The Widow's Protector

by Stephanie Newton

  Hunter’s phone rang. It was a number he didn’t recognize. “Hello?”

  “Hunter?”

  Adrenaline spiked his bloodstream as he heard Fiona’s voice. “Fiona, are you okay? Tell me you’re okay. Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you.”

  “I don’t know exactly. He made a lot of turns.” Her voice sounded far away, like she was in a tunnel. Or…on speaker phone.

  “It’s all right. We’re going to find you.”

  “Hunter—” Her voice broke. “Please hurry. He taped me to a chair. And—there’s a fire starting.”

  The connection broke. He didn’t know if the phone went dead or if she ended the call. Either way, they only had minutes to find her. “Keira, have the state police get every available man east of town looking for smoke. Tell them to call it in if they find it.”

  She nodded and ran for her patrol car, the young state police officer right behind her.

  He was dialing the phone before she pulled out of the parking lot. “Nick, it’s Hunter Reece. Fiona called from this number.” He reeled off the digits. “Don’t you have a buddy at the FBI who can see if it’s pinging off a cell tower? Call me if you get it.”

  Jumping into his truck, he gunned it, turning his emergency scanner louder so he would hear every update. He didn’t know where she was, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He’d finally realized how much he loved her, and not friend love, either, real love, spend-the-rest-of-your-life-together love. He wasn’t going to lose her now. He wanted to have grandchildren with her.

  He dialed the phone again. “Nick, it’s Hunter Reece. Any luck with that cell phone number?”

  The response that they were working on it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “I’m going to call her back. Start tracking the signal.”

  “Got it.” Nick paused. “Hunter, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry for. Just find her.”

  * * *

  Fiona stared at the growing flame that had started when the phone by the window rang. She’d dialed Hunter and the phone outside the window rang. Nate had it rigged on some kind of relay. She should’ve known not to use the phone. He wouldn’t have left it there if it was going to help her. She drew in a lurching breath, wincing as her ribs pressed against the duct tape holding her in the chair.

  The phone under her fingertips rang. She stared at it. With trembling fingers, she pressed the button. “Hunter?”

  “Hey, babe. You doing okay?”

  At the sound of his sweet, steady voice, she broke down. “Hunter, I’m scared.”

  Another detonator phone rang. Another fire began to creep up the frame of the window on the other side of the building.

  “I’m going to find you, sweetheart. Keep talking, okay? Tell me what you saw on your way to the cabin. Were you blindfolded?”

  She sniffed and tried to get control of the her careening emotions. Thinking was important. “It was just country roads, Hunter.”

  Another phone rang, this time behind her. The sound of sparking wire made her skin crawl. “Hunter, I have to go.”

  “Any landmarks?”

  “Um…I saw the top of the lighthouse as we drove out of town. Does that help?”

  “Yes, it means I’m getting closer. Anything else? Did you hear anything as you were going from the car to the cabin?”

  She sobbed softly into the phone. “I was fighting him. I wasn’t thinking about details. I have to hang up the phone.”

  “It’s okay, Fiona. I’m going to find you.”

  She could hear the strain in his voice, hear the fear and angst, but he wasn’t letting on. Then she remembered the birds. “Wait, Hunter. I heard birds screeching. Like…an osprey telling us we were too close to her nest. Hunter, I heard the ocean!”

  “Okay, I’m taking a turn here. I’m getting closer. What’s the fire doing?”

  She looked around the room. “Besides scaring me?”

  He laughed softly into the phone, but she could hear the ache in his voice. “Yeah, sweetie, besides that.”

  “The outside of the building is burning and there’s a lot of smoke on the ceiling. I don’t know why it isn’t burning faster.” She coughed. Smoke was swirling above her. “The smoke is getting closer. I can’t move to get away from it.”

  Another phone rang, the next one in the series. Sparks shot to the detonator, igniting another fire. “Hunter, another fire started. It’s closer and there’s so much smoke.”

  There was silence on the line for a second. “They must be on some kind of timer. I’ll call you back in a second.”

  “It’s the phone. The fire started when I called you. I have to go.” She didn’t want to hang up, didn’t think she could stand it if she was alone in this room, not even his voice to connect her with the ones she loved outside this tiny deadly space.

  “I promise I will find you. I love you, Fiona. I won’t let you down.”

  “You could never let me down, Hunter.” As she said it, she knew it was true. She may be really good at fixing things and helping people, being independent—and she was—but she’d been all those things with Hunter by her side. He’d never failed her, not once.

  Hunter had been coming to her rescue all along. “I trust you.”

  She hung up the phone, tears sliding down her cheeks. Not because she didn’t think he would find her. He would. She coughed, the dry acrid smoke stealing oxygen from the air, burning her throat.

  She just didn’t know if he would be in time.

  * * *

  Hunter dialed Nick Delfino. He didn’t bother with niceties. “Did you get her location?”

  “It’s not instant, Hunter. Hang on, we’re triangulating with your cell signal now. According to this, you should be right on top of her.”

  He pulled the truck off to the side of the road and rolled down the window. He could smell smoke.

  Hunter wasn’t a praying person. He’d given that up after Jimmy had died. Fiona had turned to faith, and Hunter, while he hadn’t exactly given up on God, he’d turned his back. But right now at this moment, he knew it hadn’t been God’s fault that Jimmy had died. It wasn’t Hunter’s fault, either. Only Nate was responsible for Jimmy’s death.

  Dear God, please help. How could Hunter find Fee in this vast forest? In the light of the rising moon, he could see dirt roads leading every direction.

  In desperation he opened the notebook Fiona found in Jimmy’s locker. The map was near the back. He pulled up a map of the coastline on his phone. They looked nothing alike, but he knew Fiona had to be close. He could smell the smoke.

  This whole notebook was a collection of mundane, meaningless information that he and Fiona had believed was code. But maybe it wasn’t.

  Maybe it was just meaningless. Even the numbers at the top of every page were just numbers. Fourteen numbers at the top of every page. And he was wasting precious time.

  Except why would Jimmy put those numbers on the page if there was no meaning? Fourteen numbers. They weren’t longitude and latitude.

  Then it hit him. They weren’t typical long and lat, but they were plotting coordinates. They were just in military format and when they were written across the page, they looked like a random series of numbers.

  Hunter pulled up the GPS on his smartphone and quickly converted the format. This time, when he entered the numbers from the top of the map page, a point on the map popped up and the coastline exactly matched the coastline where he was. He dug in the glove box for an actual map that had grid boxes drawn off on it and tore out of his car toward the point on his GPS.

  He was heading to the east, and this time, as he looked at the moon, he could see a column of smoke. He prayed that he wouldn’t be too late. Smoke was a more deadly killer than fire. Please, Fiona, please hang on.

  With the smoke in his sight, Hunter ran full-out and dialed the phone as he ran. Douglas answered. “I’ve got her location.” He read off the coordinates. “Get C-shift from her house, i
t’ll be faster than scrambling the volunteers.”

  “They’re already heading that way, waiting for orders on where to go. They’re not more than a couple minutes behind you.”

  Hunter threw down his phone as he burst through the trees into a clearing. The cabin wasn’t fully involved, but there was heavy smoke showing, flames in half of the windows. He didn’t wait. He charged the porch. “Fiona!”

  Through the glass window in the door, he could see her, her head slumped to her chest. “Fiona!”

  She raised her head, looked directly into his eyes and passed out.

  Hunter stepped back a few feet and kicked the door at its weakest point above the lock. It splintered, but didn’t fall. He kicked it again. This time, it flew forward.

  With new oxygen, and no water to knock it down, the fire raced for the ceiling.

  He took a breath, went low and dove into the room, rolling to his feet near her chair. The heat of the fire seared his uncovered skin. He flipped open his pocket knife and sliced through the tape holding her to the chair. Arms. Legs. Shoulders. Ribs.

  His chest was burning with the need for air. As he freed her, she slumped to the side. He scooped her into his arms and ran back through the fire. Kept running until he was far from the cabin.

  Outside, the fire department had arrived. Hunter laid Fiona gently to the ground. The firefighters, one or another of her endless cousins, pushed forward.

  “Get back!” He had to know if she was alive. He felt for her pulse. Was it her heartbeat he felt or his own? Oh, God, he couldn’t tell.

  Hands were on his back, patting him, pushing him forward. “Stop pushing me.”

  Tucker wrapped a blanket around him and stepped away. “Your jacket’s on fire, Hunter.”

  He hadn’t even felt it.

  Hunter leaned over Fiona, ready to give her CPR. Her eyes fluttered up. Her cousin Danny placed an oxygen mask over her face. She opened her eyes and stared into Hunter’s. Her lips moved underneath the mask.

  She closed her eyes again, the effort obviously exhausting her.

  “What did you say, babe?” Hunter leaned close.

  Fee pushed up the mask with one hand. She whispered, “I knew you would come.”

  He closed his eyes, the tears that were so close to the surface threatening to fall. Losing her was not an option. He’d been afraid all this time, to trust his feelings, to let go of the guilt. But just like he wasn’t going to let guilt and fear and misplaced anger keep him from God, he sure wasn’t going to let those emotions keep him from loving Fiona.

  The paramedics from the ambulance service put a hand on Hunter’s shoulder. “We need to go.”

  Danny, who was subbing with C-shift, helped Hunter to his feet as the paramedics placed Fiona on the gurney and rolled her toward the ambulance. Hunter shuddered, shivers racking his body.

  “You’re going into shock. Let me get some fluids started.” Danny pulled up the blanket back over Hunter’s shoulders.

  “I need to go with Fiona.”

  Danny held his elbow. “We’ll be right behind them.”

  “I’m not leaving her.” He turned to Danny and said it again, more quietly. “I’m not leaving her.”

  “Okay.” Danny led him to the ambulance. “You don’t have to.” To the paramedic, he said, “Check his back for burns.”

  “Got it, thanks.”

  Danny slammed the door as the ambulance pulled away, siren wailing. Hunter shivered again. In the rational part of his mind, he knew he was injured, but he didn’t care. All he wanted to see was the rise and fall of Fiona’s chest. She was breathing. She was alive.

  He closed his eyes, thanking God that Nate hadn’t killed her, that he had set these fires to torture rather than destroy, unlike the one at her house. When he opened his eyes again, he found hers focused on his face.

  “You’re hurt.” Her voice barely made a sound.

  Hunter reached for her hand. She laced her fingers with his and he smiled. “I’m fine.”

  * * *

  Fiona was released from the hospital before Hunter. As close as she had been, she had no burns, only smoke inhalation. It would take time for her lungs to heal, but she would be fine. She stopped by his cubicle in the E.R. to check on him, but he’d been asleep. She needed to see him—and she would—but her first priority this morning was to see Sean before school.

  Douglas had given her a ride from the hospital to Bridget’s. He’d slowed as they passed the place where her house used to stand and she’d stared. She hadn’t cried though. She would miss the house and she knew that in the future there were a thousand things she would grieve over losing, but for now, she was just grateful to be alive.

  At Bridget’s, she held Sean close to her heart, firmly in her arms, until he wiggled free. “I have to brush my teeth or I’m going to be late for school.”

  Bridget had her mass of curls slicked back into a strict schoolmarm bun today. Her eyes were full as she looked at Fiona. “You’ve been more of a sister to me than a cousin. I don’t know what I would’ve done if…”

  Fee smiled, though her raw throat ached. She nodded jerkily. “I know.”

  Bridget slid her messenger bag over her shoulder. “You can stay here with me as long as you want.”

  Sean took a running leap off the stairs and landed next to Fiona’s feet. “Movie night tonight! I want Transformers!”

  “Again?”

  He shot her a look that said, you know the rules.

  She held up her hands. “Okay, okay. Transformers it is.”

  Fiona waited until Sean skipped out the front door to go to school with Bridget before she let the tears fall. Sometimes love was easy and sometimes love just hurt with everything in you. At some point last night, she’d thought she might not ever see Sean again. But Hunter had found her. On the ride home, her brother Douglas had told her that it was only because of Hunter’s relentless pushing that they’d found her at all.

  She cried until she had no tears left. It had been so close. She might never have had another chance with Hunter. Or the chance to hold Sean’s sturdy little body again. Coming so close to losing her life made her realize just how grateful she was for the life she had.

  Made her realize how precious every moment of that life was. After Jimmy had died she’d been obsessed with controlling things, making her precious lists. Maybe she thought that if she needed other people, she would be weak. But the truth was, Hunter had been there whether she’d asked for his help or not.

  Last night certainly wasn’t the first time he’d rescued her. It was just the first time he’d saved her life.

  After a shower and some clean clothes, Fee curled up on Bridget’s couch and pulled a blanket to her chin, relaxing for the first time since she’d walked out the back door of her store all those hours ago. Maybe she would just close her eyes for a few minutes and then go see Hunter at the hospital.

  When she woke, the late afternoon sun made long shadows on the wooden floor of Bridget’s house and Sean’s giggle in the kitchen made her smile. She stood and wrapped the fuzzy fleece blanket around her shoulders.

  As she walked closer to the kitchen, she heard Hunter’s deep voice. Sean laughed again. Fiona stopped in the kitchen door. The two of them were at the kitchen table, heads bent over a Lego kit in what seemed like a thousand pieces in front of them. Sean snatched a round blue piece and held it in triumph. “I found it!”

  “Awesome, put it right there.” Hunter pointed to a space on something that vaguely resembled the bottom of a pirate ship. He looked up and caught her watching him. “Well, hey there, Red. Get a good nap?”

  She cleared her throat. “I laid my head down for a catnap. I think that was seven or eight hours ago.”

  Hunter stood from the table and got a mug, putting in a tea bag and pouring hot water from the teapot on the stove. “Drink. It might be a little uncomfortable at first, but the warm water stimulates the lungs. Or so they tell me.”

  “Are you okay?”<
br />
  He nodded. “I’ll be on desk duty for a while, but I’ll be fine.”

  Sean glanced away from his labors to look at her. “Hunter wants to go for a walk.”

  “Are you sure you’re up for it?” When Hunter nodded, she ruffled her son’s hair. “Grab your jacket.”

  “But I have ten math problems to do.” He scowled, but her rule was always homework before going outside.

  She retrieved his windbreaker from the back of his chair. “Just this once.”

  Sean grabbed his jacket and was out the door without a second look back. Fiona laughed even though shimmery tears made the room blurry. Her little boy was still a happy, carefree kid. It could’ve ended so differently.

  Hunter took her hand as they stepped outside. She breathed as deeply as she could, relishing the fresh, crisp spring air. She turned away from where her house used to sit. There was time enough to think about that later. For now, she wanted to celebrate that she had time to show and tell the people in her life how much she loved them.

  “What did they say about the burns?” She needed the facts, all of them, and with Sean’s curious little ears racing ahead, she could ask.

  “They’re mostly superficial. They hurt, but they’ll heal. I talked to the chief earlier, too. The results are preliminary, but it looks like Nate intended that building to burn slow. He wanted it to drag out as long as possible.” Hunter shook his head. “He was next in line for a promotion.”

  “It’s over now. Really and truly over.” She stopped. “Where exactly are we going?”

  He looked away from her eyes. “Just around the block. I wanted to get some air.”

  As they walked, Sean ran ahead, flinging his arms in the air as he ran through a crowd of birds, making them fly all directions. He threw his head back laughing.

  “Oh, to be six.” Hunter turned into his driveway and she shot him a questioning look, one he didn’t answer.

  He sat in the porch swing and pulled her down beside him to rock gently. She sighed. “This is perfect.”

  Sean turned forty-five-degree-angle cartwheels in the yard, laughing as he tumbled into Hunter’s green grass.