Lone Survivor. Jill Elizabeth Nelson

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      Hunter Raines swung the ax toward the chunk of wood perched atop the chopping block. Beneath his light T-shirt, the muscles along his shoulders, arms and back bunched and flexed with only mild discomfort from the burn scars that ran down the left side of his torso. Thunk! The satisfying sound echoed deep in his gut. His lungs sucked in a pine-laden breath as he brought the ax high again and swung it downward. Thunk!

      A light wind sighed through the branches of the Douglas firs hugging the forest service’s two-room cabin he’d occupied for many months now. Birdsong tickled his ears, soothing his senses. No sight or sound of human habitation intruded on the serenity—well, except for the rhythmic thud of his own ax, but he’d soon be done with the humble chore.

      How thankful he was for this secluded retreat in the Cascade Mountains offered to him by his forest-ranger brother, Jace. He couldn’t think of a better spot to hunker down after his eleven months of torturous skin grafts and therapy and give his wounds—both inner and outer—time to heal. Even now, after more than a year here in the wild, the thought of returning to the claustrophobic beehive of city life in Portland turned him cold.

      Yep, he owed Jace big-time for pulling strings to allow him to hole up for a while in this ranger cabin on the edge of Umpqua National Forest. Officially, Hunter was a temporary forest service volunteer tasked with fire watching from the nearby fire tower. Unofficially but more genuinely, he was a heartsick, wounded ex-firefighter struggling to make peace with senseless tragedy.

      “Help!”

      The plaintive female cry halted Hunter’s ax in midswing. His heart rate kicked into overdrive. Quivering, he lowered the ax, which then slipped from sweat-slicked palms. Another flashback from the woman’s death. Auditory this time. He gulped as blackness edged his vision. Easy now. Just breathe. He would not give in to another panic attack.

      “Help me!”

      The cry came again. Closer this time. Not a trick of his wounded mind.

      Hunter whirled toward the northern tree line. A slight figure, laden with a bundle hugged to her chest and a large bag dangling from the crook of her arm, staggered toward him. The woman was dressed in casual clothes and sneakers, not hiking garb appropriate to this outdoor recreation area. Long, flame-red hair fluttered around her face, obscuring her features. A wail suddenly erupted from the bundle in the woman’s arms.

      Hunter’s jaw dropped. What was a woman with a baby doing in the back side of nowhere yelling to him for help? If any road but a dirt track led to this area of the forest, he’d guess maybe a vehicle breakdown. Sure, a couple of miles away, beyond the perimeter of federal land, stood a few private houses owned by the elite who could afford fancy mountain getaway homes, but if that’s where she originated and she was for some reason without a vehicle, why had she headed deeper into the forest rather than toward the nearest highway? Whatever the reason, it couldn’t be good.

      The woman tottered nearer. Her heaving breaths and whimpers betrayed stark terror. But it was the redness dripping down the woman’s arm and plinking in drops from her bent elbow that jolted Hunter out of inertia—a paralysis that would never have gripped him in the face of emergency in his Before Incident days. Mentally slapping himself, Hunter strode toward the woman and child.

      “What’s going on?” He reached her just as her knees buckled.

      With an exclamation, he caught her and her tiny cargo and lowered them both to the ground. The woman sat blinking at him through a veil of pine needle–strewn hair that blocked him from getting a good look at her face. Her mouth worked like she wanted to speak but couldn’t find the words. His hand around her upper arm was sticky with her blood.

      “You’re hurt. Let’s get a look at the wound.”

      “N-no.” She inhaled a loud, raspy breath. “I—I think it’s just a scratch.”

      “A lot of blood for just a scratch.”

      “Call the sheriff!” Her voice came out a thin screech. “That’s all I want you to do. Get someone up here. My cousin’s been murdered.” Her voice lowered to a hoarse whisper. “I meant to surprise her by arriving earlier than expected. I thought it would be so much fun.” She choked on a sob. “But I found her shot d-dead. Then the baby started crying, and I grabbed him and then the killer came back before I could leave in my car, so I ran away, but the killer shot at us, and I’ve been running for miles, and...” Her flood of words trailed away between quivering lips.

      A soft wail from the infant punctuated the sudden silence.

      Hunter’s jaw hardened. The tale was completely wild, but if that was truly a bullet wound in her arm then he needed to believe her and take action. “Let’s get you inside first.” In the relative safety of the cabin, he could examine her injury and verify or disprove her story.

      She nodded wordlessly.

      “Can I take the child?”

      She stiffened and pulled away from him, clutching her bundle. The little one kicked and fussed.

      Hunter raised his hands, palms out, in a nonthreatening gesture. “Easy there. You’re safe now.”

      She slumped toward him, and with a gentleness that contradicted the knots around his insides, Hunter helped her up. With him lending significant support, they made it onto the wooden porch. She was a petite thing, dwarfed by him, but she had an athletic build, evidently no couch potato, based on her ability to run miles while wounded and carrying a baby. First thing would be to triage that wound. Then he’d know whether to call for help or treat the injury first.

      His training was starting to kick in, for whatever meager satisfaction that knowledge offered. It hadn’t saved the woman who’d depended on him before... No. He couldn’t go there. Not now. Not when he was once again thrust into a situation where lives depended on him. If a killer really was on the trail of this woman and her baby, he had to keep them safe or he might as well die trying. He’d never survive another failure.

      Inside the cabin, Hunter guided her to the cushioned sofa. She sank onto it and began cooing to the baby and tickling his plump cheeks, which dialed the fussing back to a thin whine. Of course, the child could be a girl, but the blue sleeper with a train embroidered over the right breast suggested a boy. From this vantage point, gazing down at the top of the woman’s head as she focused on the child, he still couldn’t see her face, but he made out an angry red streak oozing blood on her upper bicep area where the short sleeve of her blouse was ripped. Could have been caused by a branch while running through the forest, but that sort of wound would likely be more ragged and contain debris. This wound was clean and straight—just like a bullet graze sustained from a distance. A burn settled deep in his belly. Some lowlife took a shot at a woman holding a baby.

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