The small beam of light almost danced as it moved along the far cabin wall. If Abby had been awake, she would have probably laughed in delight. That light should be beautiful. Instead, it made Laura feel like she was going to vomit.
“Yeah, well, I don’t care what the boss says. If I see a bear, I’m getting out of here.”
The man’s voice was louder than before. Closer. Laura wanted to cradle Abby to her body, but she didn’t dare wake the sleeping child. Abs was a heavy sleeper, but Laura was poised to hush her if it looked like she was starting to stir.
“Why are we even here? I’m telling you, man, they went down the mountain.”
“Boss says the fire would have stopped them.”
The light left the cabin. Where were they going?
“Then they’re in the middle of the fire, nice and crispy. Why are we looking for dead people?”
Laura winced. The man sounded pleased at the thought of three people burning to death.
“Yeah, well, this is pointless.”
“I heard you the first time. I don’t want to hear it a third. Boss has us split up, covering the entire mountain. We’ll find them. And, when we do, she’s gonna watch her daughter die. Then she and that ranger are gonna get it, too. They’ve made this hard enough. Boss is done with accidental and humane.”
The voices had been decreasing in volume as the men were hopefully walking away, but Laura clearly heard that last part. She swallowed rapidly several times, trying to fight the urge to vomit, which had become almost unstoppable as those men talked about hurting Abby. Hurting her sweet little girl who couldn’t even conceive of such evil.
It was silent outside, but no one moved inside the cabin. Laura put a hand over her stomach, willing it to calm down. There was a time and place for everything, and this was neither the time nor the place for her to have a breakdown. She needed to save her daughter, then she could worry about hysterics.
When she felt like she had control over her body again, Laura looked at Seth. Well, she looked in the direction she had last seen him. He had been utterly silent ever since she had blown out the light, so Laura assumed he was still at the table. She would have heard him move.
Was he was looking at her, too? What was he doing? How long should they wait until those guys were out of earshot? Were more coming?
The questions were flying in Laura’s head, and she realized her hands were squeezed into fists. No. No, no, no. She forced her fingers to relax and folded them together. She slid to her knees on the ground without making a sound and kneeled next to Abby’s sweet little sleeping body. Laura leaned over, closed her eyes and began to pray.
It was a familiar prayer. Her favorite saying was one about why worry if you pray and why pray if you are going to worry. Laura loved that saying, but it was also her nemesis of sorts. She prayed. She tried to give her burdens to God. Truly. But, no matter how good her intentions, she always kept the worry. She obsessed. She planned. It made her prayers feel like a mockery and inevitably started a cycle of worrying and praying about worrying and worrying about worrying while praying.
But Laura still tried. Because when it came down to it, Abby was going to learn by watching what Laura did. No matter what Laura said. So Laura kept on trying. She prayed about her worries. And she prayed that God would help her release them to Him.
Here, in this dark cabin, Laura felt very much alone. Out of control. And absolutely terrified. So she leaned over her daughter, turned her fists into hands of prayer and tried to talk to her Heavenly Father. It was working, too. She was still anxious, but the absolute panic was fading. God was in control. God was in control. God was in control.
“I’m coming your way.” Laura jumped at his whisper, but was thankful for the warning. She was so focused that she might have screamed if Seth appeared next to her without telling her first. He didn’t make a sound as he crossed the room, and Laura didn’t know he was there until she felt his warmth next to her. He placed his hands over hers.
“I’d like to pray with you, if that’s okay?”
“Is it safe?” It felt almost sacrilegious worrying that they both should not pray at the same time. But practicality won out again. Shouldn’t one of them be watching the door? Maybe they should pray in shifts. The thought made a wave of hysterical laughter bubble in Laura’s throat, but she suppressed it.
Of course it was safe to pray. Especially now. This man wanted to pray with her. He wasn’t scorning her for praying in such a dire situation. He wasn’t being cynical about her prayer. No, he wanted to join her.
“Of course you can. I have to warn you, though. I’m not very good at this. I never have been. It seems that practice doesn’t make perfect in my case.”
Seth squeezed her hands, and this time his voice was slightly chiding. “Hey, don’t do that. Don’t be all self-deprecating. I’m scared, too. I was grateful when I realized you were praying, because I really need it, too.”
“I, um…” Laura really didn’t know how to respond to that. She went back to bowing her head, looking away from Seth’s face, which was still hidden in shadows. Here, in the dark, it seemed intimate, yet right, that they should hold hands and pour out their fears together.
They didn’t say anything, just interlaced their fingers. Kneeled side by side. Shared warmth and communion. Laura’s mind calmed. Her body strengthened. She breathed out an “Amen” and looked up at Seth as he did the same. She removed her hands from his and pulled the covers back up around Abby as she slept.
Seth stood and moved to the cabin door. The longer they stayed in the complete darkness, the more Laura was able to see. Seth’s eyes must have been adjusting the same way because he did not seem to stumble. Laura watched him put his ear near the door, though he was definitely a shadowed figure instead of a clear person.
He moved to the shuttered windows and did the same thing. Then he came back to where Laura was still sitting on the floor next to the bed. “I think they’re gone. I don’t think they realized we were here.”
“But they are going to keep looking, aren’t they? Mahoney really wants us dead.”
Seth crouched down, sitting back on his heels so that he was about face level with her. “Yes. It sounded like they are going to keep looking until they find us.”
Laura noted that he said us. And he was right. He was in this now. She had done this to her daughter and to him. She was the one who finally felt ready to go through all the boxes of her husband’s things. She was the one who had found the key. And somehow she was the reason Mahoney knew about the key. She had to be. Laura didn’t know how Mahoney knew. But she found the key and less than a week later he was here. This was all her fault. Even though she had just prayed, she still felt helpless. That feeling of not being able to do anything to change an awful situation rose up again.
Like when her parents died. Like when Malcolm, her second dad, died. Like when Josh died.
Laura put her hands down on the bed and felt Abby.
Abby.
And she sniffled back a laugh. Yes, she had been in many horrible, helpless places before in her life. Circumstances that she couldn’t change, no matter how hard she prayed and wished and tried. But God had brought her through. Had given her a new father. A daughter. Reasons to keep going and ways to smile and laugh even after she’d sworn she’d never do either again.
Seth came back and Laura looked at him from her place on the floor. “What do you think we should do?”
“We need to sleep. We won’t be any good in the morning if we’re both exhausted.”
That was a good plan in theory. In reality, though, Laura knew she would never be able to sleep with a forest full of armed men looking for her. And her baby. “I won’t be able to sleep.”
Instead of arguing with her, Seth just nodded his head. Laura liked how he did not dismiss her concerns as trivial. “I agree. I’d be too afraid of waking up with a gun pointed at my face.”
Laura cringed at his bluntness. She really didn’t need an image to go along with her fear.
Seth looked at the door and nodded. “Here’s the plan. We’ll take turns keeping watch and sleeping. We have about seven hours until daylight. You go to sleep now. I’ll wake you up in a few hours and then I’ll sleep.”
It wasn’t a bad plan. “You’ll really wake me up? I’m going to be mad if you let me sleep all night and you stay awake.” Laura wanted to get out of this alive more than she wanted chivalry. She was going to need Seth alert and awake tomorrow.
His smile was rueful in an adorable kind of way that confused Laura. “I’ll wake you up. My goal is to keep you and Abby safe, and I need to get at least a few hours shut-eye to make that happen.”
“Okay.” Laura climbed into the bed with Abby, pulling the small child to her and smiling when little arms and legs automatically curled around her even though Abby was sound asleep. Laura saw Seth move closer to the door and sit on the floor, leaning against the wall. He didn’t light the lamp again.
She closed her eyes and tried to breathe slowly and evenly, but gave up after a couple of minutes. She stared at the black of the ceiling and tried to listen to the forest, the sounds that had been her lullaby since the day Malcolm Grant took her out of that hospital. She only heard her blood roaring in her ears.
“Seth?” she whispered, hoping he would hear her.
“Yeah?”
“What are we going to do in the morning?”
He didn’t answer right away, and tears rose in Laura’s throat.
“When it’s light outside, we’ll make a plan. It’ll be a new day.”
Oddly, that helped. A new day. Yes. Things often looked better in the morning. Laura closed her eyes and slept.
* * *
Seth woke up and had absolutely no idea where he was. That never happened. Whether in the desert, in his bed or camping in the forest, Seth always woke up and knew exactly where he was.
But not today. There was someone in the bed with him. He blinked and tried to figure out where in the world he was. And how he got there.
Then he remembered. His eyes popped open and he saw the warm body next to him. Abby. She was on top of the covers while he was under them, but he still felt heat coming from her small form. And she had a little hand thrown across his chest, little finger slightly curled.
He turned his head and saw Laura smiling at him. She waved hello. Still slightly off-balance, Seth just waved back.
It was daylight. From the brightness inside the cabin, it had to be well after sunrise. Laura was standing at the little table doing something with cans and plates. Seth sat up and slowly moved away from the little girl, doing his best to not wake her. He folded the covers over her as he got up.
He walked over to where Laura was preparing breakfast of some sort. His stomach growled, and he knew he’d be grateful for the food even if it was more cold pork and beans. He looked at his watch. Eight thirty. He’d woken Laura up around three in the morning, hoping to get at least a couple of hours of sleep before sunrise.
He’d overslept. On the run from too many bad guys to count, stuck in a hobbit fortress, a forest fire probably coming their way and he’d overslept. Unbelievable.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” He tried not to sound too accusing, but he was definitely having a surreal morning and that carried through to his tone of voice. Laura stopped what she was doing to look at him.
“I’m sorry. You and Abby were sleeping so soundly. I watched the sunrise and just felt,” she paused and looked away, a blush rising on her cheeks, “peaceful. This is a peaceful place. I wasn’t in a hurry to wake you and have reality come back to slap me in the face.”
Seth understood that. He did. And he certainly felt better after five hours sleep than he would have after two and a half. Besides, they were probably about as safe in this cabin as they could be, given the current circumstances. “I’m sorry, Laura. I get that. I didn’t mean to sound like I was mad at you.”
She smiled a grateful little smile that made his heart feel funny, then went back to creating breakfast out of hermit survivalist rations.
“How did Abby get in the bed?” This time his tone was all curiosity. He’d woken Laura and prepared to bunk on the floor, leaving the bed for the little girl. Laura had refused. To the point of almost yelling at him even though they were trying to be as quiet as possible. She’d picked Abby up and said she was going over by the door to keep watch and to snuggle with her baby and he better get his butt in bed.
Seth almost laughed as he remembered. Laura Donovan was fierce and more than a little scary when she got going. Which shouldn’t surprise him too much since their introduction involved her punching him in the face.
Abby had slept through the entire thing, as content to sleep in her mama’s lap as she had been in the bed. Seth wondered about that kind of trust. He had known it once. The knowledge that you don’t have to worry, because there was someone there to take care of you. He was overcome by the intense longing to make sure the sweet child stayed that way for as long as possible. He vowed internally that this little girl was going to come off this mountain with that innocence intact. Yes, she was.
He was also a little worried. Abby had slept for a good chunk of their journey so far. Seth knew it was because she was sick. Laura had told him it was just a cold, just a slight fever. But she still deserved to recover in a nice bed. In a nice house. Free of the threat of violence.
“I put her down in the bed around sunrise,” Laura said. “I’m sorry if she bothered you. I thought it would be okay since she was on top of the covers. And there seemed to be enough room.”
“It was fine. I didn’t even know she was there until I woke up.” Seth wasn’t upset about what Laura had done, but he was shocked. Yesterday, he was the enemy park ranger. He’d had to talk her into letting him carry Abby even though Laura was exhausted. But today? Today she put her precious daughter with him.
Seth felt something like pride in his chest at the development. It was ridiculous, but he took it as a sign that she was beginning to trust him. To see him as one of the good guys. It had been a long time since Seth had felt proud of his character, but he did today. Laura thought he was a good man.
Please, Lord, let that be true. The plea was sudden and startling. He hadn’t consciously thought it, but it leaped out of his soul. A cry for help, still waiting for an answer. The blanket of shame and regret Seth carried with him, the one that covered him and smothered him, lessened for a moment. He could breathe. Feel hope.
He’d been physically hurt in a war and then had hurt his family in return. Only, he’d hurt them emotionally instead of physically, which was almost worse. Then he’d left them, wounding them even more. Seth had somehow maneuvered himself into a dark corner with no light and no way out. It felt familiar to the current situation.
And yet he was starting to find hope.
Seth realized Laura was staring at him, and his ears started to burn. Yeah, he probably looked like a fool. Or a crazy man. She was probably back to wondering whether he was a reliable friend or not. “Sorry. I was just thinking. Can I help you?”
“I’m not sure there’s much to do. I found some protein bars, but they look a couple years old. They haven’t expired yet but that doesn’t mean much when it comes to survival food. I thought we could take them with us. I also found some canned fruit. It didn’t have an expiration date, and it smells okay. So…” Laura’s voice trailed off.
“So, we’re having fruit surprise for breakfast and bricks for lunch,” Seth finished for her.
Laura laughed, a glorious sound that belied the danger they were in. “Pretty much. I’m going to wake Abby.” She took a couple of steps toward the bed. Stopped. “She’ll have to go to the bathroom when she wakes up. Do you think it’s safe to go outside?”
Abby wasn’t the only one who needed a little privacy. “I’ll go check it out. I’ll be back.” He picked up his gun and cracked the door. He heard Laura murmuring quietly and Abby’s sleepy voice, but he focused his attention on the outside. He didn’t see anything. He didn’t hear anything. The birds were singing as though they were the only creatures out and about in the forest.
Seth opened the door only as wide as was needed for his body to slip through. He stepped outside and shut the door, taking time to cover it up as much as possible with foliage. If there was danger out here, he wanted Laura and Abby to be as concealed and safe as possible. Seth walked around the cabin. He saw the footprints from the men last night. They had been close. Too close. Looking at the indentations in the mud just feet away from where they’d been hiding made Seth freeze for a second. Then he forced his body to relax and kept surveilling the area.
They were safe. For now. Well, at least from the men. The smell of smoke was stronger than it had been yesterday.
Seth took care of his business and went back to the cabin, making sure to obscure all of their footprints. He called out softly before opening the door. Laura had seemed both ready and able to fight him yesterday, and he didn’t want to catch her by surprise. Laura and Abby were both standing in the middle of the room. Laura had the rifle in one hand, though it was pointed down at the ground. Her other hand was holding Abby’s little wrist, as though to keep her from pulling away. He closed the door as soon as he was inside.
Abby saw him and, indeed, began pulling at her mama trying to get to him.
“I think it’s okay for now. I didn’t see or hear anyone.”
At that, Laura let go of Abby and the little girl ran to him and hugged his legs. He bent down to pick her up. “Good morning, Miss Abby.”
She put both of her palms on his cheek. Her hands were sticky and Seth wondered if she had been sampling the canned fruit. She smiled at him. “Potty!” She said the word proudly, like she was announcing some great accomplishment. Seth laughed and looked at Laura, who set the gun down and walked over to pull her daughter out of his arms.
“Yes, yes. We’re going potty. But remember, we have to be quiet.”
Seth went back to the door and opened it, peeking out again. It was still quiet. “I’ll go out with you, just in case.” They went outside and Laura took Abby into the woods a ways. They came back quickly, Laura looking over her shoulder as she walked.
“Was it okay? Did you see someone?” Seth hadn’t, but someone could have snuck up on them. The forest was large and there were too many places to hide.
“No. No, we’re fine. Sorry. I’m just feeling especially paranoid this morning.”
Seth understood that. He remembered past missions where he’d started seeing the enemy in every shadow. He was feeling that way right now. And this forest had a whole lot of shadows.