by Nora Roberts
of the fury or fear rippling the surface. “Lily, step away from him.”
Jesse shifted his grip to her throat, his arm over her windpipe. The gun, still in his hand, was at her head. There was no calm in him. He was screaming, “She’s my goddamn fucking wife! Get the hell out of my way. I’ll kill her. I’ll put a bullet in her brain.”
He heard a gun cock and saw Willa step forward, coatless, snow covering her hair. “Take your hands off my sister, you son of a bitch.”
It was wrong, everything was wrong, and the panic made Jesse’s finger tremble. “I’ll do it. Her brains’ll be splattered on your shoes if you take one step. You tell them, Lily. Tell them I’ll kill you here and now.”
She could feel the steel pressed into her temple. Imagine the flash of explosion. She could barely breathe through the grip on her throat. To stay alive, she kept her eyes on Adam. “Yes, he will. He’s been here, all the time, he’s been here.”
Jesse’s eyes fired. He looked like a monster with the blood oozing down his face and his lips peeled back in a wide, challenging grin. “That’s right. I’ve been here, right along. You want me to do to her what was done to the others, you just stay in my way.” His lips curved in a dazzling smile. He was in charge again. He was in control. “Maybe I won’t gut her, I won’t lift her hair, but she’ll still be dead.”
“So will you,” Adam said, and sighted.
“I can snap her neck like a twig.” Jesse’s voice rolled and pitched. “Or put a bullet in her ear. And maybe I’ll get lucky.” He increased the pressure on Lily’s throat so that her hands came up in defense to drag at the obstruction. “Maybe I’ll get off one more shot, right into your sister’s gut.”
“He’s bluffing, Adam.” Willa’s finger twitched on the trigger. She’d put a bullet in his brain, she thought grimly. If Lily would just move her head another inch, just shift over an inch, she could risk it. But the damn snow was blowing like a curtain. “He doesn’t want to die.”
“I’m a fucking Marine!” Jesse shouted. “I can take two of you out before I go down. And Lily’s first.”
Yes, Lily was first. “You won’t get away.” But Adam lowered his rifle. Rage, pride, weren’t worth Lily’s life. “And you’ll pay for every minute she’s afraid.”
“Back off, bitch,” he ordered Willa, and tightened his grip so Lily’s eyes rolled up white. “I can break her neck as easy as blinking.”
Helpless, every instinct raging against it, Willa stepped back. But she didn’t lower the gun. One clear shot, she promised herself. If she had one clear shot, she’d take it.
“You get in the rig.” He pulled Lily with him, moving backward, his eyes jumping from side to side. “Get in the fucking rig, behind the wheel.” He pushed her in, shoved her across the seat, keeping the gun high and in plain sight. “You come after us,” he shouted, “I kill her, slow as I can. Start the goddamn thing and drive.”
Lily had one last look at Adam’s face as she turned the key. And she drove.
With hands that trembled, Willa lowered the rifle. She hadn’t taken the shot. There’d been a moment, just an instant, and she’d been afraid to risk it.
“God. Dear God. They’re heading west.” Think, she ordered herself. Think. “The cops can put up a roadblock, stop them if he tries for the main road. If he’s smart, he’ll figure that and go into the hills. We can be after them inside twenty minutes, Adam.”
“I let her go. I let him take her.”
Willa gave him a hard shake. “He’d have killed her, right in front of us. He was panicked and crazy. He’d have done it.”
“Yes.” Adam drew in a breath, let it out. “Now I’ll find them. And I’ll kill him.”
Willa nodded once. “Yes. You call the police, I’ll get the men. Those of us going into the hills will need horses and gear. Hurry.”
She started off in a spring, nearly tripped over Billy, who’d managed to crawl, groaning, onto the road. “Jesus.” The blood covering his face made her certain he’d been shot. “Billy!”
“He hit me. Hit me with something.”
“Just sit tight. Stay right here.” She headed toward the main house at a dead run. “Bess! Get the first aid kit. Billy’s over in front of Adam’s. He’s hurt. Get him in here.”
“What the hell’s going on?” Annoyed at having her evening session at her computer interrupted, Tess came to the head of the stairs. “First dogs barking like maniacs, now you yelling down the roof. What happened to Billy?”
“Jesse Cooke. Hurry,” she ordered as Bess scooted by her. “I don’t know how bad he’s hurt.”
“Jesse Cooke.” Alarmed, Tess raced down the stairs. “What are you talking about?”
“He’s got Lily. He’s got her,” Willa repeated, overriding Tess’s babbled questions. “My guess is he’s taking her into high country. We’ve got a thunder blizzard in the works, and she didn’t even have a coat.” The first bubble of hysteria was her last as Willa clamped down hard on emotion. “He’s panicked and he’s got to be half crazy, more. You call Ben, Nate, anyone else you can think of, tell them we need a search party and fast. We’re riding after them.”
“I’ll get warmer gear together.” Tess’s fingers stayed white on the newel post. “And for Lily. She’ll need it when we find her.”
“Make it fast.”
Within ten minutes Willa was organizing the men. They were armed, prepared to set out in rigs or on horseback with supplies to last two days.
“He doesn’t know the area like most of us,” she continued. “He’s only had a few months. And Lily will throw him off, slow him down as much as she can. We’ll spread out. There’s a chance he’ll take her up to the cabin, so Adam and I will head there. The weather’s going to make it rough on him, but it isn’t going to help us either.”
“We’ll get the son of a bitch.” Jim slapped his rifle into its sheath. “And we’ll get him before morning.”
“There won’t be any tracking in this, so . . .” She trailed off as she saw Ben’s rig drive recklessly into the ranch yard. She wanted to buckle then, needed to, so she stiffened her spine. “So we spread out over a wide area. You all have your targets. The cops are covering the main roads, and they’re sending more men. Search and Rescue will be out at first light. I want her back by then. As for Cooke—” She drew a breath. “Whatever it takes. Let’s move.”
“Which are you taking?” It was the only question Ben asked.
“I’m going with Adam, up the west face toward the cabin.”
He nodded. “I’m with you. I need a horse.”
“We’ve got one.”
“I’m going too.” Eyes ready to brim over with tears, Tess stepped next to Adam. “I can ride.”
“You’ll slow us down.”
“Goddamn you.” Tess gripped Willa’s arm and spun her around. “She’s my sister too. I’m going.”
“She can ride” was all Adam said. He swung into the saddle and, with his young hound beside him, galloped off.
“Wait for Nate,” Willa ordered. “He knows the way.” She mounted quickly. “He’ll need someone to fill him in on the rest of it.”
Knowing she had to be satisfied with that, Tess nodded. “All right. We’ll catch up with you.”
“We’ll bring her home, Tess,” Ben murmured as he hoisted into the saddle, whistled for Charlie.
“Bring them both home,” Tess said, as she watched them ride away.
A DAM SAID NOTHING UNTIL THEY FOUND THE abandoned rig. His mind was too dark for words, his heart too cold. They stopped long enough to look carefully for signs. The rig was plunged to the wheel wells in snow, leaning drunkenly against a tree.
The thick, wet snow covered everything, and the dogs scouted through it, noses buried.
“He’d hit her.” Adam wrenched open the driver’s-side door, terrified that he’d find blood. Or worse. “There were bruises already on her face where he’d hit her.”
The rig was empty, with a few drops of blood
near the far door. Not Lily’s, he thought. Cooke’s.
“There was blood running down his face,” Willa reminded him. “She’d given it back, in spades.”
When Adam turned, his eyes were blank as a doll’s. “I told her, I promised her, no one would ever hurt her again.”
“There was nothing you could do. He won’t hurt her now, Adam. She’s his only way out of this. He won’t do to her what—”
“What he did to the others?” Adam bit the words off, buried the thought. Without another word he mounted and rode ahead.
“Let him have some distance.” Ben laid a hand over Willa’s. “He needs it.”
“I was standing right there too. I had a gun on him. I’m a better shot than Adam, better than anyone on Mercy, but it didn’t do any good. I was afraid to risk—” Her voice broke and she shook her head.
“What if you’d risked it, and she’d moved, jerked? You might have hit her instead.”
“Or she might be safe now. If I had it to do over again, I’d shoot the son of a bitch right between the eyes.” She made herself shake it off. “Doubling back on it doesn’t help either. It could be he’s heading toward the cabin, the direction’s right enough. He’d think he could make a stand there.”
Willa swung onto her horse. “She tried to fight him this time. Maybe running would have been better.”
L ILY WOULD HAVE RUN IF SHE COULD HAVE. SHE WAS freezing, her shirt soaked through, but she would have taken her chances with the storm and the hills if running had been an option.
He’d put the gun away, but after she ran the rig into the tree, he changed strategies. She’d aimed for the tree, hoping the impact on his side would jar him enough to buy her a lead. It had only earned her a headlong toss into the snow.
And then he tied her hands and looped the slack around his waist so that she was tethered to him. She stumbled a lot, deliberately at first to slow him down. But he only jerked her upright again.
The snow was monstrous. The higher they climbed, the more vicious it became, with bellowing bursts of thunder following the eerie sky-cracking lightning. And the wind was so fierce she could barely hear him cursing her.
The world was white—swirling, howling white.
He had a knapsack over his shoulders. She wondered if there was a knife in it, and what he might do to her in the end.
The cold had sapped her strength, leached into her bones so that they felt like brittle sticks, ready to snap. Fighting him was no more than a fantasy now, running a fading hope. Where could she run when there was nothing but a blinding wall of snow?
All she could do was survive.
“Thought they had me, didn’t they?” He jerked the rope so she fell against him. He had the collar of his sheepskin jacket turned up, but still the wet snow snuck in and down his neck and irritated him. “Your horseshit shoveler and half-breed bitch of a sister thought they had the upper hand. I got what I wanted.” He squeezed her breast hard through her shirt. “Always did, always will.”
“You don’t want me, Jesse.”
“You’re my fucking wife, aren’t you? Took vows, didn’t you? Love, honor, and obey. Till death.” He pushed her into the snow for the hell of it and rode on the power of that. “They’ll come after us, but they don’t know what they’re up against, do they, Lily? I’m a goddamn Marine.”
He could plow through this snow just like he’d plowed through basic training, he thought. He could plow through anything and still kick ass.
“I’ve been planning this for a long time.” He took out a cigarette, flicked on the Zippo he’d turned up to maximum flame. “I’ve been taking the lay of the land. I’ve been working at Three Rocks since I got here, practically right on your skinny ass.”
“At Three Rocks. For Ben.”
“Ben Bigshot McKinnon.” He let smoke pour out between his teeth. “The same who’s been bouncing on your sister lately. I’ve given some thought to that myself.” He studied Lily, shivering in the snow. “She’d be a hell of a lot more interesting in bed than you. A fucking tree would be, but you’re my wife, right?”
She pushed herself up. It would be too easy to just lie there and give up. “No, I’m not.”
“No lousy piece of paper’s going to tell me different. You think you can run out on me, go to some freaking lawyer, call out the cops? They put me in a cell because of you. I got a lot of payback coming.”
He studied her again. Pale, beaten. His. Taking one last drag, he flicked his cigarette into the snow. “You look cold, Lily. Maybe I’ll just take a minute or two to warm you up. We got time,” he continued, pulling the rope to drag her to him. “The way they’re going to be tripping over themselves trying to track me. Couldn’t track an elephant in this.”
He pushed his hand between her legs. When all he saw in her eyes was revulsion, he pushed harder until the first flicker of pain bloomed. “You like to pretend you don’t like it rough, but you’re a whore like all the rest. You used to tell me it was just fine, didn’t you? ‘That’s just fine, Jesse. I like what you do to me.’ Didn’t you used to say that, Lily?”
She stared into his eyes, fought to ignore the humiliation of his hand on her. “I lied,” she said coolly. She didn’t wince from the pain as he dug into her. Wouldn’t let herself.
“Castrating bitch, I can’t even get a hard-on with you.” She’d never used to back-talk him. Not after the first couple licks. Unsettled, he shoved her back, then shifted his pack. “No time for this anyway. When we get to Mexico, it’ll be different.”
Changing directions, he took her south.
S HE LOST TRACK OF TIME. AND DISTANCE, AND DIRECTION. The snow had slowed, though the occasional boom of thunder still rolled over the peaks. She put one foot in front of the other, mechanically, each step a survival. She was certain now that he wasn’t going to the cabin, wondered where Adam was, where he was looking, what he was feeling.
She’d seen murder in his eyes at that last glimpse of his face. He would find her, she knew he would find her. All she had to do was live until he did.
“I need to rest.”
“You’ll rest when I say.” Worried that he’d lost his way in the storm, Jesse took out his compass. Who could tell where the hell they were going in this mess?
It wasn’t his fault.
“Not much farther anyway.” He pocketed the compass and headed due east now. “Just like a woman—bitch, moan, and complain. Never known you not to whine about something.”
She’d have laughed if she’d had the strength left. Perhaps she had whined once upon a time about the paychecks that had gone missing, the whiskey bottles, the forgotten promises. But it seemed a far cry from whining about dying of exposure in the Rockies.
“It’ll be harder for you if I collapse from exhaustion, Jesse. I need a coat, something hot to drink.”
“Shut up. Just shut the hell up.” He stared through the dark and the lightly falling snow, shielding his flashlight with his hand. “I’ve got to think.”
He had his direction. He had that, all right. But the distance was another matter. None of the landmarks he’d been careful to memorize seemed to materialize. Everything looked different in the dark. Everything looked the same.
It wasn’t his fault.
“Are we lost?” She had to smile. Wasn’t that just like him? Big-talk Jesse Cooke, ex-Marine, lost in the mountains of Montana. “Which way is Mexico?”
And she did laugh, weakly, even when he whirled on her, fists raised. He would have used them, just to relieve his frustration, but he saw what he was looking for. “You want to rest? Fine. This is as far as we go for now.”
He pulled her again through a snowdrift that reached the top of her thighs and toward the mouth of a small cave.
“This was Plan B. Always have a Plan B, Lily. I scouted this place out more than a month ago.” And he’d meant to lay in extra supplies, just in case, but hadn’t had the chance. “Hard to spot. Your Indian isn’t going to find you here.”
&
nbsp; It was still cold, but at least it was out of the wind. Lily sank to her knees in relief.
Delighted now that he’d reached the next stage of his plan, Jesse shrugged off his pack. “Got us some jerky in here. Bottle of whiskey.” He took that out first, drank deeply. “Here you go, sweetheart.”
She took it, hoping that even false heat would slow the shivering. “I need a blanket.”
“So happens I got one. You know I’m always prepared, don’t you?”
He was pleased with the survival gear he’d packed—the food and the flashlight, the knife, the matches. He tossed her a blanket, amused when she gathered it awkwardly with her bound hands and struggled to wrap it around herself. He crouched on the floor of the cave.
“We’ll get a little sleep. Can’t risk a fire, though I imagine those boys are way north of here.” He took out another cigarette. God knew a man deserved a drink and a smoke after putting in a long day. “In the morning, we’ll head out. I figure we get to one of these bumfuck towns and I can hot-wire a car. Then we’re on our way
