by Sharon Sala
She screamed, but it was inside her mind. No sound escaped her lips, and she remained motionless, waiting for a revelation.
A small cloud moved across the sliver of moon. Glory knew that it was so, because for a brief time, there was little to see but the darkness in the pit itself. And then as she watched, the cloud passed, and for a second, the copper glint of the woman’s red hair was highlighted against the white spread in which she’d been wrapped.
Elizabeth.
The name slid into Glory’s mind, and then suddenly, her vision switched from the pit to the man who was getting into the car. She fixed upon the stoop of his shoulders, the balding spot in the back of his head. He opened the door and began to turn….
Then, as instantly as she’d been drawn into the vision, she was yanked back out.
Glory gasped as the world about her returned to normal. The glare of sun against her eyes was suddenly too harsh to bear, and she shaded them with her hand. A dark and impending sense of doom was with her that had nothing to do with what she’d just seen. It came from here! It came from the now!
Glory spun.
“Wyatt!”
His name came out in a scream as she started toward him on the run.
Wyatt knew to the moment when she came out of the trance. But when she started toward him, shouting his name, he knew that something was wrong.
Years of military training kicked in, and he ran in a crouched position with his gun drawn, searching the thick boundary of trees that surrounded the dump as he tried to get to Glory before danger got to her.
And then out of the woods to his right, he saw the flash of sun against metal, and shouted her name. He heard the gunshot at the same time that he saw Glory fall.
“No-o-o!” he raged, reaching her just seconds too late to shield her body with his own.
A heartbeat after he fell forward and then across her, the second bullet plowed up earth only inches from his head. Afraid to look down and see something he couldn’t accept, he scooped her into his arms, then rolled, taking them both to a nearby stand of undergrowth. Once there, he quickly dragged her through the trees until he was positive that they were momentarily concealed from the shooter’s eyes.
But when he started to search her body for a wound, she gasped, then choked, and grabbed at his hand instead.
“Glory! Where are you hit?”
“Oh, God. Oh, God.” It was all she could say.
Another shot pierced the limbs over their heads, and Wyatt knew they had to move, or it would only be a matter of time before a stray bullet hit its mark.
“Where are you hit? Answer me, honey, where are you hit?”
Shock widened the pupils in her eyes until they appeared almost black. “I fell. Dear God…the bullet missed me when I fell.”
He went limp with relief, and had the strongest urge to lay his head down and cry. Thank you, Lord.
The sharp thump from a fourth shot hit its mark in a nearby tree. Wyatt grabbed her hand and started moving deeper into the woods, at an angle from where the last shot had come.
Yards away, Wyatt shoved Glory down between two large rocks.
“Stay here, and don’t move. Whatever you hear or don’t hear, don’t come out until you hear me call.” In fear for his life as well as her own, Glory started to argue when Wyatt grabbed her by the arm. “I said…don’t move.”
She stopped in the middle of a word. The look on his face was one that she’d never seen before, and she realized that this was the part of Wyatt that he’d tried to leave behind when he’d retired from the military. This was a man trained to kill.
She nodded as a single tear rolled down her cheek. And then he disappeared into the trees before her eyes. One minute he was there. The next, he was gone.
Periodic shots continued from the other side of the dump, and Glory could tell that the shooter was moving through the trees, circling the open pit. Overwhelmed by the horror of it all, Glory stretched flat in the dirt between the rocks, buried her face in her arms and prayed.
When Bo saw her fall, he was ecstatic. The fact that the man reached her seconds later was immaterial. He had a clear shot at a second hit, and took it without a qualm just as a gnat flew up his nose. One minute he was sucking air, the next, a bug. His finger twitched on the trigger, not much, but enough that it threw off his aim. And because it did, the bullet plowed into the dirt, instead of Wyatt Hatfield’s head. By the time he could react, the man had rolled, taking himself and the woman’s body into a cover of trees.
“Son of a hairy bitch!”
Just to prove he was still in charge, he fired another shot into the location he’d seen them last, and then waited, listening for something that would indicate that they still lived.
Sweat rolled from his hair and down between his shoulder blades as he waited, holding his breath as he sifted through the sounds on the air. He heard nothing. Not a scream. Not a groan. And more important, not a return shot.
He knew that the man had a gun. He’d seen it in his hand as he ran. That he hadn’t once fired back was to Bo proof that he’d crippled, if not killed him, outright.
But while Bo’s elation was high, he’d had too many misses on this job already. He was going to see for himself.
As he circled the dump, angling toward the area where he hoped to find their bodies, he continued to threaten with intermittent fire, unaware that he was no longer the hunter. He’d become the prey.
Cold reasoning took Wyatt deeper into the woods, honing instincts he had perfected years ago. He moved with the stealth of a hunter, running without disturbing the ground upon which he moved, choosing his steps and his cover with caution.
As he ran, he realized that the rifle shots were also moving in a clockwise direction. A spurt of adrenaline sent him into a higher gear. He had to get to the man before the man got to Glory.
Once he had a momentary fix on the man’s location as he glimpsed a second flash of sunlight on metal. But by the time he got there, the man was already gone.
And then luck changed for them both, when Wyatt heard a loud and sudden thrashing in the underbrush ahead. Soft curses filled the air and Wyatt aimed for the sound with unerring instinct, hoping, as he ran, that the bastard had just broken his neck. It would save him the effort of doing it for him.
Bo was still trying to untangle himself from the rusting coil of barbed wire that he’d stumbled upon when he saw movement from the corner of his eye. Fear shafted, making his movements even more frantic and locking the barbs even deeper into his clothing as he staggered, trying to take aim without neutering himself in the process.
Wyatt came out of the trees at a lope. But when he saw Bo Marker struggling with the wire and the gun, he came to a stop and took aim.
“Drop the gun.”
Bo gawked at the black bore of the automatic only yards from his nose, and could tell from the way the man was standing that he knew how to use it. But getting caught was not in his plan, and he feared jail almost as much as dying.
Wyatt could tell that the man was not in the mood to surrender. When he saw him shift the grip on his gun and tighten his finger on the trigger, Wyatt moved his aim a few inches to the right, then fired.
Pain exploded in Bo’s arm, and his hand went numb as the rifle bounced butt first onto the ground.
“You shot me!” Bo screamed, and then fell to his knees, which considering where he was standing, was not the smartest move he could make.
“If you move, I’ll do it again,” Wyatt said.
Bo wasn’t smart, but he knew when a man meant business. And from the look on this one’s face, he considered a broken arm a minor inconvenience. It was the barbs on which he was sitting that were causing him the misery.
The calm that had led Wyatt to this man suddenly disappeared. He was shaking with anger as he pulled him to his feet and started dragging him, wire and all, through the woods toward his car.
“You’re killing me,” Bo groaned, as Wyatt tightened his hold on
his good arm and yanked him past a blackberry thicket.
Wyatt paused, then looked back. “Don’t tempt me,” he whispered. “You tried to kill my lady. It would be all too easy to return the favor.”
Bo shrank from the venom in the big man’s voice. Suddenly, the idea of getting to jail seemed a bit brighter than it had before.
“It wasn’t personal,” he whined. “I was just doing a job.”
His words froze the anger in Wyatt’s mind as a chill went up his spine.
“Someone hired you to do this?”
Bo nodded.
“Who?” Wyatt asked.
Bo shook his head. “Unh-uh. I ain’t tellin’ until I get to jail. If I tell you now, what’s to keep you from shootin’ me where I stand?”
Wyatt smiled, and Bo felt his potato chips curdle.
“Look,” he cried. “I’ll tell you who he is, I swear. But I need doctorin’ first. Okay?”
“You are lucky that my father taught me to be kind to animals,” Wyatt said softly. “Because I have the biggest urge to put you in the dump with the rest of the garbage.”
“Oh, God,” Bo said, and started to snivel. “Please, just get me to the doctor. I’ll tell you everything I know.”
At that moment, Wyatt hated as he’d never hated before. But he thought of Glory, who was still in hiding, and if this man was to be believed, still in danger. Without another word, he continued toward the car as if they’d not exchanged a word.
Minutes later, he dumped a bloody Bo, barbed wire and all, into the trunk of his car, and then started at a lope to the place where he’d left Glory in hiding.
She’d prayed until she’d run out of words, and cried until she’d run out of tears. The fear that held her captive between the two rocks was worse than what she’d felt when she’d witnessed her family die. Then it had been sudden and overwhelming in intensity. Now it was the waiting…the interminable waiting, that was driving her mad. But she had no choice. She’d trusted Wyatt with her life. She had to trust that he knew how to save it.
It seemed a long time before she heard the shot and the accompanying outcry. Terror for Wyatt sent her to her feet, and then fear that she’d endanger him further sent her back to her knees. She dropped between the rocks, rolling herself into a ball, and pressing her fingers against her mouth to keep from screaming.
Seconds turned to minutes, and far too many of them passed as she listened for proof that he still lived. Finally, she could bear it no more.
Wyatt…Wyatt…where are you? she thought.
“I’m here, Morning Glory. I’m here.”
She caught her breath on a sob, and in spite of her fear, began crawling to her knees. When she lifted her head above the rocks where she’d been hiding, she saw him coming through the trees.
Seconds later, she was on her feet and running with outstretched arms. He caught her in midair, and then held her close, loving her with his touch, as well as his words. When he could think without wanting to cry, he took her by the hand and began leading her out of the woods.
“Is it over?” Glory asked, and then took a deep breath, trying to steady the tremble in her voice.
Wyatt frowned, and slipped an arm around her shoulders as they came out of the woods. “Almost, sweetheart. Now if I can get the bastard in my trunk to a doctor before he bleeds to death, we’ll find out who hired him.”
Glory stumbled, as a new wave of fear crossed her face.
“Someone hired him? Oh, God! That means…”
“It means that whoever wants you dead doesn’t have the guts to do it himself,” he said harshly. “Don’t worry. The loser in the trunk is going to talk, even if I have to beat it out of him.”
Glory got in the car, a little leery of riding in the same vehicle with a man who’d been stalking her every move. But when Wyatt took off in a cloud of dust, bouncing over ruts and fishtailing in the loose Kentucky earth, the loud and constant shrieks of pain coming from the trunk convinced her that, at the moment, the man was in no shape to do her any more harm.
A short time later, Anders Conway was on his way out to lunch when he heard the sound of a car coming around the street corner on two wheels. He was fishing for the keys to his patrol car, expecting that he would have to give chase, when to his surprise, the car braked to an abrupt halt only feet from where he stood.
“You in a hurry to spend the night in my jail?” Anders grumbled, as he watched Wyatt Hatfield emerge from behind the wheel.
Wyatt grinned, but the smile never reached his eyes as he started toward his trunk. “No, but I brought someone who is.”
Anders frowned as he circled the car. But when the trunk popped, shock replaced his earlier disgust.
“What in the world?” he muttered, missing nothing of the man’s bulk, the shattered and bloody arm and the nest of barbed wire in which he was lying.
“That—” Wyatt pointed “—is the man who’s been trying to kill Glory.”
Conway gave Wyatt a long, considering stare. “Bo Marker…you sorry bugger…is this true?”
Bo groaned, considered lying, then looked at Wyatt’s face and nodded.
Conway frowned, waving at a deputy who was just coming out of the office. “Bring me them bolt cutters from the closet,” he shouted. “And then call an ambulance to this location.”
The deputy pivoted, hurrying to do as he was told.
At this point, Bo began to bawl, aiming his complaints directly at Wyatt. “You nearly killed me with that crazy driving.”
Wyatt leaned over the trunk. “I told you, don’t tempt me, remember?”
Bo sucked up a squawk and then gave the chief a frantic look, as if begging for him to intervene.
And while no one was looking, Glory got out of the car. She was already at the trunk before Wyatt noticed her, and when he could have stopped her, realized that she needed to confront a ghost or two of her own.
Bo Marker felt the tension changing. As he tried to shift his head to see what they were looking at, she walked into his line of vision. Everything within him froze. It was the first time he’d gotten an up-close and personal look at someone he’d spent days trying to kill.
He remembered what people said about her, and when he found himself staring straight into those pale, silver-blue eyes, he started to shake. There was no accusation, no demand. No shriek of dismay, no cry of fear. Only a long, steady look that seemed to see into his soul. Every black, rotten inch of it.
He shuddered as fear overwhelmed him. When she took a step forward, he shrank back into the trunk as far as he could go.
“Who?” she said.
His mouth dropped, and he stuttered out his own name.
“No,” Glory whispered. “I want to know who wants me dead.”
Bo stuttered again, then swallowed a knot of panic.
“I said that I’d tell when they fixed me up,” he whined. “If I tell, what’s to keep all of you from letting me die?”
“The same damn thing that’s keeping you alive,” Wyatt said. “I want to see you hang for what you did.”
Bo shrieked. “They don’t hang people no more! Chief, you got to help me! Tell this crazy sucker to leave me alone!”
Conway grinned to himself. Whatever Wyatt Hatfield had said and done to this man had made a believer out of him.
“Now, Bo, it was a figure of speech.” Conway eyed the barbed wire snarling around Marker’s body and shook his head. And when his deputy came dashing out of the office with the bolt cutters in hand, he grumbled, “Took you long enough,” and began to cut.
An hour or so later, Glory and Wyatt, with the chief for added company, were waiting impatiently for Amos Steading to come out of surgery and tell them what they wanted to hear.
And when the doors at the end of the hall suddenly swung back, and he burst through with his usual gusto, Wyatt got to his feet.
“You could have aimed a little farther to the right and made my job easier,” Amos growled, and then clapped Wyatt on the arm. “B
ut he’s fine, and will be in recovery for at least another hour. After that, you can have a quick go at him.”
Conway nodded. “That’s fine, then,” he said, and then turned to Glory. “Miss Dixon, I’ll be back at that time to interrogate the suspect. Rest assured that it will soon be over. Right now, I need to check in at the office. They’re towing Marker’s truck from the dump as we speak, and I want to take a look inside before I talk to him. See you in a while.”
They watched as he walked away, and then Amos Steading took a good long look at Glory, gauging the lingering shock in her eyes against the paleness of her skin and the way she clung to the man at her side.
“Are you all right?” he asked gently.
Glory slumped against Wyatt. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be all right again,” she said softly. And then Wyatt’s arms tightened around her shoulders, and she felt the strong steady beat of his heart against her cheek. “But I’m alive, and it’s thanks to this man.”
Amos shook his head in disbelief. “Well, little lady, a few months ago, I think he could have said the same thing about you.”
Glory turned, her eyes wide as she gazed up at the doctor.
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
The doctor’s laugh boomed in the confines of the hall.
“That’s hardly the word, girl. Hardly the word.”
Chapter 14
Carter Foster was on the phone when his secretary, Bernice, burst into his office waving her hand, and mouthing for him to come look.
He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “What? Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“You’ve got to come see!” Her eyes were wide with excitement. “Some man just drove up in front of the police department and there’s an ambulance on the way. I can hear it coming.”
“So?” Carter growled. “It’s the police department, for goodness’ sake. Things like that happen over there.”
“But that Dixon girl is there…and there’s somebody screaming from inside the trunk of the car.”
He blanched, and hung up the phone without excusing himself from the conversation. As he rushed to the door, he tried to pretend it was curiosity, and not horror, that made him move.
