He took hold of Darryl’s arm at the elbow, and the man groaned. She wrapped the wound quickly, tying it tight. Darryl looked like he might pass out. Shock.
“We need to get him someplace where he can rest.”
“We’re not going back to the cabin,” Rio said. His gaze was on the sky, and she followed it. “It could be on fire.”
A plume of black smoke had risen over the trees.
And Tucker could be there, hurting, maybe unconscious. “I have to go back for Tucker.” She got up, but Rio’s hand on her arm stopped her.
“If he’s dead, then you will be too.” He said it low and with lethal truth.
She stared at him in cold horror. “He can’t die because of me.”
Rio’s mouth tightened and then he swallowed and pulled her against himself. Locking those arms around her, as if afraid she might flee. His voice came down beside her ear, soft, a caress to her fraying edge of control. “I’m sorry. I liked him.”
She closed her eyes, turning into him, letting herself sink against his strength, smelling the woods and the exertion of the day on his skin.
“We need to get Darryl to safety,” Rio said softly. “Or all of this is for nothing.”
She pushed away from him, the words a knot in her head. “Why? What is so important about Darryl?” Because yes, she’d been very ready to leave him in the woods.
Rio glanced down at the man, then back to her. “Because Darryl works for a man named Wayne Buttles. He’s the northern head of a human trafficking and drug smuggling operation. If we can get Buttles, then we can shut down his entire Alaskan operation.”
“I’m just a truck driver—” Darryl said, but his voice emerged small and whiny.
“No, you’re not. You know the routes, the places where his cargo originates. You know where the pickup point is for girls coming from the Lower 48 and where you drop off the Russian girls. You’re the last one to see them before they disappear forever.”
Rio’s tone had gotten decidedly darker as he spoke, and now he reached down and grabbed Darryl by his good arm, hauling him to his feet. “You bet you’re talking. I want every last detail of Buttles’s transportation details.”
“He’ll kill me,” Darryl said, and by the look on his face, it wasn’t just a threat.
“Maybe. But your life isn’t worth the girls you’re enslaving.”
Oh. And she got it—why Rio would stick himself in a prison, enduring the humiliations. Because…Aggie. Except, wait—
“Was Aggie real? Or was that…part of your cover?”
Rio looked at her, and she flinched at the glistening in his eyes, the emotion that had clearly boiled over during his fury at Darryl. He considered her a moment.
“Yeah,” he said barely above a whisper. “She was real.”
She felt like a jerk.
“And so are thousands of girls like her every year. Buttles kidnaps them and puts them on ships for Russia or China. And he picks up shipments from Russia, Mongolia and Nepal and sends them across Canada and the U.S. Usually they’re already so drugged they have no idea where they are or how to get help.”
“He’s not the head of the operation,” Darryl said. “That’s a different guy. But…” He glanced at Skye now. “Buttles is the one who will kill me and my wife when he finds out I talked.”
“That’s why I’m here. To make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Darryl jerked away from Rio. “You can’t stop him. He has guys everywhere and…listen. My wife is going to have a baby. Any day, and I just…please. I need to see her. I need to be there when the baby is born.”
Rio looked at him as if Darryl had hit him again. “No way. I’m taking you back into custody.”
“Then I’m not talking.”
Rio balled his fists, stepping back from him.
Skye put a hand on his chest, right over his furious heart. “Just let him see his wife. Believe me, I know what kind of regret haunts you when you don’t say goodbye.” She lowered her voice. “After my dad was arrested, I never…I never went to see him.”
Rio frowned.
“I was so angry and hurt. He had betrayed my mom and me. He was a gambler and racked up so much debt we were going to lose everything. I think he got involved with the FBI because they offered to pay him—I don’t know. I do know that after he went to jail, my mom lost her job, we lost our house, and then she lost her will to live. She still loved him for some crazy reason—and…I couldn’t forgive him.”
Rio wound his fingers through hers, on his chest.
“He died in prison without…without ever knowing that I still loved him.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “That I forgave him. And I can’t forgive myself for not going. I keep trying…but…” She lifted a shoulder, cutting her voice low. “Let him say goodbye. It matters.”
Rio said nothing, his mouth tight. Finally, “Okay. We’ll find your wife. And then, you tell us what we need to put Buttles away.”
Darryl nodded, a flash of dread on his face.
“Except”—Rio looked to her—“I have no idea where to go.”
“I saw a map when we were flying in, and I got a pretty good look at the lay of the land when I was watching the fire. There’s a river to the west, and beyond that, a highway. Maybe three miles from here.”
Rio nodded. Then he looked at Darryl. “Start walking.”
Darryl stumbled forward, a glance over his shoulder at Rio.
And just like that, Rio changed. From broken, humiliated prisoner to the guy in charge. The guy who could save the day.
A guy she could, and did, trust.
The heat of his hand sparked through her, right to her core as they put the cabin and the fire behind them.
I'm sorry, Tucker.
Rio pushed Darryl through the brush, his other hand in Darryl’s back until they came out to a narrow path that looked like a deer trail.
“Follow this,” Skye said. “It’ll probably lead us to water.”
Rio gave her hand a little squeeze. He didn’t need to hold it—after all, they’d ditched March—but she tightened her hold anyway.
Somehow, just being around him made her feel less overwhelmed. Kept her head above water.
“I promise, Aggie was the absolute truth,” Rio said suddenly, quietly, beside her.
“I believe you.”
He glanced down at her, so much emotion in his eyes— Wait.
“You’re tired of this, aren’t you?”
He looked away. “Tired of what?”
“Lying. Being undercover. This…whatever it is you do for the FBI.”
He was silent a few steps, then, “Yeah. I’m tired of it. When I got out of juvie, I swore I’d change my life. And I did. Something happened to me in juvie. There was a chaplain there who listened to an angry kid and didn’t give up on him. And somehow in there, the darkest place I’d ever been, I found light. I found hope. I found forgiveness.”
“You found Jesus?”
He nodded. “I started thinking that maybe I could do some good in the world, you know? I joined the military and did some time in Afghanistan. When I got home, I…well, there were still the same gangs doing the same thing to girls like Aggie, so I joined the FBI. They liked that I had experience working in the penal system, and we began to use that. I’d insert into a prison, get close to the person I needed to get information from, and we started unraveling organized crime. But…”
He took a breath. “Prison life is…brutal. And I started to wonder if the lines I was crossing still made me the good guy.”
Oh, Rio. She wanted to stop him right there, to pull him close. To tell him that she saw the good inside him—had seen it from the first. “There’s still light inside you, Rio. I see it. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. Not trials. Not circumstances—”
“I don’t know, Skye. I’ve done a lot of bad things in the name of good. Fights. Lies…” He looked at her with a rueful smile.
She shook her head. “Not even
that.”
They’d come up to a ridge where the trail ducked down between a fall of rocks and granite cut out from the forest. Darryl tripped, and Rio grabbed his arm.
Darryl sank down right there, on the path.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Skye said, crouching next to him and touching her fingers to his jugular. “His pulse is fast and a little thready. Let’s get him into some shade and let him rest for a bit.”
Rio grabbed his good arm and muscled him into the woods on the edge of the ridge, propping him under a trio of birch. Darryl leaned his head back against a trunk and closed his eyes.
Skye turned, watching the smoke from the cabin above the tree line. It seemed to be dissipating. “It’s going out, which means that someone is fighting it.” Tucker. Please let it be Tucker.
A darkness hovered over the land, the sun now concealed behind the far black mountains.
“You okay?” Rio said, coming up to her. He was a strong presence and she wanted to lean into him. But whatever had sparked between them, maybe doing that wasn’t the smartest thing.
She’d been impulsive. And grateful. And smitten. Way too smitten.
But, despite her brain telling her to stay away from the bad boy, her heart had decided to have a mind of its own when it came to Agent Rio Parker.
“Yeah,” she said in answer to his question. She walked over to a boulder, sat on the ground and leaned against it.
She didn’t mind terribly when he joined her. Because the wind had started to kick up from the mountain and he had a warm shoulder.
“Why smokejumping?” he asked.
She frowned. “Really?”
“It’s so…well, dangerous, for one.”
She nodded. “Actually, yeah, it is. I didn’t think about that part when I went to rookie camp. I was just…well, my dad was a smokejumper here in Alaska in the eighties, and…I mentioned that I never said goodbye, right? I guess I joined because I thought it might make me understand him more.” She lifted a shoulder. “But I’m…I’m in over my head. I mean, most of the time, I’m fine. I can do my job, but…” She picked up a rock, rolled it in her hand. “A few days ago, the drip torch I was holding sort of exploded, and I just…I froze. I was holding onto it, trying to turn it off, and starting fires all over the place, and Riley…” She closed her eyes as a terrible fist slammed into her chest. “Riley, one of my teammates, grabbed it and threw it away from me.” She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “I can’t believe I froze. I always thought I was the bravest, toughest girl in the bunch.”
“You are.”
She shook her head. “No. I’m in way over my head, Rio. I live in terror that I’ll get it wrong. I saw my dad do stupid things over and over—we lived in our car for about two weeks when I was five years old because he’d gambled away all our mortgage money. And I vowed I wouldn’t do things that hurt people. But I…I still do. And it shuts me down. I’m afraid I’ll screw up and destroy lives—like my dad.” She blew out a breath. “So I just stand there and look at all my options…and don’t move. I’m terrified that I’m going to get somebody killed.”
Her words rebounded on her and her eyes filled, her voice turning choppy. “Someone like Riley. Or…Tucker.”
And just like that, Rio had his arms around her, pulling her to his chest. “Shh.” His lips touched her forehead and she hated how much she just wanted to stay right here.
She wasn’t tough. Or brave.
She was scared.
“I learned a verse at a church wilderness camp I worked at about four years ago. Heard it again just recently. ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams.’”
Rio lips moved against her skin. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.”
She pushed away and looked up at Rio. “You know the Twenty-third Psalm?”
He nodded, those amber eyes warm. “The chaplain made me memorize it. It’s pretty much the only set of verses I know, but…they help, right? Peaceful streams sound pretty good right now.”
She nodded.
He smelled of the forest, and she couldn’t push him away. Not yet.
“Maybe that’s the point of the verse,” he said softly. “That God gives us everything we need…so we’ll have peace. So we won’t panic. He knows the options and picks the right one.”
Rio touched her face with his fingertips, the gentleness warming her entire body. “Maybe that’s what grace is—peaceful streams in the middle of danger. I forget that, too. The heat of the moment sort of takes over and suddenly I find myself doing things…well, I get in over my head. I wish for once I would freeze and just…think. Let my head take over. Or better, let God take over. But it’s like I can’t stop myself. I see trouble and I turn off my brain. Maybe if I’d stopped to think instead of just feeling my way through life, I wouldn’t have ended up in juvie.”
“And wouldn’t have had the experience to do what you do now. To save people. To be a hero.”
“Oh, Skye. I’m not a hero.” He shook his head, his eyes darkening. “You need to know that.”
“Yes, you are, Rio. What you do is important, even if it’s…yeah. I hate thinking of you in prison, doing the things that you have to in order to stay alive.” Her finger traced the scar on his chin.
“Well, sometimes I break out,” he said and cupped his hand to her face, drawing it toward his.
And she didn’t have the strength or even the good sense to stop him. In fact, she was painfully in over her head.
But she didn’t freeze. She knew exactly what to do when he touched his lips to hers, gently, sweetly, exploring her mouth, nothing of darkness in his touch. She wove her fingers into his hand over her shoulder, arching toward him, and let herself surrender to the taste of him, the smell of the forest on him, the feel of his body, warm and bold against hers.
She couldn’t escape the feeling that in his arms, yes, she would be safe. Because he was a hero, despite what he said.
Nothing will happen to you as long as you’re with me.
She wasn’t going anywhere, then.
“I’ll have a little of that when you’re done, Parker.”
Rio’s arms around her stiffened. His breath caught even as he moved away from her. And she didn’t have to see the horror in his eyes to know that Eugene March had found them.
Six
Rio knew the only thing that saved them was the fact that March hadn’t seen him run. The man thought he and Archer, who had also escaped capture, had caught up with them.
Rio slowly raised his hands, letting go of Skye, March’s words a cold tongue through him.
I’ll have a little of that when you’re done, Parker.
Rio would kill March before he let him touch Skye.
Even if it meant him dying, too.
But he had to play it cool. Easy. He got up, stepping in front of Skye, his gaze on the revolver that March held, now pointed at Rio’s chest. “Hey, March. I thought—”
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” March said, his eyes narrowed. Blood dried on the corner of his mouth, and he sported a bruise on his jaw. “No help from you.”
So Tucker had gotten in a few licks before March took him down. Good man.
Rio lifted a shoulder. Behind him, Skye pressed a hand to his back.
Archer had crouched next to Darryl, taken a look at his wound. “He’s good to go—let’s get out of here,” Archer said. He helped Darryl to his feet, his hand on Darryl’s collar. Darryl looked haggard, but he clenched his jaw and stumbled forward down the deer path.
The sun had started to rise to the east, lifting the shadows from the forest, the heavens aflame. The smoke arching above the treetops dissipated against the clutter, only a haze remaining.
“How many were there?” Rio asked, now putting his hands down.
“Two,” March said. “I should have killed them both.”
�
��Did you—” Skye stepped out from behind him, her voice thin. “Did you kill one of them?”
Oh, Skye, please don’t talk to him.
March looked at her, and a smile tweaked his face. “I hope so.”
Rio caught her arm, squeezed.
March saw the action. “I think I’ll hold onto her, Parker.”
Skye made a little noise as March pulled her to him and Rio moved.
“Let it be,” Archer said. He put his hand on Rio’s shoulder and shot him a warning look.
No, sorry, Rio didn’t think so. “Let go of her, March.”
March smiled.
Archer’s hand tightened on Rio. And maybe a good thing because right then, Rio saw through March to his intentions.
No one would live through this escape if March had his way.
Fine. Rio met his eyes, unmoving. Let’s go, March. He put the words into his eyes. I’m ready.
Except, he wasn’t, not really. Because yes, he’d give his life willingly for Skye, had been prepared, theoretically, to let it go when he agreed to this job.
But in truth, Skye’s words had dug inside him. There’s still light inside you, Rio. Nothing can separate you from the love of God.
He’d heard that before, knew it in his head, but he wasn’t blind to the choices he’d made. The darkness he’d let inside. So much darkness.
Whatever light Skye had seen, Rio couldn’t see it. Couldn’t feel it.
Separated from God. He’d never felt the gulf more acutely than when March met his eyes, his hand bruising Skye’s arm.
“She stays near me,” March said, but he let her go.
Only then did Rio feel Archer’s hand slip away from him.
Skye held out her hand as if it belonged to Rio, and he grabbed it, held tight. And just the look in her eyes, so much relief—maybe that was all the light he needed.
For the moment.
But as he pushed her out in front of him down the trail, as the light began to dew the forest, his own words to Skye pushed up through him. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.
But how could God be close to someone who willingly carried darkness, willingly stepped into the skin of…well, frankly, it had stopped feeling like a skin a long time ago.
The Heat is On_Christian romantic suspense Page 8