by Childs, Lisa
Then he turned toward the woman who sat in the passenger seat beside him. She had not slept at all the previous night, and from the tension gripping her body and beautiful face, she would not sleep anytime soon.
She was another reason for him to stay in control. The other was the authorities they had barely escaped, passing the patrol cars minutes before they would have pulled up to her building.
He had to stay calm and keep his wits about him because not only would the police be after him now, but so would every bounty hunter and civilian who wanted to collect the reward for his head.
Just being with him was putting Erica and Isobel in danger, too. He drew in a deep breath, bracing himself for the answer to the question he had to ask her. “Why did you agree to leave with me?”
Erica turned toward the backseat and their sleeping daughter. “Mrs. Osborn will tell the police that I called you a friend. Then they’ll believe that I’m aiding and abetting you. They would arrest me and take Isobel off to child protective services—just like you warned me.”
“I’m sorry…” That he had been right, and he was also sorry for letting her go along with him to confront Marcus. The minute he’d realized she had been duped just like the jury of his peers, he should have left her and Isobel. But he hadn’t entirely believed that she was telling the truth. He couldn’t trust her.
He shouldn’t trust anyone. But to protect her and their daughter, he had no choice.
“Now we’re forced to live like you—” her voice cracked on a sob, but she forced it down with a deep breath “—on the run.”
“I’m sorry…” He glanced into the rearview mirror again but not to watch their daughter sleep. Instead he tracked the vehicle that was closing the careful distance at which the driver had been following them from Miller’s Valley.
He’d taken her van and had left his in the alley because authorities had probably figured out by now that the guard’s van was missing. They would have issued an APB on that license plate. But maybe one had already been issued on Erica’s, too.
Living on the run might be the least of her concerns because it looked as though they were about to get caught. The only question was, who was doing the catching…
* * *
ERICA’S BACK PRESSED AGAINST the seat as the van accelerated. She followed Jed’s gaze to the rearview mirror. “Is someone following us?”
“I think so,” he tersely admitted.
“Is it a police officer?” She turned around to check again for flashing lights.
He shook his head. “It’s not a patrol car, and it doesn’t look like an unmarked police car, either.”
“You think it’s him—the intruder,” she said, as he accelerated some more.
“It could be a bounty hunter.” His mouth curved into a cynical half smile, as he added, “Hell, it could even be your neighbor Mrs. Osborn determined to collect that reward.”
An image of the old woman chasing them down with her battered Bonneville elicited a giggle from Erica. “The doctor took away her license until she gets her cataracts removed.”
“So it’s not Mrs. Osborn,” he surmised, his half smile slipping into a full grin for just a minute before it disappeared.
“No, it’s not.”
How much had he had to grin about over the past three years? Nothing, she would bet.
“It might not be anyone,” he said. “It could just be someone who’s coincidentally traveling the same road we are.”
“Toward your friend’s house?”
When they had heard the sirens in the distance, he had urged her to come with him. He promised that he knew someone, probably the one lawman he had faith in, who would be able to protect her and Isobel. And in the heat and panic of the moment, she had believed her instincts were right and trusted him.
She hoped like hell she wouldn’t regret giving that trust because it wasn’t just her heart at risk this time—it was her daughter’s life.
Jed shrugged, but his nonchalant gesture didn’t fool her since he focused on the mirror again.
“You don’t think it’s a coincidence,” she said. “And if it is that person who broke into my house, then he’s going to know where you’re bringing us.”
“I’ll lose him.” And he accelerated again. But her van was old, and the engine shuddered instead of shifting. He cursed beneath his breath.
“You’re not going to lose him in this.” The mechanic had warned her that she needed a new transmission. However, she didn’t often have to drive anywhere in Miller’s Valley, so she had been waiting until she needed to travel somewhere. She hadn’t imagined that the van would have to make two long-distance trips within a few hours.
And that it would have to outrun a faster vehicle. The rev of a powerful engine echoed as the car behind them accelerated.
They should have taken his vehicle, but he’d explained that the police might have already been looking for it. Now she wished they’d taken their chances with the police…
She repeated the fear that was causing that fluttery panic in her chest again. “He’s going to follow to wherever you’re bringing us.”
She really should have asked where he was bringing them; she shouldn’t have given her trust so blindly. But after how she’d given him her mistrust in the past, she’d felt as if she’d owed him.
But she couldn’t worry about Jed anymore; she had to worry about her daughter. “Isobel will still be in danger.”
“Not with Rowe Cusack.”
“The DEA agent?” she asked. The one whose badge Jed had flashed to fool her. “He’s been helping you?”
A muscle twitched along his jaw as he glanced into the rearview mirror. And he didn’t reply.
“Jed?” she prodded him, her stomach clenching with apprehension. “Does he know you’re coming? Is he really helping you?”
“He will.”
But the DEA agent wouldn’t be able to help them if they couldn’t get to him. The car had gained on them, coming up so fast and close that it struck the rear bumper of the van.
Isobel woke up with a scream that echoed Erica’s.
Erica fought back her own panic and forced a smile as she leaned over her seat to face her daughter. “It’s okay, sweetheart. No reason to be afraid.”
The car connected with their rear bumper again. Even though she saw it coming, a scream bubbled back up in Erica’s throat. She choked it down and offered Isobel another shaky smile. “See, it’s just like playing bumper cars at the fair.”
Isobel’s eyes widened. “But this isn’t a bumpa car, Mommy.”
“We’re just pretending it is,” Erica explained. But the other car wasn’t just pretending; it really was hitting them, and very hard.
The tires skidded as they tried to grip the snow-covered pavement. She needed new tires, too. But that was another thing she had thought she would be able to put off purchasing for a while. The van spun around, nearly sliding off the road into one of the ditches on the side. Because the ditches were so deep and usually filled with water, people drowned if their vehicles went off into them.
Isobel screamed, but with no fear this time. She had bought Erica’s story of make-believe. So when the car struck them again, the little girl squealed with excitement and joy.
Erica blinked against the sting of tears and hung onto her fake smile even as she turned toward Jed. He wasn’t smiling. He was so focused on driving that he might not have even heard the lie that she had told their daughter. He’d heard the story she’d given Mrs. Osborn, too—first about her emergency in Grand Rapids and then about Jed being her friend. He probably thought she lied very easily and very often. He would never trust her now, and she didn’t blame him.
His knuckles turned from dark red to white as he gripped the steering wheel. And a muscle twitched in his cheek, above his rigidly held jaw. He was determined to protect them. But it was obvious that he wasn’t convinced that he could.
Neither was Erica.
* * *
&nb
sp; A CRASH REVERBERATED inside Macy’s head, jerking her awake. Her neck ached from how she’d fallen asleep leaning over the armrest of a chair near Rowe’s desk.
Strong fingers brushed hair back from her face. “Go back to sleep,” a deep voice urged her. “Go lay down in the bed this time, though.”
She squinted against the sunlight pouring through a window high in the wall of the apartment that had been carved out of a corner of an abandoned airport hangar. “I can’t sleep.”
“You’ve been out for a couple of hours,” he pointed out, his sexy mouth sliding into a crooked grin.
“I can’t sleep now,” she said with a shiver. “I have a really bad feeling.”
Rowe came to her, lifting her from the chair only to settle back into it with her wrapped in his arms. “Sweetheart…”
Tears stung her eyes. “He’s in too much danger—even more than he was in at Blackwoods. I’m afraid I’m never going to see my brother again.”
Rowe said nothing, just tightened his strong arms around her and pressed a kiss to her forehead. She regretted now making him promise not to keep anything from her. She wished he could offer her some pretty lies that Jed was perfectly safe—that he would be fine and proven innocent soon.
She had spent the entire trial believing the fantasy that an innocent man wouldn’t go to prison. Then she’d spent three years believing that his innocence would be revealed. She had wasted too much of her life believing that justice would win out. Now she knew better than anyone—but Jed—how unjust life could be.
But nothing would be more unjust than Jed dying a convicted killer. However, the sick feeling in her stomach worried her—that it was already too late for Jed to find the real killer. That eerie sense of foreboding that had jerked her awake had her convinced that the real killer had found Jed first.
* * *
FOR THREE YEARS, Jed had been locked into a six-by-six cage. He had been allowed out to eat in the cafeteria and to exercise in the prison yard. He hadn’t been allowed to drive. But before his arrest, he’d been driving Humvees in Afghanistan.
The instincts that had aided him in avoiding ambushes and roadside bombs and had earned him that Purple Heart kicked in again. The minivan was no Humvee, but Jed—full of determination to protect his family as he had protected his men during their missions—steered it like it was one. He wrenched the wheel, driving into the skid across the slippery spring snow.
He avoided the deep ditches on the sides of the road, but metal crunched, bumpers connecting. The van slid again, still Jed held tight to the wheel and accelerated. This time the engine responded, kicking into a higher gear. But even with a working transmission, it couldn’t outrun the more powerful car.
It drew alongside them, on the wrong side of the yellow line. Jed hoped like hell that someone came upon them from the other direction and sent that son of a bitch hurtling into the ditch.
Despite the fact that the sun had finally risen, it was too early for much traffic. Unfortunately, these were the only two vehicles on the road.
The black sedan was longer and heavier than the van, and its windows were tinted nearly as black as the rest of it. So, despite the morning sun that illuminated the inside of the van and Erica’s beautiful face so pale with fear, Jed could not see inside the car.
He had no idea who was after them. The intruder from the apartment? An overly ambitious bounty hunter? Or the devil himself…
But then the passenger window of the car, which was on Jed’s side, lowered. And he caught a glimpse of the driver.
His heart slammed into his ribs, and his hands shook so badly he nearly lost his grip on the steering wheel.
It couldn’t be…
No, it’s not possible.
He had gone too many days without sleep, so his mind was just playing tricks on him.
That had to be it…
But before Jed could determine whether or not he was hallucinating, the window rose back up.
And the car crashed into the side of the van, sending it spinning out of control…like Jed’s imagination.
Chapter Ten
They weren’t dead. Thanks to Jed. Erica didn’t know how he had managed to keep the van from being totally submerged in the deep ditches on the side of the road. But he had avoided them as well as losing the car that had tried to run them off the road.
There had been no sight of the black vehicle behind them as they had traveled the rest of the way to Rowe Cusack’s secret hideaway—an airplane hangar at an old private airstrip on the outskirts of Detroit.
At first she hadn’t thought it was a meeting place. It seemed more like a means to escape to another country with no extradition. But no matter how much Jed trusted him, Rowe Cusack was still a lawman—who had vowed to uphold and not break the law. And there probably weren’t many laws more severe to break than aiding a fugitive.
But she would learn the legalities for certain once she was caught. She had no illusions now that she wouldn’t be. The prison van had been left in the alley behind her building, and Jed’s fingerprints were all over her home.
And her body…
She tingled in remembrance of how they’d been touching each other before that news bulletin had interrupted them and they’d heard the sirens in the distance. They’d barely gotten out of Miller’s Valley to avoid arrest. Heck, they’d barely gotten out of Miller’s Valley alive, thanks to that black car.
She would love to go to that other country with no extradition. But no fueled plane awaited them as Jed pulled the van inside the nearly empty hangar. He stepped out of the van and came around, opening her door before sliding open the back door. A noise made him tense and turn toward the shadows inside the hangar.
Erica reached for their daughter, unbuckling her car seat to pull her into her arms. She clasped the child tight, willing to die to protect her.
“It’s Rowe,” Jed assured her.
A tall blond-haired man stepped out of the shadows where he must have been waiting to meet them, but he hadn’t come alone. Instead of armed officers, only a dark-haired woman stood inside the hangar with the DEA agent.
The woman could have been an agent, too, but instead of drawing a weapon on Jed, she ran toward him with her arms outstretched. Jed met the woman, catching her up in his arms for a big hug.
Erica’s chest felt tight, her heart compressed, as she watched their joyful reunion. This was the “she” that he’d promised would see him soon. The woman couldn’t have met him while he was in prison, so she must have known him before and well enough to wait for him. And long enough that they would have already been involved before he’d slept with Erica the night their child had been conceived.
Erica clasped her arms more tightly around her daughter, who had somehow managed to fall asleep again after the excitement of their bumper car make-believe.
“Macy!” Jed exclaimed, his deep voice vibrating with joy and affection.
And Erica remembered him talking about this woman before, his voice vibrating then with love and pride. The tightness in her chest eased as she realized this was his sister.
Even though Erica had never met her, she should have recognized her. Not from the old picture Jed had shown her when they’d been going out before his deployment, or even from all the media coverage of her during the trial. Macy had given up her plans for medical school to aid her brother’s appeal and release from prison. Erica should have recognized her because Isobel was a miniature replica of the young woman.
No wonder Jed had instinctively known, with nary a doubt nor demand for a DNA test, that Isobel was his daughter. It was very obvious that the little girl was this woman’s niece.
Over her brother’s massively broad shoulder, Macy caught sight of Erica and the unwieldy bundle in her arms. “Jed, who did you bring with you? Who is this?”
She pulled away from her brother and walked toward Erica. As her gaze focused on the sleeping child, her breath audibly caught.
“Is she my…?” Macy aske
d Erica, not her brother the question—more with her wide dark eyes than her words, which emotion had choked off.
Erica nodded, and the gesture must have shifted the little girl so that she awakened with a sleepy murmur of protest. “This is your niece, Isobel. Isobel, this pretty lady is your Aunt Macy.”
“She is pretty,” Isobel whispered in shy agreement.
“You’re the pretty one,” Macy said. “I am so happy to meet you.” She held out her arms.
The little girl hesitated for just a moment before leaning toward her newly introduced aunt. Macy pulled her close, hugging her as tightly as she had her brother. Tears glistened in her eyes. “I was so worried I’d never see you again. But here you are and you’re not alone…”
