Barb Han - Ransom At Christmas

Keep this up much longer and the law of probability said that even a bad shot would hit his target given enough time and opportunity.

Will needed a plan.

As far as he could tell he was dealing with a lone shooter. His own shotgun was strapped to Domino.

An old treehouse was up ahead around a hill. Maybe he could make it there.

Dodging in and out of trees was slowing his pace. Carrying Kelly was no problem after doing the same for a wounded soldier wearing sixty pounds of gear through mountainous terrain in hundred-plus temperatures.

Of course, he was older now and not nearly in the same shape. His stamina wouldn’t hold out as long. All those factors had to be considered.

Getting to Domino safely without risking a wild shot hitting his horse was risky.

Will didn’t like it, but his only option was to get Kelly out of the woods and to the medical attention she needed. The slurred speech might be caused by blood loss.

But then what? an annoying voice in the back of his mind asked.

STAY AWAKE. STAYING ALERT was Kelly’s highest priority. She hated being in this position, feeling like a victim. There was nothing worse than a feeling of helplessness, but it was taking all the strength she had inside her to stay awake and fight the darkness weighing down her thoughts.

Her mind zinged back to when she was a teenager. It had been two days since her thirteenth birthday had officially ushered her into her teen years. Kelly woke with a cramp in her side that made her double over and left her rocking back and forth in pain.

Her mother walked in after working her shift at the hair salon and gasped when she saw her daughter on the floor. Her appendix had almost burst and she’d been cramping so hard she could barely walk.

“Why didn’t you call me?” her mother had asked.

“I thought it would pass,” Kelly said weakly, in between blowing out breaths to try and manage her pain. She’d done everything she could think of in order to distract herself.

Before she could blow out her next breath, her mother was helping Kelly to her feet.

“I’m taking you to the hospital,” she’d stated and Kelly had heard the panic in her mother’s voice. She had immediately known that she must have looked awful based on her mother’s expression.

After her mother had managed to get her buckled into the passenger seat of the family sedan, Kelly saw how much her mother’s hands were shaking on the wheel. It took three tries for her to get the key into the ignition. Her mother let out a few choice words, glanced her daughter’s way and apologized, before finally finding the hole and starting the engine.

Kelly must’ve been in bad shape because her mother kept repeating, “Stay with me, baby.”

Pain threatened to drag Kelly under and hold her in the current, pulling her further out to sea. Then there were tires squealing as her mother stomped on the brakes in the ER bay. The sun was out, brightening the sky, and would be for hours before plunging into the western landscape. It was an unusually hot afternoon even for August in Texas.

People rushed toward them and then Kelly was being placed on a gurney and wheeled into the hospital. She remembered the rectangles on the ceiling and the bright fluorescent lights. The sound of doors opening and closing while a male voice shouted orders.

She didn’t remember how long the nurse told her she’d been out when she woke from surgery. There was a recovery room and the strangeness of fading in and out. And then suddenly her mother was there.

It didn’t strike her as odd at first that her father was nowhere to be seen. It should have, because he was the family’s rock. Her first thought was that he’d been held up in traffic. Then she’d realized it was Sunday—Sundays were for fishing.

There shouldn’t be any traffic. But still, she reasoned that it would take time to dock the boat and load it onto the platform before driving the boat home. Would he go straight home to drop off the boat? Based on her mother’s panicked expression, Kelly thought he would rush straight to the hospital.

There was no sign of her brother, either.

And then it dawned on her that an eight-year-old most likely wouldn’t be allowed near the surgery area. Her dad was probably in the waiting room with Kellan, feeding a vending machine a few quarters to give him a snack. Her brother had been on a growth spurt and there wasn’t enough food to keep that child satisfied lately.

“Hi, baby,” her mother had said and then her chin had quivered. Her voice was shaky.

Before Kelly could respond, her mother burst into tears.

“What’s wrong?” The words finally came. Her mouth was as dry as west Texas soil in a drought, so she choked when she tried to speak.

Her mother shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

Her words were strained and a knot immediately formed in Kelly’s stomach. She thought there was something terribly wrong with her, like the doctor had found an incurable disease.

And then a few moments later, when her mom said the words that changed both of their lives forever, her father and baby brother had been killed in an accident on the way to the hospital to see her.

Kelly wished she was the one to die.

All Kelly remembered was rolling onto her side and crying herself to sleep. She didn’t want to wake up. Didn’t want to get out of bed. It was as if a heavy weight pressed down her limbs, her body. She was powerless. Helpless.

It had been the worst feeling in the world.

Another bullet pegged a tree near Kelly’s head, shocking her thoughts back to the present.

Anger roared through her. No one got to make her feel that way again.

She cringed and gripped the cowboy as tightly as she could. He was strong and fast, but not even he could run forever while carrying her.

He was zigzagging through the woods, sometimes making a turn just in the nick of time to dodge a bullet.

His fluid movements and ability to cut left or right like momentum didn’t exist reminded her of the best cutting horse she’d ever seen. Denny.

If anything happened to him she’d be to blame.

“Put me down and get out of here,” she squeaked out. Her heart couldn’t take another person dying because of her.

“What?” The cowboy was barely winded.

“No sheriff.”

She tried to form more words but darkness silenced her.

Will bolted through the property, carrying dead weight in his arms.

Kelly’s body had gone limp.

The shooter had disappeared.

Will rounded the base of Horseshoe Trail, a popular riding trail among visitors to the ranch.

Kelly’s last words spoken before she lost consciousness perplexed him. Why no sheriff? There was a man trying to kill her and now, by extension, him. Hell yes, he was calling the sheriff. Zach McWilliams was not only a damn fine lawman, but he was also Will’s cousin. They’d grown up close. Zach had spent a good bit of his childhood on the ranch and every summer he’d come to live with them while his parents worked. He was more like a brother than cousin and that’s exactly how Will knew he could be trusted.

Innocent people didn’t run from the law, but there was nothing else about Kelly that made him think she was a criminal. Either way, he wanted to get to safety and find out what she was talking about before he made the call.

Figuring it was safe to circle back to Domino now, Will took a couple of right turns and made as little noise as possible as he navigated the journey toward his horse.

Carrying Kelly for the past hour caused his arms to burn. Domino was a good twenty-minute walk from Will’s current location. The walk would give him time to clear his head and focus on his next move.