Rancher's Hostage Rescue

by Beth Cornelison

  Sighing her disappointment and frustration, she braced her hands on her hips and moved to the porch rail at the back of the house to admire the panoramic view of the foothills to the Rockies.

  “So pretty. And peaceful,” she whispered.

  Then her gaze snagged on a roof a short distance below and to the left.

  Her pulse tripped. Another house.

  “Dave!” She hurried back along the wraparound porch to the front of the vacant house. “We don’t have to break in here. We have another option.”

  * * *

  After another several minutes spent picking their way down the mountain toward the new house, they found a path that had obviously been beaten by the home’s occupants as a trail through the scenic woods. Lilly kept a sharp eye for more snakes, not wanting a repeat of their earlier encounter.

  “Do you see anyone? Any sign someone’s home?” She studied the creek stone and rough-hewn wood house as they clambered down the trail to the side yard. Clothes were hung out to dry on a rope strung between two trees and a compact car was parked in the driveway. Both good signs.

  “I think I can see the TV on through that front window,” Dave replied. He pointed to a plate-glass window that faced the woods.

  She paused as Dave hesitated at the edge of the trees and looked warily around the yard before crossing the grass. “What’s wrong?”

  “Maybe nothing,” he replied and followed the stone walkway to the front stoop. Inside the television was blaring what sounded like a soap opera. Dave nodded toward the end of the driveway, where she spotted a paved street and a yellow mailbox. “But this house is close to the main road. If Wayne did wake up and follow the highway toward town, he could have seen this place and stopped in with his special brand of chaos.”

  “One way to find out,” Lilly replied and knocked loudly on the front door.

  The volume on the television lowered. Voices. The sound and vibration of footsteps approaching the door.

  Lilly held her breath and bit her lip. Please don’t let it be Wayne. Please don’t let it be—

  An older woman with steel-gray sausage curls and wire-rimmed glasses opened the door and peered out, the security chain still fastened. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but we have an emergency and need to use your phone. May we, please?” Lilly asked.

  The woman took one look at Dave’s battered face and bleeding leg and blanched. “Heavenly days! What happened to you?”

  “Long story,” he said. “But we need your help.”

  “Clearly!” She pressed a hand to her mouth and glanced into the yard behind them as if considering her options. “I heard gunfire earlier. Was that—?”

  “Yes,” Lilly interrupted. She lifted a hand to stave off the woman’s questions. “We’ll explain everything. Right now, Dave needs medical attention, and we need to call the police right away. If we could just come in...”

  The woman bobbed her head, making her gray pin curls bounce. “Just a moment.” She closed the door and Lilly heard the chain being removed. When the older woman opened the door again, she said, “I already called the sheriff when I heard the gun shooting off.” She took a step back and held the door open wider. “There’s no hunting allowed in this part of town, and I hate to think of anyone shooting the deer and rabbits my husband and I enjoy seeing in our yard.” She gave Dave a hooded, glowering look as if she believed he’d been hunting illegally.

  “We weren’t hunting,” he explained as he hobbled into her living room. “In fact, you could say we were the prey.”

  The lady’s brown eyes widened. “What in the world?”

  An older man, presumably the husband the woman had mentioned, appeared from the kitchen. “Who is it, Joanie?”

  Dave offered the man his hand. “Dave Giblan, sir. We need to use your phone. Do you have a landline?”

  “Henry Lee and my wife, Joanie. Help yourself.” He waved a hand toward a rotary dial phone sitting by the couch.

  Lilly blinked and suppressed a smile. Her grandmother had had a rotary dial phone, and she wished sometimes she’d saved the thing for nostalgic reasons. Dave started toward the phone, and she caught his arm. “Maybe you should go to the bathroom and wait for me.” She sent a meaningful look to his bloody leg. “We don’t want to get the Lees’ carpet or furniture dirty.”

  Mrs. Lee gave Lilly a grateful smile. “Thank you, dear. You’re welcome to the phone in the kitchen. And I can get first-aid things from the back for you.”

  “What in tarnation happened to you, young man?” Mr. Lee asked as he led them to the kitchen, where the sink was piled with dirty dishes and the air smelled of the freshly baked muffins that sat on the counter. Lilly’s mouth watered, and her stomach growled. It had been hours since she’d eaten the peanut butter sandwich for breakfast, and the hike had left her thirsty and more ravenous than she’d been in a long time.

  “In what way were you prey?” Mrs. Lee asked.

  “Did you hear about the bank robbery two days ago at the First Bank of Boyd Valley?” Dave arched an eyebrow in query.

  Mr. Lee’s spine stiffened, and he put a hand on his wife’s arm to pull her closer. “Yes, we heard. One of our best friends, Floyd Hanover, was killed.” He narrowed a suspicious glare on them. “What do you two have to do with that?”

  “We were both at the bank when it happened,” Lilly said.

  Mrs. Lee gasped and clapped a hand to her cheek. “Dear Lord!”

  “Yeah, well, worse than that, the robber was hiding out at her house—” Dave seemed to be about to correct himself about the owner of the house but frowned and continued “—and he took us hostage when we showed up there.”

  “He’s had us tied up in a bedroom ever since,” Lilly finished when Dave paused, his jaw tightening with fury.

  Mrs. Lee glanced at her husband then back at Lilly. “Where is your house, dear? You don’t mean to tell me the robber has been on our mountain the whole time?”

  Lilly nodded. “That’s what I’m saying. And he still is. That’s why we need to call the police.”

  Mrs. Lee paled again and snatched up the receiver of the wall phone—this one had a push-button dial pad—and shoved it toward Lilly. “By all means.” Then to Dave and her husband, “Should we leave the house? Go into town somewhere until he’s caught?” Her hand fluttered over her heart. “Good grief! A murderer loose on our mountain?”

  While Lilly called 911, Dave sent Mr. Lee a hard look. “Do you own any guns? A handgun or hunting rifle?”

  The older man shook his head. “No. Had my fill of weapons when I went to ’Nam, and I don’t hunt. We’ve never felt the need to have any weapons here for home protection.”

  Mrs. Lee piped up. “We have bear spray. It’s an old can. Haven’t needed any in years.”

  Lilly and Dave exchanged a look, and Dave said, “Get it. It’s better than nothing.” Then rubbing a hand on his bare chest, he added, “And could I trouble you for a shirt? I ripped mine up for this. ” He pointed to the improvised bandage on his leg.

  Outside, the short whoop of a siren announced the arrival of a sheriff’s deputy. Mr. Lee looked out the window over the kitchen sink. “They’re probably here to talk to us about our earlier call about shots fired.”

  Lilly handed the phone to Mrs. Lee. “We still need an ambulance for Dave, but I want to talk to the sheriff. Will you finish with the operator, give them your address?”

  With that, she, Dave and Mr. Lee headed out to meet the arriving deputy.

  * * *

  A bright light was shining in his eyes, and his head hurt like hell. Wayne cracked his eyes open and blinked, trying to place himself. Outside. The sun was baking him from a cloudless sky. Why was he—?

  He sat up quickly, making his head spin and his abdomen ache. Damn it! He hated feeling this way, eaten up by the damn tumor. When he
put his hand up to cradle his side where he felt the throbbing under his arm, a memory came down on him like a cloudburst. He’d been shot. The cowboy at the bank—

  Barking a cuss word, he whipped his head left and right, scanning the yard where he sat. Gone. His hostages were gone. He bit out another foul word and pinched the bridge of his nose, which gave a throb of protest. Broken. The truck’s airbag and Hero’s head butt. A few deep breaths began to clear the cobwebs that muddled his thinking. He had to act. Make a new plan and quick.

  Another search of the area told him the Glock was gone, as well. Stolen by Mr. Hero and the woman, no doubt. Lilly. Gritting his teeth, he shook his head and growled under his breath. He’d actually liked Lilly a little. She’d been easy on the eyes and cooperated with tending his wounds. Her insightfulness about what he’d been thinking unnerved him some, but...

  But it had all been lies. His gut curled with anger. She’d never cared one bit about him or his cancer or what he was doing with his life. Acid puddled inside him. He’d given her too much leeway, and she’d betrayed him. Taken the gun from him and fired—

  Grunting his rage and frustration, Wayne struggled to his feet and staggered toward the house where he’d holed up the last two days. His whole body hurt. If he’d ever thought he’d get used to the pain, he’d been wrong.

  Of course, wrestling with that bastard cowboy hadn’t helped. He dabbed at his lip and drew back bloody fingers. He thought of the bottle of painkillers inside. No way would he go anywhere without those. He wished he could take a couple now—hell, maybe he’d take the whole damn bottle and be done with it all—but pushed aside the notion. The pills would make him groggy, and he needed to be sharp enough to make a plan. Disappear.

  As he stumbled past his old car, he grimaced. He should have known the cowboy’s promise of helping fix up the engine was a trick, damn it! He did a double take when his gaze passed the back tire. Flat as a pancake. And he had no spare. He braced a hand on the side panel and bent to take a closer look. The damn thing hadn’t been flat earlier today, when they’d come out. How—?

  He thought about Lilly firing off the gun, aiming at nothing particular...or had she? Maybe she’d shot out his tire on purpose. He gritted his teeth even harder. Fury boiled in him and made him sway on his feet. When he caught up to Lilly and Hero Boy—

  Fisting his hands, he stalked into the house and down the hall to the bathroom to retrieve his pills. He spotted the pills on the back of the toilet, but before he got them, he also caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

  His hair was disheveled, his shirt soiled and torn, his face and arms covered in sweat, dirt...and blood. His tussle with Hero had left his nose bleeding, a cut over his eye dripping and any number of scrapes on his arms and face welling droplets of blood. He remembered what Lilly had said about dirt in wounds, something called sitsis or sepies or something that could kill you if you didn’t clean out wounds. He was pretty sure she’d just been trying to scare him, may have even been lying, but he figured he could spare thirty seconds to wash his face and arms. Just in case. All the bandages and antiseptics Lilly had used on his gunshot wound were still spread on the counter around the sink.

  With a huff, he quickly removed his watch and laid it on the back of the toilet next to his pills. He filled the sink with water and began rinsing his arms and splashing his face before using a dab of the liquid soap to carefully wash the scrapes. He’d just cut off the water when, in the distance, he heard the whoop of a police siren.

  His breath snagged in his lungs. Holy hell! Lilly and Hero had had a head start to get the police!

  Why in blue blazes hadn’t he thought of that sooner? His brain really was scrambled! God only knew how long he’d been blacked out, how much lead time Lilly and her boyfriend had. Instead of bitching and moaning about his aches and pains and flat tires, he had to get lost. And fast. He huffed through gritted teeth. But with his tire flat and Hero’s truck wrecked—

  He grabbed a towel and wiped his face with one pass, just enough to get the stinging, soapy water from around his eyes. Tossing the towel on the back of the toilet, he snagged his bottle of painkillers. Go, go, go!

  He had to make tracks before the cops showed up.

  He knew, as well as he knew what he’d do to Lilly and Hero if he ever saw them again, that the police were on their way to this hideout. They could be here in minutes. Seconds.

  He’d have to go on foot. Would have to hide in the woods. Would have to travel light.

  But most important, he had to clear out. Now.

  Chapter 16

  “Are we going to talk about it?” Lilly didn’t look up from her work cleaning Dave’s bullet wound. She wasn’t sure what she would see in his face if she were to look at him now, but she also didn’t know what her own eyes might betray, so she kept her head down, her hands busy.

  The bullet had left a deep gash, but hadn’t hit any major blood vessels, thank God. He’d need to go to the hospital for serious stitching as soon as possible. The emergency operator had promised an ambulance would come, but the two used by the nearest hospital were both out on more urgent calls.

  She and Dave had talked to the sheriff’s deputy who’d arrived at the Lees’ house for a few minutes before Lilly had convinced everyone that her tending to Dave’s leg took precedence over a detailed recounting of the last three days. The authorities had the essentials regarding Wayne’s identity, last known location and the highlights of their captivity. Deputy Strozier would be waiting to finish their interview and drive them to the hospital after Lilly finished disinfecting and rewrapping Dave’s leg with supplies from Mrs. Lee’s medicine cabinet and the deputy’s patrol-car first-aid kit.

  Dave sat on the closed toilet while she perched on the edge of the bathtub dabbing disinfectant on his gashed leg. He hadn’t answered her question, so she flicked up her gaze. “Well?”

  Mr. Lee had given him a basic white undershirt, which was just a tad too small and hugged Dave’s broad shoulders.

  “What is there to talk about?” he asked, but when he met her eyes briefly, she could tell he clearly knew what she meant.

  She huffed, then couldn’t mask the frustration in her tone. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe sports. Or politics. Or maybe the fact that we kissed about an hour ago.”

  He raised one eyebrow, and his expression remained nonplussed. “Mmm. Football’s my favorite. Love the Broncos. Don’t follow the Rockies too closely, but I’ll catch a game here and there. And I generally avoid talking politics. You?”

  She growled under her breath. “Dave...”

  He chuckled as he sighed. “Why do women have to talk about everything. Analyzing and rehashing.” He made a face, shook his head and fixed his gaze on hers. “Yeah, we kissed. And for the record, it was a pretty damn good kiss. A great kiss.” He reached for her cheek, and his fingertips sent sparks skittering through her veins. “A very meaningful, very...hot kiss.” He paused, his gaze widening as he stared into her eyes. “Am I alone in thinking so?”

  “Uh...no. It was...” His touch, his gentle gaze and the memory of just how hot their kiss had been coalesced inside her. “But that’s not the point. Helen—”

  His jaw tightened, and his chin dropped as he averted his eyes.

  “How can we—?” she began, but he cut her off.

  “Lilly...”

  Her breath froze in her lungs as she watched his face morph through guilt and regret to determination and conviction. “I know you’re going to think I’m the worst of men for saying this, but... Helen is dead. I will never forget her. She was special. But—” He inhaled and exhaled slowly, as if cleansing his grief from his body. “The truth is, I never had with her, the kind of...” He paused, his fingers waving in a way that told her he was searching for the right word. “Chemistry? Heat? Connection? That I felt with you during that kiss.”

  Lilly’s gut somersaulted
. What did she do with that admission? The woman in her, who had savored the kiss as much as Dave had, wanted to exult that he shared her feelings. The grieving sister wanted to take offense at the slight to Helen. The wounded, abandoned little girl, who’d grown to be a betrayed wife and divorcée cautioned her to be skeptical and go slowly. She may have seen some of Dave’s best characteristics during their ordeal together, but she couldn’t discount Helen’s impressions of him as uncommitted so easily.

  And what of Helen? How did she justify the feelings she was forming for her late sister’s boyfriend without sinking in a quagmire of guilt? She had no answers, so she did the only thing she knew to do. Retreat.

  “I’m sorry if I misled you, Dave. I was emotional before...when we kissed.” She swallowed hard. This would be so much easier if he weren’t staring at her with his incisive eyes. His mahogany gaze pierced her, seemed to be able to read her deepest most private thoughts. All the more reason to put some distance between them.

  He angled his head, and his expression darkened. “It’s more than the kiss, Lil. The connection I feel with you started when—”

  “Dave, stop.” She sat taller and searched for the courage to do what she knew she must. “The kiss was a mistake. I was rash and impulsive to have kissed you back. It can’t happen again.”

  “So that’s it? We share a mind-blowing kiss that more than hints at amazing chemistry, and you can dismiss it as a mistake? Walk away without exploring the potential for—”

  “You’re my sister’s fiancé!” she cried, louder than she intended. She cut a glance to the door, certain that the Lees and the waiting deputy had heard her.

  “Not quite.” A muscle in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth, his diamond-sharp gaze still cutting into her. “I never got the chance to propose—”

  “A technicality.”