Page 24 of Growly Trapper Daddy
“Get the girl,” one of them says, accent thick, and his hand clamps around my upper arm hard enough to bruise through the coat sleeve before I can even think about running. I try to pull away, boots slipping on the icy pavement, but the second man's already got my other arm, and together they lift me off myfeet with a frightening kind of ease, my legs kicking uselessly at nothing.
“No, wait.” My voice cracks. Fear floods through me cold and sharp, and I twist hard enough that my elbow connects with somebody's ribs, but it does absolutely nothing to slow them down. They shove me into the van, the interior dark and smelling of leather and something metallic underneath it. The door slams shut with a heavy thud I feel through the floor. Hands push me down onto a seat, and zip ties bite into my wrists before I've even fully processed what's happening to me.
The van pulls away smooth and unhurried, like they do this often enough that speed isn't necessary. I crane my neck to watch the lights of Timber Creek fade behind the tinted glass, pulse thundering in my ears, tears pricking hot at my eyes that I blink back through sheer stubbornness. This is what I wanted, technically. To draw them out. But with my wrists bound and these two men looming over me in a dark van heading further from everything I know, the reality of it feels nothing like the plan felt back in the safety of Colt's cabin. One of the men speaks fast into a phone in a language I don't understand, tone clipped and urgent, and I catch exactly nothing of it except the shape of my own name somewhere in the middle.
I think about Colt. He'll come for me. I know that with a certainty that has nothing to do with evidence and everything to do with three days of watching exactly what kind of man he is. But until then I have to stay smart. Stay alive. Stay useful enough to these men that keeping me breathing seems worth their trouble. The van turns onto a rougher road, gravel rumbling under the tires, my body swaying with each bump while the men watch me with hard, assessing eyes that catalogue everything and give away nothing. I lift my chin and try to look braverthan I feel, even as fear coils tight in my stomach like a spring somebody's already wound too far.
The ride stretches on, climbing higher into mountains I don't recognize, and I lose track of time somewhere in the middle of it, my mind replaying every moment with Colt like I'm flipping back through a sketchbook looking for the panel that explains how I got here. I cling to the memory of him like a lifeline while the zip ties cut into my wrists with every jolt and my shoulders ache from the angle, cold seeping up through the van floor until my feet go properly numb. One of the men eventually offers me water, holding the bottle to my lips when I turn my head away out of reflex the first time. I drink the second time, cool and faintly metallic, because I know I need to stay strong enough to think my way through whatever's coming.
The van finally slows and turns onto what feels like a private road, smoother surface, steeper incline, my heart racing faster the moment we come to a full stop.
The door slides open and they pull me out into the night. A mansion looms ahead, all stone and glass and far too many lights, glowing against the dark trees like it's daring the mountain itself to look away and pretend it isn't there. Nothing about this place belongs out here. Colt's cabin fits these woods like it grew straight up out of the ground. This looks like money that fell out of the sky and landed badly, ugly in a way only extreme wealth manages to be. Snow crunches under their boots as they march me toward the entrance, my own steps stumbling to keep pace, the zip ties biting deeper with every jolt of movement.
The front doors open with a heavy creak, warm air rushing out as they push me inside. The entry hall is marble, pale and gleaming, my boots clicking far too loud against it. Paintingsline the walls in gold frames, the kind I'd normally stop and study for an hour just to steal details for a background panel. Tonight they're just smears of color at the edge of my vision. A chandelier hangs overhead like something out of a villain's lair, and my brain, unhelpful as always in moments that actually call for focus, starts drafting the caption anyway. Cartoonist admires the decor while awaiting probable death. Not funny, Nora. Not yet, anyway.
One of the men produces a knife, and I flinch hard before he grabs my wrists and slices through the zip ties instead of anything worse. Blood rushes back into my hands, hot and prickling all at once. “The boss doesn't like restraints in his house,” he says, like it's a courtesy instead of exactly the kind of message it actually is. You don't need to be tied. You're not going anywhere regardless. They steer me down a long hallway of dark wood paneling and thick carpet that swallows our footsteps completely, past heavy curtains drawn tight over every window, blocking out the Montana sky like even the stars aren't allowed to witness whatever happens inside this house.
They stop at a set of double doors and push me through into a massive study, bookshelves climbing to the ceiling, a fire burning in a stone hearth that's never once been used to dry a wet sock or warm a rescued woman the way Colt's has. The whole room smells like expensive cigars and the particular kind of quiet that only serious money can actually buy. They sit me in a leather chair facing an enormous desk and take up posts by the door. I rub my wrists where the plastic left angry red lines and force my breathing to slow, counting inhales and exhales like panels in a storyboard. In. Out. In. Out. Mason knows roughly where I started this trip, even if he doesn't know exactly where I ended up. Colt will find me. He knows every inch of these mountains better than he knows his own hands. I have to believethat completely, because the alternative isn't something I can afford to think about right now.
I wait what feels like hours but is probably only minutes. Then footsteps sound in the hallway, unhurried, and the doors open. A man enters, tall and broad in that slick, expensive way that says he pays other people to do his dirty work for him. Dark hair combed back. A black suit that fits too well to be off the rack. A faint scar traces along his jaw and disappears into his collar, and something in my chest goes cold and certain all at once. The same face from the grainy photo Mason sent, no pixelation this time, no bad surveillance angle to hide behind. He crosses the room without looking at his men, settles behind the desk, and folds his hands like we're here to discuss a business merger instead of my life.
“Miss Caldwell.” His voice is calm, almost pleasant, which is somehow worse than if he'd shouted. “You wanted to talk. So talk.”
My voice comes out steadier than I expect as I begin, buying time and hoping against hope that help is already somewhere on its way. The fear is there, real and raw, making my palms sweat and my pulse race, but underneath it there's something harder holding me together. For Colt. For whatever future we still get to have if I play this exactly right. I've come too far to break now, whatever it ends up costing me to keep talking.
22
Colt
The phone rings sharp and insistent, cutting through the quiet of the cabin like a gunshot. I jolt awake, hand already reaching for the satellite phone on the nightstand before my eyes fully open. The quilts feel heavy and tangled around my legs as I sit up, cool night air hitting my bare chest. Nora should be right here, curled warm against me. The spot beside me is empty. Cold enough that she's been gone a while. My heart gives one hard, ugly thud as I answer.
“Colt.” Mason's voice comes through tight and urgent, none of his usual easy rhythm in it. “Nora just called me from the Timber Creek diner. She's there right now.”
I blink, confusion cutting through the fog of sleep like a dull knife. “What? Why the hell is Nora calling you from the diner?” My voice comes out rough as I swing my legs over the side of the bed, bare feet hitting cold wood. I stand, scanning the room. The blankets are rumpled, but her side is too neat, tucked back like she made an effort not to wake me pulling herself out of it. Her coat's gone. Her boots. The sketchbook's still open on the tableto that drawing of the two of us, mountain adventurers, but she's nowhere in the cabin. “Mason, hold on.”
I move fast, bare feet slapping the floorboards as I check the bathroom, the kitchen, even the porch, some useless part of me hoping she just stepped out for air. Empty. All of it. The realization lands like a fist to the gut. She's gone. My free hand clenches so tight my knuckles crack. Fear spikes hot and sharp through my veins, twisting my stomach into a knot I recognize from exactly one other night in my life. She snuck out. To protect me. To fix this herself, the way she's been trying to fix everything since the moment I pulled her out of that wreck. The thought makes my chest ache with something fierce enough to taste like copper.
I yank on my jeans, shove bare feet into boots without bothering with socks, zip my coat with jerky, furious movements. “Get to her fast, Mason. I'm already moving. Don't let her out of your sight once you find her.”
“We're already rolling,” Mason says, and something in the clipped efficiency of it tells me he'd already half suspected something like this might happen. “Brock, Jax, Ryker, and Kane are with me. We were staged near Timber Creek already for tomorrow's transfer operation, which means we're maybe ten minutes out instead of an hour. We'll find her, Colt. Just drive safe getting down that mountain.”
I grab my rifle and extra ammunition off the wall, metal cool and solid in my hands, grounding in a way nothing else is right now. I step outside, snow crunching loud under my boots. The tarp's off the snowmobile. It's gone. Tracks lead down the mountain, cutting straight and deliberate through fresh powder, and my breath comes faster, visible in ragged puffs in the freezing air. She took that treacherous trail down alone, in the dark, on amachine she's ridden exactly once with somebody else steering half the time. One wrong turn on that grade and she could have gone off the edge same as her car did that first night. I picture her hands gripping those handlebars, her whole body fighting the machine down a mountain she doesn't actually know, and it makes my blood run properly cold.
“Snowmobile's gone,” I bark into the phone, already running for the truck. “She rode it down. I'm heading to the diner. Keep her there if you get to her before I do.”
“Copy.” A beat, then Mason again, steadier. “She's smart, Colt. Scared, but smart. She'll have a reason for whatever she's doing.”
I don't have room in me right now to find that comforting.
I slam the truck door hard enough the frame groans and crank the engine, the big diesel roaring to life, vibration running up through the seat into my bones. I gun it down the mountain road, hands white knuckled on the wheel, tires biting snow and gravel, the truck fishtailing once on a sharp curve before I correct it without slowing down at all. Trees whip past in dark blurred streaks against the headlights. My heart pounds heavy and relentless against my ribs, every beat hammering the same fear. She's out there alone because she loves me enough to risk everything for it, and I let her get far enough out that door for it to happen.
The drive feels endless, every rut and jolt jarring straight up through my teeth. I push the truck harder than I should on these roads at this hour, the engine straining on the steep sections, snow spraying up from the tires and catching the headlights like static. My mind keeps supplying worse and worse pictures, her crashed somewhere on that trail with nobody knowing where to look, her already standing in front of the men who killed RichardRogers with nothing between her and them but whatever nerve she's got left. My jaw aches from clenching it. She's mine to protect, and right now I'm failing at the one job that's ever actually mattered to me.
Finally the lights of Timber Creek appear ahead, glowing pale against the dark like something out of a story where the town shows up right when you need it to. I skid into the diner parking lot, truck rocking hard on its shocks as it stops, and I'm out in a flash, rifle slung over my shoulder, cold air slapping my face without me feeling much of it at all. Mason and the others are already there, vehicles parked at hard angles like nobody bothered with anything as civilized as a parking line. Brock stands near the entrance, tall and unreadable, scanning the street with the kind of stillness that means he's already tracking something the rest of us haven't spotted yet. Jax leans against his truck, arms crossed, coiled tight the way a man gets right before he goes through a door he expects trouble behind. Ryker's got some handheld device out already, screen glowing blue against his face, pulling whatever data he can off the local network. Kane checks his weapon a second time, jaw set, young enough that this still costs him something to keep his hands steady, old enough that he doesn't let it show past a flicker.
“Where is she?” My voice comes out rough as I stride up to Mason, boots hitting pavement hard enough to sting.
Mason shakes his head, jaw tight. “Not here. We got here minutes ago. Greta says she used the phone, then stepped outside to wait for whoever was picking her up. No sign of her since.”
