Page 10

FIVE

The bed felt strange , the blankets too light, the room too large.

The loss of her rig, the cozy sleeping area in particular, carved like a dagger into her soul.

Her sturdy Freightliner represented her future, security, everything, and now it was a mangled mess being gobbled in inches by a hungry volcano.

The wind shrieked around Cullen’s cabin as one day progressed toward the next.

Maybe the three of them would be buried soon too. Or their pursuers would arrive first.

If the men were only interested in the money, they could have it. She kicked at the blankets. What had she done to deserve any of this danger? Being shot at? Her rig wrecked? Chased into the night with a stranger when she was minding her own business, hauling office supplies for goodness’ sake.

The bloody handprint surfaced in her mind.

A woman so desperate she’d leave her baby...

Kit’s self-pity waned. Tot’s mom didn’t deserved whatever had happened to her either.

Kit was certain the men, whoever they were, wouldn’t be satisfied with the cash. Her gut told her there was something else, deeper, uglier at play that she didn’t understand, something more personal than money.

She tried praying, but her thoughts kept skittering off as she repeatedly dozed and startled awake again. What could she do? How could she protect herself?

She scooted to the periphery of the mattress, clutching at the edge to hold herself in place.

The moon broke through the storm and stabbed its way under the roll-down blinds.

Cullen hadn’t cluttered up the place with too many personal touches.

There was a clock by the bed, an old, tarnished brass thing with a fat round dial that ticked its way through the hours.

The face was cracked and a piece of the metal facing broken off.

Faded lettering on the top read, “You survived ten years. True blue, through and through.”

True blue. Even if he hadn’t told her, she’d have pegged him as former law enforcement.

He had that authoritative aura about him of a man who wanted to fix things and knew how.

It usually rubbed her the wrong way, being with people who automatically assumed the leader role, but realistically she’d likely be dead if he hadn’t intervened.

Unusual circumstances. As soon as you get clear of this red zone , you won’t need any more help from Cullen. Tension tightened her gut, but she pushed it down. Her life was working smoothly before, wasn’t it? She’d had it all under control.

Until you wrecked your truck.

She blinked hard at the tears that pooled in her eyes, gathering the unraveling strands of her control.

She’d regroup. Maybe salvage the rig somehow if the volcano al lowed.

The notion made her heart leap. The wreck might not be as bad as she thought.

She knew people who specialized in difficult tow jobs. She’d go back, examine it more closely.

But how, when there were people actively hunting her?

Her mom would say to pray about it.

Vienna Jackson Garrido, with the dark slice of hair and trim figure, always smelled of coconut hand lotion.

A church deacon, she was so sure of herself and her place, so willing to speak of a grace and forgiveness she couldn’t or wouldn’t offer to Kit’s father.

The hypocrisy left Kit with such discomfort that she’d never again set foot in a church after she left home.

A vise of pain squeezed her left eye and radiated through her forehead. Focus on remembering Tot’s mom.

A lifetime ago, she’d picked up cargo, somewhere. She’d buckled in and driven toward her destination away from the evacuation zone, but some incident caused her to change her plan entirely, a thing she rarely ever did.

That had to be where Tot’s mom entered the picture, and she’d picked her up.

Kit concentrated on that. What had she looked like?

What had they said to each other that resulted in Kit driving her rig along the twisty Pine Hollow Road instead of hightailing it to the freeway as she’d planned?

Had there been any indication the woman was being followed?

Pursued? That she or the baby were in danger?

All Kit got for her efforts was a deeper throbbing in her skull.

Snap.

She jerked to a sitting position, pulse pounding. What had made the sound? The mountain announcing it was about to sweep the cabin away? Feet still swaddled in Cullen’s borrowed socks, she shuffled as she crept to the window, lifted a corner of the blinds, and peered out.

The surface below could have been lunar terrain, acres of bumps and craters all concealed under a silver silt blanket.

A pile of debris several yards from her window shifted.

She pressed her nose to the glass, cupping her hand for a better look.

A racoon waddled across Cullen’s back deck, his gray fur blending with the night so only his white markings and paws stood out clearly.

At an unhurried pace, he meandered along, eventually disappearing under the pasture fence.

She blew out a breath, pressed her forehead to the cold glass.

The masked bandit made her think of her father’s unceasing efforts to protect the fish in her mother’s small pond from the nighttime marauders. Trash pandas, her father called them.

Each one of his plans to foil the hungry rodents had grown more elaborate: motion-activated lights, protective nets, a fake plastic owl that fooled none of the racoons, nor the hawks as far as anyone could tell.

“I’m real sorry , ” she remembered him saying, his arm looped around her mother’s shoulders as they surveyed a shining detached fin, all that remained of her little koi family.

Kit could hardly believe all the fat, luminous fish had been snatched away.

Her mother had sighed, brushing at the tears with the back of her hand. “You tried.”

That tender moment was the last she remembered between them, as shortly thereafter the police had knocked on their door, investigating funds gone missing from the investment firm where her father was employed.

The inquiry led to her father’s confession and his eventual arrest. The marriage had buckled under the weight of shock and shame.

Their family had collapsed too, because, though her mother would not divorce Sid Garrido, she would never forgive him either, no matter what her religion insisted.

He’d begged for forgiveness, never offered one word of excuse for his crimes, only remorse and soul-deep regret.

Her mother was unmoved by any of it. Kit wondered if maybe she’d lost both of her parents in that moment.

Crack.

The memory evaporated. She stared into the night.

That noise hadn’t come from the waddling racoon.

Outside, the wind plowed the ash into sooty drifts, and she stared until her eyes burned.

Was that ... Adrenaline whipped her nerves.

A shadow of something, no, some one , disappeared around the corner of the porch.

Everything in her wanted to scream. Alert Cullen .

She reached for her phone, the dead screen mocking her.

In a panic she flung open the bedroom door and ran across the living room, sprinting for the stairs to the upper floor.

She was three strides from the bottom step when the kitchen door smashed open.

A glance over her shoulder proved a dangerous mistake.

She clipped the corner of the rocking chair with her hip and fell to her knees.

A man exploded from the kitchen and crashed into her, bringing her flat to the floor. He grabbed her hair, his own trailing against her cheek as he leaned over her.

“Where is she?” he whispered savagely.

“Get off me.” Kit wriggled and squirmed, but he held her fast, his knee crushing the small of her back. Her heart slammed in her chest. “Cullen!” she yelled, but he slapped a palm over her mouth.

“You’re going to tell me where you took her.”

Kit was suddenly engulfed in the memory of her assault at that late night truck stop in Tacoma. The pressure of his weight against her, his hands fumbling with her clothes, his calloused fingers reaching to seal off her scream.

She did what she’d done then, turned her fear into rage, a rage so hot and incendiary it was uncontainable.

Back at the truck stop, she’d bitten, screamed, and kicked so violently she’d thrown the guy off balance long enough to make it to her rig.

She could still hear his meaty palms slapping against the driver’s door in rhythm with the vile names he’d spat at her seconds after she locked herself in.

On Cullen’s living room floor, the man pulled her hair tight and breathed hot against her neck.

His ponytail drifted across her cheek. Long hair?

The man riding the motorbike? The torch of anger lit her from the inside out.

When he shifted, she bit his palm until she tasted blood.

With a yowl he loosened his grip on her hair, and she rammed her head into his face.

Bone crunched, and he reeled back with a cry of pain.

“Cullen!” she screamed, rocketing to her feet, but he was already racing down the stairs with his rifle.

He leapt down the last two steps, hit the bottom, feet planted, rifle aimed. “Hands up or you’re dead!” he hollered.

The man was on his knees, but he raised his palms while Kit scuttled over to Cullen, who was standing on shaky legs.

Cullen shot her a quick glance. “Bleeding? Hurt?”

“No.” She swiped at her mouth. “It’s his blood. I bit him before I headbutted him.”

Cullen quirked an admiring grin. “Nice job. Bashed him up good. Turn on the lamp.”

With shaking hands, she flicked on the small table lamp and backed against the wall so Cullen wouldn’t see that she was on the brink of collapse. Palms pressed to the wood paneling, she tried to slow her panicked breathing.

You’re okay. You’re in control.