Daddy to the Rescue

by Susan Kearney

  At the sound of flesh striking flesh, Sara’s heart kicked into overdrive. Someone was out there.

  Someone had found them.

  From the thuds and grunts, she guessed that Kirk was fighting. For their lives. Adrenaline kicked in and her thoughts raced at megawatt speed.

  Crawling to Kirk’s pack, Sara clawed down into the recesses until her hands closed over the gun. She checked the clip and slipped off the safety, her heart battering her ribs in panic. She trusted Kirk’s ability to protect them, but he could have been jumped in the dark, outnumbered or taken by surprise. He could be injured.

  But surely he would have shouted if he wanted her help. Maybe he’d taken a blow to the throat and couldn’t yell? Or perhaps he didn’t want her to walk into danger. It would be just like the stubborn man to bravely lie there bleeding to death in the snow, refusing to put her in jeopardy.

  If she’d thought she could save their daughter by letting Kirk sacrifice himself, she might do so. But staying hidden in the snow hut, hoping their pursuer wouldn’t find her, wasn’t an option. The scent of their campfire could be smelled for miles—had probably led the man right to their front door.

  She had to hurry. Decide what to do.

  Kirk could even now be lying outside, unconscious.

  Sara glanced at her sleeping child. Oh God. Should she leave her? While Pepper wouldn’t allow the baby to crawl too close to the fire, if Sara and Kirk didn’t return, the baby wouldn’t survive. No one would find her. No one would even know where to look.

  But without Kirk, neither Sara nor Abby might survive the hour. And perhaps with Kirk fighting and distracting his opponent, she could alter the outcome in their favor.

  The sound of a guttural curse made up her mind for her.

  After one last look at her sleeping baby, Sara crawled out the entrance. It took several moments for her eyes to adjust to the darkness outside. In those seconds the icy wind chilled her from her nose to her toes. Her body immediately began to shiver and shake, although the trembling might have been her reaction to spiking fear.

  Sara pulled the gun up inside her sleeve to protect her hand from the bitter cold. If her fingers went numb from the icy metal gun, she wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger. Perhaps she should have worn gloves, but she didn’t feel comfortable handling the weapon through bulky material.

  Where was Kirk?

  When she’d been inside the snow hut, they’d sounded close by, but now she saw no sign of men fighting. Just the black, black sky concealing the towering trees amid the gray-black snow. With the wind howling at her, she couldn’t hear anything beyond the frantic roar of fear in her ears.

  Turning her back to the wind gained her a respite from the bitter cold and allowed her to recognize several man-size grunts. Hefting the gun, she plodded through deep snow, uphill, in the direction from which the sounds had come. While the adrenaline urged her to run, she’d do Kirk no good if she rushed in blindly and got taken as a hostage.

  There.

  She saw a flash of movement. Dark silhouettes rolling across the ground.

  Two men, their hands clasping one another’s throats in death grips, the bodies rolling and tumbling so she couldn’t tell Kirk from his foe.

  Of similar height and weight, the men seemed evenly matched, first one of them gaining the advantage and rolling on top, then the other. She kept her distance, waiting for the right moment, fearful of making a mistake and shooting the wrong man.

  She thought of calling out, asking Kirk to identify himself, but she didn’t dare distract him. The men used knee strikes to the gut, and rammed elbows into one another’s faces and necks, tumbling down the mountain and knocking into trees, boulders and snowbanks.

  Sara followed, coming a little closer, careful not to get caught in their fray. For a moment, she thought she recognized Kirk, but then the men rolled again and she lost track of who was who.

  Frustrated, she considered shooting straight up and ordering them to stop fighting. But suppose they didn’t listen?

  She had the gun. She ought to be able to do something. But what?

  Striking someone on the head could be a bad move, since she couldn’t tell Kirk from his attacker. Frustrated that she could think of nothing to help, she edged closer.

  The men tumbled, punched and kicked, their thick clothing protecting them from all but the heaviest blows. Their breathing labored, yet strong, the men fought in eerie silence, both of them apparently still unaware of her presence.

  She had to end this fight. Separate them somehow.

  Pepper would have known immediately which man was which. Even if blinded, the dog could have picked out Kirk by smell. While Sara couldn’t depend on scent, she knew his body as well as she knew her own. She’d been married to the man for over seven years. And she knew the graceful way he moved, never jerky, always in balance—which didn’t help, since both men seemed to have the same skilled movements.

  The rolling men separated and, breathing heavily, slowly got to their feet. Facing one another, neither appeared to notice her. One of the men cursed loud, long and hard, and she knew that man was not Kirk Hardaker.

  She fired a shot into the air. And aimed the weapon at the stranger. “Don’t move or the next bullet—”

  The man lunged and dived down the mountain, somersaulting at a cockeyed angle. She hesitated. She’d fired a weapon before, but firing at a moving, living person was entirely different from shooting at a lifeless target.

  Still, that man could come back to kill her baby. Just as she squeezed the trigger, Kirk held up his hand. She heard him speak over the gun’s retort.

  “Wait! Don’t shoot him.”

  He’d spoken a second too late. She’d already fired.

  The man she’d shot stopped rolling, and nausea churned in her stomach. She’d killed him, taken a life, and she thought she might be sick.

  Kirk came up beside her and took the gun from her trembling fingers. “You okay?”

  “No. Is he…”

  “Stay here and I’ll check.”

  Her knees shook so badly that she slid onto her butt in the snow, drew her knees in to her chest and rested her cheeks on her knees. She didn’t want to look, didn’t want to face what she had done.

  “He’s dead, but you didn’t kill him.”

  “What?” She lifted her head and stared at Kirk, who had rolled the body to its back. Sara was glad of the dark that prevented her from looking at the man’s face.

  “You missed.”

  Kirk sounded so sure, and relief pumped through her. “Then, what killed him?”

  “He broke his neck.”

  He’d died, but not by her hand. A smidgen of warmth flowed back into her frozen flesh. She ceased rocking and shoved her hands into her pockets to warm her cold fingers.

  Kirk searched the body, no doubt checking for a wallet, but he found nothing to identify the man. “He’s a professional. There’s nothing on him to lead us to his boss—if he has one. But men like him don’t give the orders.”

  “How do you know?” Her gunshot might not have killed him directly, but if she hadn’t interfered, the man might still be alive for Kirk to ask his questions.

  “I’m just guessing, but the attempts to steal your work have been systematic and too thorough to be the work of just one man. Your house was burglarized, then the plane accident arranged. I’m assuming this man is not the pilot of your plane?” Kirk removed the man’s hat.

  She didn’t want to look, but shoved to her feet and forced herself to evaluate his features. The pilot had had swarthy skin and dark hair. This man was lightly tanned and had blond hair. “You’re right. They aren’t the same. Which means there isn’t just one person after me.”

  Kirk placed a comforting arm over her shoulder. “Let’s just hope that now we’re alone on this mountain.”

  Chapter Nine

  Sara and Kirk returned to the snow hut, where Pepper greeted Kirk with an enthusiastic woof and the swipe of her fri
endly tongue along the back of his hand. Abby still slept, looking relaxed and at peace. He wished he could say the same for Sara.

  The violence had drawn her deep into herself. After her initial assessment that his attacker was not her pilot, she hadn’t said a word. Not even after they’d crawled into their shelter.

  He melted snow in their pot and used the last of their instant coffee to make a steaming drink, then handed her the cup. “Drink this.”

  “Thanks.” She took several sips, then passed him the cup to share. Staring into the fire, she seemed lost in her thoughts. The fight and the man’s death had obviously upset her, but he knew she didn’t blame him for this incident. Sara was always fair. She’d known he’d been attacked and had had no choice. But he didn’t like reminding her of what he’d once been, didn’t want her thinking that he couldn’t change what he was.

  She stirred the fire with a stick. “That man fought like you did.”

  “What do you mean?” He gazed into her eyes, thinking her observation odd but glad that she was willing to talk to him. Instead of shutting him out and making him prod her thoughts from her, she was sharing, voluntarily.

  “He used the same movements you used. Almost as if he’d had the same training.”

  Kirk thought back to the fight, assessing the punches and counter-punches. He’d immediately recognized his opponent’s skills in hand-to-hand combat, but in the heat of battle he hadn’t analyzed the man’s attack. He hadn’t used martial arts. Nor had he fought like a street fighter. “You think he was military?”

  “Maybe he learned to fight in the same place you did. When I was trying to figure out which man was you, I watched the telltale movements.”

  “You did good not to shoot first. Thanks.”

  “You have this smooth way of walking and punching. He had that, too.”

  Sara might not know the difference between a jab and an uppercut, but she’d noticed details infinitely more interesting.

  “Are any of your competitors ex-marines?” he asked.

  She shrugged and reached for the coffee. “I have no idea. If I had Internet access, I could check.”

  He raised his brow. “By hacking into the government’s database?”

  “Or their bank accounts, to see if they receive a military pension.” She grinned at him, her eyes fiery with the challenge. “And, no, I haven’t been hacking. Not since you lectured me back in college about how you couldn’t sleep at night due to worry that I would be arrested.”

  He’d asked her to stop and she had. Not that she ever did anything to harm the Web sites. She’d simply enjoyed the challenge of getting inside. When he’d explained that her shenanigans could ruin his reputation and his career, she’d immediately stopped her activities. But he had no doubt she still had the skills to do a little illegal checking around.

  “We should have an Internet connection by tonight.”

  Her eyes widened at his implication that this time he wouldn’t condemn her hacking the information they needed. But she didn’t gloat. Sara never gloated or boasted over her amazing computer skills.

  “So we’re going down the mountain in the morning?”

  He nodded. “We’ve only seen the one set of tracks during our time here, and those footprints probably belonged to the dead man. Hopefully he was working alone, and we’ll have no problems on the way down. But just in case—”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’d like to take Pepper out for a little nighttime recon. Will you be okay, if I leave you with the gun?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “If you want me to stay, I’ll stay. I’d just like to have an idea of what we might be facing tomorrow.”

  She made up her mind. “How long will you be gone?”

  “Just an hour or so. I’ll call out the code word salt before I crawl back in, so you don’t shoot me by accident.”

  Kirk did a perimeter check, circling the camp, as well as following their foe’s tracks down the mountain. He found evidence of a campfire, but no second set of tracks. Much relieved, he returned to Sara and Abby, determined to get a few hours of sleep before they set out in the morning.

  But when he called out the prearranged code word salt, Sara didn’t answer.

  WITH THE GUN IN HER HAND, Sara had fallen asleep. Relief swept through Kirk as he listened to her regular breathing. Gently he lifted the weapon from her grasp and lay down beside her. The toll of the past few days had clearly sapped Sara’s strength, or she’d never have fallen asleep while on watch. Although she hadn’t complained, Kirk realized he’d pushed her beyond her limits.

  One more day, he promised silently. And then he would take her someplace safe where she could rest and recuperate. He fed the fire to allow them to sleep a few extra hours in the morning, then shut his eyes. Within minutes he too was asleep.

  The next morning Kirk awakened to Sara breast-feeding the baby. She held Abby close to her chest, the baby’s head nestled in the crook of her arm. Abby made contented sucking noises, smacking her lips and gulping noisily.

  Sara noted Kirk’s interest and smiled at him. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the miracle of her birth. Holding her, feeding her, is a constant reminder that she belongs to me.”

  “To us.” His words slipped out before he’d thought about the wisdom of challenging her statement. “We created her together. She’s our daughter.”

  He didn’t think he’d ever seen a sight so moving as Sara feeding their child. The baby kept her fingers splayed on Sara’s breast, which was rounded and filled with milk. And when the baby released the erect pink nipple, he couldn’t help wishing for a taste.

  However he dared not move in her direction, content that Sara was willing to share this special moment. “What does feeding her feel like?”

  “Strange, tingly, good. It’s difficult to explain.”

  Kirk refrained from licking his lips. “Does she bite?”

  Sara shook her head, rearranged her bra, then shifted the baby to her other breast. Apparently accustomed to the routine, Abby latched on immediately and continued to suck contentedly.

  Sara’s eyes glowed with pride and a hint of amusement. “I wish I had a camera to capture the look of wonder on your face.”

  “I’m the one who needs a camera. The two of you are beautiful.”

  Sara didn’t blush. She appeared so natural and at ease with her body and the baby that he marveled at the change in her. He thought of Sara as brilliant and sexy, now he had to add maternal.

  She brushed the hair from her eyes. “I’m sorry I fell asleep while you were gone last night.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve pushed you pretty hard. Today should be the last difficult day, and then you can rest.” He sat up and fed the fire. “I didn’t find any more tracks, but I still want to be careful.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’d like to sneak into Logan Kincaid’s camp, kidnap his pilot and force him to fly us to Denver.”

  “I thought you trusted the man.”

  “I do. But someone could be watching his camp, waiting for him to help us.”

  He knew she understood, because she changed the subject. “We need diapers. I’m going to use one after Abby’s done eating. Then we’ll only have one left.”

  “Logan has baby stuff stored in a tent. We’ll stop there before heisting the chopper.”

  “Okay.” She hesitated. “You know, I appreciate everything you’ve done for us.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “I hear a but hanging in the air, and I really don’t want to hear you say more. Not today.” Not ever.

  “There’s something you need to hear,” she insisted. “I didn’t want to share Abby—especially after you never answered my letters. But now that I know you didn’t get them, and now that I’ve had time to think, I’ve changed my mind. Keeping you two apart is not fair to her, or to you. So we’ll work out visitation.”

  Despite her calmly worded
statements, he knew the offer hadn’t been easy for her to make. And he appreciated that she had softened her stance, but he wanted more. He didn’t require her permission to share Abby. But he hadn’t been married to Sara for years without learning when to keep his mouth shut.

  Sometimes a good marriage was based not so much on what one said but what one didn’t say. He kept in mind the important concession she’d made and the others he was determined to win from her. But he didn’t want just visiting rights, he wanted to help Sara raise Abby.

  They ate the last of their food, drank pine needle tea since the coffee was gone, and set out at about ten o’clock. While the sun had yet to show from behind the clouds, the bitter cold from the night had dissipated and the snow had stopped falling.

  Kirk broke trail, but he was careful to allow ample rest stops. During one rest, he and Pepper circled their perimeter but came across no additional tracks. Kirk didn’t believe anyone else was tailing them.

  Last night during his recon, he’d buried the dead man beneath rocks to keep the animals away and had carefully marked the spot. He intended to ask Logan’s men to return for the body, and he hoped fingerprints or dental work might lead them to a positive identification, and eventually to whoever had sent the man after Sara and Kirk.

  They’d been walking for two hours when Sara stopped and rubbed her shoulder. “How much farther?”

  He reached into his pocket, took out his GPS and read the dial. “About a half hour. Why?”

  “Abby needs a diaper change. She tends to cry when she’s wet for too long. And you said that you wanted to sneak into the camp which—”

  “—will be impossible with a crying baby.” He finished her sentence for her and reevaluated his plan. “How would you feel about waiting here with Abby while I steal some supplies?”

  “Can you leave me the gun, or will you need it?”

  He looked at Sara and realized once again that she had a very intelligent mind. On the surface her question seemed innocent and clear, but she really wanted to know if he felt he was walking into danger. His taking the gun would be a clear admission of danger. Since the subject of his putting his life in jeopardy was a sore spot between them, she hadn’t asked her question outright.