What choice did she have but to trust him, regardless of appearance? He’d done nothing but show her kindness, while she’d brought destruction and possible death down upon him. She nodded. He smiled. The gesture softened his forbidding appearance.
“I’ll go down first,” he said, “and turn on some light. Then you can hand me the baby and come on down yourself. But we have to move quickly. This cabin will burn fast.”
How could this guy stay so calm, planning everything out neatly in a situation like this? Karissa’s shivers had become shakes that threatened to destroy the last of her sanity. The crackles from above were turning into a roar, and heat intensified atop her head.
“Let’s do this,” she said between gritted teeth.
The man nimbly disappeared into the blackness. Eternal moments later, a dim light came on, and she was gazing into his upturned face. He reached upward, and she handed him the baby. Strange how handing over her little charge of short acquaintance should feel like such a wrench.
“Now you,” he said, cradling the baby effortlessly in the crook of an elbow. “I’ll steady you if you lose your balance.” He offered his free hand.
Gulping, Karissa clambered down the ladder and found her feet on a cement floor. Immediately, the man returned Kyle to her and pulled the cord to bring the trapdoor down. It landed with a loud whump, sealing them off from the main floor. The light of a single overhead bulb offered only a dim view of their surroundings. Not much to see. Cinder-block walls, one side of which hosted a set of shelves that held fruits and vegetables in sealed canning jars. A long, wooden trough sat against the opposite wall. The black dirt inside it appeared to be the source of the pungent, earthy smell that filled the space that was about half the size of the cabin above.
“Worm farm,” her host said with a wry half grin. “I’ve done a lot of fishing over the past year I’ve been staying here, courtesy of the forest service.”
Karissa frowned. “Is this our big choice? Die down here with the worms when the smoke gets us or the floor collapses on us, or stay above and let the fire take us?”
The man cocked his head at her. “Intelligent questions, but I wouldn’t have led us down here if I didn’t have a plan for that contingency. Follow me.”
He grabbed his rifle and a large flashlight from a nearby shelf and headed toward the corner of the room. There, he opened a metal door that had been hidden from view by the shelving.
“Behold our sanctuary.” He motioned beyond the door.
A small laugh, born of strung-out nerves, escaped Karissa’s throat as she brushed past him into the dimness of a tunnel. “You are the quintessential oxymoron of a mountain man.”
“I’d like to ask you what you mean by that statement, but I think the question will have to wait.”
He pulled the thick door closed after them just as a loud crash from above signaled something, probably the roof, collapsing. The baby jerked out of his almost-sleep and started to cry. Karissa bounced him up and down in the comforting grip of both her arms.
“Follow me,” her rescuer said and led the way up the tunnel.
The flashlight’s beam played eerie shadows across the cinder-block walls. Karissa trembled, as much from tension as the dank chill. At least she could be grateful they weren’t caught up in the heat of the flames above.
Shortly, they came to another iron door. Her guide pushed it open. Karissa stepped into a small room set up with several cots, a small table and shelving that held nonperishable food staples and jugs of what appeared to be water. The temperature in the room was still cool, but at least it wasn’t dank.
“We’re in a bunker,” she stated matter-of-factly.
The mountain man placed the lamp on the table and grinned in her direction. “Good observation. We’re not even directly under the cabin any longer. This is a shelter in case a forest fire gets out of hand.”
“Handy for us.”
He chuckled, a mellow sound that soothed her frazzled nerves. “You can say that again. We’ll hole up here until darkness falls. Regardless of a bomb threat, the smoke should soon fetch real rangers to the scene, so I don’t figure our attackers will hang around long. But if by some chance the real rangers don’t show up, and our enemies aren’t satisfied that we’re dead but they’re hanging around somewhere to make sure, then darkness is our best cover to help us sneak away.”
“Real rangers? You’ve said those words twice. What do you mean?”
The man frowned. “I’m going to jump to a bit of a conclusion, but the guy we talked to on the radio was no one I knew, and I thought I’d met all the personnel at the park over the past thirteen months that I’ve been living here. A bomb scare—and hopefully that’s all it is—would be just the sort of thing to empty out the main ranger station so that an impostor could sit in and wait for a woman running for her life to show up or reach out for help. I can’t think of another way to explain how a truckload of gunmen knew where to come for you less than twenty minutes after our radio call.”
The strength suddenly left Karissa’s knees, and she plopped onto a wooden chair. “I can’t explain it another way, either.” Her voice came out as breathless as if she’d just finished her morning jog.
She swallowed against a dry throat as the implications of the attack on them sank in. She’d assumed she was fleeing from a single, desperate murderer who was trying to shut her up about his crime, but a plot that involved a bomb scare, a fake ranger and a posse of killers was a much larger conspiracy run by someone with far-reaching resources and considerable ruthlessness and determination. Clearly, he didn’t even draw the line at killing an infant. Suddenly, it seemed that her cousin’s murder might be the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
An opened bottle of water appeared under her nose. She blinked, coming out of her daze, and took the bottle from Hunter’s hand.
“Thank you.” She gulped greedily then inhaled a long breath and let it out in short, quivering puffs. “All right then.” She gazed up at her protector’s sober face. “I can’t thank you enough for being here and knowing what to do. I’m so, so sorry for getting you involved in this.”
“What exactly is this?” His tone was sharp, and his eyes narrowed on her.
“I wish I knew.” Tears stung the backs of Karissa’s eyes. “Everything happened just as I told you. I went to visit a cousin I hadn’t seen in—well, forever, found her dead, grabbed the baby, ran away from the killer and here I am. I’m asking the same question you are. What in the world is going on?”
His gaze seemed to sift through her, but at last his facial expression relaxed, and he nodded. “No need to apologize or to thank me. Thank God. This has to be more than coincidence that you showed up on my doorstep.”
An indefinable something in his expression seemed to be trying to communicate a message beyond his words, but Karissa had no idea what that message might be.
“You’re a Christian?” she asked.
“Yes.” The word was terse in a way that almost negated the answer.
Her rescuer looked away and set about lighting a nearby kerosene lamp, considerably brightening the room. Then he pulled a large rucksack off one of the shelves and plopped it onto a chair by the table. Karissa checked the baby in her arms and found him fast asleep. She gently laid him down on one of the cots.
“I’m a Christian, too,” she said. “Fresh off the mission field in Belize, actually.”
“Belize?” The