Looking for a Cowboy

by Donna Grant

  Cooper got out of the truck and looked down the ravine to where the Suburban was. He tried to put himself in Marlee’s shoes to imagine what had prompted her actions.

  “What are you thinking?” Jace asked from beside him.

  Cooper realized then that Cash, Brice, Caleb, and Clayton were there, as well. He shrugged. “I’m thinking that if the bastard who attacked us is the same one who called Marlee from your phone, then he brought her here.”

  “Why here, though?” Cash asked. “What’s around here?”

  Brice shrugged. “It’s mostly wooded area.”

  “Some live out here and lease parts of their land to hunters,” Caleb said.

  Clayton turned to Cooper. “I hate to say it, but it’s somewhere I’d bring someone if I wanted to make sure they were never found.”

  Cooper nodded and kicked something. As he looked closer, he realized it was the remnants of a phone, but not just any cell—Marlee’s.

  The K-9s were brought over, and he gave Marlee’s shirt to the officers to let the dogs get the scent. As the dogs searched the area, attempting to pick up the trail, Cooper looked around, trying to determine which way Marlee might have gone.

  “The trees will make it difficult for a helicopter to see, but this might help,” Cash said as he pulled out another of his cases.

  He opened it to reveal a drone. As he was getting it ready, the dogs began barking. Everyone jerked their heads across the road to where the dogs were headed, pulling their handlers along.

  “North,” Jace said.

  Cooper didn’t wait for the others as he followed the dogs. One deputy tried to stop him, but Cooper ignored him and ran past. The dogs moved fast, covering a lot of ground. Just when Cooper thought they might find her, the dogs lost the scent. Then, they found it and were off again.

  After two miles, Cooper was beginning to wonder where Marlee had been headed. There was nothing out here but the forest. As the sun sank into the horizon, he knew they had to find her soon or it might be too late. The fact that the dogs kept the scent was good news. At least, that’s what he told himself.

  The sound of the drone overhead caught his attention. He looked up and spotted it before he paused and glanced over his shoulder to find his friends following.

  “We’ve got your back, Coop,” Jace said as he came up alongside him.

  Jace’s face was paler than before, and Cooper knew he shouldn’t be out here. But he also knew that Jace wouldn’t leave. Cooper wouldn’t go if their positions were reversed.

  “Thanks.”

  “No need,” Jace replied with a smile.

  By mile five, Cooper was growing more and more concerned. How far had Marlee been led out into the woods?

  Suddenly, he heard a shout. Cooper didn’t even wait. He took off running to where the dogs and the police were gathered. He shoved past them to see a form lying on the ground. Cooper’s heart leapt into his throat. He kept repeating No in his mind because he refused to believe that this person was Marlee. The hood of the raincoat was pulled forward, keeping him from seeing any hair.

  “Cooper,” Danny said as he walked up.

  But Cooper wasn’t listening. He knelt beside the body and gently pulled away the hood of the coat to find blond hair.

  “Is she alive?” Ryan asked from beside Cooper.

  Cooper was so stunned that he remained still, trying to discern what he was seeing. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted movement and glanced up to see two officers reaching for the body.

  “Don’t!” Cooper yelled, his hand out to stop the men.

  Danny shook his head. “What is it?”

  “Maybe another bomb,” Jace said, leaning against a tree.

  Cooper motioned with his hands for everyone to stay back. “Hold on, let me feel for a pulse.”

  Silence filled the area. Not even the dogs made a sound as Cooper searched for a heartbeat. After a moment, he looked at the others and shook his head. “She’s been dead a few hours is my guess.”

  “We need to turn her over,” Ryan said.

  Jace snorted. “I wouldn’t touch her until someone searches her. With the bomb that was set for Cooper, there could be another one waiting.”

  “True. And with the people we’re after, I’d rather be safe than sorry,” Clayton said.

  Cooper said, “Danny. Ryan. Y’all might want to get the bomb squads out here on the double.”

  Without question, both men did as he urged. Cooper turned his head to look at Jace. He could tell by Jace’s voice that he wasn’t doing well. Cooper didn’t try to tell him to go home, because he knew that his friend wouldn’t go anywhere until this was over.

  Jace gave him a nod, letting Cooper know that he would make it. Each time Cooper thought about seeing the crowbar in the man’s hands dripping with blood—Jace’s blood—he wanted to do bodily harm to the bastard.

  “What do you see?” Cash asked as he moved to Cooper’s side.

  Cooper squeezed his eyes shut and returned his attention to the body. “Nothing yet. There are too many leaves, and too much mud and muck to see anything clearly.”

  Brice cracked his knuckles. “Let me have a go at it.”

  “Not happening,” Cooper told him. “You have your son and wife to think about.”

  Brice’s brow furrowed as he opened his mouth to argue, but Caleb put a hand on his brother’s chest and said, “You know Coop’s right.”

  “I have training,” Brice said.

  Caleb snorted. “We all do, but you have a family now.”

  Cooper tuned out the brothers and placed his hands on the ground before leaning down to get his face as close to the body as possible to look for any wires. There might not be anything, but given that the dogs had been following Marlee’s trail, and the asshole who had taken him had left a bomb on the door, Cooper wasn’t taking any chances.

  He, along with Cash, slowly made their way around the body. Just when Cooper thought there was nothing, his gaze spotted the wires that hadn’t been completely covered by the leaves and the raincoat.

  “Stop,” Cooper said. He looked over the body to meet Cash’s gray eyes. “Found it.”

  Clayton pressed his lips together. “Dammit.”

  Cooper slowly and methodically picked up one leaf at a time off the ground until he had exposed the wires. Every second spent doing this took him away from finding Marlee. And with dusk falling, he knew his chances of finding her were running out quicker than he could cope with.

  “We’ve got this,” Jace told him. “Get the dogs after the trail again and go find Marlee.”

  Cooper hesitated as he sat on his haunches. Mud and wet ground soaked through the knees of his jeans as he placed his hands on his thighs. He looked around at the faces of his friends and the authorities who were staring at him.

  “I’ll go with you,” Cash told him.

  Caleb stepped forward. “So will I.”

  “Me, too,” Jace said and pushed away from the tree.

  Cooper got to his feet and walked to Jace. “There’s no one I’d rather have by my side, but I’m going to need you after this. I need you to take care of that wound.”

  “You’re right. I’d only slow you down.”

  Cooper smiled. “The problem is you’d push yourself too hard.” The smile vanished. “There’s a real possibility I could lose Marlee. I don’t want to lose you, as well.”

  Jace glanced away as he nodded. “Point taken. Just get that asshole.”

  “Oh, I will,” Cooper promised.

  He turned to Caleb and Cash and gave them a nod.

  Clayton moved to stand in their way. “You boys know what you’re doing, so I don’t need to remind any of you to be careful.”

  “We’ve got this,” Cash told him.

  Cooper turned to find Ryan waiting with the K-9 handlers and the dogs. “You coming?”

  “As if I’d let you three go alone,” Ryan stated with a half-smile.

  Caleb let out a sigh. “Let’s get t
his show on the road, then.”

  With a nod from Ryan, the officers gave the dogs Marlee’s scent again. It took them a few minutes until they were able to latch onto it, and then they were off once more.

  Chapter 44

  The moment she came to, Marlee groaned at the throbbing in her skull. She put her hands on the ground to push herself up, and they sank about half an inch into the mud as she pushed up on her hands and knees. She blinked to try and get her mind straight as she sat back on her haunches. For a heartbeat, she couldn’t remember why she was out in the woods. Then it all came back to her.

  She choked back a sob and looked around. The light had faded significantly. She could hardly find her way during the day. How was she going to do it at night without a flashlight?

  “I’ll make do,” she told herself as she tried to stand.

  It took the use of the tree and a sturdy limb she found to not just get her on her feet but to keep her there. Then she looked at where she’d been lying. Roots from the tree stuck up all around her. She had tripped on one and then fell on another. Marlee reached up and tenderly felt the spot above her eyebrow. The moment her fingertips made contact, pain consumed her.

  “Okay. Not doing that again,” she said while waiting for the white dots to stop flashing in her vision.

  Marlee looked back in the direction she had come. She wasn’t sure if she had kept to a straight line or had veered off. Without a compass or anything to guide her, she could be going east or west and not know it. She’d run blindly, worried about covering the distance in the hopes of finding Cooper. Instead, she’d knocked herself unconscious.

  Fury and frustration swamped her. Those emotions mixed with her pain caused tears to form, which only made her angry. She didn’t want to cry. She needed to focus and figure out what to do next. Despite her training, she was ill-equipped to travel in such an environment without a phone, or to protect herself without a gun.

  But she did have her knife. She always had her knife.

  With her shoulders squared, Marlee faced the direction she had been going and took a step.

  * * *

  “Where are we going?” Stella asked with a frown.

  Chuck kept his gaze on the road as he drove. “I’m getting us out of here.”

  “Then why are you looping back toward the house?”

  “I’m not going to take the chance that those officers saw us leaving.”

  Stella’s head jerked in his direction. “Chuck, no. Leave them. We need to get out of town.”

  “They’ll come after us,” he argued. “If they saw us leave, they might have already called in reinforcements.”

  “You can’t know that they did.”

  “And you can’t know they didn’t,” he snapped.

  She blinked and stared at him for a moment before turning her head to face forward. “I’m telling you not to do this.”

  “Newsflash, Stella. Right now, I’m running things. You had your chance to make the right decisions, and you couldn’t do it. So, now I am.”

  “And that means leaving a trail of dead bodies behind us? They’ll come for us for sure.”

  Chuck slammed on the brakes as he neared the stop sign. She pitched forward violently, the seatbelt keeping her in place. He glared at her. “Dead bodies? You’re worried about a couple of policemen when we’ve left hundreds of dead women all across the country? Where the fuck is your head, Stella?”

  Her eyes narrowed on him. “Where it’s always been. I’m the one who has kept us out of trouble all these years. Do you honestly think we’d be sitting as nicely as we have been if I let you kill everyone you wanted? Well, newsflash, Chuck, but that simply isn’t the case. Killing isn’t always the answer.”

  “No. Selling newborns cut from their mother’s wombs to the highest bidder is,” he retorted.

  Stella’s mouth fell open.

  Chuck didn’t wait for the argument to continue. He turned the vehicle toward the two officers watching the house. They were hidden pretty well, seated in an unmarked car, but Chuck had picked them out easily enough. He was going to use the fading light to his advantage. Dusk always made things more difficult to see.

  He parked the truck and took the keys. Then he looked at Stella. “You’ve got two choices. You can get out and fend for yourself, or you can stay here. Either way, I don’t want to hear another word about what I’m about to do.”

  Chuck got out and stalked to the police car with his gun by his side. He came up on the driver first since the window was down as he smoked. Chuck fired two shots, killing both men instantly. He then walked back to the truck.

  He wasn’t at all surprised to find Stella still inside. She might have a head for business, but when it came to survival, she was clueless.

  Neither said a word as he started up the stolen truck and turned around. When he came to the main road, he stopped and looked toward town. There hadn’t been any sound of an explosion from his bomb, but there was still a chance that Cooper’s friends hadn’t found him yet. Chuck really hated to miss all the fun, but he had someone else he needed to find. He turned onto the road and pressed the accelerator.

  “We need to get to Houston for the meeting. We don’t have enough time to take the long way around,” Stella told him.

  He noted her calm voice. She was trying, at least. “I’m not going the long way around. I’ve got something else to take care of real quick, then we’ll head to Houston. Trust me, you’ll get there in plenty of time to buy new clothes and change.”

  “I hope so. The only time I’ve had this much mud on me is at the spa.”

  It was her attempt at humor, but Chuck wasn’t in the mood. It was time Stella truly understood who he was and why she should’ve listened to him years ago. But she was about to find out.

  * * *

  It didn’t matter how fast they moved, Cooper couldn’t stop the dread that filled him. The dogs had lost Marlee’s scent after only thirty minutes. It took them another five to find it again. Each second felt like an eternity, testing his patience and control.

  Then, finally, they were off again. Ryan had given him a pistol. Cash pulled out two and tossed one to Caleb. The four of them, the handlers, and dogs kept moving, each prepared for what they might find.

  Cooper wasn’t going to stop looking. He didn’t care how long it took. He’d find Marlee one way or another.

  “I don’t need to tell any of you what we might find,” Ryan said as they ran.

  Caleb shot him a dark look. “We know very well.”

  “And we’re prepared to take the son of a bitch out,” Cash said.

  A muscle in Ryan’s jaw flexed. “You might be a PI, Cash, but my men and I are leading this.”

  “We understand,” Cooper said quickly before Cash could retort. He then exchanged a look with Cash, letting both him and Caleb know that if they found the bastard and any of them had a shot, they should take it.

  Cooper didn’t care what happened to him after it was over. He was going to find Marlee. But, more importantly, he was going to find the bastard responsible for all of this.

  * * *

  Marlee did her best to move quickly while there was still light, but it was like someone had drawn the shade over a window because, in a blink, the sky was dark. She wasn’t afraid of the night, but walking the streets of a city at night was vastly different than being in the middle of the woods, especially ones you didn’t know.

  It would be easy to give in to all her childish fears that threatened to rise up within her, but she couldn’t do that. She needed to be aware of her surroundings and notice any sounds that might be a predator. Cougars had been seen in the area. While she didn’t begrudge any wildlife their survival, she really hoped no cougars were nearby with designs on her for a meal.

  She smiled, thinking Cooper would’ve laughed at that. Then tears filled her eyes as she realized that she may never see him again. The man who had given her the instructions hadn’t told her much. She’d assumed that she
would eventually come upon him and Cooper, and that was just one of the many ways she had made poor choices.

  But what else could she have done? Cooper’s life was on the line.

  Marlee stopped and looked up at the dark limbs above, silhouetted against the dark gray sky. “Where are you?” she bellowed. “I’m here!”

  She closed her eyes, hoping there would be some kind of answer. But there was nothing.

  Her options were few. She could turn around and, hopefully—eventually—find her way back to the road where she might be able to flag someone down to help her. That didn’t do Cooper any good, however. The man holding Cooper had told her to hurry. She had, but the fall had undoubtedly messed things up. And since she had no idea how long she had been unconscious, she wasn’t sure if her deadline had passed.

  Marlee narrowed her eyes. “A deadline he didn’t give me.”

  Why had she just realized that?

  “Because I was too busy being worried about getting to Cooper. I didn’t think of the details.” Marlee could’ve kicked herself.

  She knew better. She’d been trained in such tactics. But no one she had loved had ever been in such a situation. The man could’ve intentionally left off a time to lure her into the woods. But … why?

  Marlee looked around. There were trees everywhere. For all she knew, someone was lurking behind each and every one. It was the perfect place to bring someone if you wanted to kill them. There was a good chance the man didn’t even have Cooper. She’d taken his word for it because he was that kind of man. He could’ve used that to his advantage.

  None of that mattered. Marlee wasn’t going to backtrack. She had done everything the man had ordered her to do so she could find Cooper. Because she loved him. She loved him so much that the thought of not being with him left her aching inside, like someone had cut out a piece of her soul. She would walk the breadth and width of Texas if it meant eventually getting to Cooper.

  She squared her shoulders and continued walking.