Don't Cry for Me (29 page)

She reached down and picked up the rope, then started forward again, pulling him behind her.

A few feet farther on, the flashlight died.

The complete absence of light and the waning presence of her strength were a powerful temptation to stop. But she wouldn’t give up. Convinced she could do this, she moved forward, until, instead of taking a step, she staggered and fell to her knees.

Quinn was muttering now, and moaning, but her heart was pounding so hard she could hardly hear him above the blood rushing through her veins. Her head was swimming. Not only had she lost her center of gravity, but the last of her strength was gone, as well. With despair in her heart, she followed the rope back to Quinn, then lay down beside him.

The thunder of mortar shells was coming closer, and there was gunfire behind her. She was trapped. So this was where it ended. She put her arm across his chest and closed her eyes. It was a good place to die.

* * *

Something was crawling on Mariah’s face. Something warm and wet. She thought she was dreaming, then felt it again and opened her eyes. Almost instantly she gasped, then she laughed, and then she started to cry.

It was Moses! The rope was still tied around his neck, but he’d obviously chewed himself loose. She wrapped her arms around his warm, wiggly body and pulled him close.

“Moses! My sweet puppy! You found us, didn’t you, boy? Yes, you did, you found us.”

Moses was whining and yipping, frantically licking her in a need for reassurance that what he’d done was okay.

Mariah felt along Quinn’s body until she was able to check his pulse. It was still there, but so was the fever. She had to get up. She had to get moving. But she’d completely lost her sense of direction. She slung the rope loop over her shoulder and got a good grip, then grabbed the end of the rope tied around Moses’s neck and stood up.

“Let’s go home, Moses. Home!”

The pup barked but stayed waiting by her feet.

She tried again. “Come on, Moses. We’re lost. It’s up to you, buddy. Let’s go home! You can do it! Let’s go! Want a treat? Let’s go get a treat!”

Moses whined once and then took off at a trot.

Mariah kept a death grip on Moses’s rope, waiting for it to go taut so she would know which way to go. And when it suddenly yanked against her palm, she followed him, pulling Quinn with her.

Just like his namesake, Moses was leading his family home.

* * *

Eight members of the Walker family, along with DEA Agents Lancaster and Townsend, were moving up the mountain above Quinn’s cabin in the dark. Lancaster had promised Agent Ames that they would go the distance on this case and not leave until they knew what had happened to Walker.

Sheriff Marlow was bringing up the rear, dragging a stretcher.

The ethereal glow of the fluorescent lanterns they carried cast stark, eerie shadows along the path. Animals that would normally have been out had abandoned the slope for quieter hunting, leaving this trail to the men who had disturbed their night.

When they finally reached the cave, Ryal moved inside, shining his light as he went, which sent the bats into a frenzy as they swarmed from the cave.

Marlow dropped the stretcher and began swinging his hat. “I hate bats.”

Ryal didn’t comment as James walked up behind him and asked, “What do you want to do, bro?”

“I’m going in as far as I can. That’s where she said she was going in, and with the cave-in at the mine, this is the only way she can come back.”

Lancaster approached, eyeing the tunnel. “It’s risky doing this at night.”

Ryal frowned. “It’s just as dark in there in the daytime as it is right now. And I can’t go to bed tonight without knowing that we tried.”

Though none of them had voiced their fears, Ryal knew they were all thinking the same thing: if Quinn and Mariah had actually been inside the mine when the cave-in occurred, they were almost certainly dead.

“I’m ready if you are,” James said.

“I’ll be waiting out here,” Marlow said. “Someone’s gonna have to go back and get a rescue crew to get you people out if you get yourselves lost. Might as well be me.”

“I’m not getting lost,” Ryal muttered, then aimed his flashlight into the black hole and started walking.

James followed behind him, and when Ryal heard more footsteps, he swung the flashlight to see who it was. Two of his cousins and both the DEA agents were grim-faced but marching. He nodded, then swung the light back toward the tunnel and moved deeper into the mountain.

They were ten minutes in when Ryal suddenly stopped.

“Is that a dog barking?”

“Quinn’s pup was gone,” James said. “You said he was tied up on the porch, but he wasn’t there. Do you suppose he went looking for her?”

“God, I hope so,” Ryal said, and started to run.

The dog’s barking was louder. Ryal began to shout.

“Mariah!”

The dog yapped again, closer now.

“Mariah!”

Then he heard a faint cry. “Here! We’re here!”

The men started running, their flashlights bobbing in the dark like corks on a pond when the fish begin to bite.

That was what she saw first, lights coming through the darkness like fireflies.

And then Ryal saw her, coming out of the guts of Rebel Ridge, pulling his brother behind her on some crazy-ass sled. Her face was streaked with mud, blood and paint—an odd shade of neon-yellow—and her clothes were almost in rags. But her chin was up, her shoulders back, and when she saw him, she collapsed in his arms in weak tears.

“I found him, Ryal. They nearly beat him to death, but I found him. I promised him I’d get him out. No man left behind. No man left behind.”

Ryal could feel her shaking, and he wanted to cry. “Here, hon, give me the rope. I’ll pull him the rest of the way.”

She hesitated. They’d come this far together. It was hard to let go.

“He’s broken up really bad. We need an ambulance.”

Mike Lancaster was staring at Mariah like he’d never seen a woman before, and then he looked at what was left of Quinn Walker, trussed to a backpack like an Egyptian mummy. He saw the bloody rope burns on her neck and shoulder, and the blood-soaked spot on the rope where her hands had been, and he remembered someone saying she and Walker had served together in Afghanistan. The skin crawled on the back of his neck. That woman was one hell of a warrior. Then he took in the situation, and his cop skills kicked in.

“I’ll call for Med-Flight. We’ll get him down the mountain, ma’am, don’t you worry. And I’m calling an ambulance for you, as well.”

He took off running, with his partner behind him, and she was too numb to disagree.

“Hey there, sister, come lean on me,” James said, and slid an arm around her waist to steady her steps.

By the time she walked out of the cave into the fresh air and starlight, she was moving on instinct. If it hadn’t been for her grip on Moses’s rope, she wouldn’t have been able to focus.

They got Quinn on a stretcher, then started moving him down the mountain at a swift pace. Until they knew his true status, they had to consider his condition grave.

Mariah paused, then staggered again.

James grabbed her arm.

“Can you make it, girl?”

She took a breath, inhaling the pine-scented air of Rebel Ridge. She was crying as she took a firmer grip on Moses’s rope.

“Yes, James, I will make it. Come on, Moses. Take me home.”

Epilogue

Seven months later

A
log popped in the fireplace, sending a shower of sparks flying up the chimney. Moses looked up from his rug by the fire only long enough to make sure nothing was amiss and then dropped his head back down on his paws. Snow had been falling for the past six hours, blanketing the high meadow like a flurry of goose down spilling out of an old feather bed. It fell silently and without wind, muffling all sound.

At the living room window, the flickering lights from Quinn and Mariah’s first Christmas tree took center stage. They’d decorated it two weeks earlier and, after adding the star at the top, made love on the rug beneath it.

Now, whenever Quinn looked at it, he thought of the blinking lights as tiny diamonds bathing the ivory of Mariah’s bare skin.

The presents beneath it were wrapped, all but the one for Moses, who’d immediately sniffed it out and carried it to Mariah with a “please can I have it now?” look days earlier.

And of course she’d obliged, tearing the packaging off the rawhide bone and laughing as he trotted back to the fire with it in his jaws.

Quinn was at the kitchen table, finishing a report he’d been working on for the past two days. He hit Send, waited for the email to go through, then logged off and closed his laptop.

Curious as to why it had gotten so quiet, he glanced up and caught Mariah looking at him from across the kitchen. He smiled.

“What?” he asked.

“I was just counting my blessings.”

The smile tilted. “Am I one of them?”

“You are
the
blessing of my life.”

He sighed. They didn’t talk about it much, but he had very few memories of what had happened to him in the mine. It had taken nearly three months for him to heal, and one eyelid still had a tendency to droop when he was tired. He was also officially afraid of the dark. Even now, if he woke abruptly in the night, the walls in the room started shrinking inward until he focused on the light.

“And you, pretty girl, are mine. Is supper ready? Something smells good, and I’m starved.”

“It’s short-rib stew. As soon as the cornbread comes out of the oven we’ll be ready.”

He praised her daily for her attempts at domesticity, but he knew better than most that he owed his life to the skills she’d learned in the army, not the culinary skills she still struggled to perfect.

“The food will be great. I’ll go put another log on the fire before we sit down.”

She began setting the table as he moved the fire screen, threw another chunk of wood on the fire and put the screen back in place, pausing long enough to pet Moses, who was sleeping with his chin on his bone.

“Good boy,” Quinn said softly, then straightened up and moved to the window to look out at the snow.

He heard her footsteps as she came up behind him, and then smiled as she slid her arms around his waist and laid her cheek against his back.

“So, Christmas dinner tomorrow at your mom and Jake’s. Who knew all this would result in a wedding? I can’t wait. It will be my first Christmas ever as a member of a family,” Mariah said.

Quinn ran his thumb back and forth across the surface of her wedding ring, hearing the confidence in her voice. Her exploits were already legend in his family, and they loved her without boundaries.

He smiled. “It will be a constant state of chatter, football and kids underfoot. Do you think you can handle all that?”

“Are you kidding me? I kicked ass in a firefight and lost your rifle in a cave-in. A few dozen kids underfoot should be a breeze.”

He shuddered. She didn’t often mention what she’d gone through to save him, and when she did, he was always stunned by the bravery it had taken.

“I have something to tell you,” she said.

Quinn turned until they were standing face-to-face.

“I know what I want to do with my life,” she said.

He smiled. “You mean besides spoil me rotten?”

She laughed. “Yes, besides that.”

“So tell me.”

“Jake Doolen is going to help me train Moses. I want to do what he does, Quinn. I want to help find people who are lost.”

Quinn blinked as the contours of her face blurred through his tears.

“I think that’s a grand idea,” he said softly, and laid his cheek against the crown of her head.

“I’ve already talked to Moses, and he agrees,” she added.

Moses heard his name and looked up, and the expression on his face made them laugh.

“Supper’s ready,” she said.

Quinn slid an arm around her shoulders as they walked back into the kitchen and sat down to their meal while, outside, the snow continued to fall.

From the roof, the big owl suddenly took flight.

Moses lifted his head toward the ceiling, then looked into the kitchen and softly woofed, just so they knew who was really in charge.

* * * * *