Playing With Fire: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 2) (27 page)

Yeah, he’d had enough of losing people he loved.

Which meant that if Liza needed promises from him, then he would give them. Not only that, but probably she deserved a promise from him. Not because of her fear but because that’s what people did—committed their way to each other.

Promised to keep showing up, every day.

And frankly, he wouldn’t mind a promise in his direction, either. Something that might remind her not to run when he blew it, when he said something stupid and made her believe, somehow, that she was too clingy.

Right, as if.

But, please, God, help him not to do that.

But maybe, with her around, he wouldn’t always assume the worst, could start believing in that happy ending, even for himself. Because with Liza, he could see beyond his circle of darkness into a crazy light that had her smack dab in the center of it, in something that looked dangerously, amazingly, like happiness.

A bright, family-filled, amazing future that included her waking up in his arms to watch the sunrise. And falling asleep to every beautiful sunset.

They came upon a patch of forest thinned by glacial ledge rock that jutted from the ground in angles, rising from the boreal depths like icebergs. Shrubs and bushes fitted into the nooks and crannies; white pine and balsam grew up in the spongy earthen beds between the slabs. Conner checked the topo map and found a towering black spruce. He turned to locate it from the ground.

“I don’t know, Pete. It’s probably in pieces—”

Screaming ripped through the air and stopped Conner cold.

Pete toggled the SAT phone. “CJ—you guys okay?”

Static, then, CJ’s voice, stiff and sharp. “Bear!”

Conner plowed through the forest, casting a look at the horizon, his instincts heading him westward toward the river. He could hear only the screaming.

Liza’s screaming.

And that’s when he realized he’d long ago made her promises. He’d just never voiced them. Promises in the way he’d reached out for her, needed her, longed for her. Promises in his broken heart that couldn’t scrape her out of his thoughts. Promises that had nothing to do with words and everything to do with the fact that he loved her.

Wow, he loved her. His feet slammed over earth, launched over trees, scrabbled up rocks. Pete kept up, only feet behind him.

Conner stopped for a moment on top of a jutting ledge rock, searching. Saw the break in the trees. “There’s the river.”

How far upstream from them, he hadn’t a clue, but—

“CJ?” Pete said, toggling the walkie. “Come in—!”

Static. Conner took off again, sliding down the backside of the rock.

And although it went against everything he knew about wildlife, about survival, he couldn’t help it. No playing dead today.

Run, Liza! Run!

#

Skye had launched herself into the river. CJ scrambled with Esther in his arms over the rocky shoreline. And Liza had tripped, hit her hands and knees, and now scrabbled away from the bear hot on her escape.

Liza had rounded on the animal, caught up a rock, and slammed it in a wild throw at the bear’s face. It grunted and fell back just long enough for her to clamber back to her feet. She didn’t look back as she ran.

She knew running was futile. Especially over the bouldered shoreline where a bear could hop huge crevasses. Still, Liza fled with abandon, screaming, turning to throw rocks, fighting the animal as it reached out to swipe her.

It caught her in the leg, ripping her pants, tearing a swath through her calf muscle.

She screamed, heat spurting into her bones. But she didn’t stop.

Behind her, she heard CJ calling her name. Skye’s shouts also lifted from the river.

Play dead.
The mantra resounded in her head, but the thought turned to a rock in her gut.

She wasn’t going to just let herself die, let the animal maul her.

Liza found another loose rock, turned, and flung it at the bear’s open jaw. The rock cracked it hard, and the animal shook its head, paused.

CJ had stopped at the edge of a cliff, clearly trapped. Now he fumbled with his pack.

She hadn’t meant to bring the bear his direction, and now she screamed at him. “Jump, CJ!”

Esther lay at his feet, curled into a ball, screaming.

The bear roared behind Liza, furious.

And that’s when Liza knew. She wasn’t going to live through this. No amount of fighting or screaming or running—

As if that would solve her problems.

She’d never solved anything by running.

Play dead.

No, that was stupid.

A roar behind her made her leave her skin.

Stop. Trust
. Not play dead, but stand firm, hold on to God.

Believing He was enough, come what may.

Liza launched herself at Esther, covering the girl’s body with her own, wrapping her legs around Esther’s body, reaching up to cover the injured girl’s head with her hands.

Please, oh God, save us.

Esther writhed beneath her, frantic with fear as the animal charged. CJ fell back, going over the edge with a cry.

Liza smelled the animal—feral, rank. A swipe of razor nails raked her side, and she screamed, a thousand knives spearing through her.

Then teeth sank into her shoulder, deep, paralyzing her as the animal’s tongue touched her neck, its nose grimy and wet. Pain ripped through her body, curling around her arm, her chest, her breathing.

This was it. He’d shake her, break her neck, and she’d die, right here on this rock in the middle of the forest.

But maybe Esther would live.
Please, God, let Esther live!

An explosion in her ears. The world turned to fire. Heat, sparks.

The bear roared, dropping Liza back onto a hysterical Esther.

Then the world dimmed around the edges. She used her last strength to hold onto Esther as the blackness closed over her.

Conner’s feral scream should have stopped the bear, alerted it, but apparently the animal had no eyes for anyone but his prey. And with Conner still thirty feet away, the scream lifted impotent into the air, drowned out by the roar of the grizzly.

Then the animal dove in, biting Liza’s neck with its grimy, powerful jaw. Conner lost all rational thought when the predator lifted her, shaking her.

“No!”

Then the world exploded in a shower of fire and sparks, and the bear reared up in agony, releasing Liza like a rag doll.

CJ stood just behind her, on a ledge below the rock, holding his flare gun.

Almost point-blank, he shot at the bear. It landed on the rock at its feet, sparking.

The animal now raged in a furious circle, the flare spitting and sizzling on the rock.

Liza crumpled, unmoving, on the rock, her body still over Esther.

The bear, backed up against the edge of the outcropping, landed on all fours, spittle dangling from its jaws, its dark eyes shiny.

It turned again toward the prone girls, Esther trying to extract herself from Liza’s limp body.

Conner had his gun out before he realized it, his instincts kicking in. He dropped to one knee at the apex of the ledge, took aim.

The bear charged the girls.

Conner let out a breath and squeezed the trigger, praying for good aim.

The bear dropped, skidding on its side as the bullet tore through its temple.

It died with a grunt, its razor claws still pawing the ground.

The sulfur of gunshot braised the air, backdropped by the howl of Esther’s screams.

He couldn’t breathe, her name more of a moan.
“Liza!”

Pete beat him to her, hovering over her, assessing her wounds. Esther pushed him away, nearly falling off the ledge in her attempts, but CJ caught her, holding the girl in his arms. She clung to him, weeping.

“She’s losing a lot of blood.” Pete opened up his pack, ripping out gauze pads, as if they might have any effect at stopping the flow of blood pooling into the jagged crannies of the rock.

Conner landed on his knees next to Liza, his hand going to her shoulder where the bear’s teeth had left deep punctures in her neck and shoulder, to the razed skin that flopped from her upper arm. Her right hand lay mangled, having taken the brunt of the attack. Probably it saved her from having her carotid artery severed.

Conner grabbed a pad and moved the flesh back over her shoulder wound and held it there, hoping to stem the bleeding.

Pete pressed his gauze pad over the tear in her side where the bear had raked her, wounds that bared bone as they curved around her body.

“How’s her breathing? Did he nick a lung?”

Conner leaned over her. “Shallow and fast.”

“Okay, we need to slow this bleeding, then get a blanket on her,” Pete said, a litany of directions they all knew. Still, Pete’s commands were something Conner could cling to in order to keep himself from unraveling.

He pressed a kiss to Liza’s cheek. “You’re going to be okay.”

Pete handed him another gauze pad and a roll of wrap.

Skye had climbed out of the river, pale, her arms around herself, as if trying valiantly not to unravel. She helped CJ lower Esther to the ground and move her away from Liza.

CJ then bent next to Conner, holding the gauze in place as he wrapped Liza’s shoulder. The blood streamed around it.

Conner clenched his jaw to keep from whimpering, but wow, he wanted to hurt something, to stand up and scream, to rail at anything—God, nature, even himself for letting her go.

Why hadn’t he demanded she return to camp? Although, if she had, she might have run into the bear then, too.

Pete had used up his supply of gauze pads on her side wound, taping the pads over it. “Apply pressure on these, CJ,” Conner said and traded places with him to attend to her neck wounds.

Liza started to rouse.

“Shh,” Conner said, leaning over her. “I know you’re in pain, just relax.”

But she stiffened under his hand, and he felt a scream building.

“He’s gone, honey. The bear’s dead.”

Conner cast it a glance just to confirm. The predator lay in a rank pile, blood and spittle drying around its maw, its claws curled into the rock.

She turned her head then.

“Don’t move,” Pete said. “I don’t think anything is broken, but we don’t know for sure.”

Conner climbed over her, then down to the ledge where CJ was perched.

It put him just above Liza, nearly face to face. He kept one hand pressed on her shoulder, the other he curled around hers, still extended to protect Esther. He folded it in his, squeezed. “The rescue team is on its way.”

Tears filled her beautiful eyes. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have run, but I couldn’t help it.”

“No, baby, you did the right thing. You fought him, and then—you saved Esther.” His eyes burned, filled, and he didn’t care that he suddenly started to sob. “Liza, you are so brave. So amazing. And I—I can’t lose you. I just can’t—”

He pressed his forehead to hers, closed his eyes. “I love you.”

He whispered it, then leaned back, met her eyes. “I love you so much. And I should have said that back in Arizona. Because that’s the best promise I can give you. I love you so much that I can hardly breathe without you. And if it takes a thousand promises to hold onto you, then you have them. Every day. In as many ways as I can say it. Just—please live.”

Her hand tightened in his. “Shh.” Then somehow she worked her other hand into his shirt, gripping it. “I don’t need promises.”

In the distance, thank God, he heard the
whump, whump
of a chopper’s blades dicing the air. He wanted to weep anew.

Her voice fell to a whisper, soft, laced with a layer of pain under her heartbreaking veil of bravery. “I just need you, showing up every day to love me.” Tears hung in her eyes. “And I’ll do the same, okay?”