Chapter 56
Kori watched the barn door swing shut behind the man.
Her heart hammered in her chest.
Please keep Wyatt safe. Please . . .
She wanted to move. Every instinct pulled her toward that barn door.
But she forced herself to remain where she was. Thunder sat in front of her like a guard.
Wyatt was smart. He was trained for this. He’d walked into dangerous situations in these mountains long before she’d arrived in Blue Ridge Hollow, and he knew what he was doing. She had to trust that and resist her instincts to act.
Instead, she thought about Mackenzie.
She thought about what had happened between them. About the grievance she’d been carrying. It was gone, completely and without negotiation. All she wanted right now was her sister back. She’d give anything in this moment to tell her so.
Kori wiped the snow from her eyelashes and continued to watch the property.
The farmhouse door opened again.
She tensed.
No . . . not more people. If Wyatt was outnumbered . . . that would decrease his odds of getting out of there. Then what would she do?
Was backup really on the way? Had they gotten the message?
Another figure stepped onto the porch. He was tall, and something was familiar about the way he moved—the set of his shoulders, the particular ease of his stride.
Kori squinted through the falling snow, and her breath slowed.
She knew that walk.
The man stopped at the top of the steps and surveyed the property like someone who belonged there. Like someone who was exactly where he was meant to be.
Recognition filled her.
That man . . . he was Flint.
Flint.
She stared.
He didn’t move like someone who’d come to take this group down. He didn’t look around like a man trying to assess a situation or locate law enforcement.
He looked like . . . he looked like one of them.
Was he the reason this group was always one step ahead of law enforcement?
Nausea rose in her stomach at the thought.
Wyatt pressed himself into the shadow at the back of the stall and motioned for Mackenzie to do the same. She darted beside him, her expression frozen with fear. Then he motioned for Pete to be quiet.
He nodded and slumped back against the wall as if he were still bound.
The man was checking the stalls.
He reached Pete’s stall and pushed the door open.
As the man entered, Wyatt came from behind the man and twisted his arm across the man’s throat in a chokehold. The man’s hands came up fast, and he drove an elbow back into Wyatt’s ribs.
Pain flared, but Wyatt didn’t let go.
He tightened his grip on the man’s neck and kept the pressure steady across the man’s airway.
The man grabbed Wyatt’s arms and tried to throw him forward.
Wyatt held on.
Their boots scuffled on the barn floor. The man backed up, slamming Wyatt into the old wood of the stall.
Wyatt didn’t loosen his grip.
This was one battle he couldn’t lose.
Finally, the man went heavy.
Wyatt lowered him to the ground inside the stall and drew in a deep breath.
That had been close.
He turned to check the barn door for anyone else.
It was still closed.
He exhaled.
He turned back to Mackenzie and Pete. “You two okay?”
They nodded.
“Okay, we need to move before anyone else shows up.”
They nodded again. Mackenzie helped Pete to his feet and held onto him as they followed Wyatt into the next stall.
Just as he suspected, Herb and Billie were tied up there.
Wyatt cut their bindings and scanned them both. They appeared shaken but okay.
“Can you both move?” he whispered.
They nodded.
He looked at the barn door and then at the four people around him.
They only had minutes at most before someone came looking for the man now unconscious in the stall. Wyatt had no confirmed backup, a storm accelerating outside, and an unknown number of armed people between him and safety.
He needed to get these people out before things turned violent.
Getting them off the property was only the first step. Then he needed to get them off this mountain.