by Jenna Kernan
“Me, too.”
“After you then. I haven’t climbed out of a foxhole in some time.”
“It’s a brush shelter.”
Erin removed the sticks that obscured the opening. Then she wiggled out of the bag to crouch beside the tree. She saw immediately why they were invisible to their pursuers. Several more pine boughs had fallen during the storm. Her shelter seemed just more debris.
Not only that, the warm ground in the cool air had resulted in a low mist that crept around the tree trunks and hugged the earth. To disappear, one only had to lie flat.
She took her time listening and looking for the men. Seeing nothing, she called back to Dalton and then moved away to relieve herself. When she returned to him, he was crouching naked beside the shelter.
“It’s freezing out here.”
“The mornings can be chilly.”
“I’m shriveled up like the... Do you have anything that I can wear?”
Erin moved to the shelter to slide her pack out of the gap. She sorted through her gear and retrieved the plastic rain poncho.
“Maybe this?” She offered the poncho and then added one of his olive green T-shirts.
He held the familiar garment aloft. “Why did you bring this?”
“Hey, don’t read more into it than there is. It’s soft and I like to sleep in it.” She did not like his self-satisfied smile.
A moment later he had slipped into the T-shirt. As his head vanished into the fabric she glanced to his stomach. She always admired the heavy musculature of his chest and stomach, especially in motion. But this time her gaze tracked to the swollen red suture line at the flesh just above his hip bone. The man should be home, resting and not lifting anything over forty pounds.
Dalton tugged down on the hem of the cotton T-shirt and then donned the poncho. He chose to wear his damp cargo pants commando style. Then he spent the next twenty minutes disassembling, cleaning and drying his pistol. He dried every bullet in the four clips that he had stowed in the pockets of his pants.
Erin occupied herself scattering the branches used for her shelter. Then she stuffed the sleeping bag back into its nylon bag, rolled her foam pad and collected the tarp. She stowed all of these but the high density foam bedroll into her pack. That she tied on the top.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Which way?” she asked.
“Away from our company. When they don’t find us, they’ll backtrack”
“You want me to call the forest rangers?”
“Is your phone still off?”
“How did you know it was off?”
His mouth tipped down. “I tried calling you yesterday. Kept flipping to voice mail.”
“I told you I wouldn’t be calling.”
“You did.”
Now she was scowling. “I’ll keep it off for now.”
Dalton removed the strap from her shoulder and took her pack.
“You shouldn’t carry that,” she said, staring pointedly at his middle and the healing surgical scars that she knew were there.
“Circumstances being as they are, I am.”
“We still have to talk about this.”
He nodded and set off. Erin knew he’d likely rather face those mercenaries than have a talk with her, and that was exactly the problem, wasn’t it? But they were going to talk, and even commandos were not going to keep her from saying her piece.
If he didn’t like it, that was just too darn bad. Next time maybe he’d stay home when she asked him.
* * *
BY THE TIME Dalton finally stopped, the gray dawn had morphed into a fine drizzle that coated the leaves and dripped down upon them. It saturated her hair and dampened her clothing. Erin could see from his pallor that Dalton had pushed too hard and traveled too many miles.
“Where do you think we are?” he asked.
They’d been traveling in roughly a northerly direction according to her compass, paralleling the river, and she could guess the distance at three miles of scrambling down bramble-covered ravines and up lichen-covered rock faces. The topography on this side of the river was challenging, and the closer they got to the gorges the steeper the climb would become.
“Don’t you know?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Then just maybe you should let the one with the compass and maps lead.”
He pressed his lips together in that suffering look, and her internal temperature rose to a near boil. She reminded herself that he’d nearly died last month and again last night. It seemed he was determined to leave her. Her leaving was intended to keep that from happening, but somehow it had just made everything worse.
She removed the bottle from the pack she carried and offered it to him.
“Almost empty,” he said, refusing.
“I can fill it anywhere. I have a filtration system on this bottle.”
“You mean I’ve been conserving all morning for no reason?”
“No, there was a reason. You didn’t ask me.”
His eyes lifted skyward as if praying for patience, and then he drank all that was left in the bottle.
“Why don’t we just call DEC?”
“DEC?” he asked.
“Department of Environmental Conservation. The forest rangers. They can dispatch a helicopter and lift us out of here.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
He shook his head and looked skyward as if expecting a phantom helicopter. Honestly, the man seemed to want to do everything the hard way.
“Dalton, why?”
“The call for air evac would be via radio, and that transmission is being monitored by our pursuers.”
“You don’t know that.”
“It’s what I would do.”
“Well, then, let me at least send search and rescue after Brian Peters and to my group.” Her voice broke on the last word and she clamped her mouth closed to keep from crying.
“Your mobile is still off?”
“Yes. Why?”
“If the kid made it out, then they already know what happened and where.”
She thought of the teen alone on the trail and the worry squeezed at her heart. “Do you think he’s safe?”
Her husband offered no assurances and his expression remained grim. “He’s a wounded kid and they’re trained mercenaries. He went the way you told me that they’d expect us to go.”
She had sent him straight into more trouble. Erin scowled. “I never should have left him.”
“If you hadn’t, we’d all be dead. His only chance was away from us. You made the right call. In any case, you are overdue to check in. When DEC finds your party, they’ll know you are missing with three kayaks. But if you switch on that phone our pursuers will find us.”
“How?”
“Forest Rangers will request GPS coordinates from the county 911.”
Erin said no more as she studied the map for several minutes. “You want to backtrack to Lake Abanakee or continue downriver to the community of North River?”
“Neither. Those are the two directions they will expect us to travel. What else have you got?”
“Why are they even following us? Is it because we are witnesses?”
Dalton’s gaze shifted away. Erin scowled as she remembered something.
“You took that cooler. The one from the helicopter. I saw it in your kayak.”
“The pilot entrusted the information—”
“To me! And I left it behind. I left it because our lives are more valuable to me than some flash drive and a pair of glass vials.”
He saw the look in her eyes, registering what he had done. He didn’t deny it. But neither did he offer reassurance. She was right. He’d put them in danger.
“But you lost all your gear with your kayak.
If they were searching, they should have found both. Even if the cooler popped out of your kayak...”
“It didn’t. I tied it down.”
Dalton’s eyes shifted back to meet hers and she saw the guilty look on his face.
“Where is it?” she demanded.
Dalton lifted his hands in a gesture meant to placate. “Now, honey. Listen to me.”
“Where?”
His right hand moved to the side pocket on his cargo pants. He gave the full pocket a little pat.
“Why in the name of heaven would you risk our lives for whatever trouble that pilot was carrying?”
Dalton reached for her shoulders and she stepped away. Then she released the waist buckle at her middle and dropped her pack. She spent the next several moments stalking back and forth like a caged animal, gathering her fury about her like a cloak. Finally, she came to a complete stop, pivoting to face him.
“You just don’t get it. This is why I wanted a break. This...” She waved her hand in a circular motion and continued speaking. “This obsession with playing the hero. It’s not our job to deliver that nonsense. It was his.”
“This is bigger than that,” said Dalton. “This could save thousands of lives. Maybe our own.”
“If we don’t get killed in the process.” She turned her back on him and covered her face with her hands.
Tentatively, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and turned her to face him.
“Erin, I’m sorry. But I didn’t see a choice.”
She shook her head. “And that’s where you’re wrong. There’s always a choice. The choice to reenlist in the most dangerous arm of the Marines.”
“I left them because you were unhappy.”
“I wasn’t unhappy being married to a marine. I was unhappy being married to a marine who insisted on being on the front line of every assignment.”
“I quit because of you.”
“You didn’t quit. You just shifted from one dangerous assignment to the next. New York City Real Time Crime Center? Come on, Dalton. What is the difference between that and Vice?”
“It’s not undercover work.”
“You’re a cop. You’re a target.”
“Is that what you think I am?”
“They shot you! They killed your partner.”
“Not while I was on a call.”
“What difference does that make? You were in a coma, Dalton. You didn’t have to attend your partner’s funeral. You didn’t have to see them give a flag to his widow. You didn’t have to comfort his children. I did that. I did that alone while you were recovering from internal injuries.”
“I understand how you must feel.”
“Clearly you don’t or you would have stayed home as I asked. You would have considered that my fears are justified.”
“And you’d be dead now.”
“As opposed to in a day from now? If you really believe that those guys are after us, trained killers, what chance do we have? They have helicopters and guns. All we have is each other.”
“Maybe that’s enough.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, Dalton. Just leave it. Put it on a rock on a bright red T-shirt with a note that says, ‘Enjoy!’ and let’s get out of here with our lives.”
“That’s why I love you, Erin. You are a survivor.”
She pressed her lips tight and glared. “The way you are headed, I’ll have to be.”
“Don’t be like that.”
“Like what? I’m trying to keep you alive. To save you from yourself because if I don’t, one way or another, you’re leaving me. Getting shot at, blown up in Afghanistan, coming home with knife wounds and now carrying a vial of something that, if it breaks open in your pocket, will kill us both.”
She loved him, but she was not going to stand over his coffin and accept a flag from a grateful city or nation. If you couldn’t stop the oncoming train, sometimes all you could do was step out of its way.
He stared down at her with that hangdog look, and she tried and failed not to feel his sorrow.
“How do you see this ending?” she asked.
“We make it out and get this to the FBI in Albany.”
“Fine.” She shouldered her pack and stared up at the victorious smile on his handsome face, and she ignored the jolt of awareness that he stirred in her. “And then I want a divorce.”
Chapter Eight
Erin studied the topographical map. “If we walk along the gorge beside the Boreas River, we’ll run into North Woods Club Road.”
“How far?”
“Roughly three miles east to the confluence of the Boreas River and Hudson, bushwhacking because there is no trail. Then it’s a two-mile uphill hike, steep for the first mile or so, on a marked trail to the gravel road. From there we can head west to a small community at the terminus of the road or east to Minerva. The community looks like about five houses. Either one is somewhere around five more miles.”
“Ten miles.”
“Only six to the road. We can get help there.”
“Or get intercepted.”
“The rain will fill the rivers and make the going slippery, but we should reach the road in a couple of hours. We can call the rangers.”
He looked unconvinced.
“They can search for Brian, send help, and I’ll tell them not to use radio communication.”
“You can’t guarantee it. With so many rangers, someone will pick up a radio.”
“Who do you want to call, your detective bureau?”
“Too far. But I could have them call for help once we get out of the woods.”
“What about my camp director? He can drive to the station. By now they’ve found—” she struggled to swallow “—my group. He’ll believe me when I tell him we are on the run, being stalked. And if Brian got through, they’ll know our situation. We know there’s help out there. We just have to get to them or help them find us.”
“When we get closer to the road.”
“Fine.” She kept hold of her pack and the map, leading the way back. “You know, there will be rafting groups on the river all day. We might get one of them to pick us up.”
“No. They’ll be at the terminus of every rafting trip.”
“How many of these people do you really think there are?”
“Three in the chopper last night and three in the woods beside our shelter. Plus, the ones who shot the chopper down.”
“They might be the same group.”
“I don’t know how many. Neither do you. So assume everyone we meet is one of them.”
She’d seen what they could do, and she did not question her husband’s assessment of their situation.
Erin led the way, using her compass only and staying well away from the Hudson. She stopped to fill the water bottle at a spring. All she had were several power bars she kept for emergencies, which this surely was. She handed Dalton the lemon zest bar and kept the chocolate chip for herself. She peeled back the wrapping and glanced up to see the second and last bite of the lemon zest disappear into Dalton’s mouth.
“When did you last eat?” she asked.
“Yesterday morning.”
He was a big man and burned a lot more calories than she did. She rummaged in her pack and offered a second bar.
“You have more?” His brows lifted in that adorable way that made her want to kiss his face.
“Yes, plenty.” Plenty being one.
Midmorning, they paused at a stream and Dalton returned her poncho. He did fill out the shirt she slept in, and she surreptitiously enjoyed the view of his biceps bulging as he lifted the bottle to his lips and drank. The sight made her own mouth go dry.
Erin glanced away, but too late. She was already remembering him naked beneath her last night. Dalton’s large, strong body never failed to arouse h
er. It was just his attitude that pushed her aside. Just once she’d like to have him choose them above protecting the city or the nation or whatever it was he thought he was doing. If he was right, the men hunting them were still out there.
Despite her reservations, her mind swept back to the last time they’d made love. Before the shooter had walked up to her husband’s unmarked police unit and shot his partner, Chris Wirimer, in the head before turning the pistol on Dalton. The shooter had targeted the pair solely because they wore police dress uniforms. They were en route to attend the annual medal day ceremony in Lower Manhattan. The gunman had managed to get a bullet between the front and back of Dylan’s body armor. It had taken six hours to patch all the bleeders from the bullet, which had traveled between his body armor and his hip bone from front to back stopping only when it had reached the back panel of his flak jacket. A through and through with no internal organ damage, but Dalton had nearly bled out, nearly left her in the way she always feared he would.
From beneath the cover of the canopy of hardwood and pine, Erin again heard the rush of running water. A short time later they reached the Boreas River, flowing fast and swollen from the heavy rains. Here at the river’s terminus, the water stretched forty feet from side to side. Erin knew that farther up, the river ran through narrow gorges on the stretch of white water known as Guts and Glory. Here, it tumbled and frothed, making for an excellent run.
She found the trail easily and turned north. Looking back, she could see where the two rivers met. She did not linger as she led them up the steep, muddy trail. Dalton’s breathing was labored, and she paused to let him rest. She didn’t like his grayish color and was angry again that he’d decided to ambush her instead of giving himself time to heal and her time to think.
She turned her head at the jangle of a dog’s collar. A few moments later a young black Labrador retriever appeared wearing a red nylon collar and no leash. Its pink tongue lolled and it paused for just a moment upon sighting Erin, then dashed forward in jubilant excitement.
Erin laughed and offered her hand. The dog wore a harness and was likely carrying her own food and water. Erin stooped to give the dog a scratch behind the ears. She glanced at her collar, fingering the vaccination tag and the ID.
