But now she was in trouble.
He set off at a full-speed run down the dark, windswept beach.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The wind lifted the snow into swirling clouds and flung it against Bethany’s car. The latest storm had left snowdrifts that the wind was now carving into surreal white dunes. On her way back from the grocery store, she drove slowly through the empty streets, past slumbering storefronts and swaying spruce trees.
Past the fire station.
Pain twisted her heart. Would she ever get used to it? She had to. She was determined to stay in Lost Harbor, and that meant she was bound to run into Nate. Honestly, she was surprised that she hadn’t in the past week, even at the hospital.
How long did it take to fall out of love with someone?
The back parking lot was empty of rigs; the crew must all be out on calls. Nate had told her that snowstorms slowed things down at first, but they often had a flood of calls soon afterwards.
Her glance lingered on charming stained-glass lunette of a fire truck over the entrance, then drifted toward the side door that Nate had used when she’d first treated S.G. Was that the moment when she’d started to see Nate for who he was—a person who cared deeply about other people? Was that when she’d started to fall in love with him?
With surprise, she noticed that the door was ajar. As if someone had gone inside and forgotten to close it all the way.
That didn’t seem right. Nate had told her that no one used that door. And even if they had, why would they leave it open for the fresh snow to blow inside?
She thought about calling Nate and letting him know the door was open. But she wasn’t ready to hear his voice just yet. Besides, she was a big girl, she could close a damn door on her own.
She pulled into the back lot and parked next to the door. Hopping out, she pulled her parka closed against the blast of cold wind and ran toward the door.
She was just about to push it closed when she heard a muffled scream.
It sounded like a girl’s voice, but the sound stopped so quickly that it could have been the wind moaning in the treetops.
But what if it wasn’t just the wind?
She should call Nate. Or 9-1-1. But she’d left her phone in the car and that scream had sounded—terrifying.
So she pulled open the door and stepped into the equipment bay, as quietly as her snow boots would allow. Right away she heard more sounds—scuffling, and a low grunt. The sounds were coming closer to where she was standing.
Her heart raced. Maybe she should back out and run around to the front and alert the dispatcher or anyone else who happened to be around. But what if it took too long, and by the time she came back the damage was done?
If S.G. was in danger, she couldn’t take a chance.
Closer came the scuffling sounds. They resolved into footfalls, as if from heavy boots against the concrete.
She could call out, make her presence known. But that would rob her of any element of surprise. Better to find out what was actually happening first.
She needed a weapon. She grabbed a long wrench off a workbench and flattened herself against a steel-sided utility cabinet, hoping she’d be hard to notice in the shadows. Her heart in her mouth, she waited, watching, gripping the wrench
A dark figure filled the doorway that led to the rest of the firehouse. With the minimal illumination offered by a single light bulb over a workbench, she couldn’t quite make out who it was.
Slowly, as it came closer, the figure resolved into her worst fear—it was two bodies wrapped together, and one of them was S.G. The other—much bigger and taller—had his arms wrapped around her as he carried her across the floor. One hand was over her mouth, the other around her middle.
In the low light, she couldn’t tell much about him, other than that he was a large man with lots of hair. Long, unkempt hair, big bushy beard.
S.G. was doing her best to fight back by kicking him in the shins. He grunted every time she did, and muttered things like “I’ll beat you for that” and “that’ll cost ya.”
It didn’t sound like an idle threat to Bethany. If he got away with this, if he kidnapped S.G., he was going to hurt her even more. She couldn’t let that happen.
It occurred to her that she hadn’t seen another vehicle in the lot besides hers and the dispatcher’s. Had he walked here? Did he have a rig stashed somewhere out of sight?
This had to be the man that S.G. used to live with. The one she called King, the one she’d thought was dead. If so, he knew just as much about wilderness survival as S.G. did—likely more. He would have no trouble simply disappearing into the wild with the girl.
If Bethany let that happen, they might never find S.G. again.
She held her breath as the pair approached the door. She’d left it slightly ajar, exactly the way she’d found it. Hopefully he wouldn’t suspect anything. Closer, closer they came. She tightened her grip on the wrench, preparing herself to strike. She had to make sure that she hit him and not SG. No easy task when there was no daylight between the two of them.
Wait, wait…wait until he’d gone past her, so he wouldn’t see her movements as she lifted the wrench high in the air and…SLAM.
She swung the wrench down as hard as she could, powering through it like a golf shot. Follow-through, it’s all about the follow-through.
But she’d waited a micro-second too long, and instead of hitting him on the head, she caught the thick muscle between his shoulder and his neck.
He let out a roar of surprise. Even though she hadn’t knocked him out, his grip on S.G. loosened and the girl was able to squirm free.
“Run, S.G.,” Bethany shouted to her. “Get help!”
The girl darted through the door into the snow.
The hairy man turned on her, fury twisting his bearded face. She caught a flash of his eyes and saw the same expression she’d seen many times in her emergency room rotation. Untreated mental illness mixed with alcoholism—the smell of liquor leached from his skin—added up to a toxic mess. One of his eyes was swollen nearly shut. Maybe S.G. had landed a blow, or maybe he had a longstanding injury.
He lifted his fist with a snarl. Cringing, she held up the wrench to serve as a shield. He shifted gears and grabbed at it to wrest it from her grip. But instead of fighting him for it, a battle she’d never win, she released it immediately.
Surprised, he lost his balance and staggered backwards. She seized the opportunity to run behind the ladder truck and crouch out of sight.
“Girl! Come back here!” he yelled.
Was he talking to her? Did he call every woman “girl?”
Bethany peered from behind the engine and saw that he was stalking toward the exit door with long strides. Even though S.G. had a head start, she was still dealing with that sprained ankle, along with whatever other injuries the man had inflicted. He would easily catch up to her if Bethany didn’t buy her some time.
“Hey!” she called, stepping from behind the engine so the man could see her. “Who are you and what are you doing here? Maybe I can help you. I’m a doctor.”
“Gotdamn doctors,” he answered. His voice was rough as tree bark, as if he wasn’t used to speaking. “Doctors are killers.”
Right. She’d forgotten about S.G.’s animosity toward doctors. It was clear now where it had come from.
“I meant that I’m a healer. I’ve been helping S.G.—I mean, the girl.” The man was stalking toward her, so she scooted around to the other side of the fire engine. “I couldn’t help but notice that you have a black eye. Would you like some help with that? I can make it feel a lot better.”
“Shut up,” he growled. “I came here for my girl. Took a lotta tracking. I found her and I’m going right back after I get her.”
“That’s not going to happen.” She kept her voice as even as possible, but it trembled more than she would like. “You can’t keep her a prisoner.”
“She’s mine.”
“No, she doesn’
t belong to you. She belongs to herself, and she ran away from you. She wants to be free from you.”
He responded with an incoherent growl.
“She says that you’re not her father. You need to leave her alone or you’ll get arrested.”
“My girl!” he yelled in rage. “She’s mine! I found her. I fed her. I raised her up.”
Found her? Now that was interesting. “Where did you find her?”
But the man, even in his alcohol-poisoned state, had just realized that he was wasting time talking to her. He wheeled around and headed for the exit.
Crap. She still didn’t know if S.G. had made it far enough for safety.
She launched herself after him, ran across the concrete floor and leaped onto his back.
He staggered a moment, but then reached behind him and shoved her off. God, he was strong. He was like a big silverback gorilla swiping a fly off his back. She stumbled backwards and hit the utility cabinet she’d hid behind when she first came in.
Pain lanced through her head as it bonked against the steel. Stars circled her vision as she crab-crawled away from the man. Where was that wrench? He didn’t have it anymore, so it must be around here somewhere.
But she didn’t dare pull her gaze away from the man long enough to search for it. He was coming after her so fast and furious that he might kill her if she looked away.
When he was a few feet away, she had another idea. “Take me!”
The man stopped in his tracks and scowled with bushy eyebrows. “Huh?”
“The girl was your servant, right? She cooked and hunted and cleaned and all that sort of thing. I can do those things too.” A stretch, especially the hunting part, but he wouldn’t know that. “Best of all, I’m a healer. I can take care of that eye for you. I bet you get all kinds of injuries out there in the wild. I can treat them all, so I’m even more helpful than that girl. I won’t even fight you. Stop trying to hurt me and I’ll come with you quietly.”
Please let help arrive before then. All S.G. had to do was run around to the dispatcher. She knew that, right?
Oh no. What if she didn’t know about the dispatcher? There were so many unexpected gaps in S.G.’s understanding of the world. What if the first person she found was a stranger and they didn’t believe her, or thought she was just a weird kid playing a prank?
Real fear set in. Her throat went tight and her stomach dropped. All this time she’d been trying to buy time for S.G. She’d assumed that S.G knew what to do with that time. But what if she didn’t?
The man towered over her. She was still in her backwards crab-crawl position, staring up at him. He wore a rough jacket that stank of tanned hides and liquor. Think, think. Work with what you know. Be a doctor. Stand up to this evil man.
“I can tell you have some unhealed injuries. That finger there.” She indicated the thumb of his right hand, which stood out at an awkward angle. “You broke it, and now I bet it hurts like the devil every time the weather changes. Am I right?”
Of course she was. She didn’t wait for his answer. “I’d have to reset it, which would also hurt, but then it would heal correctly. You’d be able to use it again and it wouldn’t cause you as much pain. Life is tough where you live. An infection can kill you. If you take me with you, I can keep you alive. You’re lucky I happened to come here tonight. Really lucky. That girl is great, but she doesn’t know all the things that I know.”
Was it working? Please work, please work. She really wasn’t ready to die, not when she’d just turned such an important corner. She’d finally claimed her own life in a way she never had. She’d stood up to her father. She’d found a place in the world that felt right to her. She’d fallen in love.
Nate, Nate. I need you.
The man reached one massive hand down to her. “You can come.”
With a sense of relief that he wasn’t going to kill her right away, she gripped his grimy hand. He hauled her to her feet.
“You can fix my eye?”
“Yes. How about if I go grab some ice and—”
“No. Come on.”
Right. He wasn’t drunk enough to fall for that. Meekly, she allowed him to push her ahead of him, toward the door. Surely there would be other opportunities to call for help, or to snag someone’s attention. This was a tiny town, but not so tiny that someone wouldn’t notice a stranger kidnapping one of the hospital staff.
Then again, the wilderness was so close. Just past the ridge of hills, unpopulated territory ranged for miles and miles. It was filled with mountains and lakes and rivers and bear dens and salmon streams, all of it untouched and hidden from view except from planes flying overhead. Depending on the man’s form of transportation, they could be in that wilderness in less than an hour.
Panic turned her brain to mush. She was out of tricks. He was too strong, too fast for her to take him on physically. She had to out-think him.
Medical supplies. She’d ask him to stop at a pharmacy. But all the pharmacies were closed by now. Liquor. Maybe she could lure him to the Olde Salt or the liquor store. She could suggest they pick up a bottle before they hit the road, or the trail, or whatever.
She was in the midst of opening her mouth to suggest just that when the door burst open.
Nate’s familiar form charged into the equipment bay.
Chapter Thirty-Five
As soon as the man spotted Nate, his arm came around Bethany’s throat and something sharp pressed into her side.
“Go away,” he snarled.
S.G. peeked from over Nate’s arm. “Don’t hurt her! He has a knife, Nate. It’s even bigger than my knife.”
Bethany swallowed hard. That was a knife pricking her side. A KNIFE. God only knew what kind of bacteria was on that blade.
“I-I’m going to go with this man,” she told Nate in a wavering voice. “I’m going to live with him and fix his eye and his thumb and any other injuries he has.” With her eyes, she tried to communicate to Nate that he should let them pass—then rescue her afterwards. But it was a complicated message to convey with just her eyeballs.
“The fuck you are,” he said in a lethal voice. “Put her down, man. Don’t be a coward hiding behind a hostage. Come and fight me. Who are you? You come into Lost Harbor and take people, that’s what you do? Fucking lowlife. Let her go and come fight someone your own size.”
She knew what Nate was trying to do. He was goading the man, using insults and that scornful tone of voice. Even though he kept his gaze fastened on the man, Bethany knew that he was aware of her, aware of every breath she drew.
“She’s going to fix me,” the man said in that rusty voice of his. “She’s gonna do the work the girl did.”
“If you want her to fix you, you can go to the hospital. But she’s not going with you. You will have to kill me first.” His voice left absolutely no doubt that he meant it. “I don’t know if you understand this, but I will die before I let you take her. I love her. And I don’t plan to die anytime soon.”
Butterflies fluttered in Bethany’s throat. Nate loved her? She tried to speak, but his arm was cutting off her air supply. She produced a squeak, which made the man tighten his grip.
“Then I’ll take Girl instead,” he growled.
“S.G.? No, you can’t take her either. There will be no kidnapping tonight. I’ve already called the police and the fire department, everyone knows what’s going on. This place is about to be surrounded by law enforcement officers, and they all have guns. You’ll be arrested. Your only alternative is to let her go right now and fight me before everyone gets here.”
“I’ll hurt her.” He dug the knife in a little deeper. Bethany felt the sting and the wet swell of blood. She gave a little muffled cry and a blur of tears fogged her vision. “Back off.”
Even though Nate looked like he wanted to tear the entire equipment bay to pieces, he slowly took a step back. Bethany noticed that S.G. wasn’t right behind him anymore.
The man dragged her forward a step, then anoth
er, as Nate backed toward the door. She glanced up at his face and knew, just knew, that he had something up his sleeve.
He started talking again. He was trying to keep the man looking at him—that’s what he was doing. Making sure his attention didn’t stray elsewhere. Maybe someone was coming from the other direction.
He held the man’s gaze, but he spoke to Bethany even as he kept backing up toward the door.
“Wherever this asshole takes you, I’ll find you. I love you. It happened so completely that I almost missed it. I thought I was happy just being with you, and it turns out I’m all in.”
“Shut up,” the man ordered.
“Nope, I have to say this now. Not waiting another second. I’m sorry I didn’t say all this before, outside the Olde Salt. I had this idea in my head that I wasn’t ever going to love anyone. That I couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t take the pain. But with you, I couldn’t help it. I had no defense against you. Loving you…it snuck up on me, like…like someone jumping out of the bushes.”
With perfect timing, something landed on the man’s back, and he lurched forward. Bethany staggered as her feet hit the ground. She flinched, expecting the knife to slice her in the side, but something was pinning the man’s arm so he couldn’t use the knife.
Her attacker let her go, and she went stumbling forward. Nate grabbed her and put her behind him, so he stood between her and the man. Peering around the protective shield of his body, she saw that S.G. was clinging to the hairy man’s back and trying to wrench the knife from his hand. He was fighting her hard. His massive elbow slammed into her ribs. She fell backwards onto the concrete.
In a fury, Nate launched himself at the man. She cried out in fear. What if the trapper stabbed Nate in the heart or the belly? Protect your organs, she wanted to yell, but it all happened so fast. Nate knocked him to the side, toppling him over like a chess piece. Then he jumped on top of him and pinned his knife-wielding arm to the floor with both of his knees.
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