“Mary, I’m in charge of your safety.”

  “Halo, listen to me,” she turned on him. “I may have fallen for you. I may even love you.” She paused and seemed startled by her words.

  Halo gathered them into his heart and would consider them later.

  She pushed his arm away to stand on her own two feet. “But there’s no way in this world I will ever allow any man to tell me what to do.” A drunken finger was up, stabbing at him. “I can go, or I can sit. If I sit, you can go faster.”

  “I’m not leaving you. Not even for one second.” She had seemed cogent throughout, except for the hallucinations in the pool.

  Maybe the ledol was affecting her muscular responses and repressed her system.

  Maybe she was thinking clearly enough.

  He had no idea. This scenario was rife with conflicting interests.

  She was an Iniquus client.

  In this situation, Halo was, first and foremost, acting as security with all the responsibilities that entailed.

  It was a balancing act.

  If a child was in danger, he wanted to be there to help. Needed to be there to help. But as he told Mary when she’d asked this very question earlier, he was a trained Commando. A mission was a mission with a singular focus and a singular outcome.

  Lightning cracked, outlining the leaf-covered branches in a flash of white.

  The thunder that followed vibrated his bones.

  As the sound rolled off into the distance, Mary stepped toward Max. “I’m going.” As Mary reached out to brace herself on a tree, the tree shifted, making her trip forward.

  “Mary, you can’t touch the trees.” Halo wrapped an arm around her.

  Okay, the decision was made. He’d go where she went.

  “Max,” Halo called, “show me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  When Max turned and plopped beside the tree, Halo realized the mistake he’d made. He hadn’t asked Max about his find. Undoubtedly, the shoe belonged to a child in the woods, or Max would not have been this anxious. What Halo didn’t know was if the child was alive or dead.

  Yes, Mary was a nurse, but he felt that her mental state was fragile. And after the trauma of yesterday’s fire, finding a deceased child in the woods, under these circumstances…

  Normally, he wouldn’t try to shield her. She was a strong woman. But these were strange times. And Halo just wanted a look before she did.

  “Mary, can you hold my pack for me?” he asked, shrugging it off. She reached from under the red poncho., taking hold, then slipping down to sit on a root. He signaled for Max to stay with Mary and slid into place next to her.

  Braced for the worst, Halo rounded the thick trunk.

  There, in a hollow at the base of a tree, a child hid from the rain, shivering.

  “Hey, there,” he said in a singsong voice. “Hey, you look cold.”

  She shrank from him.

  He turned his head. “Mary?”

  Instantly, she was there. “Oh, look at you, you poor baby.” Her hands went to the child, palpating and looking her over without moving her from the shelter of the tree. Mary leaned toward Halo’s ear. “Tell me this isn’t a wood fairy or nymph or something. This is like a four-year-old child, right? A child alone in a tree in the middle of the woods? Or is this a hallucination?”

  “This is a child, Mary. Is she okay to move?”

  “I think so.” Their heads were held close as they yelled into each other’s ears past the continuing roar of the torrent hitting the canopy of leaves. “But where did she come from? Surely, she’s not in the woods by herself. Maybe her adult is hurt?”

  Max came between them and sniffed at the child. “Good job, Maxi. I’m really proud of you, mate.”

  Halo reached for his pack and pulled out a picnic tarp, plastic on the outside and fleece-lined on the inside. He handed it to Mary while he pulled the bag back into place under his poncho.

  “Do we have a plan?” Mary asked as she opened the covering under her own poncho, keeping the lining dry.

  “I’m going to see if Max can’t track back to where she came from. With this wind and rain, I’m not sure that’s possible. If yes, we’ll decide next steps then. If no, we’ll get back to our car and get her to the authorities,” he said, reaching for the child that Mary had swaddled.

  The little one shivered in his arms. Wet and obviously exhausted, her eyes stared glassily at him, wary but too tired to put up any resistance.

  “Here we go.” Halo held the child under Max’s nose. “Maxi, where did this baby come from? Trackback, Max. Trackback.”

  With the little one in one arm, clasped Mary in his other, Max’s paws wide as he got his nose right down to the ground, Halo tried to keep up as Max wended his way through the forest.

  ***

  By Halo’s calculations, they moved about a half mile through the forest when they emerged on a roadway. Halo was slowed by Mary’s feet, which moved her clumsily forward. He could feel her concentrating hard, trying hard, pushing herself.

  The street was empty except for the tree that had fallen across the roadway that Halo’s headlamp picked out of the darkness.

  That was going to be problematic.

  According to the pulses from his directional shirt, their car was up the road to the right. That meant the city was farther down the road to his left. He was in a rental car, and they had no comms.

  It could be that Panther Force might send out a search heading to their last known location when he and Mary didn't return to the hotel after the storm. If they waited at the car, they’d be found. But obviously, with trees coming down, it wasn’t optimal.

  Max came back to check on them.

  “I’m following, buddy. Keep going.”

  At the very least, this was in the direction of their car. With the engine on, he could get this baby’s wet clothes off and get her warmed up. Mary could rest.

  As they approached the tree, Halo realized that it lay across the hood of a car.

  “Oh, no,” he heard Mary exhale. She tried to coordinate her feet to run forward but stumbled, stretching her hand toward the ground as Halo jerked to keep her on her feet.

  “Slow and steady, Mary.”

  “Yes.”

  They circled around the enormous root ball to find the back door of a car standing wide. A child’s car seat was wet, but it was the safest place to be while he checked the mum. He quickly strapped the child back into her place.

  The airbag had deployed.

  The woman unconscious, blood dripping from a cut on her head.

  Halo snaked a hand forward to the front door, unlocking it. With his foot braced on the side, he was able to jerk the driver’s side door open. He softly shut it again. “Mary, I’m going to walk you and Max around to the other side of the car and have you both get in with the child and keep each other warm, okay?”

  “I’m an emergency nurse,” she hollered over the wind.

  “You are. Let’s get you into the car for now so I can see what needs to be done for the mum, hey?” Mary probably understood that Halo wasn’t trusting her abilities at that moment. After all, just a few minutes before, she wasn’t entirely sure whether she was looking at a child or a fairytale creature.

  Hand on the car, Halo rounded back to the unconscious woman’s side, trying to block the wind and rain with his body while he moved through the steps of first aid.

  “Mary, this woman is heavily pregnant.”

  She thrust herself forward. “Oh, no.”

  “And she’s either urinated on herself or her water’s broken,” Halo called.

  “Put your hand on her belly,” Mary instructed. “Is it soft?”

  “No, it feels like a soccer ball.”

  “A contraction, Halo. She can’t have her baby out here in this storm.”

  Halo's mind had been racing since the moment they’d come up on the accident. How would he deal with an injured driver, a messed-up Mary, a small, wet, possibly hypothermic child, a dog, no comms, and perhaps even a roadside birth, all in the middle of a raging storm?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Mary felt ridiculous shivering in the car while Halo was out in the storm. He’d said that he needed to get the tree out of the road, and Mary was processing his ability to do that. She’d thought of Jack and the beanstalk and that maybe Halo had something in his pocket he could eat to become a giant. Then, it would be easy.

  She thought of Alice in Wonderland and the bottle she drank, and Mary had asked him if he had a power drink, but her words must have escaped him.

  It was this very odd half-reality she was living in.

  On the one hand, here she was, recognizing that she, Halo, and Max had once again been thrust into life-or-death circumstances, that things were very dire, that her right action was needed.

  Her limbs weren’t fully cooperating. She felt like she was drunk in her movements, though her head didn’t feel that way at all. She felt clear, cogent.

  And yet, she also wasn’t sure.

  This all had a dream-like quality, and at moments, it was more like a nightmare. The sounds and images were forming, and they were too improbable to be real. And just like in her sleep, Mary was telling them to go away; she was dreaming. And they did; they’d poof and go away.

  Back in the woods, Mary had leaned into the tree hollow, and had run her hands over the shivering child, careful not to catch her hand on the wings. But those words had tasted wrong. And she’d asked if this was a fairy child.

  Halo had looked both horrified and resolute.

  Whatever magic was happening in these woods, Mary felt like it was thinning.

  She was quickly waking up.

  Halo wasn’t sipping a magic potion to grow big. There was a practical way to get that tree off the car and out of the road.

  He told her that Marilin, the expert he knew, explained that since trees falling down was part of the storm season, many of the locals had chainsaws in their trunks. He’d pressed a button on the dash, then turned to her. “Here’s hoping.”

  She’d lifted crossed fingers.

  Mary felt she should be helping but wasn’t sure how. If she got out of the car, he’d be paying attention to her. In this rain with the chainsaw? That was too dangerous. The best thing to do was to follow Halo’s instructions and hold the child, hug Max, and try to keep everyone warm.

  Halo climbed into the front passenger seat, pulling a hand over his face to clear it of rain.

  “Mary.” He was turned to look her full in the face, assessing. “How are you doing?”

  “Better, I think.”

  “I need that to be true.” He bit his back teeth down, working his jaw, some kind of internal argument going on. “Here’s the deal, we need our car. I’m not sure how far away it is. I’m not sure how dangerous it is to get you there.”

  “I’m not leaving the woman or child.”

  “Which means I need to leave you.” He squeezed his hands around the headrest.

  “I’ll have Max, and Max will protect me.”

  “I have to trust that you won’t get out of this car, Mary. You have to swear to me that no matter what you see or hear, your promise to me is bigger and stronger.”

  “I swear to you, I will stay in the car.”

  He looked from Mary to Max; they locked eyes, and Mary imagined that Halo was sending Max a movie explaining his duties. Max’s whole body posture changed. His head swiveled to take in the interior, and he looked back at Halo. They were in agreement.

  “Bloody hell,” Halo said. He reached out and cupped his cold hands around her face. “Mary, I love you. I need you to do this for me.”

  “I will stay here with the doors shut. I don’t want you to worry about me. I need you safe. I very much love you, too.”

  Halo paused. A grin spread across his face. He leaned in and gave her a kiss that seemed to seal their conviction. “Hell of a way to meet you, Mary. Shit, woman, I need you to be okay. And I need you in my life.”

  Those words tasted sweet and flowed like warm honey in her veins.

  Well, Mrs. V had said that three things would change in one single location; two of them were love and her life trajectory. So far, it looked like Mrs. V. had been right. “Be safe for me, Halo. Swear it.”

  That man.

  That man!

  He astonished her with his capability and intelligence, with his gentleness and calm.

  What had she put him through in the bog and the woods?

  She’d ask him for details somewhere along the way. Mary had roused from her stupor, draped over Halo’s shoulder as he piggybacked her through the storm.

  Where had the storm come from?

  At first, she thought it was part of the nightmare.

  Part of the snakes and the dragons, the sorcerers cast spells of retribution that anyone in that realm should find happiness in love.

  When she woke up, Mary was partly embarrassed and partly amazed that she was being cared for and rescued from her circumstances. When had that ever happened before? It was so foreign to her that she’d fought with him in the woods. And was immediately contrite.

  He had been right about his duty.

  And perhaps not wrong to direct her.

  Honestly, what would happen in the emergency department if a patient were incoherent and not fully clear about reality? Would the doctors follow a hallucinating patient’s decisions? As Halo would say, “Not bloody likely.”

  Now, as the child clung around Mary’s neck, Mary’s hand patted the child’s back, and her other hand rested on Max.

  Sweet, heroic Max with the golden sniffer that tracked the child’s path straight to the crash despite wind and rain.

  The storm raged on.

  ***

  Except for Mary’s racing thoughts, everything had been at a standstill in the car, cocooned by the sounds of the torrent.

  And then the whirlwind began.

  When the headlights blinked, and hazard lights flashed as Halo drove up beside them, Mary felt fully herself. Exhausted but fully back in her body, clear in her mind. The effects of the bog had worn away with time and distance.

  Halo was at the door, pulling out the child seat, then slammed the door shut again. He arrived at her side of the car, leaning in, pressing an ardent kiss onto her lips. “I love you. Thank you for being right where I left you.”

  Squatting by her side, Halo reviewed his plans for moving the mother, getting them tucked into the rental car, and driving them to the hospital. Did she agree?

  “No comms yet? They can’t send an ambulance?”

  “No bars. How should I do this?”

  He was partnering with her, not insisting. She, too, had expertise here.

  “I agree. We’ll do your plan. But I think, if you can take most of the mother’s weight, I can add stability on her other side and take one of her legs.”

  “How long until the baby gets here?” he asked.

  “Her contractions are a steady five minutes apart. But under these circumstances, all bets are off.”

  “Let’s move then.”

  When Halo pulled the child from Mary’s arms, walking away from the car to put her in her seat, she began screaming and fighting him. That child must be terrified. Unfortunately, there was zero time to calm and cuddle her. Their focus had to be single-mindedly on getting the mother to the hospital. It was a really bad sign that she’d been unconscious for as long as she had. And using Halo’s medical equipment to make her assessments, Mary wasn’t sure the woman would survive the drive.

  They could try.

  The most they could do was try.

  With the little girl strapped in her seat and Max against the passenger side window, Mary sat in the middle so she could reach forward and get to the mom. Halo had placed the mother in the front with the seat pushed back as far as possible, then leaned her back as far as possible.

  Mary hoped that by laying her out, they might slow her labor.

  Was that a thing?

  Was it the right thing?

  Mary wasn’t a labor and delivery nurse. They didn’t take laboring women on the helicopter under any circumstances. In the hospital, she was the one racing in with a crash cart. These were very different skill sets.

  “Drive, Halo.”

  And he threw them into gear and continued down the road. Slower than she would want. But Halo was balancing their speed. Fast enough to get them to safety, slow enough not to risk that safety on the way.

  Mary was clinging to good fortune—a functional car, a man who had expert driving skills. There was no reason to dwell on what-ifs.

  There was plenty of big and bad and dangerous up the road.

  They were basically driving blind.

  Though the child, strapped into her seat, screamed and screamed without cease,

  As near as Mary could figure, the kid—though old enough to get out of the seat and out of the door—was still very young. She had been quiet all the way through the forest, wrapped in a plastic tarp and held securely in Halo’s arms. The screaming began when Halo took her from Mary to move her to the rental car.

  And now, nothing would soothe her.

  The entire route was dark.

  The electricity was down.

  If the mother didn’t rouse, this was probably going to be a cesarean. And if the mother was to die en route, the baby would die, too. Mary didn’t say that out loud, but she was sure Halo understood.

  The wipers screeched back and forth along the windshield, doing little to improve the view.

  Halo seemed to find his sweet spot between fast enough to make progress and slow enough not to get them into worse trouble.

  Imagine getting in yet another accident on the way.

  Halo’s magic shirt was their guide. As they left the scene of the car accident, he’d used his handheld device to program in the nearest hospital. And if Mary watched closely enough, she could see the forearms swell and decrease.

  Braced in that moment, Mary was startled when her phone rang.

  Pulling her hand back from the woman’s belly, she grabbed at the rucksack and clawed for her cell. They’d been out of communication for a while now. Perhaps they were close enough to Tallinn. “Hello?” she gasped.