Chapter Seventeen
A shot rang out over her head and Bree realized she was going to die.
It wasn’t the first time she’d felt that way today.
There’d been half a dozen times as they’d run like fiends through the wilderness that she was pretty sure she would either fall over and crack her spine, have a massive coronary from the exertion or step on some creature who decided it didn’t like being stepped on and would make its displeasure known by poisoning her.
But this guy staring down the gun at her definitely left little doubt in her mind that she was, in fact, going to die.
“And here I thought I wasn’t going to get to do anything interesting,” the man said with a smirk.
At least that was what she thought he said, as it was nearly impossible to hear him over the storm and the river barreling below them.
As he spoke, she got into a crouching position, trying to think of something to say, something she could barter with, but nothing came to her exhausted mind.
She wiped the rain from her eyes and got a good look at the man for the first time.
“You. You’re the paramedic from the night of the fire.”
“Yep, and things could’ve gone much easier if you’d just left those two brats with me. That’s why we started the fire to begin with. To get them or Marilyn outside. But then that entire damn town showed up.”
She leaped to the side while he was talking, knowing it wasn’t going to be enough, that he’d still have an easy shot.
But the shot never came.
Instead, Bree watched, first relieved when Tanner crashed into the man, knocking them both to the side and the guy’s gun out of his hand, then in horror as the momentum kept them moving forward and over the side of the ravine.
“Tanner!” Bree screamed, scrambling forward to get to him.
But both men had already fallen into the water below by the time she got there.
The ridge wasn’t very high at this point, like Tanner had said—maybe fifteen feet.
But how deep was the water? It was flowing pretty quickly, but she couldn’t tell how deep it was.
In the rain it was difficult to see either man.
When Tanner’s head burst through the surface, Bree let out a sob of relief.
He was alive. She looked along the ridge for a way to get down to him as he fought to make his way to the river’s edge.
Every stroke seemed like a struggle for him.
Unlike when they’d capsized in the raft, Tanner didn’t have on a life jacket.
Waterlogged clothes and shoes were dragging him under.
She pushed herself to her feet. In the rain, she would’ve completely missed the guy’s gun if she hadn’t literally stepped on it.
She knew only a little about handguns, based on what Tanner had taught her the last few months, but any weapon was better than nothing.
She tried to keep an eye on him as she ran parallel to the river, looking for any way to get down.
Panic ate like acid through her gut when she finally had to take her eyes off Tanner to find a way down from the ridge.
How was she ever going to find him again?
She finally found an overhang of rocks and slid and jumped down them as fast as she could, ignoring the burning cuts on her palms as her skin tore on the jagged edges.
“Hang on, baby. Hang on.” She said the words over and over as she reached the riverbank and began sprinting back toward Tanner, cursing when she couldn’t get enough speed out of her body.
Thunder crackled heavily overhead, lightning immediately flashing in the storm-darkened sky. Vaguely she wondered if the storm would kill them both, even if she could get to Tanner.
The longer she ran, the more panicked she became.
Had she somehow missed him? Had he not been able to make it over to the edge?
There wasn’t any riverbank here, so she was forced to walk in the water.
The air seemed to be sucked out of her lungs from the cold, and she was in only six inches of water.
How could Tanner have survived completely immersed in the water?
She pressed forward, harder, drawing on energy from her innermost center. Tanner needed her. She had to get to him.
She rounded a small ledge and let out a sob of relief when she saw Tanner standing at the edge of the water. He was swaying almost drunkenly, his big body tilted at an odd angle, his shoulder held awkwardly.
He made some sort of jerky movement, shifting to the side clumsily, and Bree realized the paramedic guy was right behind him. They were fighting. Or...trying to fight. The awkward, stiff movements Tanner was making were definitely not the complex fighting maneuvers she knew he was capable of.
She winced as the paramedic got a solid hook into Tanner’s jaw. Tanner stumbled to the side but didn’t go down. His left arm still held awkwardly at an angle to his side, Tanner got his own punch in.
Bree kept moving toward them, not wanting to call out and distract Tanner. After another couple of minutes and a few more exhausted punches from both sides, it became evident Tanner was going to triumph.
She was almost to Tanner when his last brutal uppercut to the paramedic’s chin sent the man flying back and into the water. He probably would’ve drowned, but Tanner grabbed him with his good hand and dragged him to the shore, leaving him.
The relief she felt at seeing him alive, and the other man unconscious, wiped the last strength she had, almost causing her to collapse in the water. She slowed to a walk, the fifteen yards she was from Tanner seeming like a mile. She yelled to him, but he couldn’t hear her over the storm.
He was looking up at the ridge, and she realized he was looking for her. She called out to him, her voice sounding weak even to her own ears, and he turned. The relief she saw in his eyes, the way his posture relaxed to know that she was alive and unharmed filled her heart almost to bursting.
She stumbled toward him, her own movements jerky with cold and fatigue. She felt like she would never be warm again. She couldn’t imagine what Tanner felt like with his body still submerged to midthigh.
Then the whole world seemed to turn black in front of her as the man behind Tanner got to his feet, a huge branch in his hand, held up like a club.
She opened her mouth to scream a warning to Tanner but knew he couldn’t hear her. And it would come too late. She did the only thing she could—swung up the gun in her hand and pointed it in the man’s direction.
But to Tanner it had to look like she was pointing it directly at him.
His face blanched, but then without her having to explain the plan, without her even knowing what the plan could be, he dropped like a rock into the water, giving her a clear shot of her target.
Tanner trusted her.
Bree didn’t hesitate. She squeezed the trigger gently twice the way he’d taught her, aiming for the paramedic’s chest—the largest mass.
Surprise lit his face as the force of the shots propelled him backward.
He took one more step forward before falling facedown into the water, the river carrying him away. Bree ignored him, moving as quickly as she could over to Tanner, who was struggling to regain his footing in the water.
She’d killed a man. She would have to deal with that later. Because unless she got them somewhere where they could dry off and warm up, there was going to be more than just one dead body.
She worked herself around to Tanner’s less-injured side. Close up, she realized just how much worse his injuries were than she’d realized. His arm was definitely dislocated, but there was also a gash on his head and his face was chalk white.
She stuffed the gun into the waistband of her jeans as she wrapped her arm around Tanner’s hips when he staggered. “We’ve got to get you somewhere you can get dry and warm.”
He didn’t argue. Couldn’t even seem to find the strength to say anything, just nodded.
What was the best plan? Downstream toward the town? But what about the other hunters? They had to have heard all the gunfire and could show up any moment. How many bullets were left in the gun she had? She fought down her panic at not knowing what to do.
“Up—up bridge.” His words were so jerky she almost couldn’t understand them.
“You want us to go upriver? That’s farther away from help.”
“Shelter.” He was already swaying on his feet. “Sh-shelter by bridge.”
She moved directly in front of him, cupping his cheeks with her hands, looking deep into his eyes. It would’ve been romantic if they both weren’t freezing, and he wasn’t injured, and she hadn’t killed somebody, and other people weren’t still hunting them. Romantic.
“Tanner, I need to make sure you’re lucid. If you send us upriver and there’s nothing there...”
“Shelter. Trust.”
She did trust him the same way he’d just trusted her rather than stop and ask why the heck she was pointing a gun at him. He would’ve been dead if he’d done that.
He knew these woods. He knew where they were. She would trust that the shelter was where he said it was.
They began walking up the riverbed, one slow step at a time.
Within just a few minutes Tanner wasn’t even trying to keep his weight off her.
When he began wanting to rest, she knew they were in even bigger trouble.
If Tanner sat down, there was no way she was going to be able to get him on his feet again.
Tanner finally collapsed completely against her just about the time they rounded a corner and she saw the bridge.
“Tanner, there’s the bridge. We’re almost there.”
“Leave me,” he whispered.
Bree just rolled her eyes and kept walking forward. “Don’t go all martyr on me now. If I was going to leave your heavy, muscled ass it would’ve been half a mile ago.”
He didn’t respond. And he stopped walking. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Can’t. You go.”
Bree got in front of him again, grabbing him by his soaked shirt, careful not to hurt any of his many injuries. She was going to use his greatest weakness against him and didn’t even care if that made her a bitch.
“You want me warm and safe inside that shelter, Hot Lips? Then you keep going. Because if you stop here, I stop here. That’s it. End of story. Dig deep for me, baby.”
His expression didn’t change, but he started walking again.
She couldn’t even see the crude door until they were right up on it. It was a small shelter that had been built into the highest section of the river’s ravine walls. Unless you knew it was there, you’d never guess that was what it was.
She was carrying almost all of Tanner’s weight the last dozen yards up the trail. He was almost unconscious on his feet.
And that damn storm never let up.
Leaning Tanner up against the side of the shelter, she pushed the heavy door open the only way she could, by throwing all her weight against it.
Nothing came flying, slithering or growling out. Anything else she didn’t care. Grabbing Tanner on his good side before he fell face-first, she eased him inside the door. Then helped him as best she could down to the ground.
He was out cold.
“You made it, Lips.” Not that she’d ever doubted he would. Not when it came to keeping her safe too.
She kept the door open to try to look around the shelter in the dark. There wasn’t much. But what there was, was beautiful.
In one corner were five blankets wrapped and sealed in plastic. In the other corner, at least a dozen cans of food and a couple of can openers. She wouldn’t be able to start a fire to cook whatever was in the cans, but she would gladly eat it cold at this point.
But first she had to get Tanner warm.
When she stumbled to the blankets and was assaulted by dizziness, she knew she was on the last of her own reserves. Tanner hadn’t been the only one to draw on every remaining bit of strength.
She pulled the blankets over near him and began stripping off his clothes.
He wasn’t shivering—that was a bad sign.
She dragged off every piece of clothing, then did the same for herself.
Fingers nearly numb, she ripped open the packages containing the blankets.
She immediately began wrapping them around Tanner, starting with his feet and head.
She wasn’t sure if what she was doing was technically right but figured anything had to be better than his cold, wet clothes.
When she’d wrapped three blankets around him, she lay down beside him and wrapped the final two around them both.
And then she rubbed. She rubbed his chest and shoulders with her hands. She rubbed his legs with her feet. She rubbed her body all over his.
If he was awake, he would’ve teased her unmercifully about her gyrating, but at least it was creating warmth between them.
She rubbed until she wasn’t able to find the energy to move anymore, then tucked his hands between their stomachs, and his feet between her calves.
She slept in fits and starts over the next few hours.
At one point she got up and opened herself a can of what ended up being black beans, eating it with no hesitation whatsoever right out of the can using her fingers.
But when she tried to wake Tanner up to get him to eat, he didn’t even budge, not even when she wrapped his bullet graze with some gauze she found.
Shouldn’t he be waking up? What if he had a concussion?
Internal bleeding? She still had him wrapped in the blankets.
It wasn’t unbearably cold now that they were dry and out of the elements, but still his skin was cool to her touch.
How many times this past winter had she called him her personal electric blanket, always rolling in toward him seeking out his warmth? But it wasn’t there now.
Darkness had fallen, and there was nothing she could do right now anyway.
If he still hadn’t woken up by first light, she’d have no choice but to leave him and try to get help herself.
She lay back down, pulling his body close to hers, resting her hand over his heart, assured somewhat by its strong, steady beat.
So many variables came into play, so many things that could still go wrong. Of course, she and Tanner had had all sorts of variables—good and bad—laid out in front of them before, and they’d always dealt with them one by one because...
Bree sat straight up, then lay back down.
She had her vows.
Just like that, they’d come to her. Right here, lying naked on the ground after eating a cold can of beans, she’d finally figured out her vows.
They’d been right in front of her all along.
She wrapped Tanner tighter in her arms.
Now she just needed to have the man with her in five days to say them to.