Cover Me

chapter 5



Sunny jammed her foot into the toehold Wade had carved out of the ice wall. Gut-gnawing terror fueled her determination. Her muscles strained and trembled as she clung to a tiny crinkle overhead, eyes locked on Chewie leaning over the edge, barking furiously. Panicked paws shifted and twitched, sending small snow showers down on her head. She’d stuffed her bulky overgloves into the bib of her snowsuit. Cold penetrated the thin undergloves, which were waterproof but not nearly as warm. A minor inconvenience, when she thought about her two dead friends below.

Her hand slipped.

Wade palmed her back and wedged his shoulder under her butt. How he managed that while keeping his own balance climbing, she couldn’t imagine and didn’t have time to ask. Ted and Madison lay lifeless twenty feet below, and since there was no sign of a third body, she had to wonder. Had the deputy gone for help and been killed? Was he out there now? Or oh God, could the deputy have killed them? And if not him, then someone else who might still be nearby?

She shivered and secured her grip with fingers so frozen they were stiff and numb. She refused to slow Wade down. She’d already done enough damage, bringing him out here with her during her reckless dash to escape. But if she hadn’t, then Ted and Madison’s bodies may never have been found. The people at home might never have known they were dead, since there wouldn’t have been anyone to report them missing. The only hint of their disappearance would have been the lack of emails, which would be easy enough to write off as making a clean break. God, it was too easy for a person to fall off the face of the planet.

But then wasn’t that what her family had made a point of doing, severing all ties with civilization?

So close. She was so close. Only a few more inches.

Slapping an arm over the edge, she hauled herself upward, groaning at the effort, afraid she wouldn’t be able to pull her own weight. Her arms trembled, and her toes cramped.

Chewie stretched over, his jaws open. His fangs flashed in the early-morning sun. Snap. He sunk his teeth into her parka, tugging, yanking with just the extra help… she needed until…

Sunny hitched a knee over the edge. Growling with exertion almost as loudly as her dog, she levered herself over and rolled away flat on her back. Exhausted. But she couldn’t afford to rest. She scrambled to the edge on shaky legs and reached for Wade in case he needed help.

Wade vaulted over the edge, landing beside her, crouching on one knee. She should have known a superhero wouldn’t need her help. Hysteria welled in her oxygen-deprived brain.

She flung herself around him, clinging to life and vitality, grateful to be alive. So damn glad Wade was alive as well, that he hadn’t been harmed chasing her into whatever the hell had happened below. All the ache and want she’d felt for him during that insanely impulsive kiss roared to life again, catching her unaware when her defenses were down. Her already rattled world had been shattered in less than a few short hours. Now all she could think about was broad shoulders and how much she wanted to wrap herself around all that strength until things righted again. How totally anti-her. She wasn’t the clinging-vine sort. Was this how Stockholm syndrome worked? Yet she couldn’t deny her nerves tingling to life like thawing after a deep freeze.

A bit mortifying though, as Wade was certainly only pausing to give her enough time to catch her breath before they moved on.

Chewie nudged her shoulder just as Wade cupped the back of her neck, staring into her eyes. Checking her pupils again?

He squeezed once reassuringly before tugging her hood up. “We can’t afford to rest.” Unspoken was the horrible threat that there could be a killer lurking nearby. “Do you need me to carry you?”

“No, no…” She pushed herself onto her hands and knees, then rose. “I can do it.”

“Good. Make sure you keep up.” He pulled the fat gloves from her overall bib, the backs of his fingers brushing quickly along the top of her breasts. “My team will be using my locator beacon to search for us,” he said, the last part loudly. As if announcing it to anyone who might be listening? “And I want to position us in the best possible place for extraction. Are you sure you don’t want me to carry you on my back? The faster we move, the sooner we’re out of here.” He held up the gloves.

She stuffed her hands inside, fighting for enough oxygen to level her out for travel. “Lead. I’ll keep up.”

With a curt nod, he started away from the hole in the earth. Away from Madison and Ted’s icy crypt. Her foot sunk into a deeper drift and she struggled to stay upright, not to lag, her eyes locked firmly on Wade’s broad back. Stride by stride, he guided her down the rugged slope. Chewie loped behind her as if protecting her back.

A scant scattering of stunted conifers dotted the landscape the farther they descended. Not dense, towering pines like in other parts of Alaska. The wind was too fierce here for that, snapping off tops of taller trees. Tearing at her every step until she feared the roar could blot out warning sounds. At least the barren landscape made it easier to scan for threats, human or otherwise, as they neared brown bear territory and the end of hibernation.

Watching Wade’s measured, steadied steps, she didn’t doubt that he could have carried her down the mountain pass just as fast. She was holding him back, but he wouldn’t leave without her. He’d made that clear.

Time to commit to getting off the mountain, even if it meant stepping into the outside world. She would face whatever else came her way—

A buzz vibrated the air by her ear. Then another. Chewie’s growl overrode the wind just as Wade turned back toward her.

“Gunfire!” He yanked her arm and tucked her behind him as he zigzagged to the left.

Bullets spewed against a lone tree ahead, splintering frozen bark left, then right. Her hand in Wade’s, she trailed him, racing, scanning, finding…

A man stood on top of a boulder a football field away, rifle on his shoulder. She hesitated, stunned. She’d suspected, but still, to see the sheriff’s deputy, Rand Smith, peering down the scope of a rifle rattled her.

He fired. She shrieked once and ducked, bracing for the impact of the bullet.

Wade yanked her down behind a short, fat tree. Panic kicked into overdrive. No matter how well versed she was in mountain survival, she was really out of her element now. Her body had been pushed to the edge of endurance, and fear sent her teeth chattering in a way that had nothing to do with cold.

Bullets zinged off the trunk, two in a row, pop, pop. Snow from the branches spewed in chunks. She grabbed Wade’s parka and pressed closer. A sense of their life and death stakes tangled up with a bizarre mess of want and fear until she desperately needed to hang on to the one familiar person in a world flipped upside down. The deputy dropped to his stomach and took aim again.

“Chewie?” she whispered, looking around frantically, then calling louder, “Chewie?”

Zing. Another bullet ricocheted off a pile of rocks at the base of the mountain.

Wade shoved her to the ground and dropped on top of her with an “Ooof.” Anything that hit her would have to go through him. Except he didn’t flinch, so she hoped, prayed, he hadn’t been hit. The bullets kept popping, echoing around the narrow crevasse in the mountain. Snow and ice chunks battered down around them, clinking off Wade’s backpack.

His hand slid from her and to his waist. He pulled out a gun, an ominous black pistol. He held it up, but for some reason, he didn’t shoot. Not that she intended to question anything he did right now, because he was the one keeping them alive and she was the one who’d screwed up again and again.

Faster and faster the mountain rumbled, until she realized.

Deputy Smith wasn’t trying to shoot them. He was trying to start an avalanche and collapse the walls on top of them.

***



Wade was running out of options fast.

The bastard lying belly down on a stretch of ice kept shooting at them, and while Wade had a clear shot, more gunfire could risk setting off an avalanche, since he had the foothills and overhang above him. A few more yards and they would have been in clear open space—clean pickings for the gunman. But he also could have gotten off a shot of his own. Wade gripped the barrel of his 9 mm. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it, but if the man came closer, he wouldn’t have any choice. He just prayed the snowy overhang would hold until the chopper arrived.

“Come on, come on, come on,” he mumbled softly.

He kept his body between Sunny and the bullets. Snow and chunks of ice thudded and stabbed downward, faster, thicker. He hunched around her, tighter. Adrenaline seared his veins until he could almost feel his near-frozen toes thawing.

“Wade”—Sunny gripped his jacket—“any ideas? What do you need me to do? We can’t just stay here like sitting ducks.”

“I agree.” Another shot echoed. An icicle stabbed into the earth an inch away from his head. Shit. He rolled to his side, tucking Sunny behind him. A second fell. Fire flamed through his shoulder. He fought the urge to shout, to roll to his side and clutch the wound. “Now would be a good time to say if you know of any secret caves.”

“Sorry.” Her breath caressed his neck. “It’s flatland ahead and nothing that I know of back the way we came.”

He needed to decide fast. Wait until the other guy ran out of bullets. Or shoot back. The flat terrain ahead of them that appeared so starkly majestic at other times looked damn barren, open, and dangerous right now, empty except for the crouching gunman.

And a tiny speck on the horizon.

His heart rate ramped. A chopper. His. Theirs.

The rotors growled louder, closer, until the gunman’s head popped up. He bolted out and tore off running, long strides lumbering through the snow too fast and far away to catch even if he could, which he couldn’t—not with Sunny to look after.

Wade jumped to his feet, dragging Sunny up with him. Ignoring the blazing pain from his shoulder. “We need to book it.”

Still, he kept his eyes glued to the guy even while racing to the open area. The beacon in his boot would direct the helicopter even without radio contact. Rotor wash stirred up a hurricane of snow around them.

“My dog!” she screamed. “Chewie!”

Chewie leaped from behind a tree, loping across the ice toward them.

“We won’t leave him,” he shouted back.

The chopper engine grew louder, the winds swirling harder. The helicopter sprayed bullets into snow near the deputy. The rifle fire stopped abruptly. A curse whispered on the wind as the guy bolted to his feet and sprinted away. Part of Wade burned to chase the bastard down and pound the shit out of him. But getting Sunny the hell out of here had to take priority. They would deal with the gunman later.

Wade grabbed her hand and ran harder, trudging through the snow toward the clearing. The helicopter hovered overhead. He pumped his hand, signaling for them to drop a line, which was faster than waiting around for a landing.

The cable descended with a treble hook seat rather than a basket. Wade hefted Sunny onto the seat and strapped her in before she could ask for help. Much like his mom, who had found it faster to do something herself than to explain. Now his mother could barely feed herself because of her battlefield injuries.

Thoughts of how he hadn’t been there to help those closest to him threatened to rattle his focus, and he of all people knew how important attention to detail was in his job. Wade hooked himself to the same cable, facing Sunny. He grabbed the dog by the collar and hauled him into his lap, arms around the furry beast.

The cable yanked, went taut.

He looked down, the ground spinning below but clear enough to see the gunman scrambling to take cover near a snowmobile. Wade hooked his arms tighter around the dog, his grip slipping, slick.

Slick with blood.

***



Sunny huddled in a blanket in the belly of the helicopter while some guy in cammies pulled off her boots and rubbed her feet back to life. Her frostbitten skin flamed with returning sensation as she sipped the lukewarm cocoa someone else had thrust in her hands.

Still, her teeth chattered in the aftermath of their ordeal, the cold—being shot at. The sheriff’s deputy had raced away on a snow machine. So far as she knew, there wasn’t anything they could do to catch him, and she doubted he would be moseying into work, not since he must have seen them hauled up into the military chopper.

Her hand fell to rest on her dog’s head, taking reassurance in his presence. Chewie stayed tight against her side with a blanket draped over his back, covering all that gooey mud she’d only briefly seen on his side before they’d hauled her in.

She’d never ridden in a helicopter before. She had vague memories of riding in a plane before her parents moved to the Aleutian Islands, but that had been so long ago and perceived in a child’s mind as a smooth bus ride through the clouds.

This… This was loud, musty—and invigorating. The rotors overhead roared as they cut the air.

And the men.

A half dozen men in military survival gear packed the back of the aircraft. They appeared to all know each other. He’d said he was a pararescueman—a PJ—for the Air Force. Could this motley crew be his team?

An odd assortment. Not quite what she would have expected. They had a ragtag quality until you looked closer and caught the laser-sharp eyes, the obvious strength and agility. Still, different… She squinted in the shadowy confines for a better look at each of the men, people who could well decide the future of her family. But nobody wore a blazing red sign blinking “Weakest Link.”

Wade shouted over the roar of the engine. “Mark the spot. There are two dead bodies down there.”

“Say again?” The oldest of the group leaned forward, his face hardening.

“Two bodies. Under the ice.”

Sunny wrapped the blanket tighter around her as images of Madison and Ted’s waxy death masks marched through her brain.

The older man, who seemed to be in charge, swept a hand over his face before continuing, “There’s nothing we can do for them now except find their families and make sure they get a decent burial.”

“Appears they were murdered.”

“Damn. Okay, location noted. But we need to get you patched up first.” The guy waved over a lumbering hulk of a guy. “Franco, you got this?”

“Roger that, Major,” Franco answered, peeling off gloves and cracking open a first aid kit more tricked out than anything she kept at the gym. “Cuervo, could you rig me some light?”

A guy wearing a name tag that said Jose James leaped to his feet, and suddenly a spotlight clicked on, clamped to one of the pipes running along the side. The blazing illumination pointed at Wade revealed…

Oh God.

She saw the dark stain on the shoulder of his parka. She gasped, horrified. She reached out to touch his knee, surprised at how automatic her response was. But they had bonded on that mountain, no doubt. Wade had saved her butt all too thoroughly for her to pretend she didn’t care what happened to him now.

Although what exactly had happened, she didn’t know, and clearly there were others here better equipped to tend his injury. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Her mind raced back to the dark ooze she’d seen on him and Chewie and just assumed it was mud. Guilt pinched. She’d been so busy thinking of her own survival she hadn’t even noticed.

She yanked the blanket off her dog and frantically searched through his fur, checking him over for any sign of injury. Chewie pawed her hand and tried to shove his nose into her drink. Finally, satisfied there was nothing she could detect, she shifted her attention back to Wade.

Across the helicopter, Franco snapped on gloves, setting out what looked to be antiseptic, clamps… and she couldn’t tell what else, because her stomach started roiling. She wasn’t the queasy sort. It had to be the adrenaline dump on top of her exhausted body, but she couldn’t imagine going to sleep now.

Especially when she didn’t know the severity of Wade’s injury.

Franco held his gloved, sterile hands up for a second. Then proceeded to peel away the thick snow gear one layer at a time, until Wade sat bare chested. Her breath hissed inward at the expanse of muscled strength—and his unflinching expression. Perspiration and empathy trickled down her spine. His jaw might be tight, but otherwise he showed no reaction to the blood oozing from what appeared to be a bullet wound in his shoulder.

Cricking his neck, Franco tossed aside the scissors, hacked-up parka, and shirt at his feet. “Looks like the bullet just grazed you, but I’m going to need to check to be sure. Are you up for that now or do you want me to slap a bandage on until we can get you to an ER?”

“Take care of it now,” Wade growled without hesitation.

His muscles flexed and tensed. She’d seen a lot of men who took care of themselves in her line of work at the gym, but Wade’s body was a honed, peerless machine. And as gorgeous a specimen as he was to look at, she’d experienced the benefits of all that training firsthand, so she wasn’t looking at him like some ordinary groupie might. She admired him with a fierceness as raw as the rest of her emotions today.

Given her wound-up condition, she burrowed deeper in her seat to make sure she didn’t fall over if she passed out. The last thing she wanted was to divert any attention—any help—away from him. The next part happened so much more quickly than she’d expected. At a time like this, she could easily picture these guys working a medical crisis in battle under fire. Fast. Cool. Efficient.

He’d told her they were medic trained. But seeing that in-the-field training in action was another story.

The guy—Franco—pulled out forceps and gauze, then proceeded to swab the injury with copious amounts of antiseptic.

Unbidden, the memory of their kiss blasted into her brain. Hot. Needy. Far too urgent for her liking. She’d never responded to a man on such a visceral level before. It made no sense. This whole nightmare made no sense. But the reality of it still made her tremble, and that kiss was like the stable core of an ordeal that had thrown her hard off course.

Tamping down the memories, she focused on Wade.

Franco pulled out two syringes and began making injections around the wound. Numbing and antibiotics, most likely. Sunny’s fingers dug into the empty cocoa cup, anticipating the hurt even though it wasn’t her own.

Seconds later, the military medic picked up some other silver tool that looked a little too torturous for her piece of mind. “I’ll make this check as fast as I can.”

“Stop explaining and start doing.”

“Roger that. I’ll start on three. One. Two.” He probed with gentle yet lightning speed, fresh red blood trickling down Wade’s chest.

“Shit!”

Franco slapped a wad of gauze on Wade’s shoulder, clearing away the fresh blood. He then looped two stitches through before Sunny’s heart rate even returned to normal.

“Done, pal. Now quit your whining around the pretty lady. She’s going to think you’re a wimp.” Franco sank back on his heels, peeling off his bloodied gloves and pitching them on top of the bloodied gauze. “You’re lucky it’s so cold out. That slowed the bleeding.”

Lucky?

In comparison to Madison and Ted, they were. But she kept thinking of that bullet tearing through Wade’s shoulder, an injury that happened because he’d been protecting her. She was so used to looking out for others, this felt… strange.

“Ma’am?” A masculine voice pulled her eyes off Wade. “My name’s Major McCabe. You can call me Liam, or some folks call me Walker, like Walker, Texas Ranger, because I used to be an army ranger. Now isn’t that convoluted?” he said with a smile meant to put a person at ease, to distract from the horror of how close Wade had come to having a bullet pierce his heart. “Here’s more cocoa for you and water for your dog. Can I get you anything else?”

Her brain turned sluggish from exhaustion and she scrambled to think. Her stomach grumbled an answer for her. “Some kind of PowerBar would be good, if you don’t mind.”

“Coming right up. It’s military issue, which means it tastes like crap on cardboard, but it’ll do the job.” McCabe hunkered down in front of her, blocking her view of Wade. “Are you okay?”

“One of your buddies asked me that right after you pulled me up. I’m all right. Shaking, but okay.” Her brain cleared and she realized she needed to let them know. “There was a third person with Ted and Madison. A sheriff’s deputy.”

“Yes, Wade told us.”

“He did? I don’t remember…”

“You’ve been drifting in and out. You’ve been through a lot. You should rest for the next hour until we land. There’s nothing more you can do.”

And she realized he’d handed her the perfect out. She could pretend to be addled by altitude sickness. For the first time in her life, she would be the helpless one. And there was only one person in this new world full of strangers she could even consider trusting.

Her eyes fell on Wade, pale but steady. If only she could be so sure she could trust herself when it came to him.