Nicole Helm - Wyoming Cowboy Marine

Nothing. Nothing at all. Which was just stupidity and she would not be stupid. That was what Dad would expect her to be. Too innocent and weak-willed to find him, to survive.

Well. She’d just have to find him and prove to him she could make choices, too. Even if it meant trusting an outsider.

She looked confused for a few seconds, then something like determination chased over her face. Too bad Cam didn’t know what she was determined to decide.

He finished wrapping the cut and picked his coat back up, pulling it on again. He ignored the shudder of cold that worked through him. “You’re worried about your father.”

“I am,” she said, chin lifting. “He goes away sometimes, but never this long.”

“And you don’t know where he goes?”

She paused. Not the kind of pause that preceded a lie either. That lost look in her eyes from the sheriff’s department stole through her once more, though she quickly hardened against it.

She was definitely young, but not that young. Early twenties, if he had to guess. She was strong enough to fire off a warning shot, kind enough to get him a bandage and smart enough not to give him her name.

No number of strange situations he’d found himself in as a Marine prepared him for this puzzle.

“I didn’t actually mean to shoot you,” she said, eyeing him. He noted it wasn’t an apology.

“I know.”

“How do you know?”

“If you’d meant to shoot me, I’d have a lot bigger hole in my arm. Clipping this close without doing much damage? That’s pretty much luck of the try-to-get-close-enough-to-scare shooting variety.”

She studied the bandage he’d tied off, then him. “And you know a lot about shooting?”

“Enough.”

“You want me to trust you for no reason, and then you’re evasive?” she said with such utter contempt he had to believe she’d been hurt before. There was a reason she and her father were tucked away here, and judging from the weapon she’d used on him and the one she’d carried with her, cash flow wasn’t the problem, or the only one.

Unless the guns were obtained illegally, which was always possible. Too many questions. Not enough answers. Mostly, she was right not to trust him and find his evasion lacking.

If he wanted to help her—and he couldn’t explain to her or, even worse, to himself, why he wanted to help her—he’d need to offer up some truths. Besides, offering truths to her was better than finding the answer to that question inside himself.

“My name is Cameron Delaney, though I go by Cam,” he began, trying to think what would be important for a scared young woman to know. “I grew up in Bent, Wyoming. If you’ve ever been there you’ve probably heard of the Delaneys. My sister was the deputy you spoke with. I was in the Marines for almost fifteen years, but I decided to come home last year and open a security firm. Hence the knowledge of guns and shooting them. Is there anything else you’d like to know?”

“Why?”

“Well, there aren’t a lot of security options in—”

“No, why did you leave the Marines?”

He had practiced responses to that question. Responses he’d given his family and friends. The rote answers weren’t coming right this second. He had to search for them.

“It was time.”

“Why?”

“It’s grueling, and I wasn’t...” Fit. He’d known he wasn’t fit for duty anymore. Not with Aaron’s suicide hanging over him. Not with that utter failure to notice, to help. He hadn’t been able to get past that.

“You weren’t what?” the woman demanded.

He owed her nothing. He could turn around and go home. He had all the choices in the world. But if he could help her... If he could help people, surely at some point it would make up for what he hadn’t helped.

“A man in my unit committed suicide.” His voice sounded rough and strained, and he wasn’t sure what he expected the woman’s response to be, but she only blinked. “I had a hard time coping after that.”

“They kick you out?”

“No, I was granted an honorable discharge.” Honor. What a laugh.

“If I let you help me, what’s in it for you?”

“Having helped,” he replied with all the sincerity he had.

“You don’t know me. What would helping matter?”

He shouldn’t be baffled or irritated by her pressing the issue, demanding some kind of proof he was a decent human being. She shouldn’t believe he was. She shouldn’t trust him. “Haven’t you ever helped someone simply because you could?”

“No.”

“It feels good. There’s a pride to having helped and having done the right thing.”

“So. You’re going to help me find my father. Then what?”

“Then I go about my life and you go about yours.” Assuming the father was missing under some kind of favorable circumstances. There was always the chance he was dead, or that he’d disappeared on purpose. Cam didn’t need to tell her that, though. Either she knew or she didn’t need the worry.

“Just because you want to help someone. Because it feels good.”

“You don’t believe me.”

She didn’t respond, but she looked at his arm. Even though he’d put his coat on, he had a feeling she was thinking about the fact she’d shot him. “How would you help?”

“I’d need some information about—”

She shook her head and patted her leg, the dog jumping to stand next to her. “No.”

“No... No?”

“No information.”

Something was so completely wrong here. People didn’t live off the grid for no reason, and he might have been able to chalk it up to some innocuous thing like environmentalism, but the woman’s evasion coupled with her utter lack of trust in a stranger meant all things pointed to shady .

“How can I help you find your father without information?”

She shrugged and started walking to the shack door. “I guess you can’t.”

“I have to know what he looks like. His name. Where he may have gone. I can’t wander around not knowing anything about the man I’m trying to find. If you don’t give that information to anyone, no one can help you.”

She stopped at that, her back still to him. She didn’t turn as she spoke. “I don’t think he goes by his name out there,” she said quietly.

“Out where?”

She sighed irritably and turned, making a broad arm gesture around them. “Beyond here.”

An uncomfortable chill shivered down his spine. Something was seriously wrong here. “What’s beyond here?”

“The outside world. That’s where he goes, and I don’t think he uses his name out there. Maybe that’s why the police couldn’t find records of him. He must use a different name.” Her eyebrows drew together, and she looked confused and definitely worried.

Whatever was off here, Cam had the sneaking suspicion this woman wasn’t part of it. She was in the dark about this “outside world.” Who talked about things like that? “And you don’t go into the outside world?”

Her brown eyes widened a little, but she kept the rest of her expression carefully blank. “I did today.”

“But that was rare. You don’t have transportation.”

“We have a horse.”

“But you don’t. Still, that helps. A middle-aged man on a horse. What are the names he answers to?”

She let out a shaky breath. “He wouldn’t want me to give out his name. He wouldn’t want me to have gone to the police.”

“But you did.” Cam couldn’t make sense of her fear, because it didn’t look like the kind of fear he’d experienced or seen. She had such a calmness, such a handle on it, and yet he could sense that what vibrated inside of her was fear. “How long have you lived here?”