The Trouble With Love (18 page)

It was Elmer in his decked out pick-up with the huge bull horns on the front and smoke stacks on either side of the cab.  If only he knew how ridiculous he looked, Cole thought.  But Elmer was Elmer...and everyon
e loved him
,
even though they laughed their ass off at him too.
  He was
Bowie
's comic relief.

Elmer
pulled up beside them and got out
,
then reached back inside the truck and pulled out an assault vest and velcroed it on
.  Leaning back into the truck
,
he
pulled out a thigh holster and strapped it on
then
slid a
huge ass pistol with a laser sight into it.  He
put several clips for
the gun
into one of the pockets of the vest
, then reached
back inside
the truck and brought out
an AK-47
that he looped across his chest with the strap, before he grabbed three magazines and added them to a fancy tool belt he had on.

Gabe asked Cole with a snicker, "Holy shit--he think he's Rambo?"

"A mix between
Barney Fife
and Rambo," Luke tol
d him out the side of his mouth.

Cole looked at Luke and smiled, "My daddy loved the Andy Griffith show...think he thought he was Andy.
We probably should limit Elmer to one bullet, might not be a bad idea.
"

The all chuckled and watched Elmer walk over to them, pulling up his pants every few steps, because the extreme weight of the belt was dragging them down
his skinny frame
. 
Gabe and
Luke
snorted
, Cole smiled at him when he finally reached them
.
  "Morning, El..."

"H
owdy
, guys...ya'll need any extra ammunition?" he asked then hitched his thumb over his shoulder, "I
got
some
in the truck
if you do
."

"Nah, we're good, but thanks Elmer," Cole
said then
shook his head
then walked to the back of the truck
.
"
We need to get going guys, I think June is ready
,
"
he told them, then
handed out the weapons and ammun
ition
, before slamming the
tailgate
.  After the
y
secured their weapons, they walked together toward t
he helicopter and Junebug.

CHAPTER TEN

Amazingly, with all the noise the aircraft made, Cole had dozed off in the co-pilot seat for a cat nap.  Exhaustion was probably the reason he had no trouble zoning out the sound of the rotors and hum of the engine.  He hadn't slept at all since night before last...and he'd only had a few hours then. 

There was no way he'd been able to sleep after
Sabrina was
abducted last night, and the night before he'd lain awake thinking about her possibly leaving him.
  They'd made love and then he'd just lain awake holding her worrying, until he dozed off right before dawn.

Cole jerked awake when he heard Junebug's gravelly voice come over the headset in his ear.  "We're gonna stop in
Stanton
to refuel, so we don't have to fight with Midland International.  I wanna have enough
fuel for us to
search when we get where we're going."

Cole looked over at him and nodded, then sat up straighter in his seat and looked over his shoulder at the other guys.  He laughed when he saw Luke sitting in the middle seat, between Elmer and Gabe. 
Luke's
face was green, his eyes tightly shut and his knuckles were white on the arm rests.  "Hey, Slick...you doing okay?" Cole asked with a chuckle.

He nodded his head then rested it against the seat back
and
swallowed hard.  Cole heard Gabe chuckle and he winked at him.  "Got your weapons ready there, El?"  He saw his Chief Deputy checking and rechecking his weapons, sliding the clip in and out of his handgun.

"Yep, just making sure they're good.  How far are we from the LZ?'

Cole grinned widely, holding back
a chuckle
at
Elmer's
use of the pilot term for landing zone
.
"Probably twenty minutes or so after we refuel
,
"
he told him then turned back to look at his bird
'
s
eye view of the beautiful Texas landscape spread out before him
, wondering what Sabrina was doing right now, and if she was still okay
.
  She had to be okay.

***

Between the trucks she heard going back and forth outside of the room
where she was being held,
and worrying about how she was going to get out of her
e
,
Sabrina hadn't been able to sleep at all last night
.  She also worried that the police wouldn't be able to find her through her cell phone.  F
inding her from the cell phone in her pocket wasn't a given
, she knew.  The
calls were bounced from tower to tower, before they finally reached their destination. 

C
ole
hadn't called her back,
and
she hadn't really expected him to, because she'd forgotten to tell him she'd put the ringer on vibrate.
  She knew he'd worry that he'd alert them she had the phone
, if he called
her
.
 
What she wouldn't give to hear
his
voice right now
though
. 
Just the sound of
that rich
,
smooth voice of his would sure make her feel better
.  She was tempted to call him
, but she didn't want to use up what little battery she probably had left.

She looked over at the single chair in the room where they'd put her breakfast a few minutes ago
, a
pile of eggs with peppers and onions
,
a piece of toast
, and a glass of orange juice sat there taunting her. 

Her stomach revolted from both nerves and the rank smell of the onions.  There was no way she would eat or drink anything they gave her anyway, as dry and cottony as her mouth was.  The look of the guy who'd come into the room
earlier, and the one last night
told her these guys would not be above putting drugs in her food.

Sabrina sighed and hit her fist on the mattress in frustration
, then
saw
dust particles dance in
a ray of light
shining over her head and down onto her arm. 
Her eyes moved upward
following that ray up the wall behind the bed.  Her eyes
widened
when they landed on
a small hole with an oven-type vent fan in it
.  Something she hadn't noticed last night, probably because it was painted the same color as the brown wall.  The sun came in only when the wind blew the flap covering it open. 
Sabrina turned toward the wall then got
up
on her knees, then her feet to see if she could reach it.

When her fingers
could just barely
reach the edge of the hole, even on her tiptoes, Sabrina cursed genetics for making her so short.  Her brother wasn't sho
r
t, he was over six foot tall, but she hadn't been nearly as lucky in the gene pool lottery.

Putting her hands on her hips
, Sabrina
glanced around the room then back at the chair holding the plate of food, then back at the hole.
 
E
xcitement cours
ed
through her,
as
she
jumped off the bed and ran to the chair, setting the food on the floor beside it,  She
carried th
e chair to the bed and put it on the mattress, then lined it up under the hole.

Sabrina was determined to look out of that hole, if only to see where she was and how many people were here, even if she had to channel her inner circus performer to do it.
  She'd climbed a lot of trees on her daddy's farm when she was little, she could do this.  Even if she fell and broke her damned neck, at least she'd tried, instead of sitting on that disgusting bed doing nothing to help herself.

It took a few tries for her to get up there and balance herself, but she finally managed
.  Lifting the metal flap covering the hole, she
looked outside her prison. 
Right then a truck blew by the wall and threw up dust in her face and she stifled a cough that would probably bring the guard in the room.  Her eyes watered and she wiped the sleeve of her shirt over her nose and eyes, then looked back out. 

That truck was driving down a dirt road toward a lean-to type shed covered in camouflage netting
.  A
dark-haired
, but light-skinned
man
dressed in jeans and a t-shirt,
jumped down from the driver's seat to talk to a
Latino
man in fatigue pants and a white tank top. 
The guy in the truck looked back up the road shading his eyes, then turned back to talk to the man under the lean-to. 
They
laughed
about something, then the man
from the truck, reached inside the window and pulled out a briefcase.  The Latino guy hefted it up onto the hood of the truck and opened it.  Even from here, Sabrina could see it was money...a lot of money.  He flipped through it, then shut and snapped it closed, before he stuck out his hand to the man from the truck
, then waved over his shoulder at someone under the lean-to
.
 

T
hree other
Mexican looking guys
walked out of the lean-to carrying wooden crates
, which they put in the back of the truck
.  They made several trips back and forth until the truck was loaded, then came back out with armloads of loose weapons and threw them into the front of the truck
.
 
She gasped as she realized what she was seeing. 
A fricking arms deal--
and
she was watching it go down! 
That's what those trucks had been doing all night! 
Excitement surged through her and she wanted to
let Cole know
what she'd seen
.

Carefully, Sabrina got down from the chair and stepped on the mattress, then took the chair and set it down on the floor so it wouldn't fall and make noise.  Her heart beat wildly in her chest as she sat on the bed and pulled the cell phone out of her pocket then pressed Cole's speed dial number.

He answered on the first ring, "Sabrina...are you okay, baby?" he asked quickly with tension in his voice.

She whispered fiercely, her hand trembling with the phone,
"Fine, I need to tell you something, fast.  There's an arms deal going down here. I saw the exchange and saw them load the crates in a truck."

"What?!" he shouted then asked, "How many men?"

"Five that I could see, but there's a guard outside my door, so that makes six.  I don't know if there are others."

"Don't let them know you were watching...promise me you'll be careful, Bri," he demanded in a shaky voice.

"I promise...have you found out where I am yet?"

"Within ten or twenty miles
, yeah
...Gabe, Luke, me and Elmer are on the way...we'll find you baby, I promise."

"There's a lean-to building where the guns and some of the men are, it's covered in
desert
camo
netting."

"We're coming in by helicopter, I'll look for that from the air."

"Oh
!
" she squeaked her surprise
then threw a hand over her mouth.  "
I
'll do something so you can find me then..."
  Sabrina looked down at herself then up at the hole.  "
There's a hole in the wall, that's where I saw them from.  I
'm going to take off my
bra
and tie it to the vent.  I don't think they'll notice
, because it's on the backside of the building
."

"Are you sure," he asked warily.

"Yeah, but you'll see it because you know to look for it -- it's red
, and will be hanging through the hole near the top of the back wall
."

"You're
amazing
, baby.  Hang on the cavalry's coming.
..gotta go, love you," Cole told her then hung up the phone, before she could respond.

Sabrina lifted the chair back on the bed and unbuttoned her shirt, took off her bra then put the shirt back on.
  Going through the same motions she had to get up on the chair before, Sabrina tied one of her bra straps to the metal bar in the center of the hole then shoved it outside so it would dangle on the side of the building.  She sent up a silent prayer that she was right and nobody would see it.  If they did, she could be in big trouble...and Cole probably wouldn't know where she was.

***

Cole wanted to drop to his knees and howl, he was so damned relieved that Sabrina
h
ad called
to let him know
she
was okay.
..better than okay.  She was
s
till fighting and planning, trying to escape the assholes who had her. 

He meant it whe
n he told her she was amazing. 
Sabrina Roberts
was hands down the most amazing woman he'd ever know
n.

They were all standing outside the aircraft, while Junebug was having it refueled.  He ran over to Gabe and put his arm around his shoulders.  "Guess who just called me?"

Gabe shrugged off his arm
then
turned
toward him, then grabbed the front
of his t-shirt, and demand
ed
, "Is she hurt?"

Cole took his hands and shoved them off of him, then said, "Nope
...s
he's great.
.
.fucking amazing, actually."

The corner of Gabe's mouth kicked up, "Tell me something I don't know...what did she do t
o
impress you
though
?"