by LENA DIAZ,
Piper’s face flooded with heat. How terrible that she hadn’t given a single thought to the young girl who was struggling for her life down there, too. All she could think about was Colby.
The color had blanched from Jedidiah’s face, leaving it mottled and pale. His friends stood in a half circle behind him, looking just as frightened as he did as they scanned the river beneath the cliff. No matter how messed up these people were or what crazy views they held, in the end they were just as human as everyone else. And someone they loved—who couldn’t swim—had just gone into nearly freezing water with a swift current and tumbling rapids.
“I haven’t seen her or Colby.” She jumped to her feet and shrugged off her coat.
“What are you doing?” Jedidiah demanded, pushing himself to standing.
“Going in after them.” She moved to the edge, drew in a deep breath—
“No.” He grabbed her arm in a viselike grip. “It’s too dangerous. I heard you yelling that at your cop boyfriend. And you were right.” He drew a ragged breath. “No one could survive down there.”
She shoved at his hand. “Well, someone has to at least try to help them.” She aimed a glare at the other men. “If no one has the guts to go in after them, I will. Now, let me go while there’s still a chance.”
He shook his head again, his hand tightening painfully on her biceps. “It would be suicide. They’re gone.” He let out a ragged breath. “Latham, tie her up if you have to. No one else goes into that river.”
Piper cursed and fought, fingers like talons striking out at Latham, her legs flailing in the air as he jerked her up and away from the edge. He let out a few choice swear words when she slammed her shoe down hard against his thigh. But he simply clamped an arm around hers and trapped her between his legs in a show of strength surprising for his size, rendering her defenseless.
“Let me go!” she cried out. “They’re going to die if no one helps them. What are you? Cowards? Mindy’s just a kid. Colby’s an innocent man risking his own life for your daughter and friend.” She tossed her head, skewering each of them with her glare. When no one moved to do anything, she cursed again. “What’s wrong with you people? One of your own is drowning and you’re standing around doing nothing!”
“I don’t know how to swim,” Jedidiah admitted, hanging his head in shame. “None of us do. And I can’t let you kill yourself because of our failures. It wouldn’t be right.”
She blinked at him in shock. “Now you’re getting a conscience?”
He gritted his teeth and looked away. “Mindy’s gone. There’s nothing we can—”
“Daddy!”
He whirled around.
Mindy, ghostly pale and dripping wet, ran out of the trees on the other side of the road. Colby was right behind her, just as wet and pale.
“Mindy, my God. Mindy.” Jedidiah ran to her and folded her in his arms. Great rasping sobs shook his shoulders as everyone surrounded them, just as choked with emotion.
Piper ran to Colby, stopping right in front of him. She lifted shaking hands and pushed his wet hair back from his face.
“Are you okay?” The words had to be forced through her thick throat.
He nodded. “I reached her right away but the current kept us from surfacing. I had to pull her across the bottom of the river until we escaped the current. Thankfully she knew enough to at least hold her breath most of that time. I had to pump a little water out of her. But overall, I think she’ll be okay. She just needs to get warmed up.”
“Oh, Colby. Here I am concerned about you, asking about you, and all you do is give me a report about the daughter of a madman. A girl who would probably shoot us both if ordered to by her father or one of his followers.” She cupped his face between her hands. “Why did you risk your life like that?”
He frowned, as if the question made no sense. “Because I was the closest one. There was no time to wait for someone else to do it.”
“You’re an amazing man, Colby Vale.” She stood on tiptoe and pulled him down so that she could press a kiss against his lips. They were so cold that tears filled her eyes. “You’re freezing. We need to get you warm and dry before you die of hypothermia.”
“Yes. We do.” The voice sounded behind her.
She turned to see Jedidiah approaching both of them with their coats and a blanket in his hands. Mindy was being led to one of the cars by Latham, another blanket thrown around her shoulders. But instead of the rest of them surrounding Colby and Piper with their guns, they were heading to the other vehicles.
He held out the blanket to Colby. “Here, dry off, then put your coat back on before you get sick.”
Colby gave him a suspicious look and ignored the blanket, instead taking the coat meant for Piper and putting it around her shoulders. Then he took the blanket.
“What’s your game this time?” Colby sloughed the water off him and rubbed the blanket against his hair. “Let me guess. You want me dry so I don’t get the inside of one of the cars wet when you drive us back to your little prison.”
Piper grabbed the other coat. Colby tossed the wet blanket at Jedidiah and let Piper help him into the coat.
“I deserve your mistrust. I know,” Jedidiah said. “But you have to understand, we never would have hurt either of you. We took care of you—gave you shelter, fed you, let you have a hot shower, clothed you.”
“You sheltered us in a freezing shed and kept us under armed guard. We were your prisoners.”
“Only to protect you, and to protect us, too. We weren’t sure who you were, whether you meant us harm. And we couldn’t just let you wander back down the mountain on your own. Something could have happened to you. We were still trying to figure out what to do.”
“We told you who we were, that I was a police officer.”
“You didn’t have any identification on you. We couldn’t just take your word.”
“You knew I was a cop. That’s why you spit the word cop at me as if it was an insult.”
Piper glanced back and forth between them, noting the anger and frustration on Colby’s face, probably because they’d been so close to getting away. And now they were back to square one. He was once again cold and wet and contemplating being locked up. She was just as angry as he was. But when she turned to blister Jedidiah with her own rage, her anger died underneath a wall of confusion. Jedidiah didn’t look like a dangerous criminal. He looked like a broken man, his shoulders slumping beneath guilt and pain. And he didn’t even have a gun as far as she could see.
“We were protecting our home—”
“That doesn’t give you the right to kidnap us,” Colby told him.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry.”
Colby frowned and exchanged a surprised look with Piper.
“You’re sorry?” Colby asked.
He nodded. “We would have let you go eventually. But I’ll let you go now with my blessing, and a car.” He dug some keys from his pocket and held them out to Colby. “Mindy’s Mustang is over there, just past the Charger. You can have it.”
Colby didn’t move, just watched Jedidiah with open suspicion as if he was a rattler ready to strike.
“Let’s get out of here, Colby.” Piper grabbed the keys, then tried to pull him toward the Mustang. The truck had been moved and the others were in their vehicles, leaving the dented Charger sitting in the road where they’d left it. But true to Jedidiah’s word, a dark blue Mustang, several years old but looking in good condition, sat about fifty yards away and appeared to be empty. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“You’re just letting us go?” Colby stood ramrod straight, still facing Jedidiah in spite of Piper’s attempts at tugging him toward the car. “You plan on following us and ramming us again when we’re driving near a cliff?”
Jedidiah held his hands up as if in surrender. “As you probably guessed already, we do
n’t own the land we’re living on. We didn’t figure we were hurting anyone, but then you came along and I felt I had to protect what was ours. Or what we’d taken.” He cleared his throat. “I was wrong. We were wrong. You saved my little girl. I owe you more than I could ever repay.”
“Then give me a phone.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t lying about not having any phones. We have cars, trucks, because they’re necessary up this far when we need supplies. Or if we have to leave in a hurry. But that’s not how we live day to day. We live off the land. No electronics.”
“Just really expensive guns,” Colby sneered.
Jedidiah’s face reddened. “For hunting deer. To feed our families.”
Piper didn’t know whether to believe the man or not. But she didn’t want to stand here arguing when they could be making a run for it.
“How do we get out of the mountains? Where’s the nearest home or business with a phone?”
“There’s a GPS map in the car.”
“No electronics, huh?” Colby asked, sarcasm dripping from every word.
Jedidiah frowned, his growing anger overtaking his guilt. “I couldn’t risk Mindy getting lost when she had to drive into town. Just scroll through recent trips on the GPS screen. There’s a bait and tackle shop at the end of this road. They’ll have a phone and anything else you might need.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I’ve given you coats and a car with a full gas tank. That’s the best I can do. Either take the car or don’t. But if you get lost or freeze to death in these mountains, then that’s on you. I appreciate you saving my little girl. And this is me repaying you.”
With that, he motioned to his men, and the cars started pulling onto the road, heading away from them.
Colby pulled Piper closer to him, as if ready to make a dash for it. But Jedidiah paid him no mind as he headed toward his daughter, who was standing by a pickup. Latham, the only other man whose name they knew, had cut away the airbag hanging over the steering wheel in the Charger and slid in behind the wheel. Soon he was heading after the others, leaving only the Mustang and Jedidiah’s pickup.
“If he wanted to kill us, he could have shot us already.” Piper tugged Colby’s sleeve. “Come on. Let’s go before he changes his mind.”
He finally relented and they hurried to the Mustang.
“I’ll drive,” Piper said. “You need to sit in front of the heater and dry out before you catch pneumonia.”
She expected him to argue. After all, he was protective with a capital P and probably thought it was his duty to drive them off of the mountain. But his movements were sluggish and his face was still alarmingly pale. His wet clothes certainly weren’t helping.
“I don’t suppose you’d consider stripping and laying your clothes in the back window to dry?”
He rolled his eyes. “Stop worrying about me. And no way am I going to risk being caught butt naked if something happens again.” He got in on the passenger side.
“Pity,” she said, thinking she would have enjoyed having naked Colby sit next to her.
Then again, maybe all that golden skin and rippling muscles would have been too distracting. She slid behind the wheel and turned the key, relieved to hear it roar to life. She didn’t trust Jedidiah any more than Colby and had half expected the offer of a car to be a cruel trick. She cranked up the heater and aimed the vents toward Colby while keeping an eye on the truck on the far side of the road with Jedidiah and Mindy inside.
Mindy huddled in her blanket. She waved and Piper waved back. Colby didn’t seem to notice. His fingers appeared to be cramping from the cold as he struggled with his seat belt.
“Why don’t you ever ask for help?” She chastised him and grabbed the seat belt, when what she really wanted to do was cry. He was one of the most honorable men she’d ever met. It was so unfair that he’d suffered so much. She clicked the belt closed.
A knock sounded on the driver’s widow, startling her.
Colby jumped, too, unclicking his seat belt and leaning over her protectively in about two seconds flat. Piper couldn’t help but smile even though his shoulder was painfully pressing hers back into the seat.
“What do you want?” he demanded of Jedidiah, who stood on the other side of the glass.
“Mindy said Todd Palmer stole your horse.”
Colby frowned, then clicked a button and rolled down the window. “What of it?”
“Let’s just say that Palmer has made the rounds. He doesn’t exactly have any friends on this mountain. Any idea where he went?”
“None.”
“What was he driving? What did the horse look like?”
Colby didn’t seem eager to tell him, so Piper pressed his shoulder, getting him to ease back a few inches so she could talk to Jedidiah.
“He stole my rig—a blue F-350 pickup truck with a custom matching trailer. Caraway Ranch is written on the side. There were two horses inside. A bay gelding and a black Friesian stallion named Gladiator. Why are you asking?”
He straightened and offered them a bland smile. “You two be careful. The road can be sketchy this time of year.” With that, he hurried back to his truck.
Piper and Colby watched as he pulled down the road, then disappeared around the curve.
Colby punched the button, rolling the window back up. “Let’s get out of here before he comes back with a rifle.”
“Gladly.” She helped him fasten the seat belt again, then punched the gas and headed down the road.
True to Jedidiah’s word, the GPS maps led them down the dirt road and off of the mountain to a gravel road with a bait store off to one side. But when she would have pulled in, Colby grabbed the steering wheel.
“Don’t stop. Keep going down this road until we reach a highway.”
“You think the store is a trap?”
“It doesn’t make sense that it would be, since he let us go. But I’m not willing to take any chances.”
“Then we’ll keep going.” It about killed her to pass the store and continue down the gravel road without turning in. There were two cars parked out front, which meant other people—civilization, help. But she trusted Colby’s instincts. After all, he was a police officer. He dealt with the worst types of people out there and knew far better than her what kinds of twisted games they might play.
Nearly an hour later they reached a sign for a highway, a two-lane, extremely rural highway, but it was paved and well maintained. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a more beautiful road. Ten minutes after that, they were inside a truck stop manager’s office.
Soon, Colby was on the phone with the local police, giving them a brief explanation of what had happened and asking that they send a cruiser to pick him and Piper up.
As it turned out, they were in Johnson County, Tennessee—not far from Mountain City, a town of about eighteen thousand residents. It sat in the northeast corner of the state, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a three-hour drive from Destiny if you took the major highways instead of the winding back roads Palmer had taken to dump them in the wilderness. And a whopping five-hour drive to her home in Lexington. No wonder neither she nor Colby had recognized the scenery. Neither of them had ever been here before.
After Colby finished his call, he made another one to his boss in Destiny.
“Chief Thornton? Yeah, it’s Colby.” He jerked the phone away from his ear, wincing.
Piper could hear the hooting and hollering going on, even from three feet away. “I take it your team is happy to hear from you.”
“Apparently.”
He winked, just like the old Colby. And she nearly melted into a puddle of gratitude to finally have him back. Hurt Colby, nearly drowned Colby, freezing-to-death Colby had all terrified her that he might pay the ultimate price just because he’d had the bad luck to have been dragged into her problems.
When
the noise died down, he put the phone back to his ear. “Yes, sir, we’re both okay. She’s right here with me.” He smiled at her again. “The short version is that Todd Palmer and some thugs of his kidnapped us and drove us up into the mountains in Johnson County.” He listened for a moment, then he said to Piper, “The sheriff is sending someone to pick us up. It would be great if you could send them Palmer’s driver’s license photo so they can be on the lookout for him.”
His smile slowly faded and his gaze shot to hers. “Yes, sir. Yes. Okay. You’re certain?” He stepped closer to the desk, bending over an old-fashioned fax machine on top. “I’m on a landline actually. Neither of us has our cell phones. But there’s a fax machine here. I’ll give you the number.”
He answered several more questions, giving them the basics about Jedidiah and his crew of miscreants and their escape, recapture, then release.
The fax machine whirred to life and a piece of paper slowly printed out of the top, curling like a scroll. Colby cradled the phone between his cheek and shoulder and used both hands to unravel the paper. But he was standing at an angle that didn’t allow Piper to see what he was looking at.
“Yep. Got it...Blake and Dillon?...That would be great...I’ll want to escort her home, so that works out perfectly...Uh-huh...Right...I understand. Thanks, Chief. Talk to you later.”
He set the phone back on its base and turned with the paper in his hands. It had curled up again, and he made no move to uncurl it.
“What was all that about?” she asked.
“For one thing, two of my teammates—Blake Sullivan and Dillon Gray—are heading out here to work with the Johnson County sheriff’s office on the investigation into Palmer and Jedidiah. They’re already actively searching for Palmer. When Gladiator didn’t show up at Dillon’s rescue farm, Griffin—his manager—notified Dillon, who called the fair just about the same time that a citizen called 911 to report that a deputy had stolen his gelding and hadn’t returned it.”
“You, when you came after me and Gladiator.”
He nodded. “Unfortunately, that was a couple of hours after you and I were kidnapped. And it took a while to put enough pieces together to figure out what might have happened. They tried to contact Palmer, using the number he gave us, but no one answered. They started an investigation thinking something had happened to all three of us. Then Dillon requested driver’s license photos of you and Palmer so he could put out a BOLO.”