Passion to Protect

by Colleen Thompson

  Liane shook her head. “I haven’t been able to raise him since this morning. He did have some issues with his satellite radio a few weeks back, but something has to be wrong. He knew how nervous I was about this trip, how I wasn’t sure the kids were ready for—” A shaft of lightning interrupted, stabbing the darkness behind the mountain’s granite dome. Moments later thunder reverberated through the valley, more ominous than ever.

  The noise was the last straw for the bay, who squealed and launched himself backward, snapping not the lead rope but one of the bands of his own halter. As the horse wheeled around to join the herd in the corral, Liane leaped backward, holding the saddle before her like a shield.

  “Help me catch another one,” she demanded. “I have to find my family. Dry as it’s been, there’ll be fires, maybe even worse than last year’s.”

  He nodded grimly, trying not to remember the blaze whose uncharacteristic behavior had engulfed thousands of acres, fifteen homes and the lives of three Wolf River Hotshots—three good men, family men—he’d ordered into what should have been a safe location. They were gone, but the flashbacks were always waiting, resurfacing to accuse him every time he closed his eyes.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Have you called the sheriff’s office yet? Or how ’bout search and rescue?” he asked.

  But he was talking to her back, because she had already turned to grab a rope and a bucket of oats to sweeten the deal.

  “I just got off the phone with them.” With Misty sticking close by her side, Liane jogged toward the dozen or so horses trotting a nervous circle around the corral’s outer edge. Their varied hides, brown and black and white and golden, streamed past the security light in a dust-choked, multicolored river. “They’re refusing to send anyone ’til first light. By that time, anything could happen. Anything might have already.”

  He shook his head. “Elk Creek Canyon’s a treacherous ride at the best of times, and you think you’re going to do it on a panicked horse at this hour? You can’t go out there tonight, or at least you can’t go alone.”

  “I don’t recall asking your opinion.” She turned abruptly, her gaze snapping to meet his. Her stunning blue eyes went ice-cold, the way they always did around him, regardless of his every attempt to act as if he’d forgotten all about their history, as if the memory of how it ended hadn’t been eating away at him since the day he’d learned that she was coming back...the day he’d first begun to realize that he’d never completely gotten past her—or his foolish orphan’s dream of someday, finally, creating a family of his own.

  “Listen, Liane. I get that I’m not your favorite person.”

  Though Deke had made it clear the subject was off-limits, Jake had heard the rumors that the life Liane had chosen hadn’t gone the way she’d planned, that the man she’d married had abused her. Still, that was no reason for her to treat his every word and gesture like poison. Or to confuse him further by leaving foil-wrapped home-baked treats on his cabin porch and then slinking away before he had the chance to thank her. “Put the past aside for a minute and listen to me on this, or you’re going to end up injured. And what good would that do your family?”

  She stilled, her stare heating in an instant. “The past? This isn’t about you, Jake. It’s about my family. I’m not leaving them out there, especially on a night like this one. I can’t.”

  He nodded, understanding her worry. He knew Deke as well as he knew anyone, had looked up to Liane’s father from the first time the older man had promised to kick his backside over the nearest mountaintop if he did anything to hurt his girl. But Jake had never known him to be so long out of contact or this overdue returning from a trip.

  “Then let me come with you,” he offered. “It’ll be a whole lot safer. I know the area well enough, and I’m used to navigating these woods night and day. I could help you pick up the trail.”

  A lariat looped above her head before she launched it in a smooth arc. Instead of roping the still-spooked Copper, she pulled a solidly built pinto from the herd—a herd he thought looked smaller than it should have.

  Had Deke taken extra mounts for pack animals? He tried to remember how many horses he’d seen in the corral this morning on his way out for a follow-up visit with his orthopedic surgeon.

  Liane held the bucket for the brown-and-white mare and led her toward the post, distracting him by saying, “But you can’t possibly, with your leg—”

  “The hell I can’t,” he ground out through clenched teeth. Before his accident he’d been in peak form, and ever since, he’d worked out daily, never allowing himself to give way to self-pity for a moment. He might have lost the career that had defined him, but three other deserving men, family men, had lost their lives last summer. “It doesn’t take two legs to ride a damned horse.”

  Abruptly stopping in her tracks, she turned to look at him, her eyes gleaming. “I’m sorry, Jake. I know how rude that must’ve sounded, and I really do appreciate your offer. But we’re talking about my kids and my father, and I’ve already wasted so much time with people on the phone. Besides, I’ve been wandering these canyons since I was a kid. I can find my way blindfolded.”

  “You say that now, but I can tell you, no matter how well you think you know the territory, the darkness is disorienting. So saddle up a mount for me, too,” he said. “I’m heading back to my place to grab a few supplies. Then I’ll be right back, and we’ll both go find them. Okay?”

  Liane stared up at him, her lips pressed together while she thought. When the tension in her shoulders eased, he took it as a sign of surrender.

  “Go get what you need,” she said.

  He hurried home, then filled hiking canteens and grabbed the small survival kit he always kept stocked for his forays into the forest. With fire a possibility, his thoughts automatically turned to wildlife on the move, so he slipped a bear spray holster onto his belt just in case.

  Stashing a few energy bars in the pouch, he quickly called Micah Fortney, a longtime hotshot firefighter. Getting no answer, Jake settled for leaving a detailed voice mail explaining where he was heading and why. It was probably for the best that Micah hadn’t picked up, because he knew his old friend would give him holy hell for going out at night with a half-hysterical woman in tow. But nothing would convince Liane to stay at home while he rode out to find her family. She would only follow in his wake, giving him one more missing person to worry about.

  A missing person he couldn’t help but care for, no matter how clear she’d made it that she didn’t want his company.

  He grabbed a jacket against the chill that stole over the mountain nights even in late August, then shoved both his phone and a rechargeable two-way radio left over from his firefighting days into the pockets. After locking up the cabin, he made his way back to the corral...

  ...only to find that Liane had already gone, taking both the pinto mare and Misty.

  Left behind just as he’d been, the river of horses continued milling restlessly, causing him to wonder whether the animals were still worked up over Liane’s panic, or did they sense, as he did, that the worst was yet to come?

  * * *

  Liane knew Jake would be hurt that she had left him, but as she negotiated the easier portion of the lower trail, she couldn’t allow herself to worry about the man who served as an unwelcome reminder of the worst decisions of her life. Still, an image blazed up before her of the stiff-necked pride written in his deep brown eyes and etched into his chiseled features. Wounded pride, when she’d brought up his injury.

  Despite how often she’d seen him running lately, she couldn’t imagine he was up to this night ride, no matter how brave and confident he’d sounded, how quick he’d been to take charge. But the more she tried to convince herself she was better off without him, the more she longed for someone, anyone, she could lean on, if only for tonight.

  An
image formed in her mind of another tall, strong man, this one standing over her to take aim.... A crack of thunder had her flinching with the memory, an old nightmare carved from shadow. A nightmare that served as another unwelcome reminder of the high price she’d paid for trusting the wrong man with the things most precious to her.

  A thin branch slapped across her cheekbone, a stinging whiplash that had her hissing through her teeth and hauling back on the reins. The realization that she could easily have lost an eye brought home the point Jake had been trying to get through to her. She could end up hurt or even dead out here, with no chance of help for either herself or her family until morning.

  A shaggy, four-legged form emerged from the undergrowth ahead. Whining, Misty took a few steps forward, then circled back, as if encouraging Liane to hurry.

  Liane nudged the pinto with her heels and followed the dog. A great favorite of the trail ride customers, the shepherd often accompanied her father on his trips, her long legs and incredible endurance allowing her to keep up with the horses. Even in the dark, the dog’s experience and eagerness to see her beloved master would allow her to pick up the familiar trail.

  Imagining their reunion, with Misty leaping up to lick Dad’s face, then racing around Cody and Kenzie in happy circles, Liane managed to slow her breathing, to focus her thoughts as she’d been taught, on the most positive of outcomes rather than imagining all manner of disaster.

  The technique seemed to be working, until another clap of thunder echoed off the rocks around her and she finally allowed herself to admit what she was smelling.

  As the first faint wisps of wood smoke filtered among the trunks and understory bushes, the pinto pranced sideways and nickered.

  More worried than ever, Liane urged the mare forward. Time and time again the horse balked, and then the shepherd whined and circled back to find her. Perhaps the smoke was frightening the dog, too. Or maybe Misty was reacting to the same sixth sense that was warning Liane that her family was in more danger than ever. Either way, they all fed on each other’s apprehension, with Misty’s whining becoming more insistent and Liane digging her heels into the nervous pinto, pushing her forward ever faster. Far too fast, considering the darkness pressing in around her flashlight’s bright beam, and the trail’s growing steepness and unevenness beneath the pinto’s hooves.

  An overhanging tree limb, not a stumble, knocked Liane from the saddle when she failed to duck in time to avoid it.

  She landed with a painful grunt, the wind knocked out of her as first her body and then the back of her head slammed into the rocky ground. Her lungs suddenly empty and her ears ringing, she barely made out the sound of the mare’s receding hooves. Racing back home, Liane thought miserably, to the safety of the herd.

  Seconds later the air that had been knocked from her returned with a noisy gasp. With the influx of oxygen, pinpoints of light exploded in her vision, the only light, since the flashlight had been knocked from her hand and shattered.

  By thinking of her family, she ignored her throbbing head and fought past the bleeding edge of terror. Horseless as she was, and injured as she might be, if she lost control now, she could die here. And whatever happened, she refused to let her family’s hopes die with her.

  “I can do this,” she assured herself. “I will do it.”

  The familiar words triggered a memory, and she saw herself as if from above, lying beside the kicked-in door of that motel room in Las Vegas, her body painting a bloody swath on the cheap carpet as she dragged herself to the phone. An agonizing journey of eight feet had seemed more like eight miles, every inch fueled by the terror that Mac would come back any second, only this time she would be unable to keep him from the locked bathroom and the children.

  Skin crawling, Liane told herself that if she could find the strength and courage to get through that night and the ordeal of the trial that followed—a trial that had been overshadowed in the press by the far more titillating case of a celebrity accused of groping showgirls—she could certainly make her way through this one. With no better option, she took stock of her situation, assessing her pain to figure out whether she was going to have to limp or even drag herself to find her family. Because find them she would, no matter what it cost her.

  Misty reemerged from the smoky layer that hugged the ground like moon-touched mist. This time, though, the dog remained at Liane’s side, her damp nose and little kisses urging her mistress to rise.

  Pushing herself onto hands and knees, Liane struggled to stand, then cried out at the sharp pain that followed, and night’s obsidian curtain crashed down on her, obliterating every conscious thought.

  Chapter 2

  At first, Jake took the sound for more thunder, but moments later he recognized the clatter of steel horseshoes on the rocky ground. Could Liane be coming back already?

  The buckskin gelding he had borrowed lifted his head and neighed loudly. When the greeting was answered, Jake knew the animal ahead must be one of the buckskin’s stable mates.

  Pointing his flashlight down the trail ahead, he called, “Liane?”

  His heart sank when the riderless pinto emerged from the dark.

  Jake urged his mount forward, then leaned over to catch the mare’s trailing reins. “Liane! Where are you?”

  His words echoed through the woods, mingling with the thin smoke. Rather than the answer that he hoped for, the sky flashed white, and thunder shook the air. With the pinto squealing and struggling to escape, his own horse fought for his head, clearly planning to join the mare in a run for the safety of the stable.

  His balance hampered by his prosthetic leg, Jake had a hell of a time convincing both animals that he, and not their flight instinct, was in charge. Though he was far from an expert horseman, he’d watched Deke on enough occasions to mimic the soothing, confident tones that normally put horses at ease.

  But he was no Deke Mason, and there was nothing normal about tonight. Jake might have succeeded in keeping both animals from bolting, but he wasn’t kidding himself. The buckskin would dump him and race the pinto back home if he let his guard down for a moment.

  Still, he risked calling out again, “Liane, can you hear me?”

  Once again there was no answer other than the echo of his own words.

  Jake swore, then swallowed past the lump in his throat. In spite of her coolness and the fact that she’d once more wasted no time ditching him, his gut clenched as he imagined finding her out here somewhere, hurt, her braid unraveled and her delicate face—a face he remembered kissing so thoroughly on that last day, before she’d gone off to college—transformed into a mask of blood. Just as painful as the idea of losing the first girl, the only one, he’d ever offered his love was the idea of telling Cody and Kenzie that their mother had been killed in an attempt to find them.

  That, just as he had been, they would have to be raised by their only surviving relative, a single grandparent.

  Breathing a silent prayer that it wouldn’t come to that, he continued forward, grateful that the surefooted buckskin, at least, seemed to have recovered his senses. Feeling a little more secure, he pulled the radio from his pocket and switched it to the channel he knew the Masons used.

  “Deke?” he said into it. “This is Jake Whittaker. What’s your location? Is Liane there with you?”

  Again and again he tried to raise the older man as static crackled, coinciding with the flickering lightning. Recalling how he’d seen Deke tinkering with his handheld only a few days earlier, Jake nearly gave up hope before he heard the indistinct chatter of an excited male voice, but the transmission was so broken up, he couldn’t make out a single word.

  * * *

  Though Misty would ordinarily growl at a stranger’s approach, she fanned her bushy tail as a rider emerged from the darkness. Blinded by the powerful flashlight beam cutting through the smoky haze, Lia
ne raised her arm to shield her eyes and called, “Who is it?”

  A horse whinnied as it was reined to an abrupt stop, while behind it, a second animal danced and snorted.

  “Thank God,” came Jake’s voice. “When I found your horse running loose, I was afraid you might be—are you hurt? I’d get down, but...”

  She nodded, knowing that he would find it tough to climb back on board a nervous horse without a mounting block. “I fell and bumped my head. Smashed my flashlight, too, but I’ll be okay. And I’m really sorry I ran off the way I did.” Her words were clipped, embarrassed, reminding her of another time when she’d left him, but she couldn’t afford to waste time thinking of things she could never undo. Overhead, lightning flashed, a long, low growl of thunder on its heels. “I’ve been out of my mind worrying, but at least the fall knocked a little sense into me.”

  “I’m worried about this smoke. This lightning’s definitely sparked off something.”

  “Do you have any idea where the fire is?” She prayed he wouldn’t say Elk Creek Canyon.

  “Can’t see anything from this far down the mountain,” he said. “Smoke could be blowing in from miles away or over the next ridge. Considering the weather, more than likely there are multiple ignition points.”

  Anxiety knotted her stomach. If there was fire between her and her family, then what? The only other way into the canyon was an even rougher path off an old logging road so far to the north they would have to ride back home, then trailer the horses to reach it.

  “You think you can make it back up on your horse again?” Jake asked.

  Swallowing hard, she nodded. “If you can hold her still.” She limped over to the mare. “It’s all right, Queen. It’s okay, sweetie,” she crooned, until the horse accepted her presence. Before remounting, she forced herself to take time to stroke the silken neck, keeping her voice soft yet assured, and her hands gentle and steady. Earlier she’d allowed herself to get so worked up that she’d forgotten everything she knew about working with horses, and it had cost her dearly. She couldn’t afford to make the same mistake again.