K-9 Defense (HQR Intrigue)

by Elizabeth Heiter

  He’d assumed it had been an accident, an idiot driving an even more idiotic car for Alaska weather. But maybe it hadn’t been an accident at all. Maybe, right from the start, Kensie had been a target.

  “Kensie, what did you do when you got to town? Before Rebel saved you from that car?”

  She frowned at his change of topic, but answered anyway. “Not much. My plane landed and I rented a truck, then drove into town. I had to stop for directions a couple of times.”

  “Did you tell people about why you were here?”

  “Sure. I figured I might as well, in case someone knew something. Why?”

  Colter pointed through the trees again, at the station wagon. “I think that’s the car that nearly ran you down. I think word got around that you were here, looking for Alanna, and someone didn’t want you to find her.”

  Instead of fear, excitement shot across Kensie’s face. “This could be it,” she breathed.

  “We need to go back and get the police,” Colter told her, his gaze returning to the sign warning off trespassers.

  “But—”

  “If we’ve really found her, Kensie, it’s not going to do her any good to get ourselves killed.”

  She glanced over her shoulder, back behind where Rebel sat, to where Colter had his shotgun. Her gaze lingered on it a long moment before she nodded. “You’re right.”

  Not wanting to turn around in the Altiers’ driveway and draw attention, Colter shifted into reverse, hoping there was a wide enough gap in the trees somewhere nearby for him to change direction. The truck was just starting to move backward when Kensie blurted, “Wait!”

  Jamming his foot on the brake, Colter glanced back at the cabin. A group of kids had stepped outside and he scanned through them, looking for anyone who resembled Kensie.

  In a way, they all did, at least from a distance. Dark hair, slight olive tone to the skin. But as he scanned them, he realized none were the right age. The youngest girl looked to be about six, then there was a boy who was probably twelve, another girl who might have been sixteen and an older boy who had to be in his early twenties. They looked like siblings.

  Colter swore. “Kensie, Jasper might have seen that girl there, the oldest one. She looks a little bit like you. He might have mistaken her for Alanna.”

  But she was too young. It wasn’t her.

  From how pale she’d gone, Kensie must have realized the same thing. He reached for her hand again, all his focus on apologizing for bringing her out here for nothing.

  “Colter,” she breathed, pulling her hand free and pointing toward the cabin.

  When he glanced back, he saw that the oldest boy was no longer there. In his place was a girl, about nineteen, with dark hair, cut to shoulder length. She had strong, thick eyebrows and lush, full lips like Kensie.

  And Colter recognized her. It was the girl he’d seen in the passenger seat of the truck that had flown past him in town, when Danny had cornered Kensie. At first glance, he’d even mistaken her for Kensie.

  “It’s her.” Kensie’s voice was barely above a whisper, and he could hear the tears and joy in it at once. “It’s Alanna.”

  She reached for the door handle and he grabbed her arm, stopping her. “Kensie, we still need the pol—”

  Before he could finish his sentence, a loud boom, like a firecracker that had gone off way too close, split the air. Colter recognized the sound immediately: a rifle.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Kensie had found her. After fourteen years of searching, she’d finally found Alanna.

  She was still reeling as she stared at Alanna through the forest. Her body felt frozen with disbelief, but her mind had figured it out and was screaming at her to move. To run, grab Alanna and get out of there fast.

  Except Colter was yanking the truck into reverse. Then it was speeding backward fast enough to wrench Kensie hard against her belt and send Rebel sliding into her seat with a yelp.

  And it still wasn’t fast enough. Another boom blasted the air, making Kensie flinch as the front of their vehicle erupted with smoke.

  “We’re hit,” Colter said, his voice way too calm.

  Kensie stared through the smoke, realizing the blast had come from a rifle. The truck had been hit.

  Panic started to break through her daze. Fear for herself, Colter and Rebel, and desperation not to lose Alanna now that she’d finally found her.

  Up near the front of the cabin, the oldest boy who’d gone inside was back, pointing at their truck and yelling something. The woman next to him—in her early forties, who looked like his mother—lifted that rifle again.

  “Colter—” she started to warn him.

  “Get down!”

  Before he’d finished speaking, Rebel’s teeth were gripping the arm of her coat, tugging down until Kensie was scrunched awkwardly with her head between the seats.

  But what about Colter? He was still sitting straight, jaw clenched tight as he steered the truck. A visible target.

  The smoke pouring out of the engine was getting thicker and darker, and her fear intensified. “Is the engine going to blow?”

  “No,” Colter answered tightly, his knuckles white against the wheel as the truck sputtered, barely moving even though Kensie could see his foot jammed down on the gas.

  Then, the rifle blasted again and the whole right side of the truck sank.

  Kensie let out a shriek as Colter swore, struggling with the wheel as he turned the truck directly toward the trees. “She got the tire. Climb into the back seat.”

  “What?”

  “Do it now. Hurry!”

  Hands shaking, she fumbled with her seatbelt as he fought with the wheel, until finally she realized what he was doing. Angling the truck the other way, so his side was facing the rifle and giving her more protection.

  “Colter—”

  “I’m right behind you. Go!”

  Kensie launched herself into the back, squashed up next to Rebel, who’d been smart enough to get down on the floor behind her seat.

  Colter twisted, jamming himself between the front seats. His shoulders were too broad and he seemed to get stuck, but he stretched his arm out and grabbed his shotgun.

  Kensie tried to press even closer to Rebel, making room, and Rebel squeezed tighter into the door without complaint. “Get back here,” she demanded.

  But Colter was going the other way. He stayed low, but he shimmied back into the front.

  She yanked on the sleeve of his coat, even as he popped open the glove compartment, grabbing a box of shells. He jammed several into the shotgun, stuffed the rest into his pocket and told her, “When I tell you to, open that door and make a run for the trees.”

  “Colter—”

  “Get ready,” he barked, lifting the shotgun.

  There was another ear-splitting blast and the windshield shattered, spraying glass into the truck. It pricked her arms and Kensie shrieked. Then she gagged as heavy, dark smoke rushed into the cabin.

  Colter. Had he been hit?

  Kensie twisted, lifting her head, trying to get a better look at him. Almost instantly his hand was there, shoving her head back down. But not before she saw two things. Colter wasn’t hit. And the woman who’d been shooting at them was now running toward the truck, rifle still raised.

  “Colter,” she warned, choking on the smoke, her words coming out gravelly, in a voice that didn’t sound like it belonged to her. “She’s coming!”

  “Plan hasn’t changed,” he said gruffly, calmly. “Grab the handle. You’re about to go.”

  “But—”

  “On the count of three! One, two, three, go!”

  Heart thundering, pounding hard enough to hurt her chest—or maybe that was the smoke she was inhaling—Kensie shoved open the door.

  “Go, Rebel! Trees!” Colter yelled.


  Rebel shot out the door, and Kensie scrambled after her even as her mind screamed for Colter.

  She heard the blast of a shotgun, once, twice, as she choked on the fresh air, as she took huge, desperate strides. She ran in the path Rebel made, the dog easily outpacing her.

  “Colter!” She thought she screamed for him, but maybe it was only in her mind as another boom seemed to make the ground shake.

  Then pain raced up her leg, intense as fire, and Kensie crashed to the ground.

  * * *

  KENSIE WAS DOWN.

  Colter’s whole world narrowed to just her form, falling into the snow. The edges of his vision darkened as he gasped for breath, and the blast of a sniper rifle went off somewhere above him. Then there was a crushing weight on his chest, Rebel’s paws slamming into him. He barely had time to register any of it before he was falling, falling...

  Colter’s hands darted out, reaching for something, anything to break his fall. The shotgun he was holding smacked the truck seat and smashed his fingers. But it made no sense. There was no truck here, only debris. Only the blasted-apart remains of a transport vehicle, the unexpected grave of too many soldiers.

  “Colter!”

  Kensie’s panicked voice broke through his confusion, pulled him out of that nightmare overseas where he’d lost all his brothers. Brought him back to her.

  Only he wasn’t with her. She was shot and he was inside a truck that was rapidly filling with smoke. And although he’d fired at the woman with the rifle, it was too hard to see through the black smoke. He had no idea if he’d hit her.

  Move, his brain screamed. Colter gasped for breath, trying to subdue the panic as he choked on smoke. From a distance, Rebel’s bark reached him, as if she was urging him to hurry.

  It was a tight fit between the seats, but even with the smoke obscuring everything, he didn’t want to make too big a target. He was no good to Kensie if he was dead.

  Colter shoved and twisted, finally managing to get his shoulders between the seats. He dragged the shotgun behind him, the only weapon he had. At the open back door, he paused, getting a better view of the cabin.

  The woman was still standing, but she was no longer shooting at them. Instead, she was taking cover behind the door, pulling the youngest two kids with her. Still standing in the yard was the oldest boy, who was holding a pistol, taking aim at Kensie.

  “No!” His voice mingled with someone else’s and before Colter could launch free of the vehicle, the girl they thought was Alanna tackled the boy.

  Colter didn’t wait. Leaving his cane behind and gripping the shotgun carefully, he darted out of the truck, dropping to his haunches beside Kensie. Her calf was bleeding, but it wasn’t the kind of wound made by a rifle. It could have been ricochet, but most likely, it was a bullet from the pistol.

  Relief gave him his first full breath. The cold air hurt, but seemed to clear some of the smoke from his lungs. Keeping hold of the shotgun while lifting her wasn’t easy, but he knew they were probably going to need a weapon. His right leg trembled, pain burning his thigh, and he prayed it wouldn’t give out on him.

  Thankfully it held as he draped Kensie over his left shoulder and started to run. “Go, girl!” he told Rebel, who was ahead of them, in the cover of the trees.

  His dog took off, darting from one tree to the next, a blur of brown and black fur. She left an obvious trail of paw prints in the snow and Colter knew he would be doing the same. They’d be easy to track.

  There was only one main road in and out of the area, the one they’d come in on. They’d be easy targets there, but he wasn’t sure this was much better. He hadn’t given Rebel instructions other than to run, which was all they could do right now. There was no time to strategize with a family carrying weapons potentially right behind them. But they were heading deeper into the wilderness, toward the edge of a mountain, farther away from help or shelter.

  His leg throbbed, shaking each time he put weight on it, especially at the pace he was going. Every twenty feet, Rebel stopped, glancing back at them, waiting for him to catch up.

  Kensie was light. He’d once run with a fellow soldier, someone double her weight, over his shoulder for two miles. But that was before his leg had been irreparably damaged. Now it was all he could manage to keep his grip on her and the shotgun, keep his feet from sliding out from under him. It got even worse once the ground started to slope downward.

  He wanted to glance behind him, see if the woman with the rifle or the boy with the pistol were following. But he knew if he did, he’d lose his balance. With each step, the slope was getting steeper. He wanted to double back, go the other way. Seek higher ground, the way he’d been trained. But there was no chance of that. It was too steep now, and it would take them right back toward the Altiers.

  He needed a plan, because they’d managed to head right down the side of a mountain, when he’d hoped there’d be a straight route alongside the edge. Anyone standing at the top of the mountain would have a good view of them, no matter the trees. Then again, the trees were getting thicker the farther down they went. And a moving target wasn’t easy to hit. He needed to move faster.

  “I can run!”

  Kensie’s voice penetrated his thoughts and he realized she’d been repeating it, her words muffled against his back. But he also knew it was wishful thinking on her part. She’d taken a bullet to the calf. She might be able to push herself for a while, but he didn’t want to test that theory now. Not while they were still so close to the cabin.

  He didn’t respond. He couldn’t. With every step, the mountain was getting steeper, until he found himself leaning backward for leverage, slowing his steps so they wouldn’t both go tumbling down. Up ahead even Rebel had slowed, and he realized she, too, had started to limp. Her back leg was acting up because she’d pushed it too hard.

  Colter wanted to use the trees for support, grab them to slow his descent. But he couldn’t, not with Kensie slung over his left shoulder and the shotgun barely grasped in his right hand.

  The cold burned his throat and lungs and made his eyes water. The tears seemed to freeze on his cheeks, the wind brutal as the slope continued to get steeper. It was too steep. He slowed even more, taking slightly sideways steps, back and forth, to help him navigate down.

  Rebel was handling the terrain better, but she’d looped back for him, sticking by his side. He wanted to tell her to go ahead, but he couldn’t manage to get the command out. And he wasn’t sure she’d obey it even if he did, especially when his bad leg buckled slightly, and his foot slid dangerously forward. He managed to catch himself by angling his free shoulder right into the trunk of a tree. The branches whipped against his face, against Kensie’s legs hanging over his chest. It ripped the shotgun out of his hand, sent it tumbling down the mountain, bouncing off trees as it crashed downward. The path he and Kensie would take if he slipped again.

  Keeping his shoulder pressed into the tree, Colter regained his footing. Lungs screaming, heart thundering, he stopped, finally glancing back. Scanning the ridge of the mountain, he saw nothing. No woman with a rifle, no boy with a pistol.

  He strained to hear over the racing of his heart, but he couldn’t make out the sound of an engine, either. Not a truck or even a snowmobile, which would be much more agile to come after them and which the Altiers surely had, living so far from resources.

  “Rebel,” he wheezed, tapping his thigh.

  His dog scooted under the tree with them and Colter eased down, lowering Kensie off his shoulders. Setting her down made his legs tremble violently. When he had her on the ground, he allowed himself to slide down, too, praying he’d be able to get back up.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, her eyes huge, before he could ask her the same thing.

  “Let me see your leg,” he said instead of answering.

  She scooted around, grimacing as she lifted her left calf onto his
lap so he could get a look at it.

  Her jeans were saturated with blood below the knee. The bullet had ripped a hole through her pants that he didn’t want to open further in this weather. But he could see the swollen, damaged skin that was exposed, and the injury was still pumping out blood.

  Colter probed it as gently as he could. There was no exit wound. Probably because of the distance, maybe the angle. He couldn’t tell where the bullet was, if it had lodged right below the entrance or if it had ricocheted around inside of her, redirected by bone until it made a mess.

  He had basic medic training, but he didn’t have the supplies to deal with a bullet wound. All he could do was stop the bleeding and get her to a hospital as soon as possible.

  The second he peeled off his winter coat, his body tensed up as the cold penetrated deeper. Ignoring it, he peeled off his shirt, then the undershirt he wore beneath. Swearing, he quickly pulled his shirt back on, zipping his coat over it. Then he wrapped the undershirt around Kensie’s leg, knotting it tightly enough to make her yelp.

  “Sorry. I’ve got to stop the bleeding.”

  Thankfully, it did stop. Not instantly, but his shirt went from white to a pale pink and then didn’t change. He prayed it would stay that way if she had to run on it. Because he wasn’t sure he could carry her out of here.

  He wanted to stay under this tree, rest a while. But as Kensie traced a finger over the welts on his face from the branches, he peeked out from underneath the tree. Still no sign of the family on the top of the mountain. But the longer they stayed in one spot without moving, the more the cold would seep into them. The more likely they were to slowly die from exposure.

  “Do you see them?” Kensie whispered, reminding him of the problem of running: the possibility that one or both of them would get shot.

  “No.”

  “They’re not coming after us.” Kensie’s shoulders slumped and moisture filled her eyes. “They’re running. They know we found Alanna, and now they have time to disappear.”