Wilderness Secrets. Sharon Dunn

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      With his gun raised, he took one careful step forward. A sort of crashing sound to his right caught his attention. He eased toward where the noise had come from. Through the trees, he saw a flash of movement and color.

      He stopped when he heard voices.

      A male voice said, “You two are in this together.”

      “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Abigail’s words were filled with anguish. “I was hired to guide him up here.”

      Jesse pressed his back against a tree and closed his eyes. This was the exact opposite of what he wanted to happen. He had to get Abigail away from these men.

      The same male voice responded, “You’re protecting him.”

      “No, I was hired to do a job. That’s all I know,” she said.

      “You will take us to him,” the other man shouted.

      Why hadn’t Abigail said that she’d last seen him going up the ridge? Was she trying to protect him at the expense of her own safety?

      “Please, let me go. I don’t know anything. I dropped him off by the lake. He was going to do some fishing. I don’t know anything. Who are you, anyway?”

      “We ask the questions.”

      The second male voice piped up. “I bet we can use her to lure him out.”

      Jesse squeezed his eyes shut and gripped his gun even tighter. How dare they use her as bait?

      “How do we know he’s not sitting in the cockpit of that plane?” asked the first voice.

      “Nothing’s shown up in the sky yet. Besides, he’s not going to leave his partner behind.”

      “I’m not his partner. I told you that. Please, just let me go. I won’t say I saw you.”

      Jesse stepped a little closer to assess exactly what he was dealing with. He crouched and moved toward the voices, one careful step at a time. When he was close enough, he hid behind a tree and peered around it.

      There were three men. One of them held a rifle and wore a backpack. His job appeared to be guarding and watching. He walked the perimeter around Abigail and the other two men.

      Jesse’s heart squeezed tight when he saw Abigail on her knees, her head down. They must have dumped her backpack somewhere. At least she wasn’t tied up.

      Both of the men standing over her were muscular and probably in their twenties. One of them had pulled a handgun from a holster and paced back and forth in front of Abigail. His hair was dark and slicked back, and he had a tattoo on his neck.

      The other had bleached blond hair and a deep tan. He reminded Jesse of one of those men who appear on the cover of romance books at the checkout counter, kind of a pretty boy. He, too, had a gun, but it was not drawn, and their two backpacks were propped against a tree.

      How was he going to get in there and rescue her?

      “We would have been able to track him to the plane if Eddy here hadn’t gotten lost.” Pretty Boy pointed at the guard.

      The guard—Eddy—spoke up. “You wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without my skills.” Eddy had a low, deep voice, and every word he spoke seemed to contain a threat.

      Jesse assessed that Eddy was probably the most dangerous of the three men. He saw murder in his eyes. But the dark-haired man appeared to be the one in charge. The neck tattoo, a scorpion, meant that these men were connected to the drug trade.

      A plan sparked inside Jesse’s head. He stepped back from the unfolding scene, then ran as fast as he could. When he got some distance away, he shouted, “Abigail, where are you?”

      He bolted from the clearing where he’d made himself known, running in a wide arc back toward the men holding Abigail. Hopefully, at least one of them would run to find him. Then he’d have only two men to deal with.

      He heard one man shout something at the other, their voices getting farther away. He came toward the area where Abigail was being held. Sure enough, only Pretty Boy had been left to watch her.

      He waited until Pretty Boy’s back was turned, leaped into the clearing and hit the back of his head with the butt of his gun. The man crumpled to the ground.

      The voices of the other two men drew nearer. From their angry chatter, it was clear they realized they’d been tricked.

      Jesse grabbed Abigail’s hand. Fear was etched across her features.

      “You’re coming with me.” He pulled her to her feet and sprinted away.

      As he pushed through the trees, he let go of her hand. The steady pounding of her footsteps told him she was keeping up.

      The voices of the men grew louder, filled with rage. One of them barked orders at the other two. Abigail and Jesse neared the base of the mountain peak that would lead them to the plane.

      Jesse glanced over his shoulder. The man with the rifle, the one they called Eddy, had ditched his backpack and was taking aim with the rifle.

      The rifle shot pummeled the silence.

      Abigail did not even stutter in her steps. She only increased her pace, so she was now running beside him.

      There was a cluster of evergreens at the base of the mountain that provided them with a degree of protection. He slowed, tiring from the intensity of the run and needing oxygen. Then he stopped altogether to take in a deep breath.

      She quit running, as well. Sucking in air between each word, she asked, “Where are we going?”

      “I have a plan. Trust me.”

      Her face blanched, and a curtain seemed to fall over her eyes. “Trust is the biggest word in the English language.”

      Pain seemed to undergird her words. There was no time to consider what was going on with her emotionally. “Those guys are out to kill us. I can get us out of here.” He touched her elbow. “We need to keep moving.”

      He pushed himself off the tree he’d been leaning against and sprinted through the evergreens.

      She followed behind him. He stayed in the trees, trying to get a little more distance between them and their pursuers, before they could veer back out in the open and head up the mountain.

      They had to get to that plane and get it off the ground before the thugs caught up with them. It was their only way out.

      He burst out into the open, where the incline grew steeper. At first, they were able to keep up a solid pace. But rocks and the cliff-like slant of the mountain slowed them, so they were climbing more than running and had to reach out for handholds as well as stable places to put their feet.

      Rocks rolled down the incline, crashing into each other. This was much tougher going than how he had initially climbed the mountain. The peak was not even visible yet. He craned his neck, scanning the tree line below, half expecting to see Eddy with his rifle.

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