“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.” The man tipped his head back and cackled his laughter. There was no other way to describe it. She’d always been the “good girl” and never acted out. Her parents had considered her wanting to be a Secret Service agent as doing exactly that. Like she should be a kindergarten teacher or a nurse instead.
Maybe they were right. Though, would a safer profession even help her? Liberty had never done anything really bad, even though she knew she was a sinner who’d been saved. No one was perfect, but what had doing the right thing gotten her? She had no life, no family. No real, true close friends. And not much faith anymore.
Nothing.
* * *
Tate had two problems. First was the gun pointed at Liberty, and the second was the fact that he was 90 percent sure the child locks on the back doors of the truck were engaged, because it’s what he’d have done. Even if he subdued these two guys, they’d have to climb in the front seat to get out. Or roll down their windows and open the doors from the outside. Zip ties didn’t count as a problem; Tate just had to decide whether to snap them before he went for the gun and waste a second in which the passenger could realize what he was doing, or wait until after they were out of the car.
Mile marker sixteen.
Rage burned in him at the idea that Liberty might get shot, but he continued to breathe through it. And count. His time would come, but getting angry only led to mistakes. Success was all about control. He’d learned that lesson by failing over and over again.
These guys were not professional kidnappers. They were, however, professional heavies. Whoever the Russians were being paid by—because guys like this never did anything that didn’t come with a possible paycheck—wanted to get at Tate and Liberty. One or both of them. Did it matter? And whoever it was might not want them alive.
Mile marker seventeen.
“In a minute we should have enough signal to call in,” the driver said.
Tate figured now was as good a time as any. Besides, the turn was coming up. The passenger who held the gun on them turned his head slightly. Big mistake. Tate silently thanked the Lord for the space to move in a crew-cab truck and launched himself forward. His bound hands went over the headrest and his stomach slammed into it just as he shoved the passenger forward, hard enough his head bounced off the dash. Out cold.
Before the driver could react, Tate grabbed the gun from the passenger and shot him in the thigh.
Liberty made a surprised sound, but Tate didn’t have time to explain it to her. If she was going to object, she could keep it to herself until he was done.
While the man screamed, Tate yanked the wheel hard to the right. The driver had let off the gas, but the truck hit the guardrail with enough force to bust through it and head down the ravine. This valley was shallow enough that they weren’t going to tumble to a fiery death, but it was probably going to hurt.
Liberty gasped. “We’re going to crash.”
Tate held on to the steering wheel, his stomach still pressed against the passenger’s headrest.
The driver, hands bloody from holding his leg, reached around. Before he could find a gun, or knife, or whatever, Tate did the only thing he had room to do. He elbowed the guy in the face. The man’s head slumped to one side.
The truck bounced on a rock, headed for the river.
Tate yelled, “Hold on!”
“I am!” She sounded mad. Seriously? He was getting them un-kidnapped, and she couldn’t be grateful? The woman had some serious problems. But he already knew that, so he just ignored her. Again.
The truck glanced off a tree, and the windshield splintered. Tate grabbed the gearshift and moved it to third to try to slow their momentum. Thankfully, it was enough; they didn’t hit the water at full speed. Tate moved it down to first, and when they’d slowed enough he put it in Park.
In the middle of a rushing river.
He sat back. The truck shifted like it was going to start floating downstream. Liberty whimpered. He glanced around but couldn’t see beyond what the headlights illuminated. Which wasn’t much.
He lifted his hands above his head, then pulled them down over his raised knee. The momentum snapped the zip ties. It worked, but it also hurt. Getting out of tape or rope was way less painful.
Liberty did the same move, and her zip ties snapped as well. She hissed between her teeth and didn’t look at him, just leaned forward and searched the driver’s pockets. When she pulled out a phone, Tate commandeered it. She didn’t say anything, but displeasure screamed from her shoulders and the angle of her mouth. No signal.
Tate used her phone again to take more pictures, this time of the two unconscious guys. “Come on. We can hike out and call the sheriff, have him pick these two up.”
Like Dane was a trash collector, picking up the debris of Tate’s life. He almost smiled, because it wasn’t exactly wrong. It just wasn’t what Tate had planned for his nice, quiet Montana life of dog training, taking shifts as a deputy sheriff and fixing up his house. Some extra construction work in those long days of summer, just to stay busy. Certainly not traipsing around in the snow in the middle of the night in December.
Liberty didn’t move. Tate climbed over the passenger to get out the front door. Water rushed in at the gunman’s feet. He jumped into the water, which was knee high, and winced. It was freezing. He waded around the truck and opened Liberty’s door for her. “I can carry you, if you want. No point in both of us hiking with soaking wet feet.”
Liberty didn’t say anything. Tate touched her cheek so he could peer closer at her face in the dim light. “Did you get hurt?”
She shook her head.
“Then what is it?”
“You could have gotten shot. I can’t believe you started a fight in a truck cab and sent us careening off a cliff.”
“It wasn’t a cliff. The stretch past mile marker seventeen is a shallow valley.” He paused. “I knew what I was doing, Lib.” She had to know. He’d been in danger before, and she hadn’t reacted like this.
“I couldn’t even help.”
She was a help just being there, but he couldn’t tell her. There was way too much history between them for him to actually tell her he appreciated her presence. It wouldn’t help either of them to say that stuff.
Tate turned, and Liberty held on for a piggyback ride out of the river. When he set her on her feet, he took her hand. Her eyes widened. “It’s dark out. I don’t want you to get lost.”
Sure. That was the only reason he wanted to hold her hand.
* * *
Liberty wiggled her hand out of his as soon as they stepped onto the blacktop of the highway. She couldn’t allow herself to get used to him being close to her. Not again. He was just being nice because they were in a crazy situation. Obviously there wasn’t more to it. How could there be?
As soon as they had a phone signal, they called the sheriff. Dane drove out and picked them up. When he pulled into the driveway of a yellow house, he said, “Make coffee, and make breakfast. I’ll go get those guys and be back in an hour.”
Tate nodded and got out. Liberty said, “Thank you,” because that was the way her mother had raised her, and then followed him inside. The house was cute, and the front walk had been shoveled. The snow was up to her elbows in a bank at the edge of where the lawn should be.
Tate was in the kitchen. Liberty found a bathroom, then entered the kitchen, where he was cracking eggs into a pan. Coffee was already dripping into the carafe.
Her stomach turned over. “I’m not really hungry.”
“Me neither, but we need calories.”
“We need sleep.” She didn’t want to argue about food because she was actually hungry, but it was after three in the morning and she was so tired she’d stopped having a filter. That was why she had to be so careful about n
ot touching him; otherwise she would launch herself into his arms and start bawling about how they could never be together.
Instead, Liberty kept the kitchen island between them and sat on a bar stool. Tate loved to cook, and she’d missed watching him move around in a kitchen. Liberty glanced about and saw a picture of Dane with a woman in a navy uniform.
“Is the sheriff married?”
“Yup.” Tate didn’t turn from his pan. The smell of sausage made her stomach rumble. “She’s the NCIS agent afloat on the USS Blue Ridge.”
“Oh. Wow. So they’re both cops then?”
Tate nodded.
“That’s cool.”
“Yeah, she’s stationed out of Seattle, and he’s the sheriff here. Long-distance, but they make it work. Dane actually said all the time apart makes them value the time they do spend together more. Instead of taking it for granted.” Tate paused. “Some people know it’s going to be hard, but they figure out how to make their relationship work.” His tone had an edge to it.
Any comfort she’d felt over Dane’s happy relationship—though she didn’t know anything about it and was just assuming it was happy—now dissipated. Was she really going to rise to his bait? He was definitely baiting her. She knew Tate wanted answers. He’d had plenty of questions when she broke off their engagement, but Liberty couldn’t think of how on earth to answer them. She couldn’t just come out and say it, when she didn’t even want to contemplate the truth herself.
Tate was just tired, as she was. It had probably come out inadvertently and she should just ignore it.
Still, Liberty couldn’t help saying, “Some things you can’t work past. Sometimes you have to let a relationship go because it’s the best thing for everyone involved.”
“So you live alone in DC, working all the time.” He turned. “And I survive here, keeping busy and trying not to think about what should have been.”
Liberty swallowed. He looked so hurt, and she’d done it to him. “This is the best way.”
“You really believe that?”
“I have to.” She tried to think of more to say, to explain it. “Because if I don’t...”
Then all this pain would have been for nothing. Liberty had to believe this was best, or at least what God had asked of her. To let Tate go so he could live his life and have everything they should have had, just with someone else.
But Tate wasn’t keeping up his end of the bargain he didn’t know he’d made. He hadn’t met anyone else yet, and he wasn’t even trying! Tears pricked her eyes. One trailed down her cheek, and she swiped it away.
“Crying isn’t going to garner you any sympathy, Lib.”
“That isn’t why I’m doing it,” she said, reaching for a paper towel. “I’m just tired.”
“When the sheriff gets back, maybe he can give you a ride somewhere. To your car. A hotel. Whatever.” Like it was no big deal to him.
“Maybe I’ll do that.”
Tate shrugged, his back to her.
More tears fell, and she wiped those away, too. “Clearly you don’t need me here, getting in your way. So I’ll just go.” She jumped off the stool. “I don’t need to wait for the sheriff. I can walk.” She didn’t have her purse or keys and there was hardly a cell signal anywhere in this town, but she was resourceful. She’d figure it out. “I’ll just leave you to your federal charges and prison time. Have a nice life, Tate.”
Liberty strode to the door. Before she got there the sheriff walked back in. “Whoa. Where are you going?”
“I’m leaving.”
Dane looked over her shoulder. His eyes flashed, some male communication she didn’t much care to figure out. Then he looked at her. “The truck was still there, but those men were gone.”
Tate’s voice came from the kitchen. “They must have woken up and hiked out like we did.”
Liberty winced. She was leaving, and that was all Tate had to say?
Dane looked down at her with soft eyes. “Stay for breakfast, Liberty. Stay so we can figure this out.”
His wife probably loved when he spoke to her like that. It made Liberty want to do whatever he said just to see if she could make those eyes smile. Too bad she would never have the same kind of look to call her own, not ever in her life.
Liberty shut her eyes and ran her hands through her ratty hair. She probably looked like a total mess. Why wasn’t it Tate asking her to stay? It could be, if she hadn’t done what she had.
Dane said, “There’s more to tell you.”
SIX
Tate stared at her back. Did he want her to leave? It had started to feel natural all over again, having her here with him. Facing danger together. He set the pan on the tile countertop, and even though his stomach rumbled with the idea of food, Tate didn’t move to serve it into the bowls he’d set out.
Part of him wanted to yell at her to stay. To demand she give him...something, after she’d taken away everything he’d had. Okay, so she hadn’t taken his job. It’d been a mutual agreement, and the best decision for everyone. Still, if he looked at the root cause, it was Liberty. And Tate wanted to know the answer to his most pressing question.
Why?
There had to be a reason she had broken it off with him. It had taken months to realize it, mostly because he’d been busy nursing his own hurt. Then he’d begun the process of going back over everything she’d said. Then everything beneath what she’d said. Because if Liberty didn’t want to think about something, or talk about it, then she didn’t. She just ignored the problem, even while she claimed she was “dealing with it.” There hadn’t been many ups or downs in their relationship. The first hurdle they’d had, it seemed like she had refused to face it. She’d just given up and told him to move on.
But if she was going to stay and face this, it had to be her choice.
“Okay, fine.” She turned and walked back to the table.
Tate dished out the food like there wasn’t a war going on in his head, trying to figure out whether or not he was glad she had stayed.
As they ate, the sheriff described what he’d found in the river. Dane blew out a breath. “I sure am glad you guys are okay.”
Tate nodded.
“Just a couple of bruises, but I’m good,” Liberty said.
Tate whipped his head around to where she sat across from him. “What bruises?” She was hurt and she hadn’t told him?
Liberty frowned. “I’m fine. Like I said.”
Dane continued, “Since there was no one there to arrest, I ran the plates on the truck first. Got a hit on a Vance Turin.” He lifted his phone and showed them a picture.
Tate nodded. “That was the driver.”
“Vance is the leader of a motorcycle club out of Great Falls. It’s supposed to have close ties with the Russians.”
“He has their tattoo,” Tate said. “But what are they doing way out here? Does their territory stretch this far?”
Dane shook his head. “Not as far as I can see, though I’m going to call the police in Great Falls this morning and get the lowdown.”
“Ask them if they know why Vance and his friends might be involved with a missing plane. After you ask him why he was over here, trying to kill me and planting the black box in my house.”
Dane stared at him.
“I’m just saying.”
“I’m going to chalk that up to you going through a stressful time and being sleep deprived, and not that you actually think I don’t know what to ask fellow officers of the law.”
Liberty got up, gathered up the bowls and silverware and strode to the kitchen with her back straight. Great, she was embarrassed for him.
Tate stared back at Dane and said, “Really?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” Dane didn’t back down. What he did was glance
at Liberty, doing the dishes and giving them space. “That woman is dead on her feet. She needs rest.”
Tate nodded. “We both do.”
“I can see as much.” Dane paused. “You can use my trailer. It’ll be safe. I’ll go get the dogs, let them out for a while and then bring them back here.”
Tate studied his friend and couldn’t help thinking there was something Dane hadn’t told them yet. Some reason Tate needed to remain under the radar. There had to be.
“What are you going to do about...?” Dane’s voice trailed off and he motioned to Liberty with a flick of one finger.
Tate shrugged.
“Are you willing to let her get dragged down with you if this gets worse? Are you willing to put her at risk?”
“She’s already at risk. She’s a Secret Service agent. We’re both trained to handle ourselves. Liberty needs to stay with me, because the only way we’re going to figure this out is together.”
“Because you need her with you? Liberty could go, meet up with her federal agent friends. She’d be fine. She’s here because of you. So make sure you don’t want her here because of you, too. Otherwise she gets the raw end of the deal.”
“She broke it off with me.” Dane knew that. They’d had that conversation many times.
“Yes, but you let her.”
“Is that even supposed to make sense?” Tate hissed.
“If it doesn’t, then maybe you aren’t the man I thought you were.”
Tate felt the sting of those words. They cut deep from a man he respected, a man he happily worked for even though he didn’t especially need the money. His cost of living was low, but the work as a deputy sheriff paid for dog treats and put gas in his truck in the winter.
He said, “Maybe I’m just me, and I mess up.”
“Maybe you messed this up.”
Tate didn’t disagree. It had to have been something big for Liberty to break off their engagement instead of talking to him so they could work it out.
Dane pointed at Liberty again. “Best thing that ever happened to you. Isn’t that what you told me?”
Yuletide Suspect Page 5