Chapter 4
FOUR
Her lungs burned. Her eyes burned. Her muscles burned.
Allie was already on fire.
The panic in Dakota’s eyes as he glanced behind them didn’t help. The snapping and crackling of the fire surrounded them. Crashes of bigger trees falling sounded further away, but the flames were close, eating up the orange pine needles covering the forest floor.
Please, God. Save us. I know I have so much to still make up for. But these boys, they deserve to live .
Somehow, Allie found another burst of speed. Ahead of her, Ethan cried out and fell, and she nearly stumbled over him. They all stopped.
Dakota, already holding Nolan, grabbed Ethan by the arm. “C’mon, Ethan!” He rebalanced Nolan behind him.
Ethan crumbled back to the ground. “I can’t!”
“Can you walk?” Allie asked the boy.
He shook his head, biting down on his lip—probably to hold back tears. A technique she knew well.
“I know, bud. But we can’t cry. We have to run!”
“I’ll carry him.” Dakota knelt down.
Allie shook her head. “You already have?—”
“We don’t have time to argue. Just help him up so I can?—”
A sound came through the forest, blaring, as if someone was leaning on their truck horn.
Yes! Behind them on the road, an ancient yellow Ford pickup came out of the smoke and raced toward them. A man with a shock of white-gray hair and a thick beard of the same color waved to them from the open window of the truck. “Get in the back! Hurry!”
Not waiting for introductions with this strange angel of mercy, Allie grabbed Nolan from Dakota and set him into the bed of the truck.
“Scout! Come!” Allie spun in a quick circle. “Scout?”
Dakota lifted Ethan into the back and then hopped up to join them.
“I can’t find Scout.” Allie peered through the smoke and ash.
Dakota held a hand out for her and pulled her into the truck bed. “We’ll keep an eye out for him. He’s probably right up ahead.”
Allie sat against the cab. Her eyes watered as she wrapped her arms around Nolan, trying not to unravel.
Dakota gave a quick pound on the roof to signal they were set, and the truck took off.
Behind them, the fire raged on, barreling toward them. But the old truck rushed ahead and outran the flames. Within a few minutes, they were surrounded by green trees again. The air was clearer, and Allie could breathe again, even though her throat was scraped raw.
She moved to the side of the truck bed and craned her neck to scan the forest. The wind whipped her hair across her face.
“Scout! Scout! Here, boy,” she called out, hoping her voice would carry over the fire and somehow Scout would find her. Dakota and Ethan called too. Mile after mile until they couldn’t yell anymore. She fell back down against the cab once more.
Nolan cuddled up against her. “Where’s Scout?”
Allie’s own eyes filled with tears. She smoothed the sweaty hair off his forehead. His round cheeks were covered in dirt and ash. But she couldn’t open her mouth to say anything.
Dakota leaned over to be heard over the wind. “Scout’s a smart dog. He probably found an even faster way away from the fire. He’ll be okay.”
Nolan nodded, but tears cut down his face. “I liked Scout.” He leaned back against Allie.
For a moment, Allie allowed herself the small luxury of relishing his presence. A little boy snug in her arms. He was younger than?—
No. She couldn’t go there.
Dakota leaned toward her. “Hey, we made it. We’re okay.”
She bit down on her lip and nodded. “Yeah. We did. But…Scout.” Her voice cracked. “Belle was right.”
“About what?”
“I kept Scout at a distance. I should’ve tried harder. Done better with him. I can’t really blame him for running off?—”
“No way. We’re gonna find Scout. He’s got amazing instincts. He’s gonna survive.”
“Well, I’m not leaving until I find him.”
He gave her shoulder a light squeeze. “I’ll help you look.”
After bouncing down the rutted dirt track, the truck turned onto a more level gravel road and eventually wound its way to the highway. Before turning onto the paved road, they stopped.
The older man in his red flannel shirt and pants stained with ash and soot came around to the back of the truck. He wore suspenders and work boots, almost like a lumberjack version of Santa Claus. “Where you folks need to go?”
“The campground?—”
“The hospital.” Dakota spoke over her. “You and the boys need to get checked out first. I’ll tell the parents to meet us at the hospital.”
He was right. Jen would be worried sick. But with their injuries, it was a good call.
Allie turned to the stranger. “Would you mind?”
“Not at all. I can’t stick around, but I certainly don’t mind dropping you off.”
“I’m Allie. This is Dakota.” She motioned to the boys. “Nolan and Ethan.”
“Nice to meet you folks. I’m Henry.”
“Did you happen to see a black Lab? My dog was with us, but he ran ahead, and we lost him.”
“I didn’t, but I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for him.” With a quick nod, he was back in the truck, and they were on their way to Ember.
Dakota radioed his team, and Allie called Jen, telling her to meet them at the hospital. Afterward, she passed a water bottle and protein bar to the boys. Nolan eagerly ate and within minutes, fell asleep against her.
Dakota chugged his water but took his time with the bar. “Thanks.”
She gave him a weak smile. “I should be thanking you. Not that a smashed bar and some tepid water is much of an appreciation gift. The boys and I never would’ve made it out of that forest without you.”
Dakota shrugged as if saving people’s lives was no biggie. Then he turned to Ethan.
“Ethan, who is the scary man you said you saw on the trail?”
The boy stuffed another bite of his bar into his mouth. The wind blew through his sweaty blond hair, and his blue eyes narrowed. He looked from Allie to Dakota, almost as if assessing them.
“We want to help you,” Allie urged him with smile. “Dakota was a police officer, remember? And I work with law enforcement all the time. I search for lost people.”
Ethan released a shaky breath. “Last time we were camping, Nolan and I went for a hike. I was looking for a blue grouse for my Boy Scout badge, so we went off the trail even though my mom told me not to. We walked for a long time. Then we heard guys shouting. We hid. We were by that cabin you found, because I remembered that funny roof. And this man—” Ethan swallowed hard. His eyes welled with tears.
Dakota stilled. “What did he do?”
“The other man…the one with a necklace…he tried to walk away, but the tall man with the ponytail shot him in the back. He fell down, and then he shot him in the head too.”
For real? They’d seen a murder ?
No wonder the boys were scared. But maybe a combination of fear and strong imaginations had conjured up this story. They could’ve seen something else and misinterpreted it.
“Why did you want to go back today?” Allie asked him.
“We weren’t trying to go back. We were trying to run away.”
“Why did you want to run away?” Dakota asked softly.
Ethan clamped his mouth shut. Clearly, he was done talking.
She was about to ask more when she caught the subtle shake of Dakota’s head. Maybe being a guy, he understood better when to push and when to wait. She’d trust him…for now.
They bumped along in the rusty truck bed to the hospital. Vehicles filled the parking lot, but the old man pulled up right out front.
Allie stood on shaky legs and lifted Nolan out of the truck while Dakota helped Ethan. She turned to Henry. “Thanks for?—”
The engine revved, and he was gone.
“Who was that guy?” Allie looked at Dakota.
“No clue. But I wish I could’ve at least shaken his hand and thanked him for saving us.”
They walked into the hospital. Locals covered in soot and ash, some of them bleeding, milled around the ER lobby. And standing among them, Jen and her husband Ray. They were talking with a man in a tan deputy uniform.
“Nolan! Ethan!” Jen rushed to engulf both boys in her arms.
“Mommy!” Nolan launched himself at her, and his arms clenched around her neck. She scooped him up, crying.
Ethan was limping, holding on to Dakota’s arm for support. When Ray walked over to them, Ethan stiffened.
“We need these boys seen now. You can go.” Ray wrapped an arm around Jen, who’d gotten up and lifted Nolan with her. She walked over to Ethan and pulled him against her hip in a hug.
“Let’s go.” Ray moved them toward the counter.
Ethan hopped on one foot. Ray tried to offer him an arm, but the boy shook his head. “I can do it myself.”
The four of them were quickly ushered back by a nurse.
A muscle in Dakota’s jaw twitched like he was clenching his teeth.
So he’d noticed it too.
“Do you think Ray is the scary man the boys were talking about?” Allie whispered. “Or do you think Ethan was telling the truth about the men in the woods? With a gun?”
“I don’t know. But they aren’t comfortable around him, even if he isn’t the ponytailed killer.”
She shuddered. “Is there really a body in the woods—one that’s been out there for weeks?”
Dakota spun to face her. “I can’t leave the boys here with Ray if he’s dangerous.”
Allie fiddled with the hanging straps from her pack, her gaze going from Dakota back to the ER. “But beyond kidnapping them, what do we do? And Scout. I have to go find him.” Her throat squeezed.
“Scout will be okay. But you should get that cough checked out.” Dakota’s frown pinched his brow together.
Did he know something she didn’t? “What is it?”
Dakota dropped his voice. “We can’t get back there with the patients unless one of us is a patient too.”
Oh! “Right.”
Allie coughed and approached the desk. If she was honest, she probably did need to be checked out.
After a little paperwork, a nurse ushered her and Dakota into the small emergency department. She checked her vitals. “Might as well settle in for a bit. With all the other fire-related injuries, we’re short-staffed, and it might be a while.” She turned on the television that hung in the corner of the room and handed the remote to Allie. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
As soon as she left, Allie hopped off the bed. “I’m going to see if I can find Jen and talk to her alone.”
“I’ll go?—”
“You should stay here.” She stopped Dakota with a hand to his chest. His very muscular chest. Over the last few hours, she’d seen a lot of different sides of Dakota Masterson. He really was a hero.
Don’t get carried away, Allie!
She dropped her hand. “Last thing we need is you getting into another public brawl.”
Dakota snapped his mouth closed. Hurt flashed in his eyes.
Aw, why had she said that ?
She winced. “Sorry. I just mean…it’s just that you’re rather…intimidating. If Jen will speak to anyone, it will be me.”
“Fine.”
Obviously Dakota wasn’t happy about it, but he stayed.
Allie slipped out of the tiny partition behind the curtain and heard familiar voices across the hall. The door was cracked open. Ray was nowhere to be seen, but Jen spoke with the doctor as he examined the cut on Nolan’s leg. Ethan sat in one chair with his leg propped up on another.
“I’ll have Ethan sent down to X-ray, and the nurses will prep Nolan for some stitches. I’ll be back when we get those records,” a voice said, probably the doctor.
Allie leaned against the wall and pretended to look at her phone when the man in scrubs and a white lab coat came out of the room. As soon as he turned the corner to the nurse’s station, Allie went in.
“Hey, just wanted to check on everyone.” She offered Jen a warm smile. “Are you holding up okay?”
Jen nodded and held Nolan’s hand. “I am now.” She smoothed the boy’s blond hair off his forehead.
“Great. Um…could I talk to you a sec, in the hall?”
Her gaze flicked to the doorway. “The doctor is coming right?—”
“It won’t take long. I promise. And we’ll be in the hall.”
Jen followed her to the corridor. Her gaze shifted around, like she was on the lookout and would bolt at any second. A woman used to living on edge, watching for a threat.
“Jen, are you safe?”
“What?” She finally looked at Allie. “I don’t know what—” Her hand fluttered around her throat. Jen wrapped her other arm around herself.
Allie lowered her voice. “Are you safe. In your home. With Ray?”
“I’m fine.” She smiled a little too brightly. “Really.”
Fine? Then why were her hands trembling? “Are you? Because the boys told us?—”
“Boys tell stories.” Her voice came out forcefully. “Like I told you before, they make stuff up. You can’t listen?—”
“I think it’s more than that. You can tell me the truth. We can get help for you if you need it.”
Jen shook her head and glanced down the hall. “No need. I’m fine. Great, even. The boys are…fine. Well, they will be once the doc sees them. But they’ll be okay.”
Allie didn’t believe her, but without proof or Jen’s cooperation, her hands were tied. Ray’s voice carried from farther down the hall. She was running out of time.
“You have my number, right?” Allie whispered.
Jen looked at her and nodded.
“Okay. Then you call me. Anytime. For anything. Understand? I will be there as fast as I can.”
Ray and a nurse came around the corner. Jen glanced at them and then lifted her chin as she faced Allie. “Thanks again for finding them.” She slipped back into the exam room.
Ray glowered as he approached. “What are you doing?”
“Just wanted to see how the boys are.” Allie gave him a fake smile and walked across the hall to her own partition.
“Well?” Dakota asked. He sat in a chair, leg bouncing as if he was ready to spring into action.
Allie shook her head. “She won’t admit anything is going on, but I know the signs. She’s scared. I made sure she had my number, but I don’t think we can do much else except report what they said.”
“That’s not good enough.” Dakota stood. “Men like that don’t deserve to go free.” He turned and stalked out of the room.
And she had the distinct feeling he wasn’t only talking about Ray.
Dakota walked back out to the lobby. He’d heard what Jen had said. Ethan might be making up stories about a bad man shooting someone, but he hadn’t even thought of that while the boys told their story. They’d been so adamant, and there was usually a grain of truth in any story. He’d learned that as a cop.
Something told him the real reason the boys had wanted to run away…
Was Ray.
Dakota knew exactly what those boys were going through. This time he was going to do something about it.
“Wait. Dakota.” Allie grabbed his arm. For a woman small in stature, she was strong. “What do you mean, ‘men like that’?”
He stopped before reaching the lobby and faced her.
“I mean men like my old man.” Buck Masterson had known how to avoid leaving marks that would be seen on Dakota’s body, but it was the wounds inside that took much longer to heal.
“What did he do?”
Things a sweet woman like Allie shouldn’t have to hear, but if it helped her understand the real danger those boys were in…“Let’s just say I was a convenient target for his rage. And as sheriff of a large county in the middle of nowhere, he knew how to throw his weight around and not get caught.”
Allie’s eyes widened. “What about your mom?”
“My mom?” He tried really hard to shrug like it wasn’t excruciating to remember. “She tried to smooth things over. She blamed the liquor, or my behavior. But eventually she got tired of being knocked around too, and we left.”
“So you got away? She’s okay now?”
“Okay? No. She never recovered.” Bitterness had taken root, and she’d found escape. “I tried. I tried so hard to take care of her. But…in the end it didn’t matter. She had her own addictions.”
Allie’s small hand latched onto his forearm. “What happened?” Her voice, only a quiet whisper, somehow wound through him and found the aching wounds inside. Places he’d never shown anyone.
“A meth overdose.” He swallowed hard, the picture of his mom’s gaunt figure on the tattered green couch as clear as if it had been yesterday. One moment she’d been high, spouting things she’d hidden from him his whole life. And then she was gone. “Right before she died, though, she told me I had a brother.”
“Wait. You didn’t know about Will?”
He jammed his hands in his pockets. “She’d never told me. Buck had never said a thing about having another son. For a moment I had this glimmer of hope. I had a brother out there somewhere. Maybe I wasn’t so alone, but my mom…she looked at me?—”
Thinks he’s better than us. Thinks we’re trash. So don’t go looking for him or anything .
“And what?”
“She told me Will hated us. That he thought he was better than us and wanted nothing to do with me because he was some big-time federal agent. For a long time I believed her. Later I found out Will never even knew I existed. But this is what I do know. Those two brothers deserve better than what Will and I have been through. From both parents.”
He charged over to the deputy, who was chatting with the older woman behind the counter. When they broke off their conversation, he said, “Deputy, do you know the family that went back there with the two young boys?”
“The Haroldsons? Yeah, I know them. Why do you ask?” The man stared down at him, frowned a little.
“I just want to make sure those boys are safe. They were pretty scared and talked about a scary man and wanting to get away from him. Any chance that could be the stepfather?”
“I’m sure the boys are fine.” He turned back to the woman.
“So you’ve never had any domestic complaints or calls to their place?”
The deputy faced Dakota again, this time with a sigh. “I don’t know who you are?—”
“I’m Dakota Masterson. I’m with—” It was on the tip of his tongue to say with the Benson PD SWAT . But that wasn’t true anymore. “Jude County Hotshots.”
“Well, Hotshot, I appreciate you finding those boys and saving them, I truly do. But you’ve got no other say here in what happens. You’re not a cop or a deputy in this town. So unless you have some hard evidence, you better not start making accusations against a local.”
Really? “I might be a hotshot now, but I’m former SWAT, so I know the drill. It’s pretty obvious the boys aren’t comfortable around Ray. You saw how Ethan reacted to him.”
“Yeah. Pretty much how I reacted toward my stepdad too when he first showed up.” The deputy took his glare down a notch and stepped away from the counter. “Truth is, Ray Haroldson might not be my favorite person, but he is their stepfather. Not much I can do about that.”
“Darn right you can’t!” Ray stomped over toward them. “You got something to say, Fireman, you say it to my face.”
He shouldn’t, but Dakota was itching for a fight. To put a jerk like Ray in his place. Maybe he could goad Ray into admitting something so the deputy could charge him. “All right, tell me, do you get your kicks out of hurting innocent children? Ever slap your wife around? Just for the fun of it?”
Ray sneered but didn’t come closer. His voice was a mean growl. “You don’t know nothin’.”
“Yeah? That’s why the boys told me they saw a man shot to death.” Dakota faced him down. “You know anything about that?”
“About two kids telling stories ’cause they watch too many action movies?” Ray squared up on Dakota.
The deputy moved toward them. “Hold up, you two. Step back. No need to?—”
Dakota didn’t dare break eye contact with Ray. “I know if you hurt those boys, you’re going to regret it.”
“Is that a threat?” Ray got right up in Dakota’s face, his chest bumping into him.
And that was it.
Dakota shoved him back and let a right cross loose. Ray had better reflexes than he’d figured. His head swung back, Dakota’s fist merely glancing off his jaw. But it was on.
Ray charged at him. Chairs screeched as they slid across linoleum. Dakota blocked the hit and jabbed, catching Ray in the soft flesh of his midsection, right under the ribs.
Before he could send his left hook, the deputy leaped in and pulled Dakota off.
“Cut it out! The both of you.”
Dakota pushed against the deputy’s hold on him, but the guy had an iron grip.
Ray staggered back and fell. He wiped off blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. “Did you see what he did? You arrest this man!”
“I should throw both of you in the holding cell. Get up. And go check on the boys.” The deputy released Dakota and stepped in between the men. “Go on, now, Haroldson.”
Ray stood and pointed at Dakota. “You better stay clear of my family, you hear?”
“I mean it, Ray,” the deputy said. “Get out of here before I throw you in jail for disorderly conduct.” The deputy waited until Ray left the room. He swung around to face Dakota. “And you, you don’t have any authority or jurisdiction. Stay out of it.”
Dakota fumed. “You’re just going to let him go? Don’t you care about those boys?”
“Ray is a mean cuss, but there are laws. And you are not authorized to enforce them. That’s my job. You better stay out of it, because beating the man senseless might feel good for a moment—and don’t think I haven’t dreamed of doing it myself—but I’ll still be hauling you in for assault if you do, and that won’t help those boys none. Got it?”
So the man did suspect something, but he had to play it carefully. While the rage dissipated, Dakota caught his breath. He looked around the waiting room. Chairs were knocked over and scattered. An elderly lady with a cane sat wide-eyed in the corner.
And right by the door that led to the emergency department stood Allie.
Great. Just when she was starting to trust him enough to see him as something more than a violent man, she’d witnessed this. The accusation in her face said it all.
To her, he would only ever be a broken man with a temper.