Hot Shot Hero Hostage - Chapter 3

This had to be a mistake. Some terrible, terrible mistake. But Braden didn’t dare ignore the note, just in case he was wrong. He couldn’t take that risk with his wife’s life at stake.

So Braden had followed the directions left on that ripped-out piece of notebook paper on his desk at the firehouse. And here he was in Oregon. He’d flown in from Michigan with his team. But while they all headed inland toward where a wildfire raged in a national forest, he was headed for the coast.

His assistant superintendents, Wyatt Andrews and Dawson Hess, had sworn they could lead the team without him. While no one had asked why he suddenly needed time off, he’d seen the questions on everyone’s faces.

Especially on the face of Sam’s brother Trick McRooney.

Sam and Braden had asked Trick to join the Huron Hotshots team to find the traitor among them, the one sabotaging the equipment and endangering the team. Bringing in Trick had put the man in peril. Nobody on Braden’s team trusted him, and the saboteur had probably figured out the reason Trick had joined the team and was now trying to get rid of him.

Braden was pretty much the only one his brother-in-law trusted right now and rightfully so. That was probably no longer the case, though. As Braden had walked away from the team in the staging area outside the wildfire, Trick had looked at him as if Braden was betraying him.

And maybe he was. But he had to make sure he did everything the note directed, that he didn’t put his wife in any more danger than she was already in. And if that put her brother in more danger…

Braden would have to live with that.

Sam might not be able to, though, if she was all right. If nothing was really wrong.

If he’d tried to call her or reach out to anyone else to contact her, Braden wouldn’t see her again. That was the threat that had held him back from telling his team what was really going on, that had kept him from turning to them for backup as he usually would have. He’d had very strict instructions.

He had to go alone.

That was his only chance of seeing his wife again.

Braden was no idiot. He knew it was probably a trap, a ruse to get him off by himself. With no backup.

With nobody to save him. But himself.

If his wife had been taken hostage like the note implied, then he had all the backup he needed in his bride. Sam had helped save his life before, from that arsonist. Braden had no doubt she could do it again.

If she was still alive…

But he knew the statistics.

How rare it was for a hostage to actually be found alive.

He sucked in a breath as fear threatened to drown him, pull him under with all his doubts. She had to be alive.

He couldn’t imagine a world without Sam in it. He didn’t want to and, hopefully, wouldn’t have to. He pulled into the rest area where he’d been told to leave the US Forest Service truck. From here, he had to follow the direction pointed out on the map on the bottom of the note. Into the woods of the bluff high above the shore.

Would he find his wife where he was going? Or would he find a trap that would cost him not just his bride but also his life?