by Julie Miller
“Hey! We need help!” Sam waved at the approaching black truck. It was an older model, but well taken care of by the sound of the engine. “Is he slowing down? He is.” The truck flashed its lights at them and Sam waved. “He is!”
The pickup pulled off onto the opposite shoulder of the road. He averted his face as momentum carried the moving cloud of dust around the truck, obscuring his view of the driver. But as soon as it skidded to a stop, Sam was moving. Jason tightened his hold on her when she would have run forward to meet the man opening the grubby black door. “Let’s see who we’re dealing with before... Sam?”
“I know him.” She broke free and ran across the road. “Brandon? Brandon!”
Jason recognized the lanky bodyguard who’d been ambushed the night Sam had been taken. Looked like he was wearing the same suit he had that night at the bar, only now his shirt collar was open, his tie was gone and the dark-haired man needed a shave.
“Samantha?” Metz climbed down from the running board and checked both ways for traffic before hurrying across the road to meet her. “I haven’t been able to sleep for three days. I’ve felt so guilty. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“Thank God it’s you.” When the tall man bent slightly, Sam launched herself into his arms.
Even in his weakened state, Jason’s instincts buzzed on high alert. This was wrong. Metz being here was wrong. Or maybe he was just having an irrationally possessive reaction to another man scooping Sam up and hugging her like that.
Pressing his fingers to the leaking bandage at his waist, Jason limped across the road to face Metz over the top of Sam’s head. “Pellegrino and Mr. Eddington have run out of ideas to retrieve Sam beyond randomly driving around Wyoming?”
“Not random.” Metz ended the hug but kept his arm around Sam’s shoulders. “I knew which direction those men had taken her. Walter called in the FBI, despite the threats on that video, as soon as we got word that your man had crashed his helicopter and you two were stranded in the mountains.”
“That man was Marty Flynn. His death was no accident. He gave his life trying to help us.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that he’d screwed up.” The younger man raised his hands in apologetic surrender, releasing Sam long enough for Jason to pull her back to his side. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
“You got a cell phone?” Jason prompted.
“Jason’s hurt,” Sam said. “He’s been shot. Twice. Call an ambulance.”
“Of course.” Metz smiled down at Sam before reaching inside his jacket to pull out his cell.
Jason shook his head. “Call Walter first.”
“Sure. You look like you’re hurt pretty bad. Let’s get you inside and off your feet.” Avoiding Metz’s offer to help, Jason leaned on Sam and walked around to the passenger side of the pickup. By the time he’d climbed onto the cracked white vinyl of the bench seat, Metz was standing there with a bottle of water. “Drink. If you’ve lost as much blood as I think you have, you need to replenish your fluids.”
Jason took the water and thanked him for that, at least. “Make the call.”
“May I talk to Dad?” Sam asked.
“Let me explain the good news to him, see how he wants me to handle this.” He punched in a number and put the phone to his ear. “In the meantime, there’s a blanket in the back of the truck. We don’t want your friend here going into shock.”
“Right.”
As Metz’s call went through, Jason turned his gaze to the rearview mirror and watched Sam lower the tailgate and climb into the back of the truck. He’d promised to get her back to her father, not to one of the family’s bodyguards. His need to protect her hadn’t diminished. Not by a long shot. But she didn’t need to be married off to ensure her future. She didn’t need to settle for a loser like Kyle Grazer. She could damn well take care of herself. The confidence that had been missing from their first meeting now radiated through every determined step and sharp-eyed glance.
It was those big green eyes meeting his gaze in the mirror through the back window that warned him a split second too late that his instincts had been right.
Sam scrambled over the side of the truck, carrying a black stocking mask in her hand. “There’s a black camo uniform in a bag—”
“I know.” She followed his gaze across the bench seat to see Metz at the driver’s side door, pointing a gun right at him. “I found your inside man.”
* * *
SAMANTHA GLARED THROUGH the windshield of the truck at the dark-haired psychopath who’d made it his life’s work to punish her father for the death of his father.
Richard Cordes Jr. seemed to have an innate instinct as to what caused people the most pain. Watching him strike another blow to Jason’s broken rib and open wound when the man she loved was already kneeling in the dirt with his hands bound in front of him cut through her as deeply as the length of Jason’s knife plunging through her heart. Brandon had thrown that knife into the ditch along with the two guns they’d carried, leaving Jason completely unarmed before he forced him to drink the water from the bottle he’d given them—water which must have been laced with the same sedative she’d been injected with. At least she hoped that’s why her savior had passed out on the long, bumpy ride into the Wind River Mountains on the other side of Jackson Hole. She couldn’t bear to think that Jason might be dying because of the wounds Junior and his men had inflicted on him each time they’d gotten close to recapturing her.
Since her dad had bought the land once illegally claimed by Junior’s father, Richard Cordes II—he preferred the tougher-sounding nickname Buck to the diminutive Junior he apparently had grown up with—had secured a ramshackle house on what she assumed was an abandoned farm, based on the weedy fields and empty pastures they’d passed before the sun had set. She’d heard enough of his posturing through the open truck window to know he thought of this place as his new compound. He’d build an empire bigger and stronger than his father and aunts had owned, and no one, not even a rich old bastard like Walter Eddington or the US government, would be able to take it from him.
She recognized Orin Murphy from the mountain, too. Although his black eye and the tender way he carried himself indicated he was still feeling the effects of his run-in with Jason and a tree branch, he, like three other men in black camo gear, stood in a circle around Jason. Apparently, there was no electricity running at this remote location, either, because the men had all parked their trucks in a semicircle around Jason and the side of the house, spotlighting Junior—she refused to do him the honor of calling him Buck—while he rattled off some wild manifesto about the Second Amendment, injustices, and his vow to honor his father’s legacy and avenge his death by the man who’d stolen that legacy—her father.
Brandon had parked his truck in the semicircle, too. He was one of these nut jobs with a skewed idea of right and wrong. His traitorous butt was so getting fired once she got back to her father. If she ever got back to him. Beyond that, she’d make sure there was jail time for each one of Junior’s accomplices. They’d left three of Junior’s men dead on the mountain, but they might be the lucky ones once she was done testifying about all she’d seen and heard and been subjected to, and the money and connections her father wielded made sure the very best lawyers in the country prosecuted them.
Of course, that kind of real justice depended on whether she survived this night. And even if she lived through it, she didn’t think she’d survive if Jason didn’t live through it, too.
Junior smacked his fist across Jason’s face, knocking him onto his side on the ground.
“Stop it!” Sam yelled, distracting Junior from the torture.
But the young man with the pistol at his waist and the rifle hanging across his back merely looked at her through the windshield of the truck and laughed. “Aw. Does this upset you, rich girl? Seeing your big man bleedin’ in the dirt? Jus
t imagine how much fun I’m going to have doing the same thing to you.”
“Damn it, Buck,” Brandon complained, taking a step toward his cousin. “Quit playing games. You promised me a million dollars to bring Samantha to you. You already screwed up any chance at getting paid the ransom. Let’s cut our losses. Finish them both off and at least let me turn her body back in to Eddington for a reward.”
“A reward?” Junior turned his full attention on his cousin. “You think I want Eddington to have any kind of closure? Any kind of comfort?”
Oh, no. Brandon pulled back his jacket, bracing his hands on his hips, making sure Junior saw that he, too, carried a gun and knew how to use it. This was about to turn into a violent confrontation—some sort of Wild West shoot-out—and Jason would be caught in the crossfire. How could she get him out of there? How could she protect him?
Samantha’s hands chafed against the rope that bound them. Brandon had left her in the truck trussed up like prized prey at the wrists and ankles when he’d pulled a semiconscious Jason out and thrown him to the ground at Junior’s feet. “You promised ten thousand dollars to the man who brought you Hunt. Pay up.”
Ten thousand dollars. She nearly cried remembering that taunt. Jason’s life was worth so much more than that. His heart, his spirit, his soul were priceless. He’d served his country. He’d sacrificed his friends, the woman he loved and even a little part of his sanity. He’d saved her.
She had to save him.
As she struggled to slide across the seat to reach the locked door, Samantha’s fingers brushed against the bulge in her front pocket and she froze.
Jason might be unarmed. But she wasn’t.
“Bless you, Marty Flynn.” She contorted her body to get her hands close enough to her pocket to slide her fingers inside. “You’re going to save us, after all.”
While Brandon stood his ground and Junior spewed more vitriol about her father and how her mother deserved to be taken from him all those years ago, Samantha opened Marty’s Swiss Army knife and sawed at her bindings.
“You never even would have thought you could get money like that until I put the idea in your head,” Junior bragged. “I’m the one who said you needed to become her friend, so she’d turn to you when the opportunity came. I’m the one who told you to capitalize on her boyfriend’s infidelities.”
“Eddington trusted me,” Brandon argued. “I had a good thing going there. Hell, given enough time, I could have ingratiated myself with the family and married Samantha myself. I didn’t need you to do anything for me. I let you take a swing at me to make that kidnapping look real. Fired a couple of shots at the van while your men sped away. I did what I did for the money, so you could have your revenge. You owe me.”
“I owe no man,” Junior spouted, possibly quoting something his father had once said. “I am what I am because of who I am. And no greedy bastard will ever take my pride, my land, my manhood from me.”
Brandon reached for his gun. “Shut up, already.”
But Junior was faster. Samantha jerked, dropping the knife, catching it between her thighs when the gun went off and Brandon crumpled to the ground beside Jason.
She watched Jason’s big form roll away from the dead man. Not only was he still alive, but he roused the strength to push himself up to a sitting position. In the light from the headlamps, she could see one of his handsome eyes had swollen shut, and the circle of blood on the front of his sweater had spread to cover nearly half his torso. He was bleeding badly. He needed her help.
Moving the knife back to her fingers again, she sawed away at the rope.
“All I wanted was Samantha Eddington at my mercy.” Thank goodness Junior was more interested in hearing himself talk than in paying attention to her now. “I wanted to send pictures to her father and watch Walter’s grief when he discovered what was left of her body. I had to stage it as a kidnapping, so I could convince these idiots to help me. Promised them each a ton of money. I’d have taken it, too. Enjoyed every penny. It’s the least Eddington owes my family.”
Jason’s voice was low, yet surprisingly strong. “How’d you ensure their loyalty once they knew the ransom wasn’t coming?”
“I lied. Just like I lied at Kitty’s Bar in Moose that night you got mixed up in this. Set up my own alibi while my cousins and friends took Samantha. Right from under Eddington’s nose. I’ve got no quarrel with you, Jase. But you keep getting in the way of what I want.”
The ropes scraped across her skin as she broke free.
“I will protect Sam until my dying breath.”
“That’s what I figured.” Junior raised his gun. Samantha jammed the pocketknife’s blade into the ignition and turned it.
Junior looked her way, startled to hear the engine roaring to life.
But that wasn’t half as startled as he looked when she stomped on the accelerator with both feet and plowed into him.
The wall of the house caved in as she pinned him against the rotted siding.
Bits of roofing and a rusted gutter rained down on the hood of the truck. Tears burned down her cheeks and she swiped them away, unsure why she was crying now when she’d already been through so much.
But as she cleared her vision and shifted the truck into Park, she realized she’d made a tactical error. Junior was trapped, but he wasn’t dead. And despite the way his body sagged between the truck and the house, she hadn’t caught his arm in the crash. The arm that still held the gun.
With the slow deliberation of a madman, he dragged the gun up onto the hood of the truck and aimed it through the windshield. “You just have to die,” he slurred as blood appeared in his mouth.
Samantha dived for the seat as the windshield shattered.
There was a second explosion. Two gunshots.
She tried to shift into Reverse from the awkward position, not wanting to raise her head above the dashboard while he kept firing.
But after two shots, she heard no more.
She heard only Jason’s deep voice, ragged with pain. “It’s okay, Sam. You can come out. You’re safe.”
She slowly sat up, averting her gaze from the gruesome sight of Richard Cordes’s dead body slumped over the hood of the truck. She looked out the side window to see Jason on his knees, the barrel of the gun he held still steaming in his hands.
A closer look revealed that Brandon’s holster was empty. Jason had taken the gun off the slain bodyguard and saved her, even as she’d saved him.
She looked beyond him as he swung the gun around to see Orin Murphy toss his weapons on the ground. He collapsed on the running board of his truck, cradling his middle as if the bones inside were cracked or broken. The other three men in black camo followed suit, dropping their weapons and kneeling with their fingers laced above their heads as Jason instructed.
Samantha wasted no more time. She retrieved Marty’s knife from the floorboard and cut her ankles free. Then she was out of the truck and hurrying to Jason’s side.
“Jase? Are you all right? Please tell me you’re going to be all right.” She inspected his face, lifted his shirt to check his wound. She took the knife to the ropes at his wrists, freeing him the way he had once freed her. “Why aren’t you saying anything?” she demanded, tossing the bindings aside.
“Because you’re doing all the talking, woman.” He caught a loose tendril of hair and rubbed it between his fingers and thumb. “If you’re okay, I’ll be okay.”
“I’m okay. You’re okay, too, right?” She nodded, knowing that was a lie. Her hair fell from his fingers and he collapsed to the ground. “Jase?”
She picked up the gun and pointed it at the men who’d surrendered their weapons. “You all know who I am?” They nodded, chiming in with a few hesitant yeahs and saying her name. “I’ll pay a hundred grand to the first man who gives me a working cell phone and the keys to his truck.”
All four men held out their phones.
Chapter Twelve
“I love him, Dad.”
Samantha hugged her father in the hospital’s second-floor waiting room outside the surgical ICU. There wasn’t anything this fine hospital could do to make her feel better after the kidnapping and survival ordeal than a shower, clean clothes and a hug from her father could. The bright, sunny afternoon and news that Jason had come through his surgery without any unexpected complications didn’t hurt, either.
Walter Eddington pulled back, capturing her face between his beefy hands and offering her a wry smile. “You know, you never once said that about Kyle.”
Samantha was even feeling generous enough to share a smile with her stepmother and Taylor, who’d brought the change of clothes to the Jackson hospital and had waited with her until the surgeon had come out to give her a report on Jason’s condition. “I don’t mention what’s-his-face anymore. It’s one of the rules Jase and I agreed on.”
He caressed the silver locket and chain she’d returned to him, a little worse for wear after a long dip in a cold river, and slipped it into his pocket. “Captain Hunt makes you happy?”
“I think he will, Dad.” If she could convince Jason of that.
“That’s all I need to know. And we’ll never mention what’s-his-face again. It’ll be like he never existed.”
“I can live with that rule,” Taylor agreed, turning a hopeful smile to her older sister. “I’m sorry for what I did. He said that he loved me. I don’t know how I can ever make it up to you—or get over how stupid I feel for believing him.”
Understanding exactly how her sister felt, Samantha reached out to hug her, too. “What’s-his-face always seemed to know what to say. He just never learned how to listen. You and I will work on our relationship. We’ll be okay.”
Walter shook his head. “Looking back to the night you were taken, the way he was on his phone so much—I thought he might be involved in the kidnapping.” Samantha grinned at the choice word he uttered. “With everything going on, he was more worried about himself. All those calls to his mother, playing the sympathy card of losing you to get back into his family’s good graces.”
