Not too many people had ever come this close to dying.
Grayson glanced behind him to make sure she had followed his orders. She had. Eve had squeezed herself in between the passenger’s seat and the dashboard. It was safer than sitting upright, but Grayson knew a car wouldn’t be much protection if anything was about to happen. A secondary explosion could send fiery debris slamming right into them.
He tried to keep watch all around them while he eased into the driver’s seat and adjusted it so he’d fit. He needed to put some distance between the cottage, woods and them, and then he would call for assistance. Someone could take Eve to the sheriff’s office, and Grayson could figure out why all of this didn’t feel like an accident.
While keeping a firm grip on his gun, he shut the car door and started the engine. He took out his phone and handed it to Eve. “Call the fire department.”
She did but without taking her stunned gaze off the flames that were eating their way through what was left of the cottage. It had to break her heart to see the damage, and later the full loss would hit her.
As if she hadn’t had enough to deal with for one day.
Even now, with the chaos of the moment, he still had her request going through his head.
I need you to get me pregnant.
He’d made it clear that wasn’t going to happen, so the situation was over for him. But not for Eve. He had seen that determination in her eyes, and one way or another, she was going to get this dream baby. Hell, this near-death experience might even make her more determined.
“Hang on,” Grayson warned her as he drove away—fast. He didn’t exactly gun the engine, but he didn’t dawdle, either.
The narrow road was dirt, gravel and mud since it had rained hard just that morning. With the sinkholes poxing the surface, it was impossible to have a smooth ride. But a smooth ride was an insignificant concern. Right now, he just wanted Eve out of there so he could deal with this situation on his own terms.
In other words, alone.
“The gas was turned off,” Eve murmured. “It’s been turned off for months. So, what caused the explosion?”
“Maybe a leak in the gas line.” And if so, that would be easy to prove.
“Call the first number on my contact list,” Grayson instructed. It was for the emergency dispatcher in the sheriff’s building. “I want at least one deputy out here with the fire department. Have them meet me at the end of the road.”
Once help arrived, he could hand off Eve to whichever deputy responded, and Grayson could escort the fire department and others to the scene. He didn’t want anyone walking into a potential ambush.
Eve made the call, and he heard her relay his instructions to the emergency dispatcher. Just ahead, Grayson spotted the first curve of the snaky road. He touched the brakes.
And nothing happened.
Nothing!
The car continued to barrel toward the curve. So, Grayson cursed and tried again, but this time he added a lot more pressure.
Still nothing.
Hell.
“What’s wrong?” Eve asked.
Grayson dropped his gun onto the console between them so he could use both hands to steer. “I think someone cut the brake line.”
Eve put her hand against her chest. “W-hat?”
She sounded terrified and probably was, but Grayson couldn’t take the time to reassure her that he was going to try to get them out of this without them being hurt. The curve was just seconds away, and the road surface was as slick as spit. But his biggest concern was the trees. The road was lined with them, and if he crashed into one of them, Eve and he could both be killed on impact.
“Get in the seat and put on your seat belt,” he told her, fastening his attention on the curve.
She scrambled to do just that, but he figured there wasn’t enough time. To buy them a little more of that precious time, Grayson lifted the emergency brake lever, even though it wouldn’t help much. The emergency brake would only work on the rear brake, and it wouldn’t slow them down enough. Still, he had to try anything to reduce the speed.
“Hold on,” he warned her.
Eve was still fumbling with the seat belt when the car went into the curve. Grayson had no choice but to try to keep the vehicle on the road since the trees were just yards away.
The right tires caught the gravel-filled shoulder, kicking up rocks against the metal undercarriage. The sound was nearly deafening, and it blended with his own heartbeat, which was pounding in his ears.
Eve’s car went into a slide, the back end fishtailing. Grayson steered into the slide. Or rather that’s what he tried to do, but he soon learned he had zero control. He saw the trees getting closer and closer, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
For just a split second, he made eye contact with Eve. Her gaze was frozen on him while her hands worked frantically to fasten the seat belt. Her eyes said it all.
She thought they were going to die, and she was silently saying goodbye.
Grayson didn’t say goodbye back because he had no intention of dying today.
He heard the click of her seat belt, finally. And Grayson jerked the steering wheel to the left. The car careened in that direction, but not before the back end smashed into a live oak tree. The jolt rattled the entire vehicle and tossed them around like rag dolls.
Thank God they were wearing their seat belts.
He also thanked God that he was able to hang on to the steering wheel. They’d dodged a head-on collision, and the impact with the tree had slowed them down some, but they literally weren’t out of the woods yet.
The car went into a skid in the opposite direction.
More trees.
Grayson didn’t even bother to curse. He just focused all his energy on trying to control an out-of-control car.
And it was a battle he was losing.
There was a trio of hackberry trees directly in front of them. If he managed to miss one, he would no doubt just plow into the others, or one of their low-hanging limbs.
He fought with the wheel, trying to make it turn away, but they were in another skid, the mud and rocks helping to propel them in a direction he didn’t want to go.
“There’s the man we saw earlier,” Eve said, her voice filled with fear.
She pointed to Grayson’s right, but he didn’t look in that direction. Not because he doubted her. No. The hiding man probably was there, but Grayson had to give it one last-ditch effort to get the car into the best position for what would almost certainly be a collision.
“Cover your face,” Grayson managed to warn her. Because the limbs would probably break the glass.
His life didn’t exactly flash before his eyes, but Grayson did think of his family. His brothers. His little niece, Kimmie.
And Eve.
She was there, right smack-dab in the middle of all of his memories.
He watched the front end of the car slide toward the middle tree, but at the last second, the vehicle shifted. No longer head-on. But the driver’s side—his side—careened right into the hackberry.
Grayson felt the air bags slam into his face and side. The double impact combined with the collision rammed him into Eve and her air bag. There were the sounds of broken glass and the metal crunching against the tree trunk. The radiator spewed steam.
“We’re alive,” he heard Eve say.
Grayson did a quick assessment. Yeah, they were alive all right, and the car was wrapped around the hackberry.
“Are you hurt?” he asked Eve, trying to assess if he had any injuries of his own. His shoulder hurt like hell, but he was hoping it was just from the air-bag punch and that it hadn’t been dislocated. He would need that shoulder to try to get them out of this crumpled heap of a car.
When Eve didn’t answer, Grayson’s stomach knotted, and he whipped his head in her direction. Her hands were on the air bag that she was trying to bat down, but her attention was fixed on the side window.
Grayson so
on saw why.
The man, the one who’d hidden in the trees, was running straight toward them.
Chapter Four
The man was armed, a pistol in his right hand.
Eve heard Grayson yell for her to get down, but she didn’t have time to react. Grayson pushed her down, her face and body colliding with the partially inflated air bag.
“My gun,” he snarled.
Grayson cursed and punched at the air bags. He was obviously trying to find his weapon. When Eve had last seen it, Grayson had put it on the console, but the crash had probably sent it flying.
Oh, mercy.
That meant they were sitting ducks, unarmed, with a gunman bearing down on them. She couldn’t get out of the car, not with the man so close and on her side of the vehicle. They couldn’t get out on the driver’s side because it was literally crunched around a tree. Thank God for the air bags, or Grayson would have been seriously injured or killed.
Eve glanced up at the approaching man. The person who was likely responsible for the explosion that had destroyed her grandmother’s cottage. The fear raced through her.
Still, she felt anger, too.
This idiot had endangered them and was continuing to do so. She wouldn’t just stand by and let him shoot Grayson and her. Neither would Grayson.
They both grappled around the interior of her car, and Eve remembered her own gun in the glove compartment. It took some doing to get the air bag out of the way, but she finally managed it. She threw open the glove box door, latched onto the gun and handed it to Grayson.
He immediately took aim.
The man must have seen him do that because he ducked behind a tree. She wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. If the man had stayed out in the open, Grayson would have had a clean shot. This way, they were still trapped.
“One of the deputies will be here soon,” Grayson reminded her.
Probably one of his brothers. Both Dade and Mason were Silver Creek deputy sheriffs, and since Grayson had requested backup, they would no doubt get there as soon as humanly possible.
But that might not be soon enough.
Using his left hand Grayson continued to bat away the air bag, but he kept his attention pinned to the tree where the man had ducked out of sight. Eve kept watch as well, but there were other trees near that one, and it wouldn’t take much for the man to move behind one of those closer trees and sneak right up on them.
“Who is he?” Eve meant to ask herself that question, but she said it aloud.
“I don’t know,” Grayson answered. “But he could be the killer we’re after.”
Yes. Eve was aware that there was an unidentified killer on the loose.
Thanks to the newspaper coverage, she was also aware that just a few days ago a young woman’s body had been found in the creek. The woman had been fully clothed, no signs of sexual assault, but her fingerprints and face had been obliterated. That’s the term the press had used, obliterated, and Eve had assumed the killer had done that to prevent her from being identified.
It had worked.
So, why would this killer come after Grayson and her now?
Until the body was identified, and that might never happen, it wasn’t likely that Grayson would be able to come up with a list of suspects.
But Eve had a sickening thought.
Perhaps the man had killed the woman in or near the cottage. Maybe he was destroying any potential physical evidence that would link him to the crime. And here she’d walked in with so much on her mind that she hadn’t even considered a trip home could be dangerous. This in spite of her knowing about the murder that possibly happened just a stone’s throw away from the cottage.
That oversight could be deadly.
She choked back a sob. Only minutes earlier her main worry had been getting pregnant, but for that to happen Grayson and she had to survive this. If something went wrong and he got hurt, it would be her fault because he wouldn’t have been out here in these woods if she hadn’t called him.
“I’ll get you out of here,” she heard Grayson say.
It sounded like a promise. But Eve knew backup was still a few minutes away. A lot could happen in those few short minutes.
Because she had her attention pinned to that tree, she saw the man lean out. Or rather she saw his gun.
“Get down!” she warned Grayson.
Just as the shot slammed through the window directly above Eve’s head. The sound was deafening, and the bullet tore through the safety glass.
Grayson moved forward, his body and forearm pushing her deeper onto the floor so that she could no longer see what was going on.
And Grayson fired.
Eve automatically put her hands over her ears, but the blast was so loud that it seemed to shake the entire car. What was left of the safety glass in the window came tumbling down on top of her.
Grayson elbowed the chunk of glass aside and fired another shot. All Eve could do was pray, and her prayers were quickly answered. Even with the roaring in her ears from the shots, she heard a welcome sound.
A siren.
Maybe the fire department. Maybe a deputy. She didn’t care which. She just wanted Grayson to have backup. Her gun was fully loaded, but Eve didn’t have any other ammunition with her, and she didn’t want to risk a gun battle with the man who had a better position behind the tree.
“The SOB’s getting away,” Grayson growled.
Eve hadn’t thought this situation could get more frightening, but that did it. If he managed to escape, he might try to come after her again.
She didn’t need this, and neither did Grayson.
Grayson obviously agreed because he climbed over her and caught on to the door handle. He turned it, but it didn’t budge. Eve didn’t relish the idea of Grayson running after a possible killer, but the alternative was worse. Besides, the gunman had quit shooting.
For now, anyway.
Eve rammed her weight against the door to help Grayson open it. It took several hard pushes, but with their combined effort the door finally flew open.
“Be careful,” she warned him.
“You, too,” Grayson warned back. “Stay put and try to find my gun. I figure he’s trying to get as far away from that siren as he can, but if this guy is stupid and doubles back, shoot him.”
That didn’t help with her ragged nerves, but as Gray son sprang from the car, Eve made a frantic search for the gun. She also kept watch, blindly running her hands over the floor and seats.
The sirens got closer, and she saw the flashes of blue lights at the end of the road. Backup was just seconds away, but Grayson was already running past the tree that the gunman had hidden behind.
Her fingers brushed over the cold gunmetal, finally, and Eve snatched up Grayson’s Smith & Wesson. Her hands were shaking like crazy, but she positioned the gun so it would be easier for her to take aim. But she was hoping that might not be necessary.
A Silver Creek cruiser came to a screeching stop next to her wrecked car, and she recognized the man who jumped out. It was Dade, Grayson’s brother. Like Grayson, he wore jeans and a badge clipped to his belt, and he had his gun ready. He was lankier than Grayson, but Eve didn’t doubt Dade’s capabilities. From everything she’d heard, he was a good lawman.
“Eve?” he asked. Dade was clearly surprised to see her in Silver Creek. Then his gaze flashed to the cottage. Or rather what remained of it. It was still on fire, but there wasn’t much left to burn.
Soon, very soon, it would be just a pile of ashes.
“Someone blew up the cottage. And then he fired a shot at us,” she explained. “He might be the killer you’re looking for.” Mercy, her voice was shaking as badly as her hands, and she tried to rein in her fear so she could point toward the tree. “Grayson went after him.”
Concern flashed through Dade’s eyes, and he snapped his attention in the direction where she’d pointed. “Stay here,” Dade said, repeating Grayson’s earlier order. “The fire crew is right be
hind me. And keep that gun ready, just in case.”
She watched him run toward the spot where she’d last seen Grayson, and Eve added another prayer for Dade’s safety, too. Like all the Rylands, she’d known Dade her entire life, and even though he was only two years younger than she was, she had always thought of him as her kid brother. That probably had something to do with all the meals she’d helped cook for Dade and the others after their mother committed suicide.
“The dark ages,” she mumbled.
That’s how she’d always thought of that time twenty years ago when Grayson and his brothers had basically become orphans. During the years that followed, Eve had gotten close with all of Grayson’s brothers, closer than she had been with her own family.
She blinked back the tears. And here she’d endangered yet another family member. Heck, Mason was probably on the way, too. Before the hour was up, she might have put all three of them at risk.
Eve heard a second set of sirens and knew that the fire department was close by. She stayed in the car, as both Grayson and Dade had warned her to do, but she moved to the edge of the seat, closer to the open door, so she could try to pick through the woods and see Grayson. She still had sight of Dade, but Grayson was nowhere to be seen.
She glanced behind her at the fire engine as it made the final turn from the farm road onto the gravel drive that led to the cottage. The driver turned off the sirens, and everything suddenly went silent.
Eve could hear the wind assaulting the trees. She could hear her own heartbeat in her ears.
She also heard Dade shout, “Get down!”
And the sound of a gun going off ripped through the silence.
Chapter Five
Grayson cursed and dove to the ground.
He’d already had enough surprises today, and he didn’t need this SOB firing any more shots at him. Besides, Eve wasn’t that far away, and he darn sure didn’t want a stray bullet traveling in her direction.
Grayson Page 3
