Love Inspired Suspense December 2013 Bundle: Christmas Cover-UpForce of NatureYuletide JeopardyWilderness Peril

by Lynette Eason

  They could survive. They had to survive. That thought was all that kept Rick going. Twigs snapped somewhere in the forest behind him and he pushed harder.

  Farther.

  Deeper.

  Kemp would have to be crazy to follow him out in this storm, but at this point, Kemp was a man with few options, same as Rick.

  Rick trudged in a wide circle heading back to the mine shaft. Despite the danger from the men, he couldn’t ignore the presence of a known shelter in the face of the coming storm. And anyway, the more distance he put between himself and the camp, the more difficult time a search-and-rescue team would have in finding him.

  Rick found himself in front of a deep gorge. He’d edge the gorge for a while until he could double back to the mine shaft. At this point, he’d rather suffer through a fistfight, dodge bullets, whatever it took, than slowly freeze to death in the Alaskan wilderness. He had to get warm, and soon.

  He didn’t know how long it would take for Connor to send assistance, but he knew the man well enough to know that he could call in favors if that was what it took to get help in spite of the weather.

  With that thought, hope infused Rick, warming his insides. His hiking picked up and he breathed easier. All he had to do was last a little longer.

  But then Kemp stepped from the forest, aiming his weapon directly at Rick.

  The flame of hope Rick had felt moments ago stuttered as the Cessna had. Kemp had found him, and the others would, too.

  Kemp was between him and the cover of the forest. Rick stood motionless. Kemp struggled to get his breath, then finally dropped a bag at his feet.

  “You’re going to get me out of this. That was the deal.”

  “I don’t recall agreeing to a deal like that. Besides, any deals made were under duress.”

  “Your brother and your girl got out. If I didn’t need you to get me out, I’d kill you right here.”

  Rick wasn’t sure what the guy expected from him. “There’s nothing I can do about the weather.”

  “You know how to survive. And you can keep those hounds off me.”

  Taking a step forward, Rick eyed the bag on the ground. “Why are they still chasing you? After all, they found gold. No. Wait. Let me guess. You took the gold.”

  “It’s not what you think. I need it to pay what I owe to my debtors, not to those snarling miscreants who shot up my camp and tried to kill you. They have nothing to do with me. My grandfather promised them something years ago. They wanted to collect from me. Everyone else is dead or gone.”

  “Are you saying they’re still out there looking for you even in this storm?”

  “Those boys were born to do this. That’s why you’re my only chance.”

  Rick frowned and glanced behind Kemp. The men were native Alaskans, as he’d thought. The odds of survival through avoiding them had just dropped with the temperature. “I was heading to the mine shaft for protection. Do they know about that?”

  “I don’t know. But I guess we’ll find out.” Kemp’s breath puffing in clouds around his head, he waved the gun at Rick. “Lead on, then.”

  Just keep moving. He watched the edge of the forest for any signs of the other two men who were after Kemp’s gold.

  “You know, you should have left the gold behind. Let them have it.”

  “Shut up.”

  “If they’re that determined to catch you, they’ll find us, and then what? All we can do is take cover and shoot. How much ammo do you have? I have one cartridge left in my gun and that’s it.”

  “Shut up.”

  Realizing that he wouldn’t be able to get Kemp to talk about the men who had attacked them, Rick decided to take a different tack. “So what did you do to get into this? The guards who worked as your miners reminded me a little of organized crime, the way they were armed to the hilt.” Rick was pretty sure they were in fact part of an organized crime ring, but he wanted to hear what Kemp could tell him.

  “Gambling. Throw in some loan sharks and the next thing you know, I’m offering up the gold in return for my life.”

  “Only there wasn’t any gold.”

  “Huh?” Kemp trudged behind, breathing hard. “Oh, that’s your brother talking. The odds were long on this claim. But that’s how it is when you gamble. You never know when you’re going to hit the jackpot. The possibility is always there, even if it is very remote. If only I could have had this kind of luck at the tables, then I wouldn’t be here. But my grandfather wasn’t any different than me. He just preferred the outdoors. He put all his money and my inheritance into mining, hoping he’d strike it rich one day. When he runs out of funds to keep the operation going, what does he do? Borrows more money against the gold that he doesn’t even have yet, and then next thing I know, someone is trying to collect on his debt, too.”

  “And they’re still trying to collect. If you have other claims, why not just give them that bag? Let’s walk away from this free men.” Rick could only hope.

  Kemp didn’t respond other than to gasp for breath. Rick figured the guy was struggling to walk and couldn’t afford to waste energy talking about the inevitable. Alongside him, Rick trudged on, his mind drifting to Shay’s sweet face when she’d told him to come back to her.

  If there was a way for him to make it back to her, he didn’t know what it was. One foot in front of the other, his legs growing more sluggish and numb by the minute. If he stopped now, he’d never get up.

  He heard a slump behind him and whirled around, grabbing his weapon.

  Kemp was facedown in the snow. Rick held his weapon at the ready and scanned the forest edge as he crept toward Kemp. Had someone taken the man down? At Kemp’s prostrate form, Rick knelt down and felt his pulse. Still there, but weak. He rolled the man over and saw the blood. He’d been wounded—whether last night or during his escape, Rick didn’t know, but now he was left to carry the man’s dead weight. He couldn’t just leave him to die from the cold or his assailants.

  Life had a funny way of turning the tables. Rick dropped to his knees and rested for a minute, unsure if he had what he needed to keep going. The dreams that tormented him when he slept had nothing on this unending nightmare. He hung his head, wishing it could just be over.

  Shay’s face. He thought of Shay’s face and her pleading eyes and got to his feet. He pulled Kemp over him in a fireman’s carry, his shoulder wound burning again. He grabbed the bag of gold, noting that it weighed only a few pounds. But they were pounds that could make or break his success. The gold—the very thing they’d all fought and killed over—would have to be left behind.

  He couldn’t carry that and Kemp, too, with his wound, and so he dropped it. In the end, Kemp would probably kill him for it, but if it saved their lives, then that was a risk Rick was willing to take.

  He paused and Kemp mumbled, then twitched. The next thing he knew, Kemp wrestled with him. Rick released the man as gently as he could to stand on his own two feet.

  His eyes were wild and he punched Rick. “Where is it? Where’s the gold?”

  Rick shrugged, forgetting why he cared. “Sorry, man. I had to carry you or the gold. Did you want me to leave you to die?”

  Kemp punched him. “I’m as good as dead without that.”

  He trudged back, following the footsteps that were quickly filling in with snow. Rick shrugged again and let him go, then turned his back to see to his own safety. A bullet whizzed by his ear and Rick jerked around to see Kemp waving his weapon at him. Rick could have sworn he’d removed it from the man.

  “Help me or die,” the wild man said.

  The last of Rick’s hope flickered out then. Connor, where are you? At least Shay had gotten to safety. He hiked toward Kemp, ready to have it out with the man and be done, but as they plodded back in the direction they’d come, there was no sign of the bag with the gold. The snow had quickly buried it just as it would them if they didn’t find shelter.

  Kemp turned on him, rage and madness filling his eyes. “You stole it. You h
id it from me somewhere.”

  Rick held his numb palms out. “I don’t care about the gold. What good is it if we’re dead?”

  Kemp aimed his gun at Rick at close range. Rick instinctively shoved the man’s hand upward, and the gun went off. Rick didn’t want to kill the guy if he didn’t have to, but all the same, he should have known it would come to this. He pressed the muzzle of his own weapon—the gun he knew would save his life—against Kemp’s shoulder and fired.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Shay struggled to see through the pounding snow, but she’d convinced Aiden to let her come back with him.

  True to his word, he’d found another bush-country airstrip, where they’d landed and quickly got their hands on communications. Radioing for help, Aiden had called the state police and made contact with Connor, who was within minutes of landing at the gold-mining airstrip despite the inclement weather.

  Connor had called for law enforcement assistance, too, but had no intention of waiting, especially with his former FBI agent brother, Reg, who now worked as security detail, along for the ride.

  But she and Aiden were closer and wanted to be there. She couldn’t live with herself if something happened to Rick as a result of them leaving him behind, no matter that their choices had seemed few at the time.

  Aiden flew close to the ground and Shay watched the trees, searching for the airstrip. The Cessna swooped over the gorge they’d seen on the way out and that was when she saw them.

  “There’s Rick and…Kemp’s there, too,” Shay said. “It doesn’t look good.”

  “I see them,” Aiden said, frustrated worry clear in his voice. “He was supposed to find cover. Stay hidden.”

  “I guess it worked out pretty much as well as everything else has.” She sent Aiden a glare, then watched through the window. “Hang in there, Rick. We’re here. Help is coming. Oh, Lord, please help him.”

  “You should pray for Kemp. He’s probably the one who is going to need the help.”

  A gunshot rang out.

  “And I’m going to need help if something happens to you,” Aiden added. “He’s going to kill me for bringing you out here where we risk getting shot. We should go back. I was an idiot to let you come.”

  “You couldn’t stop me.”

  In slow motion, Shay watched Kemp point a weapon at Rick. Rick shoved the weapon upward and they wrestled. What was the matter with them? They both acted…drugged.

  “He’s freezing out there, with or without bad guys trying to kill him.” Her voice trembled. “Land this thing. We have to help him.”

  Rick and Kemp wrestled and stumbled over the edge. Into the gorge.

  *

  Rick lay there against the snow-piled ledge, staring up at the sliver of sky at the gorge’s opening. The ledge where he’d landed was a few feet down, and though it had stopped a fall to his death at the bottom of the gorge, pained emanated from his leg. He suspected it was broken. Several feet of snow had probably kept him alive, but for what—to freeze to death?

  Then he remembered, somewhere in the background of his battle with Kemp, he’d heard an airplane. Was that Connor and Reg?

  He turned his aching head to the side and caught sight of Kemp lying nearby—unconscious or dead, Rick didn’t know.

  The cold was near to taking Rick, and his consciousness edged in and out. He wasn’t sure if the snow had stopped or he was dreaming, but the white stuff wasn’t hitting his face anymore. Maybe he was too cold to tell.

  His mind slipped into that place of terror he dreaded when he slept. The problem was he didn’t think he was sleeping now—daylight was still shining down on him from above.

  But overlaid across his vision of the present were visions from the past.

  After the helicopter crash, he’d dragged his copilot to cover, despite his own injuries and the gunshot wound to his leg. They’d made it to the crumbled remnants of a desert brick structure. But at least they were in the shadows. The others… Where was everyone? He looked around. He couldn’t be the only one. Then Rick saw what he’d not wanted to see.

  His friend was almost gone. Bleeding out. Anguish strangled him. Rick maneuvered himself around and pressed his hands against the wounds to staunch the flow.

  But it wasn’t enough. And he was too late.

  He’d been ambushed then, much like today. They’d been providing cover for ground forces and no doubt weren’t the only ones who’d taken a hit. He hadn’t been able to save his copilot and friend then, but Shay and Aiden had made it to safety today. He’d given himself to that task. His success in making sure it happened caused a sense of peace to settle in his soul.

  The sound of a Sea Knight helicopter on a search-and-rescue mission had filled his ears that day. Was that what he heard now? He couldn’t know if they would find him in the gorge, and there wasn’t a way for him to let them know where to look. The Alaskan wilderness was too vast and there was too much area to cover, even when you knew the general vicinity in which to search.

  That was okay. He’d done all he could do. Rick stopped struggling with the darkness that circled like a scavenger and let it take him.

  *

  Light stirred in his vision and shards of pain racked across his head. A familiar feminine voice mingled with other voices in the shadows of his mind.

  Shay?

  Was he dreaming? If so, this was the first good dream he’d had since… Rick’s eyes fluttered open, and awareness of a deep throbbing ache coursed through his leg, through his core.

  “Rick!” Shay’s face filled his vision.

  He was on a gurney; a Chinook rescue helicopter was mere yards away. He focused back on Shay and smiled. She cupped his face in her hands. “Rick, can you hear me?”

  His smile grew, but he couldn’t find the words. Had they given him something for pain?

  “Rick, they have to bring your core body temperature up. Your leg is broken and I don’t know what else. But you’re alive.” Tears dropped from her eyes onto his cheeks and burned.

  They were both alive—himself and her. Rick had never been happier.

  She pulled away.

  No, come back!

  “What’s the matter with him? He’s not saying anything,” she asked someone out of his vision. Someone from the search-and-rescue team, probably.

  “He’s in shock. You need to move back, ma’am. Let us do our job.”

  “Come on, Shay.” Connor’s voice sounded out now.

  “Rick!” she screamed as if someone was ripping her away from him. The sound tore at his heart.

  Rick caught her wrist and held on. He loved her and he couldn’t have asked for more than to come back to her as she’d asked, but warnings resounded in his head again.

  They were right. He was in shock. He couldn’t think clearly. She leaned in, responding to his touch. “I’m no good for you,” he said. That was what he’d needed to say.

  Then someone pulled Shay away and he was tucked into the Chinook.

  *

  Shay sat in the waiting room of Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, still wearing the oversize parka that Rick had grabbed for her during their escape from the camp. But despite the heavy insulated layers, she couldn’t seem to get warm. What was the matter with this hospital? Couldn’t they turn the heat up?

  She stared ahead, feeling as though she were in shock herself. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the past seventy-two hours.

  Voices spoke in low tones in the hallway just around the corner from where she sat.

  “Is she okay?” Connor said.

  “The doctor gave her a once-over and the thumbs-up. She’s already given her statement to the police,” Aiden answered.

  She could tell they were talking about her. Apparently, they thought she couldn’t hear.

  “Reg’s still talking to them and the FBI as well, considering the Mafia connections. The two men who initially tried to kill them were apprehended. But I’m more worried about her. She just sits there and stares. Has she b
een in to see Rick yet?”

  “No. The only thing wrong with her is my hardheaded brother. He doesn’t know a good thing when he sees one. To be fair, he’s still a little out of it.”

  “You’re probably right. I’m going to make a few calls, maybe even check in on Rick again myself, and then I’ll meet you back here in half an hour, okay?”

  She heard footfalls growing distant then—Connor heading away. Pressing deeper into the uncomfortable chair, she let her thoughts drift to the past.

  To think, she’d become an aviation mechanic like her father, believing that tools and logic and concrete problems would let her protect herself. Because of him, she’d learned to protect her heart. In her job and in her personal life, she’d been tough and self-sufficient. A behind-the-scenes sort of person. Nobody saw her weaknesses, so no one took advantage of her.

  But none of that had mattered. In the end, men had wanted her and had even tried to kill her…because she was a mechanic. In the end, Rick had broken through her fortified walls, burned right through them, cutting her open as if he was a welder and she was metal. He’d melted her heart and then with his last words to her left her softened heart to grow cold and die.

  Footsteps echoed down the hallway, yanking her from her thoughts. Aiden stepped into her line of vision and handed her a steaming cup of black hospital-vending-machine coffee. She took it with a halfhearted thank-you but didn’t drink. Aiden slipped into the thin-cushioned chair next to her.

  “Well, the police arrested Kemp, though he’s still recuperating from his injuries. Apparently, there were still a few men alive in the camp, too.”

  Shay nodded. That was all good, but the news didn’t do a thing for her breaking heart.

  I’m no good for you. Couldn’t she have just died out there before having to hear that? She couldn’t believe they’d gone through all of this for Rick to say those words to her, especially after he’d already told her that he loved her.

  Aiden set his coffee on the side table next to him. “I can’t take this anymore, Shay. Listen up. Rick has issues. You know that, right? I get that he loves you enough that he wants you to be safely away from him. But I can see that arrangement isn’t going to work for either one of you. He’s not doing much better than you are right now and it’s not because of his leg or gunshot wound. I think you should take matters into your own hands.”