Chapter 11
Let sleeping llamas lie.
Scout had a lot of questions, but held her tongue as she waited for Hudson…who was rolling up her driveway in an SUV she didn’t recognize. He’d texted her and told her to be ready for him, but hadn’t given her any more details.
He jumped out of the passenger side a few seconds later, then the SUV turned around and headed out again, kicking up dust as it took off.
“What happened?” she demanded as he hurried up the front steps of her porch. She immediately noticed that his hair was damp, and he’d changed clothes.
“Have you called anyone yet?”
“No. I was waiting for you.”
“Okay, we need to call 911 and report that we were attacked and run off the road. We can explain the time-lapse by the fact that we had to run through the woods to safety.”
“Who shot at us? Was it Hank and Lane?”
“I don’t want to answer that. And I don’t think you should mention either of them to the cops either.” His expression was hard to read.
But she could still read between the lines.
Oh no. No, no, no. Crap on a cracker, he’d killed them.
“I still have questions, but fine.” She couldn’t believe she was even having this conversation.
But he said he’d been in black ops. And her own grandfather had served, had been in Army Intelligence long before she’d come along.
And in that moment she couldn’t find it in her to go against Hudson. If he had killed them, he’d done it to protect her.
He ran a hand through his damp hair, his bicep flexing with the movement. Something she shouldn’t be noticing under the circumstances. But he was wearing only a T-shirt now so of course she noticed.
“What should I say to the cops?” she continued.
“That someone shot at us on the way back from dinner, that they hit your tire and ran us off the road. You saw enough people in town that people knew where you were. Then we escaped into the woods and whoever was after us must have run off. You need to get this on file. Even if the sheriff is dirty, if you call 911 it becomes official and goes on record.”
She nodded slowly as she digested his words. “Okay. So…I report the crime. And say nothing about Hank or Lane?”
“Did you see them tonight?”
“No.”
“Then say nothing about them.”
She narrowed her gaze at him, started to ask another question.
But he shook his head. “I don’t want to lie to you, so can you please not ask me anything else?”
Well, hell. There was a lot more to this man than she’d originally thought. And while she wanted all his secrets, now wasn’t the time to press for them. She also didn’t want him to go to jail for killing those two assholes so she was going to lie to the cops. “Fine. But who dropped you off?”
“Oh. My friend Sarah. She’ll be back in a bit. Wanted to let us get the cops involved first. She probably won’t be back until tomorrow morning.”
“And Sarah is…”
“Former security. She’s agreed to kit out your ranch with more cameras.”
She wanted to tell him that wasn’t necessary but obviously it was. Still…who the hell was this Sarah? And were she and Hudson together? Was she gorgeous? Ugh, Scout hated that she cared about any of that. She had to get her priorities straight. “Fine, but I have questions.”
“I promise to answer as many questions as I can later. Let’s get the shit with the cops over first. Then…we’ll talk.”
She really, really wanted to argue, but found herself nodding at the gorgeous and apparently deadly man with the lonely eyes who, against her better judgment, she was starting to fall for.
***
“I’m sorry about all this.” Deputy Cori Lyon crouched down by Scout’s tire, eyeing it with a flashlight. “Probably some dumb kids out causing trouble,” she added as she stood to face both Scout and Hudson.
Scout shook her head. “Maybe, maybe not. I’ve had some trouble at the ranch lately.”
Cori frowned at her as she pulled out her notepad. “You haven’t reported anything.”
Technically she’d told the sheriff about it but hadn’t made an official report.
“I know, because I wasn’t sure if it was anything serious.
But I’ve had a lot of vandalism at the ranch, and now this.
And whoever shot at us ran us off the road and then got out of their truck to chase after us,” she added. “We had to run home.”
Cori nodded and looked over at the ATV they’d driven here to meet with her. It was midnight now and the report would probably take a while. She looked at Scout, then Hudson. “Did you see anything about the person who shot at you?”
“Just that they were driving a truck,” Hudson said. “Might have been two people, but I couldn’t swear to it.”
He was so calm about all this, something Scout was grateful for. He’d been annoyingly calm about everything. And she still had questions. But he’d been right about getting this reported.
“I did find a couple bullet holes in that tree,” he continued, nodding to a nearby oak. “If you want to take pictures of it before you retrieve the slugs for evidence.”
“Oh, right. Ah, yeah, of course.” Cori seemed to realize that she needed to treat this as a crime scene and jumped into action.
As the deputy pulled out a case from the trunk of her SUV, another vehicle with flashing lights pulled up, then another, both parking on the side of the road.
Scout’s adrenaline spiked when she realized that one of the vehicles was the sheriff himself.
It seemed odd that he’d be out on a late-night call.
But then she felt Hudson’s firm hand at her back and could breathe.
She had nothing to worry about, especially with him here.
She hadn’t done anything wrong. Though she was worried about Hudson getting caught, but he was so relaxed it was making her the same.
She tried to will herself to calm down as the sheriff got out of his car. She was the freaking victim. And if the sheriff was involved in any of this, screw him.
Sheriff Paul Boyd was in his forties, fit and nice enough. But she’d never known what to think about him. He was older than her by a solid decade at least so they’d never run in the same circles.
After repeating the same thing to him that they had to Cori, the sheriff mirrored Cori’s statement about this being dumb kids, but it fell flat.
“I don’t care if it is dumb kids.” Hudson’s tone was dry. “Whoever did this could have killed us, and they need to be arrested and charged.”
The sheriff looked at Hudson now, seemed to inspect him a little more, but he nodded. “I agree. I wasn’t trying to downplay it.”
Yes, you were.
After a few moments of talking, he stalked off to talk to Cori, who was still taking pictures.
Scout wanted to say more, but Hudson gave a subtle shake of his head. So she got on the ATV with him and waited for all this to be over.
Even though she felt as if she could come apart at the seams from the fear pummeling through her, she managed to sit still and not fidget.
Having Hudson so close was the real reason she was being so calm. He helped her feel steady in a situation she’d never imagined herself in.