The Groom's Stand-In (Special Edition)

by Gina Wilkins

  Donovan’s eyes held hers for a moment, and then he looked away.

  He had never lied to her, Chloe mused. He simply chose not to answer some of her questions. And maybe that was just as well.

  Still, she felt the need to ask just one more question. “Do you think Bryan will find us?”

  He answered that one without hesitation. “He’ll find us.”

  “You seem to have a lot of confidence in him.”

  “I do,” he answered simply.

  “I hope you’re right.”

  After a few more minutes of listening to the rain fall, Donovan stirred. “How are your feet?”

  “Numb. I can’t really feel them right now.”

  “Still thirsty?”

  “Not enough to go out in the rain,” she answered with a faint smile.

  “I’d go get you some water, but I don’t have anything to carry it in.”

  He was so determined to take care of her. A bit wistfully, she found herself wondering if it was only because it was his job to do so. “That’s okay.”

  “I wish I had something for you to eat. I guess we could chew on some acorns or something.”

  That made her laugh. “No, thanks. I’m not quite that hungry yet.”

  “You have a nice laugh,” he murmured, his gaze on her smiling mouth.

  Her smile immediately froze.

  Donovan looked away. “Uh—Bryan thinks so, too. He mentioned it when he first told me about you.”

  Bryan. The name slid between them like an invisible wall.

  Funny. Chloe could hardly bring Bryan’s face to her mind at the moment.

  The rain eventually slowed and then stopped. Chloe inched to the cave opening to peer out again. Water dripped steadily off the leaves of the branches that nearly obscured their hideaway. Swollen by the downpour, the stream ran more swiftly than before. A deer and her fawn drank downstream, then turned and disappeared gracefully into the trees. The sky was still low and gray, but the rain seemed to have ended for a while.

  Under any other circumstances, Chloe might have been enjoying this encounter with unspoiled nature.

  She wasn’t surprised when Donovan said, “We should get moving. Before it starts raining again.”

  Though it wasn’t easy, she nodded. “I’m ready.”

  “You’re sure you can walk?”

  That brought her chin up. “I can walk.”

  “It’s going to be wet. Slippery in places.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  He placed a hand on her arm when she started to rise. “Chloe—I’m sorry this happened to you. You don’t deserve this.”

  “Neither do you. So let’s get going.”

  His mouth quirked. “Right behind you, General.”

  His rare flashes of humor always caught her off guard. With a chuckle, she let him help her to her feet. Resisting an impulse to curse against the pain that shot up from her feet, she fell into step behind Donovan.

  Ten steps at a time, she told herself. She would make this journey ten steps at a time.

  Chapter Seven

  Cold waves of anger poured off the black-haired man behind the desk, seemingly lowering the temperature in the room a good ten degrees. Bryan Falcon didn’t lose his temper very often—but when he did, the people around him usually ducked for cover.

  Jason Colby didn’t duck, but he kept his voice as soothing as possible as he completed the report. “We had a possible sighting last night of the van the witness at the diner reported seeing at the same time Donovan and Chloe disappeared. It was reported speeding in north-central Arkansas by a state trooper who lost sight of it after it took a series of sharp turns on twisting side roads. That’s also the general area to which we traced the ransom call. There are dozens of hunting cabins and isolated rural buildings where they could be hiding. If they haven’t moved on, of course.”

  Falcon studied his security officer through narrowed, midnight-blue eyes. “We’ll assume for now that they have not. It wouldn’t be easy to take Donovan in the first place, much less to keep moving him around, so we’ll concentrate the search in that area.”

  “The St. Francis National Forest covers about a million acres, but I think we can narrow it down more than that. I’ve marked off several search grids, and the teams have already been set into motion.”

  “I want them found, Jason.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In the meantime, I’ll keep stalling the callers. They’re supposed to contact me again tomorrow. I asked for twenty-four hours to get the ransom together without arousing media suspicion.”

  Jason frowned. “They didn’t argue with you?”

  “The guy made a show of blustering and threatening me, but yeah, they gave it to me.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Exactly what I thought. Why do you think the guy would sound almost relieved about a delay?”

  “Problems on their end.”

  “Maybe.”

  Jason cleared his throat and phrased his next question very carefully. “Is it possible that they’re willing to stall—because something has happened to their hostages?”

  The only change in his boss’s expression was the muscle that jumped in his clenched jaw. “Just keep looking for them.”

  Because Jason had known Bryan long enough to recognize the genuine pain behind the stern control, he nodded and rose quickly to his feet. “We’ll find them, Bryan.”

  Bryan stared at him without really seeing him. “Yes, we’ll find them.”

  He would accept no other possibility.

  The rain didn’t hold off for long. Donovan and Chloe had been walking maybe an hour when it started again. They ducked under a jutting bluff for cover, but it provided little protection, and both of them got pretty wet. Chloe tried to hide her shivering from Donovan, but she suspected he knew she was cold. He just didn’t mention it because there was nothing he could do about it except keep her moving, which he did as soon as the rain stopped a second time.

  She was thirsty again, and so hungry that her stomach rumbled and her head ached. She wanted a cold glass of water; a nice, long shower; a hot meal and a soft bed—in that order. And a toothbrush, she added, running her tongue over her teeth. She’d done her best to rinse her mouth and finger-scrub her teeth at the stream they were following through the forest, but she wanted a toothbrush and her favorite mint-flavored toothpaste.

  In a futile attempt to distract herself from her discomfort, she made an effort to concentrate on the beauty of nature—which meant trying to ignore the heavy gray sky crowding down on them. Had there been sunshine, the spring leaves would have been a soft, fresh green. The hills and steep valleys were dotted with dogwoods and redbuds in full bloom. She saw an occasional bird or squirrel, but most of the wildlife seemed to be holed up from the dismal weather.

  She’d taken her eyes off her feet while she surveyed the area. She tripped over a thick vine, and for once Donovan wasn’t fast enough to catch her. She went down hard, landing on her hands and knees.

  He was beside her instantly. “Are you all right?”

  Embarrassed, she straightened, brushing mud and wet leaves off her hands. “I’m fine.”

  “Let me see.” He took her hands in his, turning her palms up so he could examine them. Fortunately, the ground was still soft from the rain and only her pride had been injured in the fall. The knees of her khaki slacks were damp and filthy now, but the fabric had protected her skin.

  Still cradling her hands in his, Donovan frowned down at her. “Can you walk?”

  “Of course I can walk.” She rolled her eyes. “I just stumbled, Donovan. I’m fine, really.”

  His face had settled into the rock-hard mask he used to conceal his emotions, but she recognized the glint of anger in his eyes. Though he was still a mystery to her in many ways, she was getting to know him better now. Well enough to know that he was blaming himself for letting her fall. Typical of him.

  “You shouldn’t have to be goin
g through this,” he muttered. “When we get out of here and I get my hands on the people behind this….”

  She squeezed his hands gently with her muddied ones. “We’ll get out,” she said confidently. “And then you can take steps to get justice for what we’ve been through—legally, of course.”

  She didn’t quite catch his growl of response, but she had a feeling he wasn’t too concerned about the legality of the revenge he was plotting.

  “Let’s keep walking,” she suggested. “I’ll be more careful.”

  They moved onward, but this time Donovan was never more than an arm’s length away from her. Chloe was both annoyed and reluctantly amused by his obvious assumption that she could hardly take care of herself. She noted that his steps were slowing, too, and that he was limping almost as badly as she was. She took no pleasure in his discomfort, but she focused on it occasionally to remind herself that if he could keep going, she could, too.

  She glanced up at the sky, noting that it looked as though the rain could start again at any minute. As if to confirm her prediction, a single fat drop landed on her cheek, sliding off her chin. “How long do you think it’s been since we left the cave?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe four hours. We’ve got a few more hours until dark.”

  “We’ve walked so far. It seems like we’d have come across some sign of civilization.”

  “Didn’t you read about that little girl who was lost in a forest in north Arkansas a year or so ago? She simply slipped away from her grandparents during an outing, and it took hundreds of searchers three or four days to find her. Even then it took the men who found her nearly six hours to return her to her family—and they were riding mules. The forest is big and dense, and the terrain so uneven that it’s easy to get lost here and hard to be found.”

  She swallowed. For once, Donovan had told her more than she wanted to know. She took some comfort in remembering that the child had been unharmed when she was found, even after several nights and days with no food.

  She tucked her head and kept moving, looking only at her feet now. She wouldn’t risk falling again—and there was nothing ahead except more trees and bluffs. Occasionally, Donovan helped her up a steep incline or over a log or across a large, mossy boulder that blocked their way, but for the most part they traveled in silence.

  They were walking along a ridge of rock so narrow that they had to go single-file when Donovan came to a stop so abruptly that she nearly barreled into him. “What is it?” she asked, craning to see around him.

  “A cabin. More of a lean-to, actually.”

  She was looking in the same direction he was, toward a heavy tangle of brush on the other side of a deep, erosion-carved crevasse. Water ran through the crevasse—the same stream they’d been more or less following all day. She didn’t see any sign of a building. “Where?”

  “There.” He nodded toward the heaviest section of brush. “It’s almost covered with vines, but it’s there.”

  She thought she saw it now, a rickety structure made of boards and metal. “Abandoned,” she said with a sigh. No help there.

  “Maybe.” His whole body alert, Donovan seemed to be studying the area intently. Warily.

  She lifted her eyebrows. “What are you looking for?”

  “That shelter probably belongs to someone who grows illegal crops in the nearest clearing. It’s fairly common in areas this isolated.”

  “Marijuana?” Chloe whispered, her eyes wide.

  He nodded.

  “Do you think they’re still here?” Shrinking back into the shadow of a tree behind her, she looked around for crazed drug growers with shotguns.

  She was relieved when Donovan shook his head. “I think the shelter’s been abandoned. I don’t see any signs of recent activity. It’s still too cool outside for agricultural activities, anyway.”

  A sudden, exciting thought occurred to her, making her clutch Donovan’s arm. “There must be a road that leads to civilization from here. Whoever built this shelter had to have a way to get here.”

  “There’s probably an old logging road or a rough trail of some sort nearby,” he agreed, looking as though he’d already considered that possibility.

  “We can follow it out.”

  “We’ll have to be careful, but that’s exactly what we’ll do.”

  He moved toward the shelter and she started to follow, but he motioned for her to remain where she was. “I want to check the place out. You wait here until I’m sure it’s safe.”

  “What are you expecting to find?”

  He shrugged. “If we’re lucky—nothing. But there could be animals. Or booby traps.”

  She moistened her lips. “Booby traps?”

  “Drug farmers are notoriously paranoid about being raided by the feds. It’s not at all uncommon for them to rig primitive but effective security systems.”

  “But what if you—”

  “I know what to look for,” he interrupted, speaking over his shoulder. “Stay put. This won’t take long.”

  Chewing her lip, she sank to the ground beneath the big tree, knowing she was fairly well hidden in the shadows. It felt good to sit again, but she couldn’t relax because she worried about Donovan blundering into a dangerous situation.

  Not that Donovan ever seemed to “blunder,” she mentally amended. She’d never met anyone who seemed more competent, more fully in control. Though she hadn’t truly felt safe since they’d been kidnapped in that parking lot—was it really just over twenty-four hours ago?—she’d trusted Donovan to take care of her, and he had. Their captors had greatly underestimated him. She didn’t make that mistake.

  What had he done, she wondered, to make him an expert on primitive booby traps? Or opening handcuffs with hairpins? Or hand-to-hand combat?

  He had told her he entered the military straight out of high school, and there had been a gap between his leaving the military and going to work for Bryan. He’d been evasive about what he’d done during those years. Chloe couldn’t help but be curious now.

  Donovan wasn’t out of her sight for long. Emerging from the brush-covered lean-to, he strode toward the shallow ravine that separated them. He looked satisfied, she decided. Apparently his search had revealed no dangers.

  “It’s clear,” he said, still several yards away from her. “And even better—I found food.”

  “Food?” She pushed herself to her feet, her stomach growling in anticipation. “Did you say food?”

  Still making his way toward her, he nodded. “Some canned fruit, a few canned vegetables. The cans are dusty, but intact. They haven’t been here too long—probably since last summer. It should be safe to—”

  The words were cut off when he stepped unsuspectingly into a deep hole just before he reached the crevasse. His right leg disappeared to the knee, and he went down hard. His choked cry of pain brought her heart into her throat as she ran toward him, her socks sliding on the damp ground. “Donovan? Are you all right?”

  “It’s my leg,” he answered through clenched teeth, holding his right leg with both hands.

  “Your leg?” She knelt beside him, one hand on his back. “Do you think it’s broken?”

  “I think there’s a good chance. Damn it.”

  Apparently he’d stepped into a sinkhole created by soft dirt being washed away from an area of rocks and tree limbs. The heavy rain that morning had softened the ground around the hole, letting it give way when he’d set his foot down. A sharp-edged rock had sliced into his pants leg, and blood made a large, dark splotch on the fabric.

  “Oh, my God.” She helped him stretch the injured leg in front of him, and then knelt beside it to examine the damage. Pulling the torn fabric out of the way, she was relieved to determine that the cut wasn’t deep, though it was bleeding steadily. Nor had broken bone punctured the skin. She couldn’t feel a break when she ran her fingertips lightly over his shin, but that didn’t mean the bone wasn’t cracked. Without an X-ray, there was no way to tell for certain.


  “We need to stop this bleeding first.” She pulled off her denim shirt, then reached for the hem of her coral T-shirt. “Turn your head.”

  Though his face was pale and his mouth set in a tight line of pain, Donovan still managed a quizzical look at her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “We need fabric for a bandage. I have an extra shirt, so turn your head.” No way was she stripping to her undies with him looking. He wasn’t hurt that badly.

  When she was sure he was looking away, she pulled the T-shirt over her head. The cool, damp air swept her skin, tightening her nipples beneath her thin cotton bra and making goose bumps parade down her arms. She snatched up her denim shirt and shoved her arms into the sleeves, drawing it snugly around her. She’d lost a button at some point, but she fastened the ones that remained.

  She took the T-shirt in both hands and pulled, trying to rip it. She discovered a moment later that she had invested in a very high-quality fabric. Though it stretched, it wouldn’t tear. She muttered a mild curse and tried again.

  Donovan reached out to take the shirt from her hands. A few efficient pulls and he had the shirt in shreds.

  She sighed and accepted the coral strips from him. “Thank you.”

  Fortunately, his black pants fit loosely, so she was able to push the right leg up and out of the way. The cut looked clean, and the edges even, so she wrapped one strip of fabric around his leg and tied it securely.

  “That should keep the cut clean, anyway,” she murmured. “Now what are we going to do about the break?”

  He’d made a visible effort to force his pain aside and speak without any show of emotion. “We’ll splint it. I saw some short boards lying next to the cabin—probably left over from when it was built. We can use a couple of those to brace my leg and keep the bone from moving if it is broken. We’ll secure them with strips of cloth. It won’t be ideal, but maybe it’ll brace my leg when I walk. I’ll rig up some crutches or something to help bear my weight.”

  She frowned at him. “You’re not planning to start walking again?”

  “We aren’t going to fly out of here.”