Hunted in Alaska, page 18
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Christmas Baby Rescue
by Jordyn Redwood
ONE
Liam Knight jolted awake, bathed in sweat. He sat up and reached for his loaded SIG Sauer, never more than an arm’s length away, and double-checked it was in good working order. Every time he slept, the same nightmare occurred. Transported back to the Afghanistan battlefield, he tried to deactivate a bomb in a school building as an enemy soldier, weapon poised, drove straight at him. Liam raised his weapon in defense, and when he fired, the gun jammed. Fear would shoot through his unconsciousness, driving his eyes open. His heart raced, his breath coming in short puffs as if he’d been sprinting. Some referred to it as the warrior’s dream.
For him, it was torture.
Doc Montgomery called it PTSD. Liam was loath to honor it with a name. That would give it power over his life, but something had to change. These dreams were having a cumulative negative effect. Without the structure of the military, he lacked direction and a goal. What can I do with my life now? He fingered his gold navy SEAL trident pin that had been next to his weapon. At that time, though dangerous, his life had been easier than facing this void of uncertainty, but the self-imposed isolation kept people safe from himself and the dissociative PTSD reactions he could have. He feared hurting people during flashbacks when his mind drifted from the present.
Ultimately, it’s better that I’m alone. Safer for everyone that way.
A high-pitched whine howled outside, an empty confirmation of his statement, forcing tufts of Christmas Eve snow under his door.
This remote cabin, built by his hands, had been far from the warm, comforting welcome home that he craved, but it was a necessary prison where he sat in self-incriminating judgment that he would give a limb to forget.
There was a knock at the door. Faint—to the point he wondered if his imagination was playing tricks on him.
Liam stood, placing the weapon in the holster at his side, a habit unbroken from his years in the military. He tugged down the tails of the blue-and-gray flannel shirt to cover it. When he opened the door, the vastness of pine trees and snow filled his vision. He stepped out onto the porch when his boot knocked against something, and he looked down.
An infant carrier encased in a pastel, quilted cover that prevented him from seeing what was inside. Reflexively—and against all his training—he picked it up and then saw the set of footprints up to his porch and going away.
And the droplets of blood that shadowed them.
Instinctively, he stepped back inside his cabin, closed the door for cover and threw his back against the wall.
Then the infant fussed. His heartbeat raced. Crying children were a trigger for him that could precede a drift from reality. His vision grew fuzzy, and he felt the plastic handle slipping from the grip of his sweaty hand.
Focus on the here and now. Feel your feet on the floor. The warmth of the fire. Your breath coming in and out of your chest.
Liam threw the dead bolt on the door and carried the car seat near the fireplace burning bright with half-consumed logs. He sat on the worn leather couch, placing the carrier beside him, taking long, deep breaths to slow his pulse, as his mind sorted through the implications. He eased the coverlet down.
Sure enough, there was an infant strapped inside. A girl, if the pink clothing was a hint, her eyes wide and unblinking. For a moment, something softened inside him. An echo of what his life had been like before war and death. Her face scrunched, turning red, and her mouth opened to scream when he noticed the pacifier lying on her chest. He picked it up, placed it into her mouth, and she hungrily began sucking on it.
“Hey, there, little one,” he said, as his hand gently rocked the carrier. “Seems like whoever brought you here might be in trouble.” Her eyes pinned him, tugging noticeably at his heartstrings. He cut those invisible ties. He couldn’t risk the emotional connection. It would pull him hard into a dark well of grief.
Who had brought her here? Had they left items to care for her outside that he hadn’t seen? He slid his hand into the crevice between the baby and the side of the carrier. When he came up with nothing, he tried the other side.
His hands gripped a journal and an envelope.
With his name on it.
Writing he recognized.
If those words had been penned by the hand he knew, a woman who had been his military pen pal for the last several years, then he had to find her. If the blood was hers, then she could be dying or dead. Reading the note...investigating the journal...would have to wait.
He picked the carrier up and placed it on the floor near the fireplace. “Stay warm. No noise.” He placed a finger to his lips, attempting to give her a gentle but stern stare for compliance.
Liam paced to the door, grabbed his brown Bedale jacket and hustled into it. Next, he thrust his hands into a tight-fitting pair of gloves as he went through his well-rehearsed checklist. This was a mission, and he was going to prepare as usual. Leaning over, he patted through his jeans to his right midcalf to ensure the small revolver was still present—his jeans split at the seam for easy access. He wouldn’t need much for the search, so he grabbed a flashlight and stepped out onto the porch, locking the door behind him. The person who’d brought him the infant wanted to protect her, and if he were heading up his own search party, the door would be the only thing between the baby and whoever intended harm.
Liam inhaled deeply, intentionally slowing his breathing to keep his pulse in check, as he popped the flashlight on and held it under his weapon. He took one step down and noticed a backpack that had fallen off the stoop. Likely supplies for the baby, but his training told him IED. Even unicorn backpacks held death in the Middle East. In his mind, nothing was innocent anymore. At the base of the steps, he gained a trajectory for the set of footprints. He scanned the pine trees, their boughs heavy with snow. A half-carved moon overhead provided additional light as he walked to the side of the indentations. What he would give for a pair of night vision goggles. After every three or four steps, he would stop, listen. The foot impressions and droplets of blood were spread farther apart, a sign the person had some speed in their retreat. Now he’d have to follow the small-size footsteps, presumably left by a woman, into more dense woods.
The forest was not as quiet as many believed. Listening, really listening, brought forth a rhythm, an inhalation-exhalation of life that never ceased and kept him grounded in reality. Clumps of snowflakes fell off trees with soft tufts into snowbanks. The flutter of wings as an owl took flight. The howl of a wolf returned with more in response from the pack. The crisp air laden with the scent of pine tingled in his nose and sharpened his senses.
The trail was a story of arrival and departure. The woman had kept the same path to and from his cabin. He wondered briefly how the infant was faring alone and chased the thought from his mind.
Focus. Stay focused.
Intermittently, next to the footprints, there were impressions in the snow where he suspected the woman had set the carrier down. There wasn’t a car or remnants of tire tracks in the drive leading up to his cabin. How far had she trekked to find him? Had she chosen to walk through the woods to get away from someone tailing her?
Liam stopped. The snap of a branch, by something large, caused snow to shift and halted his motion. He rechecked the direction of the footprints with his flashlight. They were closer together here, where the woman had slowed her pace. She wasn’t crying for help, another indication that she didn’t want to be found. Whoever had injured her could still be in pursuit, which kept him from calling out to her.
Was she armed? Would she mistake him for someone who would harm her? After all, he was pointing a loaded gun. What woman would trust that? Sometimes, risks had to be taken, even if it seemed his own life could be altered by the choice. If the military had taught him one singular thing, it was that.
“The baby’s safe,” he said. Normal voice. Calm tone.
Another few steps. Stopping. Listening. Rechecking the footprints now intertwined as the path taken narrowed, now every few inches, with drops of blood.
“I won’t hurt you. Help me find you.”
It was as if his heartbeat had found hers and paired with it. The closer he came, the faster his rattled in his chest and the harder it was to keep his breath calm. He often dreamed of meeting this woman he’d written so many letters to. Finding her dead would trample all he’d imagined. When he briefly thought about a life different from what he was living, he often thought of her.
Liam’s flashlight landed on a hint of a white coat contrasted against the base of a broad tree. The only thing that made it discernible from the snow was the ring of decorative fur around the hood. He was coming up behind her, and he started arcing around so as to not frighten her. It bothered him to see no movement as his boots crunched through the light, powdery flakes. He rounded to stand in front of her. Her head was dropped to her chest, blood dripping onto her coat, her feet outstretched, almost as if she had chosen to sit rather than slump down.
After holstering his gun, he reached forward and grabbed her hiking boot, shaking it. “Miss. Can you hear me?”
No movement. His stomach clenched with dread. If this was who he genuinely thought it was, then she could not be dead. It would mean God hadn’t responded to his prayers to always keep her safe. The same prayer she always wrote to him in her notes.
Yanking off his glove, he reached between her bloodied mitten and coat sleeve, feeling for a pulse. Her skin was warm, and once his fingers found the right groove in her wrist, the echo of her heartbeat fluttered against his fingertips. He lifted one of his fingers and placed it under her nose. An exhaled breath warmed his skin.
She was alive.
The woman’s long brown hair covered her face. On the left side of her head, the wisps matted with blood. Liam pulled the tendrils away from her face. Her eyes were closed. He gripped her shoulder. “Ashlyn. Wake up.”
A gunshot. The tree’s bark fractured above his head. He grabbed the front of the woman’s coat and pulled her down to the forest floor, covering her body with his.
* * *
Pain and cold was all Ashlyn Sutton could register. Rescuing a baby from almost certain death and trying to get her to the one person she knew would keep her safe was her primary goal. She had done it. Secondarily, she wanted to solve her sister’s murder. She was unlikely to accomplish that goal. Saving the child would preserve her sister’s last imprint. Now, with the blood loss and her throbbing head, her thoughts came with almost silly randomness.
Will Liam keep her safe? Was this the right choice? Lord, protect that sweet baby. She is all that can bring a guilty man to justice.
A voice—his voice—had broken through the air. He’d come searching for her and found her. She attempted to lift a finger to her lips, to hush him—to protect him. She willed her thoughts to reach his mind.
Please, don’t try to rescue me. I’ll be your death.
The man who’d injured her was somewhere in this forest. She was sure of that.
Haziness followed. Clumsily, she wiped at the warm trickle of her blood as it traced its way down her neck. Her eyelids were heavy, and she didn’t want to resist the lull of sleep anymore, her primary mission fulfilled. Then there was a tug at her boot. A finger at her wrist. A gentle hand on her head assessing her wound as he tried to keep his light from boring into her eyes. A voice came at her again, tunneled. Her ears still rang from the first time someone had shot her.
Then that same sound, again...
Suddenly, she was moving. The crisp air rushed against her face, not propelled by the wind but by the man’s movements yanking her away from the tree. She rolled in his arms a few times, losing her mittens. Opening her eyes, she only saw the front of his coat, an American flag patch sewn there. He scanned the trees, one arm raised, the weapon in his hand, trying to find the source. Shifting his weight to the side, he groped through the inches of snow and found his flashlight. When he had it, he turned it off, severing the beacon the killer had used to find them.
“Don’t move,” he whispered.
She shivered. Even with the chill seeping into her bones, she felt safe—protected by this man she’d only written to but never met. Inherently, she trusted him. When she thought of family, she thought of him.
He lifted off her body. “I need to hide you.”
What did that mean? It was dark. She was wearing a white coat, and there was snow to camouflage her presence. How easy could it be to find her, even in the moonlight? He sat on his haunches and pushed her underneath a large tree. The needles bristled against her face, the scent of pine reminiscent of Christmases not running away from a murderer. He reached down and pulled something from his ankle and wrapped her fingers around it. The hilt of a gun colder than her flesh. She shook her head and pushed it toward him.
“In case I can’t find him in time.” He nudged her arm back toward her chest. “The safety’s off.”
What good would this do her when she’d never touched one? He rose and was away. Ashlyn blinked several times, trying to clear the drops of blood that had strayed into her eyes. She looked up. The moonlight filtering through the tree branches was so similar to when she would lie under the Christmas tree as a child with her older sister. They would stay there for hours under the twinkling, colored lights, nestled among unopened presents, and would imagine what treasures lay within the boxes. Sometimes they were brave enough to pick them up and give them a gentle shake to see if they could garner any clues, before their foster mother would catch even the subtlest noise and admonish them for trying to peek.
Another gunshot. Ashlyn jerked. Was it true that you never heard the shot that killed you?
There was rustling, like animals fighting. Another gunshot. Ashlyn turned on her side. She crawled out from her hiding spot and sat up in time to see the man charging right at her, throwing his sniper rifle and brandishing a knife.
She raised the firearm and pulled the trigger. The kickback knocked her back into the tree. The man stumbled, but then raised himself up onto all fours. Liam tackled him from the side. Ashlyn scurried to a standing position, the adrenaline surge giving her the strength, and she pointed the gun at the man’s head.
“Drop the knife or I’ll shoot you again.” Her voice was stronger and more determined than she felt as her stomach melted into her feet.
He raised his arms up and dropped the knife.
Liam stood up and brushed the snow from his legs. “Good shot.”
It was hard to miss when the target was a foot away and bearing down.
She reached out to hand the weapon to Liam when her vision blurred. He took it from her. She rested her hands on her knees.
Keeping his gun trained on her would-be murderer, he stepped sideways to her. “Easy now. It’s all right.”
He grabbed at her elbow a moment too late, and she crashed into the snow. A cool blackness enveloped her.
Copyright © 2022 by Jordyn Redwood
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ISBN-13: 9780369728807
Hunted in Alaska
Copyright © 2022 by Jill Elizabeth Nelson
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Jill Elizabeth Nelson, Hunted in Alaska
