She stiffened. “We need a plan, a detailed plan. I always have one.”
He folded his arms. “I’m thinking your plan for today didn’t include Tot and shooters.”
She shrank into the baggy sweatshirt. “No, it didn’t.” The edges of fear crept over her face.
No, Kit wasn’t a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants type. He slid over a bottle of aspirin he’d grabbed from the kitchen. “This will help with the headache. I’m thinking we drive up the road to Pinnacle Point. Chances are good we can get a signal there, or at least see how the roads look.”
She swallowed the pills with a swig of water. “Isn’t it better to make for the nearest town?” She squinched her eyes shut. “Grandlake, right? We can get help there maybe. Someone must have stayed behind.”
“It’s fifteen miles from here, along a closed road, and the town’s evacuated. We’re better off heading to Pinnacle.”
“I don’t agree.”
“Why?”
“Because if Tot’s mom is alive, she would head for town, not farther into the wilderness.”
And that dried up his argument. It was possible Tot’s mom didn’t know the area and she was lost and wandering. More likely she was dead. But if there was any shred of a chance they could find her by heading to the nearest town...
“All right. Compromise. We get a signal first. Then we head to Grandlake.”
“Okay.”
“How about some shut-eye? Guest bedroom’s down here. I’ll bunk upstairs with Tot and scan every hour tocheck our security and see if by some oddball chance the signal’s been restored.”
“You need sleep too.”
“I’ll get it. Cat naps.”
“I’ll switch with you in a few hours. Unless Tot’s screaming, and then you can have as much time as you want with her.” The corner of her mouth curved enough to let him know she’d made a joke. Not as stoic as she pretended to be.
“Fair.” The soup was gone, but he stared at the stray noodle at the bottom of the bowl. The decision was made then. After a quick stop, they’d ride to town.
The thing he didn’t want to say aloud thrashed in his brain.
Town was exactly where the killers would think they’d go.
And it might not be too long before they arrived to finish what they’d started.
FIVE
Thebed felt strange,the blankets too light, the room too large. The loss of her rig, the cozy sleeping area in particular, carved like a dagger into her soul. Her sturdy Freightliner represented her future, security, everything, and now it was a mangled mess being gobbled in inches by a hungry volcano. The wind shrieked around Cullen’s cabin as one day progressed toward the next. Maybe the three of them would be buried soon too. Or their pursuers would arrive first.
If the men were only interested in the money, they could have it. She kicked at the blankets. What had she done to deserve any of this danger? Being shot at? Her rig wrecked? Chased into the night with a stranger when she was minding her own business, hauling office supplies for goodness’ sake.
The bloody handprint surfaced in her mind.
A woman so desperate she’d leave her baby...
Kit’s self-pity waned. Tot’s mom didn’t deserved whatever had happened to her either.
Kit was certain the men, whoever they were, wouldn’tbe satisfied with the cash. Her gut told her there was something else, deeper, uglier at play that she didn’t understand, something more personal than money.
She tried praying, but her thoughts kept skittering off as she repeatedly dozed and startled awake again. What could she do? How could she protect herself?
She scooted to the periphery of the mattress, clutching at the edge to hold herself in place. The moon broke through the storm and stabbed its way under the roll-down blinds. Cullen hadn’t cluttered up the place with too many personal touches. There was a clock by the bed, an old, tarnished brass thing with a fat round dial that ticked its way through the hours. The face was cracked and a piece of the metal facing broken off. Faded lettering on the top read, “You survived ten years. True blue, through and through.”
True blue. Even if he hadn’t told her, she’d have pegged him as former law enforcement. He had that authoritative aura about him of a man who wanted to fix things and knew how. It usually rubbed her the wrong way, being with people who automatically assumed the leader role, but realistically she’d likely be dead if he hadn’t intervened.
