Bride Protector SEAL (9 page)

The trip across the ranch took twenty minutes and wouldn’t have taken that long if she hadn’t had to dismount, open three gates, drive through and close them behind her. Soon she was driving up to the mansion that could be her home in just two days. The broad columns and huge windows were stunning. But, would she fit in that house? Would the place feel like home? Could she be the kind of wife a businessman like Damien needed?

Did she want to be that kind of wife?

The sight of the burned-out hull of the stable and the scent of charred lumber made her want to gag. Nothing had been done to clean up the mess or start building a new stable to house the fine horses Damien kept. Perhaps that would be her first goal as the new wife of the owner. Allie dismounted, climbed the stairs to the front entrance and rang the doorbell.

Miles opened the door. “Miss Patterson, so nice of you to stop by. But I’m afraid Mr. Reynolds hasn’t returned from his business trip. Would you care to come in for a cool beverage?”

Not really
. Allie needed to talk to Damien.

Miles opened the door wider and Allie entered, wanting to see again what she was getting into by marrying the most eligible bachelor in the county. Hell, maybe in the whole state of Montana. How had she landed a catch like that?

The entryway floors of marble tiles stretched all the way into the main living area at the back of the house with twenty-foot ceilings and windows stretching the full height and length of the room. She could see from the front to the back of the house and through the windows to the snow-capped peaks of the Crazy Mountains.

“Miss Patterson, if you’d like to have a seat, I can get you that drink. What would you like?”

Allie stared around the room, feeling like an interloper, a stranger, a square peg in a round hole. This place didn’t fit her personality. She’d be afraid to put her feet on the coffee table or wear her boots inside.

“Nothing, Miles. I’m sorry, but I can’t stay.” Though it never had in the past, the pure ostentatiousness of the decor threatened to overwhelm her now that she stood in the middle of the living room without Damien at her side. She’d mistaken the way he belonged for her belonging there, as well. Now she couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Allie turned and started for the door.

“Miss Patterson, Mr. Reynolds asked me to give you a piece of luggage from the set you two will be taking with you to the Cayman Islands on your honeymoon. Would you like to take it with you now, or would you like me to deliver it to your house tomorrow?”

She didn’t want it at all. But she couldn’t tell Miles she was getting cold feet. And she didn’t want him to make the trip to the ranch, wasting his time if she decided to chicken out at the last minute. “No need to deliver it, Miles,” she said.

“Then I’ll collect it and bring it out to you in just a moment.”

Before Allie could correct Miles and tell him she really didn’t want the case, she watched him disappear into the cavernous house.

Great. Now she’d have one more thing to lug back to the ranch, and it would get dusty on the cross-country trip. Feeling like a fool, Allie left the house and walked out to the ATV. From where she’d parked, she stared at the shell of the stable, wondering who would have been heartless enough to destroy such a lovely building, nearly killing the animals inside.

Miles hurried out of the house, carrying a medium-sized, brown leather suitcase. When he noticed she was on the ATV, he stopped and frowned. “I thought you had arrived in your truck. Perhaps I’ll deliver this tomorrow, after all.”

“No worries, Miles. I can strap it to the back of the four-wheeler. It won’t get any more roughed up than it would by the baggage handlers at the airport.”

“If you’re sure.” Miles held the case clutched to his chest.

Allie reached for the bag, and Miles handed it over. She strapped it to the rack on the back of the four-wheeler and climbed aboard. “If Mr. Reynolds makes it in tonight, tell him it’s imperative that he call me immediately.”

“I will,” Miles promised. “Stay safe, Miss Patterson.”

Allie rode out across the pasture, her heart heavy, the suitcase banging against the rack behind her. The closer it came to her wedding day, the more convinced she became that it wouldn’t happen. But, she couldn’t call it off without first speaking with Damien. Doing so was only fair. She refused to be a bride who jilted the groom at the altar. A day early was better than when all the guests were seated and waiting.

Halfway back to the ranch, she crested a hill and started down into a valley. So wrapped up in her own miserable decision and the consequences she faced, she didn’t hear the other engine over her own until an ATV roared up beside her and rammed into her back tire. Her four-wheeler lurched and swerved toward a drop-off.

Heart thumping, she managed to straighten the steering wheel. She thumbed the throttle, sending her vehicle racing ahead. Fortunately, she was back on the Bear Creek Ranch and she knew every inch of the place like the back of her hand.

Speeding across the rocky terrain, she topped a rise so fast her wheels left the ground for a second and then slammed to the earth on the downward slope. She cursed herself for riding out without carrying the requisite shotgun. Too far from the barn to make it back quickly enough, she had to go in defensive mode. If she could put enough distance between them, she knew of a place she could hide until the attacking rider gave up and went away.

Now would be a good time for her bodyguard to discover her missing and come looking for her.

A
fter only five
minutes in the shower, Swede walked out, his towel slung over his shoulders, wearing only blue jeans. He stopped in front of Allie’s open bedroom door. Nothing moved inside. He stepped in and looked around. “Allie?” No answer.

Not too worried, Swede entered his bedroom, pulled a clean T-shirt out of his duffle bag and dragged it over his head.

Allie had been downstairs when he’d gone for his shower. He’d let her know it was her turn. Pulling on a pair of boots, he hurried down the stairs, his feet moving faster each step he took, a niggling feeling creeping across his skin. “Allie?”

The back door creaked, and footsteps sounded in the kitchen.

Swede headed that direction only to find Georgia checking the contents of the oven. “Have you seen Allie?” he asked.

Georgia straightened. “I thought she’d gone for her shower.”

At that point, Swede’s belly clenched. “She’s not in her room, nor in the shower. I just came from upstairs.”

“What’s for supper?” Lloyd entered the kitchen and sniffed. “Something smells good.”

“Mr. Patterson, have you seen your daughter since we came inside?” Swede asked.

He shrugged. “Not since I went up for a shower. She might be out at the barn. Although, Eddy said he’d feed the animals. Maybe she decided to help.”

“Eddy was in the shower when I left our house,” Georgia said. “He didn’t say anything about Allie.”

“I’ll check the barn,” Swede said.

“I’ll check around the house,” Georgia said.

“Why the worry?” Lloyd asked, following Swede out the back door. “She’s always fiddling around the barn.”

“I just want to make sure she’s all right,” Swede said.

“Why wouldn’t she be?” her father asked.

Swede didn’t answer. He opened the barn door and entered. All the horses were in their stalls. Which meant she hadn’t taken one out to exercise or ride, she wasn’t anywhere around the barn and her truck was in the driveway.

Mr. Patterson stood near the rear of the barn, staring into an empty corner where a four-wheeler had been parked the day Swede and Allie had mucked the stalls. “You don’t suppose Allie took the four-wheeler out to check on that sick heifer, do you?”

Damn
. Swede walked out the back door of the barn. As he suspected, he found fresh tire tracks in the dust. Allie had gone out alone on the four-wheeler.

“Sir, do you have another four-wheeler?” Swede asked.

“Nope. Just the one.”

“Please, go get Mr. Edwards while I saddle up. We need to find Allie.”

“Why are you so worried about her? She does this all the time.”

Swede wanted to leave and find Allie, but he owed it to her father to let him know what was going on. “Mr. Patterson, I’m sorry, but we didn’t want to worry you. I’m not Allie’s friend from college. I was hired by Mr. Reynolds to be her bodyguard. Several attacks have occurred around your daughter. We need to find her before someone else does.”

“You mean to tell me that shooter from the other night wasn’t just a random act?”

Swede shook his head. “Not only did someone take a shot at us on our way back from the Blue Moose Tavern, he tried to run us off the road. And the day we went out to check on the heifer, a man on an ATV tried to run your daughter over. We need to hurry.”

A
llie rounded a rocky corner
, ducked between boulders, and rode down the middle of a stream for a short distance to hide her tracks and then climbed up the bank into a stand of trees surrounded by low brush. Behind the trees rose a bluff with several caves carved out by centuries of water flowing through the rocks. If she could make it to the caves, she had a chance of hiding inside one she and Hank used to play in as teenagers.

She ditched the ATV behind the brush, jumped off and ran, ducking to avoid low-hanging branches, leaping over medium boulders and glancing over her shoulder every four or five steps.

The sound of an engine nearby made her run faster. She had to make it to the cave before he saw her. The biggest challenge was once she started up the rocky path, she could be visible from below. She clung to the bottom of the bluff for as long as she could until she stood almost directly below the cave entrance. To get there, she had to climb over huge rocks. Eventually, she’d rise above the treetops and scoot along a ledge to enter. A thin waterfall ran out of the mouth of the cave, dropping one hundred feet to a stream. One slip on the climb upward and she could make that same fall and, like the water, splatter all over the river rocks below.

As long as her attacker was still on the ATV, he might not be able to see her climbing up the side of the bluff. He’d have to have a clear line of sight from the bottom of the bluff through the branches of the trees.

Allie took a step, slipped and caught herself before tumbling over the side. Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears she could barely hear anything else. She stopped, crouched low in the rocks, and listened. She could hear nothing but the whoosh of the wind through the trees.

Sweet Jesus
. She had to move even faster. If the man had found her ATV, he might figure out she’d gone up the bluff to the caves.

Her muscles ached and her lungs burned with the extra effort to pull herself up the side of the bluff. Finally, she arrived at the cave and fell inside, crawling deeper into the shadows.

She lay still for several minutes, filling her lungs with the cool, damp air, straining to listen for the sound of someone climbing up after her. Allie pushed to her feet, her knees wobbling, her body drained.

Why had she ducked out on Swede? All she had to do was ask him to take her to the Double Diamond Ranch. He would have. If she’d found Damien there, Allie could have taken him aside, out of earshot of Swede, and told him how she was feeling. Yes, the discussion would have been awkward. But she wouldn’t be in the situation she was in now.

The sound of a pebble bouncing off other rocks made her freeze. Allie shrank into the back of the cave near a tunnel that led even deeper. She didn’t want to go much farther without a light, but she would, if she had to.

A shadowy silhouette appeared in the mouth of the cave.

Allie swallowed a gasp and slipped deeper into the tunnel.

S
wede tied
Little Joe to the hitch, ran to the tack room and grabbed the saddle he’d used the last time he’d ridden. Blanket, saddle, girth… he fumbled, trying to remember how Allie had looped the leather strap through the girth. Once he had it tight enough, he ran back to the tack room for the bridle.

“We have to find her, Little Joe,” he said to the horse, slipping the bit between his teeth.

Outside the barn, Ruger waited patiently for Swede to give him permission to go with him.

“Come on, Ruger, we have to find Allie.”

The dog tipped his head.

Mr. Patterson and Eddy came running from the house.

“We had a call from Miles, Damien Reynold’s butler. He wanted to know if Allie had made it back to the house all right.”

“She rode an ATV all the way over to the Double Diamond? It’s over five miles.”

“By the highway,” Mr. Patterson stated. “She probably went cross-country. She knows the way and can get there and back fairly quickly on an ATV.”

Then why wasn’t she back already? Swede didn’t say it, but he could see the same question in Lloyd and Eddy’s faces.

“We’ll saddle up and be right behind you.” Eddy pointed across the pasture. “Head toward the gap between those two hills. You’re armed, right?”

Swede patted the handgun beneath his jacket. “I am.”

“Good. We’ll catch you as soon as we saddle the horses.”

Eddy had already disappeared into the barn. Lloyd followed.

Swede nudged the horse’s flanks with his heels, and Little Joe sprang forward. God, he wished he’d had the ATV. He wasn’t sure he’d be of much use on horseback. Going on foot wasn’t an option. He might not reach her in time.

“Come, Ruger!” he called out.

The dog shot ahead of the horse, racing across the pasture like he knew where he was going.

Swede hoped he did. He hadn’t trained Ruger to track a person, nor had he given the dog something of Allie’s to sniff. But Swede felt more confident with the animal by his side, especially with Little Joe eating up the pasture beneath his feet. Galloping was much easier on the seat than trotting any day, and the gait got him where he needed to go faster. He just hoped when it came time to slow down, the horse would know what to do.

Riding on wings and a prayer, he charged across the pasture, aiming for the gap between the hills. As he topped a rise, the vista changed. On the other side of the hills were more hills, some rocky with steely gray bluffs. This was a different route than Allie had taken him two days before. As he raced through the divide, he hoped Eddy and Lloyd would catch up to him soon before he compounded the problem by getting lost.

Little Joe slowed, the ground beneath his hooves getting rockier and more treacherous. As Swede neared the base of one of the bluffs, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. At first, he thought it might be a bird flying up the side of the cliff. When he turned and glanced up, he saw a figure in black entering a cave.

Swede pulled back on the reins so hard Little Joe reared and nearly trampled Ruger. Swede held on to the saddle horn and dug his heels into the stirrups, praying the horse didn’t tip over backward.

Finally, Little Joe came down on all four hooves.

“Hey!” Swede shouted.

The man in the cave paused and glanced down. He had one hand braced on the wall of the bluff, and he held something in the other hand. Something small and dark…like a handgun.

Swede nudged Little Joe and leaned forward as the horse plowed through brush and trees, crossed a creek and stopped in front of the rocky escarpment.

Even before Little Joe was completely stopped, Swede swung out of the saddle to the ground.

The man at the mouth of the cave turned toward Swede and fired a round.

Swede ducked behind a boulder and waved at Little Joe, afraid the idiot above would hit the horse.

Little Joe spooked and ran, probably headed back to the barn. Ruger crouched next to Swede.

If Swede guessed right, that man up there was after Allie and might have her trapped. He didn’t know how deep the cave went. All he knew was the man was armed and had fired on him first. That gave him the right to defend himself, and Allie. However, in order to be effective with a handgun, he had to get closer.

Taking a deep breath, Swede eased out from behind the boulder, spied the next big rock he could use as cover and made a dash toward it, zigzagging as he ran. Ruger ran with him, arriving at the same time as Swede.

Another shot ricocheted off the top of the big rock they ducked behind. Swede performed this maneuver, again and again, moving higher up the side of the bluff, picking his way through the rough terrain as best he could. Within minutes, he was within a reasonable range to fire.

The figure disappeared into the cave.

Damn
. Swede took the opportunity to race as fast as he could, stepping over stones, climbing over boulders and pulling himself higher up the trail.

Still, the man didn’t appear, making Swede even more anxious, his heart banging against his ribs.

Ruger, on four legs, had much better balance and nimbly climbed the rocky terrain.

“Get ‘em, Ruger. Get ‘em,” Swede said.

The dog raced the remaining yards up the incline and ran into the cave. A shot rang out.

Swede held his breath, praying Allie or Ruger hadn’t taken that bullet. Using the remainder of his breath and strength, he heaved himself up over the rocks and ran into the cave.

Though Ruger was only considered a medium-sized dog, he’d tackled and pinned the gunman.

But not for long. The man knocked Ruger to the side, lurched to his feet and dove for his gun.

Swede reached it first, kicking it out the mouth of the cave. The man switched directions and flung himself at Swede.

Barely inside the cave himself, Swede wasn’t in a position to take the full force of the man’s weight. In a split second, Swede fell to the ground. It was that, or be knocked over the ledge.

The gunman didn’t have time to slow his forward momentum. He tripped over Swede’s body, stepped in the middle of the waterfall flowing out of the cave’s entrance and tumbled over the edge.

He cried out as he plummeted to the base of the falls, landing with a dull thump.

Wasting no time on the dead man, Swede entered the cave, calling out, “Allie? It’s me, Swede.”

Ruger disappeared into the darkness and whined softly.

“Allie?”

“Swede?” She materialized in front of him, Ruger at her side, his tail wagging a thousand times a minute. For a moment, Allie stared at Swede, her bottom lip trembling.

His heart swelled and he opened his arms.

Allie rushed into them. “I prayed you’d come,” she said into his shirt, her voice catching on a sob. “I don’t think he would have found me back in the tunnels. But it was really dark, and I’ve never gone in very deep without a flashlight.”

“You’re okay, now.” Swede smoothed a hand over her hair, speaking to her like he did to the animals in a slow, calming tone, though nothing inside him was calm. He’d almost lost her. She’d been so close to taking a bullet from that man’s gun or falling over the ledge to her death on the rocks below.

Swede buried his face in her hair and inhaled the strawberry scent, mixed with the evergreen fragrance of the trees. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“I’m sorry.” She stared up at him. “I had to go to see Damien.”

“I would have taken you.”

“I know, but I needed to go by myself.”

“And?”

She snorted. “He wasn’t there.”

Without releasing her, he leaned back enough to cup her cheek. “What was so all-fired important you had to go without me to escort you?”

She stared up at him, her green eyes darkening. “You.”

God, he wanted to kiss her. Every beat of his heart urged him to do it. “Me?”

Allie nodded and reached up to touch his face, her fingers tracing the scar along his cheek. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“Funny,” he said. “There must be something in the water.” He bent his head, no longer capable of resisting those very tempting lips. Before he took them, he asked, “Are you going to slap me again?”

She chuckled, wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and said, “Not a chance.” Then she met his lips with hers, kissing him as long and hard as he kissed her.

Swede slid his hands down her back to the base of her spine and lower, pressing her hips to his. Nothing could stop him from claiming this woman’s mouth.

Except the shout echoing off the walls of the bluffs.

“Allie! Swede!” Lloyd Patterson’s voice boomed through the gathering dusk.

Swede was first to step away. He stared down into Allie’s eyes. “Are you okay?”

Allie nodded, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. She squared her shoulders and nodded again. “We need to call in the sheriff and an ambulance.”

“Or a coroner,” Swede said. “I’d be surprised if he survived the fall.”

Her jaw tightened and her eyes narrowed. “It’s wrong of me to say it, but I hope he’s dead.”

“Not wrong.” He slipped his arm around her waist and eased toward the opening of the cave. “In this case, it was us, or him.”

Allie tipped her chin. “I choose us.”

“His own actions sent him over the edge. The landing did the rest.” He gripped her hand. “Come on, your father will be beside himself until he sees his darling daughter.”

She shot a glance his way. “He knows?”

Swede nodded. “You turned up missing, so I had to tell him. He was well on his way to figuring it out by then.”

Allie sighed. “He’ll be mad at me.”

“Probably,” Swede agreed. “But he’ll be happy you’re alive and well.”

“After we get down from here safely.” She peered over the edge. “If I remember correctly, it’s easier climbing up than going down.”

Swede winked. “We’ll help each other.”

Picking their way over the rocks, they eased their way down the bluff.

Eddy and Lloyd were at the bottom of the waterfall beside the body of Allie’s attacker.

“We heard the gunshots and followed the sound,” Eddy said.

Lloyd stared hard at Allie.

“I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t want to worry you.”

“My ass,” he bit out. “Being a target of someone bent on killing you is a no-brainer. You tell me and everyone else around you. That way we’re all looking out for you.”

Allie pushed her shoulders back. “You’re right.”

“And don’t go running off alone.” Her father nodded toward the body on the ground. “He might not be the only one gunning for you. I’m gonna have words with Mr. Reynolds.”

“I went over to his place to have a talk with him, myself,” Allie said. “He’s not in town.”

“After what’s happened, I want to take a bullwhip to the boy.”

Allie touched her father’s arm. “Then you’d end up in jail.”

Patterson scowled. “It would be worth it. Any man who skips out of town when his fiancée is in trouble deserves to be whipped. Hell, he doesn’t deserve the fiancée, and she’d be smart to tell him so.”

“Daddy…” Allie glanced around. She nodded toward the body, lying face down on the rocks. “Who is it?”

Eddy stepped across the rocks, checked for a pulse and shook his head. “Didn’t think he’d survive that fall.” He grabbed the man’s arm and turned him over.