His tires squealed a little, his heart was pounding a lot.
Blake cussed again. Clem started clearly crying.
“We’re going too fast.” Blake was talking fast too. “If I go any faster and they hit us again, we’ll crash. I—I don’t think you’re going to get to us in time. We’ve been flying since I got on here.”
Liam was filling with anger.
He should have never let any car get between them.
“How much of the road do you have left?” he asked. His speedometer was topping out. If County 22 hadn’t been a straight shot, he wouldn’t have been able to do it as quickly. That was probably why Blake was confident that her and her tail were already so far ahead of him.
“The curve near Becker Farm’s back end is coming up. If he hits us, we’ll flip.” Blake’s voice drastically changed. “We can’t do that, Liam.”
He’d only known her for two days, and yet Liam understood that the panic he heard was rare for the woman.
It pulled at every part of him.
Especially since he couldn’t help her yet.
And even more so since the advice he was about to give her was less than ideal.
“Don’t take the curve then,” he said. “Hit the field to the left of it. It’s flat, just mowed last week. Reduce speed enough that the entry won’t rock you too hard. It’ll force him to slow down too. If they even decide to follow.”
If she didn’t agree with the plan, there wasn’t time to come up with another.
She agreed.
“Okay. Clem? Clem. I need you to hold on to your seat. Okay?”
Liam was running the math. He was a minute behind them, give or take. He could get there in thirty seconds if he didn’t reduce his own speed. Clem’s crying quieted.
“I don’t have a weapon with me, Liam.” Blake’s voice had changed again. It was back to being hard. “You have until the field runs out to save us.”
Liam felt straight fire in his veins.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter Eight
Blake pressed the brakes enough to drop their speed to keep them from wrecking as soon as the tires hit the grass shoulder. Every part of her was clenched, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. Her back so straight it wasn’t even touching the seat.
She didn’t have time to look back at Clem, but the silence in the car was astonishing. She had listened to Blake.
Blake hoped her promise to the girl that they would be okay would hold true.
The only break in focus from the field lasted long enough to see if the car followed them off the road.
Once she confirmed it did, Blake became single-minded.
They weren’t going to crash.
That meant handling the field first.
The old Becker Farm had the most acreage in Seven Roads. The back end was part of that land but was notorious for never being used for anything practical. Mostly because Abe Becker didn’t like being so close to a well-traveled road. Still, Abe was a proud man and kept every bit of his land maintained, especially the parts that were visible to the public.
Blake could have kissed the man for his decision.
The field was flat enough and freshly mowed, as Liam had said. Blake’s car hit the grass without any dips or rises taking out her tires or crunching her bumper. That didn’t mean the car was handling the change in terrain all that well.
