Beyond the Fire

by Cheryl Pierson

  Beyond

  the

  Fire

  Cheryl Pierson

  Men in Uniform Series

  Beyond the Fire

  Previously published as

  Temptation’s Touch

  COPYRIGHT © 2012 by Cheryl Pierson

  Cover Design Livia Reasoner

  Fire Star Press

  www.firestarpress.com

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews

  Dedication

  To all the men and women who put themselves in harm's way to make the world a safer place for us all. Thank you, and God bless you all.

  Chapter One

  Kendi Morgan opened her eyes, listening.

  They’re here. Again.

  She swung her legs over the side of the antique four-poster bed and jerked on her jeans. Damn high school boys.

  The oversized flannel sleep shirt came almost to her knees, but she paid no mind to that as she jammed her feet into the running shoes she kept under her bed.

  She could barely hear the truck motor idling, as if they’d decided to play their immature pranks down by the creek bank rather than in the pasture. Maybe this time she could get around behind them. The foliage beside the creek would give her some cover, keep them from seeing her before she could surprise them.

  She put the pickup keys in her pocket and opened the top dresser drawer, removing the .38 she kept hidden under piles of panties and bras. Tucking it into the waistband of her jeans, she headed for the door. The pistol was loaded and ready to go—she’d checked it just yesterday. Even though she didn’t think she’d need it, it was better to be prepared. Most of the boys were harmless, but there were a couple who gave her pause with the way their eyes challenged her.

  Flipping her long hair behind her shoulders and turning the front doorknob, she quickly dismissed the thought to just call 911 and let them handle this. The last time she’d called, it had taken forty minutes for the north Dallas police officers to respond. They left her with the distinct impression that, in this part of Texas, high school senior boys in an empty field sowing a few wild oats wasn’t their idea of an emergency.

  Better to handle it herself as she always had done in the past. God, she was so tired of carrying the weight of her entire world! You wouldn’t think asking the local police force to come out and do their job would be such a hard thing.

  Captain Allen’s florid face rose up in her mind, sarcasm and lust warring in the expression he’d worn the last time he’d come out to “help.” Kendi shuddered.

  “I’m better off doing it myself,” she muttered.

  She opened the front door, glancing at the silver pick-up. Taking it would be quicker, but they’d hear her coming. No, I’ll go on foot. Maybe she could hide in the grove of trees and fire a shot over their heads—just to scare them. Oh, Lord, how she wanted to scare them!

  Why can’t they go somewhere else for their damn parties?

  She was an easy mark—young, single again, alone. Utterly alone.

  She slipped quickly down the steps of the wooden porch, careful to avoid the left side of the bottom step where she knew the wood needed to be shored up and re-nailed. Part of the charm of single life, she thought, making a wry face.

  As was this escapade—waking in the middle of a fall night to go run off some pranksters. A truck door slammed in the distance, followed by another, in rapid succession. No headlights. She could tell by where the blanketed noise was coming from that she was closer to them than she’d first thought.

  I don’t have a bra on.

  The fleeting thought came to her as she tried to move quickly through the darkness. She shook her head in disbelief at her own thoughts, as if anyone would notice in the middle of the night.

  A storm was rolling in, engulfing everything in deeper blackness but for the occasional lightning flashes. As she approached the creek bank, she tripped, barely managing to catch herself on a nearby elm tree before she fell flat. Her ankle twisted, and she clamped her lips together. Breathless, she waited to hear the noises around her. Reaching down to adjust her shoe, she took a moment to rub her ankle and take a deep breath.

  Life had not been easy this past year since Tal Dyer had walked out of her life for good. She’d been digging her way out of the mountain of debt he’d left her with, but all in all, it had been a good trade. Good riddance to bad rubbish. A marriage that had been doomed to failure from Day One, but had limped along for just over two years.

  Kendi took a careful step, and then another. She could hear voices now, low and seriously intent. From the sound of it, the party was small tonight, which puzzled her. Always before, it had sounded like the entire senior class—usually just boys, but on a couple of occasions when she’d confronted them, there had been a few girls in the mix.

  No girls this time. No extra bullets, either. Dumb.

  She shook her head at her own thoughtlessness. There seemed to be only two of them, by the sound of their voices. Still, she hesitated. There was a difference, but she wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe she should go back to the house.

  No. This was her land, her house, her damned creek bank. One shot over the truck should be all it would take to scare the crap out of those cocky boys and see them high-tail it off her property once and for all. She was done talking, asking, stopping just short of begging them not to trespass here anymore.

  Another step. A twig popped beneath her foot. “What was that?” The deep voice carried back to her. She stopped, standing completely motionless.

  Through the trees, she was able to see the vague outline of a light-colored pickup. She held her breath as one of the men walked past where she stood, so close she could almost have touched him. He turned in a slow circle as the other man answered unintelligibly. Finally, he moved away and Kendi let her breath out in a slow sigh.

  As the man started back toward the truck, Kendi noticed the form of a third man lying on the ground. She stifled a sharp gasp. As still as he was, he must be dead.

  “Let’s finish this and get out of here,” one of the men said.

  The other was slow to respond. Finally, “Okay. I’ll do it.” The next jagged bolt of lightning glinted off the gun barrel.

  Kendi sank her teeth into her bottom lip, realizing what was about to happen. She squeezed her eyes shut, opening them again quickly. Why couldn’t it have just been the high school crowd she’d expected to find? She was out of her league and didn’t know what to do. If she made her presence known, she’d wind up just as dead. The tall man with the gun walked to the inert form, bending over, his weapon close to his victim’s head.

  Coward. Kendi bit her lip to keep from crying out. She should scream, or shoot her own pistol—frighten them away. But she hadn’t brought extra bullets. And these men didn’t look as though they’d be easily frightened.

  She was terrified.

  In the next instant, the indecision was over. Sudden thunder rolled, muffling the gunshot. In the flash of lightning, Kendi saw the tall man straighten and turn decisively back toward the pickup.

  “Push him down to the creek,” the smaller man said, glancing over his shoulder at the dead body as he walked slowly to get in on the passenger side. He turned back toward the corpse when his accomplice made no move, reaching down to give it a shove and send it down a sloping embankment. “Never find him out here,” he chortled to himself.

  The murderer made a show of wiping his hands on hi
s jeans, then opened the driver’s door, as the first raindrops spattered the windshield.

  “Just in time,” the smaller man announced, as if getting drenched in the oncoming rain was his biggest worry. He gave a short bark of laughter as he opened the door and got into the cab.

  Thankfully, they didn’t turn on their lights. Kendi stood behind the sheltering trees until the sound of the truck’s motor died away. The wind blew in increasing gusts, and she huddled against a nearby oak tree, her fingers digging into the bark.

  Sick with dread, she was reluctant to come into the open, though the truck had disappeared into the night. Are they really gone? What if they came back? She reached for her phone, realizing the instant her fingers touched her empty pocket that it was still charging on her nightstand.

  Idiot. But she’d been so angry, so anxious to get rid of the boys, she had thought her .38 and six bullets were enough to send them on their way tonight.

  How wrong I was, she thought to herself. It had not turned out as she’d expected. She shook her head at her own cowardice. She had stood by and watched a murder happen right in front of her.

  The wind whipped up harder as the rain came in spates, starting and stopping. She stood, paralyzed by the shock of what she had witnessed as well as her own shameful indecisiveness when it would’ve counted for something. A man was dead because of her inaction.

  She had to be sure of it before she went back to the house and called the cops, though. She would look like a total nut if she called 911 again for a “non-emergency.”

  Maybe he isn’t dead. Yet.

  Hurriedly, Kendi began to skirt the open area, keeping to the trees. There was only one way to find out. She had to know. If he was still alive, he might be bleeding to death. She cursed herself for the seconds she’d wasted, hiding in the woods.

  She emerged from the thick undergrowth and trees, risking her flashlight for a brief moment, just to be sure of her footing as she started down the embankment.

  The rain had made the creek bank slick. Kendi slowed her steps, taking care not to tumble. Her flashlight picked out the blue-jean clad leg of the murdered man. Her heart stopped, then thundered in her ears. She stopped for a moment, gathering herself for the grisly sight she was sure to discover. Then, resolutely, she started forward. She let the light travel up his body, from the dark leather boots he wore, up the length of his long, muscular legs to the tattered black T-shirt covering his broad back and shoulders.

  For an instant, she hesitated about shining the light higher, onto his face. If the murderer had shot him in the head, she wasn’t sure she could look at that. But she had to know if he was dead.

  “What else could he be, Kendi?” she whispered to the wind.

  Her lips compressed tightly. She took another hesitant step forward, shivering from cold and nerves.

  Lightning flared, followed by a roar of thunder, and Kendi flinched. In the sudden brightness, she thought she had seen the man move. But that was impossible. He was dead. She had helped kill him by not diverting the attention of the two goons who had murdered him. That, she would never forget as long as she lived.

  She took another cautious step, then knelt on the wet ground beside him. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to do what had to be done. She reached out and gripped the skin of his upper arm, just below the T-shirt sleeve, preparing to turn him over. His muscles flexed beneath her fingers, and she jerked her hand back, unable to stifle the surprised scream. Watching him for a few seconds, she willed it to be true. Be alive!

  There was no other movement, no matter how much she wished it to be true. Another thought wove its way into her mind. Is he truly a victim? Or, is he one of them? For all she knew, he could be every bit as evil as the other two. Perhaps nothing set him apart from those men at all.

  And yet, an inner voice quibbled, perhaps everything about him was different. After all, they had been out to kill him. Kendi took a deep breath and reached for him again. She couldn’t sit out here all night in the rain with a corpse. Maybe that muscle movement—she swallowed hard—had been only a final reflex as life left his body.

  Firmly, she took his arm to turn him over onto his back, steeling herself for the grisly sight of the head wound.

  But unbelievably, as he turned, he gave a low groan, and Kendi watched his chest rise and fall with shallow breathing.

  “Oh, my God,” she murmured, relief flooding through her.

  There was no head wound. How can that be? She had seen the other man shoot this one, up close and personal. But, it had been dark... Still, a professional wouldn’t have missed.

  As her gaze traveled across his face, she could make out, even in the dim light, that he had been beaten badly. Both of his eyes were swollen shut, and blood ran from a long gash across his forehead. His lips were puffy and a trickle of crimson streamed from the corner of his mouth.

  His dark hair was soaked with rain, creek water, and mud. In a flash of lightning, Kendi could see that his well-muscled arms were a mass of fresh cuts and bruises. No head wound. But, she’d seen the tall murderer bend over this man, his gun lowered. She’d heard the blast.

  As she looked into his battered face once more, she saw his eyes were cracked open, barely. He was watching her with a curiosity as undivided as her own.

  Kendi started to move back at the intensity in his dark eyes, but his right hand came up slowly toward her in a gesture she couldn’t ignore. He was reaching for her—whether for help or harm, she couldn’t be sure. She looked distractedly at the muscular outline of his arm, his powerful hand that hung, suspended, as he seemed to realize her indecision as to his purpose.

  Kendi leaned forward, taking his hand in hers. He gritted his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut. Her touch had been gentle but she felt the warmth of his blood under her fingers, even as the rain washed it onto the soil between them.

  “I’m sorry,” she muttered automatically, seeing the pain she’d caused him. “I’ll...go call for help—”

  “No!” His voice was commanding, though barely more than a hoarse whisper. “Don’t call...911.”

  He looked at her, straight on. She knew she had not misunderstood, but she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Clearly, he was delirious with pain and, more than likely, a fever as well. In his condition, this rain was doing him no favors.

  She stood up, her eyes still on his. They were, from what she could see through the bruised skin, a dark brown. His long black hair was plastered sleekly against his head, lying just at the top of the shirt collar. His forehead was framed with spiky dark bangs.

  “Let me help you,” she heard herself saying. It was a terrible mistake, and she knew it. She should’ve left him here, followed her first thought, and called 911 from the safety of her house. But how could she leave him here in the cold night?

  He rolled over onto his stomach with a smothered groan and slowly pushed himself to his knees in the red mud.

  Kendi bit her lip, unconsciously wiping the rain out of her eyes. She was freezing, and he must be, too. He was out here in nothing but a ragged T-shirt and jeans. The sudden realization of just how chilled he must be washed over her. She took a step toward where he was unsteadily trying to gather the strength to get to his feet. On his hands and knees, his head dipped momentarily downward, then back up, as if supported by steel. He didn’t respond to Kendi, giving all his attention to accomplishing what looked to be almost impossible.

  Kendi took the step she needed to be close enough for him to touch. She bent and held her arms out so he could support himself. “Hold on to me.”

  He was breathing hard with the exertion, but he lifted his hooded gaze to her face. She could see the reluctance in his eyes. He didn’t like to have to accept help from her—that much was obvious. The determination that had kept him alive so far was not dimmed.

  Kendi’s lips curved up slightly. “I could go get the truck, but if you’ll lean on me, I think we’d get to the house quicker on foot.”

 
; After a moment, he nodded and reached for her. He squelched a cry of pain as he tried to grasp her arm. She caught his forearm with her hand as his grip slipped, leaving a trail of crimson across her sleeve.

  Her stomach lurched as she looked down in the flash of lightning to see a shard of gleaming metal protruding from his right hand. Kendi dropped to kneel in front of him and held out her hand.

  The man tilted his head back for a moment in the rain, letting the rivulets of water run across his battered face. His breath came in erratic, harsh gasps, as if he was expending a great deal of energy to stay in his kneeling position.

  Kendi leaned toward him and took his right hand carefully in hers. No mistake about it. The silver gleamed again, and the pointed end of it scraped against her wrist.

  “Nails,” he muttered.

  She felt the weight of his watchful gaze on her. Did he expect her to run away, screaming? She had to admit that was exactly what she felt like doing. As the dark drip of blood-soaked rain from his palm fell to the ground, she swallowed hard.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Pull ’em...out.”

  She shuddered, but nodded her willingness, hoping he couldn’t see her expression. Her father had always said her face was an open book. She figured, right now, it was easy for anyone to read. The wounded man on the ground before her seemed exceptionally perceptive, even in his current condition.

  For the first time that night, Kendi was grateful for the rain. It had washed most of the sticky blood off of the two eight-inch nails that ran side by side through the center of the man’s palm. She gripped his wrist with her left hand, though she knew it was useless to do so. She only hoped he could hang on to a shred of self-control when she pulled them out. Her hold on him was firm, but no match for his strength, especially with the excruciating agony she was about to set in motion.

  She glanced up at him, and he tried to grin. “Sometime...tonight...ma’am.”