Every Girl Needs A Hero (Escape To The Bitterroot Mountains Book 2)

by Debra Kayn

  Quint stood at the door of the truck and placed his hand on Katelynn's thigh. During the next twenty minutes, the conversations swirled around him. Firefighters put out the smoldering mess left after the flames were extinguished.

  A half hour later, paramedics showed up. Quint and the others refused to be checked over in favor of putting oxygen on Katelynn.

  Then, the Idaho State Police arrived at the scene. He never looked at Anders or Mark. They were the only ones left. Michael Jaster was still out there. Their past still haunted them. How many of them would still be alive at the end? Or, would Katelynn confess to what happened and they would no longer have to worry about Jaster again because they'd be sitting in prison for the rest of their lives.

  The male paramedic looked at Quint as he sat in the driver's seat, working on Katelynn in the Hummer. "Her blood pressure is normal. Her oxygen levels are holding stable. I believe she's still suffering from shock because she doesn't acknowledge my questions. Would you like us to transport her to the hospital in Missoula?"

  "Can you give us some privacy before I answer you?" Quint moved in and stood beside Katelynn in the doorway.

  The paramedic nodded and walked over to the ambulance, leaving them alone. He turned toward Katelynn and leaned inside. There'd been no change in her, except her head moving as she silently looked at the activity surrounding her.

  "Say the word, and I'll have them take you to the hospital. You'll be safe there. I can stay with you, or if you want me gone, I'll leave you in the care of the doctors. Whatever you want." He stroked her face, believing she heard him and all the other conversations going around. "Talk to me, Katelynn. Tell me what to do."

  "The cabin," she whispered, not looking at him. "Take me to the cabin."

  He framed her face with his hands and kissed her hard, unable to express how much her answer meant to him. "Everything is going to be okay," he whispered back.

  She closed her eyes and reopened them, staring at her lap. He'd make her believe in him again if it was the last thing he did.

  "Hey, Quint?" called Anders.

  "I'll be right back, and then I'll take you to the cabin." He kissed her again and walked away to join Anders, Mark, and the police officer.

  "I was telling Mr. Stone and Mr. DeLane the fire inspector has declared the structure fire as accidental." The officer closed his notebook. "An unfortunate accident. This time of summer, folks have too many things plugged in, trying to stay cool. Like a lot of folks around here, the contents of the house acted like accelerants. The fire had an obvious rapid heat release."

  "It was a wiring problem?" asked Anders.

  "That's what it looks like. The front wall went first where we found the majority of the wires laying in the rubble." The officer's gaze softened. "We'll have the coroner come and gather the remains before darkness." He handed over a piece of paper, which Anders took. "There's the name and number of the funeral home. They'll be getting in contact with you soon."

  Quint shook the officer's hand. "Thank you."

  "I'm sorry for your loss." The officer nodded at each one of them and walked away.

  None of them spoke. The fire must've burnt—he swallowed, unable to finish the thought. There was going to be no autopsy.

  Making sure their crimes stayed hidden no longer seemed important. Only three of them remained alive.

  Chapter 30

  Quint waited in the doorway of the guest bedroom. Katelynn stood by the bed after taking a shower and putting on fresh clothes. Despite cleaning up, she still smelled smoke every time she inhaled.

  "I don't want to be in here." She turned around, feeling the walls close in.

  "Do you want to sleep in my bed?"

  She shook her head, regretting the movement when her headache increased. "I want to sit on the porch."

  Quint moved out of her way. She walked past him. Her mind wasn't working right after returning from Will's place. The explosion, the shootings, Quint and his friends, the police...little pieces of information kept attacking her, and she couldn't put the data into any kind of order to make sense.

  In the shower, she hesitated over using the shampoo and conditioner, as if the simplest daily habit became a major life decision. She had no idea if she should use the shampoo first or go without conditioner. The only thing she wanted to do was stand underneath the water and forget about what had happened.

  But she couldn't forget.

  She stepped out onto the porch and sat in the rocker. The sun had gone down a long time ago, and yet she had no idea of the time.

  The moon shined down into the yard. Able to see the outline of the truck, she stared down where she knew the driveway was into the darkness. Any other night, she'd be hyperaware of wild animals lurking in the forest, watching her, she no longer cared about the danger.

  After she'd killed Cord, she never thought about how Quint hid the crime from authorities. Sure, she understood the implications of what he'd done, and he'd been upfront about the crime, but she never gave how he handled the actual body, the blood, or what kind of mindset he needed to be in to put Cord in the ground and cover him with dirt.

  All of those thoughts rushed at her as she witnessed him shooting the dogs. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. He'd become another person right in front of her. One that scared her.

  Then, when he shot the older man who'd tried to force her away from the cabin, he never hesitated to save her. But, shooting the dogs?

  The door shut. Sensing Quint on the porch with her, she tensed.

  Her body and mind battled. She wanted to go to him and understand what happened. She wanted to run away and never see him again because if he wasn't the Quint she'd fallen in love with, who was he?

  He squatted beside her and leaned his back against the cabin. "Can we talk?"

  She understood a discussion needed to happen but speaking about what happened scared her. During their time together, she'd fallen in love with him, and until today, she believed the hardest thing she'd need to do was leave him when the campground closed for the season.

  Inhaling deeply, she couldn't sit here and trust herself to know what were excuses and what was the truth. She needed answers because, from her position, he looked like a murderer. Killing those pets and that man wasn't an accident. It wasn't self-defense.

  Quint shifted and braced his elbows on his thighs and clasped his hands. "The man who tried to take you from me; his name is Sam McCloud."

  She flinched. The man's face was burned in her brain. She didn't want to know his name or anything else about him.

  "When I was fifteen years old, I was kidnapped out of a state-run group home by McCloud and five other men and transported to Mexico." He paused, rubbing his hands together. "I was held captive with five other boys my age—Anders, Mark, Will, Two-crow, and Joney. McCloud and the other men forced us to train dogs for fighting."

  She looked at him, buffered by the darkness. "That's why you have scars on your body."

  "Yeah." He cleared his throat and straightened, staying beside her. "Eventually, the men doing the betting on the fights wanted more entertainment. While every day, we learned to antagonize the animals to fight on command so that certain dogs would come out winning, the men started forcing us inside the ring. It was me against the dog. A dog I knew would fight until he killed me or die trying."

  Her heart pounded, imagining a ferocious dog coming after a teenager. What kind of people would do that to a child?

  She closed her eyes an extra beat. Sam McCloud's face flashed behind her eyelids, and she shook her head.

  "Over the two years of living in that hell-hole, we knew things were getting more dangerous for us. The dogs became unpredictable. Our wounds more serious. We needed to escape. I knew the next time I had to face down a dog, it wouldn't be me walking away the winner." Quint gave a tired sigh and rubbed his hands over his face before dropping them to his sides. "All six of us made a plan to escape the day of a fight when everyone's attention was focused on the g
ambling and the dogs. But, one of us had to go out and face fighting in the ring first before we could act. We wanted the majority of the men in the bar where the entertainment took place."

  She tried to imagine six young kids taken to a foreign land and made to face a dog intent on killing. She blinked hard. Even hearing him tell what'd happened was hard for her to understand the amount of terror involved.

  "We thought it would be either Mark or Anders, they were the biggest, the strongest out of us boys. To the men who held us captive, they would've brought in the most money on the longer and harder fights."

  She pulled her feet up on the seat of the rocker and wrapped her arms around her upturned knees. She felt sick.

  "But, that day, they picked Joney." Quint's voice wobbled. "We planned to attack the guard when he brought Joney back, but Joney never came back with him. The guard came alone and like we'd promised each other, we attacked with the only thing we had...our fists. We beat the man to death. After, while we ran away from where we'd been held captive, Anders stayed behind to try and find Joney."

  She pressed her forehead against her knee, anticipating the sad ending.

  "That day, in the ring, the dog killed Joney, and the men in charge threw his body out of the barn like trash," said Quint, inhaling swiftly. "I've never told anyone that before."

  She turned and looked at him, wishing she could see his face better. "Why not?"

  "Because that wasn't the end of our nightmare." He leaned his head back against the cabin wall. "When we ran, I lost sight of the others. We split up, everyone going their separate ways, trying not to get caught. While growing up in group homes and feeling lonely, I had never been completely alone until that day when I found myself in Mexico with no way to get into the United States. Two-crow—you know that book you were reading?"

  She nodded.

  "Two-crow got the idea that we'd all meet up in the Bitterroot Mountains if we all lost contact with each other, no matter how long it took to get there." His chin hit his chest. "It took me over two years to beg, steal, and trick my way into paying a coyote—a Mexican who would take me through the desert and sneak me into the United States. I was twenty before I made it to Montana, found the others, and got the job working here for Sawyer. I thought my past was buried and I didn't have to be afraid anymore, but the danger was far from over."

  He'd been so young. She pushed her hair away from her face. While she felt for the boy in him, his story had nothing to do with today.

  "Over the years, the six men that had kidnapped and taken us to Mexico came after us. How they found us, I don't know—and it doesn't matter. We were afraid to go to the police because we'd killed a man to escape them. We were young and scared and believed if they found the six men, it would be their word against ours. We didn't want to go to jail. I-I guess we were selfish but damnit..." He stepped away from the cabin and stood by the railing with his back to her. "We deserved to have a life. Our crime wasn't all black and white. We survived the only way we knew how."

  "No, of course, you did," she whispered, understanding that statement better than anyone.

  "I'm telling you this because you deserve to know the truth." He turned and faced her. "What you do with the information is up to you. Losing Will today...he was right. I'm tired, too."

  She shook her head, not understanding.

  "Over the years, I've had my hand in murdering the men who are trying to kill me and the others. Out of the six men who are responsible for what happened to us, there is only one alive as of now. McCloud, the man who tried to take you today, is dead. We've been avoiding him and the other one, trying to live our lives, and they do their best to take us out. Last winter, Iliana almost lost her life because she became involved with Anders. The man still out there got ahold of her. We were lucky enough to save her. I wasn't going to let that happen to you."

  She put her feet on the porch. "H-how many men have you killed?"

  "Too many."

  That wasn't an answer. She moistened her lips. "Will you tell me what happened tonight?"

  His chest broadened. "Anders received a text message from who we now know was McCloud. There was a video of Will strung up by a rope in his cabin, telling us that we better hurry if we wanted to save him. When I got there, I watched two videos McCloud sent to Anders phone. Will died from strangulation before the explosion."

  Having met Will and spent time around him made the news even worse. She squeezed her eyes closed and covered her mouth.

  "McCloud set the cabin up to explode when we went inside, and he knew we would. We would never leave Will behind. That's what happened when I stepped up on the porch, except you called my name and I stopped, or I'd be dead, too."

  She lifted her head and lowered her hand. "You were going to go inside by yourself. I saw you. The others were mad because—"

  "I didn't want anything to happen to them," he said.

  She gawked, her mind turning a complete circle. She'd looked at him as a protector when he'd helped her with Cord. Tonight, she'd viewed him as a murderer. And, now...

  "You were going to sacrifice yourself to protect Anders and Mark." She scooted to the edge of the chair. "You were willing to die."

  He held her gaze. Through the darkness, she finally connected with him. She felt his pain.

  The level he'd gone to stay alive and keep the others free for all those years had to be hell for him. She panted as the heaviness of the situation settled on her.

  At the campground, he kept the campers with dogs away from headquarters and rarely went to Loop D, always sending someone else. The night of the storm when they'd made love for the first time, it was the dogs that scared him.

  Tonight, he'd stepped forward and faced his fears and killed the dogs to get to Will because his friend meant more to him. Trying to protect the others, he never gave a second thought to his own life.

  She stood and stepped toward him, never taking her eyes off his. Afraid of throwing herself at him and freaking him out, she slowly wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed herself against him.

  His heart thundered against her cheek. She closed her eyes, holding him.

  Her opinion of him hadn't changed despite the awful information he'd shared. He was still her hero.

  "You have to know, I would never hurt you," he whispered, palming the back of her head.

  Through it all, even the doubts, she knew he would always save her. It's why she'd screamed his name. It's why she'd worried about him. It's why she'd wanted to come back to the cabin.

  Chapter 31

  Katelynn whined, squirming against the pillow. Quint pushed up on his elbow and fisted his hand, propping his head. Even in sleep, yesterday's events tormented her.

  He placed the palm of his hand against the side of her face and held still. She quieted.

  His heart raced, wondering what it was about his touch that settled her. He couldn't even explain how having her by his side, day or night, brought contentment to him. The feelings had nothing to do with sex. Being inside her was his reward for having someone in his life who cared about him.

  He stroked his thumb against her cheekbone. If he were fortunate to live to be eighty years old, he'd never take her being in his bed for granted.

  There were a million reasons why she shouldn't be here. If learning about his past and having him kill a man in front of her, not to mention shooting the dogs, hadn't made her want to run away from him, it was up to him to force her away.

  Instead, he held on to her, needing her to stay.

  His hand trembled. He was a selfish asshole for wanting her to settle for a man who couldn't guarantee tomorrow.

  She stirred, jolting awake. He studied her eyes, watching the moment her pupils cleared and she could see him in front of her.

  "I thought..." Her brows wrinkled. "Nevermind."

  She'd play what happened yesterday in her mind for a long time. He couldn't erase what she'd seen or what she'd learned about him.

  "How lo
ng did I sleep?" She blinked to awareness.

  "A couple of hours." He brushed her hair back from her face.

  Wanting to take care of her, he was at a loss on what would help her. Nothing had helped him. No amount of drinking, smoking, punching the wall, ever took the pain away. Only time softened his emotional reaction to his crimes where he could stuff down the guilt.

  "Is it almost time to go to work?" she asked, rolling onto her back.

  He removed his hand from her face. "You can stay here and rest."

  "No, I need to do something." She rubbed her hands over her face and sighed. "I can't lay here any longer."

  Getting out of bed, she stood as if she forgot what she wanted to do. He sat up, having never taken off the clothes he put on after his shower last night. Making sure she wasn't left alone, he'd stuck by her side and had finally convinced her to climb up in bed in the middle of the night.

  After that, there was no way in hell he was going to leave her side.

  "I'll fix some breakfast." He carried his boots out to the kitchen and sat on the stool, shoving his feet in them.

  Tying his laces, the aroma of smoke wafted up from his shoes and smacked him in the chest. He straightened. Will was gone.

  The crushing blow made his heart heavy, and his body ache. He had to keep reminding himself that he couldn't call Will.

  He closed his eyes. The closest thing he had to a family consisted of Anders, Mark, Will, Two-crow, and Joney. One by one, he was losing everyone.

  Fisting his hands, the control he needed in his life slipped between his fingers. Fear made him want to hold on tighter.

  "Quint?" said Katelynn.

  He jerked, standing up. "Yeah?"

  Her gaze softened, and she motioned for him to sit back down. "I'll fix you something to eat."

  "I'm not hungry." He sat.

  "Me, neither." She tilted her head and dropped her gaze to his stomach. "I'll make us each a piece of toast and jam. We do need to eat."

  He ran his hand down his beard. They'd exchanged places. Now she took care of him.