Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
G emma woke slowly, consciousness returning in gentle waves. The bed was warm, the quilt heavy and comforting around her body. She stretched, muscles pleasantly sore from the night before, and reached across the mattress expecting to find Case’s solid presence. Instead, her fingers met cool sheets.
She opened her eyes, blinking against the golden morning light filtering through the cabin’s small window. The bedroom was empty, Case’s clothes gone from where they’d been hastily discarded the night before. Only her own remained, neatly folded on the chair in the corner—a gesture that made her smile despite his absence.
Gemma sat up, pulling the quilt around her bare shoulders, listening to the sounds of the cabin. No footsteps, no coffee brewing, no low hum of Case moving about his space. Just silence, broken only by a rhythmic thudding from outside.
The clock on the bedside table showed that she had slept past nine. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so late or so deeply. The realization brought a flush to her cheeks—the sense of safety that had allowed her to surrender so completely to sleep, to Case, to the moment.
She slid from the bed, borrowing Case’s flannel shirt from a hook on the door. It engulfed her, the sleeves hanging well past her fingertips, the hem hitting mid-thigh. It smelled like him—pine and wood smoke and something distinctly male. She pulled on her underwear beneath it and padded barefoot to the main room of the cabin.
The woodstove radiated heat, freshly stoked. On the small table, she found a place set for her—a plate covered with a cloth napkin, a mug waiting beside the coffee pot. When she lifted the napkin, she discovered thick slices of toast, a jar of honey, and an apple cut into neat wedges. Simple fare, but the thoughtfulness of it made her throat tighten unexpectedly.
Gemma poured coffee into the waiting mug, adding a splash of the cream Case had apparently thought to bring from her apartment. The first sip was perfect—strong and hot, exactly what she needed to fully wake. She carried her mug to the front window and peered out.
Case was in the clearing before the cabin, stripped to the waist despite the morning chill, rhythmically chopping firewood. Each swing of the axe was controlled and precise, the muscles in his back and shoulders flexing with the movement. The scene was almost absurdly masculine, like something from a rustic calendar, but Gemma couldn’t tear her eyes away.
She watched him for several minutes, sipping her coffee, admiring the efficiency of his movements, the quiet strength evident in every line of his body. Last night rushed back to her—those same muscles moving above her, his hands gentle despite their roughness, the look in his eyes when he’d whispered “stay with me.”
The memory made her bold. Gemma slipped her feet into her shoes by the door and stepped out onto the porch, coffee mug cradled between her palms. The morning air was crisp, carrying the scent of pine and wet earth. Case didn’t notice her immediately, focused on his task, and she was content to watch him a moment longer.
He was beauty in motion. There was no other word for it. Beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with conventional attractiveness and everything to do with purpose, with function, with the absolute surety of his body and its capabilities. It was the same confidence she’d felt in his hands on her body last night—hands that knew exactly what they were doing, what they wanted.
Case set up another log on the chopping block, raised the axe, and then suddenly his head snapped up, eyes finding her on the porch. His face transformed, softening from concentration into something warmer. He lowered the axe.
“Morning,” he called, his voice carrying easily across the clearing.
Gemma smiled over the rim of her mug. “Morning yourself,” she replied, leaning against the porch railing. “Don’t stop on my account. I’m enjoying the show.”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips as he positioned the axe again. “Breakfast okay?” he asked, bringing the blade down in a perfect arc that split the log cleanly.
“Perfect,” she assured him. “Thank you.”
He nodded, setting up another log. Gemma took another sip of coffee, savoring the simple pleasure of watching him work, of being here in this moment without fear or restraint.
The crack split the air without warning.
For one confused heartbeat, Gemma thought it was the sound of wood splitting. But then Case dropped to the ground, the axe falling beside him, and she saw the streak of bright red blooming across his upper arm.
Her coffee mug shattered on the porch boards, the sound distant and unimportant as understanding crystallized with terrible clarity.
A gunshot.
“Gemma, get inside!” Case bellowed, rolling behind the woodpile for cover. “NOW!”
Her body unfroze, terror giving way to a surge of adrenaline that propelled her toward the door. Another crack split the air, and she heard the thud of a bullet embedding itself in the cabin wall inches from where she’d been standing.
She flung herself through the door, hitting the floor hard, her heart thundering in her ears. From outside came a cacophony of sounds—barking, shouting, the crash of underbrush.
Gemma crawled to the window, keeping below the sill, and peered over the edge. A large dog—Caesar, she realized—streaked across the clearing toward the tree line, a blur of tawny fur and focused purpose. Behind him, a figure moved along the edge of the forest—Ty, she thought, rifle in hand, calling something to Case that she couldn’t make out over the ringing in her ears.
Case was on his feet now, crouched behind the woodpile, his own sidearm drawn. Blood trickled down his arm, but his movements were steady as he signaled to Ty. She watched them communicate in what appeared to be a silent language of gestures, developed in situations far more dangerous than this one.
Ty disappeared into the trees after Caesar, moving with surprising stealth for such a large man. Case waited a beat, then darted across the clearing toward the cabin, keeping low, his eyes constantly scanning the tree line.
Gemma scrambled back from the window as he burst through the door, locking it behind him in one fluid motion. His chest heaved with exertion, blood streaming more freely down his arm now that he was moving.
“Are you hit?” he demanded, crossing to her in two long strides, his free hand running over her body as if checking for injuries. “Gemma, are you hit?”
“No,” she managed, her voice steadier than she felt. “But you are. Your arm?—“
“It’s nothing,” he dismissed, though his face was tight with pain. “Graze. Ty and Caesar are tracking him.”
Gemma’s mind struggled to process what was happening. “Him? Darren? It’s Darren?”
Case’s expression was grim. “Has to be. No hunter would mistake me for game, not at that range, not on my own property.” He moved to the window, staying to the side of the frame as he peered out. “He must have followed us last night. Waited for daylight.”
Cold fear clenched in Gemma’s stomach. “This is my fault,” she whispered. “I brought this to your door.”
Case turned to her, his face fierce. “No. This is his fault. Only his.” He crossed to her again, cupping her face with his uninjured hand. “You understand me? This is on him, not you.”
Before she could respond, a sharp series of barks echoed from the forest, followed by a shout. Case’s head snapped toward the sound, his body tensing.
“Stay here,” he ordered, moving toward the door. “Lock it behind me.”
“Case, your arm?—“
“I’ve had worse shaving,” he said, the attempt at humor falling flat as blood continued to seep between his fingers where he pressed them against the wound. “Lock. The. Fucking. Door.”
Then he was gone, sprinting across the clearing toward the sounds in the forest, gun drawn. Gemma forced herself to the door, securing the deadbolt with trembling hands. Through the window, she watched Case disappear into the trees, following the sound of Caesar’s barking, which grew more frantic before suddenly stopping altogether.
The silence that followed was worse than any noise could have been.
Gemma backed away from the door, searching frantically for a weapon, anything she could use to defend herself if Darren came through that door instead of Case. Her eyes fell on the shotgun mounted above the fireplace. She’d never fired a gun in her life, but she’d seen enough movies to understand the basic concept. Point and pull.
She had just gotten the weapon down when voices approached the cabin—multiple voices, she realized with relief. Not just Darren.
“Clear!” came Ty’s voice, followed by heavy footsteps on the porch.
Gemma lowered the shotgun as the door opened to reveal Case and Ty, both breathing hard. Caesar pushed past them, entering the cabin with his nose to the ground, circling once before sitting alert by the door.
“He’s gone,” Ty reported grimly. “Trail goes cold at the road. Must have had a vehicle waiting.”
Case nodded, his face tight with pain and frustration. “You call Nathan?”
“On his way,” Ty confirmed, then turned his attention to Case’s bleeding arm. “You need stitches?”
“I’m fine,” Case insisted, though he allowed Ty to steer him to a chair. “We need to secure the perimeter. He could circle back.”
“Jake’s already on it,” Ty assured him, crossing to a cabinet and pulling out what Gemma recognized as a first aid kit. “He’s setting up motion sensors at the trailheads. No one’s getting back up here without us knowing.”
Gemma set the shotgun carefully on the table and moved to Case’s side. “Let me,” she said quietly, taking the first aid kit from Ty. Their eyes met briefly, and something passed between them—an understanding, perhaps, or an acknowledgment.
Ty nodded once, then turned to Case. “I’ll check the outbuildings, make sure we’re secure. Caesar will stay with you.”
As Ty left, Gemma opened the first aid kit with trembling hands. Now that the immediate danger had passed, delayed shock was setting in, making her movements clumsy as she extracted antiseptic wipes and bandages.
“It looks worse than it is,” Case assured her, watching her face carefully. “Bullet just grazed the skin. Didn’t hit anything important.”
Gemma swallowed hard, focusing on the task at hand rather than the knowledge that inches to the right would have meant a very different outcome. She cleaned the wound gently, relieved to see that Case was right—the bullet had carved a furrow across his outer arm, bloody and painful but not life-threatening.
“He was aiming at you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Not me. You.”
Case caught her wrist, stilling her movements. “Gemma. Look at me.”
She raised her eyes to his, finding them steady and fierce. “He was trying to scare you,” Case said. “To isolate you. Make you feel like anyone who gets close to you is in danger.”
“They are,” she whispered, tears threatening.
“No,” Case insisted. “What happened today? That’s on him. Not you. And he failed. I’m still here. We’re still here.”
Gemma’s vision blurred as she carefully applied a bandage to his arm. “He could have killed you.”
“But he didn’t,” Case replied simply. “And now we know where we stand. No more shadows, no more wondering. He’s shown his hand.” There was something almost satisfied in his expression, like a hunter who had finally caught sight of elusive prey.
“What do we do now?” she asked, securing the bandage with tape.
Case’s good hand came up to cup her cheek, his touch infinitely gentle despite the violence of the morning. “Now we stop running,” he said. “Now we fight back.”
C ase’s arm throbbed beneath the bandage as he stood at the cabin window, watching Nathan’s cruiser wind its way down the mountain road. The sheriff had spent the better part of an hour taking their statements, photographing the bullet holes in the tree trunks, and collecting the shell casing Ty had found at what they determined was the shooter’s position—a natural blind about two hundred yards into the tree line with clear sightlines to the chopping block.
Two hundred yards. A shot that any decent marksman could make in his sleep. The realization sat like ice in Case’s gut. If Darren had wanted him dead, he would be. This was a warning shot. A message. And Case had received it loud and clear.
“You okay?” Nathan had asked as he was leaving, his normally affable face serious.
“He won’t be a problem for long,” Case had replied, his voice deadly quiet. Not a threat. A promise.
Nathan had sighed, years of friendship warring with his duty as sheriff. “I want to tell you not to take the law into your own hands,” he’d said finally. “But I’ll just keep looking for this guy and caution you to be careful.”
The subtext wasn’t lost on Case. Nathan knew what was coming. He’d looked into their records when they came to the mountain, had known what men like Case and Ty were capable of when someone they cared about was threatened. Hell, he’d offered them positions in the department and, when they refused, he used them when he had lost hikers in the wilderness. Now, he was giving them space to do what needed to be done, while maintaining plausible deniability.
Behind him, Gemma paced the cabin, arms wrapped tightly around herself. Caesar watched her from his position by the door, head tracking her movements with canine attentiveness. The shepherd had taken to her immediately, spending days with her all week, which told Case everything he needed to know. Caesar had excellent instincts about people.
“You can’t just go after him,” Gemma said for the third time since Nathan left. “He’s dangerous. He has a gun.”
Case turned from the window, meeting her worried gaze. “So do I,” he replied simply.
“This isn’t a war zone, Case,” she argued, her voice tight with tension. “You can’t just?—“
“It became a war zone the minute he opened fire on my property,” Case cut her off, gentler than he felt. “On you. On me.”
She made a frustrated sound. “And going out hunting for him like some kind of vigilante is exactly what he wants! Don’t you see that?”
Case crossed to her, his good hand coming up to cup her cheek. She was right, of course. Darren was trying to draw him out, to separate them. But that didn’t change what needed to happen.
“I’m not going to engage him,” he lied smoothly. “The guys and I are just going to scout the area, make sure he’s not still lurking nearby. Caesar will stay with you.”
At the sound of his name, the dog’s ears perked up. Case caught his eye and gave the subtle hand signal that Ty had taught him. Protect. Caesar immediately stood and moved to Gemma’s side, pressing against her leg in a canine offer of support.
“He won’t leave your side,” Case assured her. “And he’s trained to alert at any sign of danger. You’ll be safer with him than with me.”
Gemma didn’t look convinced, but some of the fight seemed to go out of her. She rested her hand tentatively on Caesar’s head. “How long will you be gone?”
“Not long,” Case promised, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Just a perimeter check.”
Another lie. Case had no intention of making this quick. Darren had escalated from stalking to attempted murder, and Case wasn’t going to wait around for the next attack.
“Stay inside,” he instructed, already moving toward the door where his rifle waited. “Keep the doors locked. Only open for me, Ty, or Jake.”
She nodded, her face pale but determined. “Be careful,” she whispered. “Please.”
The raw fear in her voice nearly made him reconsider, but the memory of bullets flying past her, of how close Darren had come to taking her from him, hardened his resolve. “Always am,” he replied with a confidence he didn’t entirely feel. Then he was out the door, not looking back for fear he might not leave at all.
Ty and Jake were waiting at the edge of the clearing, rifles slung over their shoulders, faces grim. Jake was the another man in their mountain brotherhood, a former counterintelligence specialist and sniper who’d found civilization too loud after his last deployment. He was quiet, spending more time with his computers than people, though he spent time helping other veterans find peace with their transition to civilian life. His social skills were rusty at best, but his technical expertise had already proven invaluable in tracking Darren’s digital footprint.
“Perimeter’s clear,” Ty reported as Case approached. “No sign of him in the immediate area.”
“Caesar will stay with her?” Jake asked, his voice quiet as always.
Case nodded. “She’ll be safe with him. What did you find?”
Jake pulled a tablet from his pack, his fingers swiping across the screen. “Our guy isn’t who he says he is,” he began, handing the device to Case. “Darren Wilson, age 36, IT specialist at Meridian Tech. That’s his cover story.”
Case stared at the military ID displayed on the screen. Same face, different name. “Michael Reynolds,” he read. “Marine Force Recon.”
“Discharged in 2017,” Jake continued. “Dishonorably. Details are classified, but I found references to ‘conduct unbecoming on the battlefield’ in his service record.”
“Which means what, exactly?” Ty asked, though his expression suggested he already knew.
Jake’s normally impassive face darkened. “It means he did something so fucked up even the military couldn’t sweep it under the rug. My sources suggest he developed an unhealthy obsession with a local woman during his last deployment. She ended up dead.”
Case handed the tablet back, a cold rage settling into his bones. “I’m done with this fucker,” he said, his voice dangerously calm. “I want him found and eliminated.”
The words hung in the clearing, a line crossed that couldn’t be uncrossed. Neither Ty nor Jake looked surprised. They’d known what this was the moment bullets started flying.
“He has too many skills to be a simple IT guy,” Case continued, his tactical mind already mapping out a strategy. “We step up patrols and actively hunt this guy. Assume he’s living off the land now. Find him. Now.”
Ty nodded, all traces of his usual sardonic humor gone. “I’ve got contacts at the VA who might have more specifics on his discharge. Could give us insight into his patterns.”
“I’ll reach out to my network,” Jake added. “See if anyone has eyes on vehicle rentals, hotel bookings, unusual supply purchases in the area. If he’s gone to ground, he had to prep somewhere.”
“Good,” Case said, checking his rifle with practiced movements. “We maintain the fiction for Gemma that we’re just doing perimeter checks. I don’t want her more frightened than she already is.”
“You really think she’s buying that?” Ty asked skeptically.
Case met his friend’s knowing gaze. “No. But it gives her plausible deniability. And I need her to stay put. She’s safe as long as she’s with Caesar, in the cabin.”
“And if Reynolds circles back while we’re out hunting him?” Jake voiced the concern they were all feeling.
“That’s why one of us stays close at all times,” Case replied. “Rotating shifts. We hunt in pairs while the third maintains overwatch on the cabin. Radio contact every fifteen minutes.”
“We could pull in the other guys. They’d do it,” Ty suggested, but Case was already shaking his head.
“We keep it to us. Too many people will spook him. We can move quicker just us.”
They both nodded, falling easily into the familiar military cadence of planning an operation. It should have felt wrong, Case thought, applying warzone tactics in the peaceful mountains he’d claimed as sanctuary. But it didn’t. Some men brought the war with them wherever they went. Reynolds had proven himself to be such a man.
“We end this quietly,” Case added, the pain in his arm fueling his determination. “Nathan doesn’t need to know the details.”
“Nathan knows exactly what’s happening,” Ty said with a grim smile. “Why do you think he didn’t press harder for us to leave it to him?”
Case couldn’t argue with that. Nathan understood the kind of man they were dealing with. Understood that conventional law enforcement might not be enough.
“Jake, you take first overwatch,” Case decided. “Ty and I will start the grid search from Reynolds’ firing position. Maybe he left something behind besides the shell casing.”
Jake nodded, already moving to take up his position in the blind spot behind the cabin, where he’d have clear sightlines to all approach vectors without being visible from the tree line.
As he and Ty moved toward the forest, Case cast one last glance back at the cabin. Through the window, he could see Gemma sitting on the couch, Caesar’s head in her lap. She was safe, for now. He intended to make sure she stayed that way.
“You sure about this?” Ty asked quietly as they reached the tree line. “Once we start down this road...”
“I’m sure,” Case cut him off. “He brought war to my doorstep. To her. There’s only one way this ends now.”
Ty studied his face for a long moment, then nodded, accepting what he saw there. “Like old times, then.”
“Like old times,” Case agreed, though this felt different. In Afghanistan, they’d been soldiers following orders, protecting abstract ideals of freedom and democracy. This was personal. A man protecting what was his.
As they moved deeper into the forest, following the faint trail that Caesar had tracked earlier, Case felt a familiar coldness settle over him. The focused, detached state that had made him such an effective operator. The part of himself he’d hoped to leave behind when he came to this mountain.
Darren Wilson—or Michael Reynolds, whatever he called himself—had forced Case to resurrect the soldier he’d once been. The man who’d done terrible things in service to his country. The man who knew exactly how to hunt another human being.
For Gemma’s sake, Case would become that man again. And this time, the price of failure was too high to contemplate.