The Care and Feeding of an Alpha Male (4 page)

They’d already taken several loads of the group—drunk and obnoxious to a nearby motel under renovation. The owner had generously volunteered his rooms for the group at no charge, and Colt wasn’t entirely sure the man knew what he’d gotten into. He pulled a label off a sheet and handed it to the guy. “Put this on your windshield. Leave your keys with me, and your name. We’re making arrangements to have your vehicles removed once the road is safe again.”

The fire department wasn’t used to dealing with this sort of thing. Getting a cat out of a tree? Fine. Hauling a car out of the mud, sure. Hauling a hundred drunk teenagers out of the mud? Not so much. After watching the fire chief scratch his head for a few minutes, Colt had suggested that they get the keys from the teenagers, tag the cars, and organize a list of who needed to be
towed. They could deliver the cars once they were freed from the mud. Problem solved.

The fire chief had liked that idea. In fact, he’d liked it so much that he’d given Colt the job. And Colt? Well, someday he was going to learn to shut up so he wouldn’t have to deal with idiots like the one standing before him, protectively clutching his keys.

The man—who was dressed as a barbarian, if the Conan hat was any indication—slapped the sticker on the inside of his windshield and gave Colt a suspicious look. “How can I trust that you won’t steal my car?”

Colt eyed the 1992 Pontiac the man had been determined to move. The tires were bald, the paint peeling, and he was pretty sure there was a foot of trash on the floorboards of the vehicle. “Not interested, I assure you.”

The man gave him another skeptical look until another volunteer showed up. Mike. He looked at the barbarian, and then at Colt. “How’s the evacuation coming, Waggoner?”

“Just about done rounding up keys,” he told Mike. “Then I’ll do one last sweep of the woods to make sure we have everyone.”

Mike nodded, adjusting in his rain slicker. He glanced over at the kids, then back to Colt. “The rain’s not letting up. Entire campsite’s just about washed out. I was told that a hundred fifty people signed in at the gate, and we’re rounding up the last few right now.”

Colt nodded, staring into the deep woods, wet and dark with rain. The trees were barely discernible with no moon out and a steady downpour. “Sweep shouldn’t take long, then.”

Mike nodded. “We’re almost done here. Then you boys can head back home.”

The barbarian handed his keys to Colt suddenly, and Mike paused, waiting while Colt tagged the keys with the man’s information, and then added them to the pile in the bucket he was carrying. As the two walked away to the main area where the teens were being evacuated, Mike snorted and looked over at Colt. “Isn’t this the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen?”

“It’s pretty up there.”

“My one night alone with my wife and I get to spend it pulling Frodo and his buddies out of the mud.” He nodded at the helmet of the man walking away. “What’s he supposed to be?”

“Don’t know. I’m afraid to ask.” Colt double-checked the tags on the keys and slapped a sticker on the inside window of the car, away from the rain. The sticker marked that the vehicle had been noted and the keys collected for eventual towing. That vehicle taken care of, he moved farther down the swampy parking lot, his rain boots sucking in the mud with every step. He checked the cars for more of the emergency stickers, making sure that each one had been taken care of. The last thing he wanted was to miss a car and have to hunt down the owner at a later date. This needed to be a one-and-done scenario.

There was a small car he’d missed, sunk into the mud between two trucks. The sides of the vehicle were heavily splattered, as if it had arrived after the rain had begun and had to plow through the mud. The two trucks next to it were sunk deep, the owners having tried to move their vehicles when they realized the rain was coming down so heavily. Tried, and failed, succeeding only at swamping the car next to it with even more mud. Even through
the coating of filth, he recognized the light lime green of the car, and the make. A Volkswagen. Curious, Colt ran a hand over the back windshield, wiping away the splatters of mud.

The window read california dreamin’ and the salon phone number. Underneath the logo, it read
HAIR NAILS WAXES TANNING.

Well, he’d be damned. Snobbish, prim Beth Ann Williamson was here in this drunken mudfest? That didn’t seem right. He scratched his chin, scowling at the sight of the car. No way she’d be here with this crowd. She thought she was too good for this sort of thing. If a leather-kilted barbarian—or whatever he was supposed to be—approached someone as proper and high-maintenance as Beth Ann, she’d probably call the cops. He peered into the back of the car.

“What are you doing?” A girl’s voice called at him, accusing.

Colt turned with a scowl, staring down at the bedraggled blond head of what looked like Beth Ann Williamson’s younger sister. Patty, he thought for a moment. No, Lucy. A local girl. He knew the Williamsons—everyone that had grown up in Bluebonnet did—even if they didn’t know him. Or want to know him.

He gestured at the car. “That your sister’s ride?”

Lucy crossed her arms over a damp velvet dress. It was ridiculous-looking, the heavy skirts two feet deep with mud, and the entire thing was so weighty it looked like it was going to drag her down with it. “Might be hers. Why are
you
wanting to know?”

Ah yes. She was definitely a Williamson. Unwilling to let the teenager rile him, Colt ignored her nasty tone and gestured at the car. “I need her keys so we can arrange a tow when the tractors get here. Go tell her.”

Lucy looked uncomfortable. She didn’t move.

“What?”

She didn’t move.

“What?”
he repeated irritably. These damn idiots were getting on his nerves. They all acted like they were being carted off to jail rather than rescued from a washout. “Talk.”

Lucy fidgeted, and that annoyed Colt. He knew Beth Ann wasn’t a fan of his—the opposite, really. Had she said something to her sister to make her want to avoid him? Be wary of him? Lucy was too young to remember him well, since he’d left for the marines right after high school. He’d been gone for nine long years, way too long for a kid to remember…, but she might know his younger brothers. Impatience flashed through him. Was this just another Williamson being a snob to a Waggoner? If so, he didn’t have time for this shit.

“Do I need to remind you that this is an emergency situation?” He gestured at the Bluebonnet Emergency Services logo on the sleeve of his jacket. “If your sister isn’t willing to comply with the rescue—”

“That’s not it,” Lucy said quickly. “I haven’t seen her.”

“You haven’t seen her?” He arched an eyebrow.

The girl fidgeted. “I thought she was here to take me home, so I had people cover for me. She probably thinks I’m off at the Templar camp.” Lucy shrugged again, wiping her wet hair away from her face with bright green fingernails.

A wave of sheer irritation flashed through him. This girl had deliberately led her sister astray and risked her safety. And in the process, she’d created more work for him.

He turned, hands on his hips, and surveyed the parking lot.
This entire evening was a mess. In the distance, he saw volunteers laughing and joking around with men in costumes. He thought he might have even seen one take a swig of an offered drink as they waited for a ride. Disgraceful. The military would have never run an evacuation like this.

He knew the others weren’t military—they were just volunteers from the city that had abandoned their Friday night plans to fish out a bunch of drunk kids—and adults—from a mudslide of a campground. It didn’t mean it didn’t irritate him. No one had their act together, and here he was, taking keys from a bunch of drunk ingrates when he could have been somewhere else. Anywhere else.

And now this. The fact that prissy, prim Beth Ann, unofficial Queen of Bluebonnet, was lost wandering in the woods? It got on his last nerve, because he knew he was going to have to be the one to rescue her ass. And wasn’t that going to be fun. It was bad enough when he ran across her in town and she glared daggers at him. Now he was going to spend his Friday night tracking her down in the woods, where she would no doubt glare daggers at him again, as if the rain and mud were his fault.

She thought everything was his fault anyhow. He was pretty sure she still blamed him for being Dane’s friend, and Dane had hurt her best friend Miranda in the past. It didn’t matter that Dane and Miranda were engaged. She might tolerate Dane now, but that toleration didn’t extend to his friends. Colt knew she still disliked him. The feeling was mutual.

Colt looked back at the sniffling, drenched girl. “Where’s this Templar camp?” he growled.

Lucy hastily stammered directions, and he was able to guess.
It sounded like these “Templar” idiots liked to camp right on the edge of the Daughtry land. They were probably the ones Dane had run into before. If so, he knew where that was. “You,” he said in a low voice, and pointed to the waiting ATV. “Go with them.”

“But my sister?”

“I’ll find her and send her on her way.”

“But—”

Colt gave the girl a menacing look.

“Uh, tell Beth Ann I said hi and that I’m sorry,” Lucy said in a rush, and then dashed for the waiting group, her boots squelching in the thick mud with every step.

That was better. He headed toward Rob, the head of the volunteer outfit, and handed him the bucket of keys. “All tagged.”

“You’ve been a huge help, Colt. I can’t thank you enough, man,” Rob said. “We’re just about done here. We have a full headcount, so we just need to clear everyone out and get them set up at the Johnson Motel.”

Full headcount? Then Beth Ann had come through while he’d been talking to her sister? He noticed the clipboard Rob was holding. “Can I see that?”

Rob handed it over, and Colt scanned the scribbles of handwriting. Lord Colossus. Aragorn. Tasha the Wind Dancer. What the hell was this crap? He skimmed the list of strange names, looking for Beth Ann’s. It wasn’t there. Either she truly wasn’t out here, or she hadn’t signed in. Or she was going by a name like Pixy Rainbow-Child, which he doubted. Still, if she wasn’t here, then why was her car stuck in the mud with all the others? He handed it back to Rob and squinted at the woods.

“There a problem?” Rob asked.

“I’m going to do a final sweep of the campgrounds,” Colt told him. “Make sure there’s no one else lingering out there.”

“Mike already did a sweep,” Rob informed him, then clapped him on the back. “You can go home, take a load off. We appreciate you helping out on such short notice.”

He’d be willing to bet that Mike hadn’t found this so-called Templar camp. “Happy to help out. Just the same,” Colt drawled. “I’ll swing through. Ease my mind a little.” He nodded at Rob. “If I find someone, I’ll bring ’em back to the motel in my Jeep.” It was safely parked on the side of the highway a mile and a half away, clear of any mud or flooding.

“If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume you’re just fine, then,” Rob said cheerfully.

“I’ll check in,” Colt said.

“Oh, that’s not necessary—” At Colt’s look, he realized he’d said something wrong, and added, “But, uh, check in anyhow.”

“I’ll check in,” Colt repeated, his words a little flat. The military would never leave a man out in the field and not have him check in. That was just bullshit.

“Good call,” Mike said, slapping Colt on the back.

“Can’t be too careful.” He patted the plastic-covered satellite phone at his belt. “I’ll call you later and let you know when I’ve left.”

“Gotcha,” Rob said, and stuck out a hand. “Thanks again, man.”

“You bet,” Colt said. He made a mental note to discuss additional training for the volunteer group when he got back. They were pretty sad as far as volunteer groups went. And while he didn’t expect them to follow military tenets, common sense was still necessary.

Colt grabbed a flashlight, tipped his sodden baseball cap at Rob, and headed off into the woods and the downpour. He ignored the twinge in his bad knee. It’d just have to wait.

He checked every campsite. They all seemed to go in a half circle through the woods and were pretty easy to find. He was disgusted at the sight of them, too. Fire pits too close to tents—luckily for them, the water had washed away any embers—cans and empty bottles everywhere. Some of it was the rain but some of it, he knew, was carelessness, and he hated that. Damn idiots. He hated to see the land being ruined by a bunch of fools. They could stand a few lessons on wilderness survival themselves, he thought. Of course, Grant would see this as a business opportunity.

But Grant wasn’t out here in the middle of the night, in the rain and the mud. Colt was, and he found their lack of care annoying as shit.

The Templar camp wasn’t anywhere in the neat half circle of campsites, and he knew it wouldn’t be. When Lucy had mentioned it, she’d made it sound like quite a hike away, and had noted a stream with a fallen log that he was familiar with. He finished his sweep of all of the other campsites first, just to be sure. He found each one full of debris, camping gear, and discarded foam weapons. The rain hadn’t let up, and the ground was turning into a muddy sludge. Whoever had purchased this land hadn’t bothered to do anything but clear away the trees for the parking lot. No wonder all the cars were stuck in the morass of mud.

When he’d finished checking all the campsites, he doubled back and headed deeper into the woods, looking for the Templar campsite—or Beth Ann.

The trail was mostly washed out at this point, but Colt didn’t need it. Even in the downpour, he knew which direction he was headed; an advantage, he suspected, that Beth Ann probably did not have. But he took his time, searching the area to make sure that there were no other stragglers, and watching his steps. It was dark, and wet, and cold, and those three things would be an unpleasant combination for anyone not used to the elements.

He went farther into the woods, past the circle of campsites. He found the stream Lucy had mentioned, now swollen and overflowing, and crossed the log that served as a bridge to the other side. He’d been making his way slowly through the woods for some time, noticing that the ground sloped up ever so gently, when he heard a loud crash in the brush ahead.