Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Cowboy D-Force (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Brotherhood Protectors Book 4) (8 page)

“I’ll let you know when we get there.” She glanced around. “Right now, I’m as hungry as a horse.” She patted Hollywood’s neck. “I think we’re starting to bond.”

Hollywood tossed his head and backed away a step.

“Fine, we’re not bonding. At least he hasn’t tried to dump me off the side of a cliff and run back to the barn. I call that progress.”

Duke chuckled and slapped her bottom.

“Hey!” She rubbed her backside. “Why don’t they make saddles cushioned?”

“They wouldn’t last very long.”

“Yeah, well they should.”

With a smile on his face, Duke pulled out sandwiches he’d packed in the saddle bags and handed her one.

She ate standing, refusing to settle onto a nearby boulder.

“Have you seen any signs of a tail?” she asked.

Duke shook his head. “No signs yet. I’m hoping he won’t be that close behind us. It will give us time to get to the cabin first and set up some early warning devices.

She nodded, chewing as she looked around. “This would be nice if we weren’t on a mission.”

“Perhaps when this is all said and done, we’ll be allowed to come back for a real vacation.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Duke realized what his words implied. He wanted and expected to continue to see Angel after his two weeks of bodyguard duty ended. But that might not be the case.

“Are you headed back to Hollywood at the end of the two weeks?” he asked.

Angel finished off the last bite of her sandwich and wiped the crumbs off her hands onto her jeans. “I don’t know. I’m not sure how many more stunts my body can withstand.” She smiled at him over her shoulder. “I’m not getting any younger.”

Duke stepped behind her and circled her waist with his arms, pulling her back against his front. “You make yourself sound old. What are you, twenty-seven?”

“See how much you know. I’m twenty-nine. I’ll be thirty in three months.”

“Ever think of staying in Montana?”

She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Hadn’t crossed my mind. But I can see why people like it here. It’s beautiful.”

“Yes, it is.” He kissed her temple. “Beautiful—”

The sound of a branch snapping made Duke freeze.

Hollywood whickered and tossed his head.

Duke’s horse answered and pulled against his reins tied to a tree limb.

Duke shoved Angel behind him and drew his pistol from the holster on his hip.

Angel drew her weapon, too, and backed toward a tree. She held on to Duke’s shirt, leading him back with her until they were both near enough to duck for cover.

“Are we being paranoid?” She stood beside him, facing the opposite direction.

“Hell, no.” Now that they were out in the woods, just the two of them and one sick bastard preying on them, Duke was rethinking his assertion that he and Angel could handle this guy on their own.

At least not yet. They weren’t in a defensive position, nor could they see the enemy coming. Until they had a clear view field of vision and fire, they were still on the prey side of the equation.

Silence reined, and the horses settled. Nothing moved but the swish of the horses’ tails.

“Ready to move on?”

Angel nodded. “Ready.”

“Think you can mount on your own?”

She bit her bottom lip, and then squared her shoulders. “Yes. Remember Hollywood and I have an understanding.”

“Then let’s get moving. I want to get set up long before dusk.”

“Agreed.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Angel waited while Duke strode quickly across the clearing to the where the horses were secured. He untied both sets of reins and walked the horses back to the trees. He looped the reins over Hollywood’s neck and held the bridle while Angel mounted. Once she landed in the saddle, he swung up on his horse. “Lean over the horse’s neck. You’ll make less of a target.”

She nodded.

He nudged his horse into a gallop and raced to the path.

Hollywood followed, easily keeping pace.

Angel held onto the saddle horn, leaning close to the horse’s neck.

Once they rounded a bend in the trail, Duke slowed his horse to manage the winding trail to the cabin.

Within another hour, they arrived at the cabin, quickly dismounted and unloaded the duffle bag from the back of Duke’s horse.

Angel managed to dismount on her own and led the horse to a small corral several feet away from the cabin.

Once inside, Duke pulled all of the cans off the shelf and handed them and a can opener to Angel. “Open them halfway and empty the contents.”

While she did that, he hurried to a nearby creek, with one of the cooking pots and scooped up pebbles from the creek bed.

When he got back to the cabin, Angel had all of the cans empty and had started poking holes in the sides with a pocket knife.

His heart swelled. He hadn’t had to tell Angel what he was doing with the cans. She’d instinctively known.

Duke strung them together with long lengths of fishing line. Angel poured a few pebbles into each can and bent their lids closed.

When they were done, they carried their makeshift, early warning system out twenty yards deep into the woods around the periphery of the camp. Crouching in the brush, they watched and listened for several minutes for sounds of movement.

When Duke was as certain as he could be that they were alone, he strung the cans between the trees, setting the fishing line just high enough off the ground it would catch a foot passing through.

Once they’d strung the lines all around the perimeter, Duke and Angel returned to the cabin.

“You know we can’t stay here, right?” Duke handed her a radio headset and settled one on his head.

She slipped the radio on and tapped the mic. “I know.”

He could hear her voice through the radio in his ear and it made him a feel a little better about positioning themselves on either side of the clearing.

He whispered into the mic, “There are bears and wolves in these woods.”

Angel nodded, acknowledging that she could hear him through the radio, and then patted her handgun and lifted one of the M4 rifles. “We’ll be ready. The early warning system will warn us about two and four-legged creatures.”

He held up a hand for a high-five. “Let’s do this.”

She slapped his hand.

He grabbed hers and pulled her close. “Don’t be a hero, and keep your head down. It’s not often I find a woman who speaks my language and looks as good as you do in body armor.”

“You’re not so bad yourself. I don’t suppose you’d consider going out on a date with me when this is all over?”

Duke closed his eyes and heaved a sigh. “There you go, being all macho. I’m supposed to ask
you
out.”

“We’re in a bit of a hurry, and you took too long.” She held his hand up to her cheek. “It was a yes or no question.”

“Yes.”

Her face blossomed in a smile. “Good. Now that we have that settled, let’s catch us a bad guy.”

Duke shook his head. “I’m glad I never had a problem taking orders from a woman. In fact, I kind of like it when you order me around.” He pulled her into his arms, guns and all and kissed her.

She returned the kiss with equal force and passion.

When they broke apart, she stared at him, her smile gone. “Do me a favor and don’t die on me, will you?”

His heart pinched hard in his chest at the look in her eyes. “I’m going to be around for a long time. I have a date with a pretty girl. I refuse to disappoint her.”

D
uke left
the cabin through the front door. Angel waited a minute or two and sneaked out the back door, and then ducked into the brush. Once in the shadows, she stuck leaves and strands of grass into the back of her shirt and in her hair and smeared dirt on her face.

When she was sufficiently camouflaged, she worked her way around to the position she and Duke had agreed would be hers. There, she burrowed into the leaves and brush, careful not to point her weapons in Duke’s direction. “In position.”

“In position,” he responded.

Angel lay with her rifle ready, her pistol within easy reach and waited.

Minutes passed into an hour. She shifted slightly several times, to keep her arms and legs from falling to sleep. Just when Angel began to think the joke was on them and their stalker wasn’t that interested in following them into the mountains, Duke spoke in her ear.

“I’m going to the cabin to light a lantern.”

“I’ve got your back,” Angel said.

Duke slipped around the edge of the perimeter to the trail leading in from the creek. He emerged as if he’d been at the creek all along and was on his way back to spend the night in the cabin.

Angel held her breath until he entered the cabin. She released her breath, thankful he’d made it into the cabin and no shots had been fired.

A minute went by, then another.

Alternating her attention on the cabin and in the direction of the path leading up the hill to the clearing where the cabin stood, she almost didn’t see the arrow until it arched toward the cabin roof.

For an instant, she wondered what the hell an arrow was going to do against a solid wood cabin. Then it hit the roof and an explosion blew out the windows and knocked the door off its hinges. Smoke and flames rose from the structure, billowing into the air.

Angel gasped and started to rise.

The rattle of pebbles in cans alerted her to movement near her.

She swung her rifle in the direction of the noise in time to see what appeared to be a shaggy bush hunkered low, moving through the brush fast, heading toward her position and zigzagging back and forth.

With her heart lodged in her throat, not knowing whether Duke had made it out of the cabin before the explosion, Angel zeroed in on the bastard and pulled the trigger.

As the bullet left the barrel, the attacker dodged right, raised a camouflaged rifle and aimed at her.

Angel fired again, hitting him in the arm as he fired a round.

A bullet whizzed past her ear and hit the tree behind her, sending chunks of bark showering down on her.

The man hit the ground with a grunt, rolled over with his weapon and aimed directly at Angel.

She flung herself to the left at the same time as a shot rang out. Landing hard on the butt of her rifle, she gasped as pain shot through her rib. For a moment, she thought she’d been hit, but she didn’t care. The bastard had to die, or he’d kill her.

She rolled over several times to get away from her previous position and behind a log lying on the ground. When she stopped, she glanced over the top of the log.

Her attacker had assumed a kneeling position, his weapon aiming toward the log behind which she hid.

“You’re nothing but a cold-hearted bitch, Lena Love.”

“Is that right, Myles?” Angel called out, betting on the attacker being Lena’s ex-boyfriend. “You think you’re some big bad hunter, but all you’ve ever done is kill caged animals.”

“You hired a bodyguard to protect you, but I killed him, too.”

Angel’s stomach knotted. She refused to believe Duke was dead. He’d promised to go out on a date with her. A Delta Force soldier’s promise was sacred. He’d keep it, damn it. She blinked her stinging eyes. For a moment, silence filled the air. In the distance, the hum of an aircraft engine echoed through the mountains, and smoke drifted through the air.

Duke had yet to turn up, leading Angel to believe he could be dead or dying in the burning cabin. She had to do something to force Myles’s hand and get this over with so that she could find Duke.

“Hey Myles, were you afraid my bodyguard was better in bed than you? Is that why you felt a need to kill him?” she taunted. “Because he
was.
So
much better…and
bigger.”
In Angel’s mind, a man who had to kill defenseless, endangered animals purely for sport, had to have a little dick.

“Bitch.” Myles fired at the log, knocking a notch in the top, far too close to Angel’s head for her comfort.

“That’s my date you’re calling names,” a voice shouted in the distance and into Angel’s headset.

Her heart leaped with joy.

Duke!

She heard the shot and looked up in time to see Myles fall to the ground. He rolled over to his side and reached for his rifle lying in the dirt not far from where he’d landed.

Another shot rang out hitting Myles again, this time in the gut. Lena’s ex-boyfriend lay groaning in the dirt.

Angel left the cover of her log, ran toward Myles and grabbed his rifle, flinging it away.

Not that he would need it anymore, he wasn’t going far with three bullets in him.

Duke appeared beside her. “Did you shoot that last shot?”

“No. I thought you did.” She flung her arms around him. “I thought you were dead.”

He chuckled and hugged her to him. “Deltas don’t die that easily.”

She leaned back and stared up at him. “How did you get out of the house?”

He grinned. “Same way you did—through the back door. And none too soon.”

She rose on her toes and kissed him. “You scared the crap out of me. I didn’t know whether or not you were in that cabin with it blew.”

A shadow fell over Angel and Duke.

They glanced up at the same time to see a man dangling from a parachute, a rifle in his hand. As he neared the trees, he adjusted the pitch of the chute, angling toward the clearing near the smoldering cabin. He landed on his feet, gathered his chute and moved out of the way as another man and parachute spiraled downward toward the clearing, and still another.

Duke grabbed Angel’s arm and hurried her toward what ended up being four men, folding their chutes, all carrying military-grade rifles.

Angel dug her heels in the dirt, refusing to step out into the clearing “Are you sure they’re friendly?”

“Friendly?” Duke laughed out loud. “These men are my brothers.”

Her frown eased only slightly. “Brothers? I assumed you were an only child.”

He dragged her toward the one who’d landed first, and whose bullet had been the one to end Myles’s hunting expeditions permanently.

“Ghost!” Duke dropped her arm and engulfed the man and his parachute harness in a bear hug.

The man he’d called ghost pounded him on his back. “And to think, we almost missed the party.” He glanced over Duke’s shoulder at Angel. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your client?” His gaze went to the rifle she carried and the sticks and twigs she’d stuck in her hair. “Since when did movie stars start carrying rifles and shooting bad guys other than on sets with blank rounds?”

“Ghost, this isn’t Lena Love, though she’s the spitting image of the movie star. This is her stunt double and former Army Ranger, Angel Carson.”

“Should have known Duke was having way too much fun without us. We got here just in time.” Ghost held out his hand to Angel.

“Nice to meet you.” When she placed her hand in his, he didn’t shake it. Instead, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her.

Duke grabbed Ghost’s shoulder and pulled him away from Angel. “Hey, get your grubby hands off my girl. You have Rayne, now.”

“And I don’t want any other woman. But I’m happy you found a woman who can hold her own in a gunfight.” Ghost grinned at Angel. “I can’t wait to introduce you to Rayne. She’s going to love you.”

Another man joined them. “Duke, what’s this? You’ve only been here a couple of days, and you’ve already found a woman?” He turned to Angel and held out his hand. “By the way, I’m Fletch, this dirt bag’s teammate. I guess Duke’s joined a different kind of team altogether.” He winked. “A better looking team.”

Duke’s cheeks reddened.

Angel loved that Duke was embarrassed and couldn’t help giving him even more hell than his buddies were. “Hey, don’t I have a say in whose woman I am?”

All five men turned toward her.

“You mean you’re not Duke’s?” Ghost asked. He looked past her to the man lying on the ground, moaning. “Tell me that’s not your guy.

Angel and Duke replied as one. “No!”

Duke slipped an arm around Angel. “Give us a chance. I owe this woman a night out. Now that we’ve taken care of Lena’s ex-boyfriend, we might just get to go on that date. Then she can decide whether or not she wants a man, and if that man could possibly be me.”

“Well, don’t let us get in the way of true love. We’ve each got a date with a fishing pole. Point us to the nearest stream, and we’ll get out of the way.”

“Be happy to,” Duke said. “After we put out the fire and get Lena’s ex off the mountain.”

“Oh, so now we have to work for the right to fish?” Fletch shook his head. “Fine. Let’s do this and get to our mini vacation before we have to head back.”

Duke’s friends helped load Myles onto Hollywood’s saddle, and the group headed down the mountain, leading the horses.

Duke walked beside Angel, trailing behind the others. “The guys are just kidding about you being my woman.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.” She leaned into him. “I was kind of liking the idea.”

“Yeah?” Duke’s face brightened. “It’s never wise for a man to assume anything, especially about a woman who can fire a rifle almost as well as he can.”

She jabbed him in the gut. “Better than he can.”

“You nicked the guy in the leg,” he reminded her.

Her lips quirked on the corners. “I was
aiming
for the leg.”

“You win.” He pulled her into his embrace and lifted her chin. “But in the end…I win.”

“How so?”

“I got the girl.”

“You did?” she said, her voice barely a whisper, her gaze sinking to his mouth.

“Yup.” Then he kissed her, claiming her, making her his with that single caress.

When she pulled away, she said, “You’ll get no argument from me, as long as you keep kissing me like that.”

“Deal.” And he kissed her again. Under the big sky of Montana, on a trail in the Crazy Mountains, in front of his band of brothers, Duke had staked his claim on Angel.

She couldn’t have been happier. And he owed her a date. She would insist on the location. A place that had a king-sized bed with a cotton-candy-pink comforter and a drawer full of protection.

They still had the majority of the two weeks to enjoy Lena’s hospitality. She planned on making the most of it…with Duke.