Montana SEAL (11 page)

“No. We can’t. If I have to die, you’re going down with me.” She reached over to grab the gun off the passenger seat. When she did, she took her attention away from the road. A curve loomed ahead.

Sadie saw it but Carla didn’t, until it was too late.

The car flew over the edge of the road, and raced down a steep slope. Carla flung her hands into the air and covered her face.

Sadie was thrown onto the backseat floorboard and couldn’t pull herself out.

As if in slow motion, the vehicle bounced, slid, and careened down the hill.

Sadie closed her eyes and braced herself for what would surely come.

The vehicle slammed into something hard and unforgiving. The front and back seats squashed together like an accordion. Trapped between them on the floor, Sadie lay, bruised and dazed.

Metal creaked and cold wind whistled through broken windows.

A low moan filled her ears, and it took a moment to realize it came from her own throat. Sadie wiggled her toes, moved her arms and legs, and made a tally of all her muscles and bones. She was alive. For a moment, she rejoiced.

Then the pungent scent of gasoline wafted in the air, stinging her nostrils and spiking her fear.

H
ank started
after Carla’s disappearing vehicle, but stopped and went back to Fin.

“Don’t worry about me.” Fin waved at Hank. “Go! Save Sadie. Carla is completely insane. There’s no telling what she’ll do to her.”

“I can’t leave you to bleed to death. Sadie would never forgive me.”

Fin shoved the shirt Sadie had used to staunch the blood at Hank. “Then used this.”

Hank made quick work applying a pressure bandage, using the shirt. Then he helped the other man back into his coat, and half-lifted and carried Fin to his rented SUV, where he deposited him in the passenger seat.

Less than a two minutes behind Carla, he peeled out of the drive, leaving the burning house behind.

Fortunately, the falling snow made it easy to follow Fin’s crazy wife. As long as the snow didn’t thicken and cover her tracks too quickly, they should be able to catch up.

“I’m sorry about all this,” Fin said. “I knew she was losing it, but I thought she’d be all right if she went to visit her mother in Reno.”

Trying not to think about what might be happening to Sadie at that moment, Hank asked, “Do you still love her?”

Fin held his hand over the wound on his leg, his gaze ahead on the road in front of them. “I’m not sure I
ever
loved her. I’m not sure I know what love is. But out here in Montana, the pickin’s are slim. I liked her in high school. We got along okay. I thought we’d make a good team.” He shook his head. “I was wrong.”

“Wrong or right, we have to find her before she hurts Sadie.”

The snow fell in big, fat flakes, blowing sideways and blanketing the ranch road. Hank slowed as they neared the cattle guard. For a moment, he lost the tracks. Which way had Carla turned? Toward Eagle Rock, or away?

Fin leaned forward, staring hard out the window. “There! She turned right!”

Hank bumped over the metal cattle guard and turned onto the highway, headed away from town. The tracks in the snow were getting harder to see. He floored the accelerator, pushing the rented SUV faster than was safe on the slick roads. If he didn’t find Sadie soon…

Well, he couldn’t think that way. He
would
find her and she’d be all right. Then he’d beg her to let him be with her forever, even if she wouldn’t marry him. He’d take her crumbs, follow her to the ends of the earth, and even to LA where she thought he wouldn’t fit in. He could be her bodyguard, though he’d done a crummy job so far. Carla blew up her house, and Sadie would have been inside had they not smelled the gas in time. Making love with the client had shaken his focus.

“I’m losing the tracks, and my vision is starting to blur.” Fin wiped a hand down his face. “I won’t be much help if I pass out.”

“Hang in there, Fin. I’ll get you to the hospital as soon as I find Sadie.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Fin said, his voice slurring. “Find my sister.”

“Do you think Carla would be desperate enough to turn off onto any of the side roads?”

“Maybe. One of these leads to a hunting cabin.” Fin shook his head and blinked, then stared out the windshield again. “It’s up ahead in a curve, if I’m not mistaken.”

Hank slowed, wishing the snow would slack up enough he could see farther ahead than ten feet in front of the SUV.

“Damn!” Fin turned his head. “We just passed the turn-off. I think I saw tire tracks.”

Hank jammed his foot on the brake pedal and sent the SUV skidding sideways and almost off the side of the road. Letting up the pressure, he straightened the vehicle and brought it to a halt. Then he swiveled in his seat and shifted into reverse, backing up several yards.

“There,” Fin said, pointing. “Do those look like tire tracks to you?”

With a nod, Hank’s jaw tightened as he shifted into drive and pulled off the highway and onto a dirt road that was barely wide enough to call a path. Flanked on both sides by evergreens, the road itself wasn’t as thick with snow as the highway was quickly becoming. The tracks in the dirt were evident and fresh.

Hope filled his chest, but soon faded as the road wound upward into the hills. Soon, they came to a curve barren of trees, with a rocky drop off falling away into the darkness. Thankfully, the tire tracks led past it, up the road, into another stand of trees.

As they neared a sharp curve, Hank jammed his foot on the brakes and came to a complete halt.

“What?” Fin’s head jerked up, his face pale, his mouth set in a thin line, pain clouding his eyes. “Do you see them?”

Hope dropped like a lead weight into his belly. “Stay here.” The tracks led off the road and down the side of a very steep hill.

Fin started to unbuckle his seatbelt. “I’m coming with you.”

“Look, you’re hurt. This terrain is rough. With my bum leg and yours, I wouldn’t be able to get both of us back up the hill. If I don’t come back soon, get in the driver’s seat, go back to Eagle Rock, and get the sheriff out here. And while you’re at it, call for an ambulance.” Hank stepped out into the snow.

“Hank!” Fin called out.

Hank paused.

Fin leaned forward, shucking his jacket. “At least take this. You’ll freeze to death if you’re gone long.”

Hank accepted Fin’s offering and turned toward the edge of the road, shrugging into the coat.

Before he’d taken one step over the side, an explosion ripped through the air, knocking him backward. He fell hard on his ass, the landing jolting the hell out of his leg. Pain radiated from the injury through the rest of his leg and stole his breath away.

Flames rose into the sky, the glow enhanced by the low-hanging clouds.

Hank scrambled to his feet, his heart banging against his chest, panic making his breath catch in his throat.
Sadie.

Holy hell, what had happened? He went over the edge, limping as fast as he could. Skidding on loose rocks, he slid toward the bottom of the hill where a ball of flames reached for the sky, puffing black, acrid smoke like a steam engine.

“Sadie! Dear God, Sadie!” he cried and ran toward the vehicle. The trunk remained closed. The doors on the side closest to him were closed. Nobody had gotten out of the vehicle that way, and the fire was too hot for him to get close.

Hank had a flashback of when his team had taken that hit with the grenade. His heart raced and he couldn’t breathe. Dropping to his knees, he ignored the pain in his leg as tears ran down his face. He’d lost Lt. Mike. He’d almost lost Swede in that last battle. Now, in the beauty of his home, in the Crazy Mountains of Montana, he’d failed the one woman he’d ever loved. Hank buried his face in his hands. “Oh, Sadie.”

A hand settled on his shoulder. “Hank.” Her voice came to him as if in a dream. “I’m okay. I’m here.”

He looked up, blinked the tears from his eyes and stared into Sadie’s beautiful, dirt-streaked face. Then he was on his feet, pulling her into his arms, his aching leg forgotten in the joy of holding his Sadie, his heart, his love.

She nestled against him, her body trembling.

“You’re cold.” He yanked the jacket off his back and wrapped her in it.

Sadie laughed, her teeth chattering. “Thanks, but now you’ll be cold.”

“I may never be cold again in my life.” He kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, and finally claimed her lips in a deep, soul-defining melding of their mouths.

When she pushed her hands against his chest, he didn’t want to loosen his hold, afraid if he did, she’d disappear, and he’d realize this had all been a dream.

“Hank. I’m okay, but I’m afraid Carla isn’t. I barely got out of the car before it caught fire.

Hank frowned. At first, he couldn’t comprehend helping the woman who’d tried to kill Sadie and Fin. When his heart stopped racing, he knew he couldn’t leave the woman to die in the falling snow. “Show me where she is.”

Sadie took his hand, and led him toward the burning vehicle, and around to the other side where the doors stood open. “What the hell?” Sadie looked around. “She was here.”

“But not as dead as you thought I was.” Carla stepped out of the shadows, pointing the handgun at Sadie, blood dripping from a gash in her forehead. “That wreck should have killed you.”

“Carla, give me the gun.” Hank held out his hand.

“No fucking way.” Her hand shook, but she refused to back down. “That bitch has to die.” She aimed at Sadie.

Hank couldn’t bank on the woman missing again. He threw himself at Carla, hitting her low, like a linebacker, plowing into her belly. The gun went off as they both hit the ground.

For a moment, Hank lay still, waiting for the searing pain of a gunshot wound. When none came, he leaned up on his elbows and stared down at Carla.

Her face was pale in the glow of the burning vehicle. When Hank pressed his fingers to the base of her throat, he could feel a weak, but steady pulse.

Sadie hurried to his side and bent over Carla. “Is she…”

“She’s alive.” He grabbed the gun from the ground and handed it to Sadie. “Whatever you do, don’t let her get her hands on that.”

“Gotcha.” Sadie slipped the magazine from the weapon and cleared the chamber.

Hank rose onto his haunches, his leg screaming with pain, the scar tissue stretching, threatening to pull apart. Scooping his hands beneath Carla, he lifted her into his arms, when he’d rather be lifting Sadie and carrying her out of the woods.

Step by painful step, he climbed the hill, slipping twice. If not for Sadie, walking up the hill beside him, steadying him when he would have fallen, he wouldn’t have made it.

Fin stood at the edge of the road. “Carla?” His gaze met Sadie’s.

“She’s alive, but pretty banged up,” Sadie said.

Fin hobbled to the back door of the SUV and flung it open. “I was just about to climb into the driver’s seat, and go to town for that ambulance.” He stood back so that Hank could settle Carla in the back seat. Then Fin climbed in with his wife.

Hank closed the back door and held open the front door for Sadie.

She paused and leaned up on her toes to kiss him. “We have a lot to talk about.”

“Yes. We do.” Hank wrapped his arm around her waist and hugged her to him, his mouth finding hers, kissing her hard. “But first, we have to get to the hospital.”

Sadie smiled, her eyes filling with tears. Then she slid into the seat and buckled her belt.

The arctic wind found Hank, blowing through the thin shirt he wore, sinking all the way through his skin to his bones. He and Sadie needed to talk, but what did
she
want to talk about? Was she going to push him away again?

He limped around to the driver’s side, the pain returning to his leg in full force. He gritted his teeth and climbed into the SUV.

All the way to Eagle Rock, he held it together, refusing to start the conversation with Sadie until everyone was taken care of. The best urgent medical care Eagle Rock had to offer was the volunteer fire department’s first responders. The town was too small to afford a trauma center or hospital, and, as they discovered when they pulled into the station’s parking lot, the town’s only doctor was on vacation.

Carla and Fin were stabilized and loaded for transport to the hospital in Bozeman. Hank learned that Allie had heard the explosion and noticed the light in the sky from the White Oak Ranch. When she’d called the ranch’s number, and didn’t get an answer, she’d dialed 911 to have the fire department take a look. They were preparing to send the full contingent in response to handle the blaze. Volunteers were already on their way. Hopefully, they would be able to save the barn even though the house, and everything in it, were a complete loss.

Sadie leaned into Hank, tears falling silently down her face as she listened to the emergency medical technician’s account of what had happened since they’d left the ranch. “All the pictures of my parents. Their wedding rings. My grandmother’s rocking chair…”

“Things can be replaced. People can’t.” He brushed the stray strands of hair away from her damp cheeks. “And nothing can take away your memories.”

She smiled. “I know all that. But it still hurts.”

Hank’s heart squeezed. He wished he could take away the pain of her loss.

He and Sadie followed behind the ambulance, both quiet on the trip into Bozeman.

While the emergency room doctors worked on Fin and Carla, Hank insisted on someone checking Sadie over.

Allie arrived while Hank waited for Sadie.

“Thank goodness you’re all right.” She hugged him and stood back, checking him from head to foot. “What the hell happened?”

He filled her in on everything, his gaze shifting to the ER doors every time they opened.

“And Sadie? Will this make her cut her visit short and go back to LA?”

“I hope not.” Hank wouldn’t let himself believe that after all they’d been through together, she’d leave him behind. But he didn’t know for certain, and it was eating away at his insides.

Finally, Sadie appeared, smiling. “Other than a few bumps, bruises and a shiner, I’m fine,” she said. “While we’re waiting for the doctor to finish with Fin, I’d like to see how your father is doing.”

“I’ll stay here and wait for Fin,” Allie said. “Tell Dad I’ll be by to see him next. Hopefully, he’ll be getting out of the hospital soon.”

A few minutes later, Hank and Sadie entered Lloyd Patterson’s room.

Hank’s father was sitting on the side of his bed, buttoning his shirt over his hospital gown.

Sadie hurried forward. “Mr. Patterson, what are you doing?”

“Getting out of this dadgum morgue. Half the county is on fire back home, and I’m stuck here.”

“The fire department is taking care of things,” Hank said. “Besides, how did you hear about it?”

“I have my sources.” Hank’s father caught Sadie’s hand. “What happened to your face, girl?”

Sadie touched the corner of her eye. “Would you believe I ran into a door?” She winked and winced.

“Hell, no.” Hank’s father’s brow drew into one of his deepest frowns. “Did my son do that to you?”

Sadie laughed out loud. “No, sir.”

Hank drew Sadie away from his father and into his arms. “I’d never hurt her.”

“Then why did you leave her to join the Navy?” his father demanded. “I never saw a sorrier face than Sadie McClain’s after you ran out on her.”