against her shoulder as she worked on burping him, Karissa froze in midpat. Had she heard right? They were being attacked?
Barely had she begun to process the answer when she found herself wrapped in great bear arms. Hugged against a solid chest, she and the baby were half dragged, half carried deep into the kitchen area. The man upended the thick, metal-topped table and thrust her and Kyle down behind its cover.
“Someone’s shooting at us.” The words exploded from her mouth.
“You think?” he growled. His firm square lips thinned into a pencil line as he trained his rifle barrel around the edge of the table toward the front door.
She glared at her protector as if he were personally responsible for the attack. Ridiculous reaction, but there was no one else to glare at as heat in her gut battled ice in her chest. There had been a couple of tense situations on the mission field in Belize when she’d had opportunity to experience this toxic mix of outrage and terror, and she didn’t like it any better now than she had then.
The automatic gunfire lulled then renewed. Karissa cringed at the thwap of bullets striking furniture, the tinkle of glass smashing and a sudden spate of metallic gongs as a ribbon of bullets played off the set of pots and pans hanging from ceiling hooks. Kyle thrashed and howled as she cuddled him close. An impact sent the heavy table scooting a few inches backward toward them.
Then the gunfire suddenly ceased. An eerie quietness descended on the cabin. Even the baby seemed to be holding his breath. Then he suddenly stiffened, and his sweet little face screwed up in preparation for renewed howling. Karissa shushed and bounced him. Gradually, his expression relaxed, and he apparently decided sticking his thumb in his mouth was a better alternative to straining his vocal cords.
The cabin owner’s intense gray gaze bored into her. “Are you both all right?”
Karissa quickly examined the baby, but he seemed unhurt. In fact, his eyelids appeared to be growing heavy. Poor kid had been through a lot of trauma and excitement that he had no way to understand in the past couple of hours.
“We’re good,” she said.
“Not yet, we’re not. They could burst in here any second to check their handiwork, and my rifle is a poor match for automatic weapons.”
A sudden whoosh and a crackling noise overhead sent Karissa’s gaze toward the ceiling. An acrid smell began teasing Karissa’s nostrils.
“What’s going on?” She looked up at her protector.
The mountain man’s bearded face had hardened into a fierce mask. “The good news is they don’t plan to rush in here. The bad news is they’re burning the cabin. If anyone is alive in here, they expect us to run out where they can pick us off like tin ducks in a county fair target-shooting booth.”
Karissa sucked in a breath. “What are we going to do?”
“Not what they expect.” He turned away from her and tugged back a corner of the thin area rug they were squatting on, exposing a portion of a trapdoor.
“Of course! You have a cellar.” Karissa scooted off the rug and allowed him to completely uncover the door.
The man grabbed an iron ring attached to one side of the door and lifted the hatch. Chilly air wafted upward, pebbling the skin on her bare arms. Her wound throbbed. Karissa glanced toward the ceiling, where heat already radiated downward, and then back into the cellar where utter blackness beckoned. Would the smoke penetrate the cellar? Or would the floorboards currently beneath her feet fall in on them, consuming them in flaming debris? Did she want to die in a hole like a rat? What was the alternative?
Karissa met the stranger’s steel-gray gaze.
“Trust me,” he said, voice low and steady, like a rock of dependability...which didn’t match his appearance at all. The shaggy brown hair and beard, along with faded, puckered scars on the left side of his upper cheek and forehead gave the guy a dangerous look—like a true wild mountain man.
What choice did she have but to trust him, regardless of appearance? He’d done nothing but show her kindness, while she’d brought destruction and possible death down upon him. She nodded. He smiled. The gesture softened his forbidding appearance.
“I’ll go down first,” he said, “and turn on some light. Then you can hand me the baby and come on down yourself. But we have to move quickly. This cabin will burn fast.”
How could this guy stay so calm, planning everything out neatly in a situation like this? Karissa’s shivers had become shakes that threatened to destroy the last of her sanity. The crackles from above were turning into a roar, and heat intensified atop her head.
“Let’s do this,” she said between gritted teeth.
The man nimbly disappeared into the blackness. Eternal moments later, a dim light came on, and she was gazing into his upturned face. He reached upward, and she handed him the baby. Strange how handing over her little charge of short acquaintance should feel like such a wrench.
“Now you,” he said, cradling the baby effortlessly in the crook of an elbow. “I’ll steady you if you lose your balance.” He offered his free hand.
Gulping, Karissa clambered down the ladder and found her feet on a cement floor. Immediately, the man returned Kyle to her and pulled the cord to bring the trapdoor down. It landed with a loud whump, sealing them off from the main floor. The light of a single overhead bulb offered only a dim view of their surroundings. Not much to see. Cinder-block walls, one side of which hosted a set of shelves that held fruits and vegetables in sealed canning jars. A long, wooden trough sat against the opposite wall. The black dirt inside it appeared to be the source of the pungent, earthy smell that filled the space that was about half the size of the cabin above.
“Worm farm,” her host said with a wry half grin. “I’ve done a lot of fishing over the past year I’ve been staying here, courtesy of the forest service.”
Karissa frowned. “Is this our big choice? Die down here with the worms when the smoke gets us or the floor collapses on us, or stay above and let the fire take us?”
The man cocked his head at her. “Intelligent questions, but I wouldn’t have led us down here if I didn’t have a plan for that contingency. Follow me.”
He grabbed his rifle and a large flashlight from a nearby shelf and headed toward the corner of the room. There, he opened a metal door that had been hidden from view by the shelving.
“Behold our sanctuary.” He motioned beyond the door.
A small laugh, born of strung-out nerves, escaped Karissa’s throat as she brushed past him into the dimness of a tunnel. “You are the quintessential oxymoron of a mountain man.”
“I’d like to ask you what you mean by that statement, but I think the question will have to wait.”
He pulled the thick door closed after them just as a loud crash from above signaled something, probably the roof, collapsing. The baby jerked out of his almost-sleep and started to cry. Karissa bounced him up and down in the comforting grip of both her arms.
“Follow me,” her rescuer said and led the way up the tunnel.
The flashlight’s beam played eerie shadows
