True Valor

by Jax Hunter

Nic pulled himself from sleep knowing he had to do something. What, he wasn’t sure. His whole torso throbbed. On a scale of one to ten, something he asked patients often, his pain level was a fifty-two. He couldn’t see Julie but he could hear her anguish. The chair faced away from the bed. His mouth wouldn’t work.

  Finally. “Julie.” It came out in a whisper.

  Julie flew out of the big chair anxiously, her face blotchy from crying.

  “C’mere.” It took unusual effort, but he held out his good arm to wave her over. Pain surged through him at the movement.

  She came to the bedside. “What do you need?”

  Again, he motioned to her. “C’mere.”

  Tears filled her brown eyes as she sat carefully beside him. He reached for her hand and pulled her down to him. Guiding her head to his good shoulder, he wrapped his left arm around her. Silent sobs racked her body and he could feel her tears on his chest. Nic tried to get his mouth to work, to tell her it was going to be okay. All he had the energy to do was to hold her close as she cried. Eventually, he summoned the strength to speak.

  “Get under here with me before you fall asleep,” he said, pulling the hair away from her face.

  She sat up and shook her head. “There’s a bedroom upstairs. I’ll sleep there.”

  “Sleep here. Keep me warm.”

  Finally he convinced her to shed her jeans and her bloody shirt and crawl under the covers. When she hesitated on the edge of the bed, he pulled her close again. Her skin was cool against his.

  “Maybe I’ll keep you warm,” he said closing his eyes.

  Waking up beside him left Julie with a swirl of new feelings of warmth and security. Maybe even happiness.

  No. Not with the huge lump of sorrow that lodged in her stomach. It was no time for happiness.

  Something definitely seemed different with Nic, too. Through the haze of pain and fever, an almost imperceptible change had occurred. It wasn’t in his words. He was barely able to speak. Not really in his movements, either. But it was like he was a different person, one literally in his element. There he lay, fighting to recover his strength but with a new fierceness about him.

  Like the making of a super hero.

  And the super hero was making a remarkable recovery. By evening, he’d walked from the bed to the overstuffed chair before the fire, had eaten well and had made several jokes about them having slept together. The spark was definitely back. The fatigue that etched his handsome face did not diminish his smile. And suddenly his smile was doing things to Julie that were hard to ignore.

  Nic sat in the easy chair watching Julie tend the fire, his right arm in a sling. She really was comfortable here. She thought she was safe.

  She wasn’t. Neither of them was.

  He still didn’t know what it was that told him that, but he was less and less likely to disregard the feeling. He couldn’t afford to be taken out of the game completely.

  The firelight played off her hair in a most provocative way.

  “Did you look in your secret hiding place?”

  Julie nodded.

  “And?”

  “Nothing there.”

  “You ready to tell me what you remembered?” He didn’t want to upset her, but he needed to hear it, and she needed to talk about it.

  Julie turned around slowly, and took a deep breath. But she didn’t speak.

  “I saw the look on your face out there on the porch.” Nic said. “Can you tell me?”

  Julie returned the poker to its place and plopped on the floor in front of his chair. She pulled her knees up under her chin. Nic took a deep breath, warmed by her closeness and her trust like nothing he’d ever felt before. Her hair gleamed golden in the firelight, tempting him to touch.

  Nic was able to sit somewhat comfortably and listen until Julie got to the part about the man in the mask. Then it became more difficult. The man had seen her. If this guy knew her family, then he likely knew her as well. And, if he knew about this cabin...

  The warning alarms in his head, which had started when he opened the cabin door, now nearly overwhelmed him.

  Her illusion of safety was just that, an illusion. They had to get the hell out of here. And he had trouble just walking across the room. Damn it. Until he could both walk to the car and dig it out of the snow bank he’d managed to put it in, he needed to create a defensible position here.

  Yes, this was a hunting cabin, but it wasn’t likely that Patrick Galloway would leave guns here when he got up here only a few times a year. Nic would have taken them home. But there was a chance...

  He tried to keep his voice even.

  “Julie, are there weapons here?”

  It didn’t work. She turned around, dismayed. She started to speak but, before she got the words out, the light bulb went on.

  “I’m a witness,” she said.

  Nic watched the wheels turn. The color drained from her face.

  “The nails. Oh, Nic. He booby trapped the cabin.” Her gaze shot to the door, and she launched to her feet.

  Nic followed suit, pushing himself to stand.

  She stood for a time at the door, examining the board of nails, still stained with his blood.

  Nic made it to stand beside her before he realized his error in getting up so fast. Dizziness encompassed him, like moths around a flame, forcing him to lean heavily against the door. It was a good thing he came through the door first.

  “It would have killed me.” Julie whispered, reflecting his thoughts in her words. “Hey, you okay?”

  “I just got up too fast.”

  “Yeah, sure. That and you’re about a quart low.” Julie reached around him. “C’mon, let’s get you back to bed.”

  “Not before you answer my question. Did your dad store any weapons here?” The room spun before him. If he didn’t sit down right now, he’d fall down. Crap.

  Nic slid down the wall.

  “Nic!”

  “I’m okay.” With his head between his knees, the dizziness and nausea subsided somewhat. Julie hovered beside him. He held his hand up, forestalling more concerned fluttering, and worked to catch his breath, his chest and shoulder throbbing. “Weapons?”

  “Oh, actually, there probably are.”

  Will wonders never cease?

  “Really?”

  Nic looked around for a gun cabinet. “Where?”

  “In the safe upstairs.”

  “Good. I’ll tell you what. You go get any weapons in the safe and all the ammo you can carry and I’ll get myself back to bed. Deal?”

  That was easy enough, wasn’t it? It would be if the room didn’t spin every time he tried to stand up. Damn it all. Crawling was so not what he wanted to do but the result was the same.

  Julie came down the stairs just as Nic reached the bed on hands and knees. She slowed down, giving him the opportunity to pull himself onto the bed before she approached, dumping her cache beside him. At Nic’s astonishment, she grinned and winked.

  “Dad liked guns. Mom and Jenn didn’t. You’re bleeding again.”

  Julie insisted that she re-bandage his wound before they talked about the guns. Nic chaffed at the delay.

  “And how do you feel about guns?”

  “Me?” Julie put away the first-aid kit and picked up the 9MM. “This one’s okay. I can hit a porcupine with it from a distance.” Reaching for the .357, she flipped the chamber open and spun it. “This one’s my favorite. It’s heavier and kicks more, but I like a revolver.”

  “And you’re shooting porcupines, why?”

  Julie waved away his concern. “Oh, I haven’t killed a porcupine for several years, Ranger Nic. Besides, the little buggers are hard to kill. You have to hit ‘em just right.”

  When his concern turned to dismay, she added, “They kill all the baby trees.”

  It really was a fine arsenal arrayed before him. The .357 that Julie held in her hand, and the 9MM she could “hit a porcupine” with, were both Smith and Wesson, both in great shape. Actual
ly, all of them were in good shape. Her dad had taken good care of them. Nic picked up the rifle, running his hand over the smooth stock.

  “That’s a .22. We use that for plinking—you know, target practice. It’s really not good for killing anything. Too wimpy. Now this,” Julie laid down the handgun and lovingly picked up the 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, “this’ll stop ‘em in their tracks. And the 30-06 is sweet.”

  Clearly she knew her weapons. Nic smiled and laid his head back as she babbled. She was on familiar and comfortable ground. “Course, I’ve always thought that the mere sound,” she racked the slide and smiled at him for effect “would dissuade anyone with half a brain...”

  “Whoa.”

  She wasn’t pointing the thing at him, but even so, Nic eased the barrel of the shotgun toward the far wall.

  Julie let out an exasperated sigh. “It’s not loaded and I didn’t point it at you.” With that, she laid the shotgun down again, stood up and pivoted on her heel. “There’s more ammo upstairs. I’ll get it.”

  He hadn’t meant to tick her off, but he obviously had. When she came back down, ammo in her arms, she was all business, getting the guns loaded and placing them at strategic places around the cabin. Nic watched and commented as long as he could, but within a few minutes, his eyelids got heavy and he had trouble getting words to form in his brain. Sleep. He couldn’t remember being this exhausted since Indoc, when four hours sleep was a luxury. Then, it was only his future as a PJ at stake. Now their lives might depend on him and he couldn’t stay out of the freakin’ bed for more than an hour at a time.

  Julie surveyed her handiwork. The two handguns occupied spots on the tables on either side of the bed. The twelve gauge stood propped by the front door, the 30-06 by the back. The .22 rifle, for what it was worth, lay on the floor by the bed. All extra ammo was placed near where the gun was stationed.

  Nic had made it through placement of two of the guns before drifting off to sleep. Good. The jerk had actually acted like she’d pointed the darn shotgun at him. If there was one thing her dad and Uncle Jess had taught her, it was that you didn’t point a gun, any gun, loaded or not, at anything you didn’t want to kill or blow to smithereens. She’d learned that lesson once and for all with Dad’s belt on her backside. Never again!

  She re-checked the shotgun at the front door, catching sight of the nails that Nic had taken for her. The thought melted her anger. He lay there so still, it was scary, his breathing barely making his chest rise. She returned to the bed and carefully perched beside him. Tenderness spread through her as she watched him sleep. She took his hand.

  He had strong hands with long fingers, beautiful hands. Tan, so brown against the white sheets. A lock of his nearly black hair fell over his forehead and dark lashes lay against his cheeks, still-pale but now with two day’s growth of stubble. He was an amazingly handsome man. And the way he called her baby…

  Whoa. Those thoughts had blindsided her. Julie shook herself and moved to the stove. But even as she threw more fuel on the fire, her heart told her this man was one she could give her life to.

  Just before dawn, Nic woke up, adrenaline pumped in his veins. There was danger. It wasn’t quite light yet. Had he heard a noise? He tried to listen but there was something else. It was when he moved to reach for the 9MM beside him that he realized the true nature of the threat. Not the kind of danger that needed a weapon, but danger it was, no doubt about it.

  “Julie?” he croaked. There she was, tucked in the crook of his good arm, warm, soft, smelling like heaven. Her hand lay on his belly and her leg was thrown over his, and it wasn’t just adrenaline coursing through his body. If she was awake, she wasn’t answering. And there was really nowhere to go.

  “Julie!”

  Nic winced as he moved his good arm, taking hold of her hand. “Wake up.” To make matters worse she came out of sleep with the hum of a seductress, a sound that, by itself, would have aroused him, even without her touch.

  Nic’s only defense was to roll her off him, and the only way to do that put him in an even more precarious position. Balanced over her with his good arm, he expected a look of panic or fear or at least surprise when she opened her eyes.

  What he got held him captive. Her eyes smoldered as she looked up at him. Before good sense had a chance to outthink his other brain, he lowered his mouth to hers.

  If there was a “no” within miles, he couldn’t hear it in the way she kissed him back.

  Did she know where she was, who she was? Did she know who he was? When pain shot through his chest and shoulder, some reason snuck back into his awareness. He couldn’t do this. With a muttered curse, he rolled free onto his back and lay panting, both from the energy surging through him and from the exertion.

  Beside him, Julie was breathing hard too.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. Sorry didn’t even touch what he was feeling. Sure, she’d started it, probably in her sleep, but he shouldn’t have continued it. She needed his protection, not this.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated. Not just sorry, but frustrated, guilty, and just plain pissed off. Pissed off that he had kissed her, pissed off that he had stopped kissing her, and pissed off that he was so damn beat.

  He’d never felt so betrayed by his body. In more than one way. Not only could he not deny what her nearness had done to him, but—and this was the real betrayal—he’d never given a second thought to his physical abilities. And now here he lay, whipped after simply turning over. To top it off, he thought he felt the warmth of blood on his chest. But he was too spent to care.

  Julie pushed out of the bed as if she were escaping a monster. Damn it, he had scared her. His arm was heavy as he tried to reach for her.

  Chapter Ten