Free Passion to Protect by Colleen Thompson Page A

out, then took off running, praying he could catch McCleary before Liane became his next victim.
    Plunging into the thick smoke, Jake was immediately forced to leap a patch of burning weeds as the fire chewed its way closer to him. With a grunt of pain, he landed but somehow managed to avoid falling on the blackened, smoking ground.
    All around him, he heard crackling as falling cinders made huge torches of the scattered clumps of bushes. The heat pushed him back several times, forcing him to alter course.
    From somewhere nearby came the echo of Misty’s frantic barking. Was Liane trapped ahead?
    Wiping soot from his watering eyes, he spotted movement, a figure silhouetted against flame. A split second later a buck bearing a huge rack of antlers came bounding past him, leaping over rocks and paying him no heed. Though both training and instinct urged Jake to follow the animal to safety, he was too committed to his course to turn back now. Continuing into the maelstrom, he made out something else, something moving on two legs this time, and he quickly saw it was Mac.
    A dark-haired man armed with a rifle, he moved in the direction of Misty’s barking. He never noticed as Jake braved blistering heat to cut between two burning spruces in an attempt to head him off. But unlike him, Mac had two good legs, and he was moving at a clip Jake couldn’t match. As his quarry pulled away, Jake spotted Liane in the distance, leading her children by the hand.
    Torn between relief that she had found them alive and fear for their safety, he continued moving toward Mac as quickly as he could manage.
    “This way!” Mac stopped as he shouted at Liane. “Come this way or you’ll get us all killed.”
    Did the man mean to murder his ex-wife or save her? Jake hesitated, confused, but Liane seemed to have no question. Picking up six-year-old Kenzie and balancing her on one hip while still holding Cody’s hand, she turned back uphill toward the rocky ridge, keeping as far from her pursuer as she could.
    “You stupid bitch!” Mac roared, his patience at an end. “Put them down, or so help me, I’ll leave you here dead, too.”
    Charging toward Mac, the shepherd barked frantically, providing enough of a distraction for Jake to move in from behind. As Liane’s ex took aim at the dog, Jake sprang forward, tackling Mac with a flying leap.
    The gun went off as Mac slammed forward with a shout, Jake pummeling his ribs. With no room to maneuver the long barrel, Mac was forced to drop his weapon to defend himself, twisting toward Jake and hammering his left eye with a crushing blow.
    Pain exploded, blackening Jake’s vision and buying Mac the moment he needed to scoot away and reach for his gun, his face transforming into a mask of pure rage—the face of a maniac Jake knew would surely shoot him.
    Misty darted in again, snarling and snapping, allowing Jake—who could barely see out of his swelling eye—the instant he needed to come up with the canister of bear spray and fire. As the noxious cloud struck Mac’s face, he screamed in agony, curling into a fetal position and clawing at his own eyes.
    Jake dove for the rifle, then rolled to his feet. Almost immediately the gun flew out of his hands as Mac managed to wrap his arms around Jake’s ankle and knock him back to the ground.
    “I have to get to my kids!” Mac shouted, swinging blindly.
    Thanks to the bear spray, he couldn’t see the flames tightening like a noose around them, but Jake knew he had to feel the searing heat and hear the crackling hiss.
    Pulling away, Jake rose and reclaimed the rifle. For an instant he hesitated, understanding that if he left the helpless man here, he would burn to death. Then let him, he thought, a vision of Deke’s staring eyes and blood-soaked body roaring through his mind. Still, he found himself saying, “I’ve got the gun. Now stop fighting and let me help you before we both end up trapped.”
    “You think you’re taking me in? I’d sooner