by Julie Miller
Samantha shook her head, clearing her wandering thoughts. There was nothing good about her situation. She’d been bound and drugged and held hostage in the rickety old cabin in the wilderness somewhere up above Teton Canyon. She was freezing, hungry. And now a new threat had entered the cabin and crushed her beneath every inch of his hard, muscular body.
Why was it so dark in here? The men who’d stayed with her this time had been playing poker on the chipped enamel kitchen table, with a battery-powered lantern illuminating their cards. There was no lantern now, only the glow of the small heating stove that barely reached her corner, and the moonlight streaming in through the window. Samantha hugged her bound arms around her legs, unable to decide which was more frightening—having the big scary man in her face where she could see him, or knowing he was lurking somewhere in the darkness around her. “What do you want from me?” Her throat was raw from too much screaming and trying to reason with unreasonable men. She coughed, swallowed against the irritated rasp of her throat and spoke again. “Who are you?”
His deep voice was an ominous growl from the blur of shadows. “I’m not one of them.”
“And I’m just supposed to believe that?” Fear and confusion still rattled around her brain. “They leave two men with me all the time, but they’ve changed shifts three times, so there are at least six of them. These two aren’t the ones who took me from the lodge, so that makes a minimum of seven. I can tell because their body shapes and voices are different. There’s the bully with the gun and the slimy one with all the lewd comments who thinks he’s funny and the little guy who compensates by being extra physical.” Samantha gently prodded the bruises on her knees. When her numb feet hadn’t been able to keep up with the brisk walk from the SUV to the cabin’s front door, he’d dragged her up the porch steps. “They go on patrols outside. They talk about sleeping in the truck because it’s warmer. And there’s some guy named Buck they keep saying has called, or they need to call, or he’s coming here, or...” Lord, she was rattling on like a crazy woman. She pressed her parched lips together to stop the flow of words long enough to make her point. “Are you Buck? Are you the man they answer to?”
She heard a groan from the darkness and soft ratcheting noises she could now identify as the sound of zip ties binding someone into place. She looked at the raw skin beneath the plastic tying her wrists together, but quickly glanced up when the man reemerged from the shadows. A flitting image from her nightmare dissipated with the click of a flashlight. The small beam of light brought hope to her world as he knelt beside her. He unzipped a pocket in his dark gray cargo pants and pulled out a silver chain. “I don’t know who Buck is. I don’t know who either of these two men are, or the guy in the SUV out front. I’m Captain Jason Hunt. United States Marines. I’m one of the good guys.”
Leave it to her father to hire the Marines to come after her. She squinted the coffee-colored hair hanging over his collar into focus. “You don’t look like a Marine.”
His grim expression turned grimmer. “Former Marine. I work search and rescue now.”
“Oh.” Recognizing the engraved locket he dangled from the end of the chain, Samantha snatched the necklace from his hand. “This was my mother’s. Where did you get it?”
“A token from your father. He sent me to find you and bring you home. Said you’d understand why he wasn’t paying to get you back.”
She ran her thumb over the initials ME and WE etched into the sterling silver, then opened the latch to study the faded images of her parents, taking comfort in the item that had been so precious to her mother, and therefore to Samantha and her father. Remembrance and relief surged through her system with such force that tears stung her eyes. “I do.”
“I need you to do exactly as I say. And no crying. You’ll dehydrate.” What the man lacked in reassuring comfort, he made up for in concise practicality. He handed her a water bottle from the backpack looped over his shoulders. “Drink.”
After swiping at the tears trailing down her cheeks, she opened the bottle and took several long swallows. Feeling slightly better after having addressed that basic need, Samantha dredged up a smile of gratitude for her rescuer. But he was no longer there to see it. Captain Jason Hunt knew her father. Jason Hunt was here to get her out of this nightmare. Jason Hunt had found her in a remote cabin on the western edge of the Tetons and single-handedly subdued two of her kidnappers. Possibly three, if the man who’d talked about sleeping in the truck was still out there. And now she was alone with him.
Was the man with ghostly gray eyes supposed to make her feel safe? She listened to him prowl about the cabin, cracking open the front door to check outside, rifling through the kidnappers’ supplies, disabling what she assumed were weapons and opening the back window to a rush of frigid air to toss small boxes—ammunition perhaps?—into the snow. Her smile faded, and she rubbed at the familiar itch on her torso. Since she was clearly no great judge of whom she should trust, Samantha would be smart to adopt the same wary urgency radiating off her self-proclaimed savior. “Do you work for Mr. Pellegrino? He’s former military, too.”
“I met him.”
Was that a yes or a no? Did that make him a bodyguard? Samantha took another drink. He certainly wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Kyle had always been able to fill up the awkward silence of a room and put her at ease when her mouth couldn’t keep up with all the thoughts pinging through her brain and she just shut down. Only now she realized Kyle had been nothing but talk—greedy, self-serving, tell-Samantha-whatever-she-needs-to-hear talk. Her heart pinched with the ache of losing the man she’d thought she loved. Or maybe that was her ego, as bruised and tender as the rest of her body from the discovery that she’d been a naive fool.
This man was nothing like Kyle. He was bigger. Rawer. Less about charm and more about efficiency. Was he a cop? FBI? A mercenary her father had hired? Some backwoods mountain man Dante Pellegrino had unearthed to find her? Bearing so little resemblance to her would-be fiancé should be a good thing, right? Maybe Jason Hunt had brought someone else with him who could make her feel a little surer about trusting him. “What’s next? Are the rest of your men waiting outside?”
Instead of answering, he knelt in front of her again, holding out a real gift. “I took these off the guy by the door. Didn’t look like his style.”
“Thank you!” Samantha set down the water bottle to take her glasses from his hand. She hugged them to her chest for a brief, grateful moment before putting them on. “I’ve been so blind. At such a disadvantage. What...?”
Just as his face and the black knit cap he wore came into focus, he pulled a knife as big as her forearm from his belt. When she shied away from the vicious blade, he grabbed her wrists, pulling her toward him as he sliced through the plastic bindings. Her startled breath returned as slowly as the feeling seeping back into her extremities. “Flex your fingers and toes. Get the circulation going again. Put your shoes on and let’s get out of here before the others get back.”
“Um...” She picked up what remained of one of her patent-leather shoes. The short, overcompensation guy with a temper had broken off the heel and thrown it at her after she’d gouged a chunk of skin out of his leg during a failed attempt to run away when he’d taken her to use the outhouse behind the cabin. “I didn’t exactly have time to pack a change of clothes.”
Jason cursed at the shoe that had proved useless in the snow outside, even if it hadn’t been snapped in two. “How much do you weigh? I’ll carry you.” He doused the flashlight and started adjusting his gear around his waist and back. He unhooked his pack and tossed her a pair of thick wool socks. “Put those on. If we can keep your feet dry, there’s a chance you won’t get frostbite before sunrise.”
“There’s no one else but you?” She suspected his lack of an answer was her answer. Just the two of them. She nodded her understanding, although she couldn’t stop her mind from calculating the od
ds that were not in their favor. With her glasses giving her twenty/twenty vision again, her eyes quickly adjusted to the dusky cabin to get a clearer look at her surroundings. Yes, Jason Hunt certainly looked fit and capable. He seemed to be nothing but muscle and hard angles and a dangerous, coiled energy. And there was no mistaking the threat of the gun holstered around his thigh or the way he’d handled that hunting knife. But the threat from her kidnappers was very real. And they were outnumbered. “How far away is your vehicle?” No answer. “Skis? Dog sled?”
“Socks.” He nodded to her icy toes. Again, no answer. Just a new command. “We need to walk about five miles to get to a buddy of mine with a helicopter. He’ll fly us out of here. On your feet.”
Five miles? No one was carrying her that far. Hadn’t she been manhandled enough over the past several hours? Besides, she was tired of feeling helpless. Done with feeling like she was a burden that had to be dealt with. Samantha pulled on the socks that came up to her knees and tried to get up, fighting off a wave of nausea as the remnants of the sedative in her system spun the room around her. When the vertigo passed, she gritted her teeth against the subsequent headache that throbbed against her skull and braced her hand against the rough log wall. “Can’t we steal their truck?”
“It can’t handle the terrain we’ve got to cover.”
Clinging to the wall, Samantha pushed to her feet. No dizziness. Good. But she was far from ready to hike five miles across a mountain. “One of their snowmobiles? I saw four.”
“Gone.” Snap. Click. He’d lightened his pack by tucking several items into the pockets of his cargo pants and insulated jacket.
“They’ll be back. All of them. They said they had another tape they needed me to record before sending it at eight in the morning. They complained about not having any cell service up here, so they must go somewhere else to send it to Dad. What time is it?” She moved away from the wall, testing her ability to walk. The warmth of the socks pierced the numbness of cold and inactivity, shooting tiny sparks through her feet. But the pain shocked the last of the fatigue out of her system. “They’re not out patrolling the area?”
“Now that the storm has passed, it’s a clear night. We’d hear the noise of the engines if they were close by.” Something buzzed on Jason’s wrist, and he pulled back his sleeve to turn off the alarm on his watch. “Time to go. Ready?”
One of the men lying near the door groaned. Although they’d been gagged and hog-tied, and Jason had taken their weapons, the kidnapper was stirring. Stirring couldn’t be good for a successful getaway. Samantha’s brain suddenly kicked into a higher gear. Why hadn’t she thought of this sooner? She looped the chain around her neck and kissed the locket before stuffing it inside the neckline of her dress. Hurrying as quickly as the stiffness of her body allowed, she crossed to the metal storage cabinet across the room and pulled it open, blindly feeling around on the top shelf for the items she was far too familiar with. Her fingers closed around a small glass vial. “Are they waking up?”
“We won’t be here to find out. What are you doing?”
“Buying us more time to get away.” She pulled down a syringe packet and tore off the paper, measuring out a dose of the sedative the kidnappers had used on her. She injected Moaning Man, checking his pulse after he quieted. Breathing, but asleep. Then she opened a new packet and injected the second man. “Buying me enough time to do this.”
She measured the size of her foot against both men, then sat down beside the one with the smaller boots and started untying them.
Jason’s sigh was as impatient as the brisk wind outside the cabin. Still, he surprised her by kneeling beside her and picking up the other boot to loosen the laces. “If these are too big, they’ll rub blisters. Then I’ll definitely be carrying you.”
“I think I’ll be okay with these thick socks. A few minutes now will save us time later. You can move faster if you’re not hauling me on your back, right?”
She held his gaze until he gave her a sharp nod.
“I so wish I had a pair of pants or long johns.” She pulled off the first boot and lifted the black camo canvas of the guy’s pant leg. “You don’t suppose—”
Jason grabbed her wrist and shoved the second boot into her hand, ending her search. “It’s not that far, and the sun will be up in another hour. Move it, Princess.”
Princess? Samantha bristled at the tossed-off nickname. Sure. The party dress and ridiculous heels? A $5 million bargaining chip? He probably had her pegged as one of the society princesses her father and stepmother so desperately wanted her to be. If only he knew.
But he didn’t give her time to take offense or correct his impression of her. He pulled the black knit stocking masks off the unconscious men. “You recognize either of them?” he asked.
She spared a quick glance for the two men, a bald one with bruising around the tattoos on his throat and the other with blood matted in the hair at his temple. Strangers. Two men she’d never laid eyes on before who’d hurt her and promised more than once to kill her if she didn’t cooperate. Samantha went back to securing the second boot. “No. Should I?”
“They’ve got fighting skills, sophisticated weaponry...” He picked up one of the syringes she’d discarded and tossed it into the darkness. “...access to drugs. Enough players involved to rotate shifts and carry out different assignments.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning these guys aren’t amateurs. Your father said he doesn’t care who’s responsible as long as my mission is a success. But it would have been nice to know exactly what I was up against.”
“Mission?” Samantha tied a second knot to keep the boot secure around her ankle. She looked at her abductors with fresh eyes. Matching black camo outfits. The arsenal of rifles and guns she’d seen. “Are they military?”
The whiny buzz of a distant engine pierced the night. Make that two engines. More than two. She recognized the sound. Snowmobiles. Her captors were returning.
She’d barely acknowledged the terror that suddenly immobilized her when Jason lifted her right off the floor, setting her on her feet beside him just inside the door as he opened it a little wider to peer into the milky darkness outside the cabin. “You can hear them,” she whispered. Like mutant hornets swarming through the trees. Samantha pushed Jason toward the door. Well, pushed was a relative term. She pushed, and he didn’t budge. But she was about to be trapped in this cabin. Again. “How far do you think—?”
Jason clamped his hand over her mouth again, tilting her face up to his. Right. That glare meant shut up, Princess.
Those mysterious eyes, framed by lines of sun and outdoor living, held hers a moment longer until she nodded. He released her and dropped down to check the fit of her boots, his big hands easily spanning, squeezing, adjusting. On the way back up, he tied the belt of her black-and-white coat, cinching it snugly around her waist. He towered above her for a moment, assessing either side of her face. Before she could question his perusal and what he found off-putting enough to make him grimace like that, he pulled a knit cap off the bald man and plopped it on top of her head, stretching it over pins and tangles until her ears were covered.
Then he turned to the opening and held up his fist. “This means stop. Talking, moving, whatever. I don’t care how scared you are, listen to what I say and do what I tell you. Your life may depend on it.” He unholstered his gun and gripped it in his right hand, reaching back with his left to pull her onto the porch behind him. The noise of the gunning engines seemed to bounce off every hard surface around her—the cabin door she pulled shut, the forest of trees surrounding the perimeter of the clearing, the cliff wall on the far side of the gravel road and the rocky outcropping just a few yards beyond the edge of the porch—making it impossible for her to tell how far away her abductors were, or even from which direction they were coming. “Walk where I walk. I’ve already made a couple of false trails i
n the snow to keep them busy and force them to split up. Move as quickly as you can. Don’t say a word.”
He stepped off the porch, expecting her to follow. Sinking up to her ankles in the trampled slush and fresh layer of snow, she was glad she’d thought to steal the pair of boots to protect her feet and at least give her a chance at staying warm. “Did my father really send you? Or am I walking off into the wilderness with a stranger, never to be seen again?”
Her head was down, watching each slippery step, when she bumped into his backpack.
Jason had stopped abruptly. He inhaled a deep breath before he pushed her into the shadows at the side of the cabin and hunched down to level his gaze with hers. “I have three rules. Do what I tell you. Don’t get wet. And do what I tell you.”
“That’s only two. Is the fist thing the third rule—?”
He plastered his hand over her mouth again. “Noise carries in this cold air. Those men have friends who will kill us if they find us. They will find us if they hear you. Understand?”
That seemed clear enough. A cloud of his warm breath fogged her glasses, forcing her to tilt her eyes above the rims to see the warning stamped on his hard expression.
“I know you’re not used to situations like this. But I am. Let me do my job. I will keep you safe. I won’t let these men hurt you again.” Was he trying to tell her she didn’t need to be afraid with him around? That she needed to trust him? Maybe she’d be safe from the bad guys, but Jason Hunt’s size and strength, his terse commands and grabby hands, not to mention the knife and the gun, still made her very nervous. “Keep up. Remember the rules. And I’ll make sure you get home to Daddy.”
That reassurance would have to do for now. Samantha nodded one more time before he released her. He peeked around the cabin, checking the man sleeping in the truck, evaluating the distance and arrival time of the approaching snowmobiles. This time, when he stepped out, he moved at a quicker pace, forcing Samantha into a jog to stay close behind him.
