Snowed In

“Always glad to have your help, Sarah.”

Blake tried one more time to dissuade her. “You can’t leave Emily here alone.”

“I trust the twins to keep her safe. They’re spending the night.”

She dangled Blake’s car keys from her fingers. “Should I drive?”

Without a word, Blake took the keys and headed for the door. He could think of only one reason Sarah would leave her beloved B and B to go after the bad guys: she wanted to talk to him about the wedding. Cake orders and flower arrangements were the last thing on his mind.

When he pulled away from the house, she fastened her seat belt and asked, “Have you talked to Jeremy yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Good, because when you do I hope you’ll tell him that the wedding plans shouldn’t be changed. Emily has her heart set on this ceremony.”

“My decision about where the wedding should be held will be based on risk assessment,” he said coldly. “Protecting the general is my number one priority.”

“But you’re also the best man,” she said. “That means it’s your job to make sure the bride and groom are both happy.”

“Don’t tell me my job.”

“For the bachelor party, are you planning to have a stripper? There’s a tavern in Carbondale where they have a lot of stag parties, and you might want to check with them.”

This was one relentlessly bossy female. He muttered, “I can find my own stripper.”

“I bet you can. And I wonder what’s your favorite type, the French maid or the naughty schoolgirl? Wait, I know. You’re a dominatrix man.”

“Are you volunteering?”

“I have my very own riding crop.”

If she was trying to distract him, she’d succeeded. Though he kept his focus on Kovak’s taillights, Blake’s mind had wandered far away, visualizing long legs in fishnet stockings and a tight leather vest crisscrossing Sarah’s breasts. His vision was an act of pure imagination. He hadn’t seen enough of her body to know what she’d look like naked.

He yanked his thoughts back to the present situation. They were driving toward a potentially dangerous confrontation. He needed to have his wits about him. “Jumping in the car with me was a mistake, Sarah. A big mistake. I’d call it a third strike.”

“What do you mean?”

“You disobeyed my order to drive into town. That was strike one. You followed me into the B and B, that’s two. Then you sashayed out the door and into that passenger seat.”

“I never sashay,” she said.

According to his imagined version of her, the sashay was only one of her moves. He cleared his throat. “I need your cooperation. When we get to Farley’s cabin, you stay in the car. Got it?”

She nodded. “And when it’s time to talk to Jeremy, what are you going to tell him?”

“I like your B and B as a location for the wedding. The house is secure and easily defensible. The location makes it difficult for anybody to sneak up on us. However, if there’s a clear danger, we’ll have to change plans.”

“I really hope that doesn’t happen.”

On the road ahead of him, Kovak cut his lights and parked. Blake did the same. Before he left the car, he said, “Stay here, Sarah.”

As she leaned across the seat and touched his arm, a glimmer of starlight touched her face. Her lips parted as though blowing a kiss. “Be careful.”

She could look real sweet when she wanted to, but he wasn’t fooled by her petal-soft lips and her long eyelashes. She was tough, determined and—like him—usually got her way.

He joined Kovak and his men. With a minimum of discussion, they had a plan. The officers would deploy around the front and rear of the one-story cabin while Blake went onto the porch beside the front door. Kovak would negotiate. Hopefully, Farley and his men would surrender without a fight.

Moving quickly, they got into position. Blake flattened his back against the wall between the front door and a window. He wanted to be close in case the guy with the assault rifle took it into his head to come out firing.

Kovak yelled, “Tyler Farley, this is Deputy David Kovak. We have your cabin surrounded. Farley, we know you’re in there.”

From the window to Blake’s right, he heard a shout. “What do you want, Deputy?”

“Throw out your weapons. Raise your arms and come out one by one.”

“Can’t do that. One of my men can’t walk.”

“Drag him out,” Kovak yelled.

Inside the cabin, they were arguing. Blake couldn’t make out the words but knew from the tone that they disagreed. He suspected that the wounded men were ready to give up. The others might want to make a stand.

“Let’s go,” Kovak yelled. “You’ve got five seconds.”

Blake silently cringed. If he’d been negotiating the surrender, he wouldn’t have issued that ultimatum so quickly. Farley needed a minute to understand that it was to his benefit to cooperate.

“Hands up. Weapons down.” Kovak started his countdown. “One...two...”

Beside Blake, the door swung inward. The guy who charged through and stood on the porch was still wearing his ski mask and held his assault rifle in one hand. He didn’t notice Blake standing just behind him. Though the weapon was pointed down, his finger was on the trigger.

“Drop the weapon,” Kovak yelled.

Red dots of light from the rifle sights of Kovak and another officer danced on the chest of the masked man. He didn’t have a chance. Before he could lift his rifle, he’d be shot. The smart decision would be for him to surrender, but Blake guessed that this guy was operating more on impulse than intelligence.

In a well-practiced move, he knocked the masked man off his feet and onto his belly, facedown in the crusted snow. Blake took the rifle away from him and threw it aside. Straddling the other man’s back, he aimed his handgun toward the house. “The rest of you, get out here.”

Two others, unmasked, came onto the porch. One of them had a clumsy dressing on his upper arm. His face contorted in pain. “I need a doctor.”

“Where’s the fourth guy?”

“He can’t walk.”

Kovak and the other officers rushed forward. In seconds, they had taken Farley’s ragtag crew into custody. While one of the sheriff’s department’s SUVs drove the wounded men to receive treatment, Kovak and Blake questioned Farley.

Blake sat beside the handcuffed man in the back of Kovak’s police cruiser. “Who hired you?”

“I don’t know his name.” Tyler Farley was a skinny guy with bad teeth. The permanent scowl etched into the lines of his thin face made it difficult to guess his age. “He told us it was a joke.”

“How did he contact you?”