The Groom's Stand-In (Special Edition)

by Gina Wilkins

  Releasing his grip on Chloe’s shoulder, Donovan reached out to prop himself with one hand against the trunk of a large tree, needing a moment to get his equilibrium. He might have seemed calm, but his heart was pounding like a jackhammer against his ribs. He’d been scared that he would do or say something wrong and put Chloe in further jeopardy.

  Realizing that Chloe was frowning at him in heavy silence, he lifted his eyebrows at her. “What?”

  “You could have at least tried to reason with him.”

  “I could have,” he agreed equably. “But I really wasn’t in the mood to get shot today.”

  “You really think he would have shot us? Even if we had taken the time to make him understand that we—?”

  “Chloe,” he interrupted her gently. “Do you know what that guy is probably doing right this minute?”

  She blinked a minute, then shook her head. “No.”

  “He’s probably searching every inch of that cabin for the listening devices he’s certain we’ve placed there. He’s convinced himself by now that I was lying to him, that we’re really government agents who were spying on his activities. He doesn’t believe I have a broken leg, or that we have no idea where we are. The only reason he didn’t shoot us is because he was afraid the sound of shots would make our army of jackbooted partners rush in to rescue us. If we’d waited much longer, he would have taken the chance and shot us, anyway.”

  “But—”

  “He’s not sane, Chloe. He’s scared and confused and paranoid. There was no chance of negotiating with him without putting both our lives at risk. And besides, there’s not that much he could have done to help us, anyway.”

  Biting her lip, she looked back toward the cabin. “I was just surprised that you cooperated so easily with him.”

  “What would you have had me do? Tell him he had no right to throw us out of his own cabin? If I had tried to fight him, and by some miracle I had overpowered him without getting shot, would you have had me beat him up for protecting his few belongings?”

  She sighed. “Not when you put it that way.”

  “If you’d ever stumbled into a bear’s den, you’d know how dangerous it is to surprise a wild creature in its lair. That’s pretty much what we just did.”

  “I take it you’ve stumbled into a bear’s den before?”

  “Yeah.” He glanced back toward the cabin, and pushed away from the tree. “And we’d better get moving before this particular bear decides to come out and make sure we’re gone.”

  She hurried to support him. “I didn’t see a car anywhere around the cabin when we left. How do you suppose he got there?”

  “He could have been on foot, maybe camping out all night. He obviously hadn’t been to the cabin in a while, so maybe he has other hidey holes and switches around between them—to make himself harder to find, of course. If he has a vehicle of some sort, it’s probably an old junker to haul a few supplies in.”

  “Maybe we could find it. You could hot-wire it, and we could, well, borrow it to get to safety and then make sure he gets it back when we’re rescued. Or return an even nicer one, maybe, to compensate him for the inconvenience.”

  Donovan cocked an eyebrow at her without pausing in his walking. “What makes you think I know how to hot-wire a car?”

  She responded with a delicate snort. “Anyone who knows how to open handcuffs with a hairpin would surely know how to hot-wire a car. You do, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” he answered with a shrug. “But it doesn’t matter. Even if he’s got a vehicle, I’m sure he has it hidden so well that he would find us again before we came across it. It’s not worth it, Chloe. We’d be better off walking until we find someone more willing to help us.”

  “If we find anyone willing to help us.”

  “We will,” he assured her. “Just remember what you promised me last night. Don’t give up.”

  He watched her draw her shoulders straighter, her chin rising to a stubborn tilt. “I’m not giving up. I can keep going if you can.”

  “Good. See that big, forked branch over there? It looks to be about the size I need for a walking stick. Want to fetch it for me?”

  Stepping carefully over rocks and pinecones, Chloe made her way to the stick and then returned it to him. As he’d hoped, it made a pretty decent crutch.

  “It doesn’t look exactly comfortable,” Chloe commented, eyeing him doubtfully as he supported his weight on the sturdy branch.

  He shrugged. “It’s okay.”

  “You’ve had worse, right?”

  He had to smile a little at her ironic tone. “Right.”

  Muttering beneath her breath, she fell into pace with his slow but steady steps. He wasn’t sure what she said, but it sounded like, “Ten steps at a time.”

  Hell of a way to start the new day, he thought again. But at least it had stopped raining. For now.

  The befuddled man with the shotgun didn’t have to worry about finding them on “his” road, Chloe thought later. She and Donovan had been slowly making their way for hours, and had yet to come across anything that actually resembled a road.

  Donovan’s theory was that the hermit hid his vehicle some distance from the cabin and hiked the rest of the way, either to avoid leading anyone to the place or because the terrain directly around the cabin was too rough to traverse in whatever vehicle he possessed. Apparently, he and Chloe had blundered off in the wrong direction when they’d made their hasty exit from the cabin.

  For all he knew, they could be walking deeper into the forest rather than out of it.

  “What about supplies? How does he get them to his cabin? There certainly wasn’t enough there for him to survive on for more than a day or two.” Chloe tried to keep one eye on their path and the other on Donovan as she spoke. She worried about him falling again, or somehow re-injuring his leg. It was insane that he was attempting this walk with a broken bone, but it wasn’t as if they really had any other choice, either.

  “He probably stashes supplies nearby. Cases of canned food and bottled water, that sort of thing.”

  Chloe thought of the way Donovan had spoken of the armed man with something close to compassion. “He really is a strange, sad man, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah. One of those unfortunate cases that slipped through the cracks of the veterans’ system.”

  “You think he’s a veteran?”

  “You didn’t notice the fatigue jacket or the boots?”

  “All I saw was the gun,” she admitted a bit sheepishly.

  He nodded. “I focused fairly intently on that shotgun, myself.”

  He paused, leaning heavily on his improvised crutch, and studied the area ahead. Stopping beside him, Chloe, too, looked forward. The sight was enough to make her gulp. They’d hit rough patches before during the hours they’d spent in this forest, but this time they’d reached a particularly difficult area.

  Erosion from an ancient, fast-flowing river had carved a deep furrow into the rocky ground. Still wet from the heavy rains yesterday, the ground around the ravine looked slippery and treacherous. Heavy underbrush lined the narrow clearing they’d been following, and a steep limestone bluff rose on their right, preventing them from going that direction without climbing. Behind them, of course, was a crazy man with a shotgun—and possibly three armed kidnappers.

  She felt her shoulders sag. She wasn’t giving up, she assured herself. But she was so tired of having one obstacle after another thrown their way. It felt sometimes as if the whole universe was conspiring against them—and yet they’d survived it so far, she reminded herself. Battered, but unbroken. At least for now.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a break,” Donovan said, making her wonder if he found the scene ahead as daunting as she did.

  “Definitely,” she agreed.

  They found a mossy patch of ground in the shade of a twisted old hickory tree. Chloe helped Donovan lower himself to sit, then sat beside him.

  It felt good to be off h
er feet again. It was warmer today than it had been, the sun shining straight down through the holes in the clouds that still covered most of the sky. She wouldn’t have preferred the rains of yesterday, but she hoped it didn’t get too hot as the afternoon wore on.

  Bolstering her courage, she decided to examine her feet. She noted in resignation that her socks were now torn on both sides. Several new scrapes decorated her feet, but she supposed she’d grown accustomed to the constant, nagging throbbing. It was like a dull tooth-ache—unpleasant, relentless, but tolerable for now.

  “How are your feet?” Donovan asked, just as she noticed an area of exposed skin on the ball of her right foot that was beginning to look particularly inflamed and nasty.

  Infection, she thought, turning the foot so he couldn’t see it as she replied, “They’re okay. How’s your leg?”

  “Hardly bothers me at all.”

  They were both lying, of course, and they both knew it. But neither felt the need to examine those lies at the moment.

  Sitting side by side, their legs stretched in front of them, they sat in silence for a while, resting and contemplating their situation.

  Chloe was the one who broke the silence, as usual. “Donovan?”

  “Mm?”

  “What time do you think it is?”

  It didn’t surprise her when he glanced up at the sky and answered matter-of-factly, “Around two o’clock. Maybe two-thirty.”

  She touched her empty stomach. “Too bad we don’t have a can of fruit cocktail lying around, isn’t it?”

  “Mm. Want to try an acorn?”

  “Thanks, but I’ll hold out for a nice, fresh salad when we get rescued. With lots of crunchy veggies and breadsticks on the side.”

  He grunted. “You can have the rabbit food. I want meat. Red. Medium-rare. Maybe a baked potato with some butter and sour cream.”

  “And what would you have for dessert? Personally, I’d like a bowl of sherbet. Pineapple—maybe orange.”

  “Coconut pie topped with a couple inches of meringue,” Donovan countered without even stopping to think about it.

  “Your favorite from the diner,” she remembered with a smile.

  It was obvious that he didn’t like to be reminded of the diner where they had been taken. He nodded shortly, his expression grim.

  She hurried to keep the conversation moving. “Did your mother make pies like that?”

  “My mother didn’t do much baking. She sometimes made fried pies for a treat. They were good—especially peach.”

  He’d mentioned the first day they met that he had no family. “When did you lose her?” she asked quietly.

  “I was eleven. She died of an infection that set in after a relatively minor surgery.”

  Neither his voice nor his expression had changed when he answered her question. She took a chance and asked another. “And your father?”

  “Took off when I was six. I never saw him again, and my mother never remarried.”

  “No brothers or sisters?”

  “No.”

  She bit her lip, then asked, “Who raised you after your mother died?”

  “Assorted distant relatives. By the time I was fourteen, I was pretty much on my own.”

  She remembered his description of himself as a “wild, redneck kid.” No wonder he’d been wild.

  Her heart went out to the lonely little boy he must have been. And she couldn’t help admiring the capable, influential man he had become.

  Apparently deciding he’d talked enough about his past, Donovan changed the subject. “I figure we were grabbed about forty-three, maybe forty-four hours ago. Wonder how much progress Bryan’s made in tracking us down?”

  “He wouldn’t have already paid a ransom, would he? Not without proof that we’re safe?”

  “No.” He spoke confidently. “He wouldn’t do that unless he knew without doubt that he could grab them while they were trying to collect.”

  “Do you think the kidnappers are still looking for us?”

  “It’s a good bet that they are. We’re their only bargaining chip. I’m sure they’ll try bluffing, try to convince Bryan that they have us and that he’d better pay up quickly or they’ll kill us. But Bryan isn’t easy to fool. They’ll want to find us before we get to a phone. They’d have been watching for news that we’ve been rescued. Since there has been no such report, they’ll likely figure out the truth—that we’re still wandering in the forest. They know how treacherous the terrain can be, and it was dark when we headed out. They might even figure we’ve fallen off a bluff, or have been hurt in some other way.”

  She touched one of the slats that made up the leg splint they had rigged for him. “They wouldn’t be entirely wrong—but I doubt that they could imagine how far we’ve walked, considering everything.”

  He let that comment go without answer, which worried her a little. Maybe he thought the kidnappers were closer on their trail than Chloe realized. She spoke quickly to push that worrisome thought out of her mind. “Do you think Bryan has any idea who took us, or why?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s coming close to answers, if he hasn’t already figured them out. Those last-minute distractions were a foolish mistake on Childers’s part. He might as well have given notice that he was trying to detain Bryan in New York for as long as possible.”

  “If Bryan’s reasoned that much out, will he confront Childers?”

  “Oh, yeah. If he can find him. And if he does, I’d hate to be in Childers’s shoes,” Donovan replied with grim satisfaction.

  “Then maybe Bryan has tracked us to that cabin. And if he’s gotten that far, maybe he knows we’re out here. Maybe he’s got search-and-rescue teams looking for us even now.”

  Donovan made an obvious effort not to dampen her optimism. “Maybe so.”

  She looked up. A few faint trails of high-flying airplanes traced across the spring-blue sky as scattered clouds floated lazily overhead. But she’d seen no small planes or helicopters or anything that implied a search in progress. Whatever Bryan was doing on his end, it was still up to her and Donovan to make as much headway as possible on their own.

  She turned to face him, scooting down to his injured leg. “I want to check these bindings.”

  Keeping her touch as gentle as possible, she adjusted the wooden slats they had used for splint material and made sure the stretchy T-shirt fabric was holding them in place as snugly as possible. She had no idea whether this contraption they’d rigged was protecting the bone from further damage, but she didn’t know what else they could do under the circumstances.

  She looked up at him. He had bent his head to watch what she was doing, so their faces were very close together now.

  “Look like it’s going to hold?” he asked without pulling back.

  “I hope so. I just don’t know if it’s doing any good,” she admitted.

  He shrugged. “It’s the best we can do for the moment.”

  “That’s pretty much what I’ve concluded. Are you in much pain? And tell me the truth, don’t be all macho and brush me off.”

  “It hurts,” he answered candidly. “Sometimes more than other times. Just like you must hurt with every step you take. But since the only way we’re getting out of here is to keep walking, it does no good to concentrate on the pain.”

  “I suppose you’ve hiked on a broken leg before?”

  His mouth quirked into that semi-smile that she was finding more appealing all the time. “Something like that.”

  “I thought so. I just hope your leg holds out until we get ourselves rescued.”

  Suddenly aware of how close they were sitting, she told herself she should move away. Their gazes were locked, their mouths only inches apart. She glanced downward, noting that his mouth wasn’t curved into a smile now—but it still looked entirely too appealing.

  She couldn’t help wondering if Donovan Chance kissed as competently and skillfully as he seemed to do everything else.

  “We’d b
etter find out.”

  His words made her blink. Surely he didn’t mean…

  “We’d better get going,” he added, as if he wasn’t quite sure she’d heard him.

  She must have looked like an idiot, scrambling to her feet with her cheeks on fire, but she needed a little distance from him just then. She barely gave him time to struggle to his feet before she pressed on, making her way very carefully across the treacherous ground—and feeling as though she had just missed stepping onto a path that could prove every bit as dangerous as this one.

  They sat in another dark cave, this one a mere indentation in a limestone wall. Donovan’s outstretched legs barely fit inside; had they been an inch longer they’d have been sticking out. There wasn’t room for either of them to stand up, but it provided a cozy shelter in which to rest for the night.

  The sun had been setting when Donovan spotted the cave, and it had been he who’d suggested they stop here for the night. It hadn’t been too soon to call it a day as far as Chloe was concerned.

  As the hours had worn on, the terrain had become even more perilous. Their progress had been painfully slow and tedious as they had made their way around heavy brush, large boulders, fallen trees, gaping holes and slippery patches of mud left from yesterday’s heavy rains. There had been times when it had seemed they were making no headway, when it would have been easier to simply sit down and cry.

  She’d kept going because she had no choice—but she had stopped counting her steps. They’d moved at such a snail’s pace that it had been too depressing to count that slowly.

  “How long was that little girl lost in the forest?” she asked after she and Donovan had been resting in the cave for a while in silence.

  He must have sensed that she was growing discouraged. “A few days. I can’t remember, exactly. It happens often, actually. Hikers are always getting lost, falling off bluffs and whatever, and it sometimes takes days to find them, even with whole teams of searchers.”

  “It just seems like we would have seen some sign of civilization by now. Something besides that poor, strange man’s cabin.”