Rescue Me (29 page)

It took another moment to get his bearings—then he spotted the weapon ahead of him, and thank the fates, the shoulder strap had snagged on a tree root bleached bone white and wintergray by time and sun.

He snagged the same root as he floated past, and fighting the current, freed the M-16. Then he dragged himself along the length of the tree to the shallows along the bank.

He figured no more than fifteen seconds had passed as, shaking from the physical effort, he slogged out of the river, panting and swaying… then frantically ducked for cover when he heard a gunshot.

He rolled to his back. Cradling the rifle over his chest, he checked the magazine and found it full. Then he fumbled with cold fingers to pour the water out of the gas system. It took a couple more minutes than he had to spare, but it couldn't be helped. As confident as he could be that the rifle was functional, he rolled back to his stomach.

Jake and Benny, looking battered and bruised and horrified by the site of the downed chopper, scrambled down the far bank… and directly toward the deadfall trap Seth had set.

The only problem was, Seth wasn't anywhere near the rope to trigger it.

Strike that. It wasn't the only problem. Jake was firing wildly toward the spot on the cliff where Elena was as good as a sitting duck.

Seth didn't hesitate. He sighted down the barrel—cursed when his vision went fuzzy—and did his damnedest to get a bead on Jake.

He squeezed off a round, then watched as the two men dove behind a boulder and started wildly firing their pistols.

"Not so brave when the odds even up a bit are you, assholes?" he muttered and rising, laid down another burst of fire to cover himself as he ran back toward the crash sight with the hope of gaining a tactical advantage on the two men pinned down behind the boulder.

"Elena?" he yelled, for the first time close enough to check on her.

"I'm okay!" she yelled back.

If relief had been any sweeter, he'd have overdosed on it. And since he was already dizzy from the damn rap his head had taken, he couldn't afford another hit to his equilibrium.

"Stay put," he ordered. "Me and the boys will have this settled in no time, right boys?" he yelled across the narrow expanse of river that was linked by the sandbar.

"Fuck you!"

Jake. He recognized the voice. Just like he recognized the sound of his ammo as .45s. Another few rounds flew past him.

"You boys need to work on your attitude," Seth yelled, his tone scolding and intentionally irritating as hell. And, he hoped, not giving away that he felt himself fading.

"I'll give you attitude, pig. You killed my old man!"

Jake wasn't just mad, he was bawling. Any closer to the edge and he'd make a major mistake. Like charging Seth. Which was exactly what he wanted Jake to do. So he goaded him some more.

"Now see, you're just not looking at this right,Jakie boy. I did you afavor . You can be the man now.

The man he never let you be."

"You shut up about him! You shut the fuck up about him! This is your fault! Yours! And you're dead because of it! Dead, you hear me?"

"Now, Jake. You keep forgetting, we were minding our own business. You're the ones who came looking for trouble. Well, you found it. In case you haven't figured it out, you can't hit shit with those handguns at this range. On the other hand, this M-16 can take you out like a bad prom date. Now, come on outfellas before you force me to do something I really don't want to do—which is waste perfectly good ammo on the likes of you."

Silence.

Spots before his eyes.

Shit.

Seth shook his head. Hurt like hell, but his vision cleared. Just in time to see a shadow move then loom over him from behind.

He spun around… and felt his jaw crack when a booted foot slammed into his face. And then all he saw was black.

When Seth came to, pain raged through his swollen jaw, stabbed him behind his eyes and at the back of his head. And Clyde Devine stood over him, a 1911A pistol pointed deadcenter at his chest.

Devine was soaking wet, breathing hard; blood trickled down his temple. Murder fired in eyes asgray as the hair falling out of a gnarly pony tail. Pain furrowed brows etched deep with age and hard living.

On her knees in front of Devine, Elena was silent, her face grimacing in pain as Devine's fist twisted in her hair and jerked her head back hard.

"She goes first,"Clyde said, a lethal calmness in his tone that echoed with evil. "She's going slow and screaming. And you're notgoin ' to be able to do a damn thing about it but watch her beg and watch her bleed."

Seth didn't have to fake weakness. His ears rang. He fought back the urge to vomit, certain that if he did, he'd probably choke to death. His jaw was so swollen he couldn't open his mouth. Broken, he suspected. Along with a couple of teeth.

But he wasn't dead. He couldn't be. Because if he let these bastards get him, then Elena was as good as dead too.

So he stayed on his feet, tripping and stumbling as Devine marched him toward Jake and Benny, who had come out from behind their hidey hole and were carefully picking their way down the steep and craggy cliff face.

Hidey hole… Seth thought. Which was in a direct line to his deadfall trap.

Forcing himself to focus through the weakness and pain, he scanned the ground at his feet.

Where the hell was it?

Where the hell was the rope ?

He flinched when a snake slithered across the sand.

No. Not a snake.

He squinted. Fought to focus. Dropped to all fours. Then fell flat on his face. Brain fuzzy. Pain clawing at him with eagle talons.

Sand in his mouth. In his eyes. Rope. Not a snake. A rope beneath his hands.

Rope.

He clutched it as Devine kicked him in the side.

Fire screamed through his ribs. He doubled over in agony. Heard himself groan.

"Get up! Get your sorry ass up or I'll take the first slice out of her right now."

"Wait… wait," Seth slurred through ungodly pain, struggling to make the words come out. Digging with everything in him, he pushed himself to all fours… fought for a sustaining breath… then reared back, rope in hand, jerking with all his might.

He felt the rumble, heard the crunch and grind and bass vibrations as the boulder dislodged and roared down the cliff at warp speed times two.

A man screamed. Elena cried out. Devine cursed and kicked him again.

When Seth opened his eyes, the barrel of the M-16 was bearing down, aiming for the spot between his brows.

"Yousonofabitch !" Devine roared.

Adrenaline shot through Seth's blood like a fuel injection system pumped gas through a Formula 1 racer.

He grabbed the barrel, twisted and jerked. Heard the burst of fire as Devine pulled the trigger. Felt the burn on his fingers, wrapped in a death grip around the barrel. Jerked when the sharp, cutting sting of the bullet ripped into his body followed by Devine crashing down on him.

It was all muscle memory and blind, raging instinct from that instant on. He fought—not for his life but for Elena's, aware of her screams on a peripheral level. Aware of the pain on an entirely different plane that he blocked as he wrestled Devine to his back, crashed his fist into the drug lord's face with a crunch of bone and spurt of blood.

Then he hit him again. Straddling his supine body, he kept on hitting him as blood sprayed and Devine's lifeless form lagged like a broken doll with every punch.

He heard his name from a distance. Heard the horror, the pleading to stop, the assurance that Devine was dead.

And still he kept swinging. Wildly now. With no control. No target, no focus… no strength.

No… light.

No… bearings.

Not even a vague idea of where he was, what he was doing, why each breath he took told him to deliver death.

And then he couldn't swing any more. Winded, weak, sluggish with pain and fatigue, he stopped.

Stoppedpummeling . Stopped thinking. Stopped seeing. Stopped feeling.

The last thing he remembered was the hesitant touch of a soft hand on his brow. The soothing sounds of a trembling, terrified voice telling him it was over. It was over.

It was over…

Chapter Eleven

"Hey, tough guy. About time you put in an appearance."

Elena was surprised to hear her voice sound so easy and casual. So… unconcerned, when inside, she quaked with relief as Seth struggled to open his eyes.

She'd been so afraid for him. Too afraid to leave his side for more than an hour since the park rescue chopper hadevaced them intoFlagstaff yesterday.

God. Had it really been yesterday? It seemed… well, it seemed that she was still living the nightmare.

But it was over.

Clyde Devine was dead. He'd died as he'd lived. Violently. Brutally. On the wrong side of good.

Jake had two broken legs. Seth's deadfall trap had done its worst. The careening boulder had rolled over Jake as he'd scrambled in vain to get out of the way. He wasn't in great shape, but he would survive long enough for trial. BennyCravets , however, hadn't been so lucky. A stray rock shot out of the debris of the deadfall trap and had hit him in the temple. Killed him on impact.

Seth, thank God, was alive. And now that he'd opened his eyes, Elena took a life-sustaining breath too.

Hope. Luck. And maybe.

Seemed they were enough to get by on after all.

She studied his beautiful, bruised face. As weak as he was, Seth still looked big and dark and strong against the stark white hospital sheets. And yet she knew how much blood he'd lost before help had arrived and he'd gotten the medical attention he needed.

She knew and she remembered every soul-testing moment as she'd made bandages out of a dead man's shirt. Called for help using a dead man's radio.

She shivered, recalling the lifeless weight and soulless eyes of Clyde Devine as she'd frantically stripped him of his shirt. She'd felt like a ghoul, robbing the dead. But she hadn't cared. Seth had been bleeding out. She wasn't going to let that happen. So she'd done what she'd had to do.

That had been close to twenty-four hours ago and this was the first breath of true relief she let herself take since.

His eyes were glazed and unfocused, but they were open as he struggled toward lucidity.

Lord, his face was a mess. His left jaw was swollen twice the size of the right, his mouth was wired shut to support the broken bones.

"Easy, buddy. You're fine. You probably hurt like hell but you're fine."

Elena lifted her gaze to Lt. Dan Gates. The relief in his voice was as palpable as the relief she felt. Seth's superior had been holding vigil by Seth's bed with her for the past few hours. Hours in which she'd caught Dan staring at her with veiled curiosity, obviously wondering about the part of the story she'd left out.

The part that even she couldn't believe had happened. The part about making love with Seth. The part about falling in love with him.

The part that now, under the stark, harsh hospital lights and in the same stark harsh face of reality, seemed as remote and as far removed from the real world as the nightmare they'd both lived through in the Canyon.

"He's awake?"

Elena turned as a nurse walked in. The name tag on the white uniform told them that Lisa, a thirty-something blonde with a big smile and a lot of bounce, was anLPN . She'd slipped into the room to take Seth's vitals and neither Elena nor Dan had heard her.

"Just." Dan moved away from the bed so Lisa could take care of business.

"Fantastic," Lisa said with enough cheer to lead a basketball team to victory. "I'll let the doc know."

"Don't suppose… a man… could get some water?"

Seth. Voice raspy and weak and garbled by the limitation of his broken jaw. And so beautiful, Elena fought tears.

"Not just yet, hero," Lisa said with a chuckle. "But if you ask real nice, I might be persuaded to get you some ice chips."

An agitated grunt from the bed. "Pretty please… with pepper on it."

Both Elena and Dan grinned. Lisa too, although she was already on her way out the door to do Seth's bidding.

"You had us worried," Dan said, moving back into Seth's line of sight.

Seth squinted up at Dan. "What the hell… you doing here? And where… is here, anyway?"

"Flagstaff. You're in the hospital. You were shot, remember?"

It took a moment but Elena saw the moment recognition dawned.

"Elena," Seth said, becoming agitated. He struggled to sit up.

"I'm right here." She moved in quickly, took his hand in hers to settle him. "I'm fine. I'm fine," she repeated when he collapsed with a groan of pain and relief.

He turned his gaze to hers. His features softening through a haze of medication and fatigue. "Fine," he repeated weakly and his eyes drifted shut again.

Seth looked like his father, Elena realized the next day when both Bill and Wanda King arrived to make certain their son was truly alive and going to make it.

Nice people, she thought, watching from the door of Seth's hospital room. Very nice.

But not her people. Not her life. Just like Seth could never be her life. A bubble, she reminded herself as she left the hospital. What had happened, what they had shared—it was just a bubble in time. And now life went on. As it had before.

He was a cop with an attitude.

She was the assistant DA thorn in his side.

Fate had pitted them together. A life or death struggle hadremolded their perimeters. Shifted everything out of focus, thrown everything out of place.

Temporarily.

Well. Soon everything would be back to status quo. And as much as it hurt to think it, as much as it pained her to accept it, the truth was, business as usual would pit them against each other in court again.

And then the reality that they would often be shoring up opposite sides of the fence would take a toll.