Wyoming Cowboy Marine

by Nicole Helm

  That was her primary goal. All others were secondary, no matter how often her mind drifted to Cam and if he was all right. Cam could take care of himself. He’d been a Marine. Surely that meant he could hold his own.

  The vehicle slowed and Hilly held her breath. They’d been in the car maybe ten minutes. Could they really be this close?

  She craned her neck, trying to get a glimpse of where they were headed instead of where they’d been. The man with the gun didn’t seem to care, so she kept looking, kept noting things like the cluster of trees, the abnormally shaped boulder. Anything that would help her find this place again if she escaped.

  When the vehicle pulled through that cluster of trees, she nearly gasped. There were tents and lean-tos like at the decoy camp, but at least twenty of the weird square tents, and two giant lean-tos, along with a third building that reminded her of her cabin, though bigger.

  The vehicle stopped in front of it and the driver hopped out. He grabbed her, pulling her over the side, while the man with the gun followed—always pointing that awful thing right at her.

  The driver pushed her forward so harshly she nearly fell, but he grabbed her before she did, yanking her back up and sending a shooting pain through the joints of her shoulder at the odd angle of her arms. She cried out at the shock of it.

  “Shut up,” the man hissed in her ear.

  He kept nudging her toward the door of the cabin, though he was gentler now. She got the impression he wanted to hurt her, but was holding himself back.

  But why?

  The man knocked on the door, and she filed away in her brain the way he did it. Two short raps, then a loud bang with the flat of his hand. After a pause, he did it again, and she wished she’d thought to count the seconds of the pause. But it was more important to remember the things that mattered rather than beat herself up over the things she couldn’t keep track of.

  The door creaked open. Inside was dark, despite the light of day outside, and Hilly’s body rejected the possibility of going into this shadowy, dank, dungeon-like abyss. She tried to step backward, lean or twist away, anything but be forced inside.

  But there were two big men behind her, and eventually they maneuvered her into the darkness.

  This was the most panicked she’d felt the whole time. Being tied up, being taken somewhere against her will wasn’t a picnic, but the darkness had panic crawling through her veins, terror roiling through her stomach.

  “Please,” she gasped through breaths that were harder and harder to take.

  When a light flicked on, she flinched against the sudden brightness. One of the men holding her arm chuckled, then they were pulling her forward, and she forced her eyes open, forced herself to observe, to watch.

  It was one big room inside the cabin, set up like an old-fashioned church. She’d seen pictures of churches in different textbooks or articles. Pews lined the sides, an aisle in the middle, but it led to a long table, with three men seated on the other side.

  They’d said trial, and while the seating was church-like, she decided that was not what this was. It was a courtroom.

  “Will you please state your name?” one of the men said, holding a pen in one hand.

  She looked around wildly. But there were only the two men holding her, and the three men behind the desk asking her calm questions.

  “State your name, please,” the man repeated, his voice still calm but lined with steel.

  “L-Leigh. Leigh Tyler. My name is Leigh Tyler.”

  He wrote something down, conferred with the men on either side of him, then nodded. “We’ll ask one more time. State your real name.”

  “I just told y—”

  Almost simultaneously with the man’s sharp nod, she felt a sharp, punishing blow to the back of her knees. She fell to the ground on a yelp of surprise and pain, both from the blow and the way her knees hit the hard ground.

  “Are you ready to tell us your real name?”

  Hilly squeezed her eyes shut, focused on the cool of the dirt underneath her palms rather than the throbbing pain in her knees. She swallowed, breathed and then opened her eyes, looking straight at the man asking the questions.

  “My name is Leigh Tyler.”

  Again he nodded, and again she was hit with something hard and painful, this time against her back. She tried to bite back the cry, but it was too painful. Too much.

  “Another chance,” the man said, so calm and untouched by any of this.

  She struggled to breathe and she couldn’t decide what was worse: the pain or the truth. But if it were Cam in this situation, and it was very possible he was somewhere else in the same exact situation or a worse one, he would take the pain. He wouldn’t break, not if it put her at risk.

  She knew that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, so she braced for the next blow and repeated her fake name.

  She waited for the blow, but it never came. Eventually she opened her eyes, looking up at the men behind the table. Did they believe her now?

  But the man was smiling pleasantly, and Hilly didn’t think that boded well.

  “If pain won’t sway you, perhaps this will.” He made a gesture, and the man to his left got up and went to a door in the back of the cabin. He opened the door, and motioned someone inside.

  A small man, head bowed, shuffled in, someone behind him pushing him forward. His hands were tied behind his back much like hers, and she could tell despite his downward-cast face there were bruises across his cheek and neck.

  He was pushed forward, something harsh ordered at him and he finally looked up. When he locked eyes with Hilly she had to swallow a gasp, swallow the word that wanted to come out of her mouth.

  Dad. Dad. Oh, God, Dad.

  “Recognize each other?” the man behind the table asked, something like pleasure rippling through his voice.

  “N-no,” Hilly said firmly, hoping her father would back her up. She swallowed at the bile rising in her throat. She couldn’t let panic or terror win. “Are you going to do that to me?” she whispered, hoping it would make them think she was only scared of being the next—not because she recognized her father.

  Dad. Dad. He was bloody and bruised, but he was alive. She wanted to cry, weep with relief, and she couldn’t let herself.

  She had to focus, and think, and somehow get them both out of here.

  “I told you,” Dad said, his voice sounding raspy and abused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I killed the girl like you told me to all those years ago. I don’t know who this is.”

  Killed the girl?

  “Our intelligence says otherwise, brother.”

  The way the man said brother made Hilly’s skin crawl, but she grabbed on to Dad’s story.

  “I don’t know who he is. I don’t know who you are. I just want to go back to my husband. Please.” She didn’t look at her father, hoped he had the good sense not to react to that.

  “Your husband,” the man said with a little chuckle. “Cameron Tyler.”

  “Yes. Yes, please. He’s okay, isn’t he? Can I see him? Can’t you just let me go? Please. I’m only here because he wanted to join you guys.”

  The man made a considering noise, and when she dared look up at him, his gaze was on her father. She couldn’t risk looking at him, as well. She might fall apart, or he might.

  “Does the name Hillary Simmons ring any bells to you, young lady?”

  Ice settled low in her gut and spread up her spine, just like when Laurel had said the name Hillary—was that only two days ago? She kept her gaze steady, thinking about Cam and what he would do in this situation.

  Remain calm. Stay as close to the truth as she could. File it all away to use later. “It doesn’t. I told you, my name is Leigh Tyler. I just want to go back to my husband.”

  “Where did you meet your husband, Mrs. Tyler?” he asked pleasantly
enough, though he said Mrs. Tyler with the kind of sarcasm that made it clear he didn’t believe her.

  Stay close to the truth, just like we practiced. “The police station, believe it or not.”

  “And what were you doing at the police station?”

  Stay close to the truth. Remember the plan. It was her mantra now. Her center of calm. “He was reporting a crime. I was visiting a friend.” They’d agreed to stay close to the truth, without giving away she might have been reporting Dad missing. Flip their roles, be vague about the crime.

  “You have a friend at what police station exactly?”

  Her gaze sharpened on this man, who apparently thought she was stupid enough to give him more ammunition to use against her. “I’m not telling you that while you have me tied up and have no concern over physically attacking me. I won’t bring my friend or my hometown into whatever this is. You’re a madman.”

  The man’s smile spread. “Suit yourself.” Once again, he conferred with the man next to him, their whispers too low to make out any words.

  The other man, who hadn’t spoken at all, got to his feet and went over to the man holding Dad. He whispered something in his ear, and the man nodded. Then he walked over to the men behind her.

  Hilly shook, and she didn’t try to stop herself now. They’d expect her to be afraid, wouldn’t they? Why not let her actual fear show through when Leigh Tyler, stranger to all this, here only because her husband wanted to join the Protectors, would definitely be horrifically afraid?

  He whispered something to the man who’d driven them here, and the driver nodded. He did the same to the man who’d continually trained the gun on her. Each man grabbed an arm and hauled her to her feet, then started dragging her toward the back door.

  Dad was already being led out by the man who’d brought him in. In complete silence, they were taken to a tiny building behind the first. It looked much like the cabin she’d just been in, but there were no windows.

  Greasy panic crawled through her and the “please, no” was out of her mouth before she could think to fight it back. “Don’t. Please.”

  But they tossed Dad inside, and then her. It was pitch-black, and she heard the sound of locks clicking in the doors. She was standing, hands tied behind her back, in a small, stuffy, black space.

  “No. No. No.” She didn’t think she could take this. For a blinding moment of panic she opened her mouth to yell out exactly who she was.

  “Shh,” Dad said quietly. “It’ll be okay.”

  She thought of Cam telling her that. Things were not okay.

  Except Dad was alive, and they were together.

  “Tell me, Mrs. Tyler, how’d you end up here?” he asked loudly, a clear hint she was supposed to keep pretending.

  She swallowed, tried to calm her breathing, her heart. Her legs ached and tears were spilling over, but she was alive and Dad was alive, and Cam was somewhere out there and it was possible he could save them if they couldn’t save themselves. It had to be possible.

  “My husband read about the Protectors. He wanted to join them. So, I came with him. We were going to join them.” She paused, taking another deep, calming breath and letting it out. “What’s your name?”

  There was a pause. “James Adams.”

  It was the name she’d always known her father to use. The name there was no matching record of. Hilly frowned, but she kept on. “How did you come to be here?” she asked, hoping that even in lies she could find some truths.

  “I’ve been a member of the Protectors since the seventies,” Dad said carefully. “But I haven’t lived at the compound since the eighties. It was too confining. I wanted my own space, but I still came back for meetings.”

  That could be a truth. Clearly the Protectors knew who Dad was, knew the name James Adams, so most of what he told her could be the truth. She had to hope in the truth she could find some potential for escape.

  “If you’re a member, why are they treating you this way?”

  “They think I’ve betrayed them.”

  “How?” she demanded, wincing at how desperate she sounded.

  “They seem to think... They think instead of killing an enemy’s daughter as they tasked me with years ago, as I accomplished years ago,” he said firmly. “They think I kept her and secretly raised her as my own instead.”

  Hilly didn’t breathe. There was a buzzing sound in her ears, a slow-blooming pain in her chest.

  Raised her as my own.

  Hillary Simmons. Hillary.

  Raised her as my own.

  “Breathe,” Dad whispered, something like regret laced in that very simple word.

  Still, she did as she was told. She sucked in air, let it raggedly out, and she swallowed down all the words scrambling for purchase, desperate to escape.

  I can’t be her. I can’t be.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The man was barking orders and demands at the women, but they kept placidly insisting they didn’t know what he was talking about. Like Hilly had never existed.

  Cam had the fleeting thought they’d helped her escape, and that was why they were lying to both Cam himself and the man angrily demanding answers.

  Except it didn’t make sense. Hilly wouldn’t leave him. Not without some kind of message.

  Cam stepped forward to make his own demands and threats, but suddenly thought better of it. They weren’t going to give him answers. He needed to find Hilly. Which meant he needed to ditch all these people.

  While the man and women were occupied in their argument, Cam slowly walked farther and farther away as he scanned the area. There weren’t footprints in the dusty floor of the lean-to; it had seemingly been swept—which of course was suspicious.

  But as he edged his way to the side of the lean-to, he did see footprints. His and the man’s from their going earlier, a few smaller prints he was pretty sure belonged to the women in the lean-to and ones that held his attention—paw prints.

  He followed them, not bothering to pay attention to the people arguing in the lean-to. Wherever they’d taken Hilly, they’d covered up the tracks, or simply not left any, but Free was another story.

  Had the dog run off after Hilly? Had she simply wandered before Hilly was taken? There were a myriad of what-ifs, but it was the best lead he had, so he followed it.

  He nearly lost the trail three times through rocks and brush before he came to a small grassy area. There were still Free’s tracks in places, but there were also vehicle tracks—new ones if he had to guess, since the wind hadn’t messed with the clear flattening of grass and brush. If Hilly had been taken, especially against her will, he had to believe it was in that vehicle.

  He glanced around the area, seeing no sign of anyone following him. Hoping he wasn’t outing himself, he let out a sharp whistle. He began to follow the vehicle tracks, whistling or saying “Free” into the wind as he went.

  He wasn’t sure how far he’d gone when he first spotted Free running toward him. Her fur was covered in mud, and she was panting. She barked once, trotting back the way she’d come and up to him with another bark.

  “Almost there, girl,” he murmured, trusting the dog to take him down the right path. Besides, between the dog and the tire tracks, all things pointed to Hilly having been taken this way.

  As long as the vehicle had driven over grassy or muddy areas, he’d be able to follow the tracks even if Free lost the scent—or whatever dog intuition she had to lead Cam where he needed to go. He took off after Free on a jog.

  He ran as fast as he could, having no idea how far away they would have taken Hilly, or how lost he was going to be. He didn’t have his pack or any supplies aside from the gun strapped to his waist.

  While he ran, he worked through the problem. It was possible the Protectors had purposefully separated them to question them and make sure they were who they said t
hey were. It was possible.

  But.

  The thing that bothered Cam on a deep, uneasy level was how the man had seemed so surprised, so outraged that Hilly was gone. Clearly he hadn’t been in on the plan, and he thought he should be.

  Nothing added up, but it didn’t have to. The most important thing right now was finding Hilly. Then they could try to figure out the math.

  The faint sound of an engine had Cam pausing, even as Free barked at him, as if urging him forward. “Stay,” he ordered the dog, straining to hear which way the sound was coming from.

  He looked around him, but there wasn’t much cover. A few rocks here and there, but he was mostly in open land. He swore, then moved toward the rocks. He did his best to position himself and Free between the rocks and the sound of that engine.

  The engine got closer and closer, and Cam kept his eyes on Free, whispering all the quiet commands he could think of.

  The engine cut, and Cam kept completely still. This wasn’t good. Wasn’t good at all. He shifted slightly, trying to reach for his weapon, but boots came into view.

  Keeping his hand at his side, slowly inching it back toward his holster, Cam looked up at the man who’d separated him from Hilly.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” the man demanded.

  “Where the hell do you think? To find my wife, who apparently doesn’t exist.” He kept his gaze on the man, all the while reaching for the weapon.

  The man scowled and looked around the clearing, then dark eyes turned back to him, snapping with frustration. “I want her real name.”

  Cam snorted. “If my wife had a fake name, I certainly wouldn’t give you her real one.”

  “I thought you wanted to be a Protector.”

  “I do.”

  “But you don’t trust me?”

  “No. I know what I read about the Protectors and what they stand for, but I don’t even know you’re one of them. All I know is I came back and suddenly everyone is pretending my wife doesn’t exist. You’ll have to pardon my skepticism at anything you or those women have to say. I’m not even sure I believe you are who you say you are.”