Wrangler's Rescue

by B. J Daniels

  AJ screamed as the man came barreling out of the darkness of the junglelike vegetation. He tackled Cyrus, the two of them falling to the rocky path and tumbling downward into the darkness. She stood frozen for a moment before she charged after them, frantically looking around for something she could use as a weapon.

  Cyrus had told her to run down to the cottage. But they were still a long way from there and she feared what would happen in the time it would take her to find Marissa and return with a gun.

  In a shaft of moonlight, she saw the flash of a knife as the two men crashed into the base of a palm and came to a bone-crunching stop. She heard a groan, but neither seemed to be injured enough to stop fighting.

  Panicked, she didn’t know what to do. There were no limbs like on pine trees that she could use as a weapon—only dense vegetation and a few fallen palm fronds. She knew better than to try to get between the men, but she had to do something and fast. She could see they were struggling over the knife in the atttacker’s hand.

  Spying a rock the size of a small bowling ball, she hurriedly scooped it up and rushed toward them. She could see that Cyrus had hold of the man’s wrist and was fighting to keep the man from stabbing him. The man, large and clearly outweighing Cyrus, shifted, throwing a leg over him and changing his position so he was directly above him. The knife blade gleamed as the man fought to thrust the blade into Cyrus’s chest.

  AJ didn’t think. She only acted. Hefting the rock high, she brought it down on the attacker’s head. A loud crack filled the air and for a moment she feared the man would drop on Cyrus, the knife blade burying into his chest.

  She hadn’t realized that she was holding her breath, until Cyrus shoved the man away and stumbled to his feet. He was bleeding from a gash on his head as he moved to her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked as he reached her.

  “Me? Did he...?” Cyrus was covered with blood.

  “I’m all right.” He was breathing hard. There was blood on his hands and his face and the shirt he was wearing was splattered with it.

  She threw herself into his arms. He held her close for a moment. She could see that his head wound was bleeding badly. She pulled off a strip of fabric from her beach cover and pressed it to his temple.

  His gaze went to the man on the ground. “Do you recognize him?”

  AJ didn’t want to look, but forced herself to. The man lay on his back, eyes closed. Had she killed him? “I’ve never seen him before. Have you?” She pulled back to look into his eyes.

  He shook his head. “We’re going to need help,” he said. “Assuming he was alone.”

  That thought sent a sliver of ice down her spine. “You don’t think...”

  “We need to get down to the cottage,” he said taking her shoulders in his hands. “Give me your phone. You have Hermon’s number on here?”

  She nodded, realizing what he had already figured out. Hermon would know what to do. He made the call telling the islander where he was and that he needed help. Hermon apparently didn’t ask any questions and the call ended.

  “Let’s go,” Cyrus said.

  Terrified, her legs like water, but she stumbled down the rest of the trail behind him feeling as if she was in shock. It wasn’t until they reached her cottage that she got a good look at Cyrus.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “I’ll take care of it. You get cleaned up and then go to Marissa’s. She’ll feed you and make sure you’re safe until I’m through here.”

  Get cleaned up? Until that moment, she hadn’t realized that there were also splatters of the dead man’s blood on her arms and legs. She began to shake.

  “You saved my life. Keep telling yourself that.” His gaze met hers and held it, holding her at arm’s length as he forced her to look into his eyes. “You are a strong woman. Remember that.”

  * * *

  HERMON LOST NO TIME. He arrived thirty minutes later. By then Cyrus had bound his head to staunch the bleeding. The islander asked no questions as the two of them walked up the path. Only faint moonlight pierced the dense vegetation. Neither spoke until the spot where the body had been lying. There was blood on the ground, but the man was gone.

  “How badly was he wounded?” Hermon asked.

  “Not as badly as I thought.” He saw tracks in the dust. “He wasn’t alone. Someone helped him.” He looked back down the trail. But where were they now?

  At the sound of a boat motor, he and Hermon glanced at each other, then headed back down the dark trail. They reached the edge of the trees in time to see a small boat leaving a small cove to the north. One man was at the stern steering the motor, the other was lying in the hull, one hand dragging in the water as the boat rocked over the waves.

  “Any idea who they were?” Hermon asked.

  Cyrus shook his head. “He attacked me as we were coming down from the hot spring.”

  “We?”

  “AJ and me.”

  Hermon didn’t seem surprised by his being with the blonde American woman or that there could have been a dead man just off the path.

  “Do you recognize the boat?”

  The islander nodded. “He’s from one of the large families on the island.”

  Cyrus swore. “They’ll go to the authorities.”

  Hermon shook his head. “No, they won’t. But they will try again.”

  “If they’re local, why would they come after me?” Cyrus asked.

  “They would have no reason,” Hermon said. “Unless they were hired to do so. I will come in the morning with the taxi. You must go.”

  Cyrus nodded. He listened to the steady putt of the engine, watching the boat take the ocean swells, until it disappeared. He had no choice now but to leave. The last cottage was nearly done. “AJ will be going with me.”

  “Of course,” Hermon said as they walked back toward the row of cottages. “You will be all right.”

  He wished he believed that. As the islander headed for his taxi, Cyrus stood for a moment looking out at the sea before he walked to AJ’s cottage.

  * * *

  AJ HAD BEEN horrified when she’d seen herself in the mirror. She quickly stripped down and stepped into the hot shower, letting the water wash away the dead man’s blood. She’d killed a man. That thought made her shake even harder as she began to soap herself. As if she could scrub away the memory.

  By the time the water started to turn cold, she’d scrubbed herself almost raw. She stepped out, and then ran a brush through her freshly washed hair and toweled dry enough to dress in a T-shirt and jeans. She doubted she could eat a bite even though her stomach continued to growl.

  But she knew that if she didn’t show up at the main cottage, Marissa would worry and maybe come looking for her—and Cyrus. In his condition, she didn’t want the woman seeing him and asking questions. She wondered how much Hermon shared with his aunt. She didn’t want to take any chances.

  Cyrus was right. If some strange man showed up to harm her or Cyrus, she had no doubt Marissa would take care of him. So she hurried up the hillside to find Marissa had left a note. She’d gotten a ride into town from a friend. She’d left food for her and Cyrus in the refrigerator.

  With relief that she wouldn’t have to face anyone right now, AJ opened the refrigerator and took out the plates the woman had left for them. She found a bag to carry them, and then looked for the shotgun. She found it leaning against the wall of Marissa’s bedroom with a box of shells nearby. Taking it and the food and ammunition, she headed back toward her cottage, trying not to worry about Cyrus.

  But how could she not? The last time she’d seen him, he’d been bleeding.

  She pushed open her cottage door and stopped cold at the sound of running water. It took her a moment to realize that her shower was on again. She stepped in and closed and locked the door. After putting down the food, ammo and shotgun
, she moved cautiously to the bathroom.

  Behind the warbled glass of the shower door, she saw his body, a body she now knew intimately.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t leave you any hot water,” she said through the glass.

  “I haven’t had a real shower in... I have no idea how long,” he said with a laugh as he shut off the water and opened the door. “Cold or not, it was wonderful.”

  He was so beautiful naked, his body glistening with beads of water, that she could only stare for a moment. “Your head is still bleeding a little. There’s a first aid kit in the other room. Let me see what I can do.”

  But he grabbed her wrist, and pulled her closer. “Marissa?”

  “She’d gotten a ride into town from a friend. She left us food. I brought her shotgun and some shells.”

  “Did you lock the door?” he asked, his voice husky.

  She smiled. “I did.”

  Later, as she bandaged his head properly, neither of them spoke for a bit. They’d made love in her cottage, holding each other as if they’d both needed the human connection to assure them that they’d lived through what had happened tonight.

  Someone had tried to kill Cyrus. Again. That was never far from AJ’s mind except in the throws of lovemaking.

  “I didn’t see Hermon?” she said after she was through bandaging his head. He was lucky, the cut on his head was superficial and should heal quickly. But that didn’t keep her from worrying.

  “When we reached the spot the man was gone.”

  She tried to breathe, but her chest hurt. “How—”

  “He was still alive. He hadn’t come alone. Hermon said both men are local and must have been hired for the job.”

  Her startled gaze met his. “Hired by whom?”

  He shrugged. “From what you’ve told me, my first guess would be my dear wife.”

  AJ groaned. “Not that I don’t believe Juliette is behind it, but how could she know who to hire even if she knew which island you were on?” At his expression, she asked, “What?”

  “That photo you took of me on your phone.”

  She felt herself heat with guilt. “Your family needed to see for themselves.”

  “I understand, but unless you turned off the geotagging on your phone...”

  “The what?” she asked as she pulled back.

  He took the first aid kit from her and put it aside. “Unless you turn off the photo geotagging on your phone it is extremely easy to place the exact location of where the photo was taken on a map. It even provides the precise GPS coordinates to the spot where the photo was taken.”

  She was shaking her head. “How do you know this?”

  “Good question. I have no idea. Had I thought of it sooner I could have stopped you from sending the photo. But it just came to me that someone might have passed the photo on to my wife...”

  AJ groaned. “I didn’t, but someone in the family could have. Juliette was demanding proof that you were alive.”

  “Then she knows exactly where we are,” Cyrus said as he rose to his feet. “Hermon will be coming for us in the morning to take us to the airport.” He stopped at the small table and picked up his passport. Opening it, he said, “I took my passport when I went to Denver? Doesn’t that seem strange?”

  “You’d recently misplaced your Montana driver’s license and hadn’t gone down to the DMV because you were convinced it would turn up. You would have needed ID to get on the plane in Billings.”

  He shrugged and dropped his passport back on the table before turning to look at her. “I’m not going to leave you alone tonight.” He stepped up to her, drawing her to her feet and kissing her. “But I think we should try to get some sleep. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

  She nodded, wondering if she would get any sleep with him lying next to her, let alone reliving what had happened on the trail.

  “You saved my life,” Cyrus said. “Again.”

  “And jeopardized it by sending that photo.”

  He pulled her to him. “We’re headed for Montana tomorrow.”

  “Montana and your family.” She felt her expression sour. “And your wife.”

  “Yes, my wife.” He pulled back to look down at the ring on his finger. Taking it off, he tossed it over his shoulder. It hit in a far corner, tinkling and going still. But even with the ring gone, the pale line was still on his finger. He was still married.

  “Maybe with luck she won’t try to kill me again.” He smiled when he said it, but AJ saw no humor in it. She had a bad feeling that they’d be lucky to get off this island alive.

  She thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but the moment she lay down in Cyrus’s arms, she dropped into a deep exhausted sleep filled with dark images.

  * * *

  FROM THE LIVING room at Cahill Ranch, Hawk let out a cry. “It’s her. Juliette, but she’s with a different man.”

  The family had gathered after he’d gotten off work to keep going through the videos. Now they all huddled around his computer screen.

  “That’s her, all right,” Flint said from behind him. “But who is that with her? It isn’t the same man.” He knew Juliette talking to a man on the ship wasn’t evidence that she’d known the man before the cruise. But it did look suspicious.

  Hawk let the video recording continue as they all watched. “They seem to be arguing.”

  Flint agreed. “Let’s see if we can identify him.” Hawk got up to let him have the computer and watched as his brother enlarged the photo, copied a shot of the man’s face and sent it to a federal facial identifying site.

  They waited, with Flint telling himself that this one could be a bust. But it didn’t take long for a matching photo to come up—along with a name.

  “Bingo,” he said as he recognized the name. “Arthur Davis. He’s Juliette’s first husband and the only one besides Cyrus not to die while married to her. I need to call AJ,” he said after making a copy of Arthur’s photo.

  “Should we keep looking?” Hawk asked. “You don’t think there are more, do you?”

  “No, but keep looking. Maybe we can find something more incriminating. So far all we can prove was that she knew the two men on board the ship. That’s not a crime.”

  “Having your ex-husband on the same cruise as your newlywed husband isn’t a crime?” Lillie demanded.

  “Suspicious, definitely,” Flint said, “but not criminal. Unless the two men threw Cyrus overboard. Unfortunately, he still hasn’t remembered any of it.”

  He stepped away to make the call and was disappointed when it went to voice mail. “Call me. We found two men who were on the ship the night Cyrus went overboard—both are connected to Juliette.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  AJ TRIED TO remain calm as they waited for Hermon to arrive with his taxi early the next morning. What if he wasn’t coming? What if the police—

  “He’ll come,” Cyrus said next to her and took her hand. Earlier he’d gone up to tell Marissa goodbye and thank her. They’d hugged. Marissa, AJ noticed, looked worried. They’d returned her shotgun and shells. She hadn’t bothered to ask why they had taken them. Did she know what had happened on the trail? Would Hermon have told her?

  “You’re shaking,” Cyrus said and put an arm around her. “We’ll be off the island soon.”

  She nodded, praying that was true. She’d had all the paradise she could stand. “Unfortunately, there is no easy way to get back to Montana and I won’t feel safe until I’m back there.” But even as she said it, she wondered if she would ever feel safe again. Or if Cyrus would.

  He looked as anxious as she felt. He was just hiding it better.

  She explained the flights she’d booked. “It will take a series of flights even with me setting up a private plane to take us from San Juan to Miami where we’ll catch commercial flights to Minneapolis and f
inally Billings,” she said, needing to talk about something that she felt she had control over. “It’s the fastest I can get us back there.”

  “You think I’m in a hurry?” he asked with humor in his voice.

  “Are you sure you’re ready to leave here?”

  He smiled at her. “My worst memories and my best are here, right? But we can’t stay. We couldn’t even before last night. I have to find out who I am and how I got here.”

  “You’re Cyrus Cahill.”

  “Yes,” he said. “But I don’t know him.”

  She looked away for a moment, the pain in his eyes breaking her heart. Flint had wanted to meet them in Billings but she’d said she thought a rental car would be better. Cyrus’s pickup had been left at the airport for his trip to Denver but Flint had seen that it was brought home weeks ago.

  He hasn’t remembered anything? the sheriff had said. Not even you?

  I don’t know if it’s because of a head injury or from the trauma, but he has no memory of his life before going into the sea. Once he’s back and can see a specialist... She hadn’t told him that she and Cyrus had connected. That he remembered geotagging. And that he seemed to have remembered the feelings he’d had for her.

  At the sound of a vehicle approaching, she looked to the road, fearing that it might be the police or someone else they had to fear. When she saw Hermon’s taxi, she let out the breath she’d been holding.

  He drove down the path through the thick vegetation that they called a road. All of the roads on this island looked much the same because of the hurricane and probably a lack of money for infrastructure.

  Hermon roared up and jumped out to take their luggage. “We have plenty of time before your flight,” he said to Cyrus. “You’re going home.”

  “Home,” Cyrus repeated.

  The islander nodded, but looked worried. “So you remember?”

  “I remember this woman,” Cyrus said and pulled AJ closer. “She’s my saving angel.”

  “We’ll miss you,” Hermon said. “My aunt says you are the best worker she has ever had.”