He freed himself, catching Will’s hand briefly in his own before slipping away. Frowning, Will watched him lift himself up and out through the broken window frame.
Taylor paused, balanced in the window for a moment. “And when this is over, you owe me a real vacation,” he said. “We’ll call it a honeymoon.” The next moment he was gone, disappearing into the twilight.
Will waited, watching the fire shadow dance over the dead ranger’s body.
* * * * *
They would come. Taylor had no doubt on that score. He lay in the tall grass behind the well, watching the meadow, waiting for their approach. A glance back at the lodge showed empty windows orange with firelight. Yeah, they would come, expecting to find Taylor and Will inside — maybe even sleeping.
The moon turned the waves of grass to silver. Somewhere on the other side of the building Will was lying in wait with the rifle. The thought cheered him. There was no better shot than Will. He smiled a little, thinking of Will’s words before they’d separated.
Funny how he’d resented Will’s overprotective streak before. Now it just felt reassuring.
If unnecessary.
The hours passed.
Taylor began to wonder if they were wrong. Maybe Bonnie and Orrin had decided to cut their losses and head for the hills.
And then he heard the rumbling in the distance — raising his head he saw lights in the distant sky. A helicopter — with search lights.
Too far away — checking the next valley over. Interesting, though. He wondered what it meant; would have liked to ask Will what he made of it.
He resisted the temptation to look for his partner. He knew he was there. He could feel him out there — hunting — just as Taylor was, and it was crucial to their survival both as a team and a couple that they prove to themselves that they could still do this. That they could still operate.
All the same, he’d have liked to know where Will was right now.
An owl hooted somewhere over on the other side of the corral: a low, raspy who-o-o, who-o-o.
It sounded so natural that it took Taylor a moment to recognize that call for what it was: Will checking in, letting him know where he was positioned. He grinned in the darkness, and cupped his hands, mimicking a whippoorwill — which was the only birdcall he could make that sounded halfway realistic.
As far as he knew there were no whippoorwills in the High Sierras, and he could just imagine Will shaking his head over it.
More time passed. His stomach growled. Too much longer and he’d be willing to sample the berries growing by the side of the house. He was beginning to feel his assorted aches and pains with a vengeance, his muscles stiffening up. That was liable to slow him down when the moment came.
Taylor was still mulling this over when a rifle fired, cracking the silence. He scooted out from behind the well and Orrin was striding up the meadow, firing steadily at a clump of chinquapin. He made no attempt at concealment, so he had to believe he had them cornered — which meant he already knew they weren’t inside the building.
And Will wasn’t firing back.
For a split second Taylor was afraid, and then he put it out of his mind, trusting Will to know what he was doing as he expected Will to trust him. He crawled forward along the outside corral, and as he did a bullet slammed into the wooden fence a few inches above his head. Bonnie — coming up from behind the lodge.
He had to give them credit; that was a smarter move than he had expected, but Orrin and Bonnie weren’t taking any chances this time. Taylor dived behind a small shed. He could hear the whup, whup, whup of the helicopter, the searchlight skimming over the trees and fields heading down the valley — moving toward them.
Orrin was still blazing away. As Taylor watched, Will rose up out of the grass — nowhere near that chinquapin shrub.
“Drop it.”
Orrin froze.
“I said drop the rifle, Orrin,” Will called.
Orrin didn’t move — and didn’t throw the rifle away — and Taylor immediately understood. He began to look for Bonnie.
“Not going to tell you again,” Will said calmly, trusting Taylor to take care of business.
Sure enough, there Bonnie was, stepping out from behind the smoke shack, drawing a bead on Will. Taylor launched himself at her, tackling her around the waist. He felt one bullet burn past his cheek — she went down firing — and he felt another bullet hit the ground next to his foot.
He slammed Bonnie against the ground — wanting it to end there, wanting to not have to punch her — and wrested the rifle from her.
She was screaming and swearing, doing her best to kick him in the balls, and then, in the distance, Taylor heard another rifle shot.
And even though he trusted Will to look after himself, for one very long second his heart forgot how to beat.
He cuffed Bonnie on the head, and she stopped fighting, sobbing with fury and frustration. Scrambling to his feet, he searched for Will, and became aware of the thrum of helicopter rotor blades drowning out everything else. Pale light bathed the yard like a spotlight. He couldn’t see anything.
“Brandt?” he yelled.
“This is the California Department of Fish and Game. Put down your weapons.”
Taylor stared across the blanched white yard, the tall grass whipping in the wind created by the helicopter blades.
He opened his mouth to call for Will again, but Will shouted back, “Right here, MacAllister.”
“We repeat. This is California Department of Fish and Game. Put down your weapons.”
Saved by the Department of Fish and Game? They were never going to live that one down. Filing that one away for future amusement, Taylor threw aside Bonnie’s rifle.
“You bastard,” Bonnie said. “I wish we’d killed you.”
Taylor made a kissing sound to her, moving forward to pat her down quickly,
