Authors: Lora Leigh
He sighed heavily. “The major reason is the fact that you remind me so much of my
own daughter. You would like her, Anna. She’s outspoken and full of spirit, just as
you are. And, like you, she has a heart and a soul. Not all of us have such things,
you know.”
“And,” he continued, “sometimes such addictions such as mine are simply a part of
who and what you are.” He shrugged, glancing up at her once again with a somber look.
“But even such addictions can be handled. Managed, to a point.” His gaze was still
cold, but the expression on his face seemed a little less merciless now. “But only
if you adhere to your own rules. Mr. Sorenson has broken far too many of those.”
“Such bloodletting should have limits. I don’t care much for what he would do to a
young woman he knows as well as he knows you. One of such innocence and integrity.”
He stopped.
Anna heard the sound that had him pausing, had his expression tightening again into
one of icy, murderous intent. A slight, distinct click, almost that of a lock easing
open.
“They’re early,” he murmured, moving away from her, his expression suddenly imperative
as he bent and jerked open a trapdoor in the floor before turning back to her. “Tell
them I helped you, Anna. If it hadn’t been for me, you’d be dead. You’d just be another
loose end for him to tie up if I hadn’t found the clause that stated you had to be
twenty-five for your death to benefit him. Remember that. Remember, I repaid your
father’s kindnesses and more.”
CHAPTER 20
It happened so quickly.
Amory threw himself into the opening the trapdoor made in the floor.
Weak, struggling, Anna threw herself to the floor.
Glass shattered as a harsh, acrid scent began to roll through the room in heavy columns
of lung-searing smoke. Raised voices, shouted commands, and blinding lights lit up
the smoke-filled interior of the cabin as darkened shadows rushed through the door.
Smoke attacked her lungs, tightened them, and made it harder to breath.
As close to the floor as she could get, Anna fought to breathe and to control the
instinct to cough against the harsh smoke filling the room.
“Archer,” she cried out. “Archer, where are you?”
She knew he was there. She had known he would come for her. The sound of sirens began
to fill the night, along with the harsh male voices raised from the darkness outside.
Anna could hear orders being shouted from outside the cabin.
Shards of splinters rained through the room as the back wall and door seemed to explode
into tiny fragments. Chaos exploded around her.
The prick of a splinter being forced into her arm, then her hip, had her crying out,
her head jerking to the side. Geez, she was getting tired of losing her own blood.
She liked keeping it inside her body, if that was okay?
The stitches in her thigh had torn as Amory dragged her from Archer’s house through
the night. There went Archer’s hope that it wouldn’t scar.
“Dammit, Archer, make it stop,” she cried out as she heard another of the smoke canisters
explode in the house. “I can’t see.” Her voice was so weak, ineffective as she fought
against the smoke that made breathing difficult.
The sense of powerlessness that tore through her as she tried to crawl for the door
was the most horrifying thing she had ever known. Surely she hadn’t escaped death
by the Slasher’s hand only to die at the hands of her rescuers?
That would just suck. Panic welled inside her. Her heart began to pound harder, a
cold chill racing over her body as the shadows began to converge on her. A shirt was
quickly whipped over her head, filtering some of the smoke and easing the searing
burn in her lungs.
The instinct to cough was finally mastered, though it wasn’t easy.
Powerful arms pushed beneath her knees and shoulders, pulling her against a hard,
muscular chest where she was held securely.
“Where is he?” One voice yelled over the din. “There’s too much damned smoke here,
Archer! I can’t see him!” Crowe called out.
The Callahans were with Archer and what sounded like an army.
“We have movement in the trees, Archer. He’s on the run! Night vision shows a vehicle
moving fast.” Another harsh, male voice rang through the area as fresh night air filtered
through the shirt covering her face. “Fuck me! Hell no, that bastard’s not getting
away!”
Amory was on the run, but he wouldn’t get far if the Callahans had anything to do
with it.
“Make sure no one else is in that building,” Archer ordered, his voice furious. “Then
start gathering evidence. I want those fuckers to fry when we find them.”
Archer was snarling, his voice furious as he shouted out orders while he held her
against his chest, carrying her away from the hell other young women hadn’t survived.
“Sheriff, we have two sets of tracks here! They were both here,” Deputy Caine called
out.
“I want photos and cement castings, Caine. Make sure everything matches up with what
we already have,” Archer called out as Anna felt herself being lowered on something
much softer than the floor of that cabin.
He had come for her.
No more than two or three hours could have passed. Dawn was only just beginning to
lighten the night sky.
Her throat was tight with tears, with the knowledge that she could have died. That
she could have lost any chance to tell him how she felt.
God, she should have told him before now. It didn’t matter that he might never love
her. That he might not want to love her. She loved him.
A sob escaped her lips as he removed his shirt from her head, his hands cupping her
face as those wonderful golden brown eyes stared down at her.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.” His voice was softer now, gentleness replacing fury, though
she could still feel that rage pulsing just beneath the surface. “It’s okay, I have
you. I have you, baby.”
“Don’t let me go,” she whispered, her arms tightening around his neck as she fought
to hold onto him. “Please, Archer, don’t let me go.”
“Never, Anna,” he swore, holding her closer, the heat of his body sinking into her
skin, into the chill that had been wrapping around her soul. “I’ll never let you go,
Anna.”
* * *
“Don’t leave me.” She tried to make her fingers fist in the material of his shirt,
but without much success. “Don’t leave me, Archer.”
“I’m not going anywhere, darlin’,” he promised. “And neither are you. Never again,
Anna. I won’t let this happen ever again.”
She was so tired.
“Amory drugged me,” she told him. “I’m still so weak, but I have to tell you—Amory
and Wayne—”
“I know, Anna,” he breathed out roughly. “We know who it was, and officers are waiting
for both of them at their homes. We’ll get them, I promise.”
“I have to tell you so much.” And she was so tired.
“You can tell me when you’re ready, baby.” One large, broad hand caressed up and down
her back, and she could swear it felt as though Archer was trembling.
“Make sure I wake up.” She couldn’t hold her eyes open much longer. “Swear it, Archer.
Make sure I wake up.”
“I swear it, Anna,” he swore, his large hand cupping the side of her face gently as
he pulled back to look at her once again. “I promise, I’ll make sure you wake up.”
It was all she had to hold on to. That promise, the assurance from the man she loved—
Because she couldn’t stay awake any longer.
Her lashes drifted closed one last time, the sedative pulling her under, but relief
eased her into peace.
She was safe.
Archer had come for her. He would have been there if Wayne Sorenson had actually decided
to rape and torture her. He would have saved her, and he would have protected her.
* * *
Archer rubbed his hand wearily over his face, the sense of relief that assailed him
almost weakening his knees.
God help him, he’d thought he’d lose his mind when he realized she had been taken.
For the first time since he’d realized the mistake he had made in leaving her behind,
he could finally breathe comfortably again.
That tight knot of pain was slowly easing away, but it was being replaced by a core-deep
fury and a need to kill that hardened inside him to the point that he wondered if
he’d ever be the same again.
No, he would never be the same again. He’d almost lost the most important thing in
the world to him. No man came back from that without changing.
“We’re ready to transport, Sheriff,” the young medic Sanja Fallon informed him somberly.
“You’ll be able to find her at the Emergency Care Clinic, and Doctor Mayan told me
to assure you she was in charge.”
Archer had to force himself to lay her on the gurney, then to step back from it and
not jump inside the ambulance as they lifted her inside and secured the small bed.
She was asleep now, but all he could remember were those frightened green eyes as
she stared up at him. Locked inside her gaze, Archer had felt things he’d sworn all
his life didn’t exist.
Tipping his hat back on his head, Archer propped his hands on his hips as he turned
and stared around the secluded area silently.
Two County deputies and three deputized Callahans were searching the area, along with
the sheriff and two deputies from a neighboring county.
No doubt the FBI would be showing up soon.
Archer had received a searing objection regarding the Callahans’ participation from
the director of the Aspen FBI office, though it had been on voice mail.
That was one phone call Archer had known better than to answer.
“Not much has been left, Sheriff.” Deputy Caine moved toward him, his expression tight
and dark with anger as his turquoise gaze narrowed against the bright lights of the
vehicles pointed toward the cabin.
“Did you get those tracks?” Snapping his hat from his head, Archer wiped the perspiration
from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt.
“Casting and photo.” The deputy nodded. “Those boys must not have known about the
rain that hit up here the other night. The ground directly beneath the trees where
the other vehicle parked was still soft. Only those areas that the sun could actually
hit were completely dry. I still have to run the tests, but I’m ninety percent certain
the tracks under the tree will match Sorenson’s. The others definitely match the truck
parked behind your house.
Yeah, a lot of folks, even the old-timers, sometimes forget that just because the
weather’s nice in Sweetrock doesn’t mean the mountains are going to be hospitable.
The valley that housed Sweetrock was far enough below the mountains that it was often
weeks to a month later before they saw the snow that fell ass deep this far up.
It was already cold here.
A chilly breeze ruffled the trees and slid through the threads of the shirt he wore.
“I’m finished here, Sheriff. There’s simply nothing left to gather.” Nash moved across
the small clearing, his strides long, powerful.
“Caine, start rounding everyone up,” Archer sighed as he turned and headed for the
Yukon the investigator was loading. “Let’s get back to town.”
“I have an APB out on Wyatt and Sorenson,” the deputy informed him, following Archer
to the investigator’s County vehicle. “Sheriff Dillen from Montrose sent his deputies
to the bastards’ houses.”
“That’s where I’m heading as well.” Nash turned from storing his supplies and the
sealed tote of evidence in the back of the vehicle.
“I’m heading to the clinic.” Archer jerked open the door to his vehicle as he turned
to the deputy. “Have the Callahans wait for me at the ranch. I’ll bring Anna there.”
She wouldn’t like it. Hell, she would hate it. But maybe once she learned he was taking
Rafe and Resnova up on the offer to stay as well, then she would be okay with it.
He couldn’t risk this again, ever.
Starting the SUV, he threw it into drive and tore out of the area, racing for the
clinic and for Anna.
He didn’t bother to call the Corbins. They would find out soon enough, if they hadn’t
already begun getting calls. He knew how gossip worked in this town.
If they didn’t know yet, he’d tell them later, after Anna was safe, after he could
stand to breathe without the remembered fear rushing through him.
Just as soon as he had a chance to tell her he loved her.
CHAPTER 21
She was fine.
She was so fine that by the time Archer arrived at the clinic, Anna was waiting behind
the nurses’ station rather than in the waiting room, obviously amusing herself on
the computer.
“I see you’re ready to go,” he stated as he leaned against the nurses’ station she
was sitting behind, her gaze locked on the computer screen.
“Archer.” Her head jerked up, the dark pain in her eyes not exactly something he was
expecting.
“Are you okay, Anna?” He started to move behind the counter.
Anna quickly rose to her feet and tugged at the T-shirt she wore.
“I’m ready to go home,” she told him as she quickly moved around to meet him. “Let’s
go.”
She didn’t pause and she didn’t wait for him.
As she swept past him and headed for the main entrance, her limp more pronounced now,
indicating that the healing wound at the side of her thigh was bothering her, Anna
still made quick progress to the Emergency entrance.
“This isn’t a race, Anna,” he reminded her as he caught up with her.
“Good thing,” she rounded mockingly. “I’d so lose. I couldn’t even run fast enough
to escape Amory last night.”
“Well, we couldn’t run fast enough to catch him either,” Archer relayed quietly. “Him
or Sorenson.”
She came to a slow stop. “Did you find Amelia?” she asked, fear apparent in her voice.
“She was unconscious in the bedroom she used as a child,” he told her. “Drugged. Evidently,
he’d had her there for several days after he caught her poking around in his basement.
From what she told Logan and Nash, she’s suspected for some time that he was connected
somehow to the Callahans. Something he let slip the year he jerked her from college.
She’s been trying to prove it ever since.”