Hot as Sin (Hot Shots: Men of Fire #2)(57)
Author: Bella Andre

Finally, Sam picked up speed, managing to find his rhythm on the trail, even though he was moving a hell of a lot slower than he usually did. It helped that he didn’t have a hundred-and-fifty pound pack. Without any sort of vehicle, he wouldn’t overtake them, but he held tight to the hope that he wasn’t too far behind.

Until he got to the dirt road and saw the tire tracks.

Fuck! The bastard must have stashed a dirt bike on the trail.

Sam could easily follow the tracks. But on foot, he didn’t stand a chance of getting to Dianna nearly fast enough.

He needed help, but heading back to the Farm for reinforcements and to call in the Rocky Mountain hotshot crew and police force was out of the question. Odds were Dianna would be dead by the time he hiked back the way they’d come.

Knowing he’d have to make do alone, Sam ran through the meager tools he had on him. The knife might come in handy later, but what about the flares? He still had four left.

Best-case scenario, the flares would simply send off a smoke signal to any passing aircraft. Worst case, they would ignite a forest fire.

As a hotshot, it went against everything in Sam to light a wildfire on purpose. Arson had always been his biggest enemy, but he couldn’t waste any time feeling conflicted over the choice he was making.

He’d face a hundred arson charges if it meant saving Dianna.

Pulling the cap off of one of the flares, he bent down and lit a clump of dry brush on the edge of the trail.

Watching it burn and move across the mountain with the wind, he hoped like hell that Will and the rest of the Rocky Mountain hotshot crew were canvassing these mountains hourly for wildfires. If the wind picked up, the flames would either ravage the forest in a matter of hours—or turn on him and catch him up in the fire he’d started.

Following the four-inch tire tracks up the dirt road on foot, he continued to light flares every half mile until he was down to his final one. Praying that someone on the local hotshot crew would read his smoke signal, he held one last flare in reserve.

Sam continued to make his way up the trail, his legs and lungs burning, sweat soaking his clothes, praying all the while that Dianna was still alive.

Stay strong, sweetheart, he silently pleaded. I’m coming to get you.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

WIND WHIPPED across Dianna’s eyes, making them water as she held on to the handlebars for dear life.

The man was driving way too fast, the trees a blur beside them as he sped up the bumpy road. She kept sliding, first to one side, then the next, as she overcorrected. She squeezed her eyes shut against the trail dirt flying up from under the wheels, but she couldn’t block out the image of Sam falling off the trail. It would haunt her forever.

Her captor pressed close against her, and even though he’d told her that he was disgusted by the thought of touching her, she could feel his hard-on pressing into her rear every time they hit a rough patch.

What if he changed his mind about raping her?

What if he’d already raped April?

Bile rose to her throat again, and along with the motion sickness she was feeling, she nearly spewed all over the handlebars.

You’re going to see April soon and then you’re going to figure out how to get away from him.

This mantra was all she had to cling to.

Her heart squeezed and she momentarily lost her breath as she thought about Sam being pushed off the trail. These past three days with Sam had been more than she could have ever hoped for. But they weren’t enough.

She wanted a lifetime.

As the dirt bike wound up the trail, Dianna’s hands quickly went numb and her legs and rear soon followed. She wasn’t sure if it had been thirty minutes or two hours by the time he abruptly hit the brakes.

Her chest flew into the handlebars and she grimaced in pain as the man got off the bike, walking away without undoing the locks that held her captive on the dirt bike.

Dianna clenched and unclenched her hands to bring life back to her numb limbs until tingles started shooting up both of her arms. Blinking fast to clear the wet dirt from her eyes, she looked around at where he’d taken her. They were parked beside a barn on its last legs at the end of a long row of ratty old trailers. Surrounded by the metal boxes, it was almost like being a kid again, except for one big difference.

No matter how bad life in the trailer park with her mother had been, she’d never feared for her life.

“April!” she screamed just in case her sister was close by, but there was no answer.

And then the man reappeared, pushing April forward with his gun.

Although Dianna was overjoyed that her sister was still alive, she gasped at the state she was in. Her face was a mess of blood and bruises, her wrists were bound together with tape, and she looked horribly weak, like she might drop unconscious to the ground at any second.

“You found me,” April said through wobbling lips.

Before Dianna could tell her sister how much she loved her, that she would have moved heaven and earth to find her, the man lifted up the gun and laid the barrel against April’s skull.

“I didn’t get to say good-bye to my brother,” he said, his hands and voice shaking with rage. “You’re not going to get the chance either.”

Dianna frantically pulled at her chains, but there was no way she could get off the bike and save her sister.

Right before he pulled the trigger, April’s gaze was steady, utterly unflinching, and Dianna read all of the love she and her sister had never been able to share with each other in her sister’s beautiful hazel eyes.

———

Sam had been running too many miles, too fast without any water. His legs were starting to go and his chest was burning. With a stiff breeze sending the small fires he’d lit crawling up the mountain’s mounds of dead brush, he was afraid this was about to turn into his worst-case scenario.

With no other option but to keep moving forward, Sam pushed through another tenth of a mile, his muscles and tendons screaming with every footfall. Minutes dragged by as he continued to put one foot in front of the other.

Hotshots were often called superheroes. But Sam had been doing the job long enough to know that they weren’t. They were just average men who sometimes did extraordinary things. And like any other man on the verge of dehydration, he needed water.

Or he’d die.

And then, suddenly, he heard the sharp whirring of helicopter blades breaking through the silence of the forest. Using the last of his strength, Sam clambered up the tall edge of the cliff to try to make himself seen in the nearest clearing.

But the helicopter flew right past him.