Colorado Wildfire

“Ta-da!” He jumped to his feet. Like a magician, he took a bow. “The Great Wade has escaped the surly bonds.”

Her blue eyes twinkled as though she was about to laugh. Instead, her chest heaved and a harsh sob exploded through her lips. In reaction, she slapped her hands over her mouth.

He caught her before she could run away from him. Gently, he peeled her hands away from her face and brushed a kiss across her knuckles. Her mouth trembled as she held back tears.

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “Everything is going to be all right.”

Sobs overwhelmed her. He gathered her close and cuddled her against his chest, holding her shoulders while she poured out a torrent of tears. He patted her shoulders and stroked her hair, her silky-soft hair that smelled of flowery shampoo in spite of the fire and the smoke.

More than anything, he wanted to tell her that he loved her. This was the wrong time, too soon. And he was scared. Wade Calloway wasn’t afraid of much. He was tough enough to take on a dozen rotten cops and a drug cartel, but he knew that Samantha could destroy him. If she denied his love or had given up on loving him, he might as well be dead.

“I have to go,” he whispered to her. Ty had mentioned an officer with the state patrol was on his way, and then there would be the ambulances.

“I know.” Her deep shuddering sobs had subsided to sniffles. Using his shirt, she wiped her face. “I heard some of the stuff you were telling Ty. You want to keep up the pretense that you’re dead.”

“And if the wrong people know I’m still alive and kicking, you and Jenny could be threatened.” Her nose was red, and her cheeks were puffy from crying, but he thought she looked adorable. “You can’t tell anybody you saw me. Within twenty-four hours, I’ll have this straightened out.”

With her right hand, she reached behind her back. Keeping her voice low so Ty wouldn’t overhear, she showed Wade his fancy Colt .45 with copper-inlaid handle. “I found this in the car with Morrissey, and I’m guessing it was put there to throw suspicion on you.”

“Good guess.” He took the gun from her and stuck it into his belt at the small of his back. “You kept this gun locked up at the house, didn’t you?”

She nodded. “They must have broken in to get it.”

A thief had violated the home he and Samantha had built together, their sanctuary, the house where their daughter slept. “Did you notice the break-in?”

She shook her head. “Half the time I leave the doors unlocked.”

“That stops now,” he said. “You can’t trust anyone. Understand? Not anyone.”

“What about Ty?”

Much as he hated to cast suspicion on his friend, Wade would rather err by being too cautious. “Trust him but keep your guard up.”

“Of course I would. Ty told me a whopper of a lie about my husband being killed in the Roaring Fork River. Oh, wait, you told me that very same lie.” Her bloodshot eyes narrowed. “Can I trust you, Wade?”

“I’ll make this up to you. I promise.”

“Not what I want to hear.” She gripped the front of his plaid flannel shirt with both hands and pulled him close. “You need to listen to me, listen hard. You’ve spent a year trying to handle this by yourself. Don’t make that mistake again.”

“What do you mean?”

“You need me.” She released his shirt and stepped back. “You need my help.”

She was right. During the past year, Samantha had proved she was capable of taking care of herself, their child and the entire population of Swain County.

He couldn’t ask for a better partner.

Chapter Five (#ulink_20aecefb-a395-5763-bcc7-4f1ff500922a)

Sam’s first-aid kit was suitable for scraped knees and poison-ivy rashes. Not life-threatening injuries. She knelt beside the unconscious man with the shoulder wound, which she had managed to bandage while still keeping his hands cuffed behind his back.

Wade had slipped out of his cuffs easily, which was as she’d expected. Arresting him was more of a symbolic gesture, a way of showing him that she refused to be ignored and would never be kept out of the loop again.

She still couldn’t believe it. Her husband was back. He was alive. She wiped the smile from her face and tamped down her sense memory of how his arms felt when he embraced her and how his lips tasted when they kissed. Not now! She had to wait, couldn’t allow her emotions to run rampant. And the anticipation was making her as edgy as a prairie dog surrounded by lawn mowers.

Her focus needed to stay on the practical aspects of how to handle his return from the dead. He’d promised to talk to her later tonight. The waiting was hard, but she believed him when he said it was necessary. And he’d spoken of possible danger to Jenny.

A worse brand of anxiety sped through Sam’s veins when she thought of her daughter. Jenny was her precious girl with jagged bangs across her forehead that she’d cut all by herself and a strong singing voice that the church choir director said was remarkable. If anything happened to her precious five-year-old daughter...

Sam’s attention returned to the injured man. He wasn’t bleeding badly, but his chest heaved as though he was struggling for breath. A punctured lung? Internal bleeding? Where the hell were the ambulances?

If he died, it was her fault. Never mind that she hadn’t fired the bullet that caused his wound. It didn’t matter that the injured man was trying to shoot her and Ty before he was brought down by the expert marksmanship of her husband. Sam was the sheriff; therefore, she was responsible.

A fat lot of good all her training did. Yes, she was certified in CPR. Yes, she’d taken dozens of first-aid classes from the Red Cross. She’d heard of sucking chest wounds and septic shock and all sorts of emergency treatments for all sorts of injuries. However, until this moment, she’d never had to test those procedures.

She needed help. Why were the ambulances taking so long? She had to get out of here, had to get back to Jenny.

She stood and called to Ty. “I’ve got an idea. We could forget about the ambulances, load these guys into my SUV and drive them to the hospital. It’d be faster.”

He was in the road, standing over the first man he’d shot, the dead man. In his gloved hand, he held a wallet. Though she was at least thirty feet away from him, she heard him muttering under his breath. Angrily, he wheeled around and shook the wallet at her. “Do you know who this guy is?”

How could she possibly know? “I’m sorry. Why should I recognize him?”

“Do you ever look at the BOLOs we send you?”

A bunch of law-enforcement offices, ranging from the FBI to the local Fish and Game warden, sent out computer notices or faxes of APBs and BOLOs to “be on the lookout” for certain license plates or vehicles or individuals. She always took a look at them and often hung them on the bulletin board. Ultimately, they became scrap paper that she handed to Jenny, who drew pictures with crayon or marker on the back. Passing a BOLO to her kid wasn’t something she’d mention to Ty. She’d once caught Jenny drawing lipstick and purple eye shadow on a felon’s mug shot.

Her ears pricked up as she heard the sound of a motorcycle engine cranking to life. Ty had heard it, too. He glared up the hill toward the place where Wade had disappeared into the trees.

“Oh, that’s just great,” Ty growled.

“A motorcycle,” she said. “Why is that a problem?”

“I’m guessing that your husband swiped a very nice little Honda from the safe house. A good bike, it’s got heavy tread for off-road and goes a decent speed on the highway.”

“He wouldn’t have taken it if he didn’t need it.”

“But it belongs to the FBI.”

“Don’t even think about whining. I had to dig deep into my sheriff’s department budget to buy disposable smoke masks, and the FBI can afford to leave an entire house standing empty.”

“Point taken.” His tone became more conciliatory. “I just hope he doesn’t wreck it, that’s all.”

She walked down the hill toward him. “Let’s get back to what you were talking about. Tell me who our dead man is.”

“Tony Reyes,” he said. “He works for the Esteban cartel, and he’s on the short list of Most Wanted for both the US and Mexico.”

She’d heard horror stories about the drug cartels: beheadings, torture, brutal murders of women and children, and human trafficking that amounted to a slave trade. Never in her wildest imagination had Sam thought she’d be in contact with this type of criminal. Swain County was a lazy little territory with one semicharming town and a couple of local ranches. Nothing ever happened here, and that was the way she liked it.