Hot as Sin (26 page)

Hands clamped down over her windpipe and she gasped for air. She needed to find a way to get away from this man and go get help for Sam.

If he was still alive after his fall. If she could even find him
.

As she struggled to fight her way out of the man’s strong grip, her mind, her heart, and her body were all revolting at the thought of Sam dying.

From the first moment she’d met him, he’d been larger than life. After all the risks he’d taken in his life as a hotshot, after all the fires he’d outrun, she refused to believe that Sam could die like this.

He had to be alive. She’d know if he were dead, wouldn’t she?

Or was that just a lie she had to tell herself so that she could keep going without him? Especially when after ten years of stubbornly denying their love for each other, she’d known in her gut that they were on the verge of a new start.

Not a terrible ending.

The man’s fingers clenched tighter around her neck and chills overtook her at the same time that her vision darkened.

“Don’t pass out on me now, bitch,” the man growled, removing his stranglehold on her neck just in time.

Taking in huge gulps of oxygen, when the fuzzy black dots finally cleared from her vision, she realized she was looking straight into the barrel of his gun.

“Big tough guy like that, you’d think he would have put up more of a fight. But I picked the perfect spot,” the man bragged. “There’s no way he could have survived the fall. Serves him right for being in my way. Always protecting you. Now that I’ve gotten rid of him, you’re all mine.”

A thick, murky fog came at her, swirling into her head, threatening to take her down. She’d fainted only once before when she’d worked too many hours under hot lights without a break and this was exactly how she’d felt before she dropped.

“Get up.”

Everything was spinning as she rolled onto her hands and knees. Bile rose in her throat and somehow she held it down, instinctively knowing better than to show her fear.

Pulling herself to her feet against the rock face, she turned to look at him. His cold, glassy eyes, his twitching mouth, and his shaking, white-knuckled hands told her just how unhinged he really was.

She’d never seen anyone look so angry. So deadly.

“What do you want with me?” she finally managed to croak from out of her bruised throat.

“You killed my brother.”

She stared at the stranger in disbelief. What was he talking about?

“I’ve never hurt anyone,” she immediately protested. “You must have me confused with someone else.”

He shook the gun at her, his finger poised on the trigger.

“Oh no, I know exactly who you are. Big, fancy TV star. Everyone wanted a piece of you at the hospital. But nobody gave a rat’s ass about my brother.”

He’d been at the hospital? Something sparked in the back of her mind, but the temporary lack of oxygen was still playing havoc with her synapses.

“Jacob is dead because of you. And now you’re going to pay.”

He practically spat the words at her and she recoiled at the force of his fury.

“I swear to you, I don’t know anyone named Jacob.”

But he wasn’t interested in her claims. “Turn around and start walking,” he said, shoving his gun into her ribs.

Temporarily out of options, she did as instructed. Was it at all possible that this guy was some whacked-out fan of hers who had gone off the deep end after his brother died? Had he somehow manufactured an imaginary scenario where she’d killed his brother and that’s why he was calling her a murderer?

And if so, did she have any chance at all of getting him to comprehend the real situation?

Several years back, when she’d been working as an assistant on one of the shows at her station, she’d heard a near miss rape victim describe how she got away from her captor. She got him to talk about his life, about why he was doing something so horrible, and ultimately, he let her get away.

Praying that a similar tactic might work for her, she said, “I’ve got a sister and I know how hard it would be for me if anything happened to her. I’m truly sorry that your brother died and I know everyone else is, too.”

But instead of softening, the man shoved the gun into the small of her spine even harder.

“Do you think I give a shit that you’re sorry? Do you think I even believe you, you lying bitch? You walked away with a couple of bruises, while my brother is dead!”

I walked away with a couple of bruises?

A few short moments later, it hit her. This crazy man was talking about the car crash.

Her hand went to her mouth in horror. “Are you saying that your brother was driving the other car?”

“Of course that’s what I’m saying. You were too busy with the reporters to give a shit about my dead brother.”

His bitter accusation made her stumble. He caught the back of her shirt in his fist before she fell.

“I swear to you,” she said again, “the crash was an accident. And I did care about what happened to your brother. When the doctor told me he died, I was horrified. If I could change what happened to bring your brother back to you, I would.”

“Bullshit! You’re rich, you’re famous, you think you’re so important. You were probably putting on lipstick instead of paying attention to the road.”

All of his accusations were false, but telling him the truth wouldn’t help. Not when he’d already tried and convicted her in his own mind.

Her brain whirred as she tried to think of something—anything—she could say to sway him. Then he said, “I’m going to make sure you pay for what you did to my brother. And I’m going to use your precious little sister to do it.”

She gasped, momentarily forgetting about the gun and swinging around to face him.

“You’re the one who kidnapped April?”

“You might be pretty,” he taunted, “but you sure aren’t smart, are you?”

He thought she’d killed his brother. Of course he’d abducted her sister. April was the perfect means for revenge. April had said some guy grabbed her in the hospital’s parking lot.

This was the guy.

Pure rage replaced fear as all of the fierce protectiveness Dianna had ever felt for April swelled up and filled her, head to toe.

“If you’ve hurt her, I’ll—”

Her threat was cut off by the slamming blow of the gun against her cheekbone. The force knocked her against the rock and she might have fallen off the edge of the trail just like Sam if the man didn’t grab her by the hair on her way down.

“If you haven’t figured out by now, you can’t do a damn thing to me,” he said. “I’m the one who’s in charge now. None of your money or fame means a damn out here.”

His eyes held a strong glimmer of satisfaction. “So move the fuck forward or I’ll shoot you right here and you’ll never see your sister again.”

Visions of April being hurt by this man and then another of Sam falling down the steep cliff assaulted her. Dianna’s heart clenched with grief.

The guys on Sam’s hotshot crew used to joke that he was superhuman, able to outrun a ball of flames in a single bound. Somehow she needed to keep believing that if anyone could survive a fall off the trail, it was Sam.

She could almost hear him telling her,
“Don’t worry about me. Just concentrate on staying alive. I’ll come for you. I promise.”

As the man pushed her farther down the trail, she tried to think what she could possibly offer this man that would make him back down. Practically, all she had was money. But even though she knew that nothing could ever bring his brother back, she still had to give it a shot.

“Let April go and I’ll pay you whatever you want.”

She heard harsh laughter behind her. “I knew you’d say that. Rich bitch like you probably thinks she can buy anything she wants. I’ll bet you’ve never had to work an honest day in your life. Not like the rest of us.”

“You’re wrong about me,” she told him, even though she knew he wasn’t going to change his mind. “I’ve worked hard. Really hard. To provide a good life for my sister. That’s why I understand how you’re feeling.”

He shoved the gun even harder into the soft spot beneath her ribs. “Your money won’t bring Jacob back.”

“Please, just let her go and I’ll give you anything you want,” she begged, wanting to make herself perfectly clear. “Anything at all.”

“You stupid slut. I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last cunt on Earth. Now shut up and keep moving.”

With his gun at her back, she had no choice but to continue moving down the narrow trail, farther away from Sam, but, hopefully, closer to her sister.

She wanted him to think she’d given up, but she hadn’t. Not by a long shot. Every moment, she looked for an opportunity to escape. So when the narrow trail finally intersected a much wider dirt road, figuring it was her best chance to make a break for it, she went for a move she’d learned in self-defense class.

Kicking behind her, she nailed him in the kneecap with the sole of her shoe, then ran as fast as she could.

The sound of a gun exploding pierced her ears and she instinctively threw herself to the ground.

Quickly realizing the bullet had missed her, she scrambled to get back up, but before she could get back on her feet, his hands were yanking her hair and he was pulling her across the dirt.

“You tricky little bitch. You’re just like your sister. Don’t you dare fuck with me again or I’ll make sure not to miss next time. Your fans might not think you’re so pretty with half your face blown off.”

He shoved her forward with his boot and she realized she was looking at a black tire.

“Get on the bike,” he said, pointing to a dirt bike parked in the bushes just off the dirt road.

Finally accepting that the most important thing was to get to April in one piece—and praying the two of them would be able to come up with an escape plan once they were together again—Dianna straddled the leather seat while he shackled her arms and legs to the bike with sharp, thin chains that cut into her skin.

Although she tried to mentally prepare herself for his touch, she couldn’t stop from shivering with revulsion when he got on the bike behind her and said, “You took my brother from me. I can’t wait for you to watch me take your sister from you.”

———

His body throbbed in a dozen different places, but Sam barely noticed. All he’d been able to think during his long fall was that he’d left Dianna completely at a stranger’s mercy.

Up on the mountain trail with no supplies, with nothing to protect herself with, who knew what the crazy bastard would do to her, if he’d pull a gun and rape her?

Thoughts of losing Dianna threatened to overwhelm him completely, even though any hotshot worth his turnouts knew how to keep going, even when a wildfire turned into a clusterfuck.

On the day Connor had been burned, he’d managed to get right back out on the mountain to fight the wildfire, he knew he had it in him to ignore the sharp pains shooting through him head to toe. He needed to get back on that trail and save Dianna, goddammit.

Slowly activating one painful muscle group at a time, Sam pulled himself upright, letting lose a stream of guttural curses into the otherwise silent forest. It was almost as if the birds and animals knew something bad was going down and had decided to stay hidden until the danger passed.

Incredibly, he hadn’t passed out. Fifty feet, at least, of crashing into boulders and tree stumps and thorny bushes and he’d felt every goddamn thing. If it weren’t for the mock-orange bush that had stopped his fall, he’d be as good as dead. He was going to plant a fucking grove of it when he got back to Lake Tahoe.

His pack was still strapped to his back—he figured it had probably kept his back from breaking—but the fabric was almost completely shredded. By the slight weight of it as he shifted, he guessed it was pretty much empty. He’d have to make do without his first-aid kit and the extra food, water, and supplies.

All Sam had left to work with was a pocketknife and a handful of flares that remained in his cargo pants’ pockets.

Grabbing a thick tree trunk, he pulled himself upright, fitting the toes of his boots into crevasses between the rocks.

It was slow going up the mountain. His joints screamed in agony. The lacerations on his head and face stung as sweat dripped into them. With each painful bit of progress, he called on his years of extreme wildfire training, pulled from every deadly situation he’d ever made it out of alive.

Sam had risked his life a hundred times over for strangers. This time he was giving everything for the woman he loved.

Finally, his fingers hooked over the edge of the trail. So far, he’d been able to use the muscles in both his upper and lower body together, one compensating for the other when needed, but now he had to rely on his upper body alone to hoist himself up onto the ledge.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and put himself deep in the zone, a place where pain was irrelevant, where all that mattered was that his body obeyed his brain.

Three, two, one—up!

Sam’s biceps and triceps shook and his left shoulder hurt like a mother, but he got himself up on the ledge, belly down, and lay there until he caught his breath, then crawled on his hands and knees to solid ground, leaving a trail of blood and sweat behind him.

Pulling himself to his feet, he leaned heavily against the cool rock on the inside of the trail.

He was worse off than he wanted to admit.

One step at a time, one foot in front of the other, was how he was going to have to do this. At least their footprints were clearly marked in the mud. Thank God at least one thing was on his side.

The first quarter mile was the hardest. Sam felt like a newborn foal just learning to walk—stumbling, tripping, then picking himself up and trying again.

It was impossible to ignore the shooting pains through his right knee and the left side of his hip, so he gave in to them instead, letting the pain fuel his rage, along with his determination to find Dianna.

Finally, Sam picked up speed, managing to find his rhythm on the trail, even though he was moving a hell of a lot slower than he usually did. It helped that he didn’t have a hundred-and-fifty pound pack. Without any sort of vehicle, he wouldn’t overtake them, but he held tight to the hope that he wasn’t too far behind.