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Drawing in a few more calming breaths until she could breathe normally, she shook away the daze. Felt the ache from her skin to her bones. But that was good news. She could feel everything, even the nerve damage pain in her left leg from the wreck that took Uncle Dave’s life.
The CJ jerked to the right. What was going on?
Gemma turned her attention to the environment around her. The rain and the mud had risen even more and caught her rear tires. She had to hurry!
She tried to unbuckle her seat belt. Stuck. She searched for something sharp to cut herself out, but, strapped in the seat, she couldn’t reach the tool kit in the back. Regardless, she tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. The front end had crumpled as the CJ twisted against the tree. Since she’d opted for a hard top, she couldn’t cut her way out through the top, even if she could escape the seat belt trapping her inside.
She spied her cell phone—out of reach on the floorboard on the passenger side.
Gemma was going to die today, after all.
* * *
Grayson Wilde had picked the worst day for surveillance of the Tiger Mountain sanctuary. Now he paid the price as he searched for cover on the hillside to wait out the storm. He had an appointment in an hour to interview with Gemma Rollins, Tiger Mountain’s founder, for a part-time volunteer position. A senior special agent for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Gray worked undercover to investigate and infiltrate a wildlife trafficking ring.
Shivering in the cold, he pushed deeper into a shallow cave to shield himself from the brunt of the wind and rain while he waited it out. He scraped a hand over his face and wiped away the water. As miserable as it was to be in this place right at this moment, he reminded himself of the importance of his assignment. For starters, his mission in life was to thwart wildlife traffickers and poachers abusing God’s creations. It was crucial, dangerous work, considering illegal exotic pet trade and trafficking had become a multi-billion dollar industry, and came in right under drugs, firearms and human trafficking. And, as a source of funding for terrorist groups, it was a significant threat to both global and national security. But even aside from that, Gray had his own reasons for shadowing this sanctuary.
He’d gotten a tip from an informant that the person responsible for killing game warden Bill Garland—Gray’s friend and mentor—was connected with the project. It was the kind of tip he’d been waiting on for what seemed like a lifetime. Bill had stumbled on a potential trafficking ring years ago, and turned the information over to the feds then ended up dead. With only two hundred fifty USFWS special agents to investigate the entire country, justice was never fully served.
And Gray needed a chance to make things right.
He had started as a game warden but worked his way to becoming a federal agent and he finally had a solid lead on his ongoing investigation. Someone to connect with an extensive trafficking ring, though he didn’t yet have a name.
His new mission was to gain Gemma Rollin’s confidence and work the business with her so he could discover the truth. Find the person responsible for Bill’s death. Arrest him and everyone else involved.
He might have to show up for the interview soaking wet, but that could work in his favor.
Over the deluge he thought he heard a cry for help. Who would possibly venture out in weather like this? Well, other than himself. But unless they were conducting surveillance and working undercover, nobody should be out in the wilderness region that hedged the tiger sanctuary.
Gray quieted his thoughts and listened.
There it was again, only this time it was not a cry for help but an actual scream.
He darted from the cave back into the rain, wishing for goggles—a snorkel and a pair of flippers might even work. “Where are you?”
But he wasn’t sure how he could have heard the scream over the torrent to begin with and doubted they’d heard his response.
Careful of the slick ground, Gray made his way in the direction from which he thought the screams were coming. Then he found the road circling the tiger sanctuary.
That made sense. Someone could have been driving this and he wouldn’t have seen it from his perch. He jogged down the twisted, muddy road, water pouring from the rocky wall to his left. The screams came louder but were muffled.
Gray ran around a curve in the road and saw the mud rushing down the mountain, eating away this portion of the road.
And he saw an old Jeep CJ shoved up into a tree. He searched for thin places in the rush of water and mud and did a dance with the forces of nature as he hopped, skipped, jumped and charged like a bull intent on his target. He caught the bumper, gripped it, holding on against the force of the liquid earth sliding under his feet. He made his way to the driver’s side door.
A frantic woman sat inside, her mouth wide and halfway through the word help when she caught sight of him. She stopped and closed her mouth.
Assessing the situation, Gray didn’t need her to explain the urgency or that she couldn’t get her door open. He doubted climbing out the other side was even an option, since the vehicle hung precariously near the edge on the passenger side. He tried the door, using brute strength, and then kicked at it, but it wouldn’t budge. If he’d brought his weapon, he might have been able to shoot the door mechanism so it would release.
Instead, he grabbed a large rock.
Her troubled eyes grew wide again.
“Unbuckle your seat belt!” he yelled over the roar. “And move out of the way.”
“I can’t!”
“I’m going to smash the window.”
She nodded. Covering her face, she leaned away.
Gray hit the window. Glass shattered, falling everywhere inside the vehicle, including on the woman. She carefully tossed aside the bigger chunks, and Gray helped remove the rest. He pulled out his Buck knife from his jeans pocket, cut her seat belt and then tugged off his jacket, laying it over the window jamb to protect her. Gray planned to pull her out, but she climbed out herself, her agility surprising him until she fell to the ground. Her left leg appeared stiff, her expression one of agony.
“You’re hurt!” He crouched next to her. Of course, she would be hurt after her Jeep had slammed into the tree.
Rain beating down on her, she tried to stand on her own but failed and slipped back, mere inches from the spreading river of mud.
“We have to get out of here before the mud carries us away along with your Jeep.” Gray scooped her into his arms.
She struggled against him and reached for the vehicle. “No, wait! I need—”
“Unless you’ve got a child in there—” and Gray hadn’t seen anyone else in the vehicle “—someone else whose life is in danger, we’re getting out of here.”
“But—!”
Ignoring her, Gray headed away from the ensnared vehicle and the mudslide. He focused all his energy and strength into hiking over slippery boulders while holding a 115-pound woman with an injury. Behind him, he half expected to hear the telltale sound of the old Jeep CJ being carried away down the mountain, but that sound never came.
Carrying her solid but small form, he reached the road she’d been driving on when she’d hit the mud. He couldn’t imagine how terrifying that must have been. She was in her twenties, he’d guess, a few years younger than his thirty-two years. Was she a volunteer who he would work with? He’d have to explain what he’d been doing out here. But first they had to get somewhere safe and dry.
He hadn’t made it twenty yards when the rain slowed.
“You can put me down now.”
“You sure?”
She nodded. “I appreciate the help, but I can manage from here.”
He set her on the still-slick road and put his hand out, ready to catch her if necessary. “Careful now.”
Pushing her wet strands out of the way, she looked up at him, studying his face with her bright hazel eyes. Raindrops slid over her forehead and over her cheeks, revealing a pretty, natural face with a few freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. Her dark hair hung long down her back and was so waterlogged that he couldn’t tell for sure what color it was, but he was almost certain it was dark brown to match her perfectly shaped eyebrows.
He glanced up at the ashen sky and received droplets in his eyes. He wiped them out and then looked at the woman. “I suppose I should introduce myself. It’s not every day I carry a woman down the mountain.”
“I’m walking down the mountain,” she corrected. “But I’m sure it’s not every day you have to pull a woman trapped in a mud-strapped, tree-slammed Jeep.”
“You got that right.”
“Well, what’s your name, stranger?”
“Grayson Wilson. But you can call me Gray.” Though working undercover, he’d keep his first name. Easy enough to answer to that. Wilde would be off the books.
“I’m Gemma Rollins. I run Tiger Mountain, the sanctuary on the other side of this road. You might have noticed it since you were out wandering the area.” Her tone sounded suspicious.
Gemma Rollins. Tiger Mountain’s founder.
So much for his surveillance efforts. He should have known, though she looked nothing like the pictures, where she always had on sunglasses. Her eyes would have been a dead giveaway.
She shifted her focus to the road and then turned to him. “Well, are you coming? I want to get someplace dry.”
“And then you’ll call the sheriff, right?” The county maintained the mountain road, and she might want the report for her insurance.
Calling the sheriff was the right move for her, so Gray ignored the twinge he felt at the thought. Gray hadn’t wanted to run into the man so soon on this operation, but Sheriff Kruse would likely send a deputy out instead and, in that case, Gray could keep his cover unless it was Deputy Callahan. In theory, it would be safe enough to read in the local cops on his investigation...but in practice, it was a whole different story. Sometimes, even law enforcement could be involved in trafficking.
“Yes. We need to let the county know about the mud and trees on the road.”
She continued to favor her right leg over her left.
Gray asked, “Are you sure you’re not hurt? You’re limping.”
Gemma stopped and turned to look at him, staring at him with her determined and enormous, crystal-clear hazel eyes. Why hadn’t he known about the eyes beforehand?
Like that would have kept them from affecting him now. He didn’t want to stop looking at them.
“I was injured years ago. Nerve damage. My limp is part of me now. If you had let me grab my cane out of the Jeep, I’d be using that to walk.”
Gray was embarrassed. Why hadn’t he noticed a cane in the few pictures he’d seen? “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” He almost offered to assist her in walking, but the set of her jaw told him that would be the wrong thing to do.
“It’s okay. I understand. You were being a hero, and you couldn’t have known you were rescuing a debilitated damsel. Honestly, I didn’t expect anyone to hear my cries for help, much less a stranger to arrive to whisk me out of the Jeep. Thank you for that.” Her soft smile wiped away the furrow in her brow but not the anguish—the deep-seated agony—behind her eyes.
Gray had come here to bring this woman down if she was involved in the trafficking ring—and especially if she was involved, even indirectly, in Bill’s death. It seemed more than likely that she was part of the trafficking ring as founder of the sanctuary that was somehow connected.
How could she not be aware of the trafficking going on right under her nose? But looking at her now, Gray doubted his certainty. He could clearly see there was so much more going on in that head of hers. Finding answers would not be as easy as he’d hoped.
Especially when his natural drive to protect the innocent ignited for Gemma. Because if she wasn’t involved in the ring, then she could be in danger.
All he knew was that he had a feeling Gemma Rollins had just reversed their roles and she was about to make trouble for Gray. Either that or he had just made a world of trouble for himself in coming here.
TWO (#u10314a42-35db-5031-bdb3-4598c854435d)
Gemma kept up the warm and friendly banter while she shared the mountain road with Gray. She appreciated his assistance out of the CJ. She could have died without Gray’s help.
But she kept the conversation superficial. Gray was still a stranger and she didn’t know what he could have been doing on the mountain or on the road during this storm. She had even more reason to be wary given the saboteurs who had caused her too many problems already in the form of vandalism to the property. They hoped to sabotage her efforts to provide a reputable sanctuary for tigers. Could Gray be connected to them? It was certainly possible.
Pain throbbed up her leg, pain that seemed to ignite in full force when she was stressed in any way. And with all the stress in her life lately, that meant a lot of over-the-counter painkillers. She’d managed so far without prescription painkillers and wouldn’t start now, if she could help it.
She must have flinched because she saw him eyeing her with concern. “So what happened back there, anyway?” he asked. “You come around that curve too fast? Or was it the muddy deluge in the road that took you out?”
Gemma scoffed. “Let’s just say it was the perfect storm. My steering went out and the brakes couldn’t handle the slope.” She didn’t want to go on, fearing he might berate her for her lack of vehicle maintenance. She tried to ignore that gnawing in the back of her mind that it was something more threatening.
His demeanor changed—a subtle shift, but it was there.
Gemma shouldn’t have revealed so much. “I know, I know. Vintage doesn’t have to be unsafe.”
He cracked a grin.
Gray might be a stranger on this mountain, but he elicited a smile from her in return. She glanced at him. Covered in mud, he was kind of scruffy-looking, his hair hanging to his shoulders and making him resemble a character in an epic fantasy movie. He’d been there, right when she’d needed him. But...she was itching to ask what he’d been doing on the road.
Gemma wished she wasn’t a conspiracy theorist. Hoped that she was being entirely too suspicions, but she’d been through so much already. And where was this guy’s vehicle? Either something didn’t add up or Gemma didn’t have all the information necessary to fill in the equation. She suspected the first but hoped for the latter.
A vicious cramp shot pain up her leg and Gemma slipped and fell, letting out a yelp.
Humiliation scoured her. If not for her limp, she wouldn’t have gone down. Pebbles and rocks bit into her backside, adding to the mud already there.
Gray whisked her up and into his arms before she could protest. The concern in his face, the compassion in his warm brown eyes, told her she had nothing to fear from him. But she had never trusted her own judgment when it came to men like Gray—handsome men, whom Gemma could be attracted to if she let herself. Fortunately, her single-minded focus on her work meant she hadn’t run into that many men like Gray. Warmth spread through her as she rested in his arms and against his broad chest, or was the warmth from the embarrassment of her fall?
He grinned, though the distant rumble of trouble boiled in his gaze. “It’s okay, Gemma. I’m handy to have around at times like these.”
The guy made her laugh, easing her humiliation. “I see that.”
“And I know my timing is off, but—” he cleared his throat “—it’s about time for my interview. You want to interview me here and now or wait until we get to headquarters?”
Huh?
He must have noticed her bewilderment because he laughed. “I’m interested in your volunteer position.”
Gemma slapped her hand onto her head. “Oh! Oh, this is...well...put me down now.”
Without argument, he set her on her feet. “I’m just trying to show that I can be useful as a volunteer.”
Through the woods, Gemma spotted the main sprawl of buildings. “We’re close. Let’s get inside, dry off and warm up, and we’ll talk about volunteer work over a hot cup of cocoa. Is that all right?”
“Sounds perfect.” He flashed a nice set of teeth.
At least she had a reason to hope that he wasn’t connected with the saboteurs now. It didn’t make sense that someone would volunteer to help her if he really wanted to hurt someone. But the thought caused a shadow in her heart. She didn’t want that to be the case for Gray Wilson. She could ask any hard questions—What he was doing on the road? Where was his vehicle?—once they were inside with the others. But she didn’t want to think he was up to no good. His actions had proven otherwise so far.
Gemma led him through the side door of the main facility they hoped to open up for public education and training in the next few weeks. “This is the resource building. There’s a big fire roaring in the fireplace for days like this. So have a seat. I’ll get you a towel to dry off and a blanket to get warm.”
The faux leather couches could be wiped clean of mud and debris.
She disappeared down a hall toward her office, where she found Cara, her friend and employee, busy working on the computer recording data for the tigers and ordering supplies.
She glanced up at Gemma and gasped. “What happened?”
“It’s a long story. I have a guy out there, Gray Wilson, who says he was coming in for an interview today?”
Cara nodded. “Yeah. I left a message on your voice mail. He called this morning, and you said you needed help and, well, I thought you’d be back in time.”
“I met him on the mountain.”
