opened them, the ranger had this look on his face. An almost gentle expression, though the gentleness was offset by the tight lines around his mouth. As quickly as it had appeared though, it was gone. He went to check the other window again.
Laura’s head hurt. She missed her dad. He would know what to do. From the day he’d adopted her, he had known what to do. She looked at the cabin door and could hear her dad’s gravelly voice in her head. So rough and blunt, but never cutting. “Get it together, girl. Be still. Assess. Plan. Try.”
“Okay, Ranger, let’s make some plans.” When she spoke, the ranger turned from where he had been peering out the window.
“Seth.”
Laura was jolted from her imposed calm. Disjointed again. “Seth?”
His smile was slight and his voice did not betray the urgency of the situation. “I told you, my name is Seth. Seth Callahan. Maybe you can say it without the venom you use with the word ranger.”
The smile was absorbed by hard lines again as a third shot came in through the window, sending glass flying everywhere.
* * *
Yep, he had definitely walked into something. Something bad. His routine patrol had turned into an unexpected fire had turned into a detour onto Old Man Grant’s property. Seth had suspected that he might receive a hostile welcome when he walked up to the cabin door, but this was beyond hostile. This felt like a siege.
Once Seth ventured another look out the now-broken window, he could see at least two men out there. They were dressed in black, wearing dark sunglasses, and had earbuds. This wasn’t good. Seth didn’t need to rely on his military training to recognize an assault team when he saw one, though it certainly helped to solidify the feeling of dread in his stomach.
At least they hadn’t fired a second shot into the cabin. Yet, anyway.
The doors were blocked. For now. But a couple pieces of furniture were not going to keep those men out for long. They needed a plan. And some serious help. Please, God. Show me what to do. Give me the strength to do it. That prayer had almost become a daily plea when Seth had been in Afghanistan. And an hourly one when he was in the hospital and rehab center. And now it was back, seemingly his default mode when his life fell apart.
Seth took a deep breath, trying to be as calm as possible around Laura. Whatever this was, she was clearly hurt and upset. And, well, she should be, given their current predicament. He had left this morning for what was supposed to be a simple patrol, not a foray into an action movie. Seth had put combat behind him. Now, it seemed, it was back in his life.
Seth looked back out the window. The men were holding their position. For now. They were not firing their weapons. For now.
Laura was still clutching her daughter, who seemed to have snuggled up on Laura’s chest. Seth just stared. It was rude and this was definitely not the time, but he couldn’t help himself. The child looked...well, little. Seth tried to remember what his nieces had looked like before he left his hometown. The girl in Laura’s arms seemed about the same age Beth had been when he last saw her. That would make her around three years old. Beth wasn’t three anymore. And he had missed it.
Laura murmured something else to the girl, though Seth couldn’t make it out. The tone was comforting and reassuring. She looked at him, indicating the girl with her chin. “This is my daughter. Abigail. Abby.”
Seth moved from the window, trying not to be offended by the way Laura tightened her hold on Abby and shifted away from him as he approached. He walked past Laura and Abby to see what the situation was in the bedrooms. There was a window in each one, but no door. Looking out the bedroom window, he tried to make his voice low and calm. But he wanted to keep Laura informed.
Plus, he needed her. The public, including rangers, had not been welcome up here for decades. Old Man Grant excelled at keeping people off his land. Laura knew this mountain, and she knew what resources they had available inside the cabin. They were going to need her expertise to get out of this.
“I don’t see anyone else—just the two men out front. How many men did this Mahoney guy have with him?”
Laura’s dark eyes were serious and she kept one hand moving in a steady circle on Abby’s back. “Eight maybe? I was more focused on him and the gun he had pointed at Abby.”
“Why are they trying to kill you?” He looked at Abby, not wanting to frighten her. But he had to know, and the situation was beyond urgent. “Why did they leave you unconscious on the floor only to try to shoot you later?”
Laura’s voice was a sound of anguish. “I gave them what they wanted. I gave them the key. Then he said he wanted our deaths to look like an accident. He hit me. I don’t know how this happened.”
What key was she talking about? Every instinct Seth had was screaming at him to quit talking and start acting. But he’d seen more than one mission go sideways because of bad information. Getting the details correct was often the difference between life and death. “I need you to back up. Start at the beginning.”
“I found a safe-deposit key last week. This Mahoney came up the mountain today. With a lot of armed men. He said he wouldn’t hurt us if we gave him the key.”
“But he lied.”
Laura actually rolled her eyes at him. “Clearly.” Her voice was dry. Sarcastic.
“What’s in the safe-deposit box?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“How do you not know?” This was not the time for Laura to keep details to herself.
“I didn’t even know the box existed. My husband, Josh, was killed eighteen months ago. I just boxed all his stuff up when we came back here. Last week was the first time I opened them. That’s when I found it.”
Seth had heard that Old Man Grant’s daughter had moved back home. She’d stayed even after Grant had died.
Seth quickly walked to the front windows and tried to look out without being seen. The two men were still there, not moving or talking. Assault teams were very good at waiting. He made his way to the windows in the back of the cabin. Nothing but typical Colorado mountain terrain. Two men out front in plain sight. Nothing visible anywhere else. Seth’s clenched stomach tightened even further. Those men had a plan and Seth knew he wasn’t going to like it.
“Laura, we still need a plan. If we can’t call for assistance, then we have to figure out some other way of getting it. Some other way to communicate that we are in trouble. We need help. Backup. More people with guns on our side.”
Laura held her daughter closer to her body and shrugged her shoulders in an almost desperate manner. “I don’t have any way to call for help. Believe me, if I did, I would have used it when the shooting started.”
Seth blew out an angry breath. He hated this feeling. This trapped and useless sinkhole that he somehow found himself back in. His voice was harsh, but getting shot by the two men out front would definitely be harsher. “Well, think. You said you gave them what they wanted? So they just left? Then why are they back?”
Seth sounded accusatory. Too bad. It needed to be asked and being nice was going to get them killed if they didn’t figure out how to get out of this situation.
