Chapter Sixteen
Dylan found himself more anxious than he’d been in months.
He’d watched Cat disappear into the darkness, and he was unable to shake the gut-deep feeling that she wasn’t safe.
That road to Fortune Creek was narrow and winding and seldom had any traffic on it.
If she broke down or had a flat, she might be stranded in the dark and cold until morning.
He grabbed his keys and headed for his pickup.
No matter what she said, he was going to follow her home.
He wouldn’t be able to sleep if he didn’t.
Once past the gate, he drove as fast as the road would allow, all his instincts pushing him to catch sight of her.
As he came over a rise, he saw taillights and tried to relax.
But the closer he got, the more confused he became.
The lights were wrong.
He wasn’t following Cat’s patrol SUV.
Instead, it was an older farm truck with a wooden stock rack on the back.
He frowned, realizing he’d seen the truck before—parked in one of the old barns on his ranch.
He felt a shock rocket through him.
What the hell? Who was driving his truck? He punched the gas and tried to pull up beside the large farm vehicle, determined to find out who was driving it and if he was right about it being his.
But as he came along the driver’s side almost close enough to see the driver, the truck swerved into his lane crashing into the side of his pickup and sending him flying off the road.
Cat thought for a moment that she saw a second set of headlights behind her, but as she dropped over a rise, both disappeared.
Hurriedly she looked for a spot to pull over, but the road was narrow and hilly.
There wasn’t a wide spot that she could see ahead and the vehicle behind her had topped the rise and was now gaining on her quickly.
She thought about the alleged drunk driver who had killed her husband on this very road, although miles from here, closer to the Canadian border.
She touched her brakes, thinking the driver just hadn’t seen her, and got over to the edge of the road as far as she could to let him pass.
Except the driver didn’t pass.
She sped up seeing that the truck wasn’t going to pass her.
Blinded by the headlights, she couldn’t see the driver, but she knew then what he intended to do.
She thought of Fuller’s warning.
She’d become a problem.
Dylan too.
The large truck chased after her, barreling down on her.
He was gaining.
Any moment he was going to crash into the back of her SUV.
She gripped the wheel hard, her fingers aching as she fought to stay on the road.
All she could think about was her baby.
If she went off the road and into the trees—
She felt a hard jolt as the truck rammed the back of her SUV, the back window exploding as the truck made contact.
She could feel the cold night air whistling through the gaping hole.
Her SUV began to fishtail.
She hung onto the wheel, fighting to right the vehicle without going off the rough edge of the shoulderless road.
She’d only just gained control when she looked in her rearview mirror.
The truck seemed to back off.
What was the driver doing? Then she saw it.
He’d only backed off to make another run at her, to increase his speed.
This time he planned to hit her harder in an attempt to drive her off the road.
She had the gas pedal to the floor.
She couldn’t go any faster.
Nor was there any place to get off this road before she was forced from it.
In her rearview mirror, she could see nothing but headlights bearing down on her.
The truck was coming at her again.
Her baby, she thought.
She couldn’t wreck.
She couldn’t lose her baby, her life.
Not now, not when she’d glimpsed a possible bright future she’d only dreamed possible.
The truck was almost on her again, coming faster this time.
Dylan’s pickup left the road, soared over the shallow barrow pit before touching down hard in a field.
He fought the wheel to keep control as he was still going fast.
Ahead he could see a stand of pines looming in his headlights.
He turned the wheel back in the direction of the road he’d just left.
The ground was soft.
He could feel the tires digging into the dirt as he roared back onto the road, losing control for a moment as he did.
He hadn’t known this kind of fear in a very long time, if ever.
He’d never had this much on the line even with his government job.
This was personal.
He felt responsible for Cat and her baby, for Beau’s baby as well.
He had to catch that truck and stop it—no matter what he had to do.
In the distance, he could see the taillights of the truck.
He didn’t kid himself that the driver of the truck had accidently forced him off the road.
Where was Cat? If it had been an accident or he’d been the intended target, the truck driver would have stopped.
Which meant the intended target was up the road. Cat.
The thought sent his pulse racing as he sped after the truck.
At the top of the hill, he saw two sets of taillights ahead.
The truck was right behind Cat’s SUV, barreling down on it.
Dylan had no doubt what the driver planned to do.
He floored his pickup.
The right front tire scraped loudly on the dented panel where the truck had slammed into him. But otherwise, the pickup was still running fine.
Gaining on the truck, Dylan pulled out his gun.
His hand shook for a moment.
While he could shoot with either his left or his right hand with accuracy, he hadn’t been to a firing range in months.
He calmed those thoughts, telling himself that he had to get close enough to make a decent shot.
He put down his window, letting the cold spring night air rush in to clear his head and strengthen his focus.
Dylan took aim.
He couldn’t let the truck drive Cat’s SUV off the road, not in this hilly area filled with trees and a creek at the bottom of the steepest of the hills to his right.
But if he didn’t stop the driver of the truck—
Cat gripped the wheel as the inside of the SUV filled again with the lights from the big truck.
She braced herself for the impact, terrified what would happen if she crashed, especially at this speed.
Just the thought of the airbag exploding and harming her daughter—
She shoved her seat as far back as she could and still reach the pedals.
She would have disabled the airbag if she could have—concerned only for her baby.
The truck was so close now, she could hear the roar of its engine.
The headlights filled her vehicle, the sound through the broken window at the back deafening.
Gripping the wheel, she looked back, but could only see the front end of the huge old truck about to take away everything from her.
Braced for impact, she hadn’t realized that she’d been holding her breath when suddenly the truck behind her began to swerve wildly.
The sound of the truck’s big engine seemed to die as she heard the squeal of brakes.
The truck was rocking precariously, the headlights wavering.
An instant later, the headlights veered to the right as the truck went crashing off the road and disappeared down a hillside.
That’s when she saw the lights of the other vehicle behind her.
That driver had hit his brakes.
As she slowed her SUV to a stop, she could no longer hold back the flood of emotions.
Hugging her belly, she began to sob.
She’d told herself that she knew the dangers that went with being an officer of the law.
But it had never hit home like it did at that moment. She could have lost her baby tonight. She could have lost everything.
Weak with relief, Dylan jumped out of his pickup and rushed to Cat’s SUV.
He saw her hugging herself.
As he approached, his flashlight in one hand, his weapon in the other, he saw her tears and knew that they weren’t for herself, but for her baby.
She unlocked her door and stumbled out and into his arms.
“Thank you for whatever you did,”
she said, her voice breaking.
She didn’t have to tell him how frightened she’d been.
He could feel it in her hug, see it in her red tear-streaked face, hear it in her voice.
“Shot out the rear left tire.”
She nodded, still leaning into him.
“You’re all right,”
he whispered as he held her.
“I need to go down the hill and check the truck.
Stay here.
The driver might come back up the hill to the road.
Don’t take a chance.
Shoot the SOB.”
She nodded, wiping at her tears.
“I’m okay.”
Her hand went to her belly.
“We’re all right.”
“You certainly are.
I’ll be back.”
He saw her reach for her service revolver and knew that she was indeed okay again, the scare over.
At least for now.
With that he dropped over the hill, shining the flashlight beam into the darkness.
The hill was steep, ending in a stand of pines next to a creek.
He could see the truck’s taillights glowing deep in the grove and smelled the scent of burned oil and leaking radiator fluid on the night air.
As he drew closer, he saw that the driver’s side door was standing open.
He slowed, pocketing the flashlight to ready the gun.
Darkness hunkered in the trees along the creek.
He could hear and smell the water, mixing with the smells of the wrecked truck.
What he didn’t hear was anyone moving inside the vehicle.
Working along the side of the large truck, he made his way to the open driver’s side door.
Taking a breath, he waited then peered around the edge of the open door to look inside.
Just as he’d expected, in the ambient light of the headlights, he could see that the cab was empty.
The blood he saw on the shattered windshield and on the steering wheel told him the driver had been injured.
He realized that the truck engine had still been idling as it gave a last gasp and quit, the headlights dying with it.
Darkness fell over him with a bone-chilling silence.
He listened for any sound, hearing nothing but his heartbeat.
He pulled out his flashlight and shone it around the interior of the truck’s cab.
He had no clue who’d been driving it or how badly they might have been injured.
Not enough to knock them out even with all the blood present.
The person had managed to get away.
He told himself they had probably run off into the trees.
He walked around the front of the truck and found fresh footprints heading down toward the creek.
He saw blood on one of the large stones above the water.
Turning the flashlight farther down toward the creek, he saw no one.
Convinced the driver was gone, Dylan quickly made his way back up to the road and Cat.
That he’d come so close to losing her tonight still had him shaken.
She wasn’t his, he told himself.
But damned if she didn’t feel like his.
Was that because from the first time he saw her, he’d been intrigued by her?
Now it had gone far beyond simply being intrigued.
He wanted her like he’d never wanted anything in his life.
The worst part was that he wasn’t sure he could have her.
He wasn’t sure she wasn’t still grieving her husband the way everyone thought he was grieving his wife.
He topped the hill to the road and was relieved when he saw her assessing the damage to her patrol SUV and taking photos.
She was again back in acting sheriff mode, trained for the job and leaning on that training for strength.
He knew the feeling well.
But he didn’t doubt that she’d been shaken to her roots tonight.
Nearly dying had to have brought the reality of what she might be involved in home.
He thought of the large truck at the bottom of the hillside smashed into the trees.
That could have easily been Cat and her unborn baby in that crash.
He shuddered to think of how tragically this night could have ended.
As it was, he’d done the one thing he’d tried so hard not to do.
Get involved and put himself and his story back into the news.
Once his name was picked up by the media, there would be a rehash of Ginny’s death and of his brother’s.
There would be more speculation—especially if word got out that the prosecutor was reopening the case.
“I’ve already called DCI,”
she said.
“They’re sending a team now.”
He nodded.
“We need to pull off the road in case there is any more traffic tonight,”
he said as the reality of the situation settled over him.
“You saved my life and my daughter’s,”
Cat said, meeting his gaze in the light of the vehicle’s headlights.
“Thank you, but what made you follow me?”
“Just a feeling,”
he said, realizing how deep he was in with this woman.
“I had a feeling you needed me.”
She smiled and he felt his heart lift even as he dreaded what was to come.
All the media attention again.
Only this time worse, because this time Cat would be in the middle of it as well.
No one realized how bad it could get until they were the focus of the media for weeks on end.
Cat would soon know.
But that might not even be the worst of it. Clearly she was now a target.
“I recognized the truck that forced me off the road and went after you,”
Dylan said.
“It’s one of mine from the ranch.”
He shook his head at her quizzical expression.
“I have no idea who was driving it.”
“Rowena?”
“If so, she put her head into the windshield and could be bleeding pretty badly right now.”
“Why would she do this?”
Cat said, voicing his own thoughts.
“She must think you’re getting too close to the truth.
Or maybe it’s to show whoever she works for that she’s doing something to keep us from finding the document before she can.”