The Last Bride (DiCarlo Brides #6)

by Heather Tullis

  “You didn’t mean a word you just said.” She took an experimental step and winced as pain flashed across her face again.

  “I wasn’t trying to flatter you, you know.” He sighed and put his pack on forward, then crouched slightly in front of her with his back to her. “Climb on. I’ll carry you for a few minutes. At least until we can find a walking stick or something. That ankle is not pretty.”

  “It’s not supposed to be pretty. It’s an ankle.” Jonquil grumbled, but climbed on.

  “Your ankles are pretty amazing most of the time,” he said, meaning it. “Very feminine. It surprised me sometimes how strong and fit you are because you look like a waif.”

  “I am not a waif.” This was barely audible, though, and then only because her mouth was practically at his ear.

  “Right, you’re just small boned.” Thinking about falling and breaking one of those bones made him extra careful about where he stepped. He walked for a few minutes, stopping to check out a few heavy sticks along the way, before coming across one he thought would do for Jonquil. Not that he’d normally mind carrying her—she wasn’t very heavy, but going up the side of the hill, he didn’t want to fall and take them both down if she off-balanced him.

  He pulled out his knife and whittled a head to the makeshift cane and then passed it to Jonquil, wishing he could do more for her. She nodded and accepted the staff, testing it out. “Thank you,” she said after a moment. “Sorry I’m being so grumpy. I’m not happy about being hurt today when you need me at my best. I hate being useless.” Her eyes drooped a little and her mouth turned down with sadness.

  “Resourceful, capable Jonquil. You could never be useless.” He touched her chin, turning her face toward his and pressed a short kiss to her mouth. “I wish you weren’t hurt either, but it’s okay. We’ll be fine.” He had to believe it or they would never get out of this.

  He wondered, as he considered the best place to climb the slope, if she’d do better being helped from the top or the bottom.

  In the end, she insisted on going first, and he agreed.

  The going was not easy, but with a little help, she got up the side of the hill. There were a lot of branches and fallen trees, rocks and other things in the way, but he had to admit, she wasn’t a quitter or a whiner.

  They reached the top of the rise and he studied their surroundings. Where to next? He wasn’t sure.

  “Keep going this direction?” she asked. “I’m a little turned around, not being able to see the sun though the clouds.” They were still dark and menacing.

  “I think that’s the right way.” He wished he’d brought a compass, but they hadn’t intended to go off the trail. “I wonder how far it is to the road.”

  He checked his watch. They had left the truck at 10 am. After running through the woods and the delays it was nearly two. No wonder he was starving again. There were still six hours of daylight left. He checked his phone again, hoping they might get at least one bar on this hill, but no luck. He frowned and was about to turn it off again when the satellite icon appeared in the top right corner of the screen. They had GPS. He sighed in relief and flipped on his mapping software. “Cross your fingers that this will work. If the GPS is functioning right we can at least be sure we’re heading toward a major road.”

  She looked over his shoulder and they both waited silently as the software came up, then the map appeared and an icon showing their location popped onto the screen.

  “Hallelujah.” Relief appeared on Jonquil’s face.

  Gage pressed the hair back from her eyes, her damp curls twisting around his fingertip. “Don’t worry. It might take us a while, but we’ll get back to the truck.” He would have to figure out how to do so safely later. That was to worry about when they actually approached the truck.

  “Stay here a moment. I want to make sure we’re oriented right.” He stepped away fifteen or twenty feet and the map rotated to put his current direction at the top. He paused, looked into the trees, and smiled. “Off we go.”

  He helped Jonquil along, relieved to have some clue where they were. Now if the phone battery would last long enough to get them there.

  Though he had been somewhat amused when Jonquil carried her own backpack with food and water, Gage was grateful for it. Their day hike which should have had them back to the truck by mid afternoon lasted until after seven o’clock, and the food he’d brought for their picnic didn’t last that long. Gage stopped several times—ostensibly so Jonquil could rest her ankle, but just as much to check their back trail, not sure if he trusted that they’d really gotten away. They went through most of the water, and they ate all of their food. He’d thought he over-packed lunch, but the sandwiches and cookies had their own limitations. Her granola bars were nice, but not exactly a real meal.

  He checked his phone again. The battery bar indicated he had less than fifteen percent left but they were getting close to the main road. He didn’t see any indication of the turnoff to the hiking trail on the map, but wasn’t too surprised by that.

  He let Jonquil pause to rest again. It was starting to cool off and he knew if they didn’t get inside soon he would be worse than slightly damp and cold. She couldn’t be much better, even if the jacket she wore was dry. The rain had soaked everything around them and their pant legs were wet to the knees from the long grass.

  “How are you doing?” Gage asked Jonquil as they came over another minor rise. He thought he heard the sound of car wheels on asphalt.

  “Not bad. Considering.” Her face was a little pinched and Gage didn’t know what to do. He wanted to protect and help her more, but even he had his limits. “We’re getting close to the road. I think I heard a car a minute ago”

  “Great. Seriously, I can’t wait to get out of all of this nature.” She wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist. “Now there’s something I never thought I’d say.”

  He pulled her close and kissed her forehead. “Just hold on a little longer, babe. Almost there.” He stuffed her backpack inside his and stood. “Think you can go a little farther?”

  “Sure, why not?” Jonquil accepted the hand up and took up the cane again, sighing. Her face was pinched with pain and exhaustion and dark spots had formed under her eyes.

  Gage helped her out to the side of the road. It had been only about a block away, but not being a major road, traffic was irregular.

  He saw a dark truck driving their way and waved, but the driver continued on past. Gage helped Jonquil onto the edge of the concrete and turned them south. He was sure the parking lot must be that direction. He hadn’t passed the trail they had started that morning on their way to the road. The question was how far to the south?

  His phone beeped that the battery was low but he ignored it.

  “Do we have any bars at all?” Jonquil asked.

  “Not when we stopped last. I would be surprised if there was any kind of coverage out here.” Gage smiled encouragingly. “We can’t be all that far from the truck now, though. So don’t worry about it. We’ll be back home where we can rest and relax in no time.” He could just imagine a long soak in his hot tub, Jonquil snuggled up beside him and the game playing on the TV. It sounded like heaven to him.

  Another car approached and Gage moved Jonquil out of the way and waved his arms, but they didn’t stop either. He worried for a moment that he could end up flagging down the shooter, but at the moment, he decided to risk it—the trail head would be the best place for the shooter to ambush them again. Jonquil was starting to shiver and if he didn’t get dry and warm soon he was going to get sick.

  “Friendly people around here, aren’t they?” Jonquil muttered under her breath.

  “Usually, yeah. Mostly.” His stomach growled and he ignored it, focusing on helping Jonquil keep moving. “Come on, we’re getting close now.”

  “You’re just saying that to make me feel better. You have no idea how far away the turnoff is,” she grouched.

  Her attitude was making it harder to k
eep upbeat, but if he were in pain he wouldn’t exactly be happy-go-lucky, either. Considering the chaffing his wet jeans had caused, it was a miracle he was being half so positive. “But it can’t be all that far. We hadn’t gone more than a couple of miles down the trail. I bet we’re only a block or two from the turnoff.”

  He couldn’t have been more wrong. It was almost eight and the sun had nearly set when they approached the tiny parking lot where they’d parked that morning. They could see it through the trees as they came up on it. He held up a hand to stop her and took a few more steps to get a better look around a bush.

  It was empty.

  “Where’s your truck?” Jonquil asked after he stared at it for a couple of seconds. “Isn’t this the right parking lot?”

  “Yeah, there’s the sign we parked in front of.” Gage wanted to hit something. They had avoided the better trail all day while whoever had shot at them had taken his truck to strand them there.

  “Now what?” Jonquil asked. “Take a seat and hope someone comes by?”

  “And take a chance that whoever took it comes back for us? Yeah, that sounds like a terrific idea.” He ran his hands through his hair, almost at the end of his tether.

  “You have a better one?”

  He didn’t. He stopped and looked around them, spotting a downed log nearby. It was mostly protected from sight on three sides by bushes, so he hoped it would give them a little cover while he figured out what to do next. “Let’s go have a seat for a few minutes, at least.” He helped her over and they sat heavily.

  “I’ve done much, much longer hikes than this one. Why do I feel so exhausted?” Jonquil asked.

  “Maybe you’ve just gone soft sitting in that shop and playing with flowers all day.”

  She glared at him. “Come again?”

  “Because you weren’t injured the other times?” he corrected, not wanting to risk her wrath. He’d been teasing, but apparently this wasn’t the time.

  She gave him the stink eye for a couple more seconds before responding. “That could be it. And wow, I could really use a hot, juicy burger.”

  That sounded amazing. “And a shake, hot fudge with brownie chunks.”

  “Oh, yeah. And Wendel’s fries. I could live on Wendel’s fries, if I didn’t mind becoming a blimp.” She gave a sigh of longing.

  He watched the road as he tried to keep her mind on something besides the shooter, who could be waiting in the trees for them. What options were left? “I used to live on their fries when I was younger.” The images that appeared in his brain were enticing indeed. He really needed real food again. To distract himself, he pulled out his phone. It beeped at him—he was down to five percent. “Looks like my phone is going to die in a few minutes. And still no signal.”

  Jonquil pulled out her phone, twisted it and raised it to the sky and one tiny bar appeared and disappeared, like a blip. “Hey, I might have something here.”

  “We’ll never get a call out, but maybe a text message?” He watched as she keyed in a message and included all of her sisters and brothers-in-law. “Who knows who will look at it first?” she said when he rolled his eyes at the number of people on the text list.

  SOS. Stuck without a car out at the Miner trail, need someone to come get Gage and me. Someone was shooting at us earlier.

  She passed over the phone and he started walking around, holding the phone up until he found a spot with a single bar. He hit send and searched that area again for the signal as it blinked out again. His hopes rose, then plummeted as a message came back that it hadn’t sent. He pushed send again and tried to capture the illusive bar of hope.

  He held his breath for a moment, but didn’t get a return notice. Did that mean it went out, or could it just not talk to the system?

  Several minutes stretched before them and then there was a chime, and he grinned when he saw a returning message. From Cami.

  I’m calling Vince now. He’ll know where you are. Hang tight.

  “Cami got it and is calling out the troops. We’re saved.” He was so relieved. When he picked her up that morning, he had been thinking about spending the night with Jonquil, just the two of them in intimate surroundings. Freezing, hungry and dirty hadn’t played into his fantasies, though.

  Jonquil smiled, relief on her face. “So glad. Can I sleep now?”

  Gage chuckled and sat beside her again, putting an arm around her shoulder. They had been there for over ten minutes without any sign of the shooter. Maybe it was safe. “Go ahead if you like. Sleep sounds like a terrific option.” Not that he’d take it himself. Not until he had her somewhere truly safe again.

  She leaned in against him and he waited, watching the road as twilight started to settle around them. He knew these woods, knew what was out there and had never been afraid. But he’d never had anyone come after him before—and especially not when he had Jonquil with him. Had he been wrong? Had it just been someone who didn’t want them on that trail? Someone with a cache of marijuana or something down the trail who was afraid they’d deviate and run into their operation? Maybe he had been confused, paranoid, something?

  They waited for over half an hour. When he was starting to get anxious and his teeth were chattering, he pulled Jonquil closer and tried to heat her shivering body with his own. “Just a few more minutes, baby, and he’ll be here.”

  A vehicle came around the bend and he stood up from the log, walking to the edge of the road. The vehicle went into the parking lot at the trail head and the front door opened.

  “Vince!” Gage called toward the truck and then realized the cab light didn’t come on when the door opened. Before he could act, a gunshot echoed in the air and there was a whistling sound and the thud of the bullet embedding itself in the tree trunk behind him.

  “Shit.” Gage dived back into the darkness where Jonquil waited. “Come on. We gotta hide.”

  Gage was glad for the darkness surrounding them and the tree canopy keeping the moonlight at bay. Jonquil stood with him and they rushed through the forest, hiding in a group of bushes, sliding onto the ground beneath one in the darkness.

  He pulled out his gun again and tracked the intruder by sound as they hid.

  There was little noise as the attacker moved around in the brush and Gage tried to see some kind of form in the shadows, but it was too dark to differentiate one thing from the next. Then the sounds stopped.

  He and the shooter lay in the quiet, in the dark, watching and listening to each other. Gage wondered how long before Vince would arrive. He glanced beside him where Jonquil huddled in silence, waiting. He could see the white in her eyes.

  He waited a little longer, remembering what his friend Bo had told him about being a sniper. The first one to move died. And he couldn’t risk that, especially not with Jonquil beside him.

  “Is he still there?” Jonquil’s voice was so soft he almost didn’t hear it.

  Gage just nodded, waiting.

  Jonquil’s phone beeped and a bullet shot into the ground near them. Gage redirected his aim and pulled the trigger. Once, twice, three times. He heard a groan from where he had been shooting and a second later another vehicle pulled up near the driveway.

  Vince’s voice came out of the darkness. “Gage, are you out there?”

  Gage saw a slight movement and another shot rang out, then the sound of metal as it hit Vince’s classic car in the parking lot. A female scream followed. Gage held in a swearword as he pulled the trigger a couple more times. There was another scream of agony and a bullet entered Gage’s arm.

  He gritted his teeth and managed to only groan at the noise.

  The gun clicked once and he realized it was out of bullets. His second clip was in his pocket. The shooting stopped. He’d hit the guy, but was he incapacitated or waiting for a better opportunity.

  Gage grabbed his clip and released the old one, shoving the new one in. Still, silence.

  He waited for another long moment, then whispered softly to Jonquil. “Stay here.” He
slowly moved to a crouch and circled around behind where the other guy had been, carefully moving in, wincing with the sound of every brush against the bushes around him and scuff in the ground. His arm throbbed and he felt blood running off his elbow.

  When he finally got around to where he thought the shots had come from, there was no one there. He kept inching through the darkness and his phone beeped as it turned off. He twisted to hide behind a tree, waiting to see if anything came back at him, and caught sight of a figure lying in the darkness.

  Gage crept closer and nudged the person with his boot. The body rolled over and he held out his Glock, ready to put a bullet in the guy’s head, but the tiny bit of moonlight peeking through the tree canopy showed the guy’s eyes closed and a dark, glistening shadow on his chest.

  “Don’t move.” Vince’s voice came from the darkness.

  Gage felt relief pour through him. “It’s me. The guy’s dead, I think. Or he needs an ambulance.”

  “Not getting one of those up here in under an hour.” Vince shined a flashlight at Gage, then to the ground. “Well, that explains a thing or two.”

  Gage looked into the face of James Scott. Several creative swear words exited his mouth while he watched Vince touch the guy’s neck. He searched for a long moment, then set a hand on the sticky chest.

  Another long moment, then he shook his head. “Nothing. Any indication there was more than one guy?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I can’t be totally sure, but no, there’s no reason to think there’s more than one guy. He shot at us before noon, then apparently lost our trail, stole my truck, and came back here to look for us.” It sounded a little unreal when Gage put it like that.

  “Where’s Jonquil, is she okay? Cami’s been freaking out all the way up here.”

  “I’m surprised you brought her with you.”

  “I wasn’t going to. She didn’t give me a choice.” Vince’s voice was grim.

  That didn’t surprise Gage at all. “Other than a twisted ankle, I think Jonquil’s fine. We could both use showers and some dinner though.”