The Sheriff Catches a Bride

Chapter Fourteen



FILA KEPT QUIET as the women bustled about, preparing for their departure. She didn’t say a word when Morgan handed Rose a set of keys and Rose led her from the enormous house to a shiny pickup truck. She even held her tongue as Rose drove down the long driveway and turned in the opposite direction of the woods. The fact that Rose took great pains to hide their destination comforted her.

Even after the car behind them took the rest of the women down the lane to another ranch, Rose continued. She drove in a wide loop around dark country roads. Finally, a half-hour later, she slowed down, pulled to the side of the road, then eased the truck between the trees until it was hidden behind them.

“The fewer people who know where we are, the better,” she said to Fila.

Fila agreed. She was so tired she could barely stand, but she took the bags that Rose handed her and followed her into the darkness a quarter-mile or so into the woods until Rose’s flashlight lit on the ladder to the tree house.

“Here we are,” Rose said brightly.

They clambered up and Rose quickly arranged the contents of the small space, setting the flashlight on the ground and covering it with a cloth so its glow was muted. She clicked a canister into the small propane heater in the corner of the room. She made two beds out of the sleeping bags and other covers.

“Keep your clothes on,” Rose said. “It’s going to be cold out here tonight, but these are down sleeping bags. They’re meant for it.”

To Fila the makeshift bed felt like heaven. No one would look for her here. She was safe.

“I’m so glad you made it here.” Rose reached out from her own bed and squeezed Fila’s hand. She turned off the flashlight and Fila could make out stars in the sky outside the tree house’s windows. She’d seen those same stars in the village a half a world away just a few nights ago. But while the stars kept to their places in the sky, her whole life had changed.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN they left?” Cab looked from one guilty face to another. Autumn, Claire and Morgan sat in a line on the sofa in the Big House living room, and he planned to keep them there until he got some real answers. He’d returned to Carl’s house to find the lights blazing, but no one home. Rose left a note saying she was tired and was calling it a night, but she didn’t say where she intended to spend it and she said nothing about a foreign woman, either.

Cab had searched the house thoroughly and made a circuit outside, then remembered Jason said Fila’s destination was the Cruz ranch. He drove the few miles there quickly, sure he’d find both Rose and the stranger ensconced in the Big House. When he arrived he found Autumn, Claire and Morgan, but Rose and the stranger were nowhere to be seen. The other women were shocked to find out he knew about Fila, and he was able to bully them into exposing most of the information he wanted. But not the most important piece.

“Rose took Fila somewhere safe for the night,” Claire said.

“Where?”


Claire shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.”

Cab didn’t believe her. “Why wouldn’t she tell you?”

“She thinks Fila may be in danger,” Autumn said. “We all do.”

“Which is why you’re going to tell me where she is—so I can go protect them.” Cab’s voice rose. Normally he didn’t have a problem keeping his cool in sticky situations, but not where Rose was concerned. She was out there somewhere with a woman no one knew, a woman more than one person thought was in danger.

The women exchanged a look. “Cab,” Morgan said. “Fila has come a long way.” She retold the story in a few sentences and the knot in Cab’s stomach tightened by the minute. He didn’t recognize his own voice when he spoke again, it was so twisted with anger.

“She’s got terrorists coming after her? Are you shitting me?”

“Fila said there’s no way they could know she’s here,” Morgan said. “They don’t even know what she looks like.”

Cab couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and he couldn’t believe Rose—his Rose—was mixed up in all of this. Suddenly Kevin’s paranoia didn’t seem so paranoid.

“What if those men have been in touch with people back in Afghanistan? Do you really believe there aren’t any pictures of this girl anywhere? All it takes is a text or e-mail and they’ll know exactly who she is. The Taliban don’t just let people go—certainly not some woman who knows details about their operations in this country. Are you forgetting 9-11? These people are not stupid.”

The women exchanged another look.

“It doesn’t matter,” Autumn said, her eyes wide with concern. “In any case, we can’t tell you where they are.”

“Why not?” he thundered.

“Because we don’t know.”

ROSE SURGED AWAKE when someone gripped her wrist.

“Someone’s outside,” Fila whispered in her ear. “I just heard a car door slam.”

She stilled and listened. At first all was quiet, but then she heard a strange metallic creak, like a heavy door being opened. There was a clunk as something hit the ground and all was still again.

She knew that sound. She’d heard it a dozen times, although she couldn’t place it right away. It brought to mind ranches—Ethan and Rob and Jamie on their horses…“That was the tailgate of a horse trailer,” Rose whispered.

Could it be Hannah, delivering her mystery horse in the middle of the night? She climbed carefully to her knees and peered out the main window. Fila joined her there.

“It might be a friend of mine. Hannah,” Rose said to her. “She’s been building a corral for a horse near here.

“Why would she come in the middle of the night?” Fila asked.

“Why corral a horse out in the forest at all?” Rose said. “I really don’t know. I’m afraid…” She finally voiced the fear she’d held inside her for several days. “I’m afraid she might have stolen it.”

It was silent while they thought that over. Rose figured she should have pressed Hannah for more details before agreeing to the corral at all. Hannah had always seemed like the steady sort, but now that she’d gotten to know Cody, she didn’t trust Hannah’s judgment as much as she had previously. A stolen horse was a big deal. If it were true, she’d have to tell Hannah to take it back again—before Cab got wind of it. Before they all landed in jail.

“She’s getting it out,” Rose said, and Fila nodded in the darkness. Those were definitely the steps of a heavy beast down the ramp.

A few seconds later, a female voice cried out from the woods, “Hey! Not that way, Gladys! Damn.”

Rose released the breath she was holding. “That’s Hannah, all right. I’d better go help her.”

“Gladys!”

Rose stiffened at Hannah’s shout, then shrieked when something large and dark hurtled through the clearing beneath them, shaking the ground, and took off into the woods at an alarming rate. She clung to the windowsill as the tree house swayed.

“What was that?” Fila cried.

“That was way too big for a horse!” Rose said.

“Was that…” Fila turned to her, her eyes huge. “Was that a bison?”

Were there bison in Afghanistan? Rose thought crazily. Of course not. Fila must have learned about them in school as an American child. “I think so,” she said. “But…” She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Hannah thought she could keep a bison in the corral out back?

“Where did it come from? Do they live here?” Fila whispered.

“They don’t run loose, if that’s what you mean.” But this one certainly was. “It’s because of Cody—her boyfriend,” she exclaimed. “He was going on and on about that damned bison hunt last time we got together. She must have stolen it.”

Fila stared at her in incomprehension.

Below them, Hannah raced into the clearing. Stopped and looked up at the tree house. “Hello?” she called softly. “Rose, are you up there?”

Rose wrenched open the door and stuck her head out. “Was that a bison that just ran by?”

“Uh… yeah. I’m sorry; I thought I could get her into the corral without waking you.”

“Hannah!”

“It’s all right; I know how to get her in there,” Hannah said. “I just wanted to warn you she was out here, just in case.”

“Thanks for the warning. How will you get her into the corral?”

“She loves corn on the cob. I have a sack of them; I was going to use them to keep her calm while she got used to her new digs. I’ll guess I’ll put them in the corral and wait for her to find them.”

“As simple as that, huh?” Rose said, exasperated. How much could go wrong in a single night?

“I hope so.”

“DAMN IT, HANNAH, pick up your phone!” Cab wanted to smash his own phone to bits in frustration but he forced himself to keep his eye on the road ahead of him. After clarifying that Autumn, Morgan and Claire really had no idea where Rose had taken Fila, he’d wracked his own brain for where she might go. Her parents’ place was out. So was the carriage house. Could she be staying with Hannah and Cody? When Hannah didn’t answer her cell, he tried their landline.

“Hello?” a man answered sleepily as Cab pulled up in front of the house where Hannah and Cody lived.

“Who’s this?” Cab demanded.

“Who’s this?” the man said, more awake now.

“That you, Cody?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s Cab Johnson. You got Rose in there with you?”

There was a pause. “Rose?”

“I mean, is she staying with you and Hannah?”

“Nah. No one here but me. Hannah said she was spending the night with Autumn at the Cruz ranch. Something about a girls’ night.” His tone made it clear what he thought about that.

“Wait, Hannah is at Autumn’s place?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because I was just there and I didn’t see…” Cab trailed off. Whoops. Might have put his foot in it there.

“You were there? And Hannah wasn’t?” Sure enough, Cody was angry now. “You positive about that?”

“I’m not positive about anything.” Cab got out of his truck. The front door of Cody’s house opened and Cody stepped out onto the stoop still holding his cordless phone to his ear. Catching sight of Cab, he tossed it back in the house and came down the front steps. Cab shut off his phone, too.


“Why are you calling Hannah, anyway?” Cody demanded.

“Because I’m looking for Rose,” Cab said. “I thought she might be here.”

“Well, she ain’t. She’s probably off at some bar with Hannah cheating on you like Hannah’s cheating on me.”

“Don’t get all fired up before you know what’s happening.”

“I’ll get fired up if I damn well please.” Cody strode toward his car.

“Don’t do something you’ll regret,” Cab called after him.

“Oh, you better believe I won’t regret anything I do,” Cody said. A minute later he had backed his car out of the driveway and sped off into the night.

“F*ck,” Cab said, jabbing his phone on again. He called the detachment and filled a deputy in on the situation. There wasn’t anything they could do until Cody broke a law, but the deputy could alert the officers on patrol tonight and they could keep an eye out for him. He hoped Hannah was with Rose. Then Cody would have as much luck finding her as he was having.

Now what? Who else might know where Rose had gone? He scrolled through his memory, trying to think of all her friends. When the answer came, he felt a surge of adrenaline.

Mia Start.

He clicked through his recent calls until he found hers and hit the call back button. As the phone rang he held his breath.

“Hello?” Mia’s little-girl voice answered.

“Mia? Where’s Rose!”

“Uh…”

“I know she told you not to tell me, but she’s in danger. I need to know.”

“Why is she in danger?”

If he thought his tough-guy act could scare little Mia, he’d thought wrong. Cab opened his mouth to try again when his phone alerted him he had another call. It was the detachment.

“Hold on,” he growled at Mia and switched over. “Cab here.”

“It’s Tom from the station. Listen, you’ll never believe this. I’m at the hospital with Alan Higgens. He’s beat up pretty bad.”

“Alan?” The taxi driver? “I just spoke to him not long ago.” Cab got back into his truck and turned the engine on.

“Four guys broke into his house, found him and beat the crap out of him. He can barely talk, but he said they looked foreign and spoke with pronounced accents.”

Cab stiffened, his hands on the wheel, foot hard on the brake, remembering what Kevin had said. “Middle Eastern?”

“Yep. How did you know?”

“A little bird told me. What did they want?”

“Where he took one of his fares tonight. A woman. Alan said Jason Thayer put her into his cab and paid for her ride. He was supposed to take her to the Cruz ranch, but he took her to your place instead. Carl’s place.”

“That’s right,” Cab said, doing a U-turn and beginning to drive back toward Carl’s. “He did. And she slipped out of the car and ran away. Did Alan tell them all that?”

“Yeah. I think so. Like I said, they beat him pretty badly. Left him for dead, I think, but Alan’s tougher than he looks. Who are these guys? Who’s the woman?”

“I don’t know, but I can guess where they’re going.”

“I’ve already called units to Carl’s place. It might take a while, though. There was a bad car accident near the airport. Everyone we’ve got is over there.”

Cab frowned. The airport was in the other direction. “I’m not at my place. Neither is the woman. Rose got a hold of her and took her somewhere. I don’t know where.”

“Well, at least they’re out of danger, then,” Tom said.

“I guess,” Cab said, but a hunch told him they weren’t. Where was Rose?

Mia.

“Tom, I’m on my way back toward my place. Call you back in a minute.”

“Okay. No heroics, boss. Wait for the backup.”

Cab clicked off, not bothering to answer. “Mia? You still there?”

“Yes.”

“You need to tell me where she is right now. She’s got a runaway with her, Fila—a woman who’s being chased by some very bad men. They’ve already beat up Alan Higgens to find out where she went. If they find Rose and Fila, she’s going to be in serious danger. Alan told them they’d be at Carl’s place and they’re on their way there.”

“Carl’s?” Mia’s voice shot up.

“Mia? They’re not at Carl’s, are they?” He’d checked the whole house. Could they have hid from him somewhere?

“Not at the house,” Mia said in a small voice. “Rose is going to be really mad if I tell you.”

“Rose might be dead if you don’t tell me,” Cab said bluntly. “Spit it out!”

“The woods. She built a tree house in Carl’s woods.”

Cab was speechless for a moment. A tree house? He thought back to all the boards she’d been cutting—for her shed. The shed she’d never built. But a tree house for crying out loud?

In Carl’s woods?

Cab had a flash of the day he’d run into her driving on the road near Carl’s. The day he’d asked her in to dinner and she’d cried about Jason.

He remembered wondering where she’d come from since she’d been heading back toward town. She couldn’t have been at the Cruz ranch; that was the other way. He’d figured she’d come to see him, lost her nerve, driven right by his place, then come to her senses and turned back. But she hadn’t, had she?

Because now he remembered the sound that had woken him up the night before that, and the slim figure he’d seen in the woods when he went to investigate.

Rose.

“Cab? You still there?” Mia asked.

Cab didn’t answer her. It all made sense. Rose wanted time alone. She wanted to get away from Emory Thayer. She wanted to be by herself. Was she camping in Carl’s woods?

Was she there now?

“Shit!” Cab cut off the call and redialed the station, slamming his foot down hard on the gas. He swung onto the country road that led out toward Carl’s place. “Tom, get everyone out to Carl’s—everyone you can. Now! The woman is out there and so is Rose.”

He ended the call and called Ethan next, repeating everything he knew as he flew down the road, taking turns like a race car driver. All he could picture was Rose in the woods alone, four armed men hunting her. What would they do when they found her? He saw Sam Grady’s crime scene. Amanda Strassburg’s beaten and flayed body.

Not his Rose. Cab increased his speed, nearly losing control of the truck around the next curve.

“We’re on our way,” Ethan said without asking any questions. Cab knew he’d collect Jamie and Rob. They had plenty of shotguns on the ranch. Five minutes later he flashed past the lane to the Cruz ranch. He hoped the men were already on their way.

When he neared the mansion, he slowed down and parked near the end of the long driveway. Exiting his truck as quietly as possible, he crept up it slowly, taking his time and keeping as much as possible to the trees that fringed the property. He blew out a breath when he realized how right he’d been to do so. A car he didn’t recognize was parked in front of the house and the front door was wide open, light from inside spilling out. Like him, the foreigners had chosen to search the house first. He hoped they wouldn’t be more successful than he had been.

If the terrorists were in the house, however, that was good news for him and for Rose. All he needed to do was skirt around the yard, keep to the shadows and slip into the woods. Surely her tree house wouldn’t be that hard to find, now that he knew what he was looking for.


As he began to work his way around the wide yard that surrounded Carl’s mansion, he heard shouting from inside the house. A door slammed, several men spilled out onto the front porch. Cab froze.

He couldn’t understand the language they were speaking, and now he knew exactly what Kevin meant when he said they were obviously foreigners and obviously looking for trouble. Perhaps these men thought they’d blend into middle America, but they were dead wrong. No one around here dressed like that, and no one spoke like that, either. They were all armed, Cab saw with a twist of his gut. And armed well, several of them with sub-machine guns. His Glock wasn’t going to stand up to those.

He hoped they would head back to their car and drive away, but after a brief huddled conference, they ran down the steps, split up and raced around the mansion.

Straight for Carl’s woods.

Cab swore and began to follow them as quickly as he could, but they had the advantage that they weren’t trying to hide. He was. As they dashed across the lawn, around the house, and toward the woods out back, he had to trace a more difficult path, sticking to the shadows as much as possible, keeping far away from the house’s floodlights. He darted from one ornamental tree to the next across the swath of grass. When he saw the four men enter the woods, he picked up his pace and soon made it to the tree line himself.

He stopped there to catch his breath and get his bearings. With the mansion’s floodlights behind him, the woods in front of him seemed impenetrable. He eased his way between the trees, much slower now, afraid to bump into any lookout they might have left behind.

He’d only made it a few yards in when a stick snapped behind Cab and he whipped around, gun drawn and finger on the trigger.

“Don’t shoot—it’s us!”

He recognized the whisper and lowered the pistol with a breath of relief. Ethan moved through the shadows to join him, a shotgun in his hands. “I’ve got Jamie with me. Rob and his brothers will be here in a minute. What’s going on?”

Cab gestured him on. He didn’t want to give the men that much of a head start. He caught just a glimpse of Jamie slinking through the trees to their right before he turned his attention back to Ethan. “Far as I can tell Rose and this woman she’s got with her—Fila—are sleeping in a tree house Rose built somewhere in these woods.”

“You don’t know where?”

“No. I’ve hardly been in here. But we’ve got to find them before those terrorists do,” he said. “I figure she’d have picked a place back from the road, but not too far.”

“How many men are there?”

“Four.”

Ethan made a face. “At least Rob and the boys will be here soon. That oughta help things.” Jamie, seeing them huddled together, came to join them. He, too, carried a shotgun. Cab hurriedly filled them in on what he’d seen at the house.

“There’s a stocky one, looks like a bulldog. He’s in charge. Three others. I saw three sub-machine guns. I’m not sure what the other one’s carrying.”

“Well, shit,” Jamie said. “What’s the plan?”

“We’ve got to spread out,” Ethan said.

Cab agreed, but he didn’t like it. “They don’t know about the tree house and I don’t think they know about Rose. They’ll be looking for their girl to be hiding in here somewhere. They headed this way.” He pointed to the section of woods closest to the road. “Jamie, you head farther back into the woods and see if you can find the tree house. If you do, get Rose and Fila back to Carl’s.”

Jamie nodded and slipped away.

“We’ll trail these a*sholes and hope like hell the tree house isn’t this way,” Cab told Ethan.

ROSE STUMBLED AFTER HANNAH in the dark, cursing at her friend’s tender heart. As they walked, Hannah explained how Cody had dragged her to the ranch where he planned to go bison hunting and she’d been appalled to find there was only one animal there. Kept in a small, heavily fenced pen, the bison was obviously in distress. While Cody finalized his plans with the owner of the ranch, she’d slipped off to talk to some of the hands and was lucky enough to find one as disgusted as she was with the whole matter.

“Gladys was hand-raised,” she sputtered to Rose. “Bottle-fed and everything. Her original owner dreamed of raising a herd, but didn’t have enough land. In the end, he had to get rid of her. The way her new owner kept her was cruel, and to die by being hunted in a corral? That’s just sick!”

Rose trailed after her, understanding her anger, but still not convinced it was realistic to think the two of them could round it up. They’d left Fila huddled in the tree house. Rose gave Hannah a quick rundown of the young woman’s history and Hannah promised not to tell anyone her whereabouts.

“I still think we should at least wait until daylight,” Rose said.

“We can’t,” Hannah said. “Can you imagine if she wanders out on the road? Someone could come around a turn and crash into her. They could be killed.” She looked back at Rose. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to do this. Gladys is practically tame, but she’s still a bison. It could get pretty dicey.”

That was an understatement if Rose had ever heard one. “I don’t know anything about herding bison.”

“We won’t herd her,” Hannah said. “We’ll lure her.” She shook the bag of corn cobs. “She adores them. That’s how I got her into the trailer. Hold on, I think I heard something.”

Rose heard it, too. A snuff of breath, like a horse would make. “Is that her?”

Hannah peered into the darkness. “I think so. I don’t think she likes all these trees.” She quickly undid the ties on her bag of corncobs, reached in and held one out. “Here, Gladys, come and get it. I’ve got some tasty corn for you.”

The beast snuffled again and Rose thought it came a little closer, although she couldn’t make out anything in the murky light. Hannah was deliberately pointing her flashlight away from the direction of the beast. Rose moved nearer to Hannah. This seemed like a very bad idea.

“That’s right,” Hannah crooned to the animal. “Come to Mama. You love corn, don’t you?”

Had Hannah lost her mind? Crooning to a fifteen hundred pound animal like it was a baby? The bison walked a few more steps their way. Hannah’s flashlight picked out the shaggy fur on the animal’s muscular back, but she kept the beam out of the animal’s eyes.

This was insane.

Rose fought the urge to hold Hannah in front of her like a human shield, and prepared to jump away if the animal charged them. Instead, it walked up slowly to Hannah, a couple of lumbering steps at a time. Hannah put the corncob down on the ground and the bison bent its head to nibble it.

A man’s shout startled all of them. Rose and Hannah whipped around toward the direction it came from. Gladys shied away, backstepped, then wheeled around and galloped off.

“Damn it!” Hannah said. “Who the hell is that?”

“I don’t know,” Rose said, a chill shimmering up her spine. “It sounded close to the tree house, though.”

“Is it Cab?”

“I don’t know,” Rose said again. “I’ve got to go make sure Fila is all right. She’ll bolt if he scares her.” And what if it wasn’t Cab at all? What if it was someone else?


Hannah looked the other way. “I’ve got to go after Gladys. I can’t let her get away.”

Rose nodded. “Once I figure out what’s going on I’ll come back to help.” She dashed away through the woods toward the tree house as fast as she could, which wasn’t fast at all given that Hannah had her flashlight. When she finally reached it some minutes later she paused, listening for the man’s voice. She heard nothing.

Up above her the tree house was perfectly still.

“Fila,” she hissed. “It’s just me. I’m coming up.”

She climbed the ladder, still craning her head to try to spot the man she’d heard. Was he hiding somewhere in the thick shadows? Why had he cried out? At the top of the ladder, she eased open the door and squinted at the darkness. “Fila? Are you in here?”

A slight rustle in the corner told her she was. Rose climbed into the house and shut the door quietly behind her. She felt in front of her as she crawled across the floor, her fingers encountering sleeping bags and blankets, a pillow, and finally a more solid form.

“Are you all right?”

“Who is out there?” Rose saw Fila’s eyes reflecting starlight, huge and afraid.

“I’m not sure. Hannah’s still going after her bison. I don’t know who shouted.”

“Wahid,” Fila breathed. “It’s Wahid. He’s found me.”

Another chill traced up Rose’s spine. “One of the men who’s after you?” Fila nodded. Rose thought fast. Could a foreigner really trace her all the way here? It seemed unlikely. On the other hand, it had seemed unlikely that anyone could steal a plane and crash it into a skyscraper, either. “If that’s true, we’re not safe here.”

“No,” Fila said.

A number of plans sped through Rose’s mind. They could stay where they were, but if this Wahid and his men found them, they’d be cornered. They could make a break for Carl’s house, but they’d have to cover a lot of open ground between the woods and the mansion—they could easily be spotted. They could run for the road and Rose’s truck, but Rose’s intuition told her the man—whoever he was—lay between it and them. Or they could move deeper into the woods. Hannah was back there, anyhow.

So was the bison.

“We’d better find Hannah,” she said.

Fila nodded, looking grim.

The two women slipped down the ladder as silently as they could, took a moment to listen to the quiet forest, and then Rose led the way back toward where she’d left Hannah. This time the journey seemed to take forever, and shivers crept up and down her spine as she thought about the presence of a man in the forest with them. Not to mention the bison.

Had Hannah caught up to Gladys again? She pressed on, straining to hear Hannah’s voice or the heavy footsteps of the beast. She was terrified she might walk right into the bison in this thick darkness.

There. Starlight revealed something man-made among the trees. A part of the corral Hannah had built for Gladys. She raced to it, hearing Fila’s light footsteps behind her, and began to follow its perimeter. “Hannah?” she whispered, hoping she was near. “Hannah?”

Behind them gunfire rang out through the woods. Several shots in close succession.

Rose dropped to the ground instinctively, the air in her lungs whooshing out on impact. Fila dropped beside her. The gunfire stopped as abruptly as it had started. She exchanged a shocked look with the other woman. She’d never heard a sound like that. Not in person. Growing up in a Montana ranch town meant Rose had heard a shotgun blast or two, and knew a rifle shot when she heard one. This was different. This was… automatic.

“It’s Wahid,” Fila confirmed in a whisper. “He’s here. For me.”

“We’ve got to get out of here.” But as soon as she said it, Rose knew she couldn’t leave until she knew Hannah was safe, too. She gripped Fila’s hand. “We find Hannah and then we leave.”

Fila nodded again.

Rose scrambled to her knees and ducked under the split rail fence, then held a hand out to Fila to join her. Once they were both inside the corral, she straightened and followed the fence around. It made sense to search the corral first to see if Hannah was here.

Or did it? She stopped short and Fila bumped into her. What would Hannah’s reaction to the gunfire be? Would she think the same thing Rose had—that first she had to find her friends before she could flee?

If so, she would turn around and head back to the tree house. Rose frowned.

“Hannah,” she hissed again, moving more quickly now, determined to finish her circuit of the corral.

As she took another step forward, however, Rose had the uncanny sensation she and Fila weren’t alone here. Prickles of fear traced up and down her spine and she stiffened, holding her breath. A snort of air some twenty feet in front of her alerted her to the beast’s presence.

Hannah’s bison.

In the corral with them. Eating something. Hannah’s corn on the cob?

She put a hand out behind her and clutched the fabric of Fila’s sleeve. She could dimly make out its shape now, a black hulking bulk by the far fence. Rose took a step back, trying to remember how far she’d ventured into the pen. Fila moved back too, guided by her. The beast snorted again. She saw motion dimly, heard a sound like a hoof scraping the ground.

“Fila, the bison’s in here with us,” she said in a voice just barely louder than a breath. “Stay behind me and back slowly to the fence. Once you’re there, either go under it or over it.” She took another step back. Another. Struggled to keep from turning tail and dashing away. Fila moved in tandem with her, silently gliding over the ground behind her. Another snort. Was the bison closer to them? She squinted at it, unable to tell.

Sliding her foot over the ground, she moved back farther. Another few steps should do it, but if she wasn’t mistaken, the bison was moving, too. In fact, that scraping sound and the snort of its breath told her…

An enormous shape charged toward her. Rose shrieked and ran for it. Fila flitted before her, reached the fence, dropped down and rolled under the bottom rung. She was on her feet in an instant and disappeared into the gloom before Rose even made it to the split rails. Running full tilt, she crashed into them, grabbed the highest railing reflexively and scrambled to climb it.

Just as she reached the top, the bison’s head hit the fence just to the left of her. The impact pitched her forward and she spilled to the ground on the other side. As soon as she hit the dirt she scrambled to regain her footing and dash away.

She lit out after Fila, back toward the tree house. With any luck the bison wouldn’t find the gate and come after them.

Wishful thinking.

Where was Hannah? Had the animal found the corncobs by itself, or had Hannah herded it in there, then run away, startled by the gunfire, before she could latch the gate?

Rose careened to a stop. She still hadn’t seen Fila. Where had the girl gone? Back to the tree house? Over toward Carl’s? And what about Hannah? Should she wait for her? Or keep going?

After a moment’s agonized deliberation, she turned and ran toward the tree house again.

CAB HOPED LIKE HELL Jamie had found the women and gotten them to safety by now. He crouched behind a cross-section of two pine trees, one still standing, the other half-fallen to a forty-five degree angle. They’d lost the element of surprise when he’d slipped on a particularly wet patch of leaves and gone down hard on his knee. The closest terrorist had heard him, spun on his heel, shouted and alerted the others. Everyone had gone to ground.


Still, he knew that the men were still searching for Fila, and he and Ethan had continued to creep after them. This time the men had left a sentry behind them and when Cab and Ethan got to close, he opened fire.

That rat-a-tat of automatic weapon fire set every nerve in Cab on high alert. That wasn’t a sound that belonged in Chance Creek. He and Ethan had holed up and decided to wait for reinforcements. Cab didn’t like it, though. Rose was out there, and if she hadn’t known the men were there before, she’d know now. How would she and Fila react? Would she stay put or would she make a run for it?

“Never thought I’d be in this situation,” Rob said, appearing by his side. He passed Cab a shotgun, shoved a Glock in his own belt and checked the chamber of a Smith & Wesson.

“Neither did I,” Cab said. “If I wanted this kind of action, I’d have joined the army.” In his peripheral vision he saw three more men sift their way through the trees toward them. Rob’s brothers—Jake, Ned and Luke.

“Have you seen the women?” Rob asked.

“No. I hope Jamie got them out of here.”

Rob shook his head. “Met him back at Carl’s house. Jamie was searching it again because he hadn’t found them in the woods. He said to tell you the tree house was empty. If he doesn’t turn up anything he’ll head back into the woods farther in.”

Cab swore under his breath. “Those two could be anywhere by now.”

“Make that three,” Rob said, peering into the dark forest ahead of them. “Hannah Ashton’s truck is parked out by the street. We saw it when we drove past the woods. We planned to park the truck down the road and walk up the driveway.”

“So Hannah’s here, too?” Cab said.

“I’d say so. She had a horse trailer attached to her truck. The gate’s down.”

“She brought a horse?” That made no sense. Why would she ride a horse in the dead of night in Carl’s woods?

Rob shrugged.

Cab reviewed the situation in his head. Three missing women. Three women lost in the middle of a firefight. He thought about the layout of the woods. The strip of trees ran roughly north-south. To the west lay the open land surrounding Carl’s home and garden. To the east was a meadow that belonged to another spread. North lay a rough, wild country with nothing more than horse and ATV trails. On the south, the country road bordered it all. The strip of trees wasn’t very wide, but it was deep. He hoped that if the women weren’t at Carl’s, that they’d head back into the wild country, away from the road and the armed men.

“Take my place.” He pulled back from his position and waited for Rob to fill it. He positioned Jake, Ned and Luke nearby. Ethan held his place to the right. Once the men settled in, all was still.

The silence drew out for long minutes, until Cab began to wonder if the whole thing had been a dream. Maybe the men had slipped away and made a run for it. Maybe they knew they were out-manned, if not out-gunned.

A muffled curse to his left and nearly behind him revealed their opponents’ real plan. “They’re circling around,” he snapped. “Move your positions!”

SHE’D LOST BOTH OF THEM. Rose picked her way as silently through the woods as she could, stopping and listening after every step to hear something—anything. Both women had simply disappeared. As had the tree house. She should have seen it already, but it was nowhere to be found.

The only rational thing to do now was to head for Carl’s as fast as she could. She had seen the floodlights blazing and knew she could find her way there. Maybe she’d find Hannah and Fila waiting there for her.

But somehow she knew that wasn’t the case, and her conscience wouldn’t allow her to run away if they were somewhere in these woods.

“Hannah?” she called softly. “Fila?”

No one answered for a long moment, but just as she decided to give up and head for Carl’s after all, she heard a soft response.

“Rose?”

“Fila?” She felt her way forward and ran into something soft; Fila fumbling her way toward her.

“Thank God,” Rose said. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“Did you find your friend?”

“No,” Rose shook her head. “I don’t know where she is.”

Fila took her hand, her own cold as ice. “We’ll find her. Together.”

They’d only gone a couple of steps before shots fired again.

ROB, JAKE AND LUKE shifted quickly, bringing their line of defense from east-west to north-south. Ethan and Ned kept their weapons pointed toward the road to cover those who remained behind.

“How many of them are on the move?” Rob whispered to him.

“Can’t tell,” Cab said. “Look, we’ve got to…”

A shot rang out and Jake returned fire. Instantly the woods lit up with gunfire from all around them. Cab dropped to the ground, shimmied through the dirt into a better position and aimed for the sources of the fire, although he still couldn’t see any of their assailants.

A few minutes later, Cab was thankful he’d sent the Mathesons to make a wider flank. Gunfire rang out to the northeast, but answering shots assured him the brothers were blocking the terrorists’ way. It took everything he had not to join them as the shots fired concentrated on their position. If all of them shifted that way, they’d leave a hole in the center wide open for the rest of their assailants to slip through.

He identified three separate enemy shooters in front of them, positioned in an arc among the trees. All three were firing toward Rob and Jake. Where was the fourth?

And where was Rose?

As he turned to glance over his shoulder, a bullet whizzed by him close enough for him to hear its passage. He ducked down and returned his attention forward. The enemy was creeping closer. They outgunned him and the rest of his friends. He hoped his backup would make its appearance soon.

It should be coming any moment. He felt like he’d been in these woods for a year, but he knew it could only have been minutes. Soon he’d hear sirens. Maybe a helicopter. Tom would have called the SWAT team from Billings for sure, but they’d be some time coming.

Hang in there, he willed Rose and the rest of them. Just hang in there a little longer.

A man’s cry of pain ripped through the night air.

“Rob!” he heard Jake call. “Damn, he’s down!”

THE GUNFIRE CUT OFF again when the men began shouting. Rose stumbled to a stop when she heard someone yell, “Rob! Damn, he’s down!”

Rob? Rob Matheson? Was that his brother, Jake, yelling his name? Were the rest of the Mathesons here?

Was Cab?

“Come on!” Rose started forward at a run, still gripping Fila’s hand. A moment later, she heard bushes rustling, and Hannah spilled out of a thicket in front of them.

“Rose?” Hannah’s voice was strained. Rose could tell she was scared to death.

Rose gripped her hands in the dark and pulled her into a fierce hug. “It’s me and Fila,” she said.

“What’s happening?”

“The men after Fila are here. But Rob and Jake Matheson are here, too.”

“Rob and Jake?” Hannah looked blank. “How did they…?”

“Come on,” Rose said. “We’ve got to get to them.” She took both Hannah and Fila’s hands. “Stick close to me,” she ordered. She began to inch forward carefully. She’d have to call out when they got close to the Mathesons. Warn Jake and Rob they weren’t the enemy.


“We can’t go toward the gunfire,” Hannah hissed, tugging back.

Somewhere in front of them, a man yelled, “Go—they’re getting around us.” Was it Rob? His voice was thick with pain and Rose’s breath caught in her throat.

“Damn it. Luke, cut them off,” Jake yelled.

There was a flurry of movement and suddenly a shot came from behind her. At the same time noise erupted in the direction of Carl’s.

“They’ve got past Cab,” Jake shouted. “Luke, where are you?”

Gunfire burst out again, bullets whizzed past Rose on all sides. “Down! Fila get down!” she yelled, dropping to her stomach and dragging Hannah and Fila with her. She pulled them close and lay as flat as she could, one hand gripping Hannah’s arm, the other holding Fila.

“We’re caught in the middle!” Hannah shrieked.

“Just keep down. They can’t see us,” Rose said. She pressed her face into the dirt and began to pray.

THE GUNMEN HAD BROKEN THROUGH on two sides and now there were no lines, there was no order to any of this. Cab returned the fire of the man who remained between him and the road, but Ethan now faced toward Carl’s, trying to stop the intruder who was circling around. Rob was hurt, he didn’t know how badly, and Jake and Luke were taking the brunt of the attack to his left. In a chaos of gunfire and shouting, he didn’t see how it could get worse.

“Down!” a female voice rang out. “Fila, get down!”

Rose.

Cab spun around, trying desperately to locate her. She was back toward Jake and Luke somewhere.

Trapped.

A bullet whipped past close to his ear and Cab swore when he realized one of their opponents had made it past their line and circled around. Wherever those women were they were in the center of the gunfight now. With this kind of crossfire there was no way to get them out.

A shuffle of noise got his attention and Ned crawled up beside him. Cab grabbed his arm. “One of them has wrapped around behind us. Get as close to him as you can,” he shouted in his ear over the deafening noise. “Take him out. You have to take him out!” He hoped Ethan’s shots would soon find the one making his way toward Carl’s.

He ducked as low as he could manage and darted toward where Rob still groaned in pain. Jake was crouched over his brothers’ prone form. “Is he okay?”

“Don’t know. Nothing we can do until we take them out or get some help.” Jake waved a hand at the darkness, where gunfire still rippled out, keeping everyone pinned down.

“Where the f*ck is that backup? They should be here by now,” Cab growled. He moved beyond Rob, positioned himself in a half-crouch and joined Luke in holding off the other two gunmen. Just a few more minutes. Just a couple more minutes, he told himself again and again. They could do this. They could hold the gunmen back.

Another man’s cry rang out.

JAMIE. THAT’S JAMIE, Rose thought fighting to hold back tears. She was sure of it. The sound had come from the side of the woods nearest Carl’s house. Beside her, Hannah cried out. Fila lay stiff and straight.

“We have to do something,” Hannah hissed, her voice breaking.

“What?” Rose hissed back. “We don’t have any weapons.”

“That was Jamie!”

“I know it was. Shhh!”

Another man shouted and the gunfire dipped. He called out angrily, a torrent of foreign words that seemed to go on and on. Rose bit her lip, her fingers tight on her friends’ arms. The gunfire slowed, but didn’t stop. Still the man shouted. Rose didn’t understand a word. Was that Arabic? Something else? What did they speak in Afghanistan?

“What is he saying?” Hannah hissed.

“I don’t know,” Rose said. She recognized the tone though—anger, righteousness.

Persuasion.

Something shifted beside her. Fila.

Rose whipped her head around. “No! Don’t move! Whatever he’s saying, don’t you listen, Fila!”

“He’s saying they’ll let you go. They only want me. They don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“Don’t believe him! You know it’s not true.” Rose let go of Hannah and clung to Fila with both hands.

“It’s the only way,” Fila said, pulling away from her. She was getting to her knees, Rose realized, preparing to stand up.

“No. He’s lying! He’ll still kill us all. He’ll start with you.” Rose scrambled up, too. Fila tried to detach herself but Rose clung on. “Get back down. You’ll get us all killed.”

“This is all because of me.” Fila tugged free, but Rose flung herself forward and caught her ankle as she stood up. She jerked it hard and Fila crashed to the ground with a cry of pain.

Shouting erupted from all sides. Fila yanked her leg free again and scrambled forward on all fours. Rose went after her, but Hannah cried out, “No. Rose, stop!” as the gunfire intensified. While Hannah held her back, she watched in horror as Fila stood up to her full height and began to shout.

CAB’S WORST NIGHTMARE had come to life. Gunfire rang out from all sides, he couldn’t see a thing in the dark, two of his friends were hurt and his backup was missing. When the gunman began to call out, at first he thought Cab might be asking for a truce, but the tone of the man’s voice soon disabused him of that notion. He was haranguing someone. Calling them out.

Calling Fila out. The mystery woman. Cab was sure of it.

What would he say in this situation if he were the gunman? Come on out. We won’t hurt your friends. Would Fila be smart enough to understand the game? Or would she fall for it and expose Rose, too?

Stay put, stay put, stay put, he willed at her, but when Rose cried out, he knew it was all over.

“No! Don’t move! Whatever he’s saying, don’t you listen, Fila!” Rose shouted. A scuffle, more shouted words, and a lithe, dark shape rose up in the middle of the gunfight. It called out in a woman’s voice.

Cab wished he knew what she was saying because her words chilled him to the bone like nothing else had this night. She didn’t plead or cry or show any sign of weakness. She was giving it back to the man as good as she’d got. The minute she started speaking, the gunfire cut out. At first silence greeted her words, then a babble of foreign male voices. A shot rang out. Another burst of gunfire.

“Rose, stay down,” Cab yelled. “All of you stay down!” He whipped around to face the source of the shots, squeezed off several of his own. A man cried out, something dropped to the ground and all was still again.

Fila, silenced a moment, began again, a river of shouted words he thought could skin a man alive. The other gunmen shouted back at her, furious replies to her harangue. They were moving, Cab realized. Bunching together. He called out a warning, just as the three men burst forward in a blaze of gunfire. His own friends returned fire from all sides, but Cab knew the women couldn’t last in this kind of fight. Abandoning reason, he threw himself toward them, his only goal to get between Rose and the bullets.

As the gunmen raced forward, and the distance between them and Fila, between them and Rose shortened, Cab knew his cause was lost. He couldn’t reach Rose in time. Couldn’t stop these monsters. Couldn’t…

A new sound shook the ground and at first Cab thought it was a bigger gun. He felt the shudders through the dirt beneath him. They vibrated through the soles of his feet, to his ankles, to his calves, to his knees. Something was coming.


Something big.

“WE’VE GOT TO STOP HER. She’s going to get killed!” Rose cried as Hannah kept her from dashing after Fila.

When Fila began to shout at the gunmen, Rose fell back with a cry of fear. As tears rolled down her face, the forest filled with shouts and gunfire. The foreign men were grouping together. Pushing forward.

Coming for Fila.

One of the foreigners yelped in pain and there was confusion for a moment, but then the gunmen regrouped and pressed forward again. All the time Fila yelled streams of angry words back at them. The men answered, their guttural syllables as rough and frightening as their bullets.

Rose raised her hands to her face. Wanted to hide her eyes but couldn’t. She could hardly see Fila in the darkness or make out anything else for that matter, except the sound of the weapons firing all around her.

“Oh, my God,” Hannah gasped. “Oh no.” She got to her knees.

Now Rose felt it too; something rumbling through the ground at them. An earthquake? Thunder?

“It’s Gladys,” Hannah said.

A high-pitched scream pierced the air and Fila crashed to the ground. The gunmen surged forward in a clash of shouts and gunfire.

A man bowled into Rose from the opposite direction, knocking her flat to the dirt. “Stay down,” Cab hissed in her ear. Hannah huddled close to her and Cab flung an arm around them both.

The bison charged past, its hooves flashing, clattering against the hard-packed ground. The gunmen’s shouts turned questioning. Fearful.

Terrified.

They scattered as Gladys charged through them. Rose heard the sickening crack of broken bone, a piercing shout and then silence.

A second later, voices echoed all around them. Men in uniform flooded the forest. Above them, the whirr of a helicopter’s rotary blades split the air and a bright light turned night into day.

Rose wept with relief and terror as Cab held her. Police, deputies, and SWAT team members streamed toward them, flowing through the forest. Overrunning her sanctuary.

Rose clung to Cab as the world lurched, tipped, and finally went dark.