by Josh Lanyon
His boots slipped in the pine needles and mud. He grabbed for a low-hanging branch, used it to support himself till he could wrap an arm around a narrow tree trunk. Will was right on his heels.
They left the trees and clambered up a few unsheltered feet. Taylor leaned into the wind and half crawled, half staggered forward. The wet stung his face and knocked the breath out of him. This was July? It felt like December.
A tree branch slapped him in the cheek as they reached another stand. His skin was so numb he barely felt it. What had happened to all that sultry, sodden heat?
Another branch hit him, and he swore. The wind snatched his words away.
Taylor trudged on, slithering every few feet, clutching boulders, branches, jutting roots, anything to keep moving. A quick glance over his shoulder showed the paved road below submerged beneath maybe sixteen feet of water that seemed to boil through the canyon curves like a soup of boulders and tree trunks and pieces of house siding.
Their car had slid back a few feet and was leaning still more alarmingly. It wouldn’t take much to send it toppling down into that flood.
Vaguely, he wondered if Will had bothered to take out insurance on the rental. It seemed a trivial concern at the moment, merely a point of curiosity.
“Keep moving.” Will threw the words at him.
Unnecessarily. Taylor might be a city boy, but he was survivalist enough to know that even six inches of water could knock a man off his feet. A foot of water could float a car. The water he saw below them? That much water could wash a small town away.
He continued up the wet hillside, grateful as the trees grew denser, offering a little respite from the wind and wet at last. By then his muscles were burning and he was drenched in sweat, a sobering reminder that if they weren’t in peak physical condition, they’d probably be dead.
After what felt like an eternity, Taylor reached the top of the hill, huddling beneath the dripping branches. He dropped back against the rough trunk of a pine tree and closed his eyes.
Will, shaking with cold and exertion, crawled beside him. Taylor opened his eyes, acknowledging Will’s presence, then closed them again and concentrated on catching his breath.
“Too close,” Will huffed, sounding equally out of breath. “That was too…damned close. You okay?”
Taylor coughed, nodded, and wearily raised his eyelashes. “You?”
Will nodded.
“That was…” Words failed him. He stared at what he could see of Will’s face. “Among other things, that was the best goddamned driving I ever saw in my life.”
Will laughed shakily, acknowledging what a close call they’d had. Not like their jobs weren’t plenty dangerous enough without Mother Nature getting into the act.
He reached out, hauled Taylor awkwardly into his arms. For a few seconds, the world narrowed down to the hard breaths, to the hard, shaken pound of their hearts through wet clothes, to the hard grip of arms.
Taylor’s wet face was pressed to Will’s; their breath warmed each other’s faces. “It could have been worse.”
“I’ll say.”
“It could have been my car we left on that mountain.”
Will gave a half laugh. They moved apart enough to study each other.
The night was fading. It was too early to be called dawn yet, but Taylor could just make out the outline of Will’s weary, unshaven face. His deep blue eyes were the only color in the gray world of rain and shadows.
Will leaned in, and his mouth covered Taylor’s, rough but sweet, his tongue seeking Taylor’s. Taylor opened willingly to that kiss, forgetting for a second his scratched, scraped hands and the rain running down the back of his neck. They kissed a lot these days, especially for men who had never been much for kissing. Taylor had become expert in all Will’s kisses, from the hungry, lustful kisses that always made his own cock rise so fast it hurt, to the tender, almost cherishing kisses that Will generally saved for when he thought Taylor was sleeping. That dawn kiss beneath the pine trees rippled through him like an electric shock, a reminder that, tired, wet, and lost as they might be, so long as they were together, they were all right.
Better than all right. Much better.
Chapter Five
They parted reluctantly.
“Now what?” Taylor asked.
“Now we try to find someone with a working phone.”
“Well, that shouldn’t take long. Ranger Rick is probably on his way to pick us up right this minute.”
Will recognized that little sarcastic note as a sure sign Taylor’s nerves were fraying fast. Not that he blamed him. Taylor didn’t like the great outdoors when everything was going beautifully.
Things were not going beautifully.
“There are homes and campsites sprinkled all through these mountains,” he reassured Taylor. “We’ll find someone. Worst-case scenario, we wait till we run into the emergency vehicles and rescue teams that’ll be combing the area before long.”
Taylor shivered. “There were pieces of broken houses in that flood.”
“I know. It channeled right through the canyon, though. And a lot of those structures are vacation homes, not permanent residences. It could have been a lot worse. Especially at a different time of night.”
“Do you think Nemov got caught in that?” It was a pointless question since Will had no more way of knowing the answer to that than did Taylor. But he understood Taylor’s anxiety. The knowledge that Kelila Hedwig and her unborn child might have died as an indirect result of their failure to report her whereabouts the minute they discovered where she was holed up…
That was something Will didn’t want to contemplate.
He said quietly, “I don’t know. We don’t know for sure they even came this way.”
“True.”
Will gazed up through the tree branches at the gray flannel skies. He looked back at Taylor, who was chewing at a ragged thumbnail and scowling. Will smiled faintly. For all his pale weariness, the little lines of stress and worry, Taylor alive and in one piece was still the most beautiful thing Will had ever seen.
“Good news,” Will told him.
Taylor directed a skeptical look his way.
“It’s stopped raining.”
* * * * *
According to Taylor’s watch, it was after six in the morning by the time they started down the far side of the mountain and found the black SUV mired in mud up to its custom rims.
By then the rain had stopped and the water had receded considerably. The canyon road was a knee-high swamp of debris and water, but the danger was past.
“It could be anyone’s vehicle,” Will called as Taylor splashed through the water to peer through the tinted side windows.
“Sure,” Taylor said. “Who doesn’t go on vacation without taking their leg irons?”
Will joined him in the water-filled ruts at the side of the road, making a frame for his face and trying to see inside. “Are you sure?” He could just make out a baseball bat, what looked like a military utility bag, and, yes, metallic links that appeared to be leg shackles. “Hmm. You just might be right.”
“I guess someone could have kinky tastes.”
“You ought to know.”
Taylor grimaced.
“Which is one of the things I like best about you,” Will added.
“Just a born diplomat, aren’t you? No wonder you’re climbing through the ranks.”
Will had no reply to that. They sloshed through the water and clambered back to the relatively dry area of the hillside.
A flash of blue caught Will’s eye. A blue jay landed on the branch of a pine tree and greeted the morning with its harsh song. The sun was rising, and it was already growing warm. The receding floodwater had a dank, unhealthy smell to it.
Taylor wiped his forehead. “Which way do you think they went?”
“Assuming they aren’t lost or didn’t get swept away, they’ll be heading the same direction we are. They need food, water, and shelter, the same as
us.”
“Hedwig couldn’t climb these mountains. Could she?”
Will shrugged. “I guess if she had to, she would. I’ve seen pregnant weight lifters. In magazines.”
“She didn’t look like the athletic type to me.”
“Maybe Nemov carried her. He looked like he could.”
“He looked like he could carry his SUV. I don’t know why he didn’t.” Taylor had his BlackBerry out and was clicking away and frowning at the results. Or lack of same.
“You’re not going to get any reception down here.”
Taylor muttered something uncomplimentary, though whether to the national forest or Will was unclear.
They began to walk, continuing at a brisk pace until the sun appeared over the trees. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Pine needles glistened and sparkled in the pure sunlight.
“You have to admit this is beautiful country,” Will said, shading his eyes and gazing up at the distant snowcapped mountains.
Taylor opened his mouth — though it was unlikely he was going to admit anything of the kind — when something big, mottled brown and gray burst out of the brush and took wing, gobbling in fright.
He jumped a foot and gazed openmouthed at Will. “Jesus. What was that?”
Will dropped against a tree trunk and tried not to laugh. He didn’t really have the breath to spare, but Taylor’s half-alarmed, half-offended expression struck him as hysterically funny.
“Wild turkey. A hen, I think. You should see the size of the toms.”
“No thanks. I prefer my turkeys on a Thanksgiving platter.”
Again, Will had to struggle not to laugh.
They resumed their hike, having found what looked like an old track. Possibly a former stagecoach route. It paralleled the highway for a time and then led up into the hills. It was Will who spotted the two sets of footprints in the mud. One large, one smaller.
“That answers one question. They both made it out of the flash flood.”
Taylor nodded. He looked as relieved as Will felt. “They’ll have holed up somewhere ahead of us on the trail. No way did he drag a pregnant woman up and down a mountainside in the middle of a rainstorm at night — even if he wanted to. She’d never have made it.”
“Maybe he doesn’t need her to make it.”
Taylor stared at him, thinking it over. He shook his head. “In that case, I think he’d have taken advantage of the flood to arrange a fatal accident. Plenty of opportunity. Especially if he left her handcuffed. Get her halfway up the slope and then give her a little push. Oops.”
“You worry me sometimes.”
“Good.” Taylor grinned a brief and dangerous grin.
“I think you’re right. If he got this far, he must have been working like hell to do it.”
They continued to work their way up the rough track, keeping an eye out for signs that they might be closing in on Nemov.
“I didn’t think turkeys could fly,” Taylor said suddenly, seemingly still brooding over his close encounter with the local inhabitants. “You don’t think there are any bears or anything out here?”
“No way,” said Will, who did absolutely think this state forest had bears, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, and a whole lot of other critters Taylor didn’t need to know about.
He bit back a smile, thinking of their one and only camping trip in April. He’d heard Taylor’s story about his run-in with a bear a couple of times. He loved that story. It was classic Taylor.
He studied Taylor’s wide shoulders and trim Levi’s-clad butt as he scrambled agilely up a natural staircase of lichen-covered boulders. Watching him, Will was hit by a wave of affection — hell, of tenderness — that almost brought him to a halt.
He moved quickly to catch up to Taylor, falling into step beside him.
“Hey.”
Taylor shot him a sidewise look. “Hey.”
“You know…I mean, I know you know this, but I just want to say it in case… If I do take the assignment in Paris, it doesn’t mean that we’re not still together.”
“Other than the six thousand miles between us.”
“Five thousand six hundred and sixty-one miles.”
“But who’s counting.”
“MacAllister…Taylor…I’m not leaving you. I still want everything we talked about. I just…we’re just talking about postponing it for a little while.”
“Two years. Minimum.”
Will caught Taylor’s arm, bringing him to a halt. “I want this. I’ve worked hard for it.”
Taylor sucked in a sharp breath and then let it out slowly. “I know you do. I know you have.”
“It’s not about us. I haven’t changed my mind about us. I never will.”
The difficult part was watching how hard Taylor worked to hide his feelings, how hard he was trying to be fair about this. Will wasn’t sure he’d be that noble. He wanted to think he would, but he’d wondered how they — how he — would adjust when Taylor got his next overseas posting. It shook him that Taylor seemed so sure he’d turn such a posting down. How could he be sure when he had no idea what the assignment would be? And yet Will believed him. One thing he’d learned through the years: if Taylor said he would do something, it was as good as done.
“I…just don’t see why I can’t have both these things. We’re not the first couple to have to deal with a long-distance relationship.”
“I know.”
“It’s only two years. Look how fast the last five months have gone by.”
“I know.”
“We’ll spend our vacations together.”
“Yep.”
“We’ll spend every possible minute together. I promise you that.”
“Yep. You know it.”
“We’ll…work it out.”
“We will.” Taylor nodded. His mouth was firm and smiling, his eyes miserable.
Abruptly, Will let him go and turned to lead the way down the path.
* * * * *
It was Taylor who noticed the thin white trail of smoke drifting from the ruins of what had once been Hoskin’s Store.
A quarter of a mile back, they had passed through the remnant of an old graveyard, silvered wooden markers with names faded out by sun and rain, so, even before they spotted the first crumbling adobe structure, they’d known they were close to one of the ghost towns that dotted these mountains.
After the discovery of the graveyard, they’d stuck mostly to cover where they could find it. The sun was up by then, and the mist had cleared. They’d spotted helicopters in the blue distance, but nothing within signaling range. The National Guard and FEMA would have their hands full with the more populated areas, at least for the next couple of hours.
Taylor, who was in the lead again, raised his hand, gesturing to Will. Will acknowledged with a curt nod, and they split up, each taking a side of the wide, weedy dirt lane that was all that remained of Main Street.
There was nothing left of the majority of the buildings but gaping holes in the ground and rubble. Antique timber and genuine adobe had a way of disappearing from abandoned towns like this, only to turn up on trendy new construction sites.
Hoskin’s Store was the tallest remaining structure, and it was mostly just a foundation and three walls of white-painted brick. Not much of a shelter, but any port in a storm, Will supposed.
They moved quickly through the wreckage of the few broken buildings until they had positioned themselves outside the foundation of the store.
In the intersecting far corner of the two standing walls, Nemov knelt over a small fire. His trusty shotgun leaned against the wall within reach. A bedraggled Hedwig was huddled close to the feeble flames. She wore a jacket that was too big to belong to anyone but Nemov.
Taylor signaled to Will. Will signaled back and drew his weapon. He trained it on Nemov, who was busily throwing handfuls of what looked like bird’s nests into the fire.
“Morning,” Will said laconically, stepping out from behind the wall.
&nbs
p; Hedwig gasped. Nemov lunged for his shotgun.
“Hold it right there.” Taylor appeared behind the waist-high wall.
Nemov froze.
“Not a good feeling, is it?” Taylor said as Nemov gazed down the barrel of his SIG.
“No.”
Will started toward the fire and Hedwig.
“In fact, it’s pretty sickening thinking about what a bullet can do to you. Especially a .357 cartridge. Have you ever been shot?”
Nemov swallowed. “No.”
“I have. I don’t recommend it.”
Will listened to this exchange with half an ear. His attention was on Hedwig, who had her eye on Nemov’s shotgun. He didn’t like her expression.
“Let us make a deal,” Nemov said.
“Let us not,” Taylor returned, “and say we did.”
Hedwig sprang for the shotgun, but Will was faster. He dived, grabbed her by her ponytail, and dragged her back. She let out a squeal of pain and fury but stopped struggling, folding her arms protectively around her middle.
“Down, girl.”
Hedwig let off a stream of invectives that might have made a Russian drug lord blink. If he wasn’t already used to her winning ways. She finished inexplicably with, “You have no right!”
“You see,” Nemov said. “You should leave her with me. I will split the reward money with you.”
“What have I told you two about eating juniper berries for breakfast?” Will confiscated Nemov’s shotgun. “Why’d you uncuff her? It seems rash.”
“She could not climb in handcuffs.”
“Well, we’ll give her a helping hand with that.” Will reached for his handcuffs.
Hedwig gave a vicious but inaccurate kick at his legs. He jumped aside. Nemov laughed nastily.
“I’m really getting tired of you two,” Taylor commented. “You, the Mad Russian, take your — actually my — handcuffs out. Good. Now siddown, hands behind your head.”
Nemov slowly complied. Taylor reached across the wall, took the cuffs, and locked one end around Nemov’s hairy right wrist, looped the other through one of the rusted rods partially sticking out of the bricks, and locked it around Nemov’s left wrist.
“That ought to hold you for a bit.”
