“And if I can’t get it from you, I’ll get it from your colleague. Dr. Yarrow, right? I’m sure he wouldn’t put up much of a fight.” Her attacker slid his hands into his slacks pockets as though he’d done it a thousand times before, looking more comfortable in a boardroom or behind a desk rather than the middle of a national park, and it showed. The styling product in his hair had given up its fight, sweat darkening the collar of his shirt. An undershirt, she realized then. It didn’t really go with pressed slacks, which meant he’d probably taken another shirt off somewhere. “Or that ranger you seem to like so much. Now, he seems like the kind of man who’d fight back, so I have no doubt whateverhappened would get messy, but I’ve never shied away from getting my hands dirty, as you well know.”
The blood drained from her face and neck. No. Acid surged up her throat. Not Dr. Yarrow. Not Harvey. While she’d learned to distance herself from others out of a sense of survival, she wasn’t as heartless as former colleagues and friends had accused her of being. Dr. Yarrow had given her an opportunity to start over. He’d been nothing but supportive in the adjustment it’d taken for her moving to a new town and into a new position. He recognized her pregnancy symptoms and offered to be flexible in her work hours with understanding and compassion. She wouldn’t let him get dragged into this. He had a family. A wife and grown kids that came around for Sunday dinners every week. A grandkid on the way.
And Harvey…
Her skin heated with blistering intensity. Harvey had gifted her something she’d never be able to repay. For one night, he’d chosen her. Made her feel wanted and beautiful. He’d looked at her as someone worthy and loved, not even having known her name at the time. Because that was the kind of man he was. Yes, he was brooding and unforgiving, but he’d been there when she’d needed him the most. Despite his internal hatred for the blood he carried in his veins and his fears of unleashing it on her and this baby, he’d been there without question. Took care of her as though she was the most important person in his life. He was brave. Braver than most. His father wouldn’t have made that choice, and no one had done that for her since… Since her dad died. No one had willingly chosen her. But Harvey had, whether he accepted that fact or not. Just for a little while.
It was enough. For her to risk fighting back. For her to protect them from the predator closing in. He wouldn’t get to them. Not ever. Whatever his plan, it wouldn’t work.
Another dose of pain nearly dragged her under. The headache was getting worse, urging her to give in. Had she sustained a concussion? “Who are you?”
“A desperate man, Dr. Hawes.” Her attacker wrapped a hand around her upper arm and hauled Drennan to her feet. Unforgiving muscle flexed under her palm as she worked to add distance between them, but it was no use. He was strong. Stronger than her. And he knew it. “Desperate men will do whatever it takes to get what they want. Remember that before you try to escape from me.”
“But I thought you liked it when women fight back.” Drennan put everything she had into the strike. Shoving her knee so far between his legs, she could’ve sworn she heard something burst. The impact threw her off balance, but she wouldn’t let it stop her.
She ran.
Chapter Fourteen
His blood had reached a boiling point.
Harvey hauled himself up the last few step-like rocks leading up in the natural bowl carved out from the surrounding cliffs and up into the upper emerald pool. Ranger Simpson—Zion’s head law enforcement division ranger—was already there with another Harvey didn’t recognize. The rangers both faced him, their expressions hard as stone. He couldn’t remember closing the distance between them. All he could focus on was the sheer panic eclipsing everything else in his body. He’d spent years under duress at home and in the military, and yet every single wall he’d built to keep himself in check crumbled in an instant. Harvey fisted both hands into Simpson’s uniform, knocking the six-foot giant back. “Where is she?”
The words were more animalistic growl than human. The demon he’d been working on exorcising for as long as he could remember licked beneath the surface of his skin. He was too hot, too raw. Out of control.
The second ranger—he didn’t get a look at her name tag—blew a bright pink bubble from the safety of a couple feet away. It popped, triggering his nerves to flinch. Her bleached blond hair threatened to get tangled in the gum she openly chewed. Other details bled into focus. A hot-pink kerchief around her throat, a matching manicure and the fact she’d switched out her standard issue laces for bright fuchsia. “You might not want to do that. Murray is capable of ripping each one of your fingers off and sticking them up your nose.”
What? Harvey barely had the sense to think past the red haze turning him feral.
Strong hands gripped his wrists and clamped down. Steely eyes pinned Harvey in place, but the threat of danger was nothing compared to the tumult swirling in his gut. “I know what you’re feeling right now, Ranger Knight. I’ve lived through that crushing feeling of guilt and concern, to the point you have trouble taking your next breath, but if you don’t remove your hands, I will do exactly what Ranger Jordan has suggested. Or something as equally creative. She’s very good at coming up with death threats, and I’ve always wanted to test one.”
“It’s true. I’m trying to come up with the perfect one for him to try. Right now, we’re thinking about touching someone’s face with a shovel. Really hard.” Too-white teeth flashed across the woman’s face, and Harvey realized this was the one other rangers had called Ranger Barbie for so long. He hadn’t worked with her directly before she’d joined the law enforcement rangers, and he sure as hell wasn’t interested in working with this too bright, chaotic rainbow of a woman. “You want to try one? It might help with all that—” she motioned to his face “—tension.”
“I don’t care.” It took everything in Harvey to release his hold. Violence had been ingrained in his blood, in every muscle he owned from a young age. Beaten into him since his first memory. It was how things got done, and he’d so easily slipped back into that place he wanted to forget. Into the man he didn’t want to be. But he would. He’d give up everything for Drennan and the baby, to give them a chance to be free of him. Oxygen seemed to thin with every controlled inhale, but it wasn’t enough. “Where is Dr. Hawes?”
“Not here.” Ranger Simpson smoothed down the collar of his shirt, erasing the lines Harvey had pressed into it with his grip. “We’ve got her gear left unattended. We found a duffel bag anda net in the pool, but no medical examiner. Ranger Jordan just returned from searching the lower pools as well as the trail that continues up and around the waterfall.”
“And?” His entire body hung on an answer he wasn’t sure he wanted.
“No sign of her.” Ranger Jordan had lost that too bright quality with the change in subject, becoming the law enforcement ranger this park—that he—needed, though her high pigtails sat in opposition to every word out of her mouth. “But I made out a set of footprints. Large. Most likely male. One set heading toward the pool, a deeper, identical set going back the way they came from through those trees.”
She nodded to the expanse of wilderness behind him. There was no official trail there. Nothing but miles and miles of open terrain. “We believe the treads are deeper due to the fact he was carrying something heavier than when he entered this area.”
“Drennan.” Harvey closed his eyes against the very real possibility of losing something he’d never even had. Something he’d fought against from the very beginning. “Who the hell would want to take an assistant medical examiner?”
Ranger Simpson shook his head, crossing his arms over a too large chest more than capable of following through on whatever death threat Ranger Jordan came up with. “The trail has been closed off since you discovered the body yesterday. Whoever it was didn’t stick to the public access. They had to have come from backcountry, which means—”
“They were waiting for her.” Harvey set sights on the gear Drennan had left behind. The duffel bag, the net. Dr. Yarrow had sent her to collect any evidence that might supply them with the victim’s name. “Or someone from the medical examiner’s office.”
“I have rangers gearing up to search the wilderness, but it’ll take time.” Simpson shifted on his feet, obviously as eager toget out there as fast as possible, but there were procedures. Protocols and clearances they had to follow. Not to mention, they had no idea what kind of threat they might be facing out there. “Time your ME might not have.”
The law enforcement ranger was right. Every second Drennan was out there—alone, potentially injured or worse—was another opportunity her abductor had to ensure Harvey never saw her again. And that…wouldn’t happen.
“She’s not mine.” He’d told Drennan the same thing, hadn’t he? That nothing could happen between them. It was too dangerous. A future full of nothing but misery and pain, and yet the thought of watching her move on with someone else… Because she would. She’d meet someone new, someone who didn’t come with a whole bunch of red flags enough to stock a carnival. Who wanted to be with her and would have no problem raising another man’s child. Because she was worth it. Because her smile—the genuine one she didn’t show often—didn’t just light up a whole damn room. It lit up pieces of himself Harvey was convinced had been brutalized out of him a long time ago. Who in their right mind wouldn’t fall for a woman like that? In the few short hours Drennan had spent with him, she’d believed him to be a better man than he was. Told him he wasn’t his father without knowing a single thing about him. Trusted him to take care of her, to take care of their baby, to reveal parts of herself he doubted many knew about.
“Whatever you say, Knight.” Simpson eyed him as though he’d backed a feral animal into a corner and was worried for the coming fight.
And, hell. Harvey was feeling more than a little feral at the moment, but he wouldn’t let it get to him. Not while she was out here alone. How? How was it possible she’d become central and indispensable in his life in such a short amount of time? He wasn’t a backcountry ranger, but his military training suppliedenough experience to prepare him for anything. Including the worst-case scenario. “I need a survival pack. Any one of yours will do.”
