by Tanya Stowe
Once she found a safe place to stay and had the baby changed and fed, she would think about what she would do next. There must be a police department she could go to in order to turn herself in. A district that wouldn’t believe David’s lies.
Catching a glimpse of bright lights up ahead, she gratefully headed toward the store attached to a gas station. She pulled up to a pump and quickly filled her tank. She didn’t have a lot of cash, however, forcing her to use a credit card, but having enough fuel was worth the risk. She knew the police would track her this far, but hopefully she’d be long gone before they could send a squad car to come pick her up.
She walked into the store and began searching the shelves for what she would need. There was a short, rotund man with a long scraggly beard behind the counter. He watched her like a hawk through thick, dark-rimmed glasses. Was he expecting her to steal something?
Or worse, had he heard the Amber Alert?
Praying it wasn’t the latter, she tried to act natural, idly perusing the shelves, searching for the items she needed. She could feel the round bearded guy’s gaze piercing her back, like tiny laser beams.
She tucked a package of diapers beneath her arm, then shifted a few steps to the right, looking over the various types of formula on display. Recognizing the yellow canister her sister used, she picked that one up.
Bright lights flashed through the window, startling her so much that she jumped a little. She cast a fugitive glance over her shoulder. Had the police found her already? She hesitated, wondering if she should just leave and go somewhere else.
The front door of the shop opened, and it took every ounce of strength she possessed not to turn and stare at whoever had come inside. She slid around the row of shelving, putting distance between herself and the newcomer.
A glimpse of black hair beneath a dark hat caught her eye and she ducked farther down, her pulse skipping several beats.
David had black hair. But he couldn’t possibly have found her so quickly. Right?
She didn’t want to believe it. Couldn’t imagine how. Her sister’s husband might have been a Special Ops soldier at one point, but he wasn’t Superman.
Just her worst nightmare.
She tucked the canister of formula into the folds of the baby wrap and slipped a twenty-dollar bill from her purse, leaving it on the shelf to pay for the items she’d taken. Then she eased around another row of supplies, slowly making her way toward the main doorway.
After painstakingly slow maneuvering, she finally had a clear pathway to the door. Praying for safety, she took a deep breath, tucked her head and made a run for it.
* * *
Heading home after a long double shift, Officer Matthew Callahan and his K-9 partner, a tall German shepherd named Duchess, came upon a convenience store located six blocks from the church the Callahan family had attended ever since he could remember. His stomach rumbled with hunger, and since he knew there wasn’t much food at home, he decided to stop for a bite to eat.
As he pulled into the parking lot, his headlights shined on a tall woman with long blond hair holding something bulky beneath her arm, running in a full-out sprint for the navy blue sedan sitting next to a gas pump.
What in the world?
Matt threw the gearshift into Park, hit the button to lift the tailgate so Duchess could jump down and then bolted from the vehicle.
Before he could yell at the woman to stop, he saw another tall man, a black cap covering his head, coming out of the convenience store, obviously following her. At first, Matt thought he was another cop, especially when he saw the gun in the guy’s hand.
But then he lifted his weapon and aimed it directly toward the fleeing woman without warning.
“Stop! Police! Drop your weapon!” Matt shouted, turning his attention to the armed man. “Duchess, Attack!”
The man wearing the cap glanced over in alarm, lowered his gun and quickly took off behind the store with Duchess in hot pursuit. With the gunman covered, he went after the woman.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said, grabbing a hold of her before she could get into her navy blue four-door. “What’s going on here? What happened inside the store?”
“Let me go! Didn’t you see that man back there?” she demanded. “He’s trying to kill me and the baby!”
Since he’d seen that much for himself, Matt couldn’t deny her statement held merit. Still, something about this entire scenario seemed off. “Who is he? What’s his name?”
Before she could respond, his K-9 partner let out a yelp of pain.
Instantly he spun on his heel, alarm skittering through him. “Duchess!”
The dog came running toward him, her coat glistening with something wet and shiny. Then he noticed the blood trail behind her.
“Oh, no, he hurt your dog!” The woman said in alarm.
Duchess came up to rest against his leg. He reached down and saw there was a long laceration in her side, most likely from a knife. Thankfully, it didn’t look too deep.
“Please don’t arrest me,” she said in a low voice. “My name is Lacy and I’m a schoolteacher on spring break. You need to understand that man is my brother-in-law, and he shot and killed my sister. Rory is my nephew and I heard him threaten to kill his son, the same way he murdered my sister. Please, you have to believe me!”
Oddly enough, Matt was leaning toward believing her. Not just because he’d watched that man point a gun at the woman, but also because he had lashed out at his partner. He glanced down at Duchess, who was still bleeding, and made a split-second decision. “Fine, but you’re coming with me.”
“No, wait...”
“Now!” Matt wasn’t in the mood to quibble. He needed to get his partner’s injury taken care of, and since this woman and the baby were also clearly in danger, he decided it was better to take them along.
He would figure out what to do with them later.
“Okay, but we need to hurry,” she said.
Lacy surprised him by gathering up her items—baby things, he belatedly realized, such as diapers and formula—then heading over to his SUV without waiting for him.
Once she made up her mind about something, clearly, she acted on it. It was a trait he couldn’t help but admire.
“Come on, Duchess.” He led his partner back to the SUV and lifted her inside. Opening the first-aid kit he kept on hand for just these types of emergencies, Matt quickly pressed several gauze pads over the gash in her coat to stop the bleeding, then wrapped gauze around her abdomen as an added precaution. Duchess was trained well enough to leave the field dressing alone.
Satisfied he’d done what he could for the moment, he leaned over and rested his face against the animal’s neck. “You’re going to be okay, hear me? I’ll get this taken care of right away.”
Duchess licked his face, making him smile. He stepped back and closed the tailgate.
Gunfire erupted from the far east corner of the store, the same place where the gunman had disappeared. A bullet shattered the plastic sign hanging just over his head.
Matt didn’t waste another moment. He jumped in behind the wheel and started the engine with a roar.
His tires screeched loudly as he drove away from the gas station. Once the lights from the store faded to nothing, he glanced in the rearview mirror at his passengers. He hated leaving the scene of the crime, but at the same time, Duchess’s needs came first.
While he thought it was odd Lacy had chosen to sit in the back seat, he’d barely gotten onto the interstate when he saw the electric sign over the freeway blinking with the news of an Amber Alert.
The description on the sign matched the woman and baby sitting behind him.
He ground his teeth together, knowing this case was getting more complicated by the minute.
Somehow, some way, he needed to keep this woman and baby safe while he figured o
ut what in the world was going on.
He couldn’t bear the thought of losing another innocent child...
Copyright © 2018 by Laura Iding
ISBN-13: 9781488087738
Mojave Rescue
Copyright © 2018 by Tanya Stowe
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com
