But she merely blinked at him, neutral expression morphing into puzzlement. “Are you all right? You suddenly lost half your tan.”
Hunter searched for his voice. Karissa clearly didn’t recognize him. Of course, they’d never met in person, but his picture had been well publicized not long after the horrible tragedy. He’d been clean shaven in those shots, though, and his hair had been short. Now, with a full beard and hair that hadn’t seen scissors in months, not to mention his scars, he probably looked like some kind of holdover from the Gold Rush days. However, he couldn’t count on facial hair to maintain his camouflage indefinitely. At any moment, she would recognize who he was, and she would despise him. Probably as soon as she asked him to introduce himself. He’d put that moment off as long as possible.
“You two still there?” The ranger’s query from the other end of the radio snapped Hunter back into the moment.
“Ten-four, Remy. We’ll be here waiting for the cavalry to show up.” How had his voice come out so upbeat when panic sought to devour him alive?
“Hang tight. Over and out.” The airwaves went dead.
Hunter got up and went for his gun case. He took out the rifle, loaded it, made sure the safety was on and then propped the firearm against his desk. A strangled noise coming from his female houseguest drew his attention. Had she recognized him at last? Stiffening, Hunter forced himself to turn toward Karissa. She wasn’t staring at him, but at his gun.
“How did life suddenly turn so dangerous we might actually have to use that to defend ourselves?” Her hoarse whisper barely carried to him over the fussing of the baby, who was kicking and flailing on the hearth rug.
He lifted one side of his mouth in a grim half smile. “We’ll be ready if we have unwelcome intruders before help arrives.”
The tension around her lips eased marginally, and she jerked a nod in his direction.
“Let’s get that wound cleaned up,” he said and went for his first aid kit.
Soon, he had a bandage on the bullet crease that had nearly ceased bleeding since she was no longer exerting herself. It was impressive that she didn’t cry out, just gnawed her lower lip and kept her gaze averted. As soon as he was done with her, Karissa began rummaging in the diaper bag.
“Thank You, Lord.” She pulled out a can of powdered formula and glanced over her shoulder at him. “You wouldn’t have any purified water, would you? I changed him while you were on the radio, but now this little guy is hungry as a bear. Might as well feed him while we wait.”
“I think I can accommodate.” Hunter ventured a full smile, but her focus had already left him as she scooped up the baby. The little fellow was now alternating between howls and trying to eat his fist.
A few minutes later, the baby was contentedly guzzling while Karissa held him on the threadbare sofa that served as Hunter’s main piece of furniture, other than his bed in the loft, and the steel-topped table where he ate his meals.
Hunter hefted the rifle and kept watch at the window while he prayed for a rescue vehicle to soon emerge from the break in the trees where a one-lane dirt track led into the clearing. In a short while, muted thunder began to grow louder, closing in from a distance. Not thunder. An engine. No—engines, plural, and at least one of them was a diesel. Hunter’s insides tensed. Something wasn’t right. Too many vehicles to pick up one woman and a baby—especially with a bomb threat on.
A large white SUV with the forest service logo on the side panel burst from the tree line, traveling recklessly fast. A second vehicle—this one a black-as-sin, heavy-duty pickup truck—followed nearly on the SUV’s bumper. Both vehicles braked suddenly and skidded to a stop.
What was sticking out through the second vehicle’s windows? Waning sunlight reflected off metal. Guns! Pulse rate skyrocketing, Hunter whirled away from the window toward his innocent and oblivious charges.
“We’re under attack!” he cried as a fusillade of bullets thudded into the cabin’s thick log walls, shattering the window where he’d been standing a split second before.
Kyle against her shoulder as she worked on burping him, Karissa froze in midpat. Had she heard right? They were being attacked?
Barely had she begun to process the answer when she found herself wrapped in great bear arms. Hugged against a solid chest, she and the baby were half dragged, half carried deep into the kitchen area. The man upended the thick, metal-topped table and thrust her and Kyle down behind its cover.
“Someone’s shooting at us.” The words exploded from her mouth.
“You think?” he growled. His firm square lips thinned into a pencil line as he trained his rifle barrel around the edge of the table toward the front door.
She glared at her protector as if he were personally responsible for the attack. Ridiculous reaction, but there was no one else to glare at as heat in her gut battled ice in her chest. There had been a couple of tense situations on the mission field in Belize when she’d had opportunity to experience this toxic mix of outrage and terror, and she didn’t like it any better now than she had then.
The automatic gunfire lulled then renewed. Karissa cringed at the thwap of bullets striking furniture, the tinkle of glass smashing and a sudden spate of metallic gongs as a ribbon of bullets played off the set of pots and pans hanging from ceiling hooks. Kyle thrashed and howled as she cuddled him close. An impact sent the heavy table scooting a few inches backward toward them.
Then the gunfire suddenly ceased. An eerie quietness descended on the cabin. Even the baby seemed to be holding his breath. Then he suddenly stiffened, and his sweet little face screwed up in preparation for renewed howling. Karissa shushed and bounced him. Gradually, his expression relaxed, and he apparently decided sticking his thumb in his mouth was a better alternative to straining his vocal cords.
The cabin owner’s intense gray gaze bored into her. “Are you both all right?”
Karissa quickly examined the baby, but he seemed unhurt. In fact, his eyelids appeared to be growing heavy. Poor kid had been through a lot of trauma and excitement that he had no way to understand in the past couple of hours.
“We’re good,” she said.
“Not yet, we’re not. They could burst in here any second to check their handiwork, and my rifle is a poor match for automatic weapons.”
A sudden whoosh and a crackling noise overhead sent Karissa’s gaze toward the ceiling. An acrid smell began teasing Karissa’s nostrils.
“What’s going on?” She looked up at her protector.
The mountain man’s bearded face had hardened into a fierce mask. “The good news is they don’t plan to rush in here. The bad news is they’re burning the cabin. If anyone is alive in here, they expect us to run out where they can pick us off like tin ducks in a county fair target-shooting booth.”
Karissa sucked in a breath. “What are we going to do?”
“Not what they expect.” He turned away from her and tugged back a corner of the thin area rug they were squatting on, exposing a portion of a trapdoor.
“Of course! You have a cellar.” Karissa scooted off the rug and allowed him to completely uncover the door.
The man grabbed an iron ring attached to one side of the door and lifted the hatch. Chilly air wafted upward, pebbling the skin on her bare arms. Her wound throbbed. Karissa glanced toward the ceiling, where heat already radiated downward, and then back into the cellar where utter blackness beckoned. Would the smoke penetrate the cellar? Or would the floorboards currently beneath her feet fall