Gray Wolf Security: Wyoming

by Glenna Sinclair

  I bit my lip, trying to hold back a sob as the footsteps paused outside the door.

  “You okay, lady?” a male voice asked.

  A hand touched my shoulder, shook me a little. I debated with myself for a split second, tried to decide if I should respond or not. And then I heard the sirens in the distance and I knew the men who’d run me off the road had to be long gone.

  I opened my eyes and found myself looking into the face of a blond stranger, a baseball cap perched at an angle on his head and a wad of tobacco pushing out his bottom lip. I’d never been so happy to see a stereotype in all my life.

  “Could you help me out of here?”

  “I don’t think I should move you. But an ambulance is on its way.”

  “Thanks.”

  Sure enough, the ambulance arrived a moment later, the attendants reaching inside the truck to touch my limbs, searching for broken bones. They cut me free of the seatbelt and the resulting fall against the roof of the cab was the most painful part of the accident, I think. They insisted on strapping me to a back board and lifting me to the gurney, flashing lights in my eyes and cutting away my clothes to check for internal injuries. I didn’t start to feel my injuries until we were in the ambulance rushing toward the same hospital that had been my original destination. My head throbbed, a cut dressed with a massive bandage they’d taped to my forehead, my right wrist feeling like a bag full of broken glass, my chest sore across the places where the seatbelt held me tight against the bench seat.

  There were cops in the emergency room, wanting to know how my truck ended up upside down on the side of the highway. As I told my story, something began to nag at the back of my mind. It wasn’t until a bit later, while the doctor sewed up the five-inch gash on my forehead, that I realized what it was.

  C.M. Real Estate.

  C.M. was a set of initials Ash left on the window sill.

  Was it the same C.M.? Had to be. I didn’t believe in coincidences. C.M. Real Estate was owned by Mahoney, and it was Mahoney who came after me, who wanted me out of the way. That suggested I was getting too close to something.

  It also gave me a new avenue to investigate.

  C.M. Real Estate would own property in and around Midnight, right? They could have a place where they could hide Ash and Clint. If I searched those real estate holdings, I might find them.

  I was so excited, I almost couldn’t sit still long enough for the doctor to finish sewing me up. I patted my pocket for my phone and then realized I’d lost it during the accident. I bit my lip, trying to decide how best to precede when the exam room door suddenly burst open.

  “You can’t be in here!” the doctor said quite indignantly.

  “I’m her husband,” a deep male voice announced.

  I knew that voice and the doctor obviously did, too, because he suddenly stopped all movement, his eyes stuck on the doorway, on the man bursting through it. Bodhi Archer had that effect on people.

  “What the hell happened?” he demanded as he came to the side of the bed, finally coming into my line of vision. “You call me and all I hear are these screams—”

  “Mr. Archer,” the doctor said, standing up and holding his hand out to him. “I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to meet you.”

  Bodhi hesitated, clearly not willing to move his gaze from my face. My heart soared at the idea of what that might mean. But then he focused on the doctor, shaking his glove covered hand and saying something soft and inviting in that way he had when he was meeting a fan.

  But then his eyes fell back to my face.

  “Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine. She has a laceration on her forehead, but it’s mostly along the hairline, so it shouldn’t be visible when it heals. Her wrist is sprained and she’ll have significant bruising where the seatbelt jerked back against her body. But, aside from a great deal of soreness for the next few days, she should be fine.”

  “Thank God,” he said, touching my face as he bent to kiss me gently. “You scared the fucking shit out of me!”

  He seemed so sincere, but I didn’t have time to lay there and act like a teenage girl with her first crush. I had a lead and I needed to get out of this place and do something about it.

  “How much longer?” I demanded of the doctor.

  “I just need to put one or two more stitches in this and then you’ll be free to go, Mrs. Archer.”

  It threw me a little, him calling me that. My eyes flashed from him to Bodhi, who was watching me like there was absolutely nothing surreal about this whole thing. I wanted to smack him, make him wake up.

  Bodhi stayed right there, holding my hand, as the doctor finished his work. Then he stood, reciting instructions for aftercare, informing us that he was prescribing pain medication, asking that I keep the stitches clean and dry for the next twenty-four hours. Then he was out of the room and I was struggling to sit up, the pain in my head setting off a bit of vertigo that nearly had me tossing what little was sitting in my stomach in the tiny sink across the room.

  “You should lie back down,” Bodhi said.

  “I need your phone.”

  He handed it to me before he asked, “Why?”

  “I think I might have an idea on how to find Ash and Clint.”

  “Clint?”

  “I think I know where they’re holding them.”

  He snatched the phone out of my hand just as I began to plug in the name of the real estate company in the web browser.

  “Not with the phone. They could trace it.”

  “The phone?”

  “It’s mine, in my name. They can get records or…whatever. We should go to a coffee shop and use a public computer.”

  He had a point. Surprise had to be on our side.

  “Okay.”

  I got up and the vertigo came back, making the world spin around me. Bodhi caught me and sat me back up on the table.

  “One thing at a time,” he said. “First, we need to find you some clothes.”

  I looked down at myself, giggling a little when I realized I was in nothing more than a thin, untied hospital gown. He smiled, too, sliding his hand under the hem and up my thigh. I tilted my head back and looked him in the eye.

  “My husband, hmmm?”

  “I didn’t think they’d let me in here otherwise.”

  “I find it interesting that you go directly to husband, though. You could have said you were my brother.”

  “I think they would have seen right through that lie.”

  “Oh?”

  His hand slid higher up my thigh, moving around my hip, his fingers teasing the high edges of my panties.

  “They would have seen how I can’t keep my hands off you and would have called the police to report us for incest. So, I thought marriage was the safer way to go.”

  I ran my hand up the outside of his arm, remembering the thoughts I’d entertained before the C.M. guys came up behind me on the highway. I looked up at him and, for a moment, I could see us as a family. I could see him with Elizabeth, riding horse with her, dancing with her at a father-daughter event. I could see laughter in our home.

  But it scared me, the idea of it all. Life didn’t always work out the way you imagined it might. I’d learned a long time ago that you couldn’t live in the future. All you could do was live in the here and now. And my here and now revolved around an eleven-year-old girl.

  “I have a daughter.”

  “I know.”

  I pulled his arm away from me, pulled his hand from my hip.

  “I can’t afford to play games. I have to think about her and how everything I do might impact her life.”

  “I know.” He touched my jaw, running his finger along the bottom edge of it. “I like Elizabeth.”

  “Liking her isn’t enough, Bodhi. You have to keep her in mind in every decision you make. You have to think of how what you do will impact her before you do it.” I pushed his hand away. “We’re having fun, but this…playing at commitment isn’t something
I can do.”

  “Who says I was playing?”

  I looked up at him, words on the tip of my tongue, but the nurse chose that moment to come in with my discharge papers and—thank goodness!—clean scrubs to wear.

  We were walking out the front door of the emergency room less than five minutes later. Bodhi’s Land Rover was sitting near the front entrance. It was just a matter of plugging our request into Google Maps to find the closest big box electronics store. They had dozens of computers on display, all of them connected to the free Wi-Fi the store offered. We found one sitting off to the side of the others and went to work, searching public records on the county’s website.

  There were five properties in Casper with existing buildings on them and three in Midnight. I took pictures of the records with Bodhi’s phone, my optimism soaring high.

  “I’m going to find them.”

  “Not by yourself.”

  We were in his Land Rover again, the heater running on low. I hadn’t realized how cold the day was until I felt the heat on my skin. I stuck my hands in front of the vents and sighed, my head throbbing, my wrist beginning to ache under the wrap they’d put on it.

  “We should go back to MidKnight. You need to rest.”

  “I need to find Ash.”

  “Sutherland—”

  “You were never in the military. You don’t understand what this is like.” I glanced at him, trying to gage his reaction from the tight set of his jaw. “Ash was Mitchell’s brother in every definition of the word except for blood. If I sit back and rest while he’s in danger—”

  “I get that, Sutherland. But these people…”

  He stopped, but I heard something in his voice that spoke of a deep concern. I wasn’t used to hearing that sort of thing directed toward me. I knew my friends worried about me, but not with the deep-seated fear I thought was there in his tone.

  I was touched.

  “I appreciate your concern—”

  “It’s not just concern. I like you, Sutherland, I think I told you that already.” He reached over and took my hand. “I want to see where this thing might go, but I can’t do that if you go out and get yourself killed.”

  “I’m not going to—”

  “You don’t know that.”

  I inclined my head slightly. “Would it make you feel better if I called a friend? If I brought someone else in on this?”

  “Yes. Preferably someone who knows their way around a gun.”

  I smiled, wondering if he realized how proficient I was with a gun. It might have been a while since I last held one, but I knew how to use it. I won the sharp shooting contest when I was in boot camp against men and women who’d been shooting most of their lives. I knew what I was doing.

  He held out his cellphone and I took it, quickly dialing. Ryan answered on the first ring.

  We were going to do this, one way or the other. I was going to save them.

  Chapter 14

  At the Ranch

  Joss curled up on a chair at the back of the bunk house, holding the picture she’d found at the Mahoney safe house between her hands. She’d tried his cellphone a handful more times this morning, but Carrington still wasn’t answering. She knew there had to be a logical explanation. She knew he would never have left that picture if he hadn’t intended for her to find it. But what was his message? What was he trying to tell her?

  Her phone rang. She thought seriously about not answering it, but she didn’t want to spread the worry.

  “McKelty,” she breathed heavily into the phone. “What’s up?”

  Joss’ thirteen—almost fourteen, as she constantly reminded them—year-old stepdaughter sighed heavily.

  “My cheerleading competition was supposed to be this afternoon, but they put it off until tomorrow. Do you think you or Daddy will be able to make it? I know I’d do so much better if one of you was here.”

  “Have you heard from your dad?”

  “He called the day you left. He said he’d be back in a few more days.”

  “That’s good.”

  “No, it’s not. Nobody’s here to watch me in my competition! Why do I do these things if you guys can’t support me?”

  “You know why I had to leave, McKelty.”

  “I know. But Aunt Mabel’s gone, Aunt Mina. Aunt Kate’s here, but she never really cares about this stuff. She came by last night to check on us, but she was so distracted by the baby that she didn’t really seem interested in anything else.”

  Joss chewed on the inside of her lip, easily capable of imagining that. Kate had such a hard time getting pregnant that her baby had become her sole focus in everything. She wouldn’t listen to advice, and she really didn’t have time to deal with anything else. All she wanted was to be with that baby. Joss could hardly blame her, but it honestly got a little annoying after a while. Especially since Joss had been trying to get pregnant at the same time and hadn’t had any luck.

  “I’m still working up here, darling. But I’ll do the best I can to get home before the competition, okay?”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise I’ll try.”

  That was the best she could do and McKelty took it grudgingly. Joss disconnected the call and screamed, thinking she was alone and no one would hear her. But Kirkland was suddenly there, dropping into a chair beside her.

  “Is this a one-person party, or can anyone join?”

  She didn’t have to answer. He reached over and took her hand, holding it between both of his as he gazed out over the huge bit of land that spread out behind the bunk house.

  “Beautiful out here,” he said. “Almost makes me want to make this my permanent home. Almost.”

  “I’m sure Sutherland would be happy to have you here.”

  “Oh, we butt heads from time to time, but she seems content to share the responsibilities if only because she adores Mabel and Matthew.”

  “Everyone adores Mabel and Matthew.”

  He lifted Joss’ hand to his mouth and kissed the back of her fingers lightly before focusing on her face.

  “Tell me what’s going on with you, Jossie.”

  She shook her head. “I’m just worried about Ash. And Mina.”

  “There’s more. I know you.”

  She looked away, afraid he’d see the tears in her eyes and know everything in that one glance. She didn’t want to burden Kirkland with her marital problems. And she didn’t want to muddy the waters with her personal crap. If Carrington was involved in Ash’s disappearance—and she really couldn’t make herself believe he would be—she didn’t want to hear the I told you so’s Kirkland had been holding on to for the last six years.

  But if Carrington was involved…or if he was somehow a victim of these Mahoneys…

  She didn’t know what to do.

  “Everything okay with McKelty and Aidan?”

  She nodded. “McKelty’s pissed that we won’t be home for her cheerleading competition. But she’s okay otherwise.”

  “Teenagers.”

  “Matthew will be one soon enough.”

  Kirkland smiled. “Yeah. And then there’ll be the other one.”

  “Other one?”

  “Yeah.” He leaned forward a little, this goofy grin on his face. “I guess the fresh, Wyoming air’s been good for us.”

  Joss was so caught up in her own thoughts that it didn’t register at first. When it hit her, it was a welcome splash of joy.

  “Mabel’s pregnant?”

  He nodded. “She just took the test right before everything hit the fan. I’ve been wanting to get you alone for a second…I wanted you to be the first to hear.”

  She got up and threw her arms around his neck as he stood, hugging him close. His arms came around her and it felt so familiar that it almost hurt to feel it. She hadn’t realized how deeply she’d missed her friend until that moment. It had always been Kirkland and Joss, the two of them the outsiders in Gray Wolf’s tightknit original group. David and Ash were brothers. Donovan was a p
art of Ash’s Green Beret unit. Ash had even been Donovan’s commander toward the end of their service. They had a bond that was almost as unbreakable as David and Ash’s blood bond. Kirkland and Joss…they had their own bond even after they found their places in the Gray Wolf family.

  She missed him.

  “I’m happy for you,” she said, tears suddenly choking her.

  “Joss, I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

  Kirkland was suddenly chagrined, thinking that she was crying because she had struggled to get pregnant again. She shook her head, scrubbing at her face as she stepped back from him.

  “No, that’s not it.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  She pressed the picture into his hands. “I found this yesterday, in that safe house.”

  Kirkland frowned. “How would—”

  “I think Carrington might be here. I think he might be involved in Ash’s disappearance somehow.”

  Kirkland frowned. “How is that even possible?”

  Joss brushed at her tears again. “I don’t know. All I do know is that I’ve been trying to get him on his cellphone and he won’t answer. And then I found that. I put that picture in his wallet myself right before he left for this business trip. He’s supposed to be in Connecticut until Friday.”

  Kirkland surprised her by simply nodding as he pressed the picture back into her hands.

  “We’ll figure this out.”

  “What if he’s a part of this? What if he’s responsible for what’s happening to Ash?”

  “I’m sure he has a good reason, Joss. We’ll figure it out.”

  She was so relieved, she couldn’t catch her breath for a long moment. She just nodded, more tears pouring down her cheeks. It was going to be okay. She was going to be okay.

  They were all going to be okay.

  Chapter 15