Wyoming Cowboy Protection

by Nicole Helm

  “Stop,” Noah ordered abruptly.

  “What?” Ty demanded, but he brought the horse to a stop.

  “I’ll go on foot and sneak around the opposite direction. They have more men, more weapons. We need the element of surprise.”

  “Agreed, but I should be the one on foot. You’re favoring that side, brother.”

  “I’ll live.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “And it’ll keep being true.” Noah dismounted without letting Ty argue further. “You go straight for the lights, slow and quiet. I’ll circle around. I promised Addie we’d keep that baby safe, so he’s our first priority. We don’t risk him, and you don’t risk you.”

  “But you can risk you, I’m assuming.”

  “I won’t do anything stupid.” But if he had to make some sacrifices, then so be it. “Go.”

  Ty nodded grimly in the moonlight, and Noah took off in a dead sprint. He circled the light instead of going for it, using the moonlight as his guide and the trees as his protection.

  Everything in his body burned. His wound, his lungs, his eyes. Still, he pushed forward, adrenaline rushing through him.

  He was finally close enough to see people, so he slowed his pace, hid behind a tree and watched the morbid procession of shadows.

  Between moonlight and their flashlights, he could make out the odd scene moving toward him. He tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Peter was pushing Addie through the snow, while two men on horseback followed with their guns pointed at her. But they were following her, and she was leading them somewhere most definitely not in the direction of the cabin or Bent.

  Where was Vanessa? Seth? Had Addie sacrificed herself? Had they escaped undetected? Or had something horrible happened?

  Addie slowed, stumbled, and fell to her hands and knees in the snow.

  “Get up,” Peter ordered. “Or I’ll really give you a reason to fall.”

  Addie struggled to her feet and it took everything in Noah not to jump forward and gather her up in the safety of his arms. But that would only get them both killed.

  Still, he and Ty had the element of surprise. They could take out three guys, if they were careful. If they were smart.

  “Move!” Peter ordered in a booming yell.

  “I’m lost. I don’t know where...”

  “You better figure it out because if you don’t show me the boy’s dead body, I’m going to think you’re lying, Addie. Then you’ll be dead and I’ll make sure that boy has the most hellish life you could ever imagine.”

  “He’s your son. He’s dead. Don’t you have any compassion?”

  Dead. Seth, dead. Addie wouldn’t be walking let alone coherent if that were true, so it was all part of the plan. To make Peter think Seth was dead, but why hadn’t Addie stayed out of it so Peter could think she was dead as well?

  “You stole from me, Addie. You lied to me. You caused the death of my son and you dare speak to me of compassion? I should kill you right here and find the boy’s body myself, if you’re even telling the truth.”

  Addie stopped her stumbling forward and turned to face him. “Fine, Peter. Kill me.”

  Noah was so shocked he didn’t breathe, and apparently the words shocked Peter as well since he didn’t say anything or raise his weapon.

  “Do you think I won’t?”

  “I know you’re capable,” Addie said. “You killed my sister. She wouldn’t run, I realize now. That’s why you killed her. I don’t know how many other people you’ve killed, and you’ve made me into a killer as well. I’ve been running from you for nearly a year and now here we are and what’s the point? I’ll never have a normal life. You’ll always be a black cloud over it, so kill me.”

  “You will not dictate when or how I kill you.”

  “I guess we’ll see.”

  Peter raised his hand, presumably to hit Addie, and Noah didn’t think, didn’t plan, he barely even aimed. He simply raised his gun and shot.

  Peter howled in pain, but didn’t go down. Damn it. His men were already heading toward Noah, so he had to run, rifle in hand.

  They were on horseback, so Noah zigzagged through trees, then pivoted suddenly and cut back in the opposite direction. He heard them swear.

  “Get off your horse and run!” one of the men yelled at the other.

  Noah tried to use the head start to his advantage, but when he circled back neither Addie nor Peter were to be seen. He tried to search the area for tracks, make sense of any of them, but there was a man coming for him and...

  A gunshot rang out and Noah dove to the ground. The tree next to him exploded and Noah could only army-crawl through the snow trying to find a cluster of evergreens he could hide from the moonlight in.

  “I can’t see a damn thing!” one of the men yelled. “Get over here with the light.”

  Noah heard the horse hooves even over the heavy beating of his heart. He had to get to Addie before these men caught him, but where on earth had she and Peter disappeared to?

  Another gunshot, this one even closer, the beating of horse hooves and the shining light of whatever high-powered flashlight they had flashing across him.

  But that would give him everything he needed. He zigzagged through trees for a few more minutes before finding a large trunk to settle behind. He pulled the rifle off his back, watched the light move, and then shot.

  When the light shook and fell, Noah knew he’d hit his target. But that was only one of the men. He needed to find the one who’d been on the horse. Noah searched the woods for signs of another flashlight beam, but found nothing.

  Then, faintly, he heard grunts and followed the sound, finding Ty grappling on the ground with someone next to a prancing horse.

  When the man who was decidedly not Ty pulled out a knife that glinted in the moonlight, Noah saw red. He lunged at the man on top of his brother, rolling him onto his stomach and shoving his knee into the man’s back as he pulled his arms back. The man screamed in pain, as Noah wasn’t very gentle or worried about the natural ways a man’s arm should go. The guy’s entire body went limp.

  Noah didn’t believe it at first, but as he eased off the man he didn’t move. He glanced over at Ty, who was struggling to get into a sitting position.

  “Stabbed me right in the arm,” Ty rasped, and Noah winced as Ty easily pulled a large, daggerlike knife out of where it had been lodged in his biceps.

  Noah got to his feet, aches and pains and injuries nothing but a dull ache as fear overtook his body. “He’s got Addie.”

  “Go. I’ll bandage myself up and get to you soon as I can.”

  Noah nodded. “You die, you’ll be sorry.”

  Ty smiled thinly in the moonlight. “I’ve been through a lot worse. This’ll be the last thing that does me in. Now go.”

  So Noah did.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Peter pushed her until she fell. Again and again and again. She would lie there in the freezing cold until he kicked her, demanding she get to her feet.

  “Get up,” Peter demanded, kicking her. She wanted to kick him back. Fight him with everything she had, with everything she was, but time was the most important thing. Not revenge. Not yet.

  “What for?” Maybe she was going a little over the top, but the more Peter believed she wanted to die, the more her lie that Seth was dead held weight. What was there to live for if Seth was dead?

  He kicked her harder, enough she cried out. “Get up and show me his body and then maybe I’ll put you out of your misery.”

  “You don’t need me to find him.”

  When he kicked her again, Addie got to her feet. She didn’t have to fake her shivering or her exhaustion. She didn’t have to fake her fear or her sadness, because she had no idea who’d fired that shot at Peter. She had no idea if Vanessa had gotten Seth to safety.

&nb
sp; She knew nothing. So all she could do was move forward with the determination this would end. Seth would be safe and this would be over, once and for all.

  Addie had lost track of where she was in the dark forest, but the longer she and Peter walked in circles, the longer Vanessa had to get safe.

  When a gunshot echoed from far away, Addie jerked in its direction. Between the moon and Peter’s flashlight, his face was a ghostly silver white as he smiled.

  “I don’t suppose you think whoever failed at saving you just got shot by one of my men.”

  “Or whoever shot at you shot at them.”

  He gave her another hard shove so she fell in yet another icy pile of snow. His gun flashed. “Maybe I will just kill you, worthless as you are.”

  Addie hesitated a moment, not sure if she should goad him into continuing to believe she had a death wish when she most certainly did not. She couldn’t find words as Peter slowly pressed the barrel of the gun to her temple.

  Addie swallowed, trying to rein in the shaking of her body. “I’ll beg,” she offered, her voice a raspy whisper. “I’ll get on my knees and beg you to put a bullet through my head.” Because it would add time. Everything that added time had to be good.

  And if he took her up on it, well...

  Peter leaned in close, his lips touching her ear as he spoke. She shuddered in disgust as he whispered. “I want you to suffer, Addie. I couldn’t take time with your sister, but I’ll take my time with you. Now, admit you’re lying or show me the boy’s body in the next ten minutes, or I’ll start breaking fingers for every extra minute I’m out here in this godforsaken wasteland.”

  Her patience was fraying and she opened her mouth to tell him to go jump off a cliff, but managed to swallow the words down before she really did get herself killed. If only because he’d mentioned her sister. Seth’s mother, who’d died for no other reason than she’d fallen for the wrong kind of man.

  Addie turned away from Peter, trying to study her surroundings, trying to figure out where she needed to go. If she led him to the scene she and Vanessa had created, there’d be no body, but maybe she could convince Peter bears or wolves or some Wild West–sounding animal got there first.

  She looked up at the moon and tried to use it as a guide. Where had it been when they’d gotten on Annabelle? Could you navigate via the moon? Someone probably could, but she wasn’t so certain she could.

  Still, she moved. Because it ate up time. Time was the important thing right now. Not her life. Not the moon. Not Noah or the future. Just time.

  “Stop,” Peter hissed, yanking her by Noah’s coat. Peter spanned the flashlight over the trees around them in a circle.

  “What is it? Do you think it’s a bear?”

  He shoved her to the ground and she landed hard on her hands.

  “It’s not a bear, you idiot.”

  “Wolf?” she asked weakly.

  He shone the light directly in her eyes and she winced away.

  “Are there wolves?” Peter demanded.

  “Yes. Yes. They’re nocturnal. Wolves are. A-and here.” She thought, maybe. Noah had definitely mentioned coyotes, but wolves sounded a lot more terrifying, and what did it matter if she was wrong? She wanted Peter to be scared. That was all that mattered.

  Again Peter slowly moved the beam of light around in a circle. Addie stayed where she was in the snow praying there was no wolf or bear or anything. Just Noah. She prayed and prayed for Noah.

  Peter raised his gun and shot. Addie screamed and covered her ears as he turned in a slow circle, pulling the trigger every few seconds.

  “What kind of coward hides in the shadows?” Peter demanded. “A man shows his face when he’s ready to fight.”

  “A man doesn’t chase an innocent woman and her child across the country, terrorize her and cause the death of his men because of his own stupidity.”

  Noah. It was Noah’s voice in the woods. Peter shot toward the voice, and Addie swallowed back a gasp. Her ears rang with the sound of all the gunshots and she wanted to go running for him. Save him. Hold him.

  “Her child? Is that what she told you?” Peter laughed. Uproariously. “That boy is mine. She has no claim on him.”

  Silence stretched in the freezing dark, and Addie wanted to cry, but she couldn’t allow herself. It didn’t matter. If Noah was angry or hurt, or if he believed Peter at all. Nothing in the here and now mattered except Seth’s safety, and Noah’s getting out of here alive. He shouldn’t die for the problems she’d brought to his door.

  So if he was hurt that she’d lied about being Seth’s mother, it didn’t matter. Couldn’t.

  “What a little liar you are,” Peter said cheerfully. “Your big strong man thought you were a doting mother? How adorable.”

  “I am his aunt,” Addie returned. “And his protector.”

  “If he’s dead, you failed.”

  “I suppose I did fail, but better him dead than with you where you’d only warp and twist him into a sad, pathetic excuse for a human being. Better him gone for good than turn out to be anything like you.”

  Without warning, Peter snatched an arm out and curled his hand around her throat. The flashlight thumped to the ground, bouncing light against the snow. Addie tried to fight him, kick at him, but he’d holstered his gun and added his other hand around her throat. He was too strong or she was too cold.

  “I’m going to choke her to death,” Peter called out. “Are you going to just stand there and watch?”

  There were only the gurgling sounds coming from her own throat as she clawed at his hands. He’d wanted her to suffer, but now he wanted Noah to suffer by watching him kill her. What was Noah doing? Why wasn’t he stepping in to save her?

  She began to see spots, everything in her body screaming in agony. She considered how much of a chance she had at running if she stabbed Peter. Panic rose like bile in her throat and she no longer cared what the consequences were. If she failed, she failed, but at least she’d tried not to die.

  She kept clawing at him with one hand, but with the other she reached behind her and pulled the knife in her pants out of its sheath. Peter was too busy searching the dark for Noah, so she swung the blade as hard as she could. It hit Peter’s side with a sickening squelch and for a moment she could pull in a gasping breath as his hands eased around her throat.

  But then she saw Peter’s eyes widen, then narrow, and everything inside her sank. The squeezing returned as his lip curled into a sneer.

  She hadn’t gotten the blade far enough inside him to cause any kind of damage. And now, since Noah was apparently not coming to save her, she was dead.

  As long as Seth’s safe. As long as Seth’s safe. She let her mind chant it as her vision dimmed again.

  “You stupid girl. You think that little knife would—” But Peter never finished his sentence, because the sound of a gun going off seemed simultaneous to him falling to the ground.

  * * *

  FOR A SECOND or two, Noah could only stand where he’d positioned himself behind a tree, rifle still up. But Addie was standing there, next to Peter’s unmoving body. Then she collapsed onto her knees, making terrible gasping noises, but gasping noises were alive noises.

  Noah’s whole body shook as he rushed forward. Peter’s body didn’t so much as move. Noah didn’t bother to look where his bullet had hit. He gathered Addie up in his arms and began to carry her away. He wanted her far away from that man, the ugliness, the violence.

  He carried her through the trees, struggling against the exhaustion, his body’s own injuries, the cold. But still he moved forward, back toward where he’d left Ty. But his legs only kept him upright for so long.

  “I can walk. I can walk,” she murmured against his neck as he leaned against a tree, trying to catch his breath. “We can walk, right? If you got away from the other guys, they’re... Do you
think they’re all dead?”

  “I don’t know about dead, but you’re right, we can walk.” He set her down carefully, still leaning against the tree, trying to catch his breath and wrap his mind around all of it.

  “Seth’s alive, isn’t he?” Because that was the most important thing, what this had all been for.

  “I think so. I told Vanessa to go with him. We were trying...” She choked on a sob, and it hurt to look at her, even in the shadowy light of night. She was pale and bloodied and dripping wet.

  “We need to move. Make sure they’re safe. I have to find Ty, and then...” He looked around the forest, the starry moonlit sky above. “We’ll get to Seth,” he promised, holding out his hand for her to take. But when she slipped her hand into his, he had to pull her close again and hold her tight against him for a minute. Just a minute.

  “What’s a little hypothermia, right?” she asked, her arms around him nearly as tight as his were around her.

  He managed a chuckle against her hair, holding her close to assure himself she was alive and well. This was over. Over. “We’ll survive it, I think. Let’s find Ty. He earned himself a little stab wound in the arm.”

  “So tetanus shots for everyone.”

  “All these near-death experiences turned you into quite the comedian.”

  “Or I’ve just gone insane.” She sighed gustily into his neck. “Noah.”

  She didn’t say anything more, so he held her to him, trying to will the cold away. “You’re safe now. It’s all over.”

  She sighed heavily. “Not all. Noah, Peter wasn’t lying. Seth isn’t mine.”

  “Maybe if you hadn’t just almost died I’d care a little bit more about that.” But mostly, Noah found he didn’t care. Maybe before this had all gone down he would have mustered some righteous indignation, some hurt, but after seeing what Peter could do, there was no question everything Addie had done had been done to protect Seth from that monster.

  He couldn’t hold that against her.

  She pulled back, looked up at him, and he couldn’t read her expression in the shadows. “I lied to you.”