Page 33 of Light My Fire

A gunshot cracked across the blue of the sky. She all but tackled Tucker, yanking him down into the ravine, behind a boulder.

More shots and she reached for her gun. Tucker put his hand on her arm. “Save your shots! C’mon!” Then he grabbed her hand and took off across the ravine, right into the protective wall of the forest.

Five

Tucker wanted to crawl away and lose it on the soft, piney loam as he handed Stevie the binoculars. “Skye’s there. And from what I can tell, she’s not hurt.”

Next to him, hidden behind a range of well-placed boulders, Stevie took the binoculars and surveyed the homestead where March and the fellow escapees had stopped.

“It looks like they’re trying to get that old Ford running,” Stevie said. A well-used, rusty Bronco sat in a cleared patch of forest that also hosted a tiny cabin and an open shed. From here, it looked like a hunting setup, with a drying rack of antlers and even a bearskin hanging inside the building. An older model four-wheeler sat in the shadows.

He half expected another member ofAmerica’s Most Wantedto emerge through the rough-hewn door affixed with graying antlers, as if in omen.

He and Stevie had followed the sound of the shots, working their way through the forest like they might be army rangers. In fact, after realizing that he wore the bright yellow, here-I-am-now Nomex shirt, he took it off and shoved it into his pack, leaving just his black T-shirt on.

Never mind the wind that had begun to stir off the western mountains, as if by bringing fugitives into its shadow, Tucker had awakened something angry and feral.

Yeah, well, he understood the feeling. His anger burned deep, a coal embedded in the soil of his regrets. Especially when he spotted Skye. Alive—thank You, God—and sitting a few feet away from Eugene on the porch next to Rio. She looked bedraggled. And sure, Tucker had seen her bone tired before—but this was different. Her disheveled appearance—hair down and matted, a terrible scrape on her chin—had his gut in knots. She kept glancing up toward the forested hills, as if she knew he might be out here, looking for her.

Rio sat next to her, too close in Tucker’s opinion, talking to her. Also surveying the forest.

Rio looked downright beat-up, sporting a bruise on his face. He held a cloth and kept pressing it to his nose, checking for blood.

So maybe those shots hadn’t been directed at Tucker and Stevie. Interesting.

Darryl, the redhead, still wearing his bright orange shirt, stood a little way away from where March held a gun on the mercenary, the tall, quiet one. He was bent over the hood of the truck. Tucker searched for his name and couldn’t remember.

Occasionally, Skye glanced over at Rio, as if afraid of him, and Tucker knew he shouldn’t have trusted the guy.

Yeah, he was definitely going to lose it. He even turned away, onto his hands and knees, and did a little deep breathing.

He’d never been this scared. Not when they’d picked him and all his debris off the slope after his epic Olympic trial wipeout. Not even when he’d stood at his mother’s bedside, watching her slip into the beyond.

That had been different. Something almost expected after years of cancer treatments. Rough, but different than watching a woman he’d helped train, had worked alongside, who was as tough as any of the guys, looking battered and terrified.

“I should have never agreed to let those guys work with us.”

“Stop,” Stevie said. “Believe me, I’ve been what-iffing my way through the woods for the past six hours. Right now, we’d better hope they don’t get that truck running.”

He glanced at her.

“That’s the McGinty place. I dearly hope Jim and Kathy aren’t there, but…well, I didn’t realize we were that far west. We’re only a couple miles from the highway. If we don’t stop March now, he’ll disappear again, and…”

“We have to get Skye back,” Tucker said. “I’m not letting that guy disappear with her.” He took the binoculars again. “And who knows what those other guys are up to.”

Stevie nodded, a grim look on her face. “My dad won’t let anything bad happen to her.”

“Where is your dad?” He scanned the yard. “I didn’t see him.”

She stared at him a second too long. Took the glasses from him and lifted them to her eyes. “I don’t see him. I don't…” She drew in a breath. “What if that was the shot we heard? What if he did something to escape and got himself shot!” Her eyes widened, and he grabbed her wrist.

“Stop. Maybe he’s just in the house. You said you knew these people—what if he’s inside with them, keeping them safe?”

She swallowed. Nodded. Closed her eyes and winced.

“We gotta stay calm, Stevie. Just…one thing at a time. Right now, let’s get somewhere where we can get reception and see where our backup is.” They’d tried calling in to the team, but either the distance or the terrain had cut off their communication.

She bought into that idea—he saw it by the way her mouth tightened.

---