Reagan took off. Branches lashed her face and body. Thorns tore at her skin and clothes. Loose dirt and rocks made her slide down part of the hillside, and tree bark tore at her hands as she grabbed them to steady her quick descent.
From behind, she heard the bullets flying past them and lodging into trees around them. Instinctively, she began to move down the mountainside faster and faster. Her lungs burned. Her head spun. Her body screamed in agony. But Reagan didn’t stop. She didn’t know how long she and Carter ran, but finally there were no more bullets flying around them.
They splashed through a mountain stream and Reagan dove behind a gigantic boulder to catch her breath. Carter’s body, heaving from the exertion, collapsed against the stone next to hers. For a moment neither of them talked. Then Carter looked at her, grabbed her face, and kissed her hard. It wasn’t a romantic kiss. It was one born out of the fear of loss. A frantic connection that was over so fast she couldn’t have imagined it except for the throbbing lips it left behind.
“I thought I lost you,” Carter whispered as he ran his hands all over her body. “Are you hurt?”
“I hit my head, but I’m okay. What the hell happened?” Reagan asked with disbelief.
Carter was digging into his pockets and dumping items on the ground. Some change, a wallet, a Swiss Army knife, and finally his cell phone. A cell phone that was shattered.
“Maybe it’ll still work,” Reagan whispered. Carter tried to turn it on. Nothing. He tried rebooting it. Nothing.
“What about yours?” Carter asked, shoving everything back into his pockets.
Reagan shook her head as dread filled her once again. “It’s in the cockpit with my stuff.”
“That’s okay. We’ve been hiking and camping our entire lives. We can navigate these woods and find help. Did you see a town as we flew in?” Carter asked.
Reagan closed her eyes and replayed the final descent. “Base of the mountain, in a hollow, to the northwest of the airfield.” She could see the little town nestled in the valley between the mountains. Some people called it a hollow, but in Kentucky and most of the South, it was pronounced more like haller.
Carter looked up at the sun, turned to find their path down the mountain and then over at the stream. “Streams or creeks always run to valleys. I bet if we follow this one it’ll wind its way into the town. We can use a phone there and call in reinforcements while we hide out at the sheriff’s office.”
Reagan took a deep breath, pulling her mind from the fog and thinking about what Carter said. “Boost me up on the rock,” she told him as she reached up to grab the rock. Carter laced his hands together and bent down. She placed her foot in his hands and he boosted her up as if she were mounting a horse.
Looking out over the woods, Reagan saw the direction the stream was winding. It was gradual, but it was heading in the right direction. She bent to tell Carter what she saw when the sound of gunfire had her jumping from the rock. She landed hard and cringed at the pain in her ankle.
“We have to go,” Carter said, grabbing her hand and yanking her to her feet. Reagan clenched her jaw as pain shot up her calf when they took off running. “Let’s head away from the creek and the town and then double back. We’ll cross the creek and then follow it down once we lose Mick.”
Reagan nodded her understanding as they ran uphill, toward the mountaintop and away from the creek. She hadn’t seen Mick when she’d stood on top of the boulder. He couldn’t be too close, but she wasn’t going to stop and find out. Instead, she pressed through the pain in her right ankle and followed Carter.
16
Keeneston, Kentucky
* * *
The morning rush at the Blossom Café was in full swing. The mismatched tables and chairs were completely full as Cy and Gemma squeezed into a table with his brothers, Miles, Marshall, and Cade and their wives. Cy didn’t feel like coming to breakfast with everyone. Not after the chewing out his wife had given him for overreacting to his daughter’s love life. That is, once she had let him back into the house. Cy rolled his eyes as Gemma began talking to Katelyn about how excited she was about Reagan and Carter dating. No one asked Cy if he was excited. Well, they all knew he wasn’t. And it wasn’t because something was wrong with Carter. He was actually a really good man. But it was Cy’s job to protect his little girls and if someone hurt them, he would track them down and cut out their heart. Figuratively . . . okay, maybe even literally.
Cy wanted to talk to Miles about it. Miles had been just as bad as Cy with his daughter, Layne. Then Layne had brought home a DEVGRU man, of all things. A freaking SEAL Team Six Navy man. A froggie! And instead of losing his mind, well, not for too long, Miles was now waxing poetic about how great his “son” was. Don’t get him wrong, Walker Greene was a great guy, but he was a great guy living with and taking care of Miles’s daughter. Cy wasn’t able to step back like that. Just ask Matt, his own son-in-law. Riley kept telling him that she and Matt were good and didn’t need looking after, but he was her father. For eighteen years plus, his sole job was to look out for her and then suddenly he wasn’t supposed to. But looking out for your children was all good when it was done with love, right?
“So, is today the big day?” Marshall whispered.
Cy grunted. Yeah, today was the big day. Carter and Reagan were flying to Florida and when they got back this evening his daughter would be engaged.
“You’re lucky. Carter is a great guy. She could have eloped with a hipster,” Marshall reminded him.
“Or a lumbersexual,” Cade said, leaning in so the men were talking on one half of the table and the women were in their own conversation on the other.
“What the hell is a lumbersexual?” Miles asked right when Cy was about to.
“These city boys who like to play dress up as real men. They wear the beard and the flannel, but have never chopped wood or done manual labor in their lives. Instead of hanging out in a bar, they hang out at the local organic coffee shop,” Cade explained with a roll of his eyes.
Cy shook his head. “Why the hell do you even know that? It’s embarrassing.”
“Marshall told me,” Cade said, calling out his brother.
Marshall shrugged a muscular shoulder. “Sydney told me about it. It’s big in the fashion world right now.” Considering his daughter, Sydney, was a former model and ran a fashion and design house, she’d know.
Ugh, and Cy couldn’t even talk to Marshall about not being happy his daughter was about to become engaged. Sydney was happily married to Deacon, a private investigator, and Cy had even overheard Marshall talking about potential grandfather names he wanted to be called. And Cade was definitely a no go. His daughter, Sophie, was married to Nash Dagher, the second-in-command of the Rahmi Security Forces. Cade wouldn’t shut up about how his son-in-law was the biggest badass in town. That is, until Layne beat the shit out of him during a boxing match. Cy smiled at the memory as the door to the café was flung open.
DeAndre Drews, the local Kentucky state trooper, stood in the doorway as he searched out the room. His eyes locked with Cy’s and he hurried toward him. Great, it was about to become official. Reagan and Carter were engaged. Actually, Cy was a little proud of Reagan and Carter. They’d managed to keep their relationship secret from DeAndre and John Wolfe, two of the biggest gossips in town. Prevailing theories on how they knew everything were: aliens, the town was bugged, or the Ouija board talked to them. And the two men were complete opposites. John was a hundred and then some. Most of his white hair was gone and kept in a pullover and his belly was more Santa Claus than anything. DeAndre was a tower of man in his early twenties. His dark skin, short, precision trimmed black hair, and boxer build was the complete opposite of John’s squishiness.