CARRIE'S PROTECTOR

by Rebecca York

  * * *

  FROM HIS HIDING place, Wyatt heard a gunshot. Then everything was quiet again.

  Lord, had Patrick or someone else in the house shot Carrie? What was going on in there?

  Rage boiled up inside Wyatt—rage and disregard for his own safety. As one of the pursuers came close to the bramble thicket, Wyatt sprang out and grabbed the man, taking him totally by surprise and throwing him to the ground.

  The gunman tried to twist around, tried to get his weapon into firing position, but Wyatt slammed his gun hand against a rock, and the man screamed.

  “Eric?” the other guy shouted from what sounded like twenty-five yards away.

  When Eric tried to answer, Wyatt slammed a fist into the man’s face.

  Blood leaked from his mouth, but he kept struggling. Wyatt pulled him up and slammed him against the ground, knocking the wind out of him.

  He felt as though he had superhuman strength as he grappled with the guy, slamming him against the ground again and again until he went limp.

  Wyatt picked up Eric’s weapon, just as the other man came charging through the underbrush.

  He saw Wyatt and fired.

  * * *

  A MUFFLED BLAST came from outside, then another. Two gunshots. Carrie’s heart began to pound. When she started to spring out of the chair, one of the dark-haired men put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her down again.

  “Stay put,” he ordered.

  “That’s Eric or Cory taking care of your friend. What’s his name? Wyatt?” the blond-haired man said.

  “No,” Carrie breathed. She would not believe that Wyatt was dead. Not the Wyatt Hawk who had saved her and himself so many times since the attack at the Federal Building. These men had to be wrong. They couldn’t see what was happening out there. They were just guessing, and if she had to guess, she’d say that it was the other way around. Wyatt had eliminated the threat from the other two men.

  * * *

  IN THE WOODS, the bullet missed Wyatt and hit Eric. Wyatt shot at the man charging forward, felling him with a slug to the chest. As he toppled over, Wyatt sprang up with Eric’s gun in hand. When neither of the attackers moved, he knelt by each of them in turn, feeling for a pulse in the neck. There was none in either man.

  He turned away from the two attackers he’d downed.

  How many more were in the house, and was he in time to save Carrie?

  With a gun in each hand, he ran toward the house through the woods. But when he reached the open area at the edge of the trees, he stopped.

  At the moment he didn’t give a damn what happened to himself, but he had to stay alive—to rescue Carrie. For so many reasons. But the one that came zinging into his mind was—he loved her.

  The thought was so powerful, it nearly felled him.

  He loved her? That conviction had slipped out without his conscious knowledge.

  But as soon as he admitted it, he knew it was true. He’d fought against it with all the emotional resolve he could muster. In spite of that, he’d fallen in love with her, and if he couldn’t save her life, there was no point in saving his.

  Stopping behind a tree trunk, he scanned the facade of the house. All the shades were drawn, and as far as he could tell, nobody was looking out. Still, instead of rushing right to the dwelling, he moved cautiously through the woods, circling around so that he could come at the house from another angle.

  He had to succeed. He was Carrie’s only hope.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Carrie looked in horror from the gunman to Patrick and back again.

  Patrick’s mouth began to work, and words slowly came out of his mouth. “Bruce, why did you do that?”

  “This deal was supposed to be easy. She was supposed to die in the woods. Then it was going to be at the Federal Building. But the whole thing is turning to crap. Nothing’s gone the way it should. I rounded up a whole crew of guys for you. And look what’s happened. We lost George and Perry downtown. We lost Billy to the Feds. We lost Harry and Jordan at the safe house. I got shot there. And we haven’t gotten more than a couple of thousand dollars out of this.”

  “You will,” Patrick wheezed.

  “The hell with your insurance-policy bull. I want you to grab that money you got out of the old man’s account when he was drugged up and transfer it to us.”

  “That’s my money,” Patrick objected.

  “Not anymore. I want it in a bank account where I can get my hands on it. And if you don’t do that right now, you’re dead. Or maybe I’ll shoot you in the kneecap next time, then carry you to the computer so you can get that cash.”

  Patrick’s face was ashen. “I need medical attention.”

  “You mean like I got after the safe house?”

  “That’s not my fault.”

  “Well, you just have a flesh wound. You’ll live.” The blond man looked at Carrie. “We may need you for a while.”

  “Want me to put her in with the old man?” one of the other terrorists asked.

  “Come on, Sid—do you think it’s smart to put them together where they can plot something sneaky?”

  “I guess not.”

  “My father’s here?” Carrie gasped.

  Nobody bothered to answer her. The man who had pushed her down into the chair pulled her up and kept a tight hold on her arm as he escorted her out of the room. As she walked, she was processing information. Inez had said her father was acting demented. But it wasn’t because his mind was deteriorating. It was because Patrick had been drugging him so he could get access to his financial resources.

  The other man yanked Patrick up and led him to a computer on a table along the wall across from the front door.

  The last she saw of him, he was wincing as he sat down in the chair. No doubt he’d be transferring the money he’d stolen from her father’s account, as the gunman had ordered.

  As Sid led her down the hall, she looked at the closed doors. There were three bedrooms in the house, and her father must be in one of them—if these men were telling the truth.

  She swallowed hard, then called out, “Dad?”

  “Carrie?” her father shouted from behind the nearest door.

  At the sound of his voice, she felt her heart stop then start to beat in double time. Her father really was here.

  “No talking,” Sid warned.

  Unwilling to give up this opportunity, she ignored her captor and kept talking to her father. “Are you all right?”

  The dark-haired man slapped her across the face so hard that her ears rang. “If you try that again, I’ll shoot you,” he growled as he dragged her farther down the hall.

  In the far bedroom, he pulled out handcuffs and fastened her to the brass headboard.

  “This mess is all your fault,” he said bitingly.

  “My fault? That’s crazy. I was just minding my own business when I heard your plot.”

  “And now look what’s happened.”

  The murderous look in his eyes told her he couldn’t see the situation rationally. Better to shut up and try to figure out how to escape.

  To her relief, he stomped out of the room, and she breathed out a little sigh. She was safe for the moment, but what about Wyatt?

  Her throat clenched. “Wyatt,” she whispered. “Oh, Lord, Wyatt, please be okay. What would I do without you now?”

  The life she’d made for herself had been fine until she’d heard the terrorist plot in the park. Then it had turned upside down, and Wyatt Hawk had stepped in to right it again. At first she’d hated being forced into living with him. Then she’d come to realize that he gave her something she’d never had before. He wasn’t just her bodyguard. He was a man who could be her partner—if he’d allow himself to think in those terms. But could he? And what had th
ose shots outside meant?

  She yanked on the cuff that held her to the bed. She had to find a way to free herself and her father. And then she had to find Wyatt.

  A tall order, but she wasn’t going to simply sit here and wait for the men out there to come back and kill her.

  * * *

  AT THE BACK of the house, Wyatt heard something that made his heart leap. Carrie called out to her father, and he answered. They were both alive, thank the Lord.

  He listened to the sound of a door opening. Someone moved around before the door closed again.

  The action was followed by profound silence.

  Cautiously he crept toward the window. When he looked inside, he saw Carrie sitting on a bed, pulling at a pair of handcuffs that secured her left wrist to the bed.

  After waiting for a moment to make sure that the guy who had cuffed her wasn’t coming back, he tapped lightly on the window. She looked around, her eyes widening as she saw him.

  Wyatt, she mouthed as she pressed her hand over her heart.

  He felt a choking sensation. Putting his hands against the window glass, he pushed at the sash, but it was locked, and breaking the glass would bring the bad guys running.

  When she saw what he was doing, she stood and tried to get to the window, but her cuffs kept her from getting close. After looking over her shoulder toward the door, she began to tug at the bed, moving it inch by inch closer to the window.

  She would tug, then wait to make sure nobody had heard the legs scrape on the floor, then move it again, but apparently, the men were busy in the living room.

  It took her several minutes to get close enough to the window to reach the lock. She unlatched the lock with her free hand, then pushed the window up. As soon as she opened the window a crack, Wyatt reached under and helped her shove it up.

  Stepping back, she gave him room to climb through the window, and he made it into the room and took her in his arms, holding tight.

  “Thank God you’re all right,” they both said at once.

  “I heard a shot,” he said.

  “One of the men shot Patrick. He was working with them. But it sounds like the crazy scheme was Rita’s idea. If I had to guess, I’d say she had her husband killed by the guys out there.”

  He nodded, looking at the cuff that held her wrist to the bed.

  Taking out a Swiss Army knife, he used one of the implements to manipulate the lock on the cuffs. When he heard the lock click, he pulled the cuff off of her.

  She threw her arms around him again and held tight.

  “How many men are here?” he asked.

  “Three plus Patrick. A blond guy named Bruce who has a wounded leg—from the safe-house assault —and a couple of dark-haired men. One of them is Sid. I don’t know the other one’s name, but I saw him at the picnic area. I assume some of them were at the Federal Building.”

  “And I assume each of them is armed.”

  “Yes. But Patrick is out of commission. The one named Bruce shot him in the leg.”

  “Why?”

  “I guess to make him understand that bad things were going to happen if he didn’t get my father’s money out of the bank account where he’d stashed it.”

  Wyatt muttered a curse. “I guess this isn’t going the way Patrick expected.”

  “Yes, and there’s more. Apparently, Patrick was drugging my father—giving him something so he couldn’t think straight. And so Patrick could have the run of his computer.”

  She gave him a pleading look. “My father did everything for Patrick. Why did he turn on him?”

  “You said your father was...difficult. If you felt that way, how did a guy who wasn’t a real member of the family feel?”

  She nodded.

  “We can talk later.”

  “Yes, my father’s here. We have to free him.”

  “I heard you call to him. Where is he?”

  “In the next bedroom.”

  “I guess we’re going through the window again.”

  He helped her outside onto the ground, wishing he could make her get the hell out of there before the men inside discovered what was happening, but he knew from experience that she wasn’t going to take orders unless she thought they made sense.

  * * *

  BACK IN THE great room, Bruce pushed himself up using his crutch.

  He looked at his partners. “I expected Eric and Cory back here by now.”

  The other men nodded.

  “You don’t think that Wyatt guy could have gotten them, do you?” Larry, the third man, asked.

  “They’re good.”

  “Maybe he’s better. And they should have taken the assault weapons. Get them out.” He thought for a moment, then turned to Sid. “And maybe you should go back and get the prisoners. If anything’s going to happen, we can use them as human shields.”

  “Right.”

  Sid started toward the back of the house.

  * * *

  WYATT AND CARRIE moved silently to the other window. Apparently, Douglas Mitchell had heard them, because he came over to the window and looked out cautiously. He was also wearing a cuff, but there was a length of yellow rope attached to it and the end was frayed.

  He unlocked the window and pushed up the sash.

  “I sawed through the rope,” he said as he started to climb through the window.

  He was halfway out when Wyatt and Carrie heard a shout behind him, then a blast from a gun.

  Douglas made a startled sound, toppled through the window and landed hard on the ground.

  Carrie bent to him.

  “Dad? Dad?”

  Wyatt leaped to the window and returned fire into the bedroom. Whoever was shooting inside ducked back into the hall. A moment later, footsteps pounded toward the great room.

  Douglas pushed himself up, looking dazed. Wyatt saw a streak of red along the side of his head that disappeared into his hair. When he felt the track of the bullet, he found that it had traveled across the man’s skull.

  “It’s a graze,” Wyatt said as he helped the older man to his feet. “We can’t stay here. Come on.”

  “Where?” Carrie asked.

  “Out of the line of fire.”

  Carrie and Wyatt each took one of her father’s arms, holding him up as they hurried him toward the woods.

  They had almost reached the shelter of the trees when they heard shots behind them. This time it was automatic weapons firing.

  They pulled her father into the woods. Blood dripped down the side of his face, and his skin was pale, but he was still on his feet.

  When they were behind the trees, Wyatt spun around and returned fire. “You have to get your dad out of here,” he said to Carrie, reaching into his pocket and handing her the car keys. “I’ll hold them off. If I’m not there in ten minutes, take off without me.”

  When Carrie hesitated, he said it again. “Go. You have to get your father to safety.”

  He watched panic, fear, determination chase themselves across her face. He could see she didn’t want to leave him, but she didn’t want her father in danger, either.

  “Have the engine running for a quick getaway. I’ll follow you.”

  She reached for him, pulling him close. “I can’t let you do this.”

  “You have to.”

  She clung to him for another moment, then took her father’s arm and moved him farther into the woods.

  Wyatt stayed behind the tree. The last time he’d been entrusted with a woman’s life, he’d let her get killed. It wasn’t going to happen again.

  He studied the house. It was quiet. There were still three of the terrorists in there, all armed. The ones who’d come after him in the woods had been using automatic handguns. The ones in the house
had switched to more powerful guns.

  They’d use their superior firepower to rush him, and maybe he could stop them. But by then Carrie would be gone—if she followed orders.

  * * *

  CARRIE HELPED HER father through the woods, trying to hurry. When he stumbled, she held him upright.

  “We can’t leave Wyatt,” she murmured as she helped him along.

  “Agreed. But what are we going to do?”

  “Are you all right?”

  He laughed. “I’m a tough old bastard.”

  “You’re not a bastard.”

  “Of course I am. I was always tough on you and Patrick. I’ve gotten worse. I can see that now.”

  “Don’t blame yourself for this.”

  He scoffed, then was silent for several moments.

  They made good progress through the woods. It was easier going than when she and Wyatt had approached the house. The downward slope helped, and they had already cleared some of the brush away as they came up.

  Her father spoke again. “I made a big mistake.”

  “Dad...”

  “Let me say this. I knew Patrick resented his place in our household. I tried to make him feel more like he belonged, but it was never going to work. I should have encouraged him to go out on his own. Instead, it was easier to let him take over some of my workload.”

  “You couldn’t know what he’d do.”

  “I do now. He drugged me and started draining money from my accounts.”

  Did her father know that Patrick had also taken out a massive life-insurance policy on her? If he didn’t, she wasn’t going to mention that nasty detail.

  As she helped her father through the woods, she racked her brain for a plan that would get Wyatt out of there.

  He had told her to drive away. It was the right thing to do—for herself and for her father—but she couldn’t leave Wyatt up there waiting for the men in the house to rush him.

  The terrible image of that gun battle made her heart pound. He thought he was doing the right thing, but she wasn’t going to let him sacrifice himself for her—not if she could do something about it. But what?

  They made it to the car.

  “Lie down in the backseat. I’ll get you to the hospital as soon as I can,” she said to her father.