Courage Under Fire (Silver Creek #2) - Lindsay McKenna Page 0,109

didn’t know where she was. We had to survive ourselves.” He squeezed her shoulders gently. “She’s a little worse for wear, but the people here will let her heal up, and then they’ll release her to the wild, to meet her mate who’s waiting somewhere out there for her. She’ll have a good life here, Cari. No question she helped save our lives. By Valkyrie attacking Bannock in the face? He couldn’t fire at us. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Nodding, Cari looked relieved and gazed around the enclosure. “She knew we were in terrible danger. And she put herself in danger to save us.” The two people who ran the raptor facility had offered them a shower, which they would take shortly. The FBI had already been in touch with them, and they would talk with them once they returned to Silver Creek. In the meantime, after cleaning up they would be driven to Jacumba Hot Springs in a Border Patrol SUV that was waiting for them outside the facility.

At the hot springs, they would rent a car, buy some clean clothes, and grab a bite at a local restaurant. The next morning, they’d give their story to the Border Patrol. Chase had killed a man, and they wanted all the details. Plus a report on Bannock. Lastly, they’d leave for Silver Creek in their rental car.

“How about that shower?” he asked, giving her a slight smile, rubbing her shoulder gently.

“That sounds wonderful. Wish it could be with you,” she said, giving him a slight smile.

“I don’t think that would work here. But maybe at a later time? Right now, you’re in shock and honestly, so am I.”

“I feel as if someone pulled the plug on my energy,” she confessed, following him across the room to another door.

“Makes two of us. I can hardly wait to get home. How about you?” Because Chase knew the coming weeks were going to be hard on both of them for different reasons. As a sniper, he never felt sorry he had to take a life, and he didn’t now, either. But it left an emotional mark on him that he would pay for later. It didn’t matter the drug runner was intent on murdering both of them; Chase knew the toll on himself from taking another human being’s life. He leaned over, pressing a kiss to Cari’s hair. A step at a time. An hour at a time. Cari looked worn, emotionally drained, but so was he. He just didn’t show it as outwardly as she did. How he looked forward to Silver Creek and their ranch . . .

June 23

“Helluva journey to California, wasn’t it?” Dan Seabert greeted Chase and Cari as they entered his office at sheriff ’s headquarters. He shook their hands and invited them to sit down.

Chase shut the door behind them. “We’re just glad to be home, Dan.”

“I’m sure you are. Coffee?”

“Not for me,” Cari said, sitting down. “We just had breakfast.”

“Me either,” Chase agreed, sitting next to her.

“Well, I’m getting my third cup. It’s been a busy morning.” He poured a cup and brought it over to his desk, sitting down. “How did the interview with the FBI go?”

“Exhausting,” Cari murmured, giving Chase a sympathetic look. “They treated Chase like he’d done something wrong by killing that drug runner.”

Chase reached out, squeezing her hand where it rested on the chair. “It’s their job,” he said. “They didn’t arrest me, that’s the important thing, but they do have to get all the sordid details.”

“Well, they grilled me for over an hour,” Cari said sourly, “two of them, a man and a woman.”

“They always do that,” Dan soothed. “They want separate interviews to see if your stories match up or not.”

“They did,” Chase said. “My interviewer said we were free to go and that if they had any more questions, they’d call us.”

“That’s a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Dan said, pleased. He took a sip of his coffee. “You two underwent a grueling trial. The day the crash happened, I’d called you on your cell that evening. When I didn’t get a response, I got worried.”

“We were hiding out in a grove of junipers next to a spring,” Cari said. “Glad to be alive.”

“The FBI sent me photos.” Dan shook his head. “I don’t know how you survived that fall.”

“Sheer luck,” Chase agreed.

“You two look pretty banged up from it,” he noted, making a gesture toward Cari’s bruised forearm.

Cari looked at both her arms, a lot of scratches on them,