Nicole Helm - Wyoming Cowboy Marine

Her eyes snapped to his, sharp and on the offensive. “My life and his are none of your business. Poking into us isn’t help, Cameron .”

“No one calls me that.”

“Guess what? I do.” She squared her shoulders, somehow looking imperious and regal even though he was taller and broader and just so much larger than her small, narrow frame. “I’ll pay you to—”

“I don’t ne—”

“I’ll pay you to help me, mostly because I need transportation. But the money I’m giving you means I don’t have to answer any questions I don’t want to, and it means you go away when I say. I’m using you as a tool to help me find my father. That’s it.”

He eyed the shanty of a cabin. “You don’t have to pay me.”

“Those are my terms. Stay put.”

* * *

CAMERON MADE HER ACHE. It wasn’t an ache she fully understood. It twined around her much like when she was sick and wished someone would take care of her. There was this yearning for something she couldn’t fully grasp because she’d never seen it in action, only read it in the fiction books Dad used to bring her from his trips outside.

Dad. Missing. Dad, who would hate that she was taking help from anyone. But she needed help. It was Dad’s fault she needed help.

She strode into the shack, Free at her heels, though the dog looked longingly back at the big man in their yard. Longing. Hilly didn’t understand it, or what exactly she was longing for, but it was there regardless.

She tried to put it out of her mind as she forced herself over the threshold of Dad’s room. He didn’t like her in here unsupervised. She had her own tiny closet of a room after all, and he never invaded her privacy, did he? She was only allowed in here to monitor his security setup, or fix it if anything was buggy. To come in and snoop through his things? Unheard of.

But she had to force all those old rules out of her mind and habits as long as Dad was missing. She was an adult, and she could handle any disapproval she got from Dad as long as she brought him home.

Do you need to?

That internal question stopped her in her tracks. It echoed inside of her, and something desperate clawed at her chest. What if she just got to live her life her way?

No. No, she didn’t know how to do that. She went for Dad’s desk and pulled out one of his ledgers. He worked on them sometimes in the kitchen, so she knew he kept track of supplies bought, money in from the odd jobs here and there and money out on said supplies. And that he would stash cash in between the pages of said records.

She flipped through the first one, pulled out a few hundreds. She had no idea what the going rate was for a fake detective helper, but she’d offer Cameron a hundred up front. If he laughed, well, she could up it.

She glanced at the monitors set up across Dad’s desk. Cameras that kept watch on the entirety of the woods that surrounded the cabin. They were always taping.

She’d already gone through the footage of the day Dad left, and she’d watched what he’d taken and which direction he’d gone, but it didn’t tell her anything. Everything had been usual, ordinary.

Maybe she should show it to Cameron. Maybe he’d—

Her brain stuttered to a stop as two men appeared on the east side of the cabin. Men with weapons.

The front door opened, quiet and with just the tiniest creak she only noticed because she was holding her breath. She looked around the room quickly, but Dad had all of his weapons hidden away.

“Free, guard,” she whispered, but the dog laid happily by the bedroom door, tail swishing calmly. Today of all days her dog was completely failing at every command she usually followed unerringly.

But then Cameron stepped into the room. “Someone’s out there.”

He was warning her. She didn’t know what to do with that so she glanced back at the screen where she saw the two men slowly inching their way toward the cabin.

“They see you?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t think so. I heard them more than anything. I thought it could be your father, but two people seemed ominous.”

She pointed to the screen. “Friends of yours?”

He frowned at the two men on the video, studying them closely. He shook his head. “I know most everyone in Bent, or I did. Those two don’t look familiar. They’re armed, though.”

Again Hilly nodded sharply. In all their years here, in all Dad’s excessive surveillance, they’d never had unwanted visitors that Hilly knew of. She knew he had his reasons for being careful, and she’d never questioned them...to his face.

“You don’t know them?” Cam asked gently.

I don’t know anyone . But she didn’t say that out loud. She studied their faces, trying to find some detail that would give her an idea of what they were after. “Maybe my father sent them. To get me a message.”

“I don’t know that messengers would carry Glocks, or sneak around the woods outside your cabin.”

“You did.”

“I didn’t sneak, per se.”

She spared him a glance, but when he only smiled at her, she quickly turned her gaze back to the screen.

Free started to growl, low in her throat, as if she sensed or heard the approach. “Easy,” Hilly murmured.

“What are you going to do?”

“We’re going to wait. And watch.” She glanced around the room. The cabin only had two windows. One here, facing the west, and one in the front facing the east. “Go close the curtains in the front for me,” she ordered. “Lock the door.”

“Already locked,” he said, even now on his way out front to close the curtains. She watched the screen with growing alarm as the two men conferred about something, and then split up.

Cam returned and Hilly couldn’t think about how much her world had changed in just a few hours. Being in her father’s room, with a man , two other men sneaking around her cabin.

“You might want to get one of those firearms you’re so free and easy with,” Cam said grimly. “I don’t think a locked door is going to keep those two out.”

Hilly broke her gaze from the monitors. She quickly moved through the cabin, gathering the rifle and the revolver, before she returned to Dad’s room and Cameron.

A strange man in her father’s room. She couldn’t fathom it even as it was happening. “I also have shotguns,” she said.

He nodded. “Get them.”

After a brief hesitation, she handed him the revolver and the rifle before she strode to her father’s closet. She knew his shotguns were in a hidden compartment at the back of it, though she didn’t think her father knew that she knew that.

But he wasn’t here, and she was in danger. She turned to study Cam. Was she really going to trust this stranger?

When she heard a rattle at the door, she knew she didn’t have a choice.

Cam studied the unfamiliar guns. He had experience with a wide variety of weapons, so he’d figure them out no problem, but it was still strange to hold another man’s—or woman’s—weapon.

“Shells?” he asked.

“Everything is loaded.”

He raised an eyebrow at her as the rattling on the door became more pronounced. He had certainly walked into something , and completely unprepared at that. It wasn’t a particularly good feeling, but he wouldn’t let that show. He was a former Marine. He knew how to handle a few surprises.

“Who would be after you?” he asked, shoving the revolver in the waistband of his pants much as she had, and testing the weight of the unfamiliar rifle.

“No one,” she said flatly.

He gestured to all the security monitors. “People with this kind of security, loaded guns and refusal to give their names aren’t usually innocent bystanders.”