Page 29 of Chance (Wild River Ranch #3)

I t wasn't until they pulled up in front of the cabin and she saw the giant tree brushing up against the right side that she realized he had brought her to her cabin. The one she stayed in after she left the shelter.

Detective James had come in a different way than she had. Or she thought it was different. And when she’d left the cabin to go to the lodge, she’d been all but unconscious.

Before she could even imagine her Daddy thinking of looking for her there, Detective James scoffed at her. "I don't want to give you any false hope. There's no way anyone from the ranch will look for you here. Not in time anyway."

Refusing to let go of her hope, Joy lifted her chin. "You don't know that."

He wore a smirk she wanted to claw off his face. "Sure, I do. They're going to the opposite side of the ranch, almost."

Her hope flickered, but didn't die out. "You don't know that either."

"Course I do. I left a trail of breadcrumbs no one could miss. Who do you think made the bison herd stampede and bust through the fence on the east side of the ranch?"

Joy's heart sank. She knew that's where they had gone. She’d heard Trace talking about grabbing the dogs and heading that way. The smile on his face froze when she asked if he wanted Dodger to go with them. “Maybe next time, darlin’.”

Still, she wasn't ready to give up. "That doesn't mean they won't look here."

“Boy, you really are a dreamer, aren't you?

They won't look here because there's a cabin less than a mile from where I cut the fence.

Why do you think I cut the fence where I did?

I left tracks even a blind man could follow from the edge of the pasture straight to the cabin.

Besides, I don't need them to believe it for long, just long enough. "

The blood drained from her face. "Just long enough for what?"

Instead of answering, the detective reached into a small satchel sitting between them on the seat. He pulled out a syringe. A syringe filled with a clear liquid and a very long needle."

Joy hated needles. She’d hated them since the first time she came down with rheumatic fever. Back then, she’d had to get a shot every day. Sometimes it was medicine. Sometimes it was vitamins. Sometimes she thought the doctor just wanted to stick somebody with a sharp pointy thing.

She didn’t need to know what the clear liquid was, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking. "What is that?" She hated the tremble in her voice.

The sneer on the detective space was not encouraging. "Let's just say it's a special gift to you from Eddie."

Joy's blood grew cold.

Eddie dealt illegal drugs. She wasn't sure exactly what kind, she just knew he liked to mix things together. She could hear him, with his smarmy voice, saying, "The lower the cost, the higher the profit. "

Money was all that had ever mattered to Eddie. She certainly hadn't.

But if her illness had taught her one thing, it was that it was okay to feel fear as long as you don't let that fear control you.

She refused to let her fear control her. Look at everything she had to look forward to. She was starting a new life. With a new family. And a Daddy who loved her. He wouldn't let anything bad happen to her.