Wyoming Cowboy Marine

by Nicole Helm

  Cam got up from the rock he’d been sitting on. He’d already packed out the trash and the food and hung it from a tree away from the tent to keep the potential threat of bears from the campsite.

  The tent was set up and he had to admit the prospect of them sharing it was...uncomfortable. As much as he was used to not having space of his own, not having much of anything of his own after over a decade in the Marines, he wasn’t used to sharing space with, well, a woman. At least not a woman he wasn’t blood related to, and the women he was related to weren’t vulnerable, overly sheltered enigmas.

  “What if Free wanders off?” Hilly asked, a slight tremor in her voice.

  “We can see if we can fit her into the tent.”

  Hilly looked at the small space dubiously, but she didn’t voice any objections.

  He forced himself to smile as if this was the most casual, normal thing on the planet. He gestured to the tent flap. “Ladies first.”

  Again she looked dubiously at the tent, but this time she made a move for it. She unzipped the flap and crawled inside. Free sniffed at the opening and then followed Hilly in.

  Cam glanced around the clearing, then up at the starry sky before he followed. He was half tempted to sleep out here. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d slept under the stars instead of inside a tent.

  But it was a two-person tent. And he was an adult who could handle this task he’d taken on. The most important thing was keeping Hilly safe while they tried to figure out what had happened to her father and who burned down her cabin and why.

  Some uncomfortable interpersonal awkwardness was hardly important in the face of a mission.

  With great force of will, he crouched down and crawled into the tent.

  Hilly was huddled in a corner, the weak battery-powered lantern making her half shadow, half woman. She stared with great concern at the two rolled-up sleeping bags he’d tossed inside earlier. Free had happily stretched herself out across the middle of the tent floor, making the space look even smaller.

  Hilly cleared her throat as Cam focused on zipping the flap closed.

  “I wasn’t sure how to...position the sleeping bags,” she offered.

  Cam turned. “Free’s not giving us much space.”

  But Hilly didn’t smile or chuckle. She just kept looking very, very concerned.

  Which was understandable, he had to remind himself. He was mostly a stranger to her, and she had a lot to worry about. He couldn’t take away her concern or nerves, but maybe by acting like he didn’t have any he’d be able to put her at some ease.

  He grabbed the first sleeping bag and rolled it out on one side of Free. Then rolled out the other in the space next to the door. It’d be tight, but he’d nudge the dog over if he had to.

  Hilly moved slowly and with some trepidation, but she wiggled herself down into the bag, facing him. Her dark, worried gaze forced him to act as though everything was normal.

  He unclasped the gun holster from his pants, then carefully set both in the corner of the tent closest to his head. He could feel Hilly’s eyes on him while he did it, but she didn’t say anything. So, he slid into the bag himself, then when Hilly held up the lantern with a raised eyebrow, he nodded. She switched it off, and everything went black.

  He could smell the plastic of the tent, the pungent scent of dog, a wisp of that fresh, clean night air that had come in with them.

  And he could smell her. Shampoo, he supposed. Something fruity that had come from his sister’s bathroom and was now lodged in her hair. Her skin.

  He stared hard at the night, making out the lines of the tent as his eyes adjusted to the dark. He listened and the tent filled with noises of dog breathing, human breathing, the slide of sleeping bag against tent floor as Hilly fidgeted.

  He didn’t. He lay perfectly still, fighting the whispers in the dark. The memories. The guilt that had made him afraid to sleep those first few months home.

  But he’d settled into home, into civilian life. It was just being out here, having a mission, so to speak, that reminded him of his old life, and his old life had all sorts of sharp wounds that hadn’t so much healed as scarred over.

  “Cam?”

  He breathed out, focusing on her voice. Hilly had nothing to do with his military life or his failures. There was some comfort in that.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you really think this group is just going to believe our story? We’re going to waltz in and they’re going to...let us?”

  “No.”

  He heard her move, like she’d shot straight up into a sitting position. “What?” she demanded with a bit of a screech.

  “They’re isolated and wary of outsiders. They’re on government watch lists. No, they’re not going to trust us right off the bat. I’m sure there will be some kind of test or something.”

  “Test?” she said with increasing alarm.

  “We don’t need to worry about that.”

  “A dangerous, isolated group giving us tests. Sure. No worries here,” she grumbled.

  Cam smiled into the dark. “They’re going to be suspicious of our motives, but we don’t have to worry because they’re going to assume we’re FBI or ATF or some kind of government organization. They’re not going to be looking for civilians on the hunt for a missing man. Whatever tests we get, we’ll pass. We’re not who they’re protecting themselves against.”

  “If my dad is there, won’t they suspect someone is looking for him?”

  “It’s a long shot.”

  “But it’s possible.”

  “Anything’s possible, Hilly. We have to play the odds.”

  She made a sound, something like a huff.

  “Get some sleep. We’ve still got a ways to hike tomorrow.”

  Cam settled into the dark and quiet. Let himself get used to the shuffle of brush in the wind. He yawned as Free made a quiet huffing noise. His body relaxed, his eyes closed...

  The faint crack of a twig jerked him fully awake from his almost doze. He might have convinced himself he was half dreaming if a growl hadn’t started low in Free’s throat. He could feel the rumble of that growl pressed up next to him.

  “Easy,” he whispered to the dog, straining to listen to what might be outside the tent. It could be anything. The wind. An animal. Human.

  “Cam,” Hilly whispered. “I heard—”

  He reached across the dog between them and found her arm and gave it a squeeze signaling her to be quiet.

  The most likely explanation was an animal, but the hairs on the back of his neck were raised and something lodged deep in his gut pinged with an intuition he’d learned to trust in similar situations.

  Some small part of his brain reminded him he wasn’t deployed anymore. This wasn’t war. But something about that noise didn’t sit right.

  He reached for the gun and carefully and quietly slid it out of its holster. “Stay,” he commanded in a whisper, both to Hilly and the dog.

  She didn’t argue, though he suspected she wanted to. Keeping his breathing steady, he pulled the zipper of the door down, millimeter by millimeter, trying to minimize the amount of noise he made.

  Once he unzipped the flap enough to slide out, he paused, listening intently to the world around them.

  Hilly was silent. She might even be holding her breath, and Free seemed to sense the situation enough to stay still, as well.

  Cam slid out into the darkness. The moon and stars shone bright enough to give the world around him something of a glow, but it was still dark. He listened carefully, trying to discern the difference between scurrying animals or the wind, and something that might be human.

  He stood and listened and listened and listened. Nothing moved. Nothing seemed out of place. Even that gut feeling eased. Still, he waited. When he got to the edge of his patience, he forced himself to wait more. To a
nalyze every swish, thwack and creak.

  But in the end, there was nothing. If someone had been out there, they were gone. It was nearly worse than an assault, just the potential someone was out there. Watching them. Following them. Knowing things Cam didn’t know.

  Frustrated but satisfied they were once again alone, he crept back into the tent. “Nothing,” he muttered to Hilly.

  “Are you sure?”

  Cam sighed. “No. Which is why I’m going to stay up. You go to sleep.”

  “How could I possibly sleep?”

  “By trying. I’ll listen and watch out while you catch a few hours, and then we’ll switch.” He didn’t have plans to actually switch, but he knew he’d get less argument from her if he claimed he was going to. Maybe it had been a while, but he was used to long days and sleepless nights. It was more important for Hilly to get rest.

  “Cam.”

  “It was probably nothing. This is all a precaution.” Of course, he didn’t believe that either. But what was more important? Hilly trusting him or Hilly relaxing enough to catch a few hours of sleep?

  “Yeah, right,” she muttered, but she scooted down in the sleeping bag. She tossed and turned for a few minutes. But when she stilled, she spoke instead of slept.

  “I know you’re trying to protect me, or something like that. I think that’s what my father was trying to do, too. I don’t know why he went missing, or how exactly he was involved with this group, but I think he knew that whatever connection he had to them put me in danger. But look what happened to him. He’s missing and probably hurt. I don’t need to be protected. Protecting me left me in danger and in the dark, and I won’t let anyone do that to me again.”

  Hilly could have no idea the way those words pierced him, and uncovered every insecurity he had about where he’d gone wrong with Aaron—thinking he had it handled, thinking if he was vigilant and careful, Aaron would be okay. But he hadn’t been.

  Cam focused on his breathing as the emotional pain swept through, searing and total.

  When he trusted his voice, he spoke the truth. “I’ll wake you up in three hours.”

  * * *

  HILLY HADN’T THOUGHT she’d sleep. She was too worried, too afraid and too frustrated with how little she understood about everything. But the next thing she knew she was being nudged awake, Cam’s low voice in her ear.

  “Your turn, if you want to take it.”

  She struggled to push away the fog of sleep and concentrate on the here and now.

  Well, not too much of the here because Cam was crouched over her in the dark, and there was something altogether unalarming about the large shadow looming above her. Because Cam didn’t scare her, even though she knew he should.

  But he’d kept his promise. It was still dark and he was waking her up to take her turn as watch. That meant something.

  She rubbed her hands over her face in an effort to wipe away all the sleep cobwebs that were clouding her focus. She sat up and Free whimpered. “I think Free needs to go out.”

  “I’ll go with you. We don’t want to be wandering off alone, even with Free.”

  She considered arguing. After all she’d lived in her little cabin in the woods for days at a time all by herself. She could handle taking Free outside.

  Except back then she’d had a cabin as shelter and a belief she was safe. She did not feel safe here. She felt targeted, and the only reason it didn’t steal over her like panic was because of Cam. Somehow, this strange man was her anchor in chaos.

  He unzipped the flap and stepped into the cold night. Hilly shivered against it, though she’d never taken off her coat. It was amazing how much warmth had packed into the tent, and how frigid the air felt out here.

  “Do your business, Free,” she urged.

  The dog ambled off, sniffing the ground as she went, and she and Cam followed—her holding the camping lantern and Cam holding a more high-powered flashlight.

  “Why didn’t you use the flashlight earlier?” she asked, as he swept the bright beam over the ground, rocks, trees. She kept an eye on Free’s shadow.

  “If someone was out here, I didn’t want them to have a clear glimpse of me. They had too much of an advantage in their position for it to work out well for me.”

  She wished that if gave her more comfort, but it didn’t. She knew what she’d heard. A snap, and while it could have been animal in nature, that would have been one big animal.

  Cam kept moving his beam of light around the clearing, and Hilly followed him even as she kept an eye on Free. Truth be told, she didn’t want to be more than arm’s reach away from Cam until morning.

  “Footprint,” Cam said, somewhat disgustedly, his flashlight pointing to a spot between two rocks.

  “Dad’s?” she asked hopefully.

  “I don’t think so. It’s not a clear print—someone tried to hide it. But you can get an idea of the outline.” He nodded her toward the beam of light, so she took a few steps closer.

  Smooshed in between two rocks was a small oval of mud. She peered down at the mark, seeing maybe a disturbance in the ground, but not really an outline. She glanced up at Cam. She could only make out his profile in the glow of the flashlight. He wasn’t saying it, but she could tell he didn’t like this simply from the tenseness in his jaw.

  Hilly looked out into the inky dark, trying not to panic at the idea that someone was out there lurking and hiding their footprints.

  Cam patted his leg quietly. “Come on, Free,” he said on a near whisper as his hand closed over her arm. He pulled her back to the tent, nudging Hilly and then Free inside before he followed.

  “What would someone have been doing just walking around out there?” Hilly asked, rubbing her hands over her arms and trying to feel warm again. Steady.

  “Likely just determining who we are,” Cam said flatly. “How many. Maybe trying to get an idea of our purpose. Information gathering.”

  “But who is information gathering on us?”

  “Don’t know,” Cam said, turning off his flashlight.

  “I don’t like that answer.”

  He chuckled a little bit as he fit his large body into his sleeping bag. She sat cross-legged on hers, keeping the lantern switched on.

  “Like it or not,” he said in between a yawn, “it’s the truth. It could be anyone.”

  Anyone. What an awful, awful thought.

  He tossed his phone to her. “I set the timer. When it goes off, just hit the stop button that pops up. Then we’ll pack up and get hiking.” He settled into his sleeping bag. “Any suspicious sounds and you wake me up. You need to talk? Wake me up. Free needs out or—”

  “I get it. If there’s a problem, wake you up.”

  He shifted back and forth in the sleeping bag, and she shouldn’t watch him. There was something private about a man settling into a tiny, lifeless camping pillow and closing his eyes. Private or not, Hilly was captivated.

  He was a big man, and the quick sleep he’d fallen into and the heavy sleeping bag encasing his large body did nothing to lessen the impact of that. He dwarfed Free and made Hilly feel small when usually she was the tallest person in the room.

  She turned off the light and closed her eyes. Hardly the point of her life right now. The point was she was supposed to be listening for anything suspicious. Gritty-eyed and with a nervy exhaustion dogging her, Hilly played every mental game she could think of, but her mind kept wandering to where her father was.

  Was he okay? Was he even alive?

  She swallowed against the wave of fear. He’d be the first to chastise her to be practical. To think of the here and now. You couldn’t change the past. You could only work toward the future.

  Her future would include solving this mystery. One way or another.

  So she told herself, over and over again, in an endless cycle of worry, panic, then reas
surance leading to determination.

  She wasn’t certain how much time had passed when Cam started to move. Not get up or out of his sleeping bag, but a tossing and turning she wouldn’t have expected from him. He was usually so still.

  When his moving became something more like thrashing, Hilly’s heart stuttered a beat. He mumbled something, and though she couldn’t make out the words she could feel the distress waving off of him.

  Frozen between letting him work through it on his own, and this awful, compelling need to make it stop for him, the thrashing got worse, the murmurs turning more desperate. To the point she couldn’t take it.

  Free whimpered, nudging Cam’s form under the sleeping bag with her nose, so Hilly moved next to her, doing the same—only with her hand instead of her nose. She nudged his arm.

  “Cam,” she whispered, not sure what awaited her when he woke up, but determining to be brave enough to handle it. “Cam,” she said louder.

  His eyes flew open, and his entire body went on alert as if ready for an attack. He looked around without moving, though his muscles were tense and ready to strike. She could see him come back to himself, understand where he was, slowly let the muscles relax.

  “You were having a bad dream.”

  “Is that what that was?” he replied blandly.

  She read the warning tone in his voice. She knew enough about those. Her father had plenty of places she wasn’t allowed to go. It would only take that cool, flat voice to make her retreat.

  And look where she’d ended up. Homeless and alone. She’d be utterly helpless and powerless without Cam’s help. She wouldn’t let anyone, even Cam, put her back in a place where she didn’t know the puzzle pieces of her own life.

  Right now, like it or not on either of their sides, Cam was a piece of her life. So, she’d push. Ask. Demand answers. It didn’t have to be fair or right, since he was a stranger. She needed more than a stranger or even more than a protector on her side. She needed an equal.

  “Is it because of what you told me about the man in your unit?”

  There was silence, not even the sound of a breath taken or exhaled. He didn’t move a muscle, so neither did she.