Rescued (Navy SEALS Romance Book 1)

"
H
ey
, Taylor! Wait for us mere mortals!"

As if.
The call came from a good distance behind Taylor Adams, causing her to spin around and look back down the foothill she was climbing. Her friends were definitely a good distance off.

And this is my fault how?
They should be able to keep up with her. Taylor was twenty-four. Her friends were all in the neighborhood of twenty-four, certainly no older than twenty-six. It wasn't like she'd dragged them off their rocking chairs to make them hike with her.

"Screw 'em if they can't take a joke, right, Rover?" She jogged a couple yards up the hill. Her Labrador – named Monster, not Rover – just grinned and doggy jogged beside her.

The hike started that morning at the ungodly hour of six a.m. The path the seven of them – eight, if you counted Monster – started up was tan and dusty, running between scratchy bushes on her left (south, Jason kept saying tiredly, as though she was ever going to learn her directions) and willow bushes to the right (north, Jason insisted). They were heading west, the path curving around the hillside the scratchy bushes were growing on and it looked like they'd just go round that hill and keep meandering between hills. Not so much. The path did lead around the first hill, then lost its mind and started directly up the side of the next. And though the path never looked to do much more than rise a little – just a gradual rise, no big deal – in reality it rose up and up, and the incline was decidedly sneaky. They'd probably ascended more than five-hundred feet before the first person thought to wonder at the strain on the legs and the bit of heavy breathing most of them were doing.

As the day heated, they'd discovered the differences in their fitness levels. Jason, Taylor's buddy at the IT company where they worked – they called it Boring World, and they created financial systems for businesses that hadn't created their own – proved to be adorable, slim with carefully honed gym muscles and no aerobic endurance whatsoever. Taylor's best friend Jessie proved to be the closest thing Taylor had to competition on the hike. She was fit without being super thin, tall, moved easily, conserved energy, and had kept up with Taylor for the first four hours. But now it was nearing lunchtime and Jessie was back with Jason and the other four, two girls, two boys, all of them calling up to her to wait, hold on, don't go getting lost.

How am I going to get lost? I'm going
up
.
When it was time to go back, she'd go
down
. That seemed logical. And though she was moving through sections with vistas on one side and big fallen rocks on the other, all the tributary paths were minor compared to the main path. Long as she stayed on the main path, she couldn't get lost. That was like staying on one street while driving and getting lost. The ultimate destination might not be where you hoped to end up, but technically you weren't lost.

That was the theory, anyway. Taylor ran another few yards. She could feel the elevation in her lungs and in that curious way that made her body feel heavier rather than lighter. Fifty-three miles outside San Diego they'd arrived at the Palomar Ranger District in Cleveland National Forest. Inland, sunny and hot in the late September weather, the day was perfect but dry. Everyone had water, though, and most of them carried packs, with more water (and sun screen, insect repellent, lightweight wet weather gear, tiny first aid kits – maybe they were all getting older. She felt like creaking out, "In
my
day, children, we just went
outside
.")

The gained elevation on the path she was following snuck up on her, though. She thought they were on the Palomar Mountain path, heading straight up toward where there was an observatory or something at 6,000 feet plus.

Taylor's legs were designed for going up. She loved to climb, loved the burn in her quads and calves and she forced herself further up. She counted, sometimes, unknown to everyone else, counted each step and tried to push further on each ascent before she stopped for the first time to breathe. For the last hour, the ascent she was on was kicking her ass, but every so often the foliage thinned and she saw the valleys laid out below her and dug in again, heading upwards.

The party of friends behind her fell further away.

Her friends sometimes called her a loner. Taylor didn't think so. She just didn't have enough patience when everyone else wasn't at the same level she was, meaning level of enthusiasm or fitness or interest.

Besides, Monster was at the same level she was.

Taylor stopped again. The run broke up the lactic acid gathering in her leg muscles. She'd move more smoothly for a while now. She stopped, panting, hands on her thighs, gazing out at the amazing view and then, slowly, at the path she'd been coming up.

Her friends were nowhere in sight.

"That's OK," she said to Monster. "They're coming. They're just sloooow." But she didn't laugh at herself. She felt antsy and ill at ease with the group out of sight. She hadn't meant to leave them completely, she just wanted to enjoy the day without waiting for Jessie to stop worrying about snakes, and chipmunks which, right, might be plague carriers, but which didn't actually rush at anyone like tiny Kamikaze warriors; and without Jason making up for his lack of prowess on the mountain by burbling on about his skills in the gym.

She wasn't completely sure what was making her so antsy, though. She felt like running again, hard, maybe back down the path, which she would never do. It was hard to fall up. Running up the hill she'd just land on the ground and say
Ouch
. Running down the hill it would be easy to lose control and go tumbling.

Overhead a hawk imposed itself between the land and the sun. Taylor watched the shadow glide silently along the ground. Her movement had slowed significantly. If only everyone else would catch up.

The eerie feeling of being alone in the middle of nowhere wouldn't fade, though. Taylor whistled Monster back to her side. The black lab came wagging his Tail of Doom that swept tables clear and could probably level the forest. He was panting contentedly, tongue lolling, didn't seem footsore or exhausted. She'd been giving him water every time she had some. Her pack was lighter now and even if the others weren't ready when she found them, she was heading back to the trucks. There was supposed to be a Forest Service Ranger Station somewhere near though for all she knew it was on the opposite side of the valley she was looking out over. But there hadn't been any air traffic for hours and there was no sound at all of vehicular traffic. It was weirder than she'd anticipated, all the natural silence, and she was pretty much finished with the hike.

So maybe that was the only thing setting her nerves on edge: the natural silence. "Come on, Monster. Let's go find them and go home." An hour in a hot car sounded great. If anyone turned on the AC, she'd get out and walk. Because right now she was cold despite the warmth of the day and the fact it wasn't raining on the wilderness mountain the way guides said it frequently did.

Then why was she so cold?

Afraid. And ready to go. And she let go of Monster's collar because he'd lead the second she indicated the direction she wanted to take, and froze, heart pounding wildly, when the first of the screams filled the air.

Taylor went completely cold. Her thoughts splintered, each distinct as if someone else was thinking it. Shock made her feel like she was on the outside looking in at herself, at a herself that wasn't really her.

First thought:
Fuck, that is
way
too close.

Second thought:
What the hell is that?

Third thought:
Oh, my god, where's it
coming
from?

Fourth thought:
They're all around us.

Fifth:
What are?

And then, rapid fire:
Don't pretend. Don't even pretend you don't know what those are. They're all around. They're howling and yipping. They could kill a dog. They could kill me. I don't care about me, I can beat them off, I can use a stick – there is no stick – my pack, my –

"Monster!"

She froze, terrified. Monster bolted, just as frightened but ready to protect Taylor. The howling and yipping of the coyotes, so very close to where they were, sent him spinning up the path away from the direction where her friends might even now be coming closer. He raced up, away from her, paws churning the dry ground, raising clouds of dust. She saw him take the second tributary off the main path, because she could still see the first tan path, the sight of it unobstructed by the charging Labrador, but the second, she thought, the second and third were so close together but she hadn't seen a separate path when he took off so it had to be the second, had to be, she had to believe that because the instant he plunged onto it she could no longer see the path or the dry inland anything – only the dog's bedlam and breakage tail disappearing along a path into the woods.

And the screaming sound of coyotes barking at something, howling, yowling, crazed sounds that had always sounded to her like they were partying.

Until today. Today they just sounded like danger and horror.

"Monster!"

No response. Never was. She usually had him leashed, almost always, but he'd stuck by her all day today, and she'd thought –

"Monster!" as another chorus of howls and yipping filled the air, psychotic as any movie villain ever sounded.

"Come here!"

Same command she heard echoed by her friends, not quite in sight yet but shouting up to her to come back, come with, not yet understanding that Monster had run, calling her to them because they'd heard the coyotes too.

Taylor snapped. The freeze was gone. She moved faster than she could remember moving. She ran.

Uphill. Toward where she'd last seen Monster. Taking the right on the second of the offshoots of the path without paying attention, just relying on memory of where her dog had gone, Taylor ran hard, fast, kicking up dust, moving without even panting yet, to the source of the sound, the scream of the canines, the hysterical barking of Monster, who was probably trying to keep her safe as she tried to keep him safe.

As her friends tried, coming up too late to the party.

She moved fast and fluid. No ankles were turned on stones. No balance lost. Arms pumping, legs churning, because ahead of her there were coyotes, still unseen, sounding still like they were having the best time ever.

And the hysterical barking of the Labrador. Who might also feel that way.

Taylor didn't. Panic moved her. The voices of her friends fell away behind. Her legs moved in a blur. When she reached the first offshoot, she took it, plunging instantly into dark forest, feeling the sunlight cut out and the temperature drop dramatically. Calling for her dog.

And running faster when the coyotes abruptly stopped yapping.

T
hey were farther away
than she'd expected. Taylor was breathless when she ran through the last tight copse of trees and emerged into a shallow clearing to find the coyotes, a pack of them, circling Monster.

The Labrador looked nonplussed, not actually afraid but confused, like he'd arrived in the middle of a dog park to find mountain lions facing him. He looked back at Taylor when she stopped running as suddenly as she'd started, then planted his legs, faced the coyotes, and growled.

Her heart expanded like the Grinch's at the end of the Seuss cartoon. He was protecting her. He'd been doing nothing more than assessing what to him was a unique situation, but when she'd come up, he'd gone into protect mode.

She needed to do the same. Did she yell? Wave her arms? She didn't have a weapon with her. She'd seen no need to bring anything when coming with six other friends. Frantically she started trying to think what to scare them off with.

The fact of a human might be a good start. Coyotes were supposed to be essentially shy. She ran at them, flapping her arms, and felt Monster start to move after her. She shouted at him instantly, her voice sharp as a bark of her own. "Stay!" If the dog rushed them, they might react.

If a human rushed them, they might scatter if for no other reason than no other human had ever acted so insanely stupid.

The coyotes dropped back a couple paces and whined, heads down, studying her uncertainly.

Taylor clapped her hands, shouted at them to go, heard from much too far away the increasingly frantic sounds of her friends.

Her party was going the wrong way.

The party of coyotes wasn't moving.

Neither of those truths were particularly reassuring. Taylor made one more rush at the coyotes and this time they scattered, taking to their heels and heading what appeared to be over a Butch–and-Sundance-like cliff but instead was simply a steep and foliage-filled drop down to the valley floor. She moved closer to the edge, telling herself she wanted to make sure the wild animals were still retreating, but in reality she was curious about the drop, the same as anyone who'd ever peered out of a high rise or the Grand Canyon. Heights made her nervous and she met that fear by acting like they didn't. That was either behaviorism or stupidity. She'd failed Psych 101.

Didn't matter. The coyotes were halfway down the very steep, rather high mountain side, descending to the valley floor, and the view from where she was, of green valleys and green trees was astonishing –

Except? There was smoke.

Taylor swallowed several times, hard. "I am not seeing this," she told Monster, who moved up next to her and pressed his cold, wet nose into the palm of her left hand. "Do you see that?" she asked him, pointing with her other hand at the smudge against the sky. "Of course you don't. Because I don't either."

Except – she did.

"There's a fire station down there," she babbled at the dog. "That's what the Palomar Ranger District is all about. There are firefighters and it's OK, we don't have to do anything."

Except get out of here. And that was looking increasingly difficult. She could back out of the clearing, away from the edge of the drop, which she'd probably do automatically because, scary. But she didn't think she could reach anyone at the Ranger station, her reception had been crap since she'd gotten to the national forest, and she couldn't just let smoke go filling up the valley.

But she had to get out of here. She had to start shouting for her friends. She –

Call them. She could call her friends as easily as she could call the rangers. She could call her friends first, Jason, maybe, or Jessie, or Barb, the quietest in the group. Then there'd be more than one person pinpointing the fire, and the guys were better at directions than she was (in fact, they all were, guys and girls and Monster, too) and meanwhile they could find
her
as well as reporting the story.

Only when she pulled her phone out she had no reception at all. Abruptly she sank down to her haunches and wrapped her arms tightly around her legs. She'd been so cocky all morning, letting more and more distance grow between her and the others. Never in a million years thought –

Right. So that was unimportant. What was important now was what she was going to do about it. She had no reception, which meant no phone call about the fire or for help. And while the fire looked to be a good distance away, probably a couple miles as the Taylor estimated, it was moving fast. She could hear planes, probably coming to fight it, and hear distant vehicles, but none were anywhere near close enough to see her.

She had to get help. She had to tell someone about the fire.

And she had to get off the mountain.

"Monster, come on." But the minute she turned back to leave the clearing, she couldn't remember anything about her run there. It had been more than a couple minutes running through the trees off the main path and now, while she thought she knew which direction the main path lay in, she had no idea what twists and turns she'd taken. Where she thought she should be heading there were trees she didn't remember, tighter together than she thought she could have run through without noticing, and by noticing she meant
smashing into
and
hurting herself upon
.

Crap. She hated feeling like an idiot, and being dependent on someone else always made her feel that way. Maybe she didn't consider herself a loner – she liked people and their company after all, surely that meant she wasn't a loner – but she didn't like to depend on anyone other than Taylor herself. Weird childhood, strange family, strained relationship with her only sister, parents who moved around a lot, almost as much as a military family she'd heard it said. It had made her listen to her own counsel and march to the beat of her own drummer.

Unfortunately, more often than not, she marched the wrong way. The longer she searched the clearing for the way she'd come, the smaller and more claustrophobic the clearing became. It was only a little after 2:00 – no need to panic about nightfall yet, but she couldn't help it – she did not want to be lost in the woods after dark. With a fire starting in the valley.

That just sounded like a bad joke.

And if the coyotes came back? Even in broad daylight being face to face with them had made her skin crawl. Taylor loved animals. Most of the time. But the coyotes had threatened her dog. Monster had been the runt of a litter abandoned alongside the Pacific Coast Highway and she'd fallen in love with him during a summer working at the Humane Society. Adopting him had been the last thing she'd done at the end of her junior year of college when her boyfriend graduated, announced he had a girlfriend back in Pennsylvania and had all along and was leaving San Diego and going back there, see ya.

Monster had stuck with her. Of course she'd gone after the coyotes for him. Only now she was afraid they'd come back and since she hadn't hurt them the first time, only startled them with her antics, they'd assume she wasn't going to hurt them this time, either, and then she and Monster might both be in trouble.

If they weren't already. The sun was definitely going away behind the smoke. She couldn't pretend it was cloud cover. It was smoke coming from the fire she knew was burning down in one of the valleys. If planes went up to fight it, maybe she'd get their attention, but it seemed unlikely they'd make wide enough circles to come near her, and she couldn't bring herself to wish the fire closer just so the people would be closer too. She dropped to her knees and dug in her pack, looking for anything reflective she might use to signal. Her phone might work. It wasn't like she was carrying a compact or mirror on her hike.

"Help!" The fire was the last straw. She could feel stupid later about the whole getting lost on a straight path thing. "Jason! Jessie! Robert! Danny! Barb! Tess! Up here! Help! It's Taylor! I'm up here! Shout so I can hear you."

Only they couldn't hear her, it seemed. Because there was no returned shout. No sound of anyone coming. No sound of voices, raised or otherwise.

She wasn't carrying a flare and she'd be afraid to use it if she was. There was already one fire. If she had anything reflective she might try flashing a signal, but she didn't, and there wasn't much sunlight. Just smoke.

In a panic, she started shouting again, ranging around the clearing on panicky legs, searching for her own footsteps in the bone dry dirt. It was supposed to rain more often on Mount Palomar than in other parts of the region, but it hadn't rained in weeks from the look of it. She came to an abrupt stop and ran both hands over her face, breathing hard, the leash still clutched in one hand. Monster leaned close against her legs and whined, feeling her tension.

What if they didn't find her? What if they weren't looking? What if they assumed that old strike-out-on-her-own Taylor had already gone back down to the trucks and they'd just missed her somehow and she was surely there by now. They'd go down to find her only she wouldn't be there and then would they know how far back up to go to look?

How long would all that take? What if the late September sun went down and left her in the dark, with predators all around? What if there were lions as well as coyotes?

What about the fire?

She tried to calm her breathing and forced herself to drink a mouthful of water and give another to Monster. They weren't low on water. She was just panicking about everything. Because if she was here at nightfall, her friends would definitely have sent for help and wasn't she always hearing on the news that searches for lost hikers (she always found herself thinking
lost idiots
) had been called off at sundown and would be continued the next day?

Who would come looking for her, anyway? There was a fire burning. Would there even be anyone for her friends to contact?

And contact how? Her heart began to bang loudly against her ribs again. If her phone didn't work, did anyone else's?

Monster whined again, then stood up and put his paws on her shoulders and licked her face.

Which made her give a watery and unconvincing laugh but that was better than breaking into tears and she'd been halfway there. When Zach left, after they'd had three years together, lived together, she'd wanted revenge. She'd wanted to find someone ten times more fabulous than an English major going back to his hometown to teach. Fuck, he'd been pretty, blond and tan and lean and hard in all the right places with pale green eyes and long fingered hands that managed to reach all the right places. She'd wanted to come up with someone more beautiful, more rugged, more intelligent, with more money and more of whatever it took to make Zach realize he'd lost someone he couldn't replace, especially with whatever skanky no good bitch he'd gone back to. But a year had passed and there was hardly anyone in her life.

Except the Labrador standing with his paws on her shoulders, giving her a good long wet kiss, making her sputter and laugh and wipe her mouth. On his hind legs he would probably be taller than her five-two if he didn't have to lean his paws on her shoulders. Tall, dark and handsome – he fit the requirements to a T.

If only he came when called.

That made her giggle at the unintended double entendre. And that made her worry about sanity.

She started shouting again and didn't stop until she was hoarse.

There was no answer.