Carol Ericson - Delta Force Die Hard

“That’s all right, Mom. I’m exhausted.”

“I-is Asher okay? Do you think you can help him?”

Paige scooped in a big breath. “I do. I think I can help him.”

“All by yourself? Maybe you should come home, Paige. You don’t need this stress. Let the army handle it.”

“I can handle the stress, Mom. Don’t worry about me. It’s Asher who needs help this time, and I’m not going to abandon him.”

Her mother clicked her tongue. “Don’t push yourself. You don’t do well under pressure.”

After that comment, Paige ended her call with Mom sooner rather than later and stretched out on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

She’d better start doing well under pressure, because the only way to help Asher was to get him out of that hellhole and restore his memory of her...and their daughter.

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING after breakfast, Paige shook out a clean pair of jeans. She’d wear the same hooded jacket as yesterday, since it seemed to have kept her hidden in the forest. Those two goons had no idea she was hiding in plain sight.

Asher had been on that porch by himself after lunch, so she’d aim for the same time again. Would he follow her signal? Would he rat her out—just like he’d ratted out Denver?

At least nobody had come into the small town of Mooseville looking for her. If she could get back to that wooded area again, she’d be safe. She just needed Asher to trust her.

Could he trust a...stranger? She clutched the jeans to her chest and bowed her head. She and Asher could never be strangers. Her love for him soaked every pore in her body.

When he found out she was pregnant, he’d swept her up in his arms and swung her around and around, even though the pregnancy had been a surprise and she wasn’t quite...ready. He’d wanted nothing more than a family of his own...and now he couldn’t even remember he had one.

She wiped the back of her hand across her tingling nose. She had no time for tears and no time for Mom’s doubts. She had to rescue her man, if he’d let her.

After lunch, Paige parked her rental car in a turnoff on the main road, tucking it away and out of sight. As she hiked up the road to the access trail, she tilted back her head and studied the sky. The sun still shone through the clouds, enough for her to catch its beams with her mirror and signal Asher, as she’d done yesterday.

She ducked onto the access road and pumped her legs up the hill as the terrain grew more challenging. A steep angle and a few bushes didn’t faze her. She’d hike through fire and brimstone to get to Asher.

The trees became denser, but Paige had marked her way the day before and those bits of blue yarn guided her back toward the compound perched on the hill.

She located her lookout tree and jumped to catch the lowest branch. She swung herself up and clambered from branch to branch like a clumsy monkey to reach her perch.

She shrugged off her pack and pulled out the binoculars. She scanned the desolate lawn. Maybe the action perked up in the warmer weather months...or maybe this retreat kept its patients drugged up and chained in the basement. Clenching her teeth, she shivered.

Fifteen minutes later Asher rewarded her patience by appearing on the porch, taking the same chair as yesterday. She focused the lenses on him, and her heart filled with joy. He looked healthy, if...lackadaisical.

As she reached into the inside pocket of her jacket, the door behind Asher opened and a nurse stepped onto the porch.

“Damn.” Paige’s whisper stirred the leaves on the branch hanging next to her face.

Were they watching him now? They must’ve been watching him yesterday to notice he’d left the porch and loped across the grass.

Her jaw ached with tension and disappointment. She might just have to go through the front door and demand to see him.

She refocused on Asher and the nurse and pressed her lips into a thin line. Was personal massage part of Asher’s recovery?

The nurse, standing behind him, had her hands on his shoulders, massaging and rubbing him. Each time she reached forward, her hands slid beneath his jacket and moved against his chest.

Either Asher liked it or he was too zoned out to care. Each time the nurse’s hands slid farther and farther down his chest, working toward the inevitable happy ending.

Asher turned his head and said something, and she stopped. Had he gotten the feeling his fiancée was watching?

When the nurse retreated inside, Paige grabbed the mirror and caught the weak sun. She tilted it back and forth, and Asher raised his head.

He’d seen it.

Paige’s soaring spirits crashed a minute later when Nurse Grabby-Hands returned to the scene, this time pushing a wheelchair ahead of her.

Paige held her breath as the nurse helped Asher from the chair to the wheelchair. He listed to the side, and the large woman wrapped both of her arms around his body to right him. She kept her arms around him, putting her face close to his while talking to him.

Paige growled. “Get out of his face.”

The nurse tucked a blanket around his legs and aimed the chair down the ramp.

If Asher needed a blanket on his lap, he’d be too weak to accompany her through the forest and down the hill. Squinting into the binoculars, Paige tracked their progress across the lawn. The nurse pushed the chair with one hand, her other resting on Asher’s shoulder.

They made it about midway and stopped. Paige swore when she noticed Asher’s attire. He did have a jacket on against the cold, but he wore it over a hospital gown. No wonder he had a blanket draped over his lower extremities. He was in bigger trouble than Paige imagined and a sob burst from her chest. She’d never get him out of here like that...especially with Nurse Ratched hovering over him.

Suddenly both of their heads jerked in unison. The nurse turned to face the building with the porch where Asher had been sitting.

Paige swept her binoculars toward the building and zeroed in on a doctor standing and waving. Paige tracked back to Asher and the nurse on the grass. The nurse jumped to her feet and waved back.

Leaning over Asher, the nurse smoothed the blanket across Asher’s lap and tucked it under his thighs. Then she ran her hands over his chest before pulling his jacket closed. Finally, she turned and scurried back to the building.

Paige watched the doctor and nurse team go inside and shut the door behind them. She jerked the binoculars back to Asher and held the mirror up to the sun again, tilting it back and forth.

But what could he do in a gown and a blanket? He didn’t even have shoes.

Asher sat quietly for several moments, and then Paige’s heart slammed against her chest as he rose from the wheelchair. The blanket fell from his lap and he bunched it up and stuffed it into the chair. Then he shrugged out of the jacket and wrapped it around the blanket. From behind and from a distance, it might just look like someone slumped over in the chair.

Without looking behind him once, Asher took off in a jog across the lawn.

Paige stashed the binoculars in her backpack and scrambled down the tree. She hit the thick carpet of mulch just as she heard Asher crash through the trees.

“Are you here? Are you here? Paige?”

Her heart took flight. He remembered her. All he needed was to see her once.

“Here! I’m here!”

He emerged through the trees, the hospital gown flapping around his bare legs, a pair of socks the only barrier between his feet and the sharp needles and twigs that formed the forest floor.

She rushed to him. “Asher. Oh my God, Asher.”

He grabbed her hands and held her off from throwing herself in his arms.

“You’ve gotta help me. You’ve gotta get me out of this place...whoever you are.”