Angel: An SOBs Novel

by Irish Winters

  Then, because there was no choice, he slammed his cabin door and prepared to go into the cold, cruel world to rescue a four-legged kid. Again.

  “This is the second time today. You’re going on a chain from now on,” Chance grumbled as he shoved his feet into an old pair of combat boots, then jerked his Gortex jacket, a midnight requisition from Uncle Sam, off the hook by his door. “A damned short chain.”

  A gray wool hat went snug over his head and a thick scarf went around his neck. Flipping the jacket collar upright against the weather, he zipped up. Winters in Northern Montana were wicked, and this sudden storm was delivering one hell of a punch. Old Man Mountain to the north of his cabin would be thick with drifts and avalanche-worthy overhangs by morning—if the storm let up by then. It might not.

  Chance had owned this property for three years now, and he’d visited often. Not one of those winters had been the same. The only hard fast rule? Once it settled in, it was here to stay.

  Damn that dog. Still grousing, Chance snagged the twenty-foot windup leash from the box of dog toys beside the door before he stepped outside and into the blizzard that came with gale force winds. This was no snowfall, it was Snowmageddon, the sleet and snow coming sideways instead of vertically.

  “Gallo!” he called, in hopes the errant animal had grown a brain during the time it took his master to gear up. No such luck.

  Chance stomped through the drifts already turning his five steps to ground level into a treacherous slide. The light had turned dim, gray, and deceiving. Pausing at the last step with the enticement of the forest to his right, the granite wall of Old Man Mountain at his left, he debated. Which way did Gallo go?

  Would he be chasing after a snowshoe hare into the trees or charging up the mountain just because the idiot loved to run? German Shepherds were working dogs, damn it. Why’d Mom have to have one?

  With the wind scouring the countryside clean while it simultaneously frosted it thick with white, there were no tracks to follow. Even the deep, big-footed tracks of what would’ve made a decent Army/Navy/Air Force/Marines—whatever—K-9, were long buried.

  “Shit, damn,” Chance cussed when, for some reason he couldn’t name, he turned left to the more formidable of the two choices, the mountain. “A six-foot chain, you mangy mongrel,” he vowed. The wintery bluster seared his eyeballs because he’d left his Oakley goggles, the smart kind with lenses designed specifically for low-light conditions like now, on the hook back at the cabin. Where it was warm!

  Ah, who was he kidding? Chance wouldn’t have worn them anyway. The silicone-backed strap of those goggles dug into the recently healed scars on the sides of his head, his reward for an op gone sideways in South America. Besides, this midnight foray wouldn’t take long, simply because it couldn’t. That dunderhead dog would be dead if he didn’t get out of this weather soon. What the hell was in that dog’s head? Mustering an ounce of enthusiasm, Chance gave Gallo one last chance to straighten up. “Gallo! Here, boy! Come here!”

  Did it work? He cocked his head, sure he’d heard a groan, but no. It wasn’t Gallo. That would’ve been too easy. Damn your sorry ass.

  Chance adjusted the punishment to fit the crime. “Maybe a three-foot chain.” A dog doesn’t need much more room than that, not when he spends most of his days sleeping on my couch!

  Truth be known, Gallo wasn’t the bother Chance had first anticipated when he’d been forced to adopt the pup after his mother’s untimely death months earlier. Gallo was still young, and good company most of the time, especially now that days had grown shorter in the high country. He was something to talk to, and he made a decent bedfellow when he wasn’t pushing his rump into Chance, shoving him out of his own bed.

  Chance followed the narrow deer trail that dipped down from the barren field of shale surrounding Old Man Mountain and spilled above his log cabin like a final warning to trespassers. He’d bought this parcel of land just above the tree-line and built his home three years ago. It wasn’t John Donne’s ‘no-man-is-an-island’ perfect, but its isolated location served Chance’s need for solitude and separation from the world. Its exclusivity kept well-wishers, nosy ex-buddies, and non-combatants at bay. The local white supremacists, too.

  Sturdy and fit from his years in the Navy, certainly used to marching in worse conditions, he made it through the shale bed to the edge of the now frozen pond in minutes. Nothing more than a hollow depression that filled with seasonal runoff, the pond might make a worrisome distraction to an adventurous pup on a night like this. The warm front that preceded the blizzard had dumped a good three inches of rain before it had turned to driven snow. For the first time, Chance admitted his worry.

  After all, Gallo was just a pup, and a decent owner would watch over a young dog like him. He was a child by human standards, could fall into that pond, and… what the hell is that kid doing out here? Cougars frequented this stretch of the shale, though Chance had yet to spot one. Black bears were another story. He’d seen plenty of them last spring with a few cubs. A few gray wolves, too.

  His ire transformed into fatherly concern. This night could go so, so bad, and Chance had already had enough bad in his life. Except for his two brothers, Kruze and Pagan, he had no friends left but this dog. The thought of burying a gangly pup so young…

  “Where the hell are you, boy?”

  Damned if a rowdy “Woof!” didn’t come back to him this time, along with the sounds of a hard crack and a splash. Ice breaking. God, no. My dog fell in!

  “Gallo!” Chance stepped one boot to the thin crackly ice at the edge of what he now knew was not a frozen-solid pond. But people weren’t supposed to risk their lives for their dogs. Like hell.

  He ran headlong toward Gallo’s rowdy voice, all the while listening for the creak and groan of distressed fractures underfoot. All he heard was the ghoulish wind in his ear roaring that he was already too late. It would’ve helped if he could’ve seen where he was going, but tears ran down Chance’s cheeks, tears from the words in the wind, and terror in his heart that the wind was right.

  Too late. Forever too, tooooooooooooooo late…

  “I’m coming,” Chance called out, needing this furry buddy to hang on for one more minute. One more breath. Needing his buddy to live.

  Hypothermia. Drowning. Run faster, Sinclair, damn it. Run for your dog’s life!

  As he knew it eventually would, the ice gave way, and instantly, Chance went belly-deep into gut-wrenching, ice-cold water that sucked the air out of him. Why hadn’t Gallo barked again? Am I too late? The dog had to be hurt or… or…

  “No! He’s not dead!” Thrashing against the jagged ice, shoving it aside with his bare hands, Chance elbowed his way forward. “I’m coming, boy. Hold on, damn you. I’ll carry you home if you can’t walk, and I’ll stoke the fire, and I’ll…”

  God, I promise I’ll go to back to church if you let my dog live. Then, as quickly as he’d beseeched heaven, he cursed it. “Goddamn it, Gallo. Don’t you dare die!”

  At last! The dark blur of his dog’s head broke through the ragged blizzard. There he clung to the edge of a hole in the ice, his claws dug in, and struggling to climb out. Something long and angular hung from his jaws.

  Chance ran, a slow-motion effort in freezing, waterlogged clothes, his boots full and the cold, dead weight holding him back. Frigid chills ratcheted up his spine. A bone-numbing burn settled into his legs and arms, but fear drove him forward. Gallo was a blithering idiot to be swimming in this storm, but he was also a youngster without an ounce of fat or bulk to his name. He’d be drenched and freezing to the bone. Or dying.

  Minutes counted.

  “I’m almost to you,” Chance yelled as he dove for his dog, fast stroking to clear the distance. Ice slapped at his chin and face, instantly resuscitating the still healing nerve endings buried beneath his scars. Despite the pain, he didn’t slow. This was what Navy SEALs were trained for. This was what they did. They fought as hard for their brothers, even the four-legged kin
d, as they did for themselves.

  One stroke. Then another. With a solid kick into the muddy bed under his feet, Chance propelled forward. It took a second to wrangle a decent hold on the scruff of the frantic animal’s neck, but by God, Chance was having none of it. He jerked Gallo off his four feet and into his arms with a heartfelt, “Gotcha. God damn you, hold still.”

  The dog had the nerve to growl. “Knock it off,” Chance rasped, his lungs on fire now and his body long past numb. It was all he could do to curl his fingers into a tight enough grip to hang on. “Home,” he growled at his dog. “We’re going home and then I’m chaining you up and you’ll never run free again.” My heart can’t bear it!

  Gallo twisted then, something dangling from his grinning mouth. Holy shit. An arm?

  Chapter Two

  “Wh-what you got, boy?” Chance asked, though he already knew. Gallo had found a human body, and by the way his eyes glowed with wolfish pride, he wasn’t about to let it go.

  Chance gave himself two seconds of shock-and-awe before he grabbed that delicate forearm and came up with two handfuls of a still-as-death, waterlogged woman. He jerked her face out of the water, tucked her under his arm in a lifeguard’s hold, and made for shore. Gallo followed, his jaws clamped on her other arm, helping transport her in his smiling, canine way, splashing out of the shallows and onto the frozen, snow-drifted shore.

  H-h-holy shit. Shivers rattled Chance as he hunched over the prone body of a young woman, her legs sprawled like those of a forgotten mannequin out of a horror movie. Long, dark hair hid her facial features, not that they mattered. The dead weren’t known for their good looks. Chance didn’t want to leave her here, but if he didn’t hurry, he and his dog would soon be just as dead. Time had officially expired for this poor gal—whoever she was—and it would soon expire for silly lost dogs and men foolish enough to go into the storm after them.

  Still… he had heard a groan before. He damned well knew it. It might have been the wind or a tree. It could’ve been Gallo. But it might have been her.

  Canting his head to listen better—in case she made another sound—Chance dragged the seaweed-style-hair off her face. Two wide-open eyes stared back at him, not that he’d expected anything else. Damn, I’m right. She is dead.

  Peering upward into the swirling storm battering his mountain, he wondered back to that cracking sound he’d heard. Was it her? Could she have fallen from his mountain? No way. What were the odds of anyone surviving something like that? The southern face of Old Man Mountain wasn’t particularly high, maybe thirty feet at the most. Nothing but a toothy, ragged ledge waited between the top lip of the cliff and the sheer drop to the bottom. The northern peak was the higher of the two, but no one could survive a fall from the south exposure. It just wasn’t possible. Not on a night like this.

  Still. Here she was. And old habits died hard. Chance rolled the cramp out of his neck. He wasn’t one to leave anyone behind. He hadn’t in all his service years; he wasn’t going to start now. Stripping out of his waterlogged and frozen gloves, he pressed two icy fingers to her neck, hoping to find a pulse.

  Nothing. Pressing his ear to her gaping mouth, he begged for the barest proof of life. A puff of frozen air. A wheeze. Anything! “Breathe for me, baby,” he commanded the frozen corpse. “Give me a reason to stay.” Because I’m dumb like that. I’ll stay.

  The woman lay lifeless, as stiff as a board and just as responsive. Frost already glazed the tip of her pert nose and her eyelashes, but not a ghost of frozen vapor whispered past her blue lips.

  Chance turned to the sky. “Goddamn it! Give me something to work with here! I don’t want to leave her, but I will if I have to. I have to save my dog.” And myself.

  God didn’t answer any quicker than the dead body had. Jesus H. Christ!

  Chance sat back on his haunches, as pissed at the Lord as he was the serial killer called Mother Nature. He couldn’t walk away from this sad corpse, even in this wicked storm. SEALs didn’t do that. The credo he’d taken into his soul resonated like a pulsing fire: Never Quit. Never!

  Okay then. We do this the hard way. He steeled his nerve against the bitter weather. Interlocking his thumbs, Chance compressed both palms over her chest and pushed.

  One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand.

  Her sodden shirt and bra squished under his hands. Shifting his knees, he pressed his mouth over her icicle lips and inflated her lungs with the last of his overheated air. Again and again, he pushed, counted, then exhaled into this dead body’s lungs. She was someone’s little girl. Someone, somewhere had to be missing her. Worrying about her. Her parents? Her husband? Maybe a baby?

  One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand. Refusing to give up, Chance gave her all he’d brought with him, his pig-headed heart and his last dying breath.

  One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand.

  With each compression, water bubbled between her lips, but not once did she gasp, cough, choke, spit, or blink. Silly Gallo had taken up residence on her belly and thighs, the woman claimed and her left wrist still caught in his jaw. He held it gently though, not like a bone to eat so much as a—lifeline. Whether he knew it or not, his soggy body warmth had to be seeping into her, but was it enough?

  Pursing his lips before he breathed into her one last time, he knew this was the end. He had no more to give. The wind tore the moisture out of his eyes as he labored to bring her back from the frozen dead, but nothing worked. This was yet another battle he couldn’t win. He sat back, exhausted.

  Facts were facts. Shit. She’s really dead.

  Swallowing hard at his failure, Chance rested as that bleak reality sank in, his chest heaving and his lungs on fire. Like that other time, he’d arrived too late to save this woman. She was gone, and he was a fool to think he could fight the odds. In a few minutes, his mother’s pup would be as frozen as this corpse if they didn’t start for home now.

  A man can only do so much.

  Yeah. Heard all that before.

  But Chance was not most men. He’d made promises he refused to break, even now, at the worst of times. I humbly serve as a guardian to my fellow Americans, always ready to defend those who are unable to defend themselves. I will never quit. I will not fail!

  “Goddamn it, you’re going to live,” he bit out, as the stiff wind stole Gallo’s whine of encouragement. Chance risked a quick swipe across his brow, surprised that he was sweating. Like the downward end of a teeter-totter, he leaned back into the face of Death and told it to, “Go back to hell!”

  Sheer willpower flamed back to life. With a jerk, he rolled the righteous wrath of too many losses off his shoulders. Compressions began anew. Solid strokes that might break her ribs, but she would live, damn it.

  One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand. Working on borrowed time now, he covered her mouth and inflated her lungs with the warm moist air from his body. Breathe, baby. I know you can do it. Just try. You want to live. I know you do.

  Shaking from the cold, he tipped back to his haunches to catch his breath, out of his ever-loving mind to be working this hard on a dead body, but the thought of leaving this waif of a woman out here by herself ate at him. She had no business being on his mountain. She sure as hell wasn’t going to die on it.

  Gallo offered another anxious whine when—her chest heaved. It did!

  The frozen lady sputtered. She blinked!

  “Cough it all out,” Chance ordered, even as the wicked winter sliced like a switchblade across both their exposed throats. “I knew you could do it.” He tipped her up into one arm while water dribbled out of her mouth and down her neck. “Thank God, you’re alive. I’ve got you now. Breathe. Just breathe. Keep it up. There you go.”

  She shook her head, just barely, but hell, yeah! She coughed and gagged and that was enough answer for Chance. Unzipping his sodden jacket and scarf, he pulled her onto his lap and tucked her against his chest, dislodging his faithful mutt from her legs.

  “Let her go,” he told his dog, and for t
he first time that night, Gallo obeyed. The crazy kid’s black licorice lips stretched wide with a silly smile when he released his prize. “Good, good boy,” Chance praised.

  With her wrapped up as tightly as he could get her inside the life-saving Gortex, he zipped it up to her chin. Between the two of them, a wet jacket was better than nothing. Worried that he might have caused his victim permanent spinal damage while saving her, Chance struggled to his feet. Catching his balance, he hurried back to his cabin and the fire he’d left banked and glowing in his fireplace, his charge pressed tightly into his body. The blaze would be close to ashes by now, but the cabin would still be warm.

  Every step chilled the hell out of him, but seconds. He had mere seconds to get her out of the weather, out of her wet clothes, and warmed, or he’d saved nothing. Whoever this gal was, she was the important one now. Only her.

  “Are you with me?” he asked the four-legged buddy dashing through the drifts beside him as if this was merely a fun romp in the snow.

  A hearty “Yap!” sounded over the stiff wind, and mentally, Chance promised Gallo a big slice off the venison roast thawing in his refrigerator. Mom’s dog might be worth something after all.

  Chance ran then, the icy snow pelting his cheeks, making it harder to see. The trail his boots made on his way to the pond was already well covered, but he didn’t need it. He was the finder of lost people on SEAL Team Three. He knew how many steps would put him at his bottom step, and he cut that time by half, the find of a lifetime secure in his arms. But God! She was so cold!

  Whoever she was, she was light. Maybe a hundred pounds. Maybe five foot nothing. Soft, blessed with curves, and full-busted—yes, he’d noticed—but hell. She wore nothing but jeans, boots, and a flannel shirt, foolish get-up for a night so raw. Where was her coat? Her hat? Her gloves. Her damned friends? She couldn’t have been out here alone.