Page 1 of Mountain Rescue
Chapter One
The passengers on the red-eye from Salt Lake City to Atlanta were asleep. All but Dallas Manning. He didn’t trust his nightmares. They were persistent fuckers, rarely allowing him to sleep through the night. The three weeks he’d been home at his family’s ranch in Montana, his screams had disturbed his family’s sleep, too. He wasn’t about to chance scaring the hell out of a plane full of strangers.
Unable to take another day of his family alternating between smothering him and tiptoeing around him, he’d jumped on his friend’s invitation to come to Asheville, North Carolina. Not that he blamed his family for their worry. He was damn lucky to be alive after enjoying a two-week stay at Hotel Hell on Earth as a guest of the Taliban. He snorted.Enjoying. Yeah, right. But he’d survived the torture, the starvation, and the mind games.
His body was a bit messed up, and he’d have permanent scars, but he’d held strong, never giving his captors more than his name, rank, service number, and birthdate. If his SEAL team hadn’t found him when they did, he didn’t doubt for a minute that he’d be dead by now. His captors, frustrated and angry that he wasn’t spilling his secrets, had been growing more creative by the day in their efforts to make him talk. The bastards’ last gift to him was the damn nightmares. After the first one his family witnessed, they’d treated him differently.
He couldn’t take their pity, their need to baby him, never mind that he was the youngest. He was a damn SEAL, not a baby needing coddling. He loved his family, would willingly die for them, but his former teammate’s invitation felt like a lifeline.
Jack Daniels had started a foundation, Operation K-9 Brothers, training service dogs for their military brothers and sisters suffering from PTSD. Another former teammate was also working there with Jack. If anyone could understand what Dallas had gone through and what he was dealing with now, it would be his SEAL brothers. One thing he could count on, neither man would try to baby him.
In Atlanta, he changed planes, cramming his body into the seat of the commuter plane that would take him to Asheville. Fortunately, the last leg of his trip only lasted an hour. He had difficulty being in small places thanks to the two weeks he’d spent in a cell where he could stand in the middle and reach all four walls. After deplaning and getting his suitcase, he headed for the short-term parking lot and found the Jeep where Jack had said it would be. When he had refused Jack’s offer to pick him up, since he was arriving in the middle of the night, Jack had insisted on loaning him one of Operation K-9 Brothers’ vehicles.
After tossing his suitcase and carry-on in the back, he got in the Jeep, then reached under the seat for the envelope with the keys and address to the cabin. Jack had invited him to stay with him and his new wife, but Dallas needed a place of his own, where he could get away from people when he needed to.
Turned out Operation K-9 Brothers owned a cabin, and Jack had said he could stay there. He programed the cabin address in the GPS, adjusted the seat and mirrors, then headed out.
Thirty-five minutes later, he pulled to a stop in front of a small log house. He couldn’t see much of it in the dark, but he didn’t care what it or the surrounding area looked like. It was a place to crash and hide out for a while.
Inside, he dropped his suitcase, found a light switch, and glanced around. The place had an open floor plan, living room, dining room, and kitchen. It wasn’t as rustic as he was expecting, and he was kind of disappointed. A stone fireplace on one wall with floor-to-ceiling windows along both sides were the best part of the place. The furniture was sturdy and basic. Brown leather couch, two leather recliners, TV, and coffee table in the living room, and a dinette with four chairs next to the kitchen. Deciding to unpack in the morning, he left the suitcase, and taking his carry-on, headed down the hall.
The first room he came to was a bathroom, and he made a pit stop, then checked out the next one. The bedroom had twin beds, a dresser, one chair, and a TV mounted on the wall. He continued on to see if there was a room with a bigger bed.
He’d taken two steps into the next room and was reaching for a light switch when something came at him. Instinctively, he dropped his carry-on and put a hand up, wrapping his fingers around what felt like the rough bark of a tree branch. He pulled it to him, bringing his attacker with it, and found himself with an arm full of enraged wildcat in possession of a woman’s body.
She went for his eyes, and he grabbed her wrists, gentling his hold so that he didn’t bruise her. When she tried to knee him, he flipped her around and wrapped his arms around her, her back to his chest.
“I’m rather fond of that part of me, sugar.”
Robert’s people had found her, and this was the day she was going to die. Rachel Denning refused to make it easy on Robert Hargrove’s man, though. She stomped on his foot, but because she was barefoot and he wore boots, that was about as effective as slapping his face with a feather.
A fight scene from a previous movie where the villain had her in a similar hold flashed through her mind. In the scene, she’d gotten away by slamming the back of her head into his nose.
The problem with that scenario was that this man was a good head taller than her, so no way she could reach his nose. His chin, maybe, but it was worth a try, better than doing nothing. She leaned her head forward, then slammed it back as hard as she could, taking satisfaction when he grunted. Unfortunately, the stunt worked better in the movie.
“Easy, wildcat. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Yeah, right, and unicorns existed. “Let go of me.” He wouldn’t, she knew asking was futile, but it was all she had. He was stronger than she was and had her in a hold she couldn’t escape.
Keeping one arm around her, he reached for the light switch, and she blinked against the sudden brightness. Then he lifted her right off her feet as if she weighed less than a bag of potatoes, carried her to the bed, and dropped her. Facedown on the rumpled cover, she waited for the blow...or whatever he planned to do to her. Oh, God, what if he raped her?
No, she wasn’t going to wait around to find out what he planned to do. She flipped to her back, searching for a weapon. When she’d arrived at the cabin, she’d gone out and found a tree branch, wanting something handy to protect herself if she had to. She should have brought the whole damn tree in.
She had a knife from the kitchen under her pillow. She hadn’t started with that because she’d thought she would have a better chance with the branch. Her plan had been simple. Bash him upside the head and when he was out cold, disappear.
If she could get to the knife, maybe she could hurt him enough to escape. Keeping her attention on the man, she inched her hand toward the pillow. His gaze followed her hand before shifting back to her.
“You got a weapon under there? Go ahead. See if you can get to it before I have you in my arms again. Been a while since I’ve had this much fun.” His smirk faded as his eyes held hers. “I meant what I said. I’m not going to hurt you.” He chuckled. “Even though you did try to bash me in the head.”
Something wasn’t right. The man wasn’t acting like a killer. The men who worked for Robert were as cruel as he was. They didn’t tease, and if they called her anything besides her name, it would be bitch. They especially didn’t smile as if they really were having fun. If he was one of Robert’s men, he would just kill her and be done with it.
Now that she could study this man, he...well, he was gorgeous in a rough bad-boy kind of way. A trimmed beard, more like a few days of scruff really, covered his face. A fresh scar ran from the corner of his right eye and down his cheek before disappearing into his beard. She almost cringed at seeing how close he’d come to losing an eye.
No, she wasn’t giving him her sympathy, not when he was here to hurt her. Yet his eyes weren’t mean or cold. The only thing she could see in them was curiosity as he stared back at her. They were pretty eyes. Hazel, the kind that would change with the color of shirt he wore or his emotions. Dark brown hair in need of a haircut scraped across the neck of his T-shirt. Then there was a body worth drooling over.
Stop it, Rachel. Stop noticing how hot he is.She was totally stupid for letting her mind wander when there was danger in the room. Because, while he was a feast for the eyes, she had no doubt the man could be dangerous when he wanted. Still, he wasn’t emitting dangerous vibes, and that confused her because if Robert had sent him, she should be dead by now.
“What do you want from me?”
