Vella Munn - The Return of Cord Navarro

For what seemed forever but couldn’t be, no one moved. She heard furious breathing and a grunt of pain that tore into her. It was all she could do not to jump into the middle of the battle, but what if something happened to her? Matt could be left with nothing-no one.

Finally, cursing, first one man and then the other two reached, not for Cord as she feared, but for Chuck.

“Leave me alone!” Chuck bellowed. “This ain’t none of your business!”

“The hell it isn’t,” the man called Elliott retorted. “It’s over, damn it. Over.” He wrapped his arm around Chuck’s neck and hauled him back. At the same time, Owen grabbed the rifle and wrenched it out of Chuck’s grip. It clattered to the ground near Cord; to her immense relief, it didn’t fire.

“The cops are on their way,” Owen rasped, his attention riveted on the rifle. “I can’t-Oh, God, I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Then I’m out of here,” Chuck insisted as he struggled to free himself from Elliott. “You guys will get your hands slapped. Me, I’m looking at jail time.”

Cord forced himself to his feet and stood with his legs wide apart, swaying slightly. “Where do you think you could go?” He took a deep, hard-won breath. “The sheriff knows about your plane. He’ll be looking for you. Everyone will be.”

“Not if I-”

“Didn’t you hear me?” she insisted. “There’s a helicopter on its way. You’ll never get away. You can’t-”

“Owen! Think, damn it!” Chuck snarled. “You want to be charged with attempted murder? If we get out of here, no one will ever -”

“You’re crazy. Insane,” Elliott interrupted. “Do you really think we’re going to let you dump this on us? Even if you somehow managed to disappear, the rest of us can’t. We’ve got businesses. Families.”

“Owen!” Chuck tried to jerk free. “Attempted murder? Do you want that?”

Owen’s rifle lay on the ground where Cord had thrown it, but he could reach it before anyone stopped him. In a strangely detached way, she wondered if she could place herself between Owen and Cord before he finished what Chuck had begun.

“I’m no killer. Never so much as hunted anything before this. I thought…thought it would…” Owen’s face contorted. “I almost shot a boy,” he whimpered, and kicked at his weapon. “I don’t ever-don’t ever want to touch that thing again.”

“You’re going to go to jail,” Chuck insisted. “And take me with you. Damn you, I-”

“Enough.”

Cord’s voice was like a cold wind on a hot day and instantly commanded her attention. How she couldn’t have noticed that he’d picked up Chuck’s rifle, she didn’t know. He held it with the barrel aimed at Chuck’s chest; despite what was wrong with the side of his head, he’d found the strength to keep it level. Something terrible and wild and dangerous came to life in his ebony eyes, and for the first time in her life she understood how fine the line could be between civilization and the law of the wild. By the other men’s reactions, she knew she wasn’t the only one aware of how close Cord was to crossing that line.

“You don’t want to do this, man,” Elliott said. At the same time, he released Chuck and stepped away from him, leaving the poacher to face the rifle alone. “You don’t want to kill him.”

Cord didn’t answer, but then she already knew he wouldn’t. He was aware of nothing and no one except Chuck. Although Owen had been the one who’d nearly hit their son, Chuck had shot at Cord and her ex-husband obviously held him responsible for everything that had happened. The same need for revenge that pulsed inside Cord lapped at her, and for a moment she wanted to be the one to put an end to Chuck.

But if she did-if Cord did-their son would know.

“No, Cord, no!”

His attention flickered toward her. When he blinked, she knew she’d reached him. “You can’t,” she said, speaking more softly now. “It doesn’t matter what he’s done, you can’t lower yourself to his level.”

“He’s been killing wild animals for years.”

“Let the courts deal with him. They might not be perfect, but they’re all we have.”

“I have this.” Cord indicated the rifle.

“If you use it, you’ll lose your son. You might spend your life behind bars.”

“My son,” Cord whispered as if the possibility of prison meant nothing to him. Then, while the others waited without breathing, he handed the weapon to her. She still had to fight her own desire for revenge, but the words she’d thrown at Cord were for her, too. After unloading the rifle, she tossed the bullets into the brush, grabbed the weapon by the barrel and swung it as hard as she could against the nearest boulder.

“What the -” Chuck began.

“Shut up.” Cord spoke without emotion. “Just shut up.”

Although he continued to glare, the fight went out of Chuck. Still, she was glad the men had grabbed his arms; that way she could dismiss him and concentrate on what really mattered.

Cord wasn’t staring at the men or her. He still looked as angry and untamed as she’d ever seen him, but after a few minutes, a little of the tension, or maybe it was his strength, seeped out of him. He no longer reminded her of an elk ready for battle. He was more like the man she might spend the rest of her life trying to understand.

“You need help.” She whispered because she could barely get her voice to work. “A doctor.”

“I’m fine. I hit my head on a rock, that’s all.”

“You’re not fine.” Ignoring the others, she gently pushed aside Cord’s hair so she could look at his injury. A ragged gash bled freely from his scalp; she could only pray he hadn’t sustained a concussion. With sudden, sickening clarity she understood that if the bullet had hit him, it would have killed him since it had been designed to bring down an animal weighing several times what he did.

“I’ll call Dale back and tell him to send along a paramedic,” she told Cord.

“I’m a paramedic,” he said with the slightest of smiles. “It stunned me, that’s all.”

Then, to her concern and relief, he sat on the nearest rock and lowered his head. With trembling hands, she rubbed the back of his neck until he straightened and looked at her. His eyes were clear, his pupils normal size. Still, more emotions than she could possibly contend with threatened to explode inside her, but until they did, she would act in a calm and responsible way.

She continued to watch the men out of the corner of her eye, but what they heard and saw and thought didn’t matter. If Chuck made a run for it, the others would either recapture him or not. If they didn’t, he might spend the rest of his life up here on the mountain because he didn’t dare come down to where law enforcement waited.

The primitive, vengeful woman who’d nearly lost the two most important people in her life hoped he would take off-unarmed and without so much as a match or handful of trail mix. He wasn’t Cord Navarro. He’d starve in country that could sustain Cord for as long as he needed it to.

“Mom?”

Matt had joined them and was carrying his father’s first-aid kit. With less than steady hands, she took it from him and removed what she needed to clean the gash. Much as she wanted to shield Matt from the sight of all that blood, it was too late. Besides, Matt wasn’t a little boy to be protected from reality.

“Dad? I’m sorry. You almost-”

“I’m all right,” Cord said softly, and she could tell that Matt believed him. “What about you?”

“Me? I was scared. When I heard that sound, I-”

“You did right,” she reassured him. Cord didn’t so much as move a muscle as she started working on him; maybe he wasn’t aware of his body, of her. “Exactly right.”