The Lonesome Lawmen Trilogy

by Pauline Baird Jones

  “Bryn,” his voice was as breathless as hers, but edged with tender. “She’s…” he stopped. “Do you hear something?”

  Amelia stopped. “Choppers?” In the distance. Still, anxiety spiked in her gut. She started forward again.

  “No, something closer. Like water running. I wonder if there’s a stream nearby. Could use a drink…”

  A stream? Her brain sent the warning one step too late. Her weight shifted to her front foot. The snow under her gave way with a rush that pulled her forward in a dark void. The fall was short, the landing wet and icy cold.

  * * * *

  Luke was glad to see his brothers running to meet him. With them sharing the burden, they made good time out of the bunker. They emerged to a scene far different from the one they’d left.

  Bryn had half the men and prisoners evacuated. Matt and Jake loaded Grady on a departing chopper and then rejoined Luke. Bryn looked unusually grim, even for her, before Luke gave her the rest of the bad news.

  “Did you believe him?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I did. I think they got away. They could be anywhere out there, and the whole mountain is about to go up.” Luke rubbed his face. Exhaustion dragged at him, at his thoughts.

  “It gets worse,” Bryn said. “Did some checking to make sure there were no other dwellings in the area. Guess what’s just above us, just waiting for a loud noise to set it off?”

  Luke looked around. He’d skied enough to recognize a potential avalanche situation. “Damn, if it weren’t for bad luck, we’d be out of luck.” He looked at his watch. They had ten minutes, maybe less, to find them and clear the area before it blew. “We gotta get in the air.”

  Bryn nodded. “We commandeered Grady’s choppers. One’s coming in now. We can take it up.” She looked at Matt and Jake. “You get yourselves out on the next one.”

  Matt gave her a crooked grin. “We’ll look, too, in the next chopper. Get going and…good hunting.”

  Jake slapped him on the back. “I’ll see you all at the staging area. Don’t get lost. Mom’ll have our heads.”

  Luke grabbed Bryn’s arm and ran with her to the chopper. He helped her in the front, then climbed in the rear. As they rose into the sky, he tapped the driver on the shoulder. “I need to broadcast!”

  Pilot nodded and handed him the mike, switching it to the outside speakers.

  “Go this direction,” Bryn shouted. She looked back at Luke. “I remember seeing two guys walking this way. They came out the back door and then I didn’t see them anymore. It was right after the shot. Could have been them.”

  “Go!” Luke shouted. He cleared his throat, then said into the mike, “Amelia, Dewey. It’s all right. We’ve got the area secured, but we need to find you ASAP. Move into a clearing ASAP. If you can, signal us.” His voice boomed outside, amplified by the delivery system and the mountains. He repeated the message, using night vision goggles to search the horizon for a sign, any kind of sign.

  * * * *

  “You need to leave me,” Amelia managed between the shudders shaking her body. “Hypothermia. In this temperature, I won’t make it.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” Dewey muttered. He’d managed to pull her out of the stream without getting too wet himself. The stream was shallow, but bitterly cold. Amelia would have been all right if she hadn’t landed on her belly. Her clothes had provided some protection, but not enough. The water hadn’t soaked clear through everywhere, but it had in enough spots to lower her core body temperature dangerously. “We need to move—”

  Amelia shook her head. “Exhaustion…will finish it.” In the penlight, her lips were already turning blue. “Need heat.”

  Another shudder shook her. He could almost see it drain her scarce energy reserves. “What do I do?” She didn’t answer. He flashed her face with the light. Her eyes were closed. He shook her. “What do I do?”

  He could see her struggle to remain conscious. “Most…popular… cure…get naked…”

  Her smile was faint, but still impish, fading quickly in another bout of shivering.

  “What if we burrowed in the snow?” He had to shake her and repeat the questions again.

  “Tell Luke…sorry,” she murmured.

  “No!” He shook her. “You’re not pooping out on me now.”

  “Chopper…coming…don’t let…get me…”

  Now Dewey heard it, too. He turned and started digging frantically at a bank of snow. “We’ll hide. They won’t get you—”

  He stopped as Luke’s voice boomed into the forest night and jumped to his feet.

  “Here! We’re here!” He turned in frustration. No matches. Wet wood all around. How could he signal?

  “Grenade…” Amelia gasped.

  “Of course. Stupid of me. Sorry.” He grinned. Hope had taken a little of the edge off pale in her face. He could see her struggle to remain conscious as he tugged at the utility belt she was still wearing. He got a grenade, but hesitated.

  “Never done this before,” he admitted.

  “Just…remember…to…throw…” Her attempted smile was a grimace. She turned her head away from him. “So…cold…”

  Dewey pulled the pin and tossed it.

  * * * *

  They were heading away from the camp in a straight line when he heard the blast. The forest ahead of them flared then faded, leaving a trail of smoke behind.

  “There!” he shouted.

  “I see it!” Bryn cried. The pilot adjusted course. The forest they swept over was mostly dense. No clearings to land in. Five minutes. Maybe less.

  The chopper hovered just above the tree line as it raced the clock. The smoke from the blast was blown away by the rotation of the chopper blades. He and Bryn searched the ground as the chopper circled the point of the blast.

  “There!” Bryn cried. Luke followed her pointing finger. The search light did, too, picking up one figure waving madly in a small clearing. Next to him, another figure sat or lay next to a half buried tree stump.

  “We can’t land there,” the pilot shouted. “We’ll have to use the ladder.”

  The chopper stopped over the figure, the searchlight a golden circle around him blowing the snow up from the ground in a curling wave. It was Dewey. Amelia, it must be Amelia, didn’t move. Luke grabbed the ladder and dropped it down.

  “Hurry!”

  Dewey, he could see him now, cupped his hands and shouted, “She can’t climb! Hurt!”

  Without stopping to think, Luke started down the ladder, jumping into the snow when he was close enough. “Get up the ladder,” he ordered Dewey. “Mountain’s going to blow!”

  His reaction was short and succinct.

  Luke didn’t stop to see if he’d do as he was told. In a heartbeat he was kneeling next to Amelia. Her eyes opened. In between shudders, she said, “So…sorry…tried…”

  “Don’t give up on me now, sweetheart.” He gathered her up, slinging her over his shoulder and ran for the ladder. Dewey was almost up. Bryn reaching out to grab him inside.

  Luke grabbed the ladder. He thought she was out, but she struggled. “Let me—”

  He turned her, so she was holding the ladder, but also held her between him and the ladder. Each step seemed agonizingly slow. Over head, Bryn leaned out and pointed at her watch.

  “Hold on,” he said, hooking his arms around the ropes and locking his hands together. “Go!” he shouted.

  The engine roared as they rose. As soon as they cleared the trees, the wind hit them like a wall, trying to tear them off. He pressed close, hoping to give her some of his body heat to hold her until they could reach help.

  The rope ladder danced in the air currents, almost shaking them free in its demented game of crack the whip. He thought he heard her cry out, but the roar of the engine was all around them as the pilot bee lined for safety.

  He probably shouldn’t have looked down, but he couldn’t help himself. It had to be down to seconds before it blew—

  It was. Luke had th
e best view in the valley. The earth erupted upwards, forever it seemed like, not just once, but over and over as the munitions Grady had stockpiled detonated sympathetically. Armament was still going off like a geyser when the avalanche started. The snow pack peeled away from the cliffs, slowly at first, but gravity had its way and the snow mass quickly picked up speed. The roar of it joined the roar of the chopper and the detonations until it seemed like the whole world had lost it. Snow, out of control and packing the punch of a freight train, roared toward the explosions, engulfing it in a white embrace.

  One explosion sent a turbulent current of air and the chopper danced in response. Luke felt his hands start to slip. The pressure on his arms was almost unbearable. Amelia was a dead weight now as the wind sucked energy and heat from her body. If it had just been his life, he might have let the force of it tear him from his perch, but it wasn’t. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t lose her. Even if she was never his, he needed to know that she was somewhere in the world.

  Caught in a wind tunnel, Amelia strained to stay conscious, strained to hold on. Luke’s arm encircled her, his body trapped her against the unyielding rungs of the ladder. It hurt, but she didn’t care. It meant she was still alive. If she could hang on a little longer, maybe she could tell Luke she loved him. Didn’t matter if he loved her. Didn’t matter if he didn’t want her or her love. She could live with that, but she couldn’t die without telling him.

  Through a haze of pain and cold, she watched the dust and snow settle into a new pattern. She knew just how it felt.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The evacuation area looked like a kicked up ant hill with all the figures swarming over it. As they drew closer, Amelia was vaguely aware of some method in the madness. On one end, a row of men were on their knees, their hands clasping the backs of their heads, with armed-to-the-teeth federal agents watching them. At the other end, ambulances dealt with the wounded. The press had found them. She could see them being briefed in an area that looked like a disco because of all the lights. There seemed to be a steady flow of people between the various groups. One end of the road was clogged with a variety of vehicles. The choppers used in the evacuation had settled along the other end of the road like dragon flies waiting some secret signal to take to the skies. It was toward this area that their chopper swooped.

  The ladder touched down before the chopper. Amelia’s legs wouldn’t work, so Luke swept her up in his arms. Her view had narrowed to his face above her and the jolt of each step he took.

  As the world closed in on her, she could feel the different eddies, the varying currents of movement around her. One was taking her down and down into a sea of unconsciousness. As she sank into it, she also sank inside herself like a log in quicksand. Prudence, and her tightly constricted life, closed over Amelia with the suffocating insistence of long established habit.

  She fought it, fearing she would lose Amelia in the dark, the way she’d lost Prudence. If she lost Amelia, she lost Luke or at least the memory of him. She tried to reach out to him as he walked beside the stretcher, but her arms no longer responded to her commands. She could hear him telling the EMT she had hypothermia, hear them reassuring him that they had something called a Hot-Sack and Res-Q-Air. Just before the current closed over her head, she felt Luke take her hand and bend and kiss her cheek.

  “Don’t give up, Amelia,” he whispered.

  I’ll try, she thought, just before her world went dark.

  Luke stood out of the EMT’s way as they fitted the Res-Q-Air over her face and started warm, humidified air circulating into her lungs. It was important they warmed her core temperature, he knew from the times he’d helped out in a search and rescue. Her chances of survival were good if they could get her warm from the inside out. Next they stripped off her wet outer clothes and got her wrapped in blankets, then started a warm IV, temperature controlled by a Hot-Sack.

  In a few minutes, the EMT pronounced her ready for transport and he had to watch as a chopper once again carried her away from him.

  He turned away to look for his brothers and almost tripped over the stretcher that held Grady. He looked terrible. His face was gray, his eyes were sunk back in his head and surrounded by brown, bruised skin. Bubbles of air mixed with the blood oozing out of his mouth. He was dying. He could see it in his eyes and feel it in the air around him. Despite the dullness of his eyes, Luke could see intelligence, even a hint of charm in them as they returned his gaze. He had a sudden vision of what he could have been. He didn’t know what drove Grady, but it had abandoned him now.

  His lashes fluttered up. “Did… she…make…it?” he asked, more bubbles of bloody air emerging with the words.

  Luke nodded. There was only one question he really wanted to know. He crouched down next to him. “Why did you go after Shield now?” he asked. “Why didn’t you wait until the research was complete?”

  His eyes widened slightly. “Damn Les…said it…was done…” He gave a half laugh that came out a wheeze. “Glad…I…shot…bastard.”

  His voice faded, his lashes pulled down by an imperative stronger than his ability to resist. Luke had the odd feeling that he might have liked him—if everything in Grady’s life had been different. He’d been in law enforcement a long time and it still puzzled him why people made the choices they did. He hunched his shoulders against the cold and turned to find his brothers. At least them he understood.

  * * * *

  Bryn stood in the midst of the chaos, directing the traffic, in between giving the SAC a report on everything that had happened. It seemed to take forever. And it felt so unimportant. It was over. Wasn’t that enough? Okay, so half a mountain got blown up. It wasn’t her fault. At least no one died in the explosion. Any comparison to Waco would be weak.

  Grady was out of business. Order would soon be restored.

  The SAC turned away to answer a question from another agent, and Bryn used his distraction to fade into the crowd, her gaze scanning for Dewey. She didn’t have to scan long. Dewey was behind her, cutting her from the mass as neatly as cowboy separates a heifer from the herd. The touch of his hands on her waist, even through her bulky coat, turned her legs to rubber. Tough agent faded into pliant woman, though she tried not to let it show on the outside until they reached the relative cover of some vehicles.

  She turned to face him, her arms sliding around his neck. She didn’t care who saw her now. He was alive. She patted the parts of him she could reach, just to be sure.

  “You going to kick my ass for losing the glasses?” he asked, rubbing his forehead against hers.

  He smelled like outdoors and pine trees and himself. Heaven.

  “I did think about it,” she admitted, as he unzipped her coat and slipped his arms inside. “But I came up with something better to do with your ass.”

  She smiled at him, figuring now they’d kiss, but he held back, his gaze serious.

  “I love you,” he said, his voice breaking slightly. “I…love you.”

  He’d said it. She’d said it back, but she hadn’t, she realized, completely surrendered to the situation. She’d held something back. Maybe she’d been afraid to trust him. Or maybe she was afraid of the power it gave him over her. In her world, power wasn’t something you gave up easily. And you were always careful who held it. And now here she was, the thief and the lady agent. It made no sense at all. And it made perfect sense. She knew what he wanted to know. She eased back in his hold, so that he could see her eyes.

  “I love you, too,” she said. There was more that she didn’t say. She hoped he knew it was implied and as binding as the vows they’d taken before the JP. Things like, I’m there for you, with you for always, no matter. I trust you. With me. With your choices. We’re partners now in every way.

  She knew he knew what she meant by the way he sighed. His body shuddered with the relief of that sigh. He sagged into her, his face against her neck, his breath warm against her skin. Bryn stroked his hair as one tear tracked slowly down her cheek.
>
  Dewey Hyatt, aka Phagan, had finally come home. And so had she.

  * * * *

  Luke had the chopper he hitched a ride on drop him at his truck, still stuck in the snow outside the cabin. Jake and Matt helped him dig out and get it running, but took the chopper back. Their wives were waiting. Luke didn’t mind. Once again he was glad to be alone with his thoughts. Before leaving, he loaded the supplies that Amelia—he should call her Prudence but he didn’t know Prudence, only Amelia—had before their flight such a short time ago.

  Three days? Was it only three days? He wasn’t sure. Didn’t even know what day of the week it was anymore. Knew it wasn’t much more than that since he’d driven up here to find his closure. Looked like he’d taken the big fall instead. Standing in the doorway remembering how Amelia had looked in her skis—so scared of what she couldn’t remember, but willing to take it on—he faced the facts. He was in love. He had it bad.

  How could he not? She packed a double whammy. That cool, little smile she’d part with like she was doing you a favor and that looked like it wouldn’t be warm and never would be. But when contact was made? Beneath that cool was a lot of warm. He rubbed his hot face as his memory reproduced, with every nuance, the kiss under the tree. His nose missed the scent of a woman. His arms missed holding one in the night while he slept. He missed the intimate exchange of glances in a crowd and in the bathroom. He sighed. And he missed the sex. He was only human. God was right. Men weren’t made to be alone.

  Dr. Laura—who his mom listened to religiously and passed her wisdom on to her sons—would say they hadn’t known each other long enough, that they didn’t know the important things about each other, but he wasn’t so sure. In the furnace of danger, he’d learned that she had courage. That she didn’t quit. That she had a sense of humor.

  That she never forgot.

  And she could kick some serious butt.

  He grinned. She’d fit in well with his sisters-in-law.

  If she wanted to.

  His grin faded. What happened when she got her memory back and her world expanded from him to everyone she’d known before? How could a girl like her not have someone in her past? What would she be like then? What would she want? Would there be some place for him? And if there wasn’t, what then? He’d deal with it. It’s not like he could choose not to deal with life. Okay, it was going to hurt, maybe as bad as losing Rosemary, but he wasn’t sorry he’d met her. He’d never be sorry he met her.