His limbs started shaking, and he staggered to one knee.
His father rushed forward. “Are you, okay, son?”
The Federal Agent lunged for Tom, but some instinct must have warned him, and he whirled toward her, and the gun went off. She crumpled into the snow.
TJ gaped in horror.
Tom raised the weapon to shoot her again, but TJ rushed his father.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Novak rode as fast as he dared while scanning his surroundings. The tracks were getting blown away or covered in fresh snow, and he needed to use every sense and skill he’d ever developed to follow them under these conditions. He needed to find Charlotte.
He couldn’t believe he’d left her feeling unsure about how much he cared. Hell, “cared” was total bullshit. He “cared” for Charlotte more than the woman he’d married.
The thought of losing her ate at him. Corroded his mind. He wasn’t this cursed. No one was this cursed. He’d find her. He’d save her. He would rip the head off any fucker who hurt her again, including himself.
After that?
Who knew. But he was willing to at least fight for the chance to be with her.
The sound of a gunshot had him pivoting the horse east while his heart twisted nastily inside his chest. He spotted the trail ahead but cut higher up the mountain, cresting a small ridge behind a dense stand of conifers. He scanned the scene below, and his entire being laser focused on the most important mission of his life.
There.
A small group of people were visible through the branches.
Tom Harrison. TJ Harrison. A bolt of surprise went through him when he spotted Kayla, but he didn’t waste time trying to figure it out.
Where was Charlotte?
He kept low, urging the horse forward, but using the trees to keep out of the line of sight.
Then he spotted Charlotte curled up on the ground with a patch of scarlet staining the snow beneath her.
His mind was screaming in denial, but his body kept going through muscle memory alone. Pressing forward. Making tactical decisions even as fear for her threatened to consume him.
TJ was trying to stop his father putting another bullet in Charlotte. They were struggling for control of the gun. As soon as TJ lost that fight, Charlotte would get a bullet in the head.
Kayla was screaming.
The gun went off, and TJ sagged at the knees.
The tableau in front of Novak hung in suspended animation even as he galloped toward them.
Tom Harrison dropped the weapon and held onto his son, both hands visible and empty, otherwise Novak would have put a bullet in his head.
He pulled the horse to a stop one-handed and leapt off. He tackled Tom and made him release TJ, clamping the man’s one wrist and then the other behind his back and securing him with handcuffs. Novak scooped up Tom’s pistol and stuffed it in one of his pockets.
“Help him!” Tom screamed in anguish.
Charlotte rolled onto her back, panting. “Glad you could make it to the party, Payne.” She smiled, braver than anyone he knew. “I knew you’d come.”
Her faith humbled him, made emotions and gratitude swell inside, mixing with something else. Something larger and scarier.
“Are you shot?” Novak parted Charlotte’s jacket and felt fifteen thousand different bolts of relief when he touched the ballistic vest.
She grinned and grimaced at the same time and waved her glove at him, and he realized that was where the blood was coming from. “Clipped my fingers. Hurts like a bitch, but I’m okay now I’ve got my breath back.”
The fact she was hurt but not dead loosened his normal reluctance to put himself out there. His normal cowardice. He took a leap because she wasn’t dead, but she could easily have been. He leaned down and quickly kissed her mouth. “I’m not ready to cool a damn thing between you and me, SSA Blood.”
And still it didn’t feel like he was telling her everything, but they had to get out of this blizzard before they all died from exposure.
“Tend to my son!” Tom rolled in the snow.
Charlotte scooted over to where TJ lay in the snow, clutching his abdomen. “Kayla, I need you to come over here and help me.” Charlotte tugged the straps of TJ’s backpack off his shoulders and tried to open the fasteners one-handed. Kayla helped even though she was shaking.
Tom was trying to wriggle closer to TJ. “Help him! Help my son!”
Novak looked from the older man to the younger while he radioed for a medivac and updated the others. The weather was such he didn’t think it would be possible to get the helicopter all the way out here. As he looked at the two men, he saw no family resemblance at all, not in size, shape, coloring, or features. Suddenly, it all clicked into place. The secure compound, the refusal to talk to the Feds, the desperate escape plan regardless of the cost in terms of human lives.
“Sonofabitch,” Novak said, going to his knees while still keeping the older man in sight.
He checked for an exit wound, making TJ shriek in pain. “Sorry kid.” Yup. There was blood on the snow behind him. “Pass me something to press against this,” he asked Charlotte.
“There’s a first aid kit in the side of my pack. I wasn’t expecting to get shot though. What the hell, Dad?” TJ’s voice was tight, mouth stretched in pain.
“I’m sorry, son. I’m so sorry. It was an accident. You shouldn’t have grabbed it!”
Charlotte tossed Novak a red pouch and a survival blanket. She was doing everything one handed which made him think her hand was worse than she was letting on. But the kid might die without rapid emergency measures.
Novak pressed some random piece of clothing against the kid’s front while he turned him to tend his back.
“There’s a couple of packets of QuikClot in there,” TJ told him, wheezing.
Novak grunted. Despite the freezing temps, he lifted up all TJ’s layers and cleaned up the welling bullet wound he found there. He ripped open a pack of the hemostatic agent giving it a few seconds to work its magic. It might keep the kid alive until he could be transferred to a trauma center, depending on what else the bullet had hit on the way through. Novak pressed clean gauze against the wound, taping it, then rolled TJ onto his back, ignoring the groans of pain. He needed to stop the bleeding so he repeated the process on the entry wound while Tom Harrison wept.
“I’m so sorry, son.”
“He’s not your son,” Novak snapped.
Tom’s jaw fell. TJ rolled his head in confusion.
The trees swayed violently.
“Can you walk?” Novak asked Charlotte.
“Yup.” She was being forcibly upbeat, which was classic Charlotte. He gently grabbed her wrist and tugged off the glove, making sure she couldn’t see the wound. Shit. He hid his concern and poured another pack of clotting agent onto her mangled fingers and wrapped her hand in gauze. Then he zipped her jacket closed and pulled his big mitt over her injured hand to protect her from frostbite. He kissed her again. “I was worried when I realized you weren’t with the others.”
Worried didn’t begin to cover the emotions that had zapped his being when he’d discovered she was missing.
“My son is bleeding out while you waste time!”
“Whose fault is that?” Novak growled. “And like I said, give it up, he’s not your son.”
“Yes, I am.” TJ sounded bitter.
Novak looked at Kayla. “I need you to stay beside SSA Blood and keep putting one foot in front of the other until we find help. Can you do that?”
The girl looked like a gentle breeze would knock her flat, but she nodded. The horse he’d ridden up here had run away. Novak hoped the animal knew its way home.
He rummaged through TJ’s backpack and found a small tent. He extricated it from the case and spread the orange material on the ground next to the injured young man. Then he rolled the kid onto the canvas.
“That’s a good idea. Undo my hands, and I can help pull him. He’s all I’ve got left,” Tom said
desperately.
Novak stared him down. “He’s not yours, Tom. You know he’s not yours, and I know he’s not yours.”
“What do you mean?” Charlotte asked.
“Touch DNA came back from Brenna’s body, and one of the hits was to a missing person case. Start walking.” He directed the last order at Tom. “That’s why Tom here and his wife moved far away from civilization and locked themselves up in a concrete bunker. Not because they thought the world was ending, but because they were hiding from the authorities. It’s why Tom wouldn’t talk to us. He was terrified we’d figure it out, if and when we checked TJ’s DNA.”
“Dad?” TJ held tight to his wound. “What’s he talking about?”
“Nothing, son. He’s a liar. All Feds are liars, and they’ll say anything to try to turn us against one another.” Tom’s lips pulled back in anger.
Charlotte looked contemplative as she dragged TJ’s pack onto her good shoulder. Because it was evidence, and she insisted on doing her job.
It was in that moment he had his blinding epiphany. He loved this woman. And he’d probably never recover when she decided it was over between them.
Do the job. Get her to safety. Suffer later.
He forced this new and unwanted reality out of his mind. He wished nothing more than to kick Tom Harrison’s ass all the way back down the mountain, but he needed to get these people to safety as this blizzard was beginning to shut down visibility. If he didn’t get them out of here soon, they might all die.
* * *
Charlotte knew her hand was badly injured but ignored it. The cold helped. Having Novak save the day and declare he was interested in exploring this thing between them helped. She was thrilled, but part of her was churning with confusion. She’d wanted him to say more. To declare undying love for her. Even though he wasn’t the kind of man she’d planned to marry. She tried to picture that ideal future again, but the man in her life kept morphing into Novak wearing one of his challenging grins.
How could she have fallen for a man who was so wrong for her?
Snow stung her eyes and brought her back to trying to survive and get the hell out of this storm.
She used her good hand to assist Kayla. Tom Harrison was using his bound hands to hoist one side of the tarp that cradled TJ up the side of the hill. Novak did most of the work. Tom was trying to help.
She watched Novak move, admiring everything about his strong physique and the competent way he moved. He was smart too. Really smart. She was stupid to have underestimated and undervalued him. He might not talk much, but the neurons were firing just fine in that brain of his. He’d figured out Tom Harrison’s motivation and suddenly, everything the man had done made sense. TJ being a stolen baby was the Black Swan they’d been looking for. That was the one piece of information they hadn’t known they hadn’t known.
In the relative calm between a thick stand of conifers, she pressed Tom Harrison for answers. He’d been willing to shoot her in cold blood to protect his secret, to keep TJ with him no matter the cost. “Why did you steal a baby, Tom? What happened to your real son?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. You’re all liars!” Tom started sobbing.
Charlotte ignored his protestations. “It explains everything. Especially why TJ doesn’t look anything like you or your wife.”
“Shut up. Shut up.”
“Certainly why you freaked out when your CO told you to come out and talk to us. As soon as TJ was in the system you knew we’d figure it out. Did your wife kill the other child, Tom?”
He gasped. “No. He died.” He seemed to realize his admission was the end of the road. Although maybe that had been earlier, when he’d shot her.
“Our son died, and my wife was inconsolable. She couldn’t have any more babies. I thought she was going to die from grief, and I’d lose her too.” Tom glanced at TJ, but the kid wasn’t listening. The young man had passed out, and Charlotte was worried he wasn’t going to make it.
Novak put his back into dragging TJ’s inert form up another short incline before they started going downhill again, trying to retrace their original steps through the almost whiteout conditions.
“So you took someone else’s baby,” Charlotte shouted.
Kayla was failing fast. Charlotte grasped her arm. “You’ve got this, Kayla. Think of Brenna. Think of TJ. You can do this.”
“Is he going to be okay?” Kayla asked, squaring her thin shoulders.
“Yes. Don’t give up on him.”
And suddenly there were figures running toward them.
Six HRT guys, plus McKenzie and Eban.
She had never been so happy in her life to see the cavalry. A knot of relief wedged in her throat. They were going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay.
A few moments later, she found herself swept up in strong arms. Maybe she’d fainted. She wasn’t sure. She recognized the scent of the man who held her, the feel of his hard chest. She was in the warmth and safety of Payne Novak’s arms, and it made her feel euphoric.
“Thank you for coming after me,” she murmured.
He kissed her forehead, ignoring the presence of the other agents and Eban’s stern glare.
“I’d probably be dead by now if you hadn’t arrived when you did.”
“Don’t say that,” he said harshly.
“Glad to see you still kicking, SSA Blood.” McKenzie’s gaze took in the way Novak cradled her protectively against him as four of the HRT operators picked up TJ and started running down the mountain with him in the makeshift stretcher.
Another operator lifted Kayla, and the other read Tom his Miranda rights as they all hurried toward safety.
“How bad is it?” Charlotte raised her hand, covered by Novak’s oversized glove. The pain was bad, and she knew the bitter cold was numbing the true extent of the damage.
“It’s going to be fine. A couple stitches, and you’ll be good as new.” But he wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“I better be able to shoot after this, because I am not leaving CNU.” She trained with her left hand, but it had always been weak. “I’m a freaking negotiator. Negotiators aren’t supposed to get shot.”
“Maybe next time you’ll stay where you’re supposed to,” Novak admonished.
“That’ll never happen.” She smiled because he needed it.
“Maybe I’ll report you to the Office of Professional Responsibility for not following procedure.”
“As long as I get to be joined at the hip with you every now and then, I’d be happy with that.”
“Really?” Even now he sounded so uncertain, as if he didn’t know how much she’d enjoyed his company, how permanently he’d bound himself to that crazy part inside her that had gone and fallen in love with him even though she hadn’t given it permission.
But she still wasn’t ready to give him the words. “Really.”
She must have fallen asleep because when she woke up, she was flying, and Novak was holding her good hand.
Medics were working on TJ. She hoped he was going to be okay.
Novak kissed her uninjured fingers. “I’ve got you, Charlotte.”
“But will you keep me?” she joked, feeling a little punchy. But maybe she wasn’t joking, because her eyes locked on his as she waited for his answer.
His fingers tightened on hers. “I am not letting you go, honey. I am not freaking letting you go.”
“Good.” She held those blue-green eyes of his, suddenly overcome with tiredness. “Because I think I might love you, Payne Novak, and that really wasn’t part of my life plan.” She drifted off, hearing him shouting at her in the distance, but unable to fight her way out of the darkness. Unable to answer his pleas.
Chapter Thirty-Five
He’d told Charlotte he wanted to pursue their relationship, and Charlotte had upped the stakes and flat out told him she loved him, even though he didn’t fit in with what she’d imagined her future would look like.
And then she’d pas
sed out, and he’d been screaming at her to stay with him. Even then the “L” word hadn’t passed his lips. What was wrong with him? Emotions swirled inside him. What was he so scared of? Nothing compared to the regret he was feeling for not telling her before she passed out. Maybe when he’d found her bleeding in the snow would have been a good time to mention he was pretty sure he had heavy-duty feelings for her. What if she died? And he’d been too cowardly to confess that a few short days of being with her had destroyed all his defenses, brought down all his walls.
But she wouldn’t die.
She was in surgery to save the use of two of her fingers and maybe reattach the distal phalanx of the ring finger on her right hand. The frigid temperature and speed of getting her to the hospital meant the doctors had a good chance of success. But what if there was an issue they didn’t know about? What if she’d been shot somewhere else and the doctors hadn’t noticed?
McKenzie strode into the waiting room, cell phone pressed to his ear. He held up his hand to prevent Novak from speaking. “No, Mr. President. SSA Blood is still in surgery but expected to fully recover.”
She’d better goddamn recover.
“We have one suspect in surgery. Serious condition after being shot by the man who raised him,” McKenzie said.
Would TJ be classed as a suspect or a victim when the truth came out? It probably depended on what, if anything, he’d done to Brenna Longie.
“One suspect’s whereabouts are unknown, but we believe he was in the basement of the compound at the time of the explosion and is likely dead or deep in a bunker. It’ll take time to ascertain his fate. We need to wait until this storm passes.”
Malcolm Resnick might have made his way out the same way Tom Harrison had escaped, but Tom swore the man didn’t know about the tunnel. The likelihood was he’d hidden himself away, hoping that the FBI wouldn’t be able to find him, not knowing Tom had rigged the place with enough explosive to reduce it to ashes.
Everyone else had gotten off the mountain alive, and they were being interviewed separately to try to figure out what the hell had happened.
Cold Wicked Lies: A gripping romantic thriller that will have you hooked (Cold Justice - Crossfire Book 3) Page 30
