Bear Claw Bodyguard

by Jessica Andersen

  Body going into automatic mode, Jack shouldered his shotgun and snapped off two return shots that blasted off the rocks and got the guy’s head down even as his mind revved with the sickening realization that the damned Shadow Militia hadn’t ghosted after all…and he had led his protectee straight into an ambush.

  Worse, if the guy moved and Jack didn’t notice, the only thing between her and a bullet was his body. He had her crowded up against the rock. Their legs were tangled, his chest was pressed to her back and he could feel the pound of her heart and the heave of her ribs as she gasped for air.

  “Don’t panic,” he said, bracketing the words with two more shots and a reload. “I’ve got you.” His hand was itching to reach for his phone, but he didn’t make the grab because they were out of cell range and far away from backup. Which meant he needed her to stay calm and help him out. “Keep breathing. In and out. You got it?”

  She whipped her head around and stared wildly up at him, her eyes huge and dark in her face. But he could see her struggling against the fear, see the growing determination as she nodded. “I got—”

  Crack—crack—crack! The trio of shots hammered into the stone, breaking off a piece and sending something burning across Jack’s upper arm. “Son of a—” he hissed.

  Tori’s face went stricken and she choked off a scream as she grabbed him and tried to drag him away from the point of impact. “You’re hurt!”

  “Barely.” It was little more than a scratch really, and there would be far worse in store if he didn’t do something drastic, because they were pinned down in a weaker position. Catching Tori’s hands, he eased her back against the rock. “Stay,” he growled, “and I mean it. Don’t move. Just keep your head down.”

  “Where—” She clamped her lips together, pale but resolute as she followed his gaze to the track he would need to take to reach the gunman, and winced. He could get to the rocks the guy was hiding behind—he would have to get there—but it meant crossing nearly a hundred yards of open space. “You’ll be a sitting duck.”

  “You’re right.” And the fact that she recognized it argued for some basic proficiency with a gun. He hoped. “Take this.” He yanked his pistol, thumbed off the safety and handed it over. “When I say the word, put four bullets into those rocks up there. Space them out a little and don’t worry about aiming, it’s just cover fire. Just don’t point it at me, okay?”

  She took the weapon, surprised the hell out of him by checking it with practiced ease, though her hands shook, and looked back up at him. “Only four?”

  “Save the others in case I’m not the one who comes back for you.” He didn’t have time to sugarcoat it, punctuated by the crack-crack of two more shots.

  The last of the color drained from her face, but she nodded and tightened her grip on the pistol. “Make sure you are, okay?”

  He slid his hand up her arm to the back of her neck and squeezed in a gesture that suddenly felt more intimate than he’d intended it to. “Will do.”

  Then, before he could think about all the ways this could go very wrong very fast, he popped his head around the stone, pounded two more shots into the rocks where the bastard was hiding, and then took off, staying low, moving fast, and keeping as much cover between him and the shooter as he could.

  A bullet slammed into a nearby tree trunk with a fleshy, splintering noise. He ducked, dodged, snapped off a shot, saw that he was about to hit open ground and shouted, “Tori, now!”

  The first shot rang out almost immediately from behind him and kicked up the gravel below the gunman’s position. He didn’t look to see where the second and third hit, just took off running in a jackrabbit zigzag across the open ground. His feet skidded on the loose, sandy gravel, his body burned with the anticipation of the next shot, and the rocky cover up ahead looked farther away with every step he took. But Tori’s third shot came when he was halfway across, her fourth at the three-quarter’s mark, and then he was there!

  Breath rattling in his lungs, he dived behind the bigger boulders that led the way up to where the bastard was hiding, slammed back against the cool stone surface and made himself take the time to reload, even though his heart was slamming with the rhythm of get him, get him, get him!

  Determination gripped him—anger, even. It wasn’t coming just from the drive for justice that was part of the Williams DNA either, wasn’t because of the troubles that had been hammering at Bear Claw and its overworked, understaffed P.D. either. It was bubbling straight up from deep inside him: a raw and atavistic need to make sure nothing happened to Tori.

  Growling low in his throat, he charged up the hill, staying low and moving fast, sacrificing some stealth and cover for speed because he was all too aware that the gunman hadn’t gotten off a shot in nearly a minute.

  He led with his shotgun, swung around the last outcropping—and stopped dead at the sight of an empty, scuffed-up spot where the shooter had been.

  Tori! He shouted the word in his skull but didn’t let it out as he spun in a quick three-sixty, not sure if the guy had gone after her or taken off. Please, let him have taken off.

  There was no sign of the gunman save for the scuff marks leading down, a single line where the guy had retraced his trail and then branched off—straight onto a wide, rocky ledge that didn’t hold any tracks and was headed straight for Tori.

  Pulse thudding in ears that strained for the sound of gunfire, Jack charged along the ridge of stone, and then crept to within a few boulders of where he’d left Tori, hoping to hell that the silence meant she was hiding, not taken hostage. The last few seconds were the worst, as he got to within a single stone of her position, straining to see if he could detect the sounds of one or two people on the other side. Then, knowing it was better to risk his position than take friendly fire, he called softly, “Tori, it’s Jack. I—”

  A blur came at him from the side. He wheeled with his gun up and ready, then jerked it to the side as his brain registered petite curves and huge brown eyes. There wasn’t time to notice much else before she flung herself against him and hung on tight, all warmth and curves and slightness against him.

  Even as he told himself to detach and go after the guy, his arms closed around her with equal force.

  “You’re okay!” Her words were muffled in his shirt and her body vibrated with tension. “I thought…” As if suddenly realizing what she’d done, she pushed away from him, blushing. “Here, take this.” She shoved the pistol into his free hand, leaving him standing there with a gun in each hand and the imprint of her body on his as she took a couple more steps back, holding her hands out to her sides as if to say “Sorry, don’t know what got into me.”

  And even though he knew the moment had come from fear and relief, part of him was dying to close the gap between them and touch her for real.

  Bad timing, he told himself. And a really, really bad idea. So instead of reaching for her, he safetied and holstered the pistol, then turned away from her to scan the scene. “Did you see him?”

  “He’s gone?”

  “Looks like it.” And sure enough, a quick but thorough search of the immediate area said that the gunman had left. Jack wasn’t willing to bet on how far he’d gone, though, or that he wasn’t coming back with reinforcements, so he turned them back the way they had come, feeling the prickle of unseen—maybe imagined, maybe not—eyes on the back of his neck. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Hang on.” Tori dug in. “I need my bag.”

  He might have argued—his gut said they had to get out of there fast—but the sudden gleam in her eyes told him that he’d be wasting his time. Besides, it wasn’t much of a detour over to where her knapsack had fallen…and he wasn’t sure how much of his disquiet came from the gunman and how much from feeling that he and Tori were skirting the edge of dangerous territory…especially given that her stay in Bear Claw had a guaranteed expiration date, and he wasn’t wired for “casual.”

  Still, though, as he led her back to the SUV using a
different track than the one they’d taken before, just in case, he was acutely aware not just of their surroundings and the unusually quiet tension in the air, but also of her. The practiced moves of her body said she was used to moving silently through the woods, but the slight hitch in her breathing said she was terrified and doing her best to hold it together.

  On the drive earlier, he had been thinking that she was too slight to handle the Forgotten, skilled or not. Now, his respect notched up—she could handle herself and then some. Still, he wished like hell that he’d talked her out of the trip. She shouldn’t have been in the line of fire, period.

  That was fixable, though. He would get her back down to civilization, load her onto a plane, and get back to work. There was no way Tucker could keep him off this investigation now, not when—

  “Oh, hell.” He stopped dead at the sight of the SUV. It was still sitting where he’d parked it, but the hood was popped. “Stay put,” he ordered grimly, “and get ready with that pistol.”

  “Shouldn’t we stick together?”

  “Not if… Not right now.” If the damn thing was wired to blow, he didn’t want her anywhere near it—and the militia had done worse. Without taking his eyes off their surroundings, he dug into his jacket for a canteen and his pocketknife. “Hold on to these for me, will you? If we get separated, I want you to head back down. Stay off the road but keep it in sight.”

  “You…” She trailed off, then caught his hand for a moment, squeezed it. “Don’t do that to me, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best.” They shared a look that lasted a beat too long to be for simple luck, and then he pulled away. “Cover me. If something that’s not me moves, shoot it. I’d rather lose a deer than our lives.”

  Without another word, he slipped out into the open and headed for the SUV. To his surprise, Tori melted almost immediately into the trees; he couldn’t see her even though he knew exactly where to look. Damn. His respect notched up another bit, and along with it his determination not to let her down.

  Steady, he told himself as he got to within a few feet of the SUV. Don’t rush it. But he was also very aware of the first blush of pink on the horizon, heralding the too-quick autumn dusk. He had the equipment for them to camp out, sure, but not in the face of a potential armed standoff, or worse.

  Forcing himself to focus, he scanned the vehicle. He didn’t see a tripwire or evidence of explosives, although with today’s miniaturization, that was no guarantee. But he was losing light and his gut said they had to get moving. So, holding his breath, he opened the hood.

  “Son of a—” He bit off the curse, then ran the hood the rest of the way open, staring dismayed at the mess of wires and hoses that had taken the sharp end of a knife. Which made sense, he realized after the fact: assuming that the gunman had stumbled over them, he wouldn’t have been carrying explosives or tripwires. But he’d obviously had a knife with him, and he’d probably be coming back with the other stuff.

  Lifting his hand, he beckoned Tori in from the tree line. She looked at him hopefully as she approached, but must have seen something in his eyes, because her face was grim by the time she joined him at the SUV.

  “I think I can cobble things back together with the supplies I’ve got on hand,” he said. Hopefully his patches would last long enough to get them back down to the station, or at least into radio range of help. “I need you to keep watch from the trees while I work on this.”

  “Not from here?”

  He thought about sugar coating it, but went with the bald truth instead. “Matt and Gigi were nearly killed when the militia nailed their Jeep with a rocket-propelled grenade.”

  Her eyes whipped back to him. “In other words, we’re sitting ducks.”

  “Which is why I need you in the trees.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, then snapped it shut once more. Nodded. “Of course.” Then she surprised him by catching his hand and tugging him down, to brush a kiss across his cheek. “Thank you.”

  “It’s my job,” he said automatically, as he had done pretty much since his first days as a rook when someone wanted to thank him. This time, though, his skin heated and he found himself wanting to say something more even though he didn’t have a clue what that might be. Then she pulled away and headed for the trees, walking almost silently and keeping her eyes moving.

  Damn, she impressed him.

  No distractions, he reminded himself, and rummaged in the SUV for the wire stripper and a fat roll of electrical tape before he turned back to the slashed hoses and wires. This time, though, he focused wholly on the job, trusting that his partner—or, rather, his protectee—had his back. And given the list of rooks he’d been working with over the past couple of years thanks to Mayor Skinflint, it had been a long time since he’d had anyone watching his six for real. It should’ve rubbed wrong that it was a scientist he could practically blow over…but it didn’t.

  He’d think about that later, though. Like after they were the hell out of there and she was on a plane headed home.

  “This one goes to this one…” He talked himself through the patches, working too quickly to really be methodical, but not letting himself make any mistakes because there wasn’t any time for a do-over. He was barely two-thirds of the way through when he realized he was squinting to see, and had to click on a small flashlight and hold it between his teeth.

  All the while, the back of his neck was strung tight waiting for the sound of a footstep or the crack of a gunshot. He was sweating by the time he taped the last connection into place. Then, sending up a wordless prayer, he leaned across the driver’s seat and tried the key.

  The engine turned over and started to come to life, but then coughed and died. “Come on, come on,” he muttered, slinging himself into the seat and risking a glance over to the tree line. Tori was just barely visible within the branches. She flashed him a thumbs up and mouthed You can do it, then faded back into the branches, leaving him to think she had stepped into view just for him.

  Shaking his head, he tried the key again, goosing the gas a little. The SUV started, and this time it stayed running. “Nice!”

  He waved to Tori as he lunged out of the vehicle to slam the hood, heart suddenly pounding where he’d been mostly calm up to this point. So close. They were so damn close to getting out of there! She burst from the trees, moving fast but still quiet, gripping his pistol two-handed and somehow managing to look simultaneously terrified and utterly capable as she piled into the SUV from the other side and banged the door shut with a slam that was gunshot-loud after all the quiet.

  Pulse racing, he met her eyes. “Here goes nothing.” Only it was really everything as he shifted into gear, the transmission synched up and he hit the gas…and everything worked the way it was supposed to. He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until it came out in a big whoosh. “Come on,” he muttered under his breath. “Hang in there.”

  Tori didn’t say a word, just kept the pistol in her lap and her eyes moving, scanning the passing scrub. But she reached over with her free hand and briefly gripped his wrist in thanks.

  For Jack, the next few hours passed in a blur of death-gripping the steering wheel, squinting to tell the faint tread-marked trail from the surrounding unstable shale, and hoping to hell his patches would hold. He and Tori exchanged a few words now and then on the practicalities, and once they were out of the Forgotten, she set aside the pistol, turned up the heat and sagged against her door, her eyes still moving, watching for trouble even in the moonlit darkness.

  They both knew that if there was going to be a problem at this point, they likely wouldn’t see it coming. The SUV’s headlights lit the night with an “aim the RPG here” sign in neon, but it wasn’t like he could turn them off. He was having a devil of a time staying on the trail as it was. So he drove, wincing with every bounce and bang, imagining his patches loosening up and the hoses teetering on the brink of separation.

  He was strung out, his eyes burning, his body caught
in a surreal state of exhausted terror that had him hallucinating as he tried his damnedest to see the track. That had to be a hallucination, because there was no way—

  Tori jolted and straightened. “It’s the tower! We made it!”

  He blinked hard, then had to blink again to clear his burning eyes, but the lights didn’t disappear along with the gritty fog shrouding his vision. They stayed true—small, amber pinpricks that expanded to glows and then became the solar floodlights that topped the observatory.

  Station Fourteen had never looked so good.

  “We could walk it from here,” he rasped, feeling the tension draining away, leaving him nearly limp with relief.

  “Let’s not and say we did,” she said drily. Then she flashed him a grin, her eyes gleaming with the same mad joy that was suddenly pumping through him.

  He snorted, guffawed, cracked up. And they rolled into the parking lot laughing like a pair of idiots.

  The second he took his foot off the gas and hit the brake, though, the engine thudded and died. Kaput. Done.

  He choked off the tension-relieving laughter, letting it bleed away in a long sigh. “Holy crap, Tori. We made it.”

  She reached across and gripped his wrist as she had done before, only this time she let her hand linger. “We only made it because of you. Thank you, Jack. I…” She shook her head. “Thank you.”

  The old “just doing my job” got stuck in his throat, locked there by the flare of heat that kindled at the point where she was touching him and rolled up his arm to fill his chest. He just shook his head, not even sure what he was denying anymore as he turned his grip inside hers to thread their fingers together and tug her closer.

  She could have pretended not to understand, could’ve pulled away. She didn’t do either of those things, though. Instead, as the breath backed up in his lungs and the warmth turned to a gnawing ache mixed with flames, she leaned toward him in the darkness. He lifted his other hand and drew his fingers along the side of her face and back to brush her hair behind one ear, giving her one last chance to retreat. She didn’t, though.