their weapons. Trained them on her.
Oh, God. She and Rick would both be killed if he went ahead with this suicidal plan. If it was just her, she might be willing to take her chances, but no way was she going to be responsible for Rick’s death. And no way in hell was she putting her unborn child at risk.
She glanced at Rick, saw his mouth open, saw his lips begin to form the number three.
Without pausing to analyze her actions, Lana threw herself in front of Garrison’s rifle and shouted, “Stop! I’ll come back!”
Deacon’s heart jammed in his throat as he watched Lana dive in front of the mercenary’s rifle. Terror pummeled into him like angry fists, making his gun shake in his hand. What the hell was she thinking? The damn woman was going to get herself shot!
When the silent alarm had gone off, Deacon had figured one of the other men had screwed up, maybe tripped a wire. But when he and Echo had been sent to investigate and discovered the bodies of Charlie and Yankee up in the hills, he’d realized this was no error. Charlie or Yankee must have triggered the panic button on their radios before getting their necks snapped, and now the entire situation had erupted in chaos.
“Please!” Lana was shouting, her blue eyes imploring Le Clair. “Nobody has to shoot anybody!”
Deacon could hear the faint muttering of the mercenary who’d nearly aided in Lana’s escape, but she ignored the man behind her. “I’m going to lay my gun down,” she said, her voice shaking in the cold night air. “And I’m going to walk over to you, all right? Everyone just put down their guns before someone gets hurt.”
Le Clair chuckled softly. The sound sent a chill through Deacon’s body. Lana was dead wrong. Someone was going to get hurt. And the moment she was back in Le Clair’s clutches, Lana would realize the price of her sacrifice.
“Sounds fair,” Le Clair called. “Walk over to us nice and slow, princess.”
Deacon’s pulse drummed in his ears as Lana placed the handgun down on the grass. The man beside her still had his weapon trained on them. The dark hair on his upper lip curled downward as he frowned in frustration. But there was no stopping Lana. Deacon experienced an odd sense of pride, watching Lana walk across the brightly lit clearing. Her shoulders were held high, her refined features hard with determination.
“See, here I am,” she said calmly as she reached the men. “Just let him go like you promised.”
The moment she joined the group, Tango had an iron grip on her arm, keeping her in place. Without even blinking, Le Clair nodded at Kilo and murmured, “Do it.”
The deafening report of a rifle cracked in the air, followed by a soft thud as the man across the clearing slumped down to the ground, a bullet hole between the eyes.
Lana screamed in horror, the piercing sound cutting through Deacon like a hot, sharp blade. She shrugged out of Tango’s grasp, trying to hurtle toward the lifeless body lying twenty yards away. Tango yanked violently on her arm, forcing her to stay put.
With tears streaming down her cheeks, Lana spun around to shout at Le Clair. “You promised! You said you’d let him go if I came back!”
“I lied,” he said with a smirk.
Before anyone could stop her, Lana launched herself at Le Clair and started beating at his chest with small fists. “You bastard! You just killed a good man, you sick, twisted maniac!”
Le Clair laughed in delight, letting her pound at him with her fists. She was strong for her size, but Le Clair was stronger and bigger, and it was obvious her attack didn’t cause him an ounce of pain. Instead, it only seemed to amuse him further. His chest rumbled with laughter, the amusement pouring out of him making Deacon ill.
Le Clair let her go at him for a couple of more seconds, then stepped back with a bored exp
ression. “Do you feel better?” he asked congenially.
Lana slowly let her arms drop to her sides. She was sobbing softly. “You’re evil,” she whispered, her blue eyes drifting in the direction of her almost-savior’s body.
“I’ve been called worse.” With a shrug, Le Clair glanced at Echo and Kilo. “Take care of the body. Let’s send our friend back where he came from.” A withering glance at Lana, then a sharp order to Deacon. “Get her back to the room. And try and calm our little princess down, will you?”
Nodding in assent, Deacon took hold of Lana’s arms and forcibly dragged her back inside. She was shaking so hard his own body was vibrating. Damn it. He recognized the signs of shock when he saw them. Lana’s blue eyes had become glazed, her face paler than the snow capping the mountains out in the distance and her shuddering was uncontrollable.
“Oh, God,” she said over and over again, her voice coming out in rapid gasps. “I killed him.”
Deacon’s heart twisted in his chest. He forced himself to keep walking, now practically carrying her forward with his hands on her waist. She was so tiny, so fragile. He wanted to murder Paul Le Clair for making Lana witness a man’s cold-blooded execution.
In the bedroom, he set Lana down on the bed, where she immediately curled on her side, her cheeks stained with moisture, her voice dull as she kept mumbling to herself. “I killed him. Oh, God, I killed him.”
Deacon sat beside her. He awkwardly placed a comforting hand on her lower back. She jerked abruptly, wiggling away from his hand. “He said he would let him go! How could he say that?” Sobs racked her slender body. She curled into herself tighter, bringing her knees to her chest. “God, Deacon!”