The Bodyguard's Assignment

by Amanda Stevens

  The drivers wore visored helmets that protected their faces from the wind and rain. As one of them drew nearer, Grace glimpsed a rifle in his hand. With practiced ease, he lifted the weapon without slowing, and Grace instinctively ducked a split second before the back glass exploded.

  She thought Brady had passed out, but the sound of shattering glass, or perhaps the gush of icy wind, roused him. He glanced out the back glass, grimacing.

  “Damn!” He drew his own weapon. “Watch out,” he shouted. “He’s moving up on your side. Try to cut him off.”

  Grace glanced in the outside mirror. The ATV had pulled even with the truck, trying to get position to fire into the cab. Grace whipped the wheel to the left, letting the bed of the truck fishtail out of the ruts. The bumper missed the four-wheeler, but not by much. His speed slacked for a moment before he punched the gas, and the vehicle reared on its back tires.

  He came racing after them again, but before he could draw even, Brady took aim out the window and fired. Grace braced herself for the shot, but the sound sent a shock wave through her just the same. Struggling with the wheel, she had only a brief glimpse of the driver pitching backward, and then slumping forward as the four-wheeler raced off the road and slammed into a boulder.

  The other two drivers opened throttle, and the vehicles sprang forward. As they approached the back of the truck, they separated, one coming up on the driver’s side, the other hugging precariously close to the canyon.

  Brady maneuvered his gun through the shattered window and fired again, but the four-wheelers kept coming.

  “Cut the wheel to the right,” he shouted.

  “I’m afraid I’ll lose control,” Grace yelled back. And if she did, they’d plunge off the road into the gulch. They’d never survive.

  “Cut him off!” Brady ordered.

  When Grace hesitated, he reached over and yanked the wheel toward him. The truck careened violently toward the canyon, the wheels slipping on the wet trail. Grace felt a jolt as the truck collided against the four-wheeler. She thought she heard a scream as she glimpsed the vehicle and driver disappear into the abyss. Her heart in her throat, she watched helplessly as the nose of the truck skidded toward the edge. One moment she was braced to go flying into nothingness, and the next, she was fighting the wheel, tapping the brake, somehow coaxing the heavy truck back into the ruts.

  The third ATV roared along beside her, trying to urge her toward the edge. Grace kept her position, but the vehicle gained on her. He raised his gun and fired, and Grace’s first thought was that he’d missed. There was no sound of breaking glass, no scream of pain from either her or Brady. But then, as the truck pitched badly, she realized with a sinking heart that the driver hadn’t been firing at them. He was firing at the tires. And he’d hit at least one.

  “Keep going!” Brady opened his door and climbed out, balancing himself on the running board. Then he swung himself over the side and into the back. At the same time, the ATV driver dove for the truck. Grace caught only glimpses of the struggle in the back because it took all her attention to keep the truck on the road.

  She heard a gunshot, screamed, and as she glanced in the mirror, she saw a body fly from the back of the truck. Her heart pounding in terror, she forced her eyes back to the road and saw in horror that they were heading for the edge of the canyon. The flat tire gave her no control. She was powerless to stop the momentum.

  She heard Brady scream, “Jump!” as the truck took a nosedive into the gorge.

  Chapter Eleven

  Brady stared in horror as the truck went over the canyon. For a moment, he stood paralyzed, hearing the crash of metal against rock, and then finally, a mile below, the explosion.

  “Grace.” Her name was hardly more than a whisper on his lips as he limped toward the canyon. The brutal cold tore through his shirt, ripping his arm with pain, but he welcomed the ache. It would keep him conscious long enough to get to Grace.

  He didn’t question that he would get to her. He’d climb down the face of the canyon wall. He’d do whatever he had to to get to her, but what he couldn’t know, what it killed him to contemplate, was the condition in which he would find her.

  “Grace.” He whispered her name again as he stood at the edge of the gorge, staring down. Then louder, more desperate, “Grace! Grace!” Her name echoed off the canyon walls. Brady thought he’d never heard a sound so forlorn. So final.

  Then, miraculously, he caught a glimpse of movement about ten feet below him. A ledge jutted out from the rocky wall, and as Brady stared at the spot, he saw the movement again. Then he heard her moan.

  Unmindful of his own wound, he scrambled down the canyon, grabbing at the scrub brush that grew between the rocks. He reached the ledge and knelt awkwardly beside her. She lay on her back, and when she saw him leaning over her, she started.

  “It’s okay,” he soothed. “You’re going to be all right.”

  A cut on her forehead oozed blood, but it didn’t look too deep. What worried Brady the most was the possibility of broken bones. If Grace was seriously hurt, he had no idea how he would get her out of there.

  She struggled to sit up, but he eased her back down. “Let’s check you out first, make sure nothing’s broken.”

  “I’m okay,” she mumbled dazedly. “I jumped out of the truck.”

  “Thank God you did.” As gently as he could, he ran his hands over her arms and legs. “All right,” he said, when he could detect nothing broken. “Let’s see if you can sit up.”

  She did so with a groan, tentatively moving her arms and legs, her neck. She glanced up the face of the canyon. “How do we get back up there?”

  “Same way I got down. We climb.” Brady helped her to her feet. “Use the scrub brush and rocks for hand-and footholds,” he instructed. “Just take it slow and easy. I’ll be right behind you.”

  She did as he said, using her height to propel her from one hold to another. Her foot slipped once, and an avalanche of dirt and gravel showered Brady, almost making him lose his grip. Grace glanced down in a alarm. “Are you okay?”

  “Just keep going,” he said through gritted teeth. His arm had gone from searing pain to icy numbness. He didn’t think that was a good sign.

  Grace scrambled over the edge and reached a hand down for him. He accepted it gratefully. He hauled himself up, and the two of them collapsed on the icy trail. Brady closed his eyes and stars swam in blackness. He could hear Grace’s voice, but she seemed a long way off. He couldn’t get to her. He couldn’t protect her. She was too far away.

  A part of him knew he was losing consciousness even as another part of him welcomed the velvety warmth of the darkness. He tried to call Grace’s name, but he couldn’t form the word. He lay drifting in that endless void, unable to tell her that he forgave her.

  That he loved her.

  HE CAME TO slowly. His first awareness was of pain. A sharp, tearing sensation in his left arm that sent a wave of nausea rolling through him. He noticed the cold then, and realized he was shivering beneath a thick blanket. The chill was bone-deep, and for a moment, he wished he hadn’t awakened. The darkness had been warm, and the pain had been nothing more than a distant throb. He had to grit his teeth now to keep from passing out again.

  Slowly, he opened his eyes. Shadows danced across the ceiling and walls of the room in which he lay, and somewhere nearby, a light flickered. There was warmth nearby also. Instinctively, he moved closer, turning his head to gaze at the fire.

  He wasn’t in a room, he realized suddenly, but in a cave. He could feel the cold rock beneath him, but he had no idea how he’d gotten there. Struggling to sit up, he gazed around. Grace was lying on the other side of the fire. She’d been sleeping, but the moment she heard him stir, she shot up, her eyes wide and frightened.

  “It’s just me,” he said softly.

  He held his arm, trying to assuage the pain, and Grace scrambled around the fire to kneel beside him. “Are you all right? How does your arm feel?”
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br />   “Like hell,” he admitted, grimacing. “What happened?”

  “You were shot back at the cabin.”

  He had only a vague recollection of the morning’s events. Their location had been compromised. They’d been pursued by the gunmen. Leni’s truck had gone over the canyon. He’d thought Grace was dead.

  He glanced at her sharply. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Just a few cuts and bruises.” When he tried to touch the cut on her head, she flinched away. “I said I’m fine.”

  “Okay.” He put up his hand in acquiescence. “It only seemed fair that I take care of you after what you’ve done for me.”

  “I didn’t do much.” She drew her legs up, hugging her knees by the fire. “There wasn’t much I could do.”

  He glanced around the cave. “How did we get here?”

  “I stumbled across it.” She gave a slight shrug. “I was looking for wood to build a fire, and I found this place. At least we’re out of the wind and cold in here.”

  “But how did we get here?” Brady asked, watching her. Firelight flickered in her blue eyes, making her seem almost mystical.

  She gave him an ironic smile. “It wasn’t easy. You weren’t very cooperative.”

  He had a hazy memory of struggling over rocky terrain, supported by Grace, who at times must have had to almost drag him.

  Then once she’d gotten him inside the cave, she’d gathered enough wood to start a fire. He let his gaze linger on the blaze for a moment, awestruck in spite of himself at her ingenuity.

  “You’re a regular Girl Scout,” he murmured. “What’d you do, rub two sticks together?”

  “Not quite.” He saw her shudder in the firelight. “There were matches in the dead man’s pocket. I also took his coat.”

  Brady glanced down at the parka that had been thrown over him. He remembered now that both he and Grace had left their coats at the cabin. He’d taken his off while chopping wood, and she hadn’t been wearing hers when she came out to see about him. They hadn’t had time to do anything after that but dash for the truck and make a run for it.

  She’d been wearing a long-sleeve shirt over a turtleneck, he remembered. Now she wore only the turtleneck. He glanced down at his arm, noticing for the first time the blue cotton bandage.

  “I cleaned it as best I could,” she said softly. “There’s a stream nearby. I washed away the blood, but I didn’t have anything to use as disinfectant. We need to get you to a doctor, Brady.”

  He lay back, memories drifting over him. A terrible pain in his arm. Grace poised over him, her face white. A knife in her hand.

  “Did you cut out the bullet?” he asked weakly. He turned his head to stare at her.

  Her eyes widened. “What?”

  “You had a knife—”

  She let out a breathless laugh. “I thought you were out of it. I didn’t think you’d remember. I didn’t cut out a bullet. I used the knife to cut away your sleeve. The bullet just nicked your arm. It’s only a flesh wound, as they say in Westerns, but it looks pretty nasty. I’m serious about that. We have to get you to a doctor.”

  He stared at the shadows flickering over the rocky roof of their shelter. They had more pressing concerns than finding a doctor. The safe house had been compromised, and only a handful of people knew of its location. The road wasn’t even shown on any maps. The assailants must have used a trail through the mountain to get into position. They’d waited until Brady had come outside before they’d started shooting, which meant they hadn’t wanted to storm the cabin. They hadn’t wanted to risk hitting Grace until they had that tape.

  “Did you call anyone on your cell phone yesterday?” he asked suddenly. “Did you give anyone our location?”

  “No.” She frowned down at him. “How could I? I don’t even know how to explain where we are.”

  “Someone obviously found out somehow.”

  “Not from me.” She hugged her legs tighter to her. “I didn’t talk to anyone.”

  “But you were going to. You had your cell phone out.”

  “I was checking my messages.” Her tone sounded defensive, and Brady realized again that she was keeping something from him.

  “This is important, Grace. We could have been killed. Now isn’t the time to hold out on me.”

  “I’m not!”

  “You haven’t spoken to anyone since we left Dallas?”

  Anger flashed over her features, but she hesitated, giving herself away. “Okay. I talked to Burt when we were in Sweetwater. But I didn’t tell him anything.”

  “Why did you call Burt? I thought you didn’t trust him.”

  “I don’t. But he’d been trying to call me, and I thought he might know something.” She shrugged helplessly. “Look, I didn’t tell him where we were or where we were going. I didn’t even know. However those men found out about the cabin—it didn’t come from me. What about you?” She glanced back, her gaze challenging. “Have you talked to anyone since we left Dallas?”

  He’d talked to John Kruger on the road, and then at the cabin, he’d called the ranch and spoken to Penny and Mitchell. They both knew where the cabin was located, as did the other Confidential agents. But he wouldn’t believe anyone at the Smoking Barrel had betrayed him. He couldn’t. They were his family now.

  He glanced up and found Grace’s gaze on him. She said softly, “The leak must be on your end, Brady. You realize that, don’t you?”

  He sat up, his hand unconsciously going to the throb in his arm. “We don’t know where the leak is at this point. Cell phones can be monitored—”

  “I didn’t call anyone from the cabin. My cell phone couldn’t have been monitored.” She looked at him almost pityingly. “What about this Mitchell you told me about? Does he know about the cabin?”

  Brady glanced away. She wasn’t saying anything that hadn’t passed through his own mind, but hearing it put into words made him feel disloyal to a man who had found him at one of the lowest points of his life, taken him in, given him a second chance, but even more importantly, had given him a sense of belonging—a feeling Brady hadn’t known since his mother died.

  Mitchell Forbes would never betray any of his agents, but what of the others? Jake, who was like a brother to Brady. Rafe, who could charm birds out of the sky, but would fight to the death for a cause he believed in. Or for a friend. And Cody, the youngest of the group, but a man Brady wouldn’t hesitate to have watching his back. Penny Archer was something of an enigma, Brady had to admit. He didn’t know all that much about her background, but he’d always found her to be highly competent and intelligent. Loyal to a fault, although at times he’d sensed a faint resentment in her at being stuck in the office while the agents flew off to various assignments. But would that resentment lead her to betrayal? Brady was hard-pressed to believe it.

  That only left John Kruger. The Confidential agents operated on a need-to-know basis only, but as the point man for this assignment, the DPS agent could have been briefed by Mitchell on the location of the safe house. He could have been the one to leak their whereabouts to Kane, maybe even to Rialto, but why?

  The obvious answer, of course, was money. He wouldn’t be the first agent to change sides in the war against drugs.

  “Brady?” Grace was staring at him worriedly. “Are you okay?”

  “Just thinking.”

  “About the leak?”

  He shrugged. “We can sit here all day speculating who sold us out, but the fact is, at the moment, it doesn’t much matter. We can’t stay in this cave. We’ll freeze to death when night comes, and besides, we don’t have any food. We’ve got to find a way to get out of here.”

  Grace pointed toward the coat Brady had discarded. “I think his four-wheeler may still run. It hit a rock when the driver jumped onto the truck, but it doesn’t look too badly damaged. Maybe we can use it to get to the highway.”

  Brady nodded. “I’ll go check it out. Just sit tight until I get back.”

  “But—�
�� She scrambled to her feet when he got up. “You shouldn’t be out in the cold. Your arm—”

  “You said yourself, it’s just a nick. I admit, it hurts like hell, but we can’t stay here, Grace. You know that.”

  “I’ll come help you then.”

  “We’ve only got one coat.”

  “But—”

  He took her shoulders, ignoring the white-hot pain that shot up his arm at the movement. “You’ve done enough, okay?” He smiled down at her, allowing himself to touch her face tenderly. “You saved my life. Let me take over for a while.”

  “Male chauvinist,” she muttered, but her mouth softened at his touch. Her eyes glistened. He wanted more than anything to kiss her at that moment, but he only had so much strength left. Time enough for that later.

  “I’ll be back as fast as I can.”

  “Brady?”

  He turned at the cave entrance. Backlit by the fire, she looked almost angelic, standing there. Something stirred inside Brady, a longing he hadn’t known in a very long time. Not since he’d left Grace.

  “Be careful,” she said softly.

  “Always.” Then he turned and stepped out into the frigid weather.

  GRACE SAT huddled by the fire, watching the cave entrance. Brady had been gone a long time. Hours, it seemed, and she was worried. She’d used the last of the wood she’d gathered earlier, and though the cave was fairly warm for now, the fire would eventually burn itself out and the cold would come seeping in.

  What if Brady was hurt? What if he’d passed out from pain? What if he’d been ambushed?

  Grace put her hands to her face, imagining all sorts of horrors. Finally, unable to stand the torment any longer, she got up and moved to the opening of the cave. The moment she left the fire, the cold invaded her thin clothing, and she stood shivering as her gaze scanned the desolate countryside.