Chapter Twenty
“Take the last of the buckets around to the other corner!” Xavier called to the group, and a few men hurried to take a couple more buckets full of water to the far edge of the paddock. Aaron breathed a sigh of relief as soon as he saw them douse out the last of the flames. It was over, thank God.
Everyone was shaken, but nobody was actually hurt, which had to count for something.
The horses were okay, too, though it would take a while for them to fully settle again.
The fire hadn’t reached the main lodge, and the county fire services had finally arrived and managed to put it out at the edge of the forest. Everything was under control for the time being.
Aaron sank down to the grass for a moment to catch his breath, and unwrapped the sleeve he had tied around his mouth. Tilting his head back, he drew in a deep lungful of air. Not exactly clear yet, but the smoke was at least starting to fade now.
Everyone had backed off to a safe distance now that the fire was actually contained, and he scanned the group, searching for Bailey. He hadn’t seen her since that brief moment when the fire first started, but she must have been out there helping, right? It was all such a blur.
But, as he looked around, his heart started to hammer in his chest again.
Where was she? He couldn’t see her anywhere.
He hurried toward the crowd that had formed near the front entrance to the main lodge, hoping she was just buried somewhere toward the back—she couldn’t be missing.
Not on the night of this fire. It would have been too much of a coincidence, and he knew she wouldn’t have walked away from them right now unless she had a really good reason.
Or, unless someone forced her to.
“River, Hannah,” he called to the women when he spotted them together.
They both turned to greet him.
“Hey, what’s up?” Hannah called back. Her face looked drawn and worried, and he wondered if she had noticed that Bailey was missing, too.
“Have you seen Bailey?” he asked them.
They exchanged a look, and then shook their heads.
“Haven’t seen her,” River replied. “Why? Is something wrong?”
He shook his head, panic starting to rise. He needed to find her, right the hell now. He could feel it in his chest, how bad it would be if he didn’t locate her. He couldn’t let anything happen to her. Not after he had given up so much to keep her safe in the first place.
“You’re looking for Bailey, right?” one of the guys asked. He was a relatively new arrival at the lodge, and Aaron didn’t know much about him, but if he had some information about Bailey, he was going to hear it.
“Yeah, yeah, I am,” he replied. “Have you seen her?”
“I saw her driving off a few minutes after the fire started,” he replied, pointing down toward the road that led away from Warrior Peak. “In that direction.”
Damn. Aaron’s mind was racing. Why would she leave?
Had she done it willingly, or had she been forced?
The last conversation they’d had was an argument, and he hated the thought of her fleeing so soon after their disagreement.
He thought it was something they could work through, but maybe she felt differently.
“I noticed her truck still here. You sure she took off?” Xavier asked, cutting into the conversation. His brow was furrowed, and he looked concerned.
“Seems like it. I saw her a moment at the start of the fire, but haven’t been able to find her since,” Aaron replied. “She must have snagged a lodge truck so we wouldn’t know she was gone.” His eyes darkened. Looks like she was running away this time. That thought made his chest ache.
“Then you need to find out where she’s headed,” he replied.
“It’s not safe for her to be on her own right now.
This fire starting out of nowhere can’t be a coincidence, either.
And so soon after you fill us in on your past and finding out dirty cops know of your location.
We can only assume they know Bailey was here, too.
It’s got to have something to do with why she left. Maybe they contacted her in some way?”
Aaron nodded in agreement. That made sense. If Ziegler or one of the others had found a way to contact Bailey and made threats against Warrior Peak or even him, she would have left to protect everyone here.
Xavier tossed him a set of keys. “Here, take my car,” he told him. “We’ll be waiting. And call if you need backup.”
“Thanks. I will,” Aaron replied.
With that, he made his way toward the car, his mind running so fast he didn’t know how to control it. As he climbed in and drove off, his thoughts were frantic, his entire system consumed with the fear of what might have happened to her.
He stared at the road ahead of him as he drove, willing himself not to screw this up—not to make more of a mess of this than he already had.
He should have checked on her after what had happened the night before.
He knew she was upset about the guys at the sanctuary wanting her to stand down and let them handle it.
She thought they all saw her as lesser than, incapable.
But she wasn’t thinking clearly, letting her emotions override reason.
They knew she could handle herself—that wasn’t it at all.
With their backgrounds, though, they were protectors at their core and if they could stand between someone else and danger—they’d do it every time.
The guys were also thinking of her future.
If Bailey wanted to stay in law enforcement, she needed to be removed from all of this.
Not have this black mark on her record where anyone could question her motives.
The road wound down the mountain, and he drove as quickly as he could without throwing the car off the side when he took the corners.
He just needed to get to her. She couldn’t have gotten far, right?
She didn’t know the area well—unless she had done her planning before she left, and made sure she knew where she was going.
And she had never been the kind of woman who would walk directly into something without knowing what she was facing.
He gripped the wheel tight, his whole body rigid with tension.
He would find her. He would find her. And if Ziegler and his crew had put themselves in the middle of this, he would take them all out on the spot and bring them down for good, as long as it meant she was safe. He would not fail her this time.
He had blown up his life to make sure she was okay—and blown up hers in the process.
Both of them had given up so much, lost so much time with each other and the thought of losing more just because these villains couldn’t just leave them alone…
He didn’t know what to make of it all. He and Bailey were both out of the picture, no one else knew what they did, so why could Ziegler and the rest just not move on?
Were they that far gone with their power and corruption that they thought they had to eliminate them permanently?
He just couldn’t wrap his mind around that.
Whatever their reasoning, though, there wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to let anything happen to her.
And if she had left of her own volition?
What then? If she was okay, he felt like he should be fine with it, but the two of them had something he didn’t want to give up quite so soon.
He wasn’t entirely sure what their connection was, or if she would even want to pursue it after everything that had happened, but he knew he would do anything to make it work.
He had waited so long before, and now she was finally back. How could he pass up that chance?
He rounded a bend in the road, and slammed on the brakes, taking in the scene before him.
Down the embankment on the left side, near the tree line, was the lodge truck—it looks like it had flipped off the road, rolling and sliding nearly twenty feet before coming to a smoking stop on its side.
His gut clenched at the sight. He quickly scanned the area but didn’t see any movement near the crashed vehicle.
He hoped Bailey made it out in one piece, or there’d be hell to pay.
On the right side of the road, sitting at an angle facing the embankment with the headlights still blazing, was a van with a dented front bumper.
He turned off the car’s headlights and quietly pulled behind the van, making sure his car was hidden behind the glow of the headlights.
He didn’t know what was going on here, but he wanted to make sure he had as much time as he could to work it out before anyone else spotted him.
He got the feeling he was going to have to take every advantage he could.
He silently got out and looked around. It was pitch black out here, the only light coming from the headlights.
If he stayed low and moved quickly, he’d be able to cross the road without being seen.
Keeping his steps as soft as possible while hurrying, he made his way to the opposite side of the road and down to the crashed truck, praying she would still be inside.
Even if she was hurt, he could get her back to the sanctuary and patch her up.
But if she was gone, what the hell could he do about it?
Would he even be able to get her back? He immediately shut that thought down.
If Ziegler and his crew were the ones to have caused this and had taken her to parts unknown, Aaron knew he’d move heaven and earth to find her and get her back to the safety of Warrior Peak with him, where she belonged.
He wasn’t giving up, no matter what he had to do or where he had to go.
No matter how long it took, he’d find her.
The truck was empty when he peered inside through the windshield, but he did see blood. He took a moment and looked around to see if there were any signs to indicate she had managed to get away, but there were no visible clues as to where she went in the immediate area.
Looking back at the truck, he noticed a lot of blood smeared across the seatbelt and door handle.
Seeing both, he knew Bailey was at least badly injured and he needed to get to her soon.
The passenger side window, which was facing upright, was smashed, so she could have crawled out or someone could have pulled her out.
Either way, she wasn’t there, so she had to have at least survived the crash.
He had to believe that. So where was she now?
He tried to think what he would do if this had been him, but his mind kept going back to all the blood inside the truck. Yes, the truck had tumbled down the embankment so he’d expect some, but not as much as he’d seen inside. If that was any indication of how she was doing, Bailey needed him now.
Or else…
No, he couldn’t even let himself think that.
He wouldn’t let his mind go there. He had to trust she had been able to find a way out of this, no matter how bad it might look.
He knew he didn’t give her enough credit for what a badass she was—none of them did.
She could handle so much more than her small stature indicated.
Giving up on his search at the truck, Aaron quietly made his way back toward the road, keeping his steps light and his head down.
That van had run her off the road, he was sure of it.
There was no way she would have crashed without cause.
She was a careful driver, even when she was under stress.
And if someone had wanted to take her out like this, who was to say what else they would do to make sure she played by their rules?
He sank down by the edge of the road, looking back and forth, trying to figure out who was here and what they might have been doing.
He didn’t want to make his presence known until he had a better idea of what was going on.
Nobody would be coming up to Warrior Peak unless they had a good reason to.
Someone might have tried to play hero with the fire, but he doubted it.
It was impossible to see anything down this far, apart from the smoke in the sky.
Around him, he couldn’t make out anything but the usual sounds of the night.
The van was still running, so whoever was out there was planning on using it for a fast retreat once they finished whatever they were doing.
Since he couldn’t find her below at the wreck, he had to assume the whatever had something to do with Bailey and why he hadn’t seen her around.
He wasn’t going to walk away from this until he knew for sure what was going on.
He was about to move to a different angle when he heard it. The sound of a struggle—of voices. Mostly men, but he could also hear a woman saying something, protesting. Much to his relief, it sounded like Bailey.
He kept a watchful eye pinned to the van opposite him. He felt his heart pounding in his chest, and he took long, deep breaths, trying to settle himself before he freaked out too badly. He couldn’t rush this. He had made decisions based on his emotions before, and that rarely ended well for him.
Suddenly, he saw a commotion near the van. Just for a split second, four familiar figures shoved Bailey toward the back. They were trying to kidnap her! God only knew what they would do if they managed to get her out of there, but he wasn’t going to let that happen. He had to stop it.
He rose to his feet and took a deep breath. Now or never. If they got her into that van, it was over, and he wasn’t going to let the woman he loved be lost to him a second time.
Without another thought, he went sprinting toward them, blazing with all the anger of a bat out of hell and ready to put these guys down. For good.