Wyoming Cowboy Marine Read online

  “No.”

  “It feels good. There’s a pride to having helped and having done the right thing.”

  “So. You’re going to help me find my father. Then what?”

  “Then I go about my life and you go about yours.” Assuming the father was missing under some kind of favorable circumstances. There was always the chance he was dead, or that he’d disappeared on purpose. Cam didn’t need to tell her that, though. Either she knew or she didn’t need the worry.

  “Just because you want to help someone. Because it feels good.”

  “You don’t believe me.”

  She didn’t respond, but she looked at his arm. Even though he’d put his coat on, he had a feeling she was thinking about the fact she’d shot him. “How would you help?”

  “I’d need some information about—”

  She shook her head and patted her leg, the dog jumping to stand next to her. “No.”

  “No... No?”

  “No information.”

  Something was so completely wrong here. People didn’t live off the grid for no reason, and he might have been able to chalk it up to some innocuous thing like environmentalism, but the woman’s evasion coupled with her utter lack of trust in a stranger meant all things pointed to shady.

  “How can I help you find your father without information?”

  She shrugged and started walking to the shack door. “I guess you can’t.”

  “I have to know what he looks like. His name. Where he may have gone. I can’t wander around not knowing anything about the man I’m trying to find. If you don’t give that information to anyone, no one can help you.”

  She stopped at that, her back still to him. She didn’t turn as she spoke. “I don’t think he goes by his name out there,” she said quietly.

  “Out where?”

  She sighed irritably and turned, making a broad arm gesture around them. “Beyond here.”

  An uncomfortable chill shivered down his spine. Something was seriously wrong here. “What’s beyond here?”

  “The outside world. That’s where he goes, and I don’t think he uses his name out there. Maybe that’s why the police couldn’t find records of him. He must use a different name.” Her eyebrows drew together, and she looked confused and definitely worried.

  Whatever was off here, Cam had the sneaking suspicion this woman wasn’t part of it. She was in the dark about this “outside world.” Who talked about things like that? “And you don’t go into the outside world?”

  Her brown eyes widened a little, but she kept the rest of her expression carefully blank. “I did today.”

  “But that was rare. You don’t have transportation.”

  “We have a horse.”

  “But you don’t. Still, that helps. A middle-aged man on a horse. What are the names he answers to?”

  She let out a shaky breath. “He wouldn’t want me to give out his name. He wouldn’t want me to have gone to the police.”

  “But you did.” Cam couldn’t make sense of her fear, because it didn’t look like the kind of fear he’d experienced or seen. She had such a calmness, such a handle on it, and yet he could sense that what vibrated inside of her was fear. “How long have you lived here?”

  Her eyes snapped to his, sharp and on the offensive. “My life and his are none of your business. Poking into us isn’t help, Cameron.”

  “No one calls me that.”

  “Guess what? I do.” She squared her shoulders, somehow looking imperious and regal even though he was taller and broader and just so much larger than her small, narrow frame. “I’ll pay you to—”

  “I don’t ne—”

  “I’ll pay you to help me, mostly because I need transportation. But the money I’m giving you means I don’t have to answer any questions I don’t want to, and it means you go away when I say. I’m using you as a tool to help me find my father. That’s it.”

  He eyed the shanty of a cabin. “You don’t have to pay me.”

  “Those are my terms. Stay put.”

  * * *

  CAMERON MADE HER ACHE. It wasn’t an ache she fully understood. It twined around her much like when she was sick and wished someone would take care of her. There was this yearning for something she couldn’t fully grasp because she’d never seen it in action, only read it in the fiction books Dad used to bring her from his trips outside.

  Dad. Missing. Dad, who would hate that she was taking help from anyone. But she needed help. It was Dad’s fault she needed help.

  She strode into the shack, Free at her heels, though the dog looked longingly back at the big man in their yard. Longing. Hilly didn’t understand it, or what exactly she was longing for, but it was there regardless.

  She tried to put it out of her mind as she forced herself over the threshold of Dad’s room. He didn’t like her in here unsupervised. She had her own tiny closet of a room after all, and he never invaded her privacy, did he? She was only allowed in here to monitor his security setup, or fix it if anything was buggy. To come in and snoop through his things? Unheard of.

  But she had to force all those old rules out of her mind and habits as long as Dad was missing. She was an adult, and she could handle any disapproval she got from Dad as long as she brought him home.

  Do you need to?

  That internal question stopped her in her tracks. It echoed inside of her, and something desperate clawed at her chest. What if she just got to live her life her way?

  No. No, she didn’t know how to do that. She went for Dad’s desk and pulled out one of his ledgers. He worked on them sometimes in the kitchen, so she knew he kept track of supplies bought, money in from the odd jobs here and there and money out on said supplies. And that he would stash cash in between the pages of said records.

  She flipped through the first one, pulled out a few hundreds. She had no idea what the going rate was for a fake detective helper, but she’d offer Cameron a hundred up front. If he laughed, well, she could up it.

  She glanced at the monitors set up across Dad’s desk. Cameras that kept watch on the entirety of the woods that surrounded the cabin. They were always taping.

  She’d already gone through the footage of the day Dad left, and she’d watched what he’d taken and which direction he’d gone, but it didn’t tell her anything. Everything had been usual, ordinary.

  Maybe she should show it to Cameron. Maybe he’d—

  Her brain stuttered to a stop as two men appeared on the east side of the cabin. Men with weapons.

  The front door opened, quiet and with just the tiniest creak she only noticed because she was holding her breath. She looked around the room quickly, but Dad had all of his weapons hidden away.

  “Free, guard,” she whispered, but the dog laid happily by the bedroom door, tail swishing calmly. Today of all days her dog was completely failing at every command she usually followed unerringly.

  But then Cameron stepped into the room. “Someone’s out there.”

  He was warning her. She didn’t know what to do with that so she glanced back at the screen where she saw the two men slowly inching their way toward the cabin.

  “They see you?” she asked quietly.

  “I don’t think so. I heard them more than anything. I thought it could be your father, but two people seemed ominous.”

  She pointed to the screen. “Friends of yours?”

  He frowned at the two men on the video, studying them closely. He shook his head. “I know most everyone in Bent, or I did. Those two don’t look familiar. They’re armed, though.”

  Again Hilly nodded sharply. In all their years here, in all Dad’s excessive surveillance, they’d never had unwanted visitors that Hilly knew of. She knew he had his reasons for being careful, and she’d never questioned them...to his face.

  “You don’t know them?” Cam asked
gently.

  I don’t know anyone. But she didn’t say that out loud. She studied their faces, trying to find some detail that would give her an idea of what they were after. “Maybe my father sent them. To get me a message.”

  “I don’t know that messengers would carry Glocks, or sneak around the woods outside your cabin.”

  “You did.”

  “I didn’t sneak, per se.”

  She spared him a glance, but when he only smiled at her, she quickly turned her gaze back to the screen.

  Free started to growl, low in her throat, as if she sensed or heard the approach. “Easy,” Hilly murmured.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “We’re going to wait. And watch.” She glanced around the room. The cabin only had two windows. One here, facing the west, and one in the front facing the east. “Go close the curtains in the front for me,” she ordered. “Lock the door.”

  “Already locked,” he said, even now on his way out front to close the curtains. She watched the screen with growing alarm as the two men conferred about something, and then split up.

  Cam returned and Hilly couldn’t think about how much her world had changed in just a few hours. Being in her father’s room, with a man, two other men sneaking around her cabin.

  “You might want to get one of those firearms you’re so free and easy with,” Cam said grimly. “I don’t think a locked door is going to keep those two out.”

  Hilly broke her gaze from the monitors. She quickly moved through the cabin, gathering the rifle and the revolver, before she returned to Dad’s room and Cameron.

  A strange man in her father’s room. She couldn’t fathom it even as it was happening. “I also have shotguns,” she said.

  He nodded. “Get them.”

  After a brief hesitation, she handed him the revolver and the rifle before she strode to her father’s closet. She knew his shotguns were in a hidden compartment at the back of it, though she didn’t think her father knew that she knew that.

  But he wasn’t here, and she was in danger. She turned to study Cam. Was she really going to trust this stranger?

  When she heard a rattle at the door, she knew she didn’t have a choice.

  Chapter Four

  Cam studied the unfamiliar guns. He had experience with a wide variety of weapons, so he’d figure them out no problem, but it was still strange to hold another man’s—or woman’s—weapon.

  “Shells?” he asked.

  “Everything is loaded.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her as the rattling on the door became more pronounced. He had certainly walked into something, and completely unprepared at that. It wasn’t a particularly good feeling, but he wouldn’t let that show. He was a former Marine. He knew how to handle a few surprises.

  “Who would be after you?” he asked, shoving the revolver in the waistband of his pants much as she had, and testing the weight of the unfamiliar rifle.

  “No one,” she said flatly.

  He gestured to all the security monitors. “People with this kind of security, loaded guns and refusal to give their names aren’t usually innocent bystanders.”

  He watched her expression change as he spoke. A kind of confusion as if she’d never considered how over the top the cabin’s protections were. But then those eyes trained on him, determined all over again. “But you’re inside with me, instead of out there with them.”

  She didn’t seem scared exactly, but she did seem concerned and puzzled. If she had a clue what her father’s dealings were—whatever they were—she would have more fear than confusion. She also wouldn’t have gone to the police and she certainly wouldn’t be letting him be in here with her. Not when she was clearly capable of shooting someone.

  “What could they want?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head and scowled, reaching behind the monitors and turning them off. She grabbed a tarp-looking thing off the floor and threw it across the screens. “We’ll hide for now.”

  “Hide?”

  “Well, I’m not going to shoot them.”

  “You shot me.”

  “Accidentally,” she said, striding into the closet again. She ordered the dog to come and it obeyed. Then she looked expectantly at him.

  “What do we accomplish if we hide?”

  “Maybe we hear something they say. Maybe they take something and we know what. Maybe—”

  A cracking sound echoed through the cabin, as though the people outside had broken something on the door. Cam quickly grabbed his phone out of his pocket and brought up the voice-recording app. He placed the phone on the floor, under the desk.

  It wouldn’t pick up anything unless someone came into this room and talked, but it was worth a shot. He heard the slow creak of a door opening and slid into the closet with the woman and the dog.

  She pulled the door closed. It was a small closet, but it was obvious a lot of the space was taken up by a false wall and the array of weapons the woman was now covering up with some kind of panel that fit perfectly into the opening.

  Cam was having a harder and harder time believing she was some innocent bystander. Who lived in a shack with this kind of hidden weaponry, an array of surveillance, and people missing and breaking in? Because if she wasn’t involved, surely she’d be more than mildly perplexed.

  He couldn’t hear anything outside the closet except random muffled noises, but he wasn’t unused to waiting in still silence, unable to move or talk no matter the cramped, uncomfortable circumstances. He knew how to control his breathing and avoid panic. This was all part and parcel with what his adult life had been.

  He was a former Marine. He could stand quiet in a closet for a little while.

  There was the small and unusual factor of having to do it with a civilian woman he wasn’t sure whether to trust or suspect, though.

  He couldn’t make her out in the dark space, but he could hear the soft inhale and exhale of her breath, could occasionally feel the faintest brush of her arm or leg or the dog’s.

  The closet smelled of the tangy hint of mothballs, and the dog clearly hadn’t had a bath in a while, but cutting through those disparate smells was her. Wood smoke and leather.

  Rough, outdoorsy smells, but her hair kept wisping across his cheek, soft as a feather.

  He didn’t care for the fissure of unease that spidered along his skin. Something was wrong. She was wrong. Everything about the situation told him she was not what she said she was.

  And yet, he believed in her. Felt better served keeping her safe in here rather than engaging with the strange men who’d broken into her house. Regardless of what she wasn’t telling him, what the truth was underneath all this confusion, he couldn’t help but believe this woman was a victim of...something. That was what his gut told him.

  Except she wouldn’t even tell him her name. He’d accepted that when they’d been outside and he’d been trying to gain her trust, but her giving him a gun changed things. It meant he had some power—he’d be loath to use—and it signaled her trust was building. You could at least tell me your name, he thought.

  But before he could ponder further, the low sound of murmuring voices infiltrated the closet. The woman moved into a crouch, and Cam realized she was doing something to keep the dog from growling or barking.

  Cam held himself still, straining to make out what the voices were saying. He couldn’t, but he had to hope that if he could hear a murmur in the closet, his phone was picking up actual voices.

  Cam had no idea how long they stood there, quiet and trying to breathe carefully and silently. The voices disappeared, but the occasional creak or groan of the house kept them in place. They couldn’t leave the closet until they were sure the men had gone, and every time he got close to suggesting they ease their way out, a new sound was heard.

  He couldn’t figure out the sounds he
heard now. Almost like water pouring, the occasional snap that sounded like someone stepping on a twig. It was a shame they couldn’t have brought her extensive security monitors in here with them.

  Something acrid tinged the air, and it only took him a moment to recognize the odor. Cam swore and began to feel around for the doorknob.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered.

  “Smell that?”

  “Smoke, but... Oh my God. You don’t think—”

  “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Cam said grimly, trying to find the knob in the dark. “We have to get out of here. Now.”

  * * *

  CAMERON HELD HER back as he struggled to open the door. She was about to tell him to back off when the door swung out. Then all she saw were flames. Huge red flames licking up the walls of her father’s bedroom.

  Her mind went completely blank for a moment, and she just stood there staring at the horrible sight in front of her. The flames danced and moved and took over more and more space. The smell and smoke stung her eyes and nose, and her throat began to burn.

  And still she stood in the closet, even as she realized the buzzing in her ears wasn’t a side effect of shock, but the actual sound of fire eating through wood.

  It took her a few seconds to realize Cameron had moved. As if nothing was on fire, as if this was completely normal. He walked right across the room to the small window and used the butt of the gun she’d handed him to break it.

  He held his arm over his mouth and quickly and efficiently pushed as much glass off the edges as possible. Then he grabbed the linens off her dad’s bed and threw them over the windowsill.

  He looked back at her, and something about the way he just seemed to know what to do reengaged her brain.

  “Grab the dog,” he commanded.

  Her eyes were stinging so badly she could barely see through the painful tears, but she crouched down and wrapped her arms around Free. It wouldn’t be easy with Free’s weight and size, but she whispered calmly into the animal’s ear as she hefted her up and struggled toward the window.