Hot Shot Hero Hostage - Chapter 6
Sam flinched as another twig snapped beneath her foot. Damn.
She was short and relatively light, but she’d grown up chasing after her older, bigger brothers so she hadn’t had time to worry about being graceful. She’d been more concerned about being fast enough.
Strong enough.
Smart enough.
Good enough.
To be a McRooney. To honor her father, like her brothers had, following him into lives of service. The US Forest Service.
She’d followed her family there. But then she’d stopped following anyone and had started living her own life. She’d made her own success in her career even while her personal life had flailed.
Until she’d met Braden Zimmer, wearing nothing but a towel the first time she’d seen him. Her lips curved into a smile at the memory of her sexy husband. He had to be okay. This had to be just a trap to lure her out here.
Alone.
But was she alone? Earlier she’d heard rustling and the snapping of other branches as someone moved through the forest near her. Someone or an animal?
It had stopped now; she’d probably scared it off. So it must have been an animal. Or it was a person capable of moving more quietly than she was.
If it was a person, then this was a trick, and she was the one who might not be okay. But she was not helpless or unarmed. She tightened her grip on her Glock, her finger near the safety, ready to slide it off to fire if she needed to.
But first she needed to find Braden, to make sure he was all right. Somewhere, in the direction she’d been sent, she would find him, or at least that was what the texts claimed. That he was out here. That if she followed the texted directions, she would see her beloved husband again.
At the moment she wished she could see anything, but she didn’t dare turn on her flashlight or her cell and give away her location just in case that hadn’t been an animal she’d heard earlier.
She heard nothing now. And she saw nothing but the glint of her gun in the light of a few stars that twinkled high above the forest. Was she still on the path she’d been told to follow? If so, it had gotten narrower, because branches snagged the sleeves of her shirt and her hair, and another slapped against her cheek. She sucked in a breath at the painful sting, but she held back the curse that usually would have followed. That was something else she’d learned from her older brothers, how to cuss, but she also knew when not to do it.
Like now…
When someone might be out there, lying in wait for her.
Strong arms suddenly wrapped tightly around her, and despite her grasp on the gun, it was jerked easily away from her.
Even without her weapon, she wasn’t helpless. She refused to go down without a fight, so she threw her elbow back and wrestled within those strong arms. She fought for her life and for Braden’s.