Lone Defender (Love Inspired Suspense) (7 page)

“Let’s go.” Her knees stung, and she was sure her jeans had ripped. Thought her skin had ripped, too, but she didn’t have time to check for damage.

“You need to stop looking back, Grady. It’ll trip you up every time.” Jonas spoke quietly, and she didn’t respond.

What would she say?

That being tripped up by what was behind her was the story of her life? That she’d spent so much time looking back that she’d forgotten to look forward, and that she’d traveled from New York City to Cave Creek, Arizona, hoping that a change of scenery would help put an end to her days of mourning what could have, should have,
would
have been, if only she hadn’t been such a fool?

She frowned, turning her attention back to where it
needed to be, taking one step after another after another. One breath after another. One heartbeat. Until all she knew was the movement, the pain and the soft sound of the rain hitting the earth.

SIX

D
awn broke as they neared a damp creek bed, the first watery rays of sun so welcome, Skylar would have cried if she’d had any energy left for it.

They’d made it through the night.

Made it through mile after mile of endless walking.

Made it.

“Thank You, God,” she whispered.

“Don’t thank Him, yet. We still have to survive until our ride gets here.”

“How long do you think that will be?” Because Skylar was done. More done than she’d ever been in her life. Sheer determination had kept her going through the long night. That and Jonas. But the storm had ended, the sun was rising and so was the feeling that she couldn’t take another step, that her battered, pain-filled body couldn’t go another minute.

No matter how much she wanted it to.

“The storm broke less than an hour ago. The sky is mostly clear. I’d say they’ll be here in the next hour.”

“How about calling and telling them that we’re ready now?” she asked, only half joking. She felt parched and sick, her vision blurry, her head pounding. Colors were too bright. Sounds too loud. Everything amplified to nauseating proportions.

“They know we’re ready. They’ll be tracking my cell-phone signal to find us. That may take a little time.”

“I don’t think I have a little time left in me.” Her legs gave out, and she was on the ground, Jonas leaning over her, his cool hand pressed to her cheek.

“You’re burning up.” He brushed strands of hair from her forehead, his hand settling there.

“Funny. I feel like I’m freezing.” Her teeth chattered, and he frowned, opening his pack, his jaw set, morning light falling on a hard, handsome face.

High cheekbones. Pitch black hair that fell past his collar. Blue-green eyes. Full, firm lips. An ancient warrior come to life.

“You should have told me that you were feverish again.”

“And slowed us down more than I already had? I don’t think so.”

“We lost our friends a couple hours ago. We could have stopped for a while.” He handed her aspirin and water, glanced at his watch. His skin was deeply tan, his hands broad and strong. Climber’s hands. Climber’s forearms.

And Skylar shouldn’t be noticing.

Wouldn’t be noticing if she weren’t out of her head with fever. After all, she’d tried the relationship thing, had dreamed of family and love, had pinned her hopes on a handsome, interesting man. All she’d gotten for her efforts was a broken heart.

She choked the aspirin down her swollen throat. Gagging, hoping it and the water wouldn’t come right back up again.

“Take it easy.”

“I don’t think I have a choice.” The world spun, and she closed her eyes, trying to still its whirling motion, feeling her heart fluttering, her pulse whooshing in her ears. A cold, wet cloth dropped onto her forehead, and she shivered, shov
ing it away, scowling when it ended up right back where it had been.

“Leave it, Grady. You’re way too hot, and I don’t plan on losing you when we’re this close to safety.” The tone was gruff, but she could hear the fear in it.

I watched my wife and unborn son die, and I was helpless to save them.
The words whirled through her head, spinning with the world, mixing with Tessa’s warning.
You stay too long in one place, and you’ll die there.
And she wasn’t sure who was sitting next to her. Wasn’t sure if she was in the past or the present. Wasn’t sure whose hand pressed the cold cloth to her head. Wasn’t sure where she was, barely knew
who
she was.

“I’m not going to die, Tessa,” she managed to say as cool fingers traced a path to the pulse point in her neck.

“You’re too ornery to die.” Jonas’s voice came from far away, and she forced her eyes open.

“I’m not ornery.” But she wasn’t sure about the dying part. Her teeth chattered as Jonas tucked the Mylar blanket around her, eased up her head and slid his pack beneath it just as he’d done in the cave hours ago.

Was she still there? Still in the cave? The long climb, the long walk, the endless struggling, nothing more than a vivid dream?

She sat up, heart pounding too fast, the world spinning even faster. Tears spilling down her cheeks, and she didn’t even know why.

“Shhhhhh.” Jonas brushed moisture from her face, urged her back down. “You’re fine, Grady.”

“Am I dreaming?”

“You’re sick.”

“That much I knew.”

He chuckled and shook his head as he pressed the cold cloth to her forehead again. She closed her eyes, wanting
to escape the spinning world and the throbbing pain in her head, the burning pain in her throat. The lush desert landscape that had become her enemy.

“Tell me about Tessa.” The words intruded on the velvety blackness Skylar was falling into, and she frowned.

“I’m too tired.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“You’re trying to keep me awake, because you’re afraid I’m going to die.”

“Tell me about her.”

“She was my older sister.”

“Was?”

“Was. Is. I haven’t seen her in fifteen years.”

“You don’t get along?”

“We did. She left home when she was sixteen.”

“A runaway?”

“She would have been if there’d been anyone to report that she’d run, but my father was too steeped in alcohol to notice, and my mother overdosed a few years before Tessa left. There was no one but me, and I was too young to know what I should do. So, I just did what I’d been doing for years. I took care of Dad and went to school, took on more babysitting jobs and ran more errands for the neighbors to help with the bills.” She was saying too much, telling Jonas things she’d never told anyone else. Not her good friends. Not any of the guys she’d dated. Not even Matthew, and they’d been months away from marriage before she’d realized what a slimeball he was.

“Who took care of you?”

“Like I said, I’m too tired for this.” She closed her eyes, closed her mouth. Shut in all the things she could have said.

No one
had taken care of her. For as long as she could remember, she’d taken care of herself. Made her own meals, washed her own clothes, cleaned her room and the house and
mopped up puke and stale alcohol when her father went on a drinking binge. She’d learned to survive the hard way. Cut fingers from sharp knives. Blisters from hot pans, and reddened skin from scalding water. Cold nights when she forgot to pay the electric bill the year her mother died. By the time Tessa left, Skylar could run a house on her own.

She just hadn’t wanted to.

Tears slid down her cheeks again.

Because she couldn’t change the past. Couldn’t save her mother or father or Tessa. Couldn’t save Jonas’s wife or his tiny baby. Couldn’t even save herself.

Wings beat the air. Giant vultures swooping down to devour her before she was even dead, and Skylar gasped, opening her eyes to whirling wind and pounding chopper blades. Jonas stood a few feet away, waving at the pilot as the helicopter touched down.

She stood, swaying, wanting to run toward safety and civilization and everything she’d spent almost a week struggling for, but her feet were glued to the ground, her body too weak. She tried to call Jonas back, but her throat was hot and tight, what little sound she made swept away on the rushing wind.

He turned anyway. As if he’d heard her. Sensed her.

A foolish thought, but it stayed as he frowned, the irritation on his face overshadowed by the concern in his eyes.

“You just don’t know when to stay down, do you?” He swept her into his arms, lifting her easily.

A knight in shining armor.

A warrior hero.

A
man.

She’d learned her lesson about men just like she’d learned everything else in life—the hard way.

They couldn’t be trusted. They couldn’t be counted on.

The world spun as Jonas jogged to the helicopter, handed
her over the waiting medic. A sack of potatoes. That’s what she felt like. A bruised and battered bag. Someone wrapped another blanket around her shoulders, asked her a question she couldn’t hear or didn’t understand. She didn’t know which, couldn’t think past the quick movement and twirling world, the rapid pulse of chopper blades and howling wind.

Jonas.

Where was he?

She searched for him as she was strapped to a backboard and lifted onto the chopper, and he was there, leaning close so that his lips brushed her ear. “I’m going to backtrack to the mesa, see if I can find our friends’ trail. If I do, it’ll give the police something to go on.”

“No!” she shouted, loudly enough that the medic pressed a gentle hand to her shoulder.

“You need to relax, Ms. Grady. You’ve been through a lot.”

“I’m not leaving without—”

But Jonas was already gone, slipping away before she could grab his hand and try to keep him from going.

She struggled against the straps that held her in place, and the medic leaned close, looked in her eyes. “Ma’am, you’re going to have to calm down.”

“You can’t leave Jonas behind.”

“It’s his choice. Not ours. The sooner you settle down, the sooner we can get you to Phoenix and come back.” The medic’s tone was firm, but there was sympathy in his dark brown eyes.

“But—”

“Jonas Sampson is one tough son of a gun. He’s traveled this area more than any other person I know. You don’t have to worry about him. Just worry about yourself and getting healthy again. Now I’m going to hook you up to some fluids, try to get your fever down. You’ll feel better about every
thing when you’re not burning up.” He swabbed the inside of her elbow with alcohol, told her to hold still.

She didn’t feel the pinch as the line was placed, felt nothing but numb dismay and scorching heat and the awful knowledge that she’d made it out of the desert, but that she’d left Jonas behind.

Keep him safe, Lord. Please.

The chopper lifted off, and Skylar’s world shifted, tilted, sideways and back and up and down, and she spun into a vortex of images and sounds. Desert and rain and caves and climbs. Guns and shadows. Tessa reaching for her, and Skylar reaching back. Light and darkness, and finally nothing, but silence. The velvety darkness she’d longed for seeping in, covering it all.

Except for him.

The knight.

The hero.

The man.

Jonas, his words whispering in her ear.

I was helpless to save either of them. I’m not helpless to save you.

He’d proven his words.

He’d saved her.

But could he save himself?

SEVEN

J
onas hated hospitals.

Hated the scent and sound and feel of them.

The frantic energy that poured from the people that moved through the emergency room ebbed and flowed like the tide, tugging Jonas with it.

If he let himself, he could fall into an emotional time warp, feel what he’d felt the night Gabriella was shot. See everything—his blood-soaked dress shoes, his stained-red hands hanging limply between his knees as he waited for news he knew would not be good.

She’d been dead before the ambulance arrived at the scene. Probably dead before he’d pressed frantic hands over the blood spurting from her chest.

A bullet straight to the heart.

No way to save her.

Nothing that could have been done.

Those had been the doctor’s words, but Jonas had only heard his own recriminations.

He’d moved Gabriella from Phoenix to New Mexico to pursue his dream of becoming a border patrol agent. In the end, his dream had killed her and their son. Time had healed some of his sorrow, but it hadn’t assuaged his guilt.

He felt it acutely as he strode through the waiting room and approached the receptionist. “Excuse me—”

“Go ahead and sign in. We’ll call you back in a few minutes,” she said without looking up, and he bit back impatience. It wasn’t her fault he’d been waylaid by the police as soon as he’d gotten off the helicopter. Not her fault he’d spent the past hour and a half explaining what had happened out in the desert.

Not her fault that he was hungry, tired and ready to be done with the hospital.

No one’s fault but his own that he’d allowed Kane to talk him into searching for Skylar.

Talk him into it?

Kane had asked. Jonas had said yes. Simple as that.

He’d gotten the call three days ago, and, for the first time in years, Jonas had felt a buzz of excitement, a hum of adrenaline. He’d gone with it. Reported to search and rescue, asked to be allowed access to the site where Skylar’s jeep had been found. Not expecting that he’d find a woman alive, but expecting that he could at least help a friend in need find closure.

He
had
found Skylar alive, though, and he planned to make sure she stayed that way.

“I’m hoping you can help me find a patient that arrived by chopper a couple hours ago. Skylar Grady.” He kept his voice even and his expression pleasant, and the receptionist finally looked up.

“You mean the woman who was missing in the desert for a week?”

“That’s the one.”

“She’s been admitted. Are you a friend or family member?”

“I’m Jonas Sampson. I—”