Wilderness Sabotage Read online

  The crack of a branch and a scream from below made his blood run colder than the frigid temperatures. “I’m coming. Hang on!” He slid the rope through his fingers. Too fast and he could lose control, but the woman might not last long enough for a careful descent.

  He shoved his soles off the rock face harder than normal and soared down, his gloved fingers loose around the braking rope. His feet dropped right below hers as one of her hands slid off the branch. He gripped the rope tight and let go with his left hand as the branch snapped clean.

  His left arm wrapped tightly around her waist and he pitched forward with the sudden weight. The branch narrowly missed them, and he thrust his right foot out to keep their heads from smashing against the rock face.

  She gasped and reached for the sharp edges.

  “I’ve got you,” he said. “We’re going to get out of this together.” He shifted his head away from the thick brown hair that was currently in his face. “Grab on to my rope. Stick your legs out and let’s balance on the rock. I’ll hook us together.”

  “You sure you got me?” Her voice was steadier, a good sign, and somehow familiar.

  “Yes, ma’am. Lean sideways into me, against me.” He spoke in soothing tones in hopes she didn’t panic or go into shock. “Good. Don’t let go of the rope. When you feel safe, I’m going to remove my arm from your waist and fashion an emergency harness.”

  She turned her head to look at the ropes dangling from his harness and snapped her head up. Their eyes met. “Shawn?” Her voice rose an octave. “What? Why—”

  His throat tightened with the same degree of shock in her voice. He studied her features as she stared at him, frozen in the awkward position. The same vibrant blue eyes that never missed a thing, the same mouth that could flash a smile to brighten the darkest of days and the same forehead creased in concentration. The Jackie Dutton he knew felt she had to understand literally everything that crossed her path. Why had someone been chasing her? “I’d like to ask what you’re doing here, but—”

  She nodded rapidly. “But we should probably focus on getting down safely first. I think it’ll be easier if you let me help but continue to make sure I don’t fall to my death. May I?” She reached across him and grabbed the section of free rope he had been about to unclip from his harness. She made quick work of wrapping the rope around her chest and looping it over her shoulders with a final knot in the center.

  He examined her work, though she’d always been better than him. The daughter of famed reality wilderness star Wolfe Dutton, she’d grown up learning all the techniques her dad demonstrated in his Surviving with Wolfe TV series.

  Shawn double-checked to make sure her knots were tight enough. “Is rappelling like riding a bike?”

  “Hardly. Though when you get trained on knots and rappelling safety from the time you can tie your own shoes, it’s hard to forget.” She blew out a breath and pointed to the extra carabiner hanging from his tether.

  He handed the item over and within a minute she’d adequately latched the rudimentary harness into his system. Snow began falling more heartily from above. An engine—no, multiple engines—revved loudly from above.

  “Oh, that’s not good...”

  “Maybe the driver realized what had happened and recruited help.”

  “Trust me, Shawn. If it’s the driver of that ATV, we don’t want his help.”

  His forehead tightened. He really needed to know how she was forced into this predicament. Jackie would’ve never been careless enough to snowmobile without knowing the terrain unless it was an emergency. He adjusted his stance. “I’m going to let go of you now. Ready?”

  She nodded rapidly, testing the grip, though he noticed she had bare hands and her knuckles were bright red. “Jackie, let me see your palms.”

  “I can do this.”

  Jackie had always bristled against help, but her determination could prove deadly if splinters hindered her ability to hold on. “Your palms are probably full of splinters.”

  Now at his side, she clenched her teeth. “We don’t have time to argue.”

  More chunks of snow fell from above. Her eyes flicked upward. “Shawn, please tell me you didn’t use your truck as an anchor.”

  “Do you have any idea how much that truck weighs? And there are chains on the tires. It’s perfectly safe.” He whipped his head around to follow her gaze. Hard chunks of frozen snow careened over the edge, barely missing their location. His truck slid forward. How? He’d put the parking brake on, he was sure of it.

  “I knew it.” Her voice shook. “They’re coming to finish the job. Is there enough rope to get us all the way down?”

  “Without making a new anchor?” The rope was four hundred feet long, but this particular spot in the crevice might be more than five hundred feet deep. The truck moved again, this time faster, as if being pushed to the edge. He didn’t understand what was happening except for what would be the result.

  His gaze searched the rock face wildly. Twenty feet to the left, he found what looked like their only chance. He pointed. “There. Can you get to that ledge?”

  Her eyes widened in horror but she nodded. Shawn looked over his shoulder once more and understood her raw fear. The side of his truck hung precariously over the edge. “Now!”

  He twisted and pressed off the rock face with his right foot. He reared back as far as possible. The momentum swung him forward like a pendulum. He grabbed the back of Jackie’s coat with his left hand, pulling her farther out from the cliffs in case he misjudged the trajectory, to prevent her from slamming against the sharp rock wall.

  She reached forward to the ledge with her arm and right leg outstretched. The moment her feet touched it, he also extended his feet, but more to serve as brakes. The soles of his boots hit against the ledge and stopped his trajectory. Except, a pendulum always swings backward. Jackie spun around as he fought against the pull. She grabbed the front of his harness and dropped her weight in a squat so he wouldn’t pull them both off.

  The way she tugged at his jacket forced his satellite phone up and out of its holder. The phone soared down just as he found his equilibrium. He never heard it hit the ground.

  They both panted, clinging to each other on the small outcropping. “We made it,” she whispered. The echo in between the two rock walls amplified her words. But that wasn’t the only sound the echo magnified. The creaking of his truck reverberated once more as it was completely pushed over the edge.

  “The rope!” Jackie searched him over. “Shawn! The knots!”

  Every muscle in his body tensed. He’d knotted both ends of the rope for safety so even if he let go or fell, the knots in the ropes would save him. Those same knots would make sure they were dragged down with the truck. They would be snapped right down to the bottom and slammed into his favorite hunk of metal.

  “Unhook yourself from me.” If he was going down, he wasn’t taking her with him.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Their hands fumbled, both searching for the same thing on the rope. The ATC device prevented the rope from twisting or tangling when someone rappelled but also kept their harnesses attached to the rope. They had to get it detached. His thumb reached the carabiner and spun the lock with more force than he’d ever used.

  Her hands grabbed the clip before he could and she squeezed. The device released and shot away from them like a rocket, carrying the rope down to the ground without them.

  The truck spun in the air and hit the bottom of the canyon floor with a sickening crunch. As if to ensure Shawn understood the severity of his truck’s demise, it continued to creak and groan. It could have been them, broken and mangled at the bottom, if they hadn’t unhooked in time. “My truck,” he said. “We’ve been through a lot together.”

  “Well, it looks like we’re about to be through a lot together. Namely, how are we going to get down from here without getting kil
led?”

  His gut twisted at her words. He was trapped on the side of a cliff with the woman he’d once loved and, judging by the way she looked at him, she still hated him.

  TWO

  The last time Jackie had been trapped in the wilderness was as a headstrong sixteen-year-old, ready to prove to her father that she was just as capable as her fraternal twin, Eddie. So she’d set out on her dad’s trademarked wilderness survival test without telling anyone.

  Everything was fine until she’d come across a mountain lion that scared her, ironically, right off the edge of another cliff. She’d found an outcropping, complete with a cave, and tried not to spook the nesting bats as she’d waited, with a broken arm and twisted ankle, for twenty-two painful and terrifying hours until search and rescue found her. Waiting to be rescued while injured had been the last straw.

  Never again, she’d told her parents. Never again would she go camping or backpacking or hiking. It didn’t matter that the test had been her idea. She wouldn’t so much as participate in a campfire in the backyard with s’mores.

  She’d experienced her fill of survival training her entire childhood, and it took waiting with a broken bone to realize she never wanted anything to do with experiencing the wild again, even if it was the family business. Besides, she’d grown tired of trying to earn her dad’s approval. She wasn’t good enough, so why bother trying?

  And now she found herself on another impossible ledge, in front of a man who had broken her heart. Was this God’s way of making sure she didn’t hold bitterness in her heart? If I forgive him, Lord, can we speed things up and get me out of here?

  She’d thought she’d already forgiven him, though. He still looked like the young man she’d once known so well. His golden hair was cropped close to his forehead instead of thick and wild, and the hazel eyes still held the same mysterious intensity. She never could guess what he was thinking.

  How many years had it been since he’d betrayed her family? But he’d rescued her today and put himself in danger. When he’d realized the knots would drag them both down, he’d wanted her to save herself. He wasn’t supposed to be here, either. Idaho wasn’t part of his life plan. There had to be a story there.

  The static of a speaker caught her attention and Jackie held a warning finger to her lips. The acoustics in the canyon were amazing, and she didn’t want to risk giving their location away. She shifted, pressing her back against the rock wall. Shawn followed her example, though his right eyebrow seemed to be frozen in a questioning arch. The cliff above their heads jutted out like a roof. She hoped, given the angles, that they were shielded from view.

  “Update?” a voice asked through the phone.

  “What should I tell him? Think we got them?” The man’s deep voice carried. Jackie had a hard time telling with the wind, but she was fairly certain that was the murderer.

  “I can’t see that far down with the sun setting, and I’m not willing to get any closer to the edge,” another man remarked. “Tell him we’re done.”

  The static returned. “All clear here,” the deep voice said. “Over.”

  “Over,” came the reply.

  “If they aren’t dead, they will be once the storms hit,” the other man said.

  “Let’s finish the job and then I’ll make sure of it later. Come on.”

  The ATV engines roared again. Only after the noise faded into an eerie silence did Jackie feel safe enough to speak again in a whisper. “How are we going to get out of this, Shawn? Did you hear them? They’re going to check back to make sure they finished the job.”

  “I don’t understand anything yet.” Shawn turned to face her. “Who are they?”

  “All I know is I witnessed a murder at the geothermal plant site. I don’t think they want me to be able to tell the police.” She waited a beat for some kind of response, but he seemed deep in thought. “They want me dead, Shawn.”

  “What?” His eyes widened. “Is that why he was chasing you?” He exhaled. His expression changed as if he’d suddenly put on a law enforcement hat. “Start from the beginning. What exactly happened?”

  “I heard one of those men—I think the one with the deeper voice—arguing with an employee. At least he drove a snowmobile and carried a clipboard, so I’m assuming he’s staff. The employee was upset with the man about a detective.” She pointed to her shoulder. “The guy killed the employee then. Injected him with something.”

  Shawn paled and his gaze flickered to her hands. He took off his gloves. “Put these on.”

  She hesitantly accepted. Her fingers felt like icicles, freezing and brittle, as if any impact could break them. “Thank you. As soon as my hands warm up a bit I’ll give them back.” She closed her eyes in relief, even though the pain of splinters still begged for attention.

  “The good news is that what you’ve described hasn’t included a gun.”

  She opened her eyes and realized the significance of Shawn’s words. “He wants to make the murders look like they’re accidents.”

  “Well, we don’t know that, but the injection and pushing a truck off the cliff seems to lean that way. We can hope they aren’t armed.” He lifted the hem of his jacket and checked the belt at his waist. “We may have lost my satellite phone, but at least my gun holster is made of sturdier stuff.”

  “Was that what I knocked out when I grabbed you?” She cringed. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I can’t complain. You were saving my life,” he said.

  “Which was only necessary because you were saving mine.” The setting sun cast a shadow on his strong jawline. She gestured at his holster. “Is it loaded?”

  “At all times.” He leaned forward, ever so slightly. “They were right about one thing. If we don’t find a way out of here, the blizzard heading our way will hit us.”

  “Blizzard?” To reach that classification, temperatures had to drop below ten degrees and sustained wind gusts would be over thirty-five miles an hour, at minimum. Not to mention the massive amounts of snow usually involved. In other words, they were facing the possibility of death either way they looked at it. “I don’t know if my boss ever got my text, but I’d told him not to expect to hear from me until Monday night at the earliest.” Six nights in winter conditions... They wouldn’t be able to survive.

  “What about friends?” Shawn asked. “Relatives? Anyone expecting you or know where you’ve gone?”

  She opened her mouth to reply and stopped. She stayed busy, with a full work calendar at most times, but she rarely committed to social events. If she attended, it was always as a last-minute decision. That way she didn’t disappoint anyone if it didn’t work out. “I want to come, but don’t count on me,” she’d often say. In the early days of her career, she’d made the excuse because she didn’t know when a story would demand her attention. Now she didn’t work under such short deadlines, but she’d grown accustomed to the benefit of no expectations.

  In fact, she’d asked her cousin if it was okay to be flexible about her coming to the wedding. Since it was a family-style dinner reception, her cousin was fine with it. Even her parents didn’t know she was coming. Jackie thought it’d be a fun surprise and then she could join them for Christmas.

  Now the plan seemed more foolish than fun. No one would miss her presence for days. And in front of Shawn, admitting that proved hard to do. “No,” she said softly. “No one will be expecting me until Monday night. What about you?”

  Shawn blew out a long breath, the air producing a giant cloud of fog in front of him. “I’ve already put notices on the exits to the land. We close in the event of severe weather. The radars said multiple winter storms will hit before the blizzard camps out here a few days.”

  She shivered and her teeth chattered, not so much from the cold, but from despair. The thought of having to survive in a blizzard on a ledge in the mountains with her ex-boyfriend was too much. “Wa
it. Won’t they be worried and look for your truck if you don’t call in?” She pointed at the logo on his jacket. “Surely the Bureau has a helicopter. They’d spot the vehicle immediately.”

  “Jackie, I’m responsible for four million acres. Spotting my broken truck hundreds of feet below—in a relatively thin canyon—is not as easy as you might think. Especially if it starts snowing.” His shoulders slumped. “Besides, I already told the field office I would make sure the field archaeologist was done taking samples for the day and escort him out of the park before heading home.” He spotted the question in her eyes before she could ask. “But I didn’t let the archaeologist know. He’s probably gone for the day by now.”

  He leaned his head back and sighed. “I was also keeping a lookout for a missing hiker, but his brother claims he’s in a different region than mine. The point is that I’ve signed off for the day.”

  “Anyone in—” She hesitated for a second. “Is there someone in your life who will send out the dogs if you don’t get home?”

  He cleared his throat. “No.”

  So he was single, too. Not important given the circumstances, but she had so many questions. She told herself it was the nature of her job rather than interest in him, but she should still slow down. “Thank you again for saving my life.” Her throat tightened. “And I’m sorry I got you into this.”

  “It’s my job to save people,” he answered.

  The message seemed loud and clear. She shouldn’t attach any feelings to the fact he’d saved her life. It was business as usual, for him. “Ranger Saves Reporter,” she muttered.