After the woman lunged over his arm and grabbed the wheel, Grant had no choice but to follow the path of least resistance. Recognizing he was shit out of luck, he’d pointed the nose of the car straight into the ravine and braced for a whole lot of hurt.
Had they gone in sideways, they would’ve rolled, and he would’ve been tossed around like a frog in a blender. That would’ve been bad news. He preferred his limbs attached to his body, even if convincing them to move required extra effort.
His arm weighed a ton as he searched blindly for escape. When his fingers found the handle, he clamped on and gave it a pull. Nothing happened. No problem. He threw his shoulder into the door.
His ribs screamed, metal creaked, and the rain came down harder, but the door refused to give. Option one a total bust; he slid his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans. The screen lit up with the press of his thumb.
Six missed calls from the same number.
Already on the way, option two would materialize out of the dark any second. Yeah, there were predators in these woods, and not all of them were of the four-legged variety. Sam Black didn’t leave loose ends, and by now he would’ve tracked Grant’s phone.
A watermelon shoved inside of a grape, he made an easy target trapped inside the tiny car. His boss didn’t dooopsy, my bad.And losing the photographer was the mother lode of oopsies. She had inside information. Sam wanted it.
For her sake and his, Grant hoped he never came face-to-face with her again.
The woman was a menace with the mouth of a drunken sailor.
Regardless, the green-eyed beauty didn’t deserve to die.
CHAPTERNINE
Gray grippedthe handle above her head as the truck’s headlights bounced around. She didn’t know how Chase could see, much less navigate, at the speed he maintained. The high beams reflected off the rain, illuminating the next object directly in their path, but did little to penetrate the inky blackness beyond the front bumper.
They’d been traveling south toward the border, but ever since leaving the highway behind hours ago, she hadn’t seen any hint of civilization. The last sign she read saidEC Manning Provincial Park, and they’d been off-roading ever since.
They were deep in the mountains on a narrow dirt road. Actually, Gray wouldn’t call it a road. It was more of a muddy trail. One with enough craters to remind her she’d dropped herself off a cliff and wrapped a car around a tree.
It had been a productive day, and she’d been mentally cursing every bump since.
“There’s a price to pay for every action.”Jesus.When had the colonel said that to her? Oh fuck, yeah. That time she’d broken her arm. Off-limits, according to their militant father, the willow tree in old Mrs. Lawrence’s yard had beckoned every hot summer.
Cooler in the shade, she and Adam had used the thick cover of leaves to hide from the boy-crazy twins down the road. Obsessed with her fourteen-year-old brother, the girl’s had driven her bonkers. Adam too.
In an attempt to impress him, she’d climbed higher than usual that day, and had been reaching for a branch above her head when the one beneath her feet broke. Only seven at the time, she couldn’t be blamed for wailing like a wounded chipmunk as Adam carried her home.
Their father had been livid, most of his anger directed at his son. Adam was older, knew better, and had disobeyed a direct order. In consequence, her brother didn’t play ball that summer. Without their starting pitcher, his team lost the state championship for the first time in three years, and he’d been cut from the team the following season.
Hell of a price to pay because she fell out of a tree.
The scrape of branches against the side of the truck brought her back to her present predicament. In the middle of a couple thousand acres of forest, the view through the windshield made her question her life choices.
Trees. A billion fucking trees.
Chase killed the motor and jumped out.
Gray cursed his enthusiasm.
Truck parked under a pine, she had to push with both hands to convince her door to open wide enough to squeeze through. By the time she freed herself from her prison, she had needles stuck to her clothes and sap in her hair.
He, on the other hand, had his gear on, her duffel shouldered, and her pack held up and ready for her to slip on. “Now what?” she asked, although she really didn’t need to. Any moron could see what came next.
“Now we walk.”
Gray swallowed a groan and put her arms through the shoulder straps. “Far?”
“Far enough.” He turned her to face him and made some unauthorized adjustments to her equipment. Lo and behold, the weight sat on her back where it should. Returning to the truck, he retrieved her forgotten bottle of Goose and jammed it into the mesh pocket of her pack.
The one generally reserved for water bottles.
