by Elle James
“You all have to help me. The slope is too steep for me to carry any of you away from the wreckage.”
Hannah bit her lip. “How bad is drop-off?”
“You don’t want to know,” Viper said, a frown pinching his forehead. “But the sooner we get you three out of the car and up the hill, the better.”
Hannah shook her head slowly, as if weighing her options. Then she pressed her lips together in a tight line. “We’re getting out of here.” She ducked from sight for a moment.
Viper heard the sound of ripping fabric and Hannah’s voice calling, “Taz, sweetheart, you have to wake up enough to help us move you.”
“What happened?” a groggy voice sounded.
“We were in an accident.”
“Did we get married?”
Hannah laughed like she was choking back a sob. “Yes, darling. But we have to leave this vehicle. Now.”
“You tore your dress?” he asked.
“To hell with it. I’d rather live than worry about a silly outfit.”
“Is the accident that bad?” Taz said.
“Yeah,” Viper answered loud enough Taz could hear him through the opening. Holding onto the rope, he walked sideways to where he could peer in through the open window. “You need to exit the vehicle and get Hannah up the hill. The sooner the better.”
Because of the angle of the limo, Taz lay scrunched against the other door with Hannah leaning against him.
She fumbled with the seatbelt and unbuckled the clasp.
“Viper?” Taz frowned up at the open window. “Are you going on our honeymoon with us?”
Viper grinned, his blood humming with a surge of adrenaline. “No, but you won’t be going either, if you don’t wake up and get out of the limo, pronto.”
Taz touched a hand to his temple. “Must have hit my head harder than I thought.”
Hannah nodded. “You have to get it together because we have to climb to reach the road.” She tugged on his arm, attempting to get him out of the cramped position he maintained against the door.
“I can get up on my own,” he said. “You need to get out first.”
“I’m not going until you’re out, so get moving,” she ordered.
If the situation hadn’t been so dire, Viper would have laughed at the sternness of Hannah’s command and that she was yelling at a man who probably had put fear in the hearts of the Taliban and ISIS.
“I’m going. I’m going,” Taz muttered and pushed himself upright, bracing his feet against the door. He reached for Hannah, grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her through the open window. “You’re going first.”
“Damn it, Taz. You’re in no condition to argue.”
“I’m not arguing.” He looked to Viper. “Do you have her?”
Viper slipped the flashlight into his tethered hand, extended his free hand and took Hannah’s. “You’ll have to help yourself. I’m holding onto a rope with the other hand.”
“I’ve got this,” she said, but she let him guide her hand to the line.
“Follow the rope to the top of the hill and wait by the truck,” Viper instructed. “And whatever you do, don’t lose your grip.”
“Believe me, I won’t.” She climbed a few feet upward and glanced back, her brows wrinkled.
“Don’t worry,” Viper said. “I’ll make sure the groom gets out okay.”
“And Chuck?” she asked, nodding toward the driver’s door. “Will he be all right?”
“I’ll do what I can,” was all Viper could promise. Until Chuck regained consciousness, he would be impossible to extricate without the help of a rescue team with mountain climbing equipment.
Taz reached upward, grabbed the edges of the window and hauled himself onto the side of the limo.
The vehicle shifted suddenly and slipped another couple of inches down the slope, bending the small tree at an even more precarious angle.
“Now would be a good time to get out of the limo,” Viper said in his calmest tone, though his jaw hardened and his heart beat so fast he thought it might leap out of his chest. He reached out to Taz. “Take my hand. I’ll guide you to the rope.”
Taz shook his head. “You can’t get Chuck out by yourself.”
“I’ll help,” Hannah offered, backing down a step.
“No!” both Taz and Viper said as one.
“Okay, okay, you don’t have to yell,” she said. “Just get Chuck out and climb the hell up the hill.”
“We will. But we can’t be worrying about you,” Taz said. “Knowing you’re safe will make our jobs easier.”
“I’m on my way, then.” She started up the rope, pulling herself hand over hand. “Please, don’t do something stupid and get yourself killed. Because I love you, dear husband. Not to mention, I’m too young to be a widow.”
“Love you, too, Mrs. Davila,” Taz called out after her. Then he turned his attention to the driver’s door. “We need to get that door open.”
“It doesn’t appear to be dented.” Viper lowered himself by the rope to get closer to the limo without adding his weight to the vehicle. “With the direction the limo is tilted, gravity will make opening it difficult.”
“Yeah, but we’re not leaving Chuck.” Taz reached for the handle and pulled. It didn’t budge. “Damn. It’s locked. Chuck!” Taz yelled. “Wake up, Chuck!”
The man behind the steering wheel didn’t move.
“I could crawl inside and check if I can get the window to lower between the front and the back.” Taz eased toward the rear window, holding onto tree roots and rocky outcroppings as he moved.
“No,” Viper said. “You need to stay outside the limo in case it breaks free of the tree holding it.”
“But we can’t leave Chuck in there.”
“We won’t.” Viper pulled the Glock nine-millimeter pistol from the holster beneath his jacket.
Taz’s eyes rounded. “You’re not shooting out the window, are you? You might hit Chuck.”
“No, I’m not. But this weapon is heavier than the flashlight.” He dropped the magazine out of the handle, cleared the chamber and turned the gun to hold it by the barrel. Then, with a firm hand, he hit the window hard. The butt of the pistol made a small crack in the glass.
Praying he didn’t put too much force on the vehicle, Viper swung again. This time, the window shattered, but remained intact. “Three’s a charm,” Viper muttered and hit it again. The glass collapsed inward. Using the pistol, Viper cleared the broken shards away from the frame and reached in to feel Chuck’s neck for a pulse. Several seconds later, he let go of the breath he’d been holding. “He’s alive.”
“Thank God.” Taz made the sign of the cross on his chest. “Now, how do we get an unconscious man out of a car before it falls the rest of the way down this hill?”
“We have to wake him up. We can’t do this without his help.” Careful not to put too much of his weight on the limo, Viper leaned in and lightly slapped Chuck’s face. “Hey, buddy, you have to wake up.”
The man didn’t even flutter an eyelash.
Viper tried again, this time applying more of a pop to his slap and shouting, “Chuck! Wake up! The house is on fire! You have to get Maya out!”
Chuck jerked awake, his eyes rounding. “Maya. Where’s Maya?”
“She’s safe, Chuck, but we have to get you out of that car and up the hill behind me.”
“What happened?”
“Doesn’t matter now. What matters is helping you out of the car.”
He looked at the steering wheel and the deflated airbag. “I can’t seem to move.”
“You have to release the seatbelt,” Viper said. “And be ready, because you’ll fall as soon as you do.”
Before Viper could finish his sentence, Chuck clicked his belt button and slid to the other side of the vehicle. The limo shuddered and teetered on the little tree.
Taz wrapped his hand around the end of the rope Viper clung to. “Chuck, grab my hand.”
Chuck fum
bled as if making heads or tails of where he was. When he looked up, he frowned. “You can’t pull me out of this.”
“No, but I can help,” Taz said.
The limousine slipped, tilting toward the front end, the back rising. If it tilted much more, the limo would slide right off the little tree and continue down the hill.
“Take our hands.” Viper leaned down, extending his free arm beside Taz’s. “Now!” he commanded.
Chuck reached up and clasped Viper’s hand. Taz grabbed his other arm.
The limo shifted and slid several inches.
“Get him up!” Viper yelled, dragging Chuck out through the window as the vehicle slipped farther and rolled free of the little tree anchoring it to the side of the steep hill.
Chuck’s feet caught on the window, dragging him backward with the force of the falling limousine.
Taz and Viper held on.
Viper’s muscles strained with the weight of the big guy pulling on his left arm.
The limousine continued down the hill, crashing over rocks and small trees and finally falling over the end of a drop off.
A couple seconds later, a loud metallic crunch sounded, echoing off the hillsides.
Chuck dangled for a moment, kicking his feet to find purchase on the rocky slope. When he did, he quickly grabbed for the rope and hauled himself up beside the other two men. “What are we waiting for? Let’s get out of here.”
“No kidding. That was entirely too close,” Taz said.
Viper dragged in a deep breath and shook out his aching arm. “Let’s do it.”
Taz went first, followed by Chuck. Then Viper pulled himself up the rope to the top of the hill where the bride waited anxiously for her groom to join her.
Once all three men stood with Hannah, Chuck clapped a hand against Viper’s back. “And that’s what I meant by things don’t always go according to plan.”
Viper shook his head. “That’s all jacked up.”
Taz and Chuck laughed.
But Viper didn’t see anything funny. His knees wobbled and his heart raced with the residuals of his adrenaline rush. “What the hell did I sign up for?”
Chapter 2
Dallas Hayes adjusted her prosthetic leg, pulled on her blue jeans and a pair of boots and headed out of the main house at the Brighter Days Rehab Ranch.
Once outside, she stretched both arms over her head and marveled at how blue the Montana skies were and how chilly the air was even in late June.
Even though everyone on the ranch had been up a good portion of the night, the animals still needed to be cared for and work had to be done to clean up after the wedding that had taken place the day before.
Gavin Blackstock, dressed in jeans and a faded blue chambray shirt, appeared in the barn door and shaded his brown-black eyes against the sunshine. “Mornin’, Hayes.”
Dallas nodded. “Hear any more from the Davilas?”
“After the doc cleared them to fly, they caught a later plane out of Bozeman and made their connection to Maui. I got a text around five saying they were in their bungalow, about to crash.” Gavin winced. “Poor choice of words. About to go to sleep for the first time since the wedding.”
“Cruddy way to start a marriage, if you ask me.” She tilted her head to the side, a frown pulling her brows together. “What about the driver? How’s Chuck?”
“He’s pretty banged up. He’s staying the night in the hospital, but the doc thinks he’ll be fine.”
Dallas nodded. “Glad to hear it.” She glanced around the barnyard. “What’s top on your list of chores that need to be done today?”
He nodded toward the stacks of chairs and tables waiting to be loaded. “We need to load the rented items onto the trailer and drive them into Eagle Rock. I’ll get Franklin and Vasquez to help.”
“Looking for us?” Brody Franklin, a blond-haired, green-eyed medically retired Army private, had just celebrated his twenty-first birthday a few days before the Davila wedding. He emerged from the barn, a little worse for wear after having had his share of the kegs of beer at the reception.
He was followed by Xavier Vasquez, the twenty-three-year-old former Marine.
Both young men had been on the ranch for several months and knew their way around. They’d proven they could handle any work thrown their way. As a team. Each man had lost an arm—Franklin his right, and Vasquez his left—during their last deployments. But together, they’d established a rhythm that worked for both. They performed the work of two men despite their missing limbs.
Dallas envied their easy camaraderie, something she hadn’t had since she’d declared her intention to complete Army Ranger training. Once she’d set her sights on that goal, her friends backed away and her peers steered clear. They wanted nothing to do with a female daring to step into the formerly male-dominated world of combat.
She hadn’t been the first female to go through the training, nor would she be the last. She had been fortunate to follow the first three very strong and determined women who’d blazed the trail through Ranger training. She’d wanted to prove to them, as well as herself, their sacrifices hadn’t been in vain.
“Hey, Ranger,” Gavin said. “Hank said he was stopping by the ranch on his way back from the hospital in Bozeman. He wanted to speak with you. So, don’t disappear. He should be here in the next twenty minutes.”
“Hank Patterson?” She narrowed her eyes. “Taz Davila’s boss? What’s he want with me?”
“I don’t know. I’m just passing on the information.” Gavin turned back to the barn. “I’ll be working with Little Joe if you need me. He’s due a good hoof cleaning. When you’re done with the chairs and tables, you can help Mize in the stalls. You know the drill by now.”
Dallas’s lips twisted. “They always need mucking. I don’t know why my therapist thought this place would be a good idea. All I’ve done since I’ve been here is manual labor. How am I supposed to move on with my life if I don’t get a real job?”
Gavin stopped and turned back to Dallas. “You don’t consider working with your hands and the animals a real job?”
Dallas squirmed under his direct stare. “That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
She drew in a deep breath and let it go before responding. “It’s not a job I’ll be doing for the rest of my life. I need to get on with my career.”
“And you consider your time here on the ranch as a waste?” Gavin’s jaw tightened. “Well, you better get busy wasting your time, because the chores won’t get done on their own. Everyone pulls his or her own weight around here. Most do it without complaining.” With that parting comment, Gavin left her standing in the barnyard.
Having been thoroughly put in her place, Dallas squared her shoulders and turned toward Franklin and Vasquez.
Both men grinned.
“You’ve just been initiated into the wrath of Blackstock.” Franklin held up his only hand for a high five.
Dallas hesitated and then slapped his hand. It was that, or he’d hold it up all day.
Vasquez held up the opposite hand, obligating Dallas to slap it as well. “Consider yourself one of us now.”
“We had a few concerns ourselves when we arrived at the ranch,” Franklin admitted. He glanced at his friend and his smile broadened. “We worked it out and are better for the effort. Right?”
Vasquez nodded. “Right. It taught us we could do anything we set our minds to. We just had to find a way without the use of the limb we lost and rely a lot on teamwork.”
Jimmy Young emerged from the barn, covered in hay straw, moving his body by planting gloved hands on the ground and swinging his torso between his arms.
Dallas couldn’t help but be amazed at how well the young man with no legs got around.
“Hey, Ranger,” he said. “If you’ll hand me the chairs, I’ll stack them on the back of the trailer.” He pulled himself up onto the trailer and held out both hands. “Come on. I don’t have all day. I need to exer
cise the ponies when we’re done here.”
Dallas grabbed a chair and handed it to Young. He stacked the chair against the side of the trailer wall and held out his hand for the next one.
They worked, Dallas and Young, stacking chairs while Vasquez and Franklin loaded all the folding tables. By the time they were done, a big, black, four-wheel-drive truck had pulled into the barnyard, followed by a charcoal gray truck.
Hank Patterson dropped down from the driver’s seat of the black truck.
Dallas had met the man the day before at the wedding. He’d been with his pretty movie-star wife, Sadie McClain, and their daughter, Emma.
Today, he was accompanied not by his wife, but by a man who climbed down from the second vehicle. He’d been introduced to the wedding party as the new guy on the Brotherhood Protectors team, Vince Van Cleave, or Viper, as he preferred to be called.
He appeared in the nice clothes he’d worn the day before, but they were muddy and torn. Dirt smeared Viper’s face, and his eyes were slightly sunken, as if he’d had less sleep the night before than she had.
“Miss Hayes.” Hank approached and held out his hand.
Dallas took the proffered hand and gave it a firm shake. “Mr. Patterson.”
“Call me Hank.” He gave an abbreviated smile. “Blackstock told you I wanted to speak to you?”
“He did.”
“Good.” He nodded toward the man at his side. “You’ve met Viper?”
She nodded.
“We were introduced yesterday at the wedding,” Viper verified.
The deep resonance of his voice sent a strange ripple of awareness across Dallas’s senses, and she gave the man another look.
He was tall. A few inches taller than Hank. He wasn’t as young as Hank, based on the salt gray streaks at his temples. Light blue eyes bored into her, making her wonder what he saw. Did he find her lacking in some way?
Not that she cared. When she’d signed on to be a Ranger, she knew her status would be off-putting to most men. Especially those who served or had served in the military. So many men took issue with women in combat and snubbed her without getting to know her.
