Chuck. Although Owen had been the one who’d nearly hit their son, Chuck had shot at Cord and her ex-husband obviously held him responsible for everything that had happened. The same need for revenge that pulsed inside Cord lapped at her, and for a moment she wanted to be the one to put an end to Chuck.
But if she did-if Cord did-their son would know.
“No, Cord, no!”
His attention flickered toward her. When he blinked, she knew she’d reached him. “You can’t,” she said, speaking more softly now. “It doesn’t matter what he’s done, you can’t lower yourself to his level.”
“He’s been killing wild animals for years.”
“Let the courts deal with him. They might not be perfect, but they’re all we have.”
“I have this.” Cord indicated the rifle.
“If you use it, you’ll lose your son. You might spend your life behind bars.”
“My son,” Cord whispered as if the possibility of prison meant nothing to him. Then, while the others waited without breathing, he handed the weapon to her. She still had to fight her own desire for revenge, but the words she’d thrown at Cord were for her, too. After unloading the rifle, she tossed the bullets into the brush, grabbed the weapon by the barrel and swung it as hard as she could against the nearest boulder.
“What the -” Chuck began.
“Shut up.” Cord spoke without emotion. “Just shut up.”
Although he continued to glare, the fight went out of Chuck. Still, she was glad the men had grabbed his arms; that way she could dismiss him and concentrate on what really mattered.
Cord wasn’t staring at the men or her. He still looked as angry and untamed as she’d ever seen him, but after a few minutes, a little of the tension, or maybe it was his strength, seeped out of him. He no longer reminded her of an elk ready for battle. He was more like the man she might spend the rest of her life trying to understand.
“You need help.” She whispered because she could barely get her voice to work. “A doctor.”
“I’m fine. I hit my head on a rock, that’s all.”
“You’re not fine.” Ignoring the others, she gently pushed aside Cord’s hair so she could look at his injury. A ragged gash bled freely from his scalp; she could only pray he hadn’t sustained a concussion. With sudden, sickening clarity she understood that if the bullet had hit him, it would have killed him since it had been designed to bring down an animal weighing several times what he did.
“I’ll call Dale back and tell him to send along a paramedic,” she told Cord.
“I’m a paramedic,” he said with the slightest of smiles. “It stunned me, that’s all.”
Then, to her concern and relief, he sat on the nearest rock and lowered his head. With trembling hands, she rubbed the back of his neck until he straightened and looked at her. His eyes were clear, his pupils normal size. Still, more emotions than she could possibly contend with threatened to explode inside her, but until they did, she would act in a calm and responsible way.
She continued to watch the men out of the corner of her eye, but what they heard and saw and thought didn’t matter. If Chuck made a run for it, the others would either recapture him or not. If they didn’t, he might spend the rest of his life up here on the mountain because he didn’t dare come down to where law enforcement waited.
The primitive, vengeful woman who’d nearly lost the two most important people in her life hoped he would take off-unarmed and without so much as a match or handful of trail mix. He wasn’t Cord Navarro. He’d starve in country that could sustain Cord for as long as he needed it to.
“Mom?”
Matt had joined them and was carrying his father’s first-aid kit. With less than steady hands, she took it from him and removed what she needed to clean the gash. Much as she wanted to shield Matt from the sight of all that blood, it was too late. Besides, Matt wasn’t a little boy to be protected from reality.
“Dad? I’m sorry. You almost-”
“I’m all right,” Cord said softly, and she could tell that Matt believed him. “What about you?”
“Me? I was scared. When I heard that sound, I-”
“You did right,” she reassured him. Cord didn’t so much as move a muscle as she started working on him; maybe he wasn’t aware of his body, of her. “Exactly right.”
“You had no idea they were around?” Cord asked.
“I felt like, you know, someone was watching me. Maybe-maybe I knew you were coming.”
“Maybe you did,” she whispered when Cord didn’t speak.
Cord continued to stare at Matt, his face all but expressionless. She’d seen his fury at the men who had risked Matt’s life, his need for revenge, a raw moment of unadorned relief when he realized his son was all right. Now he was doing what he must think was expected of him-letting his son believe this had been nothing more than another search for him, one with a successful ending.
Something began building inside her. She couldn’t put a name to the emotion; neither could she fight the growing storm. “You knew that man’s name. How long have you known they were up here? How long, Cord?”
“Days.”
“Days? And you didn’t tell me? Why not?”
In the distance a crow squawked. The hard sound echoed what she heard in her voice.
“Why not?” she repeated.
“You had enough to worry about.”
“Enough?” The rolling wave of emotion expanded and became more than she could control. “You didn’t think I was strong enough, did you? Cord, what you did -” Matt was staring at her with alarm in his eyes. Still, she couldn’t stop, didn’t even try. “You don’t have any idea how much I hate your damnable silence, do you? The strong, silent Indian. Keeping emotions, if you have them, from your wi-from me.”
“I wanted to spare you.”
“Spare?” She threw the word back at him. How dare he sit there with the wind tossing his hair and sunlight glinting in his beautiful black eyes while she worked on the injury that held proof of…of what? “Spare?” She didn’t care whether the men or Matt heard; she had no control over what came out of her and didn’t want it back until she’d said what she had to. “I survived Summer’s death, our divorce, days and nights of looking for Matt. Don’t you have any idea how strong I am?”
“You couldn’t have done anything if you’d known.”
“You and I searched for Matt because he’s the most important human being in both our lives. At least, he is in mine. I’ve been honest with you about everything I’ve felt. Every emotion. But you-what the hell does it matter?”
“Mom?”
Matt shouldn’t hear his parents fighting-hear her yelling at his father. But she and Cord had made love deep in his beloved wilderness. How could he not know her heart?
Cord said nothing; she didn’t expect or want anything from him, couldn’t imagine ever wanting to speak to him again. When, after an awkward moment, Cord told Matt to take off his boots and sit down so he could see his foot, she simply stood back, watching father and son.
There were no words between them. Only touching.
There were things she had to do, like keeping pressure on the wound so it would stop bleeding. Her parents deserved to know what had happened since her desperate call. She should ask Dale when she could expect the helicopter and tell him how many prisoners-was that what they were?-there were. Maybe Matt needed something to eat. But he was looking from her to his father and then back again, clearly uneasy.
Feeling both dead inside and more alive than she’d ever been, she concentrated on her son. “Your dad said… he said he didn’t think you were afraid. We found where you slept, you barely moved.”
“I wasn’t scared, not after a while.” Matt tried to rub some dirt off his hand by scrubbing it along his jeans. “Dad, I remember you telling me there wasn’t anything to be afraid of in the woods.”
“I – I’m glad you remembered,” she whispered.
Ignoring his bare foot, Matt kicked at the ground and then stole a glance at his father. “I wanted you to be proud of me.”
“I am.”
“I should have gotten unlost without your help.”
She didn’t feel like laughing. Still, she heard herself do just that. “That’s what your dad said, that you wanted to prove you could climb Copper all by yourself. That’s what made tracking you so hard.”
