Gray Wolf Security: Wyoming

by Glenna Sinclair

  I came with her orgasm, with the feel of her muscles quivering against mine. And then we fell onto the mattress, our bodies tangles on top of the sheets. I never even bothered to finish undressing, just curled up in her arms and fell into an exhausted sleep with my cheek resting on the top of her head.

  When I woke the next morning, my first instinct was to reach for her.

  She wasn’t there.

  I’ll be back for you. Stay put and stay safe. When this is all done, we’ll have dinner: you, me, and Elizabeth.

  Chapter 19

  Sutherland

  “I did a little research this morning,” I said, trying not to move too much. Once the Vicodin wore off, the soreness settled deep in my muscles and had yet to let go. The bruising was intense, the mark across my chest and shoulder an unnatural purple with black along the edges. And my face…one eye had swelled a little during the night. I looked as though I’d taken part in an illegal street fight or something.

  But I wasn’t going to let something like a little soreness stop me from saving Ash and Clint.

  “I think our best bet is this address here,” I said, touching a number on a piece of paper I’d printed out at a copy center this morning. “It’s a ranch that was foreclosed on just a month ago. No one really knows about it—I only know because it shares a border with MidKnight along the back here. It’s not even technically in the same county as the town.”

  Hank was nodding his head. He knew the Wilson family, the owners of that property. He knew they’d moved to Oklahoma a month ago, to move in with the wife’s cousins. It was obvious he’d come to the same basic conclusion as me.

  “How many buildings are on the property?” Lance asked.

  “Four. The main house here,” I said, moving another paper on top of the first that showed a rough sketch of the ranch. “A mother-in-law house near the road, a barn about a half mile behind the house, and a bunk house near the barn.”

  I studied the sketch for a second. “I think if they’re there, they will most likely be in the barn.”

  “It has a small tack room,” Hank said, touching a front corner of the box that represented the barn. “That’s where I’d put them if I were in charge. It’s windowless, but big enough to hold a half dozen large men.”

  “Can we get to the barn without going past the main house?” Grainger asked.

  “There’s a gate at the back of the property,” I told him, pointing to a place a few inches from the drawing of the barn that was actually about sixty acres from the barn. It was a small property, at least compared to MidKnight, with less than a hundred acres. The Wilsons had raised goats and a small herd of cattle there. “We could probably go on foot, use the vegetation as cover.”

  “Is there a lot of vegetation?”

  Hank shook his head. “A few trees in the back, some tall grass. Not a lot.”

  “I doubt they’ll have guards patrolling very far back. That would require too much man power. I think they’ll more than likely be closer in to the buildings.”

  “Especially the main house,” Grainger suggested. “Isn’t that the way it was at the other ranch in Casper?”

  Hank nodded. “They concentrated their patrols in a five-thousand-yard grid around the main buildings. That’s probably what they’d do here, too.”

  Ryan had been quiet during the conversation. I looked at her, studied her face a second.

  “What do you think?”

  “When do we head out?”

  That was the kind of enthusiasm I normally liked, but not this time. I was worried that if I was wrong, that if Ash and Clint were at one of the other address or if they weren’t in one of these locations at all, she’d self-destruct. With everything that had happened in the last four days, I needed my team clear headed and competent. I couldn’t afford to lose anyone, especially not Ryan.

  She was my lifeline to Clint. If—God forbid!—if he didn’t make it, if he’s succumbed to whatever injuries had caused the blood loss, she was the only one who might have some of the answers I was hoping to get from him.

  “There’s something else you should know.”

  I looked at my team, at these people I’d barely known for more than a month, some of them, and wondered how they’d suddenly become the people I trusted the most. I supposed it had something to do with the nature of the business. But I suspected there was more to it than that. When a person goes into battle beside you, there’s this unspoken bond that will forever exist between you. I’d felt it with my infantry unit and I felt it now with these people. I felt it with my team.

  “Carrington Matthews—he’s a business man, the owner of Matthews Shipping in Santa Monica, who happens to be married to Joss Matthews—is potentially the guy in charge of Mahoney’s men here in Midnight.”

  There were a couple of gasps, anger tightening Ryan’s face as Grainger and Lance exchange glances.

  “We don’t know if he’s doing this willingly, or if he’s being blackmailed. But he is to be brought in alive until we can figure it out.”

  “Is he the mole? Was Joss feeding him information?” Ryan demanded.

  “No.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just know.”

  I didn’t want to tell them about Bodhi. That was a secret that was mine to tell and I didn’t think now was that moment. And I didn’t want Ryan to waste her energy going to look for him, to exact her revenge against him. I needed her focused on the operation at hand.

  “We will enter the property from here,” I said, pointing to the back gate, “and make our way to this point.” I touched another place on the sketch that was roughly half the distance to the barn. “Ryan and Hank will remain here while Lance and Grainger will go with me to the barn. I expect we will likely run into trouble when we reach this point.” Again, I touched the paper, pointing to a space not more than a few yards behind the barn. “Lance and I will go inside while Grainger remains outside to watch for guards. Lance and I will recover Ash and Clint if they are inside the barn. If they are, we’ll walk them back to Hank and Ryan so that they can get them off the property safely. Then Lance, Grainger, and I will return to this portion of the ranch and proceed to the bunk house, then the main house. If this is the location of their new safe house, I anticipate running into resistance at the main house. That is likely where we’ll find Carrington Matthews and the bulk of his men.”

  “You’re going to try to take down Mahoney’s men with just three people?” Hank demanded.

  “No. I’m hoping we’ll be able to slip into the house unnoticed and take Carrington without raising any alarms.”

  Hank and Grainger exchanged alarmed looks.

  “Not possible,” Grainger said. “You saw how many men they had at that warehouse in Casper! There had to be nearly fifty armed men there.”

  “But I think there be less than a dozen at this location.”

  They all stared at me then.

  I sat back and studied the papers laid out in front of us, all things I’d printed out that morning. I lifted one of the papers and held it out where they could see it.

  “This is a warehouse on the outskirts of Midnight. It was once a facility for storing produce that was shipped out to local grocery stores. It’s been unused in years—ever since I came to the area. They bought it just a week ago. My guess is, whatever they were doing in that warehouse in Cheyenne they’re now doing here. This is where the bulk of Mahoney’s men will be.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  I shrugged. “Then we get Ash and Clint out of there and run for it.”

  Hank and Grainger sifted through the papers and studied what was written on them. Lance and Ryan, however, looked anxious to get the show on the road. I sat back and waited for more questions, but no one seemed to have any.

  We left the small diner where we’d met for breakfast and loaded up the SUV Ryan had driven to Casper yesterday. Everyone was quiet, only the sound of clips being loaded and flak vests going on fillin
g the small vehicle. Hank drove confidently, taking us down back roads that no one but someone who lived locally would know about. We approached the back gate of the Wilson property cautiously, watching for any signs of life before he found a place to pull off the road a half mile down the dirt track.

  “This as best as anything,” Hank said.

  I turned in my seat and stared out the back windshield, half expecting it to explode in a rain of bullets at any moment. It didn’t.

  Either they didn’t know we were here, or they were waiting for us to expose ourselves. Either way, we had no option but to get on with the plan.

  “Check your watches. We meet back here in forty minutes. If one or more of us isn’t here by then, get out. Go to MidKnight and tell Kirkland what happened.”

  “What if none of us make it out?”

  I shrugged. “Then I don’t suppose there will be much of a story to tell.”

  I turned and looked at each member of my team in turn. Each of the men had a woman who relied on him. Grainger had Eve, his beautiful wife, and the daughter of the first true friend I’d ever had. Lance had Becks, my employee who was more like a sister than a friend. And her daughter, a child who’d never had a father figure in her life, just like my Elizabeth. And Hank had Jonnie, a lovely high school English teacher who’d soften all his rough edges.

  If these men didn’t make it out of this alive, the loss would be like the epicenter of an earthquake, continuously radiating outward.

  Ryan had family back in Oklahoma, a mother and stepfather who cared enough about her that her mother wrote to me when she learned Ryan had taken a job with Gray Wolf. She would be dearly missed if anything happened to her. I couldn’t be responsible for the pain and darkness any loss among these people might cause.

  “You will make it out. And you will go to Kirkland. Just don’t talk to him inside the bunk house or the main house. I have reason to believe those rooms are bugged.”

  Shock flowed like hot lava. I waved a hand when the questions began.

  “Just don’t get dead. I don’t want to have to notify your loved ones.”

  I got out of the SUV and started determinedly down the lane to the property gate. I patted my vest, making sure my extra clips were where they were supposed to be. Hank caught up to me, walking what might have been shoulder to shoulder with me if he hadn’t been nearly a foot taller than me.

  “Make sure you don’t get dead, either. I wouldn’t want to face the wrath of this town when they found out their beloved Sutherland had died on my watch.”

  I shook my head, finding it difficult to believe anyone would be wrathful at my passing.

  But then an image of Bodhi slipped through my mind.

  “Keep Ryan close. She’ll want to be in the barn, to be part of Clint’s rescue. I can’t have her there, muddying things up with emotion.”

  “I will.”

  “They might be hurt, so be prepared.”

  “I will.”

  “And—”

  “I know what to do, Sutherland. You can trust me.”

  I looked up at him. “It’s not you I don’t trust. I haven’t run an operation like this in a very long time.”

  “You’re doing an awesome job.”

  I smiled, aware that he was only trying to calm my nerves. But grateful just the same.

  We paused at the gate, studying the landscape for any surprises. I remembered enough from my days in the Army to know we were doing this all wrong. We should have done surveillance, should have known for a fact that Ash and Clint were in the barn, that the number of men on the property was less than a dozen, known that they wouldn’t be patrolling this far back. Everything we thought we knew was basically just conjecture on my part. We could step through this gate and find men lying in the weeds, waiting with sniper rifles for us to trespass on private property. We could walk into the barn and find absolutely nothing, or an ambush waiting to gun us down. We had absolutely no idea what we were about to find.

  But we were doing this because time was running out and we needed to find our people before it was too late.

  I led the way, my gun in my hand for the third time in so many days. I crouched low, trying to blend in with the landscape even though my clothing was dark and the winter vegetation was a bland yellow-tan. We were moving targets, but maybe if we continued to move we’d be too difficult to hit.

  We made it to the first mark without seeing or hearing anything. It seemed too good to be true.

  “We’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

  Ryan grabbed my sleeve before I could walk away.

  “Bring him back to me.”

  I nodded. It was what I wanted more than anything.

  Lance, Grainger, and I headed further into the property, using the thin line of random trees as cover. Grainger reached the end of the cover first, pausing and holding up a hand to tell us to pause as well. He glanced back at me and held up two fingers.

  Two guards.

  It was scary because it meant we might run into opposition. But it was good because it almost guaranteed I’d been right. Clint and Ash were here.

  I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer, picturing Mitchell as I did.

  Watch over us, babe.

  Grainger motioned and we moved forward, crouching as low as we could and running across the clearing to the back of the low barn. It was a simple barn, used mostly for the goats. There were a few horse stalls and a tack room because the Wilsons had work horses on the property, but it was the smell of goats that assaulted our nostrils as we slipped through the narrow slit between the sliding doors. Grainger went one way, Lance the other, checking the place over for guards. Grainger found one, slumped on a stool outside the locked tackle room. He knocked him on the head with the butt of his gun. The guy never even woke.

  I knelt low and took the man’s keys, searching through them quickly for the correct one. There was silence on the other side of the door, but there was a heavy-duty lock on the door. Why use such an expensive lock if there wasn’t a prize on the other side of that door?

  I holstered my gun as I used the key, aware of Grainger standing alert behind me and Lance on the other side of the barn, watching for trouble that might come through one of the two sets of doors.

  The door opened silently. The room was pitch dark, the only light the dim sunlight coming through the cracks between the boards that made up the walls and ceiling. It took a second for my eyes to adjust, but then I saw them, Ash sitting up on the edge of a box-like structure, watching the door closely, another form lying prone in the box.

  “It’s me,” I said in a loud whisper. “Sutherland.”

  Ash jumped up and rushed toward me, his clothes stained with dirt and sweat and things I didn’t want to know about. His eyes were narrowed from being without a good amount of light for much too long, his gaze moving slowly over me and then moving to Grainger.

  “Sutherland?”

  I nodded. “We’ve come to get you out of here.”

  His eyes widened a little, but training took over.

  “You have a gun for me?”

  I slipped the spare I’d brought out of my second holster and handed it to him, watching him check the clip before loading a round into the chamber and slipping the safety off.

  “You don’t know how glad I am to see you.”

  I gestured toward the box-like structure. “What’s his condition?”

  Ash glanced over his shoulder. “He’s got some broken ribs, and they fucked up his face pretty good. He won’t be posing for any portraits any time soon, but he can probably walk.”

  Even as Ash spoke, a groan came from the depths of the room. I crossed cautiously toward the sound, my heart pounding when he sat up, Clint’s eyes squinting as he took in the sight of me.

  “Rainy,” he said softly.

  I grasped his arm and pulled him to his feet, biting my tongue to keep from asking the rush of questions that came running to my lips.

  “We have to get you o
ut of here. Ryan’s waiting for you a few thousand yards toward the back of the property.”

  “She okay?”

  “She’s pissed that Kirkland handed you over, but otherwise she’s good.”

  Clint smiled despite the bruises and swelling that had become his facial features. “She has a temper on her, that one.”

  “She does.”

  “Passion. Nothing wrong with that.”

  I slid my arm around his waist and helped him out into the narrow corridor of the main barn. He leaned on me heavily, making me worry that his injuries were more significant than Ash had said. But when we were in the corridor, he pulled away, straightening, and standing on his own.

  Lance backed away from the far door and hissed, “There’s a couple of guards coming this way. We should go out the back.”

  Ash, despite his days of confinement, led the way. He held his gun at his side and slipped out through the crack in the back doors, squinting as he made his way into the sunlight for the first time in nearly forty-eight hours. I followed, Clint behind me, Grainger and Lance taking up the rear. It was quiet out here, nothing between us and the trees. Once we got there, it seemed like we were good. But there was no point in taking chances. We walked slowly, careful not to step on any loudly cracking twigs. Hank and Ryan were visible when we hit the end of the tree line, watching for us with their hands shading their eyes. The moment Ash stepped through, Ryan began to run.

  “You better prepare yourself,” I said to Clint. “Here she comes.”

  He grabbed my arm as I turned to go back into the woods. “Where are you going?”

  “To find the man who did this to you.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Don’t, Sutherland. Come with us.”

  I patted her hand. “I’ll be there in less than twenty minutes. I promise.”

  “There’s so much I need to tell you.”

  “And I’ll be there because I want the answers.” Impulsively, I stepped into him and kissed his cheek. “Go be with Ryan. I’ll be there sooner than you think.”