frantic woman sat inside, her mouth wide and halfway through the word help when she caught sight of him. She stopped and closed her mouth.
Assessing the situation, Gray didn’t need her to explain the urgency or that she couldn’t get her door open. He doubted climbing out the other side was even an option, since the vehicle hung precariously near the edge on the passenger side. He tried the door, using brute strength, and then kicked at it, but it wouldn’t budge. If he’d brought his weapon, he might have been able to shoot the door mechanism so it would release.
Instead, he grabbed a large rock.
Her troubled eyes grew wide again.
“Unbuckle your seat belt!” he yelled over the roar. “And move out of the way.”
“I can’t!”
“I’m going to smash the window.”
She nodded. Covering her face, she leaned away.
Gray hit the window. Glass shattered, falling everywhere inside the vehicle, including on the woman. She carefully tossed aside the bigger chunks, and Gray helped remove the rest. He pulled out his Buck knife from his jeans pocket, cut her seat belt and then tugged off his jacket, laying it over the window jamb to protect her. Gray planned to pull her out, but she climbed out herself, her agility surprising him until she fell to the ground. Her left leg appeared stiff, her expression one of agony.
“You’re hurt!” He crouched next to her. Of course, she would be hurt after her Jeep had slammed into the tree.
Rain beating down on her, she tried to stand on her own but failed and slipped back, mere inches from the spreading river of mud.
“We have to get out of here before the mud carries us away along with your Jeep.” Gray scooped her into his arms.
She struggled against him and reached for the vehicle. “No, wait! I need—”
“Unless you’ve got a child in there—” and Gray hadn’t seen anyone else in the vehicle “—someone else whose life is in danger, we’re getting out of here.”
“But—!”
Ignoring her, Gray headed away from the ensnared vehicle and the mudslide. He focused all his energy and strength into hiking over slippery boulders while holding a 115-pound woman with an injury. Behind him, he half expected to hear the telltale sound of the old Jeep CJ being carried away down the mountain, but that sound never came.
Carrying her solid but small form, he reached the road she’d been driving on when she’d hit the mud. He couldn’t imagine how terrifying that must have been. She was in her twenties, he’d guess, a few years younger than his thirty-two years. Was she a volunteer who he would work with? He’d have to explain what he’d been doing out here. But first they had to get somewhere safe and dry.
He hadn’t made it twenty yards when the rain slowed.
“You can put me down now.”
“You sure?”
She nodded. “I appreciate the help, but I can manage from here.”
He set her on the still-slick road and put his hand out, ready to catch her if necessary. “Careful now.”
Pushing her wet strands out of the way, she looked up at him, studying his face with her bright hazel eyes. Raindrops slid over her forehead and over her cheeks, revealing a pretty, natural face with a few freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. Her dark hair hung long down her back and was so waterlogged that he couldn’t tell for sure what color it was, but he was almost certain it was dark brown to match her perfectly shaped eyebrows.
He glanced up at the ashen sky and received droplets in his eyes. He wiped them out and then looked at the woman. “I suppose I should introduce myself. It’s not every day I carry a woman down the mountain.”
“I’m walking down the mountain,” she corrected. “But I’m sure it’s not every day you have to pull a woman trapped in a mud-strapped, tree-slammed Jeep.”
“You got that right.”
“Well, what’s your name, stranger?”
“Grayson Wilson. But you can call me Gray.” Though working undercover, he’d keep his first name. Easy enough to answer to that. Wilde would be off the books.
“I’m Gemma Rollins. I run Tiger Mountain, the sanctuary on the other side of this road. You might have noticed it since you were out wandering the area.” Her tone sounded suspicious.
Gemma Rollins. Tiger Mountain’s founder.
So much for his surveillance efforts. He should have known, though she looked nothing like the pictures, where she always had on sunglasses. Her eyes would have been a dead giveaway.
She shifted her focus to the road and then turned to him. “Well, are you coming? I want to get someplace dry.”
“And then you’ll call the sheriff, right?” The county maintained the mountain road, and she might want the report for her insurance.
Calling the sheriff was the right move for her, so Gray ignored the twinge he felt at the thought. Gray hadn’t wanted to run into the man so soon on this operation, but Sheriff Kruse would likely send a deputy out instead and, in that case, Gray could keep his cover unless it was Deputy Callahan. In theory, it would be safe enough to read in the local cops on his investigation...but in practice, it was a whole different story. Sometimes, even law enforcement could be involved in trafficking.
“Yes. We need to let the county know about the mud and trees on the road.”
She continued to favor her right leg over her left.
Gray asked, “Are you sure you’re not hurt? You’re limping.”
Gemma stopped and turned to look at him, staring at him with her determined and enormous, crystal-clear hazel eyes. Why hadn’t he known about the eyes beforehand?
Like that would have kept them from affecting him now. He didn’t want to stop looking at them.
“I was injured years ago. Nerve damage. My limp is part of me now. If you had let me grab my cane out of the Jeep, I’d be using that to walk.”
Gray was embarrassed. Why hadn’t he noticed a cane in the few pictures he’d seen? “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” He almost offered to assist her in walking, but the set of her jaw told him that would be the wrong thing to do.
“It’s okay. I understand. You were being a hero, and you couldn’t have known you were rescuing a debilitated damsel. Honestly, I didn’t expect anyone to hear my cries for help, much less a stranger to arrive to whisk me out of the Jeep. Thank you for that.” Her soft smile wiped away the furrow in her brow but not the anguish—the deep-seated agony—behind her eyes.
Gray had come here to bring this woman down if she was involved in the trafficking ring—and especially if she was involved, even indirectly, in Bill’s death. It seemed more than likely that she was part of the trafficking ring as founder of the sanctuary that was somehow connected.
How
