The Sheriff Catches a Bride (28 page)

“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 fuck 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.