by B. J Daniels
Hoyt raised a brow. “And almost got my son killed.”
Emma couldn’t argue that. “I’ve always known it would take a special woman for each of your ‘boys,’” she said, smiling over at her husband. Like her husband, though, she feared that this woman Dawson had gone after might get them both killed before this was over. “You know your son.”
He swore under his breath. “Yes,” he said and started to get out of bed.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.
“I have cattle to help round up, a son to find—”
She caught his hand. “Hoyt, they aren’t boys anymore. They’ve been running this ranch just fine without you. They can run it a few more hours without your help. Anyway, it’s too late to do anything tonight and you know it.”
He smiled down at her, then came back to bed, taking her in his arms. She thought about what she’d overheard him telling the sheriff and pushed the thought away. No one other than Aggie was involved in what had happened.
Laura might have been insanely jealous, but Aggie was apparently just plain insane. At least she was locked up where she couldn’t hurt anyone else, Emma thought as she snuggled into her husband’s strong, warm body.
* * *
“Put down the shotgun, Dawson,” Lyndel said again.
“Don’t listen to him,” Jinx said. “He can’t kill me and get away with it.”
Lyndel laughed. “That’s only if her body is ever found.”
Jinx saw movement at the edge of the trees. “Dawson, look out!”
But the warning didn’t come quickly enough. Two men sprang from the trees behind him, wrenched the shotgun away and threw him to the ground.
“Don’t hurt him,” she cried. “He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Bring him along,” Lyndel ordered. “He sealed his fate when he threw in with you.” He grabbed her arm roughly and shoved her back toward the house. “I knew he wouldn’t just go away and leave well enough alone. Apparently he got himself jinxed by the likes of you and now it is going to cost him his life.”
To her surprise, Lyndel didn’t take them to the house but to his Cadillac running out front. He shoved her into the front seat at gunpoint and climbed in after her. Dawson was thrown into the backseat with one of Lyndel’s men, also at gunpoint, as Slim slipped behind the wheel.
Out of habit, Jinx reached for her seat belt.
“You won’t be needing that,” Lyndel said with a chuckle.
She snapped it on anyway, making him shake his head.
“Take us to the quarry,” he ordered.
Jinx swallowed as she realized what he had planned. He wasn’t joking about their bodies never being found. The rock quarry on the ranch had filled in with water years ago. As a girl she’d been warned not to go there because the water was so cold and deep. She knew Lyndel hadn’t heeded warnings about it and had almost drowned there one summer. The girl who’d been with him had drowned and Hank Thompson had fenced the quarry, adding several strings of barbed wire along the top and locking the gate in.
The headlights cut a swath of golden light on the narrow ranch road. There was no other ranch within miles, no one around out here in the middle of nowhere. Jinx thought of Dawson in the backseat. He’d come after her and now it was going to cost him his life. She couldn’t let that happen. No matter what she had to do.
Slim slowed and turned down an even narrower dirt road. In the moonlight she could see the tall cottonwoods around the quarry. The light glinted off the steel fence Lyndel’s father had built around the deep, water-filled hole.
Large rocks rose up from the edges of the quarry. Slim pulled up to the gate and got out to unlock it.
Jinx’s mind raced. She had to do something desperate. This time her situation actually demanded it. Lyndel was going to kill them either way, so she didn’t see that she had anything to lose. She glanced in the rearview mirror, saw Dawson. Their gazes met and she tried to send a silent message.
Slim returned, slid behind the seat and shifted the car into gear as he pulled through the open gate. Lyndel must have been selling the quarry stone again, because this end of the quarry sloped down to the water and she could see where workers had been blasting.
“Drive down to the edge,” Lyndel ordered.
Moonlight shone on the dark surface of the cold, deep water as Slim drove closer to the edge and what appeared to be no more than a fifteen-foot drop to the water at this end.
As Slim started to slow, Jinx shot Dawson a glance, then slipped her foot over and tromped on the gas. She heard Dawson snap on his seat belt. Jinx had hoped she could catch Slim by surprise. But she couldn’t take the chance that he would go for the brake. Or even throw the car into Reverse.
Fortunately Slim wasn’t quick, not mentally or physically, and she had managed to catch him by surprise. She’d also shoved against him, slamming him into his door as she tromped on his big foot on the gas pedal, throwing him off balance enough that he didn’t recover before it was too late.
Beside her, Lyndel let out a curse and grabbed for her, latching on to her arm to pull her back toward him, then quickly letting go as the car soared over the edge and began a nosedive for the water below. Jinx braced herself and prayed that she hadn’t just killed them all.
* * *
Dawson couldn’t believe it. When he’d looked into Jinx’s eyes, he’d known she was going to do something desperate. He’d been trying to come up with something himself, since it was clear what Lyndel had planned for them when he realized what she was going to do.
He braced himself as the engine revved and he felt the vehicle go airborne. It seemed to hang in the air, then did a slow nosedive, rolling forward. The ranch hand who’d been beside him flew forward along the headliner as they struck the water with a force that shook Dawson’s teeth.
The car plunged, then bobbed up as it flipped over on its top. Everything went quiet except for the slosh of waves against the sides of the car and the sound of the water rushing in.
Dawson found himself alone, suspended upside down by his seat belt in the backseat. “Jinx?” he cried, seeing her hanging, as well. The others seemed to be piled on the windshield upfront, none of them moving. At least not yet.
He quickly unsnapped his seat belt and dropped to the interior roof of the car. Hurriedly he crawled to the front. Water was rushing into the car at every crack and crevice. His movements made the car pitch as if it was a boat. A sinking boat.
Jinx was fumbling with her seat belt.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded. He saw that there was a cut over her eye and it was bleeding. He helped her unsnap the belt and lowered her to the headliner, which was now already soaked with water.
One of the ranch hands or Lyndel moaned. They’d all been thrown into the windshield. The water around them was turning red with their blood.
Dawson looked around for something to break out one of the windows, as the water seemed to be coming in faster, leaving less air space. It wouldn’t be long before the weight of the water would sink the car.
He spotted his shotgun and remembered Slim picking it up and carrying it toward the car. “I’m going to bust out the back window, but when I do the water is going to rush in. We won’t be able to swim out until it fills the car.”
Jinx nodded.
“Hang on to the seat. Hold your breath, then take my hand, okay?” He met her gaze. “We’re going to get out of this.”
Another groan from the front of the car. Hurriedly Dawson took a swing at the back window with the butt of the shotgun, his back to what was happening behind him.
* * *
Dawson didn’t see Lyndel push himself away from Slim and the other man, both of them unmoving. But the movement caught Jinx’s eye. She watched in horror as Lyndel’s hand snaked out and latched on to a gun th
at had been lying at the edge of the bodies.
“You really are a jinx,” he said, his words slurred, his eyes wild.
“Dawson!” she cried as Lyndel lifted the gun and aimed it at her head.
Dawson was already in midswing with the butt of the shotgun. He started to turn when the glass shuddered. The water came rushing in like a tidal wave. Jinx saw Lyndel’s eyes widen as Dawson was washed back toward them. Lyndel might have gotten off a shot. Jinx didn’t know. If he did, the shot went wild. The wave surrounded her, slamming her back against the seat she’d been holding on to as the car quickly filled with water and began to sink.
The water was colder than anything Jinx had ever felt in her life. It stole the breath she’d been holding and she was sure she would drown. But then she felt Dawson take her hand and he was swimming her out through the gaping hole where the back window had been.
She could see moonlight above them. Her lungs felt as if they would burst. They weren’t going to make it. The surface was farther than they’d thought. She felt his hand tighten on hers and a moment later they burst to the surface.
Jinx gasped for breath, choking and crying.
“You’re all right,” Dawson said as he pulled her to him.
She couldn’t catch her breath and the cold had seeped into her bones, leaving her numb. He drew her over to the edge of the rock quarry and pulled them both up the rock ledge and into the warmth of the summer night and his strong arms.
“It’s over, Brittany Bo. You’re safe and I’m never letting you out of my arms ever again.”
EPILOGUE
“I’d like to make a toast.” Everyone turned their attention to Hoyt Chisholm at the head of the table. “We’ve had one interesting year so far and it isn’t even half over.” He raised his glass. “Here’s hoping the next six months aren’t half as eventful.”
Everyone said, “Hear, hear,” and raised their glasses.
Emma smiled across the table at her soon-to-be daughter-in-law, Halley. The deputy had eyes only for her fiancé, Colton, though. She was smiling up at him as they touched glasses.
Next to them Dawson and Jinx were also smiling at each other. Dawson hadn’t let her out of his sight after everything that had happened to them. Emma shivered at even the thought of the two of them underwater with killers in the quarry in Wyoming. She gave a silent thanks to God that they had survived, and that the men who had been trying to kill them had perished—only because she didn’t want Jinx and Dawson to have to go through a lengthy trial.
Emma liked Jinx. She was a good strong woman, capable and smart. She’d had the good sense to get Lyndel Thompson’s confession on a digital recorder, which she and Dawson had given to the sheriff in Wyoming. The rustlers had been rounded up and were facing serious charges in connection with Jinx’s father’s murder.
Across the table, Tanner and Billie Rae were sharing a private toast of their own. Emma loved the way Billie Rae seemed to radiate with happiness when she was with Tanner. He’d said he’d fallen in love with her at first sight. Emma loved nothing better than a happy ending.
“It’s been a good year so far, too,” Emma added after everyone had taken a drink of their champagne. She’d thought that the night had called for prime rib from one of their beef and champagne and all the trimmings. “We have a lot of celebrate, including those who have joined us tonight.”
She lifted her glass to Colton and Halley, then Jinx and Dawson, then Tanner and Billie Rae, turning to smile down the long table at Sheriff McCall Crawford and her husband, Luke. The sheriff was glowing and Emma wondered if it was possible...
She turned back to her own husband. As she touched his glass, her eyes locked with his. A silent look of love and relief passed between them.
“To even happier times,” she said, followed by applause.
“Now can we please eat?” Marshall joked.
Emma loved the sound of laughter around the table as her gaze took in her other stepsons. Zane had gone clear to California looking for her. Her father had said how lucky she was to have such wonderful stepsons. Didn’t she know it.
Next to him, Logan seemed lost in thought. Of the six, he puzzled her. She knew he loved the ranch, but as they said, he definitely heard a different drummer, with his long hair and his love of his motorcycle over horses. Emma knew he was also a puzzle to his father, but she had great hopes for him.
She’d seen a change in Marshall after everything that had happened and wondered what had caused it. He was now in the process of remodeling the farmhouse where he lived. It was part of the Chisholm Cattle Company, the most isolated of the places.
When she’d first married into the family only months ago, she’d been determined to bring the family together and she’d had this crazy idea of finding each of her stepsons the perfect mate.
She chuckled at her naïveté. Three of them had found mates in the least likely places. Emma had tried to help things along with Colton and even a little with Tanner, but she’d had nothing to do with getting Dawson and Jinx together.
Not that she had given up matchmaking. No, she thought as she looked at the three stepsons who were still single. She was making no promises. Now that her own life had settled down, the cattle all rounded up, Hoyt cleared of any criminal charges and Aggie soon to be headed for the state mental hospital, Emma thought she might see what she could do to help Cupid along for Marshall, Zane and Logan. Look how happy the other three were! she thought.
* * *
“She shouldn’t give you any trouble,” the deputy said as Aggie Wells was loaded into the back of the state mental hospital van. “Doc gave her something to calm her down.”
The driver glanced back at the woman in his rearview mirror, but made a point of not making eye contact.
“You must be new,” the deputy said.
“Just started yesterday,” the driver said. “Needed a job and this was all I could find.”
“I guess there are worse jobs,” the deputy agreed. “At least it’s not the middle of winter where you have to fight icy roads and blowing and drifting snow a lot of the times. Good luck,” he said as he started to close the van door.
“Thanks. I hope I don’t need it.” As he pulled away, he saw the deputy go back inside the sheriff’s department.
He didn’t look at the woman again until they were out of Whitehorse and headed across the open prairie. It was twilight, the sun somewhere behind the Little Rockies and the Bear Paw Mountains.
The driver checked his side mirror first. No cars behind him and none ahead as far as he could see. This really was an isolated part of the state—even during tourist season in the summer.
He finally glanced back at his passenger. “How are you doing, Aggie?”
She looked up, her gaze meeting his. “Okay, now that you’re here.”
He hadn’t had a choice when he’d gotten her message. He owed her and had told her a long time ago that if she ever needed him... Years ago she’d proved that his wife had been systematically selling off the jewelry he gave her and replacing it with fakes, which she then paid her boyfriend to steal so she could collect on the insurance money.
He’d gotten rid of the boyfriend, kept the wife and gone into business with her. They had a nice life and he didn’t have any more trouble with his wife after she’d seen what he’d done to her boyfriend.
Aggie Wells? Well, he was indebted to her in a big way.
“Did you have trouble getting the van?” she asked.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
* * *
Stone Cold Undercover Agent
Nicole Helm
Nicole Helm grew up with her nose in a book and the dream of one day becoming a writer. Luckily, after a few failed career choices, she gets to follow that dream—writing down-to-earth contemporary romance and romantic suspense. From farmers to cowboys, Midwest
to the West, Nicole writes stories about people finding themselves and finding love in the process. She lives in Missouri with her husband and two sons and dreams of someday owning a barn.
Books by Nicole Helm
Harlequin Intrigue
A Badlands Cops Novel
South Dakota Showdown
Covert Complication
Backcountry Escape
Isolated Threat
Badlands Beware
Close Range Christmas
Carsons & Delaneys
Wyoming Cowboy Justice
Wyoming Cowboy Protection
Wyoming Christmas Ransom
Stone Cold Texas Ranger
Stone Cold Undercover Agent
Stone Cold Christmas Ranger
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
The first romance novel I ever read was a romantic suspense, and I never thought I’d be able to write one. Thank you, Helen and Denise, for helping me prove past me wrong.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 1
Gabby Torres had stopped counting the days of her captivity once it entered its sixth year. She didn’t know why that was the year that did it. The first six had been painful and isolating and horrifying. She had lost everything. Her family. Her future. Her freedom.
The only thing she currently had was...life itself, which, in her case, wasn’t much of a life when it came right down to it.
