Last Stand Ranch
Page 20
They angled in that direction toward a tight collection of bushes. When they reached the copse, he pulled her down. Sienna slammed onto her hands and knees hard enough to leave bruises. Did he have to act like this? Sure, those guys in black were trying to kill them...or him...or just her.
She frowned and whispered, “Why do I feel like I shouldn’t be trying to run away from this but should be facing this head-on instead?”
He shook his head and put his finger to his lips.
Was she the kind of person who fought back? She wouldn’t have thought so, given how her stomach was roiling. Sienna peeked out of the bushes. Moonlight gave her enough visibility that she could see two figures in the distance make their way toward them. Careful to keep her voice low, she said, “Did you kill one of them?”
“I aimed high, probably just winged him,” he whispered. “They were trying to kill us, you know. Instead, they killed my truck.” The figures moved closer. “We’re going to have to outrun them. One has a camera that is likely thermal imaging. They’ll be able to see us hiding.”
Thermal imaging? The cover of bushes wouldn’t mean anything to someone able to see heat signatures. Sienna and...whatever his name was would be lit up like two beacons.
“Let’s go.”
She nodded and took his outstretched hand. Going with him was simply the better of the two options. One being death, the other being rescued by a handsome hero. No contest, really. Still, she needed to be careful. She’d been duped by better-looking men than him.
Or at least she thought she might have.
Sienna crept along behind him. How did he make no noise when she seemed to step on every snapping twig in this forest? She should be as good, if not better, than him. Why, she didn’t know, but it seemed like that should be a thing. Like she’d learned this, or done this.
But what kind of person knew the best way to run for their life?
* * *
Parker glanced up through the trees as the helicopter shone a searchlight over the forest. He angled them to avoid the beam as it swept north to south. His battered body was heavy with fatigue. Old injuries stretched and woke up to let him know they didn’t approve of how fast he was moving.
What Parker wanted to know was whether the masked men and the helicopter were here for Sienna or for both of them. It was the first time they’d been alone together. Was that the trigger which had brought this attack down on them? It seemed a long time to wait, a whole year of her living in this town, when these guys could have taken Parker and Sienna out separately. The timing had to mean something.
Maybe she knew the answer. But would she tell him?
He signaled her to split up, circle around and meet back at the road. Halfway through his series of hurried hand motions, she shook her head and whispered, “I don’t know what that means.”
He wasn’t going to explain it. “What’s wrong with you?”
The helicopter turned in their direction again. Parker ducked behind a tree and checked the position of the two guys in pursuit. They had dropped back. Were he and Sienna in the clear, or was their retreat a signal things were about to get worse?
She huddled beside him like he was home base. Only this wasn’t a game.
Parker said, “Sienna, enough with the act. It’s going to get us both killed, so quit pretending you don’t know what to do. You’re not some untrained civilian, and you need to be all-in or we won’t get clear of these guys.”
“And I’m supposed to, what, fight them by myself?”
Why was she being so cautious? He wouldn’t have signed to her that they should separate if he hadn’t known she could handle it.
“I’m not about to help when you’re endangering both of our lives by pretending to be helpless.” They were almost nose to nose, his voice a hard whisper that sounded scary even to his own ears. But maybe she would listen. Instead, the moonlight glinted off the tears in her eyes. Seriously, now she was going to act like the terrified victim? “Give it up, Sienna.”
“Tell me why you know my name. Tell me yours. Tell me anything but that you’re going to leave me here to die.”
“You know my name.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know anything. I didn’t even know my name until Aunt Karen told me.”
“You don’t have an aunt Karen. You said you had an uncle Bill, but that was it. Or did you lie about that, too, along with everything else?”
Her lip trembled. “Please just tell me your name.”
Parker couldn’t believe he was actually going to placate her. “Jackson Parker. Most everyone calls me Parker.”
Which she already knew. Only his dad had ever called him Jackson, and he remembered his mom calling him Jack. That was why he only ever told people his name was Parker. He wanted as much separation as possible between who he was now and that scared kid who never thought he’d get away from his lazy, drunk father still pining for a woman who hadn’t wanted either of them.
She looked down at the badge on his belt. “A...US marshal?”
He nodded. “Fugitive apprehension task force.”
“Am I a criminal?”
“No. Why would you think that?”
“Because I don’t know who I am. I have amnesia. I don’t remember anything before a year ago, Parker. And the year before that I was in a coma.”
Amnesia? Parker stared at her, dumbfounded.
She was looking at him like maybe he could help her sort this out.
The reality was, he probably could. He had to get them out of this first before he unraveled the loose threads in her stories. If she was lying—again—he’d find out sooner or later, and he’d know never to trust her or any other woman. Ever.
If she wasn’t lying, Parker wouldn’t stop until he got to the bottom of what had happened to her. Something had turned the strong, capable woman he’d known into the scared and shaking one in front of him. And he was going to find out what.
He took her hand again and started walking. The helicopter was overhead still. Parker cut right, then left, then right again, working his way back to the road. Why had he left his cell phone in the cup holder in his truck?
He needed to call this in, get his whole team here to battle these guys. Making arrests, interrogating suspects and seeing justice done was his life now.
As for Sienna, he didn’t know what her life entailed. None of this made any sense, except her not being able to remember who she was. Amnesia actually fit everything he’d seen so far, but how could that have happened? A year in a coma? Where was the CIA now? Even harmless and unable to go on missions, surely they kept tabs on an asset like her.
Parker had a lot of questions. The first of which was where those two men had gone.
He slowed his pace and listened as Sienna quieted her breaths. Some things were still there. The way she reacted, the way she scanned the vicinity around her. Training had been ingrained in her until it was muscle memory, even as freaked out as she was and with no past.
His Sienna was still in there, and maybe she’d be able to tell him why she had left him standing by himself at the airport in Atlanta. Why she’d promised to be there and then hadn’t shown. He’d been fresh off that last mission and anxious to see her—to see where their relationship might go when they were both stateside with some time off.
The timing of her no-show at the airport didn’t fit the “coma” she’d been in. If it’d lasted a year, it would have begun weeks, or even a month, after she stood him up. There had to be another reason she had never showed. Once Parker knew what it was, he’d be able to walk away without this twisting thing in his chest that wouldn’t let him rest. She’d torn him up inside, but he’d given her the power to do that first. No more. He wasn’t going to give his heart to another woman, ever. He was done with that.
Sienna gasp
ed, and the hot barrel end of a rifle touched Parker’s neck. He had to think quickly. In one maneuver he twisted and went for the rifle.
The shot slammed into his chest.
Copyright © 2016 by Lisa Phillips
ISBN-13: 9781488008337
Last Stand Ranch
Copyright © 2016 by Virginia Niten
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com