Kidnapped at Christmas Read online

  What kind of evil was this? Who would ever do that to someone?

  Never let your eyes get all distracted by the looks of a pretty woman. They’ll knock your mind off course, distract you from the job you’ve got to do, and bring you nothing but trouble and pain. His late grandfather’s voice suddenly echoed in the back of his mind. Growing up it was the only kind of answer he’d ever really gotten from the widower to questions of why the family was just him, Gramps and Dad. Joshua slid his arms from his leather coat. “I’m just going to drape this over you while we figure on what’s going on here.”

  But she shook her head furiously like she was even scared of his jacket.

  God, please help me. He took a deep breath as he prayed. His eyes rose to the skies above. What kind of trouble is this woman in? What kind of danger am I getting myself into by helping her?

  TWO

  Panic rose in Samantha’s chest. She could feel the land mine pressing against the small of her back and had no clue how sensitive the trigger was. But if this strange man suddenly dropped his coat on her or moved even a little, would the explosion kill them both?

  Please, God, help me make him understand the danger we’re in!

  Faint morning light now rose at the horizon, casting the snow and trees around them in long shadows and shades of blue. But she could still barely see Joshua’s face.

  “So, you don’t want my coat?” He said the words slowly, like he’d just been thrown a curve ball and was struggling to make sense of what was happening. He set his coat down on the porch beside her. “It’s okay. I promise. I won’t hurt you. I’m a corporal in the Canadian army. It’s my job to help people.”

  My heart wants to trust you, soldier. But my mind’s telling me not to be naive.

  Both of his hands rose slightly. There was a handgun in his grasp. “What if we start by my untying your gag?”

  “No.” Her head shook. The muffled cry sounded more like nah than no. She closed her eyes. This was useless. She’d never been that great at knowing how to talk to people even when she’d had a voice. Besides, she could shake her head all she wanted, but that didn’t mean he’d actually listen. Just like Eric never seemed to hear her whenever she explained she was actually very happy spending her evenings working at home alone and didn’t want him showing up with fast food or a DVD. Maybe Corporal Joshua Rhodes was a better man than most. But even still, eventually he was going to just take matters into his own hands, and pick her up or something, and kill them both.

  “Go!” she pleaded through her muffled gag. At least one of them should have the opportunity to getting out of this alive. “Run!”

  Tears filled her eyes. It was hopeless. Her go sounded like ga and she couldn’t even make a sound that was anything like run.

  “Go?” he asked.

  Thank You, God! He understood that much at least.

  “You want me to just leave you here?” He drew his hands back and looked at her like she was a very difficult problem he needed to solve. “You don’t want me to touch you, you don’t want me to untie you and you don’t want my coat? Instead, you do want me to hightail it out of here—and that’s just not going to happen. Right now, you and I are in this together. So, here’s how this is going to work, I’m going to ask questions. You’re going to nod yes or shake your head no. That work for you?”

  She nodded. Yes.

  “I get that you don’t want me to move you or touch you. Is it because you’re injured?”

  She shook her head. No.

  “Do you think something bad will happen if I move you?”

  Yes.

  “Will somebody will attack us? Like there’s somebody nearby lying in wait?”

  No.

  “How about a booby trap?”

  Yes. Her eyes cut to the floorboards hoping he’d understand.

  “Underneath you? Like a pressure-sensitive device?”

  Yes! She nodded her head.

  “Well, then I get why you’re so twitchy.” He set the gun down, reached into his back pocket and pulled out his knife. “It looks like you can move your head freely without setting it off. So, now that I know what’s going on, I’m thinking that if I’m really slow and careful I can probably cut off your gag and then you can tell me exactly what we’re dealing with, okay?”

  Yes, but—

  She swallowed back the thought. Her pulse was racing so quickly she was worried it alone might somehow set the land mine off. She hadn’t woken up this morning looking for a crash course in trusting her heart.

  But, somehow, Joshua, something inside tells me I can trust you.

  She took a breath and then nodded.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

  She felt the tip of the blade brush lightly against her jaw. It slid under the gag. He breathed a prayer under his breath and flicked the blade upward. The gag tore free.

  “Thank you!” She gasped. Then smiled, just slightly, her face creasing in relief. “I’m Samantha Colt.”

  “Good to meet you, Samantha.” He tapped her fingers lightly, like a substitute for a handshake, and then slipped the gag into his jeans pocket. “Now, how about you tell me what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice shook. She could guess it had something to do with something she’d been fact-checking for work. Military operations maybe? Criminal gangs? Missing women? Maybe the illegal weapon trade, considering the use of a land mine? But those were all long shots at best. And she wasn’t about to start throwing out wild guesses, especially to a stranger. “Honestly, I don’t know what happened, why someone would do this to me, or even where I am.”

  “Hey, it’s okay.” He set the knife down too. She had no idea how he was managing to keep his voice so calm and yet she appreciated it. “You’re in the Ontario countryside, middle of nowhere really, about an hour and a half north of Toronto, at the home of my friend Daniel. He’s a bodyguard with a private security business.”

  It rang a very faint bell. But she couldn’t place why. “I don’t know who that is.”

  “Where’s the device?” Joshua asked.

  “Under the small of my back. He said it was a land mine and that if I moved it would kill me.”

  “He?”

  “The man who tied me up and left me here. He didn’t tell me anything except about the land mine. I didn’t see much of his face, just that it was scarred. But he stunk like he smoked six packs a day. He had a partner with missing teeth, by the sound of it. They weren’t exactly chatty.”

  “Did you happen to see what the device looked like?”

  “No, but it’s round and about the size of a bagel. So, like an antipersonnel mine. Too small to be an antitank mine and definitely too flat be a bounding mine. It clicked.”

  His jaw dropped. “How do you know so much about mines?”

  “I’m a fact-checker. I know a little bit about a whole lot of things.”

  He nodded slowly, like he was absorbing everything she was telling him. His lips moved in what looked like silent prayer. The wind was picking up, tossing the ends of her hair and ruffling her clothes.

  “It’ll probably take the police over an hour to get here. Even then they might not be able to disarm the explosive, only detonate it.” There was a deeper, stronger timbre to his voice now, like a commanding officer preparing his troops for battle. “So, here’s what we are going to do. First, I’m going to, very slowly and very carefully, cut the ribbons holding both your hands and your feet—”

  “Ribbons?” She’d been able to tell her abductor had tied her feet with something red. But still a shiver of horror slid down her spine at the thought of someone tying her up like a Christmas present.

  “Ribbons,” Joshua confirmed. “Now, again, I’m going to cut them off and you’re going to help by staying very still and not moving, which might be hard considering your instinct’s going to be to stretch.”

  “Got it. I won’t move.”

  She felt the knife brush along her calves
. She stayed as still as she could, but even so she could feel the pressure in her ankles shift the moment he cut them free. Then he moved up to her hands. His fingers held hers gently as the knife sliced. Then the bonds fell away. The digging pain disappeared from her wrists. Gently he slid both of his hands over hers and rubbed warmth and life back into her fingers. She almost whimpered with relief.

  “Now,” he said, “I’m going to slide my hand underneath your back, nice and slowly, until I feel the land mine. Then, I’m going to hold the detonator down. When I do that, I’m going to shout ‘go,’ and then I need you to roll down the stairs as fast as you can. Don’t try to stand up. Just roll.” He slid off his jacket and threw it down into the snow. Then he took off his gloves and tossed them after it. “You can put those on when you get there. You’ll be needing the warmth. Now, you ready?”

  She nodded. “As ready as I’m going to be.”

  He squeezed the tips of her fingers and whispered another prayer under his breath. Then he slid his hand underneath her torso. She felt his hands feeling their way along the curve of her back. Slowly, gently, he worked his fingers in between her body and the metal casing.

  “Okay, I’ve got it. When I say ‘go’, you’re going to roll down those stairs right here, down to the ground. No hesitation. No thinking. Just roll. Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “Go.”

  She rolled down the stairs, her body beating hard on the frozen wood, expecting at any moment to feel the searing heat of an explosion consuming her body.

  She landed on her face in the snow, pulled herself up, and looked back at her rescuer.

  Joshua was kneeling on the porch, both hands pressed against the small land mine, in a position almost like CPR. Faint morning sun fell from above, onto his head and shoulders. He had a strong nose and a tender mouth. Even through the folds of a dark fleece she could see the broad cut of his shoulders. The faint scruff of day-old shadow brushed the lines of his jaw.

  She slid on his jacket and gloves and felt the residual warmth fill her limbs.

  “Now run,” he said. “Get as far away from here as you can. You won’t get a cell signal anywhere on this road, but if you turn left you’ll reach civilization eventually. To be totally honest, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to defuse this thing. If I do, I’ll come find you.”

  She hesitated. So he’d had no actual plan other than taking her place and substituting her life with his?

  An engine roared from beyond the trees. From inside the house, she could hear the dog barking again, and only then realized it had ever stopped. Someone was coming.

  “Samantha!” Joshua’s voice sounded clear and commanding. “Get out of here. Now!”

  Headlights shone through the trees, then flashed across her face.

  She ran.

  * * *

  The glare of approaching headlights filled Joshua’s view. As much as he hoped it wasn’t a foe, he hated the idea of putting any friend in the situation he’d found himself in. Samantha had disappeared into the shadows and he couldn’t see where she’d gone. He looked down at the small land mine he was now keeping depressed with both hands at once. He’d seen this kind before. Round and beige, his buddies in ordnance disposal said there were thousands of them still littered over the world’s abandoned battlefields. Not that he ever expected to find one in Canada. Or be in the situation he was now.

  Whoever Samantha is, she knows her land mines.

  A truck pulled down the driveway. The engine cut and doors slammed.

  The headlights faded slowly, as a lightly bearded man started down the driveway, with the kind of smooth, confident walk Joshua had secretly spent a good chunk of his teen years trying to copy.

  Thank You, God! A prayer filled his heart. Alex and Zoe were back. Alexander Fletcher had been Joshua’s best friend since kindergarten. While Joshua had been overseas serving his country, Alex had tried studying first to be a doctor, then quit to become a paramedic, before dabbling with the idea of a career in law enforcement and spending a few years teaching high school math and gym. He was the smartest man Joshua had ever met, even if Alex had spent years going through life like a boat searching for its anchor. But he’d finally taken up Daniel’s offer of moving to rural Ontario to help him start up Ash Private Security.

  Alex was one in a million. And there wasn’t a single person on earth Joshua knew more about, which just might save them now.

  “Code yellow jacket,” Joshua shouted. “Big, huge, code yellow jacket.”

  It was their own private in joke, which they’d used to warn each other of serious trouble ever since a teenaged Alex crashed Joshua’s first truck when a wasp flew in the window.

  Alex froze. “Zoe, stay back.” His arms shot out to keep her from coming any closer, looking like an umpire calling a runner in safe. “Josh? Where are you? What’s going on?”

  “On the porch. Holding a live land mine.”

  “And you went with ‘code yellow jacket’?”

  “Figured you were more scared of wasps than explosives.” Nothing like a friend you could joke with when you were one wrong move away from death. “It’s pressure sensitive. Small blast radius. I’m leaning into the detonator right now, keeping it down. If I let go, it explodes.”

  “Okay.” Even in the pale morning light he could tell Alex’s face had gone white. “Zoe, we got a situation.”

  “Tell me what you need.” Zoe leaped out of the vehicle. She was tiny, barely four foot eleven, with the kind of sharp, single-minded focus her stepbrother had occasionally lacked. Her chin-length hair was currently black with a few streaks of red. A world-class athlete in both gymnastics and mixed martial arts, Alex’s sister had been Daniel’s second private security recruit. It was her dog, Oz, who’d been barking just moments ago. Couldn’t hear the pup now.

  “All right,” Joshua said. “Zoe, open the kitchen door, get Oz out of here, drive until you get a cell phone signal and call the police. Tell them we’ve got a live land mine. If you run into a beautiful blonde woman wearing my leather jacket, her name is Samantha. I think she needs help, but I don’t necessarily trust her and you probably shouldn’t either.”

  He could feel his teeth grind at the very thought of warning them against Samantha. But what did he know about her really? Nothing. Except that she’d appeared on his friend’s porch tied up tight with an explosive underneath her. And after witnessing too many foolish men implode both their military careers and personal lives over meaningless war-zone infatuations, Joshua had learned there was a whole lot of truth to Gramps’s warning against trusting any attraction sparked in a moment of crisis.

  Zoe didn’t even pause, she just ran for the side of the house. Alex started quickly but carefully toward the steps. “And what do you want me to do?” Alex asked.

  “Find something we can replace my weight with. Something big and heavy. It’s a pressure trigger and it’s armed, so if I let go of it something else needs to take my place.”

  “Should I ask who this beautiful blonde is and how you got into this mess?”

  “I don’t know who Samantha is,” Joshua said. “I just found her here on the porch, freezing cold and tied up on top of a land mine. She said she was a fact-checker. And yeah, she’s staggeringly attractive—unbelievably so—like the kind of woman you don’t just run into in real life. So if there’s any chance I’m dreaming, now would be a really great time to pinch me.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Didn’t think so. Anyway, whoever Samantha is, she’s lost, she’s in trouble and she’s absolutely terrified of whoever left her here.”

  Oz shot past. The dog tore down the driveway. Seconds later, Zoe and Samantha came back around the corner of the house, dragging a bag of cement between them.

  “I take it that’s her?” Alex’s eyebrow rose.

  “Yeah, but I told her to run.”

  “Hey, I’m Alex.” He ran toward them and grabbed the middle of the bag, sharing the load. �
��I see you’ve met my sister, Zoe.”

  “I did.” Her voice strained under the weight. “I’m Samantha. Hope you don’t mind but I let the dog out. Sounded pretty frantic. Found this by the garage. Thought you could use it to counter the pressure on the land mine.”

  Joshua didn’t know if he was more relieved, impressed or amazed by her plan. Not that he exactly liked the idea of her doing the exact opposite of what he’d just told her to do to save her own life. But she was quick-thinking. And brave. He had to give her that.

  Slowly, Samantha, Zoe and Alex hauled the cement up to the bottom of the steps, then started climbing up toward him. They reached the top step and he directed them until they were holding the bag right over his hands. Then they lowered it, inch by inch, until the weight rested on top of his fingers, pressing them deeper into the trigger. He took in a sharp, painful breath.

  “Now, you all go. Run. I’m going to inch my fingers out of here and we’ll all pray it doesn’t blow.”

  The three of them ran back down the steps. Alex and Zoe made it almost as far as the truck before stopping. But Samantha stopped in a faint pool of light at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Samantha, please.” His eyes searched her face.

  “You just saved my life. I didn’t hear one quiver of doubt from you when you were doing this for me. Your nerves were rock steady.”

  Yeah, but that’s only because I was so totally focused on saving you I blocked out the danger that I was in.

  “So, logically you’ll be safer if I stay,” she went on. “Just do what you did with me, only do it in reverse and don’t blow up. I believe in you.”

  He inched his fingers out slowly, one by one, feeling the weight of the unmixed concrete sliding in to take their place. First one hand, then the other slid out until the bag of cement lay across the porch in front of him where Samantha’s body had been just moments ago.

  He let out a long breath and slid his gun back into his holster. Then he stood up and carefully inched his way around the bag. He could hear Alex clapping but didn’t look at him. Instead, his eyes locked on where Samantha was still standing at the bottom of the stairs. A smile of relief crossed her lips.