She raced downstairs and found two trays of ice in the freezer.
Grabbing Motrin from the first aid kit and a Mason jar from the cupboard, she hurried back upstairs. She had him take the pills while she released the ice into the filling bathtub.
He handed back the glass and lay back against the tub, too weak to know or care what he was doing. So why was she listening to him? Luckily, there wasn’t enough ice to make that much difference in the already frigid water temperature.
Short on clean washcloths, she grabbed a hand towel and dipped it into the gully beside him. Then she plastered it to his feverish head.
He ripped it off and let the weight of the water drag it to the bottom of the tub.
“You should go,” he said, weakly. “Take the boy and go. Don’t make any phone calls and don’t stop until you reach Coronado. Trust McCaffrey.” He turned his head to look at her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry....”
He closed his eyes and his head lulled back.
“Nash?” He’d passed out but was still breathing.
She patted his face, but he didn’t respond. She grabbed him by a fistful of hair and dunked his head. Water sloshed over the side as she raised his head again. He came up with his eyes wide-open and gasping for air. “Are you trying to drown me, Mal?”
“Quit dying already and I won’t have to.”
Her wet T-shirt was now plastered to her chest.
She reached over and shut off the water, then pulled the plug to let it drain. While he simply passed out again.
She had no hope of getting him out of the tub and back to bed. Despite what he wanted, he needed medical attention. She’d waited all day for his fever to break, hoping he’d sweat it out.
Was it time to try OnStar and give up their location? Or maybe she could backtrack to a gas station and buy another burn phone? With what little money they had left, could they even afford one? “Where’d you hide the phone, Nash?”
But while the cold water had worked some to cool him down, he was now beyond hearing her. And for how long would his fever stay down? And she doubted all that water was good for his stitches.
The bottom line was he needed something that would combat the infection. As part of her brain assessed the situation, the other part—the practical part—urged her to listen to him. Take Ben and get the hell out of there. And go where?
Drive all the way to the SEAL base in California? Call McCaffrey? Or don’t call McCaffrey?
The absolute last thing she should do is listen to the advice of their delirious abductor. But were they safe here or was she just feeling complacent because no bad guys had followed them or come bursting through the doors—yet? No, she felt safe. This place felt safe for now.
If Nash made it through the night, then she’d take Ben and call for help.
If Nash made it through the night.
“Damn you, Nash. I told him you were tough. Fight. You’ve got to fight.”
There must be somewhere she could get an antibiotic to help him fight this thing. She still hadn’t figured out how he’d gotten stitched up in the first place. A doctor would have had to report the gunshot wound. He must have known somebody or he’d found somebody.... None of that mattered now anyway.
Think, think. She paced a hole in the bath mat.
If she called her doctor about a UTI or sinus infection, he wouldn’t even require her to go in for a prescription. But as soon as she placed the order with a pharmacist, it would be traceable.
Too risky.
But there was a doctor right up the road—a horse doctor.
The veterinarian probably had drugs on the premises.
If she left now...
She’d be leaving Ben and Nash alone. Unprotected.
No—they were safe here. But with her luck Ben would wake up scared and alone.
It was, what, a mile up the road? She could run there and then back in twenty minutes. Ben was likely out until morning. But she could leave him a note just in case he woke up. And Nash? They’d probably be better off if he did drown. Then why go after medicine to help him? Why not just shove his head under the water now and be done with it?
Because she could no more drown him than she could shoot him. Like he’d said she wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. Plus, there were too many unanswered questions. Not to mention that he was a protected witness and she’d taken him into custody so technically it was her job to protect him.
Guilt made her feet move faster.
She scribbled Ben a note with a crayon and piece of paper from one of his notebooks and left it on the kitchen table. She opened up the mini flashlight, shoved some batteries in it and found an eyeglass repair kit in one of the kitchen drawers. Perfect. The tiny screwdrivers reminded her of lock picks—which she knew how to use—so she took it with her.
It was now ten minutes to ten.
With any luck she’d be back by ten-thirty—eleven at the latest.
She put her suit jacket back on and grabbed the peacoat hanging by the door.
A men’s wool peacoat. Navy-issue. The name stenciled inside read Calhoun. Nash said he didn’t know who lived here—that he’d never been here before. But how much of a coincidence was that?
She wrapped a scarf around her neck, found a knit beanie and gloves in the pockets and put those on. She left the house wishing she’d changed into dryer clothes. It was cold outside and she was all wet.
She strode past the Tahoe, up to the main dirt road and then kicked it into a run. She couldn’t take the Tahoe and risk the headlights being seen or the crunch of tires being heard.
But if she got caught anyway, she’d just flash the badge in her jacket pocket and then take it from there.
* * *
AS SHE RAN it started to snow.
Big wet flakes of white appeared like glitter in the moonlight.
Mal turned up her collar and upped her pace as she turned left down the gravel road. In the right gear, it could have been a nice run. As it was, she was too aware of the gun in its holster and of Ben and Nash alone in the cabin without her protection to take any enjoyment from the physical activity.
Though it was unlikely they’d been followed, it was still a major concern. Despite all her comforting words to Ben today.
Which was why she had to get Nash back on his feet.
The truth was she was scared. And every little sound in the mostly deserted night made her feel skittish. She could see her breath out in front of her face, and the sound of her own breathing seemed overly loud in her ears.
She ran toward the veterinary clinic as if her life depended on it.
Because three lives did.
At the academy she’d been clocked in at under the five-minute mark for a mile. She could run a competitive 5K in under fifteen minutes. To her best guestimate she’d been running at least that long.
Which meant she’d either passed the clinic in the dark or it was farther up the road than she’d realized. Still no clinic in sight.
It was another fifteen minutes or so before she saw the light in the distance.
The porch light was on. As she neared the building, she saw a Rock Springs Sheriff’s car parked out front.
“Great.” Mal ducked behind some bushes to wait out the law.
* * *
NASH CLAWED HIS way to the surface of his dream.
He was diving with his team. One minute the guys were there and the next they weren’t. His tank was running out of oxygen. And he was choking from the lack of air.
It wasn’t exactly a real mission. More a compilation of many missions and many dreams. And in all of them he was running out of time.
He’d just returned home from one of those many missions. Cara was there waiting for him with the news he was going to be a father. He’d been both excited and ov
erwhelmed by the news. Worry was etched around his wife’s smile as she told him they were going to be parents. How much that had meant to her. And how much it would mean to her if he’d just quit the Teams. So he’d be around to help raise their child.
He should have just quit the Teams. He should have given her that at least.
Why hadn’t he just walked away when she’d asked him to? If he had, then Cara would still be alive.
All his fault. All his fault.
Nash sat up gasping for air. Slicking back his hair, he sat there a moment trying to orient himself to his surroundings. The water was so cold—he was so cold—that his teeth chattered. What the hell was he doing in the bathtub with his clothes on? And how long had he been there? The plug was dangling by a chain outside of the tub.
But a sopping-wet towel was blocking the drain. He yanked it free.
His balls were blue and tucked up tight against his body. He sure as hell couldn’t feel them anymore. He swiped a hand across his face and pushed himself to his feet. How could he not remember getting in the tub?
Pretty much the last thing he remembered was Mal helping him off the floor of the gas station bathroom. And then sitting across from her in the dark.
These were his first lucid thoughts in...in he didn’t know how long.
He stepped into the bedroom. The numbers on the clock by the bed were little more than a blur until the glowing red numbers rolled over from 01:11 to 01:12. A.m., he assumed from the pitch-darkness outside. The house was quiet, too quiet in his opinion. He left the master bedroom and had a peek inside the other bedroom.
Ben was sound asleep. Assuming Mal had fallen asleep on the couch, he headed downstairs to check on her next. She wasn’t on the couch—or anywhere downstairs that he could see.
Or even anywhere in the house.
He stepped out on the porch. The Tahoe was still there. He ran a quick check around the outside of the house and then staggered back inside. His gut felt as though the lead slug had never left his body.
The ashes in the fireplace were cold by hours.
He realized then that he didn’t have a weapon or even the keys to open the gun cabinet. Worry started to set in, and then he found a note on the kitchen table. “I’ll be back. Love, Mom.”
Where the hell had she gone?
The door opened just as he lowered the note. He stepped back in the dark and watched as Mal removed the peacoat and unwrapped the scarf from her neck, then hung them both on the rack by the door.
“Where the hell have you been?”
She jumped and put a hand on her chest. “Don’t scare me like that.”
“Is there a reason you’re sneaking in after curfew?”
“I didn’t know we had a curfew.” She reached into her jacket pocket and tossed him a bottle of prescription pills. Which he fumbled. “You’re welcome. Is Ben still asleep?” She joined him at the kitchen table in the small space between the kitchen and the living area.
“He’s fine.” Nash glanced at the label. “I’m not a horse.”
“Then take half. It rhymes with penicillin. It’s an antibiotic. I’m going to go check on Ben.” She grabbed the ladder-back chair and made no move to head upstairs. “FYI, the veterinarian up the road is more than five miles, each way.”
“Where else did you go?”
“Nowhere. Why? I thought you trusted me.”
He fisted the bottle of pills in his hand. “The vet is going to miss these.”
“Maybe, maybe not. There’s fresh snow covering my tracks. By the time he wakes up in the morning, there’ll be no sign I was ever there. If he misses them, he’ll have a mystery on his hands.”
“The thing about mysteries,” Nash said, “is that people like to solve them. What if he calls the local sheriff?”
She scrunched her face. He couldn’t quite make out the meaning of her expression in the dark. “I don’t think he’s going to, but if he does, I’m pretty sure the local law has better things to do than going door to door asking if anyone knows anything about a few missing antibiotics anyway?”
“Let’s hope so. Otherwise you wasted your time and risked exposing us.”
“Yeah, well.” She patted the chair rung and then turned to leave. “Thank me later when you don’t die from infection.”
Her shadowy figure started swimming before his eyes. “Mal,” he called out softly. So softly he didn’t think she could possibly have heard him.
Except she was there by his side in an instant and caught him before he hit the floor.
“Jesus, Nash. You’re still soaking wet.”
“What do you expect?” His teeth chattered. “You left me to drown in a tub of cold water.”
She slipped his arm around her shoulders. “You’re not that easy to kill.”
She’d said it with sarcasm. But for all her tough words, he searched her eyes for their deeper meaning. She might hate him. She might even wish him dead. But she was still Mal. They still shared a history that had been full of love and laughter and friendship. And sorrow.
She would not let him down.
Not the way he was letting her down right this minute.
He felt weak as a newborn babe as she helped him to the couch. He was about to throw himself down on it when she made a sound at the back of her throat to stop him.
“Huh-uh.” She grabbed his wet T-shirt by the hem up and peeled it over his head. Too numb to argue, he raised heavy limbs and allowed her to strip his shirt in much the same manner she might have undressed Ben. She tossed his wet rag of a T-shirt toward the unlit hearth. It slapped against the cold brick. Without a fire to ward off the chill, the air inside was almost as cold as it was outside.
He huddled there in the cold and moonlit darkness.
His labored breathing took form in the puffs of air. He could feel the heat radiating from Mal’s body, and sheer survival instinct moved him toward it before a much stronger instinct, also born of survival, made him take a step back. “I need to build a fire.”
“I’ll get it,” she said. “Get those wet jeans off. And then under the covers.”
She built a fire while he stripped out of his jeans and shorts. He left them both in a puddle by the couch while he slipped his shivering body under the afghan and then pulled the blanket up over his shoulders. Instead of closing his eyes, however, he found himself staring at Mal’s silhouette.
“I’d feel better if I had a handgun close,” he said.
“They’re right where you left them.”
That’s right. He’d locked up all the firearms before going to take a shower because of Ben. He could tell she was correct about the boy being too curious for his own good. “But you took the key.”
“I’ll get it for you.”
She wasn’t supposed to be taking care of him. He was the one who was supposed to be taking care of her and Ben. But he allowed her this, allowed himself this because he had to build up his strength or he’d be no good to anyone. They were relatively safe here, but that didn’t mean he should let his guard down so completely he couldn’t protect them—though it did mean he could relax a bit and let Mal take charge when she needed to. When he needed her to.
Mal was a strong, capable woman.
“I take it I’ve been out all day? It has only been one day, right?”
She nodded.
“How’s Ben handling things?”
“He’s seven.” She poked at the fire. “He shouldn’t have to be handling any of this.”
Even as a young girl she’d had a strength, a mental toughness, that her sister hadn’t possessed.
The fire picked up the red in her hair and turned it to flame. She’d pulled her straight hair back into a slick ponytail at some point, but a few of those escaped wisps were starting to curl.
&n
bsp; She put the poker down, and when she turned she spotted his pile of clothes on the floor.
“Tsk.” She stooped to pick them up. “Now I know where Ben gets it from.”
She laid his clothes out across the brick and then turned back to face him. “I’ll get you your gun. And some water so you can take at least one of the pills I brought back. And you should probably let me have a look at your side. I’m sure your soak in the tub didn’t do your stitches much good.”
“I’m fine.”
She rubbed the back of her neck. “I grabbed something for pain if you need it.”
“Enough about me—what about you? How’s your head?”
“Probably concussed.” She disappeared from his line of vision. Her voice carried from the entry hall. He heard the opening and closing of a drawer. “I woke up with a splitting headache.” She handed the Glock over as she circled around to the kitchen.
He pushed it beneath the couch cushion.
This time he heard running water and she returned with the first aid kit tucked beneath her arm and a glass of cold tap water in her hand. He opened the horse pills and didn’t bother breaking the huge tablet in two.
“Down the hatch,” she said, extending the water glass toward him.
Penicillin was penicillin, after all—he’d scrounged worse.
Then she unceremoniously peeled back the blanket and cut away the bandage that had been wrapped around his midsection. The rest of his stitches had all but dissolved. The skin was white and puckered where his wound wasn’t angry red and oozing.
She dabbed at the area with an alcohol wipe.
He clenched down on his back teeth. “Give a guy some warning next time.”
She offered a Cheshire-cat-size grin with just as much sincerity. “This looks professional,” she said, applying butterfly strips to make up for the missing sutures.
“Professional enough.”
She taped a gauze bandage over the whole mess with equal efficiency.
He shifted uncomfortably as she smoothed the tape across the flat of his abdomen and then around his side. Then she gathered the trash and placed it on the coffee table next to the first aid kit.
The SEAL's Special Mission Page 14