“Hey, are you okay?”

She forced a grin. “Yeah, I… It all just hit me. We could have died. Brady could have killed us…What if he comes back here?”

“Then I’ll be ready for him. I won’t let him hurt you, Chelsea. I promise.” Jake reached for her cheek and dried a tear with his thumb. A warm tingle spun through her. His blue eyes held hers, lit with a hard-edged but reassuring determination. A sense of security flowed through her. After the way he’d come through for her already this afternoon, she had no trouble believing Jake could protect her from the escaped convict, should he return.

She studied Jake’s face, admiring the way the fire’s glow highlighted the rugged cut of his cheekbones and square jaw. Good Lord, but he was handsome.

“Who are you, Jake Connelly? And what put you at the right place at the right time to stumble into my nightmare?”

Black Ops Rescues: Putting lives—and hearts—on the line

Dear Reader,

It’s Jake’s turn! in Cowboy’s Texas Rescue, black ops pilot Jake Connelly takes on a Texas-size blizzard and an escaped convict in order to rescue girl-next-door Chelsea Harris. Chelsea’s worst nightmare, being kidnapped at gunpoint by an escaped murderer, turns to fairy tale when ultra-handsome Jake swoops in to save the day. As they survive a massive winter storm together and pursue an escaped felon, Chelsea and Jake learn lessons about unconditional love, sacrifice and redemption.

Cowboy’s Texas Rescue is the last book in my Black Ops Rescues series, and I’ve had so much fun creating these sexy and dangerous guys that I’m sad to see the series end. Action and adventure scenes are my favorite to write, and the Black Ops Rescues series gave me many opportunities to indulge that love. I hope you’ve enjoyed getting to know Alec, Daniel and Jake and seeing them find true love. These guys will always be near and dear to my heart. What’s coming up? Three Louisiana brothers. Three babies in jeopardy. Three emotional stories of lost love, edgy danger and the courage to give love a second chance. Watch for the Mansfield brothers coming soon!

Happy reading,

Beth Cornelison

About the Author

BETH CORNELISON started writing stories as a child when she penned a tale about the adventures of her cat, Ajax. A Georgia native, she received her bachelor’s degree in public relations from the university of Georgia. After working in public relations for a little more than a year, she moved with her husband to Louisiana, where she decided to pursue her love of writing fiction.

Since that first time, Beth has written many more stories of adventure and romantic suspense and has won numerous honors for her work, including a coveted Golden Heart Award in romantic suspense from Romance Writers of America. She is active on the board of directors for the North Louisiana Storytellers and Authors of Romance (NOLA STARS) and loves reading, traveling, Peanuts’ Snoopy and spending down-time with her family.

She writes from her home in Louisiana, where she lives with her husband, one son and two cats who think they are people. Beth loves to hear from her readers. You can write to her at PO Box 5418, Bossier City, LA 71171, USA, or visit her website, www.bethcornelison.com.

Cowboy’s Texas
Rescue
Beth Cornelison

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Paul, who loves me just the way I am.

Thanks to Rita® winner and author extraodinaire Darynda Jones for lending her name to Chelsea’s neighbor and for sharing her dog Dooley for the story. Thanks, Darynda, for supporting the NOLA STARs!

Thanks to Jodi Israel, who won the chance to be a secondary character through the Brenda Novak Diabetes Auction for the Cure in May 2012!

Thanks also to Aida Alberto for allowing me to feature her cat Nela in the story.

Thank you to Carmen Parks, who won the chance to have her dog Sadie featured through the PAWS of Northeast Louisiana online auction.

Prologue

Jake Connelly crept down the corridor of the underground bunker, his senses on full alert and his Colt M4A1 assault rifle at the ready. When his black ops team reached the reinforced steel door at the end of the dim passageway, they moved silently into position—or as silently as they could while wearing CBRN suits. The military issue, head-to-toe protective clothing, designed to protect a soldier from chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear contamination, was cumbersome but critical for this op.

His team leader signaled for the men up front to work their magic and get them past the relatively low-tech security on the door. Or low-tech for a U.S. black ops team. Not so low-tech for a developing nation, even if that nation’s government had the means to kidnap a nuclear scientist and consign him to work in this hidden bunker developing a dirty bomb.

With the door breached, the team leader led the charge into the underground lab, barking in Farsi, “Everyone down! On the floor!”

“Now!” Jake shouted when the lab workers hesitated. “Hands on your head!”

One of the protective suit–clad workers tried to run, and one of Jake’s teammates stepped from the corridor to block the man’s escape. Jake tackled the fleeing worker, landing with a knee-jolting crash on the floor.

The team leader aimed his assault rifle at another man’s head. “On the floor!”

Jake quickly frisked the worker beneath him for weapons and, finding none, jerked the man to his feet. He bound the man’s hands behind him and led the lab tech into the corridor with a rifle muzzle between the man’s shoulder blades.

“Clear the room! Let’s get ’em to the helo.” The team leader whipped out a riot cuff and bound the wrists of the lab worker he had pinned to the floor. “All right, guys, set the fireworks.”

“Move!” Jake shouted in Farsi when his captive resisted. Grabbing the man’s arm, he ran, hauling the combative lab tech behind him. The rest of the team was on Jake’s heels as he sprinted back down the tunnel they’d just cleared of guards and out into the predawn darkness.

Their driver was waiting in an armored SUV, and the team piled into the vehicle, shoving their captives in first, then crowding onto the bench seats, even as their driver hit the gas. They tore away from the nondescript brick building that hid the entrance to the underground bunker, leaving the last two team members to follow in a second vehicle once the C4 and detonators were set.

Their SUV sped through the night-darkened desert the short distance to the helicopter that would get them all out of Dodge. Jake’s copilot, Bruster, had the helo’s turbines whirring, the rotor blade spinning. The bird was ready to take off.

The doors of the SUV popped open as their driver skidded to a stop, and the team disgorged from the vehicle, shoving the captive laboratory workers toward the helicopter.

“All yours, cowboy!” the team leader called to Jake as Jake handed off his prisoner and climbed in the pilot’s seat. “I want us in the air the second the rest of the team gets here.”

“Roger that,” Jake replied, tugging off the hood and breathing mask of his CBRN suit and checking the helo’s controls. When everything was set, he peered through the windshield, searching the night for his teammates’ vehicle. Under his breath he muttered, “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon. Hurry, guys.”

“Connelly,” Bruster shouted over the noise of the turbine, “HQ radioed earlier for you. You had an emergency call from the States. You’re supposed to report in as soon as we get back to base.”

A chill nipped the back of Jake’s neck as he remembered a different emergency call his family received years before. He frowned as he fastened his seat belt. “What kind of emergency?”

Bruster shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t know. Just delivering the message.”

Jake jerked a nod and scanned the terrain again for their teammates, but his thoughts dwelled on the worrisome message. An emergency call from the States? That didn’t bode well.

“There they are!” the team leader shouted, yanking Jake back to the danger at hand. “Let’s go!”

Jake’s teammates appeared like specters crossing the barren landscape, and Jake had the helo in the air even before the other agents finished clambering aboard.

“Twelve seconds!” the explosives specialist barked, and the team assumed brace positions while Jake and Bruster goosed the helo to move faster, climb higher, get out of range. Now.

Jake swung the bird in a wide arc, gaining as much altitude and latitude as quickly as he could.

“Five seconds,” his teammate called.

Jake took over the countdown in his head.

Four. Three. Two.

He gripped the cyclic tighter. Braced.

One.

Below them, a flash of explosives rocked the tiny building above the bunker. A fraction of a second later, the shock wave hit the helicopter, and Jake steadied the bird as it shuddered and pitched.

Bruster whooped. “How’s that for a kick in the ass?”

“Nice flying, cowboy,” the team leader shouted from behind Jake. “Now let’s go home.”

“Roger that, chief.”

Two hours later, once the nuclear scientist had been secured at the black ops team’s Mideast base and the other lab workers had been detained for debriefing, Jake marched into the communications center. He’d changed out of the CBRN suit into jeans, a T-shirt and his trademark cowboy hat. Scanning the room, he found the officer in charge. “I was told I had an emergency call from the States. What’s up?”

The chief of communications nodded and directed Jake toward a phone near the center of the room. “Your sister called. She’s standing by at the Dallas office to talk to you. Let me patch you through.”

Jake’s heart drummed an anxious rhythm as his call was connected via satellite to a secure line in the States. Moments later, he heard his older sister come on the line, her voice rife with emotion. “Thank God they reached you, Jake. I wasn’t sure they’d find you in time.”

The mission group’s bus was attacked by a militant gang, a long-ago voice echoed in his memory.

Jake squeezed the phone receiver and furrowed his brow. “What’s wrong, Michelle? They told me there was an emergency.”

“There is. It’s Dad.”

Jake’s stomach dropped to his toes, and he held his breath. Not even the shock wave from the bunker explosion had shaken him this hard. “Tell me.”

“He’s had a massive heart attack, Jake. He’s in intensive care at Northwest Texas Hospital in Amarillo and…” She sighed heavily.

Jake swallowed hard. “Will he make it?”

“It’s touch and go. The doctors think…” Michelle paused, clearly struggling to speak. “Jake, you need to come home.”

Chapter 1

A brutal winter storm was looming.

As she crossed the grocery store parking lot, Chelsea Harris cast a worried gaze to the dark clouds rolling in from New Mexico and quickened her step. She still had to stop for gasoline, or her mother’s boat of a car wouldn’t make it all the way back to their rural West Texas ranch house. the gas-guzzling 1985 Cadillac Fleetwood had been her father’s wedding gift to her mother. Despite the worn seats—held together by the always-ready duct tape kept in the glove box—the rusting body and the seemingly monthly repair bills, her mother treasured the car and refused to give it up. Chelsea was babysitting the car, along with her parents’ house, while her folks took a well-deserved and overdue three-week cruise to Hawaii.

An icy wind buffeted her as she keyed open the driver’s door. Hawaii would be nice right about now.

Shivering, Chelsea brushed her long, wind-blown hair from her face and huddled deeper into her pullover sweater. This morning she’d raced out of her parents’ ranch house without a coat, because the temperature had been a balmy sixty-five degrees. But since she’d left for work at the blood center, the temperature had plunged as a cold front moved through town. Thank you, fickle West Texas weather.

Dropping a grocery sack and her purse on the seat beside her, Chelsea cranked the Caddy’s engine, coaxing the car with a muttered, “Come on, Ethyl. I know you hate the cold, but we gotta get home before the storm hits.”

She breathed a sigh of relief when the engine finally caught, and she backed out of her parking space and headed to the gas station down the block. Her own apartment was only a few blocks from the blood center where she worked as a phlebotomist, so she usually rode her bike to work. But her parents’ home, the ranch house she’d grown up in, was twenty-two miles from town, necessitating pressing Ethyl into service. the cost of gasoline to and from town was eating her paycheck for lunch. But how could she refuse her parents’ ranch-sitting request after all they’d done for her through the years?

Chelsea pulled up to the gas pump, cut the engine and gritted her teeth, dreading stepping out into the wintery wind again. The sooner you fill up, the sooner you’ll be home in a hot bath with a glass of wine. The promise of unwinding sounded heavenly, so Chelsea shouldered open the car door and stepped out into the cold.

As she turned toward the gas pump, she almost collided with a disheveled man in orange coveralls who appeared from nowhere. “Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t see—”

“Get in the car!” he growled, jamming something hard in her belly.

She glanced down at the object poking her, and a chill that had nothing to do with the weather raced through her.

A gun. The man had a gun!

Chelsea’s throat dried. Her heart rate spiked. “I d-don’t have any money. I—”

He crowded her, forcing her to step backward, and he opened the driver’s door on the Caddy. “Get in!”

She jolted when he barked the command at her. He shoved the gun harder into her ribs, and panic flooded Chelsea’s brain. Sheer survival instinct kicked in. With her heart pounding a frantic cadence, she slid back onto the driver’s seat.

The gunman climbed in the backseat, moving the muzzle of his weapon to the base of her skull, and grated, “Drive.”

“But—”

“Drive!” His shouted order brooked no resistance.

Hands shaking, Chelsea cranked the engine again and pulled away from the pump. “Wh-where are we going?”

“Just drive! And don’t try anything stupid. I’ve already killed two cops today to make my getaway. I’ll shoot you without blinking if you give me trouble.”

He leaned over the front seat and snatched her mother’s GPS from its mount on the dashboard. After he’d pushed a few buttons, the disembodied voice of the GPS intoned. “Go home?”

He tapped the screen, and the GPS voice said, “Continue west on Highway 244 for one point six miles, then turn left.”

Chelsea’s stomach pitched. The last thing she wanted was for this cretin to know where her parents lived. She bit her lower lip and met the guy’s dark glare in the rearview mirror. Okay, maybe the last thing she wanted was to be raped and tortured to death. But having him know where she was staying ranked near the top.

“You live with anyone?” he asked.

“Wh-what?” Dividing her attention between the road and monitoring the man in her backseat, Chelsea fought the panic swelling in her chest. She needed to keep her head if she was going to survive, but the constant pressure of his gun against her skull made it difficult to think calmly.

“It’s an easy question. Do you live with anyone? Will there be anyone else at your house when we get there?”

“It’s my parents’ house.”

He jabbed her again with the gun. “And are Mommy and Daddy home?”

She considered lying for a moment, but the gun poking the base of her skull gave her pause. She wasn’t a good liar, and if he guessed she was bluffing…“N-no. I’m house-sitting while they’re out of town.”

A leering grin twisted his mouth. “Perfect.”

The lettering stenciled on the breast pocket of his jumpsuit caught her attention. Texas Department of Criminal Justice—Inmate. Her pulse spiked, and she sputtered, “Y-you’re a prison inmate?”

He leered at her via the rearview mirror. “Not anymore.”

Her mouth dried remembering his warning that he’d already killed two cops today. No doubt the gun he wielded had been stolen from one of the cops.

“Wh-who are you? What do you want from me?”

“For now, all I want is a ride out of town, maybe a place to hole up for a little while, until I can plan my next move.”

She noticed he didn’t give her his name. Not that she really expected him to.

“Then you don’t h-have any place in mind you’re heading? No one on the outside is helping you?”

“You’re helping me now, aren’t ya?” Another leer.

Chelsea swallowed hard. Dear God, she was aiding and abetting a criminal. But under duress. They wouldn’t convict her for helping a prisoner escape under duress, would they? Her heart stutter-stepped. Lord, she hoped not.

As she approached the turn for the highway to her parents’ house, she considered driving straight. The road to her parents’ ranch was long and nearly deserted. She had a much greater chance of finding help if she stayed on this road. She accelerated as they neared the turnoff, then cringed when her mother’s GPS reminded her to turn left.

“Turn, damn it!” he yelled as they reached the intersection.

Gulping oxygen, she cut the wheel hard, and Ethyl’s tires squealed as they whipped a sharp turn at the last second.

The man shot her a dark look and jabbed harder with the gun. “You weren’t gonna turn, were ya?” He smacked the back of her head with the butt of his gun, and pain ricocheted through her head.

Narrowing a lethal glare on her, he growled, “I warned you not to pull anything! Drive me to your house, or I will shoot you and drive myself! Got it, girlie?”

Chelsea drew a shuddering breath and nodded. Just do as he says, and you might stay alive, the voice of fear and caution whispered to her.

Tears filled her eyes as a sense of futility and helplessness rushed over her the farther she got from town. She didn’t want to die. But she didn’t want to go down without at least attempting to save herself either.

As her initial shock and panic settled into an even level of terror, Chelsea mentally raced through her options. Could she crash the car into something and make a run for it?

She glanced around the isolated stretch of ranchland and saw nothing but miles of flat, empty earth. No trees, no roadside buildings, not even a highway sign substantial enough to make Ethyl undrivable. And if she did crash her mother’s Caddy out here, where would she run? her captor would shoot her before she took three steps.

Despair wrenched her chest, and she blinked back the tears that gathered in her eyes. Could she somehow get the gun away from him? He didn’t look all that well muscled, but he was taller and was most likely stronger than she was.

She cut her eyes to her purse, where her cell phone was nestled in a front pocket. If she could distract him, could she dial 9-1-1 before he stopped her?

She met his gaze in the mirror again, and his eyes narrowed with suspicion before darting to her purse.

“Don’t even think about it, girlie.” He grabbed her purse and dragged it into the backseat with him. “You got a gun in here or something?”

“N-no.”

He started rifling through her purse, and Chelsea’s skin crawled, seeing him touch her personal things. She squeezed the steering wheel, searching for another plan of escape when Ethyl’s engine coughed.

The man’s head came up. “What was that?”

“I don’t—”

The motor sputtered again, and a sinking realization settled over her, as dark as the clouds rolling in from the west.

Ethyl choked again as the man leaned over the front seat to scan the dashboard lights and gauges. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Nothing. But we—”

The engine sputtered loudly and cut off. Icy dread shimmied through Chelsea.

Her captor ground the muzzle into her nape and grated, “Don’t screw around with me, sister. I’ll blow your damn head off!”

Chelsea whimpered fearfully and cleared her throat as she coasted to the side of the road and stopped the car. “It’s not me! I swear. W-we’re out of gas!”

“A winter storm warning has been issued for the Texas panhandle and parts of New Mexico and Oklahoma, with accumulations of two feet or more of snow and ice possible tonight along with high winds and temperatures dropping into the mid-twenties,” the radio announcer droned from the speakers of Jake Connelly’s F-150.

“No kidding.” Jake leaned forward to peer through his windshield at the line of dark clouds gathered on the horizon. The readout on his truck’s thermometer said the temperature outside had dropped ten degrees just in the past thirty minutes. The cold front was closing in fast. He checked his truck’s clock and mentally calculated his arrival time at his dad’s house near Amarillo. He might just make it before the storm hit, if he hurried.

“In other news, an inmate escaped this afternoon from a Texas work detail, killing two police officers in the process.”

Jake turned the radio volume down and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he sent another considering glance to the clouds and hedged. Maybe he should go straight to the hospital and ride out the storm there. Michelle had said time was of the essence.

“Authorities are still searching for Edward Brady, convicted six years ago for armed robbery and two counts of second-degree murder. The public is warned that Brady is armed with a handgun belonging to one of the fallen officers and should be considered extremely dangerous. Brady is described as having—”

Jake snapped off the radio. Even the suggestion that he might not get home in time to see his dad made Jake’s chest tighten. Regret and concern sat heavily on his lungs. His dad had been so proud of him for being chosen for the elite black ops team, but the demands of the job kept him away from his family for months at a time. He’d missed last Christmas and hadn’t made time to visit his father in more than a year. When Jake had apologized to his dad during their two-days-late Christmas call, his father had dismissed Jake’s absence, saying, “The work you’re doing is important. You’re making a difference. I understand.”

But Jake had heard an undertone of disappointment in his dad’s voice in that call that knifed his heart now.

Time is of the essence.

Jake nudged the gas pedal, bumping up his speed. He’d never forgive himself if he didn’t make it home before his dad died.

Chelsea cringed as the escaped inmate cursed a blue streak, railing in her face. Spittle flew from his mouth as he blasted her with invectives and blamed her for their predicament.

“That’s why I’d stopped at the gas station where you hijacked me,” she said, frustration and defensive anger battling her fear.

The man’s dark eyes narrowed, and he ran a hand over his thinning brown hair. “Are you saying this is my fault?”

Chelsea bit the inside of her cheek. Don’t get him angry. Or rather angrier. Her stomach flip-flopped.

“M-maybe someone will stop and help us,” she offered, trying to infuse her tone with a note of optimism that would calm her captor. But a glance down the isolated road told her everyone with sense was already hunkered down at home, bracing for the storm.

The inmate’s eyebrows beetled, and he shifted restlessly on the seat. “No. No, we can’t have that. Can’t risk someone calling the cops.” He looked down at the orange coveralls he wore, as if realizing his attire screamed his status as an escaped felon. Raising a speculative glance to Chelsea, he waved the gun at her. “Give me your clothes.”

She blinked. “What?”

Her captor started peeling off his prison garb, revealing a second weapon he’d tucked in his underwear. Another gun, although this one had a funny shape and was painted with yellow stripes on the wide muzzle. Maybe a stun gun?

He caught her curious stare and grated, “Strip! Now! I want your clothes.”

“But it’s freezing!”

He gave her a sneer. “That’s your problem, girlie, not mine.”

A shudder rolled through Chelsea, and she fought down the wave of nausea that churned in her gut. Her brain scrambled for something, anything, that would distract him. Anything that would give her the upper hand and a chance to call for help.

“Come on. Hurry up! Gimme your clothes, damn it!” He waved the gun under her nose. “Don’t test me, girlie. I swear I will shoot you and take the clothes off your corpse if you don’t get ’em off now!”

Hands shaking, Chelsea grasped the hem of her sweater and tugged it off over her head. Tears filled her eyes as the chilly air nipped her skin.

He snatched the pink pullover from her, then bent to shove the orange coveralls and second gun under the front seat. And Chelsea seized what might be her only chance.

Lunging for her purse, she grappled for her cell phone and thumbed the call button. 9-1—

“Bitch!” Her kidnapper yanked the phone from her, jabbed the power button and threw the phone on the floor of the backseat. “That’s it,” he growled. “Get out.”

Fear rippled through her. Heart thundering, gut roiling, Chelsea blinked back tears. “N-no. Please! I won’t try it again. I just—”

“Damn right you won’t try it again.” He climbed out of the car, opened the driver’s door and poked her with the gun. “Get the hell out of the car!”

Shivering with cold and terror, Chelsea scanned the horizon again, praying for help. No one. Nothing. She struggled for a breath as dread squeezed her lungs. Was this it? Was this how she’d die?

The encroaching storm clouds blotted out the sun and made the afternoon seem more like evening. Despair darkened her hope.

The convict yanked her out of the car by the arm. “I said get out!”

Chelsea screamed as loud as she could. Maybe someone, somewhere, would hear and—

A stunning blow found her cheek.

“Shut up! Give me those jeans now, or I’ll do it myself.” The man’s dark eyes narrowed on her.

Hands shaking, she stripped off her jeans, while humiliation and tears stung her cheeks. Icy wind whipped around her, and she shivered. “You have what you want. Please, just let me go.”

“And let you sing to the cops where you saw me and which way I was headed?” He scoffed. “No chance.” He reached out and stroked her face, sending a ripple of revulsion to her core. “But because you’ve been so helpful, I’ll let you live. For now.”

Chelsea released a breath of relief…too soon.

After snatching the key from the ignition, the gunman grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the back of the Caddy. He keyed open the trunk and turned to her. “Get in.”

Chelsea eyed the trunk, and her knees wobbled. “Please, just…just let me g—”

“Get in!” he roared, pointing the gun at her.

“But you said—”

The convict grabbed her, his arms pinning hers to her sides, and shoved her toward the open trunk.

“No! Please!” She fought him, fought hard, clawing, biting, struggling. But in the end, all she got for her efforts were another smack on the head from the butt of the gun and scraped legs when he forced her into the trunk.

Chelsea gasped in terror as he slammed the trunk closed and she was swallowed by darkness. She wrapped her arms around her stomach and fought to remain calm. She could get out of here. She had to. Just think. Stay calm and think… .

As long as she didn’t give him a reason to shoot her, she still had a chance to figure out how to escape. Tears stinging her eyes, she sent up a prayer…and started searching for a way out of Ethyl’s trunk.

Edward Brady stomped back to the driver’s seat of the old Cadillac, chafing his cold arms and grumbling. Of all the women and all the cars that stopped at the gas station that afternoon, he had to pick the troublemaker who was driving on fumes. He hiked up the jeans that sagged on his hips, then dropped onto the front seat and scowled. Stupid girl’s pants didn’t even fit.

Squeezing the steering wheel, he glared through the windshield and fumed over the bad turn of luck. He was a sitting duck, stranded here on the highway, and the dark clouds rolling in warned his luck was about to get much bleaker. He needed a new plan.

He slapped the steering wheel and bit out a blistering curse. He’d spent months plotting this day, planning his escape, and thanks to stupid rotten luck and the bitch with the too-big jeans, his dream of freedom was all going in the toilet. If he were caught now, he’d be put on trial for killing those cops. In Texas, that meant the death penalty.

Brady shuddered. He refused to get caught now. He’d come too far, had too much at risk. He needed transportation, a hideout that was off the cops’ radar, weapons, food…and he needed it fast. When that storm hit, if he didn’t have shelter, he could die of exposure. And wouldn’t that be sorry freakin’ irony?

In the trunk, the woman started banging on the lid and shouting for help.

Brady gritted his teeth. Maybe he should kill her and be done with it. “Shut up!” he yelled. “I’m trying to think out here!”

Movement in the rearview mirror caught his attention. A truck was approaching. Half of him wanted the truck to stop. He could shoot the driver and take the truck.

But if the truck’s driver heard the woman’s shouts for help, he’d be screwed.

Brady slumped down in the seat. Just drive on by, pal. Just drive on by.

But the truck slowed as it passed.

The banging from the trunk got louder. “Help! Someone help! Please.”

Turning the ignition key one notch to access the battery power, Brady opened the window, switched on the radio and turned it up full blast.

Jake narrowed his gaze on the ancient Cadillac sitting on the shoulder of the isolated highway. As he drove past the parked car, he spotted a man in the driver’s seat, slumped low, his expression dour. Car trouble? If so, the poor schmuck could be waiting hours for a wrecker out here. Big trouble, what with the winter storm approaching.

Jake’s conscience kicked him. Be the Change You Wish To See had been his mother’s mantra, paraphrasing Gandhi, as he grew up. She’d lived by those words. And died by them.

No matter how pressed for time he was, trying to reach the hospital before the snow hit, he had to at least offer the guy help. Pulling to the shoulder in front of the Caddy, Jake jammed his black Stetson on his head and cut his engine. The screech of electric guitars and chest-vibrating thump of bass wafted to him, growing exponentially louder when he opened his truck door to climb out. The dude in the Caddy had a heavy metal rock party for one blaring through open windows.

Before exiting the truck cab, Jake recalled the report of the escaped prisoner, took his SIG-Sauer 226 from the glove box and stuck the pistol in his jeans at the small of his back.

He scowled as he walked toward the Cadillac. Open windows when the temperature hovered in the low thirties? Maybe the guy was high on something. “Hey.” He shouted to be heard over the blaring music as he approached. He flashed a friendly smile and tugged the brim of his cowboy hat. “You need any help?”

The man, wearing a rather effeminate pink pullover sweater, shot Jake a wary look but didn’t answer, didn’t bother to turn his radio down. The bass continued thudding, and high-pitched voices screamed unintelligible lyrics.

“Can you turn the music down?” Jake asked, stopping a few steps from the driver’s door and stooping to peer through the window at the man behind the steering wheel. His feminine attire, his odd behavior and his unresponsiveness all rang warning bells in Jake’s head.

The man shook his head and leveled a flat stare.

“Are you having car trouble? Do you need help?” Jake asked, yelling to be heard over the ruckus.

“I’m fine.” The man shifted slightly and jerked his head toward the looming clouds. “You best move on before that storm hits.”

Jake lifted an eyebrow. “I could say the same for you.”

“Mind your own business,” the guy snarled.

Jake gritted his back teeth and swallowed his retort. If the surly jerk didn’t want his help…screw him.

He’d turned to leave when the pounding he’d assumed was the bass from the speakers sounded from the rear of the Caddy. From the trunk. He stopped and listened, turned back toward the driver.

Was that scream part of the music or…

His senses ramping into high alert, Jake edged toward the rear of the vehicle, reaching behind him for his pistol. The guy could be a drug smuggler. A human-smuggling coyote. Or about a half-dozen other options that sprang to mind. Jake divided his gaze between the man and the interior of the car as he did a fast check for weapons, for hiding passengers, for contraband as he crept backward to check the trunk. “Buddy, why don’t you step out of the car and—”

Jake’s adrenaline spiked.

An orange jumpsuit had been stuffed halfway under the backseat.

The escaped prisoner lunged from the car, whipping a gun out from under the pink pullover.

Instantly Jake raised his own weapon and squeezed off a shot. Spinning, he dived behind the protective cover of the Caddy’s rear bumper. The inmate—Edward Brady, the radio had called him—returned fire. Brady’s rounds deflated a back tire and pinged off the heavy steel fender.

Hearing the scuffle of feet, Jake peered around the back of the Cadillac. Brady was running toward Jake’s truck.

“Oh, hell no, you’re not takin’ my truck,” he growled. Jake leveled his pistol, aiming for the guy’s leg rather than a kill shot. He’d leave the cretin alive for the local authorities to deal with. He fired once, and the inmate fell to the ground, clutching his left leg. Staying behind the protection of the Caddy, Jake crept to the passenger door, reached inside to turn off the blaring music, then eased forward to the front fender. “Toss your gun toward me now, or I’ll shoot your other leg!”

Brady returned a scathing epithet and fired twice toward the Caddy.

Jake scowled his irritation but kept his focus on subduing Brady. He narrowed his eyes on the weapon Brady had. It looked like a .40 Smith & Wesson M&P. Pretty typical police sidearm. Sixteen rounds in a standard magazine. Call it eighteen rounds, in case he was wrong about the model of pistol, and it was a 9 mm instead. Jake made a few calculations—two shots to kill the police officers in his getaway, four shots fired at him just now. Brady could have as many as a dozen rounds left. Brady needed to surrender the gun or spend those remaining rounds.

“Toss me the gun!” Jake repeated.

Brady answered with two more shots toward the Cadillac. Jake fired near Brady once to encourage returned shots. The escaped inmate didn’t disappoint. Five more shots.

By lifting his hat into Brady’s view, Jake drew three more rounds. Jake monitored the injured convict from behind the Cadillac, waiting for more shots.

Instead the gunman struggled to his feet and headed toward Jake’s truck again.

Muttering a curse under his breath, Jake darted after Brady, overtaking him easily and knocking him to the pavement. With a punch to the jaw, Jake disoriented Brady enough to wrest the police sidearm from the escapee, which he quickly stashed at the small of his back. Then twisting the man’s arms up behind his back, Jake dragged Brady to his feet and shoved him back toward the Caddy. “Had to do it the hard way, didn’t you?”

Brady glared at him and bit out another curse that would make a sailor blush.

In the glove compartment, Jake found a roll of duct tape—probably the same one the owner of the car had used liberally on the vinyl seats—and he helped himself to a strip for Brady’s filthy mouth. Next Jake bound the inmate’s ankles and wrists, leaving Brady’s arms in front of him so that he could self-administer pressure to his bleeding leg. After dumping the inmate on the backseat, Jake ripped a larger hole in the jeans around the man’s gunshot wound and gave the injury a cursory inspection. The gash was deep but was still a flesh wound. No broken bones or major blood vessels damaged. The thug would live to be a burden to society.

Jake yanked off the man’s sock and pressed it against the wound. “Hold still while I tape that up to stanch the bleeding.”

Brady glared at him the entire time as he pulled the duct tape around the man’s leg, creating a makeshift bandage. Nothing fancy, but good enough to stop the bleeding until the authorities arrived. “Keep pressure on that to slow the bleeding.”

With his prisoner subdued, Jake took the Cadillac’s keys from the ignition and moved toward the trunk to investigate the thumping noises he’s heard earlier. Leveling his weapon with one hand, he keyed open the trunk and cautiously raised the lid.

Chapter 2

Tremors racked Chelsea, a combination of the cold, her fear and the surging adrenaline in her veins. She curled in a tight ball, trying to stay warm and keep her panic at bay. She’d never been claustrophobic, but being locked in the Cadillac’s trunk was making her rethink that position.

Fumbling blindly, she’d tried to open the trunk from the inside to no avail, and her attempts to punch out a taillight and flag a passing car had been equally futile. Ethyl was a tank, and no amount of awkward kicking or beating on the walls of the trunk had made any difference.

And then she’d heard a car approach. Slow. Stop. But as soon as she’d cried for help, her captor had cranked the radio loud enough that the car shook.

The exchange of gunfire had been terrifying and deafening. Whoever had stopped to offer his help had been armed—not such a big surprise. This was Texas after all. But not knowing who’d won the battle, if the escaped convict had killed again, had her strung tight. Tears stung her eyes knowing help was so close…and still so far.

A rattle came from the trunk lock, and she tensed. Oh, please, God, let it be someone to rescue her and not that maniac killer!

The lid lifted, and daylight poured into the pitch-dark of the trunk. she shuddered as a stiff icy wind swept into the well of the trunk, blasting her bare skin.

“Ah, hell,” a deep voice muttered.

Her pulse scampered, and she squinted to make out the face of the man standing over her.

The gun in his hand registered first, then his size—tall, broad-shouldered, and his fleece-lined ranch coat made him appear impressively muscle-bound. Plenty big enough to overpower her if he was working with the convict.

A black cowboy hat and backlighting from the sky obscured his face in shadow, adding to her apprehension.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, stashing the gun out of sight and undoing the buttons of his coat.

“N-no.” When he reached for her, she shrank back warily. Her dishabille caused nervous skitters to dance along her nerves, left her feeling vulnerable. Awkward. Cold as hell.

And where was the convict? She cast an anxious glance around them, down the side of the car, searching. Was he dead? Waiting to pounce when she climbed out of the trunk?

She jolted when her rescuer grasped her elbow.

“Hey, I’m not gonna hurt you.” The cowboy leaned farther into the trunk. “Let me help you out of there, and you can have my coat.”

His coat… She almost whimpered in gratitude, anticipating the warmth. Heat from his fingers burrowed to her core as he steadied her and helped her rise to her knees. When she caught her first good glimpse of his square jaw and stubble-dusted cheeks, her stomach swooped. Oh, Texas! He was a freaking Adonis. Greek god–gorgeous with golden blond hair, cowboy boots and ranch-honed muscles. He lifted her out of the trunk, and when he set her down and her knees buckled with muscle cramps, cold and fatigue, she knew she couldn’t dismiss old-fashioned swooning for at least some of her legs’ weakness. He draped the coat around her shoulders, and the sexy combined scents of pine, leather and man surrounded her. She had to be dreaming… .

Relief surged through her. Rescue!

“You can sit in my truck and get warm while I deal with Brady and call the cops.” He stepped past her and reached up to close the trunk lid. Keeping a kind blue-eyed gaze on her, he slammed the trunk lid closed.

She nodded her understanding. “Th-thank you.”

A movement in the backseat of the car drew her attention. the convict glared at her through the shattered rear window, and a chill raced through her. As she held the inmate’s malevolent leer, he raised his tape-bound hands. Clutching the stun gun.

He aimed.

Terror shot through her, and she screamed, “Look out!”

Too late.

She heard the hiss and crackle of the electric current. She watched helplessly as the cowboy stiffened, his face contorting in pain. His body jerked and writhed as the convict continued to feed a disabling electric current through the twin probes piercing her rescuer’s neck.

“Stop! You’ll kill him!” Tears of horror, fear and sympathy puddled in her eyes. She rushed toward the cowboy, desperate to do something to help. But…if she touched him, would she receive the debilitating shock, too?

Overwhelmed by the current coursing through him, the cowboy’s legs crumpled. As he slumped to the ground, his head hit the back fender, then thumped hard on the pavement.

Chelsea gasped and staggered toward the cowboy’s prone form. He lay eerily still.

Oh, God. Ohgodohgodohgod. Please don’t let him be dead!

When the crackling noise stopped, Chelsea plucked the prongs from the cowboy’s neck and felt for a pulse. She released a shaky sigh when she palpated a steady throb.

Hearing scuffles from the car, she rose warily to peer into the backseat. The convict pulled The tape from his mouth, wincing and growling obscenities, then set to work gnawing at the tape on his hands with his teeth.

Fresh prickles of fear spun through Chelsea. The inmate would be free soon, and she had no doubt he’d be set on vengeance. She needed a way to protect herself. Think!

She glanced around. The cowboy’s truck sat about one hundred feet down the road. If she made a dash for it, could she get there before the inmate shot her? Unlikely. And what about the cowboy? She couldn’t steal his truck and abandon him. Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm her adrenaline-charged brain enough to make quick, logical decisions. With another glance over the trunk, through the shot-out window, she watched the inmate rip tape from his wrists, then bend down, presumably to work on freeing his feet.

Her gaze darted to the broken glass. Gunfire…

The cowboy had been holding a gun when he opened the trunk!

Dropping to her knees beside the cowboy, she shook him. “Where’s your gun? I need your gun!”

Still no response. Either the stun gun or the hit he took to his head had knocked him out.

She heard Ethyl’s back door squeak open. The inmate was coming… .

With frantic hands, Chelsea patted down the cowboy. Chest, waist, hips…dear God, the man was solid muscle. Finding nothing, she grabbed an arm and tugged, struggling to turn him over. Groped behind him…

“Nice try, girlie.”

Gasping, Chelsea jerked her gaze up.

The convict hovered over her, a gloating expression twisting his face.

Icy fear slithered down her spine. Finally, her fingers closed around the butt of a gun, and she yanked it from the cowboy’s belt. Swinging the weapon toward her kidnapper, Chelsea gritted her teeth. “Stop where you are!” She worked up enough spit in her dry mouth to swallow. “Don’t come any closer, or I’ll shoot.”

The convict hesitated, eyeing the gun. He had a wad of white cloth taped to a bleeding wound on his leg. “You won’t do it. You could never live with yourself knowing you’d killed another human being.”

Her pulse kicked. Was he right? Could she pull the trigger if she had to? “If you force my hand, I will kill you to save my life—” she nodded toward the unconscious cowboy “—and his.”

The convict’s expression hardened. “Get back in the trunk, girlie, or I’ll fry you like I did John Wayne.”

The frigid wind and her fear brought the sting of tears to her eyes again. She blinked hard, fighting to keep the inmate in focus, her attention glued on him. Shoot him. Just shoot him. It’d be justifiable homicide.

Her hands shook, and her stomach roiled. “Just…t-take his truck and leave us here.”

The inmate’s eyes narrowed, and his brow furrowed as he studied the gun in her hands. “Good idea. But…you’ll still be in the trunk. Just in case you had any ideas about goin’ to the cops.”

He took a step forward, and Chelsea tensed, her finger curling around the trigger. “I said stay back! Don’t touch me.”

“Go ahead,” the convict taunted, “shoot me. I dare you.”

He took another step toward her, and Chelsea squeezed the trigger.

Click.

Her insides clenched at the telltale sound.

With a low rumbling laugh, the inmate closed in on her. “Well, well. Maybe you would shoot. Too bad you’re out of bullets.”

Brady knocked the emptied gun out of the brunette’s hands and nudged the cowboy with his toe. The guy was out cold. Good. He gave the guy a hard kick in the ribs. “Sorry son of a bitch.”

“Don’t!” The brunette moved between him and the cowboy. “Leave him alone! Haven’t you hurt him enough?”

“He shot me!” Brady growled back, pointing to his bleeding leg. “I should put a bullet in his head and be done with him.”

“No!” She draped herself over the cowboy’s body like some modern Pocahontas saving John Smith, and Brady scoffed. The girl had guts, standing up for the cowboy, trying to protect him, but Brady had other plans for the jerk.

“Get out of the way, or I’ll kill the both of you!” He shoved her with his foot, and pain radiated up his leg.

“With what? The gun’s empty.” She raised her chin, visibly shivering in the cold. Or fear. He liked the idea that he scared her.

He leaned toward her, getting in her face. “With my bare hands if I have to. But I hear if you get juiced long enough with one of these babies—” he waved the stun gun “—you’ll go into cardiac arrest.” He leered at her. “Care to try it and see?”

She gasped and pulled away but stayed planted between him and the unconscious cowboy. Firming her jaw, she rallied for another show of chops. “A car could come by anytime. Do you really want to be seen standing here with me nearly naked, you holding that gun thing and him slumped on the ground? We’re bound to cause a passerby to take a second look.”

Brady frowned. She had a point. He had to do something with them and get moving. Before the cowboy woke up. Before a cop spotted him. Before his leg bled out.

Before this sucky day took another piss on him.

He needed to cover his tracks and find a hideout. Fast.

He opened the Caddy’s trunk and faced the girl. “Get up!” he ordered the brunette. “Get his arm. Help me put him in the trunk.”

Limping forward and keeping most of his weight on his good leg, he shoved a hand under the cowboy’s armpit and waited for the girl to comply. When she hesitated, he snarled, “Look, girlie. I’m in pain, and I’m in a hurry. I have exactly no patience left.” He aimed the stun gun at her. “Get him up.”

With wide eyes locked on the stun gun, she grabbed the cowboy’s other arm, and they heaved him up, dragged him to the trunk and draped him over the back of the open well. When he lifted the cowboy’s legs and swung them into the trunk, Brady’s injured leg throbbed, and he dumped the cowboy in the Caddy with an unceremonious shove.

The brunette sent him a disgruntled look. “You bully. Your mother must be so proud of you.”

Brady bristled, then lobbed a glancing blow to her chin. The brunette gasped and clutched her face.

“My mother could care less,” Brady grated.

“Couldn’t care less,” she muttered, picking up the cowboy’s hat and carefully putting it in the trunk beside the unconscious man. “Learn English, jerk.”

Brady’s temper spiked. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head toward the trunk. “Get in! Now. Or I’ll give hero boy another jolt.”

“No! Don’t hurt him!” Whimpering in pain as he towed her forward, the brunette climbed in the trunk and tucked herself into a ball beside the cowboy. He released her hair and was about to slam the trunk closed when he saw the woman’s expression change, and she gave a soft gasp.

He followed the direction of her gaze…and saw the second gun tucked at the cowboy’s back.

Her hands lunged for the weapon. Fumbled.

“Don’t!” he warned. He raised the stun gun, shoved it against her shoulder and squeezed the trigger.

The brunette screamed. Jerked stiff. Dropped the pistol.

“I’ll take that.” Brady took the pistol as well as the cop’s empty service weapon and shoved them in the waist of the girl’s oversized jeans. “You’re not the first chick to screw me over, and because I am, as you said, a bully…” He leered at the brunette, who gaped at him with tear-puddled eyes and an expression of horror. He wished he could put Angi, his backstabbing ex, in a trunk to freeze, but this girl could pay for Angi’s sins. “I think I’ll let you die slowly. Suffering.” He wrenched the ranch coat off the girl and shoved his own frozen arms in its warmth. “Thanks. I’ll take this, too. Call it payback for the bullet in my leg.”

He closed the trunk, retrieved the ignition key and locked them inside. Slapping the trunk lid, he shouted, “Have fun, girlie. You should freeze to death by morning, if you don’t suffocate first!”

With that he limped to the backseat of the Caddy, collected his prison jumpsuit, the girl’s purse and cell phone, then glanced about for any other evidence he’d been there. He couldn’t do anything about the broken rear windshield or bullet holes in the Caddy, but he could take the cowboy’s truck and get the hell out of there before a witness showed up.

Hobbling to the pickup, Brady tossed the armload in the back of the truck and sent a disgusted look toward the darkening sky. The wind had started gusting, and the first wet snowflakes swirled from the sky.

Time to find shelter.

Jake woke by degrees, fighting the black abyss that sucked at him. He cracked his eyes open slowly, taking in information from all of his senses. He lay on his side, a hard, cold, lumpy surface beneath him. His head throbbed. Darkness surrounded him. He could smell motor oil, mildew and…something sweeter. Flowers? Peaches?

All was quiet, except for the whoosh of gusting wind…until a quiet sniff and muffled sob reached him through the blackness. He wasn’t alone.

A soft body nestled against him, shivering, shifting. He tried to move, to sit up, but he immediately hit his head on an unyielding barrier above him. Lightning bolts streaked through his skull, and with a groan, he sank back to the cold surface below him.

A soft gasp filtered through the dark.

“You’re awake?” a female voice whispered.

Jake raised a hand to his pounding temple. “Yeah. I…Where are we?”

“He put us in the t-trunk.” The woman sniffled again, then added, “I’m sorry. I tried to stop him, to shoot him, but your gun was out of bullets.”

A flurry of memories scrolled through his brain. Gunfight with an escaped con. A nearly naked young woman in the trunk—a brunette with big green eyes and freckles on her pale cheeks. Pain screaming through his body. “Taser,” he groaned. “Hell.”

“A-are you all right?” she asked, and her teeth chattered.

“I’ll live. You?”

“J-just scared. And c-cold.”

He felt the tremor that rolled through her and reach blindly for her in the darkness. Her arms, torso and legs were bare except for her bra and panties. That matched his memory of her lack of clothes when he’d opened the trunk earlier, but…

“What happened to the coat I gave you?” But he knew the answer.

“The convict took it,” she confirmed. “H-he stole your t-truck.”

Jake gritted his teeth, fury and frustration coursing through him. Reaching behind him he felt for his pistol and the police sidearm he’d lifted from the convict. Both were gone. “Hell.”

Drawing a slow breath, he focused on the situation at hand and the more immediate need to get them out of the trunk and warmed up. Based on his companion’s shivering and state of undress, she was well on her way to hypothermia. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

“Ch-Chelsea Harris.” Her voice cracked with emotion and from the cold.

Compunction and compassion twisted inside him. He was cold, but she had to be miserable. And if he’d been more thorough ensuring the area around his prisoner was secure, they wouldn’t be in this mess. Hell and damnation.

“Hi, Chelsea,” he said in a calm, reassuring tone. “I’m Jake Connelly, and I’m going to get us out of here. I need you to trust me. Okay?”

She hesitated, her skepticism obvious in the silence, then she whispered, “Okay.”

“First things first. I’m going to chafe some warmth into your arms and legs. Your shivering means you’re dangerously low on body heat. I’m not groping you. Got it?”

“Y-yeah.”

Jake wrapped his hands around her arm, which was frighteningly cool to his touch, and vigorously rubbed her skin. “Did he hurt you?”

“Not as b-bad as he hurt you.”

“Meaning he did hurt you.” Jake pressed his mouth in a tight line of disgust and fury.

“He h-hit me once. Gave me a z-zap from the stun g-gun. Grabbed my hair. S-stuff like that.” She said it as if getting jolted by a stun gun was nothing, but he heard the telltale warble of fear in her voice.

He muttered an invective under his breath.

“Hey, w-we’re alive,” she said, putting steel in her voice. “That’s all I c-care about.”

“True that.” In his head, he began working through the possibilities for getting them out of the trunk. “Does your bra have an underwire?”

“Wh-what?”

He chuckled under his breath. “That sounded skeevy, didn’t it? Sorry. I need something I can use it to pick the lock and get us out of here.”

“Oh. Uh…yeah. It d-does, but how—”

“Permission to manhandle your bra?”

Chapter 3

Brady pressed a hand to his throbbing leg. The duct tape bandage the cowboy had fashioned over his wound had worked for a while, but fresh blood was seeping from under the tape. As his adrenaline receded, his pain grew, along with his impatience.

Gusts of wind battered the pickup and made it difficult to control the truck. He swerved as if he were drunk and battled to stay in his lane. The last thing he needed was to let erratic driving draw the attention of a passing cop.

Squinting through the windshield, he spotted a farmhouse ahead and tried to remember how far the GPS voice had said they were from the brunette’s house. Damn it, he should’ve brought the GPS with him, but he’d gotten in a hurry.

Get a grip, man! You’ve come too far, risked too much to screw up now! Brady squeezed the steering wheel. He refused to go back to prison. Confinement was sucking the life from him. He’d eat a bullet before he let them cage him up again.

He pulled into the driveway of the farmhouse and surveyed the scene. An old pickup was parked out front, and a small stable sat a hundred yards or so behind the house. A black-and-white dog noticed his arrival and started barking from behind the fence of its pen. He glowered at the dog, knowing the ruckus was likely to attract unwanted attention.

Sure enough, he’d just cut the engine, intending to take a look around, when an old man stepped out of the stable and sent a curious look his way. Brady cursed under his breath and pulled the cowboy’s gun onto his lap. He rolled down the truck window and waited as the old man ambled closer.

“Can I help you?” the white-haired man asked.

Brady sent him a friendly smile and curled a finger around the trigger of the pistol. “I’m afraid I’m lost. I’m looking for a friend’s house.” Brady called an image to mind of the brunette’s key chain, dangling from the Caddy’s ignition. The miniature Texas license plate clipped to the ring read Chelsea. “Chelsea said her parents were on vacation, and she was house-sitting for them. I’m supposed to meet her for dinner, but I think I missed a turn.”

The man’s face brightened. “You must mean the Harrises. I heard they were taking a cruise or some such.” The old man walked a few steps closer. “Their place is the next driveway on the left. About four miles, I think.” He grinned. “Nice girl, that Chelsea. How did you meet her?”

Brady shoved down his rising impatience. “Mutual friend.” He jerked a nod. “Thanks for the directions.”

He moved his hand from the gun to the ignition key, then hesitated. The old man could identify him if the police did a house-by-house search. He glanced back at the old codger, who wore a bright orange hunter’s cap, and his brain started clicking.

Wrapping his hand around the cowboy’s pistol again, he called to the man, “You’re a hunter?”

The old man flashed a crooked grin. “Yep. Have been since I was six, and my daddy took me deer hunting near Tyler.”

Brady smiled. A hunter would have rifles, shotguns, maybe even a bow. Weapons he might need.

“Good to know.” He popped the driver’s door open and slid out, keeping the pistol hidden from the man’s view.

The old guy frowned. “Whatcha doing? Shouldn’t you be gettin’ to the Harrises’ before this storm hits?”

“I’ll be heading out soon enough. Anyone inside? A wife? Kids?”

“Who wants to know?” The man’s gaze dropped to the bloodstains on Brady’s leg, and he narrowed a suspicious look toward him. “Who are you? What happened to you?”

Brady swung the gun up. “I’ll ask the questions. Who’s inside?”

The man tensed when he saw the pistol, then gave Brady a defiant glare. “What do you want, boy? You think you can frighten me with that thing? I saw combat in World War II. Spent weeks under fire in a trench in France. I’ve already survived hell on earth.” The man straightened and squared his shoulders. “You’re nothing but a punk. I’m not scared of you.”

Brady sneered at him. “Maybe you should be, gramps.”

Permission to manhandle her bra? A strangled sound rose in Chelsea’s throat. Humiliation and modesty warred with her common sense and will to survive. The cowboy’s request made sense. His idea was inspired, logical.

But she couldn’t help the prickle of self-consciousness. Bad enough that her nearly naked size 14 body was pressed intimately against his male perfection. Awkward. Stripping in front of the convict and being discovered by Jake wearing only her skivvies had been mortifying enough, especially knowing the extra weight she’d gained in the past year gave her love handles and unsightly cellulite on her thighs.

Maybe if you hadn’t let your appearance go— Todd’s voice echoed in her head and lanced her heart.

“Chelsea?” Jake said, still waiting for her answer.

She swallowed hard, and mustering her practicality like a shield, she shoved down the twinges of embarrassment. “All right. Should I take it off?”

“Let me see what I can do with it on. I’d hate for you to lose even the tiny scrap of protection from the cold it’s giving you. Hold still, okay?”

She tried not to move, but when his warm fingers slid under her bra and nudged the side of her breast, a current of sensation, a hyperawareness of the übersexy cowboy’s touch charged through her. And she flinched. She bit the inside of her cheek to stifle a moan of pleasure.

Oh, Chelsea…so inappropriate under the circumstances.

Their lives had been threatened, they were trapped in a car trunk, and she was literally freezing to death. But, oh, heavens, the brush of his fingers on her bare skin, the press of his hard chest spooned next to her back, the juxtaposition of his groin against her tush…

How could she not react to him?

He tugged on the fabric at the end of the underwire, flexing and twisting the material until the wire poked through. He pulled the wire, but it held fast.

Chelsea’s breath hitched in her chest as he slid his hand around to the other side of her demi-cup and repeated the process.

“I usually don’t p-put out like this on a first date,” she said with a nervous chuckle. “You owe me d-dinner and a movie when we g-get out of here, pal.”

He gave a short laugh, his breath fanning the back of her neck and sending a thrill to her core. “You got it, darlin’,” he said with a lazy Texas drawl.

She heard the pop of a seam, then felt the tug, as the underwire slid free, and the vibration at her back as he gave a low growl of satisfaction. Maybe it was wrong for such simple things to turn her on, given the gravity of their situation, but tell that to her crackling nerve endings. The cowboy had her every skin cell charged and her heart racing.

“Got it,” he said. “I don’t suppose there’s a flashlight in here, is there?”

“N-not that I could find. Wh-what about a cell ph-phone?”

He jerked. “You have a cell phone?”

“I—No. I w-was hoping you did.”

His muscles relaxed again, radiating his disappointment. “No. I left mine in my truck, charging. If Brady stole my truck, then he has my phone, too.”

Chelsea’s pulse tripped. “Brady? You knew that guy?”

“Naw. I heard the news reports about his escape. I only realized who he was after I saw the orange jumpsuit stuffed under the seat. By then Brady had pulled his gun and…well, you heard the shootout.”

“Yeah.” She shivered again, remembering the echoing shots, imagining the carnage that could have happened just feet from her, fearing a bullet would pierce the trunk and hit her.

“Okay, I’ll go by feel. Hang on, now. I’ve got to work around you.” His body canted closer to hers, his arms shifting and reaching past her for the trunk lock.

She tried to give him room to work, but her legs had grown stiff and cramped, and her arms were almost numb from the cold. While before she’d been certain she would die, either by the convict’s hand or from exposure, Jake’s presence, his level-headed thinking, gave her a morsel of hope, which she clung to with both hands.

“H-have you ever picked a lock before?”

He grunted. “More than once.”

“Oh? Is b-breaking and entering a hobby of y-yours?”

He didn’t answer right away. “Let’s just say picking locks comes in handy at times in my line of work.”

She frowned. “A-and what line of w-work would that be?”

The rattle of metal answered her, but Jake said nothing.

A draft blew through the confines of the trunk as the wind outside gusted harder, and Chelsea couldn’t stop the shudder that rolled through her. Thanks to the darkness that surrounded them, she couldn’t tell if Jake was making any progress on jimmying the lock or not. But for the first time since the escaped con had grabbed her and shoved the gun in her ribs, Chelsea believed she might actually survive this ordeal. Thanks to Jake. What he did for a living didn’t matter in the scheme of things if he could get them out of the car.

While Jake worked on the lock, Chelsea tried to steer her thoughts away from the biting cold long enough to strategize. Before now, she’d been so focused on not getting shot, then on staying warm and getting out of the trunk, that she hadn’t thought beyond those threats. With the real possibility of escaping the trunk at hand, she needed to make a plan. She was determined to stay positive, think clearly and not give up. She could get out of this pickle if she didn’t panic.

Step one: How would she get home if Ethyl was out of gas? While waiting for Jake to wake up, she’d heard a few cars pass by, but increasingly fewer people were out on the road as the storm closed in. She was in her bra and panties. Her parents’ house was still at least six miles away.

The weight of despondency sat on her chest, and she doggedly shook off the negativity.

“Come on,” Jake grumbled under his breath as he worked.

“C-can I help?” she asked, her teeth chattering.

“No.” He moved his hands back to her arms and rubbed her skin briskly again. “The lock is sticking, probably because of rust, maybe ice, but I’ll get it open.”

Seconds later she heard a click, and Jake released a sigh.

“Well?” She held her breath.

“I think the locking pin moved, but the underwire broke off.” He banged on the lid, but nothing happened.

Chelsea battled the disappointment that tried to swell in her chest. Stay positive.

“Watch out,” Jake said, pushing her legs aside with his hand. “Give me some room.”

She scooted as far back from the lock as she could. “What—”

She heard a thud, then another, and the trunk hook bent slightly so that a crack of light and chilly air seeped in. In the weak light that filtered inside, she could see Jake bring his knees to his chest, then kick out with an abbreviated thrust. The heel of his boot hit the lock once, twice…and suddenly the lid sprang open. Chelsea gasped as a blast of icy wind swept over her and relief flooded her veins.

“Hallelujah,” she whispered.

Jake rolled his head to face her, grinning. “And amen.”

He smacked a kiss on her forehead, then grabbed the car frame to pull himself out of the trunk in one swift motion. As he jumped to the pavement, he clutched a hand to his temple, and she remembered the blow to the head he’d taken as he collapsed from the stun gun.

“Are you okay?”

He raised a startled look to her. “Me? You’re the one turning into a human popsicle.”

“I saw you grab your head. You hit it pretty hard when you fell.”

He waved away her concern with a flick of his hand. “I’ll be fine. Right now we have to get something for you to wear.”

She climbed out of the car and tested her cramped legs’ ability to hold her upright. Weak, but she stayed vertical. Spotting his cowboy hat in the trunk, she reached for it, then turned to hand it to him.

He took the hat but jammed it on her head instead of his. “You need this more than I do.”

Admittedly, without the trunk’s protection from the wind or Jake’s body heat cuddled near her, her cold factor had risen exponentially. Along with her awkward, self-conscious factor. Being nearly naked with a stranger in a dark trunk paled to being nearly naked with a hunky cowboy outside in the light of day.

Jake raked his gaze over her, and he frowned.

Her cheeks stinging with humiliation, she wrapped her arms around her middle, both fighting off the cold and hoping to hide her love handles from his scrutiny.

He marched past her and opened Ethyl’s back door. She thought about the horrid orange jumpsuit the escapee had been wearing, and her stomach roiled. Even as cold as she was, the idea of wearing the creepy killer’s prison castoffs disgusted her. But when he backed out of the car shaking his head, she knitted her brow. “The orange jumpsuit?”

Jake shrugged and headed toward her with his hands upturned. “He must have taken it with him. It was evidence of his trail after all. So…unless you have an emergency blanket or some spare clothes stored in there…”

Chelsea heaved a shivering sigh. “No.”

Already large snowflakes danced around her head and dusted the ground.

Her shoulders slumped. “Now what? The car is out of gas.”

Jake stopped in front of her and started unbuttoning his shirt. “For starters, you take my clothes.”

She jerked her chin up and met his gaze. “B-but then you’ll freeze. I can’t—”

“So be it.” He stripped off his long-sleeved chambray shirt and dumped it in her hands. “A gentleman doesn’t let a lady go without.”

Tears of gratitude prickled her eyes. Being a good Samaritan, stopping to help the stranded driver, could have cost Jake his life, and he was still making sacrifices on her behalf.

“Th-thank you.” Her voice cracked as she wrapped the shirt around her and jammed her arms in the sleeves. The fabric still held his body heat and traces of his woodsy scent. A quiver spun through her that had nothing to do with the chilly weather.

When she glanced up from buttoning his shirt, he’d kicked off his boot and shoved his jeans to his feet. Her breath backed up in her lungs. The sight of his broad bare chest, tautly muscled legs and clingy boxer briefs rooted her to her spot. Oh, Texas, the man was sexy!

“Here.” He extended the jeans to her, rousing her from her gawking stupor, and a new level of awkward reality slapped her. No way would his jeans fit her size 14 butt. If she tried to zip his jeans and couldn’t, she might as well rent a lighted sign with arrows that blinked Chubby.

“I, um…Keep those. You n-need to wear s-some-thing.”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t feel right wearing them if you were—”

“Jake.” She grabbed his arm. “I…God, this is embarrassing.” She squared her shoulders and raised her chin. “They won’t fit me.” She exhaled harshly, creating a white cloud that slowly dissipated, along with her pride. “I’m too fat for them.”

Jake scowled, his gaze wandering over her as he shook the jeans out to put them back on. “If you say so.”

Chelsea turned away, biting the inside of her cheek and choking down the burn of humiliation that climbed her throat. Even Todd’s cruel bluntness when he’d dumped her hadn’t stung this much. She knew she shouldn’t be so sensitive, shouldn’t care what Jake thought of her appearance. She’d probably never see him again after today. But her waist size was a sore spot for her. And not just because Todd had used her weight gain as an excuse to break up with her.

The extra pounds reminded her of a dark time in her life, long months spent at the side of a hospital bed, weeks of eating fast food and junk snacks from a vending machine so that she could stretch extra minutes from the day. She’d turned to comfort food when she thought she might lose her mother. The added pounds represented grief and a loss of control in her life that she was still struggling to reclaim.

“For the record—” Jake’s voice drew her from her gloomy thoughts “—you’re not fat.”

She cringed mentally at his attempt to comfort her. She didn’t want his pity or his false flattery. “Todd thought so,” she mumbled under her breath.

“You’re not.”

“Whatever.”

She heard the rasp of his zipper as he re-dressed, the thump as he stomped his foot back in his boots. She stared down at her own feet. At least Brady—or whatever the convict’s name was—had let her keep her tennis shoes. They had miles to walk before they’d reach shelter and a phone.

“And along those same general lines, when you tell your friends about today, be kind.” She lifted a puzzled look to Jake, and he sent her a wry grin. “Remember that it was cold out here.”

When his meaning became clear, she darted a glance at his groin, then back to his face. And laughed. “Seriously? That was c-cold mode, and you’re worried what I’ll tell my f-friends?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Just sayin’.”

An icy wind buffeted her, burrowing to her bone and stealing the return quip from her tongue. Chelsea hunched her shoulders and blew into her hands. “My parents’ house is about s-six miles that way.” She aimed a finger down the road, her teeth chattering. “That’s where I’m staying while they’re on vacation.”

“Is that where you were headed when the car ran out of gas?”

She nodded.

Jake folded his arms around her, blocking the brunt of the wind with his body. He lifted her hand and rubbed her frozen fingers between his palms. “Is it safe to assume Brady headed there when he left here? Did he know where your parents lived?”

She ducked her head to look in Ethyl’s front window. “Well, the GPS is s-still in the car, so it’s hard to s-say. I was driving, and the GPS only g-gives one step of direction at a t-time. He knew the general d-direction we were headed but maybe n-not a specific address.”

The idea of an escaped criminal breaking into her parents’ house, eating their food, sitting on their sofa to watch their new flat-screen TV made her skin crawl.

“Is your parents’ place the closest house?” Jake asked, twisting at the waist to scan the empty horizon.

“N-no. Henry Noble’s house is about t-two miles from here. Then Darynda Jones and her kids live about a mile d-down Haverty Road. Her husband is deployed in Afghanistan until July.”

“Okay. We’ll head to the Nobles’ because it’s the closest. From there we can call the cops to check out your house before you go home.” He took her hand and started down the road, casting a wary eye to the sky. “Let’s hurry. These flakes keep getting bigger and coming down faster.”

Jake stopped walking after Chelsea stumbled for the third time in as many minutes. Facing her, he blinked as giant snowflakes battered his face, driven by a biting wind. “Am I going too fast?”

“S-sorry. I j-just…M-my legs are so c-cold, they’re numb. I can’t feel them, m-much less walk straight.”

Frowning his worry over her worsening condition, Jake glanced down the road, gauging how much farther they had to walk to reach her neighbor’s house. Two inches of snow had already accumulated, and the wind blew harder by the minute, dropping the temperature with each gust. His head throbbed where he’d hit it, but he couldn’t do anything about his aching skull, so he shoved thoughts of it aside to concentrate on Chelsea. “Climb on my back. I’ll carry you.”

She stared at him blankly, her slowing mental faculties another sign of hypothermia.

“Chelsea, do you understand what I said? Can you hold on to me if I put you on my back?”

If needed, he could carry her fireman-style over his shoulder. Checking for some sign of coherence, he looked straight into her eyes—gorgeous, green bedroom eyes, he noted again, feeling a kick in his pulse. And, hot damn, but her generous bottom lip begged to be nibbled like a fresh strawberry.

Chelsea frowned. “I—I’m too heavy.”

That again? “Nonsense. I’ve carried men bigger than you, under worse circumstances.” He thought about how his comment sounded, then added, “Not that you’re big…I just mean—” Another lightning bolt of pain shot through his head. He gritted his teeth. “Hell, just get on my back and hold on. Okay?”

Crouching in front of her, he pulled her arms around his neck. When her hold on him tightened, he slid his arms under her legs and stood. If he weren’t so concerned about how red and cold her skin felt, he’d really enjoy having her breasts pressed against him and her legs wrapped around his waist… .

His knees still hurt from tackling the worker in the radiation lab the day before, and as he stood, a grunt of pain slipped out.

Chelsea sighed and wiggled weakly. “See. I t-told you I’m too heavy.”

“Relax.” Jake tightened his grip and trudged on down the road. “That grunt was not about you. It was about the abuse my knee took on the job recently.”

“Wh-what do you do?” she asked.

Conversation was good. If he could keep her alert and talking, he could monitor the extent of her hypothermia.

“I do security work.” His standard vague response.

“Like a m-mall cop?”

He chuckled. “No. Overseas contract work.” More nonspecific generalities. Even his family didn’t know the full extent of his top secret black ops work.

“O-oh.” She fell silent for a moment. “I’m a vampire.”

Jake scowled. “A vampire?”

Was this his first sign she was losing touch with reality, disoriented, hallucinating? Not good.

She gave a small laugh. “Y-yeah. I take people’s b-blood.”

“To drink?” He’d heard of weirder things.

A scoff. “No! For s-surgeries and s-stuff. I’m a phlebotomist at the b-blood center.”

A grin of relief tugged Jake’s lips. “Gotcha. For a minute there, I thought you were losing it.”

She chuckled weakly, then sighed. “Y-you smell good.”

“Uh…thanks.” He thought he smelled like airports and twenty hours on a stuffy plane, but…whatever. Keep her talking.

He asked her basic, easy questions, general get-to-know-you fare. Was she dating anyone?

Where did she go to college? What were her hobbies?

No. Local community college. Reading and quilting. Barrel racing.

Barrel racing? Jake quirked an eyebrow. Interesting.

Did she like sports?

Football and some baseball. Rodeo.

Between the blowing, blinding snow and the extra weight on his back, Jake made slow progress down the highway. He tried to keep his mind on the mundane conversation and not on the bitter temperatures and frigid wind. He’d endured worse conditions in the line of duty, so he could handle a snowstorm with no shirt or coat. No matter how cold he was, Chelsea had to be colder. He admired the fact that she wasn’t complaining, that she kept a sense of humor even though she had to be miserable. Having her body pressed against his back provided him a little added warmth, and he hoped his body heat was helping her against the freezing temperatures.

He cast a narrowed glance around him to figure out how far they’d come. Visibility had quickly diminished once the storm descended.

“How long have you worked at the blood center?”

“Three years. No, almost f-four.” She sounded drowsy, her speech beginning to slur.

“Chelsea, stay with me. Talk to me. How much farther is it to the Nobles’? Am I going the right way?”

Her finger wiggled. “Down that d-driveway.”

Jake squinted through the blowing snow and spotted two reflectors poking through the snow, marking the end of a driveway. Target sighted. Jake ducked his head against the wind and picked up his pace.

As he plowed through the storm, he thought briefly of his father, lying in the hospital in Amarillo, fighting for his life. Jake’s heart sank. Given the weather, Chelsea’s condition and his stolen truck, he doubted he’d make it in time to tell his father goodbye. As much as he hated missing his last chance to see his father, his job with the black ops team had taught him plenty about sacrificing for the greater good, about priorities. And his first priority now was saving Chelsea, getting her to safe shelter and warming her up.

His second priority was finding Brady. He wasn’t sure when the escaped convict had landed on his radar, but sometime between stopping to help a stranded motorist and finding a woman locked in a car trunk, he’d made Brady his business, his priority. According to the radio, Edward Brady had already killed two policemen. The guy was dangerous, desperate.

But Jake had made a vow years ago when evil men like Brady had taken his mother’s life. He would not turn his back and let evil win again. Jake was determined to put an end to the convict’s reign of terror, no matter what it took. Because stopping dangerous men was what he did, and Brady had made it personal when he crossed Jake.

“Wait here.” Jake set Chelsea down behind an old truck parked in the neighbor’s front yard. “I’m going to scout things out, make sure Brady isn’t inside ready to ambush us. If there’s trouble, stay hidden. Got it?”

Chelsea gave a jerky nod and slid to the snowy ground, huddled in a shivering ball. She needed heat—and fast—but Jake wasn’t about to go charging into a situation blind. Not while there was an escaped convict in the area. He might not see his stolen truck or any tracks in the snow on the property, but that didn’t mean Brady wasn’t around.

Crouching low, Jake hurried across the lawn to the front window, where he peered inside. Despite the increasing gloom and encroaching evening darkness, no lights were on in the house, making it harder to see the home’s interior. The possibility existed that the homeowner was not there, though the truck parked out front suggested otherwise.

Moving to the next window, Jake peeked inside again, still finding nothing to suggest Henry Noble was home. When he rounded the corner to the back of the house, he discovered a dog pen with a small doghouse in a back corner of the yard. He didn’t see a dog in the pen, but there were paw prints in the snow inside the caged area. Because there were no footprints leading to the dog pen, Jake decided the dog must be huddled inside his doghouse. Another indicator no one was home at the Noble residence. Why would anyone with good sense leave their pet out in such horrible weather?

An uneasy feeling stirred in Jake’s gut. Where was Henry Noble? Had the bad weather stranded him in town? The roads and visibility were bad, but not impassable at this point.

He continued around the outside of the home, checking through windows, scanning the yard for clues of occupancy. As he crept through the backyard, the dog, a medium-sized black-and-white heeler or Australian cattle dog, saw him and charged out of his doghouse barking and pacing inside his pen. Jake waited and watched from behind a woodpile to see if the dog’s barking brought anyone to the back door, if even to look out at the yard for the source of the dog’s agitation.

Nothing. No one.

Not even from the horse stable, one hundred or so yards behind the house. The wind had blown the main door to the stable open, and it banged noisily on the stable wall with each gust of frigid wind. If Henry Noble owned horses, the stable should have been shuttered and secured to protect the animals from the storm. Most ranchers were far more concerned with their animals’ welfare. That Henry Noble seemed not to be didn’t sit well with Jake.

Frowning his puzzlement, Jake completed a full circuit of the house, then approached the front door cautiously and knocked. Pressing an ear to the door, he listening for sounds of someone moving around inside but heard nothing except the dog out back and the howl of the wind in the eaves. Turning the knob, he tested the door and found it unlocked. His pulse kicked uneasily. Where the hell was Noble and why hadn’t he locked his home when he left?

“Hello?” he called into the dark house as he crept into the foyer, wishing he had his gun for self-defense. He made a quick sweep of each room, knowing he needed to get Chelsea inside…like an hour ago.

Empty. No Noble, but more important, no Brady.

He hurried back outside to the old truck where Chelsea huddled, shaking with near-convulsive tremors.

“Okay, sweetheart, let’s get you inside.” He scooped her in his arms, and she looped a limp arm around his neck. He carried her across the yard and into the house, where he laid her on the living room couch.

She turned her head slowly, teeth chattering, and frowned as she studied the dark room. “Wh-where’s M-Mr. Noble?”

“That,” Jake said, taking a throw from a nearby recliner and wrapping it around her, “is a good question. Short answer—not here. Any ideas where he could be?”

Chelsea furrowed her brow and clutched the decorative blanket around her. “N-no.” She sank back in the cushions of the sofa and closed her eyes. “H-he’s retired. M-Mom said that s-since his wife died last s-summer, he never g-goes anywhere. H-he’s like a hermit.”

“He lives alone?” Jake found another blanket, one of the recent marketing gimmicks, that had sleeves, piled in the seat of the recliner and pulled it around his shoulders like a robe. Moving to the sofa, he pulled Chelsea onto his lap and included her in the circle of the sleeved wrap. She snuggled in as if to nap, and he jostled her. “Hey, I know you’re tired, but you need to stay awake. I’m going to get you something warm to drink and some clothes to put on in a second.”

His gaze landed on the fireplace where three small logs were stacked, and he decided lighting a fire was a good next step. “Hey, do you see any matches or a lighter around here? I’m going start a fire.”

He reached under the shade of a lamp beside the couch and twisted the switch. Nothing happened.

He tried again. Nada.

Frowning, he glanced to the DVD player across the room, to a digital clock beside the recliner and to the cordless phone charging station on the end table beside the sofa. The display screen on each device was dark. He huffed his frustration. “I think the power is out. That’s why it’s so dark in here. And unless he has a corded landline or cell phone lying around somewhere, we have no phone either. The cordless is useless without a working base.”

He chafed Chelsea’s icy legs and rubbed her fingers, praying she didn’t have frostbite. Even though she’d been significantly underdressed for the conditions, her saving grace might be that the temperature had been near freezing and not subzero.

“S-Sadie,” Chelsea croaked.

“What?”

“H-his dog. I h-hear her.”

Jake nodded. “She’s in her pen out back. I’ll bring her in when I get some more wood for the fire.”

Chelsea shook her head, scowling. “No. N-now. It’s freezing out th-there!”

Jake arched an eyebrow and flashed her a lopsided grin. “All right, I’ll get her. Do you know if she bites?”

“Sadie’s a s-sweetheart.” She shuddered again, but he noticed a healthier color was already returning to her cheeks. She licked her pinkening lips, and his libido kicked hard. Her lush mouth tempted him to forget he was raised to be a gentleman and steal a taste. Now might not be the right time, but later…

Squelching the spike of arousal that spun through him, Jake shifted her off his lap and gave her the sleeved blanket as he pushed off the couch. “I’ll be right back.”

Before venturing outside, Jake checked the front closet and found a heavy camouflage hunting jacket, which he commandeered, along with a fleece sweater, which he took for Chelsea. He tossed her the sweater as he passed the sofa on the way to the back door. “Put this on, and I’ll check the bedrooms for more clothes when I get back with the dog.”

“Aye-aye, C-Captain,” she returned, the corner of her mouth twitching in a teasing grin. Her good humor and alertness boded well for her recovery, and Jake drew a deep breath of relief as he headed outside.

Sadie paced and barked at the gate of her pen as he crossed the yard.

“Hi, Sadie,” he said in a soothing, friendly tone. “Good girl. Where’s your person? I bet you’re cold, huh?” He let the dog smell his hand through the fence, and Sadie wagged her tail as she wiggled excitedly waiting for him to open the gate. “Let’s go inside. Okay, girl? Good dog.” Judging Sadie not to be a bite threat, he opened the gate.

Sadie charged out…and tore across the yard toward the stables, barking.

A tingle raced down Jake’s spine. Had the dog seen something he missed?

“Sadie! Here, girl. Sadie!” Blowing into his cold hands, he headed at a trot across the lawn toward the stable. “Sadie?”

The dog appeared in the door of the stable for a moment, as if to say, Are you coming?

Jake jogged to the stable, approaching the open door cautiously. “Hello? Mr. Noble, are you there?”

No answer. Hearing only the agitated nickering of horses, the whip of wind and Sadie’s dog tags tinkling as she paced, Jake moved into the shadowed stable. His gaze assessed every dark corner and egress as he crept inside. “Hello?”

Sadie appeared from one of the horse stalls and gave an uneasy whine.

Apprehension pooled in Jake’s gut. He eased around the half wall of the stall and peered inside.

An elderly man lay on his back, staring sightlessly at the rafters. A bullet hole marred his forehead.

Chapter 4

Brady poked another log into the fireplace, then rose to his feet, groaning when his injured leg throbbed in protest. Rubbing his thigh where the bullet had left a deep gash, he clenched his back teeth and cursed under his breath. He hoped the damn cowboy was freezing his ass off, gasping for his last breath.

As he rubbed his hands together, warming himself in front of the fire, he studied the pictures on the mantel. Most were of the brunette he’d carjacked. Baby pictures. Prom pictures. Rodeo pictures. High school graduation. He had to admit, the girl had been a looker. Pretty face, hot body.

Brady grunted. So what if she’d packed on a few pounds recently? He’d do her. In fact, maybe he’d been wrong not to bring her with him. Six years in the pen was a long time to go without any tail. He shrugged and turned to hobble into the kitchen.

The power had gone out five minutes after he’d broken in the brunette’s house. At first he’d panicked, thinking it meant the cops had found him and were executing some kind of takedown. But one look out the window at the howling wind and whipping snow had eased his mind. Blackouts during winter storms were pretty common. Ice or tree limbs on the power lines. Wind-fallen power poles.

Brady opened the refrigerator and helped himself to a beer and leftover lasagna. He had no way to heat the lasagna without electricity, but even cold, the leftovers were a hell of a lot better-tasting than the glop he’d eaten in prison. Forking up huge bites straight from the container, Brady headed into the bathroom next. Surely the brunette chick had some kind of pain reliever in her medicine cabinet.

Setting the lasagna aside, he opened the mirrored cabinet over the sink and had to hold the bottles close to the fading sunlight from the window to read each label. The first two were for nausea, prescribed to someone named Marian Harris. The brunette was Chelsea, so maybe Marian was her mother? Whatever. He tossed the bottle aside and went on to the next.

Bingo. Marian also had oxycodone for pain. Thank you, Marian. He popped two and washed them down, cupping water from the faucet into his hand. Any extra pills he didn’t use, he could sell for gas money or food. Maybe trade for sex. With a gloating smile, Brady pocketed the bottle, reclaimed the dish of lasagna, and headed back to the living room. Things were starting to look up for him.

Turning from the dead old man, Jake shuddered and heaved a dejected sigh. Brady had definitely been here.

Tensing, Jake swept another keen glance around the stable, listening. He moved from stall to stall, searching, looking for clues that Brady might still be in the area. But other than Sadie and three restless horses, no one was around.

Because there were no footprints or tire tracks in the thin layer of snow surrounding the stable, Jake concluded that Brady had been there and left before the snow started in earnest. Had probably arrived at Mr. Noble’s within minutes of locking Jake and Chelsea in the trunk. Which gave him at least an hour head start to have been here and left again.

Gritting his teeth, Jake returned to the first stall. Kneeling by the body, he felt for a pulse, even though the man’s wound left little doubt he was dead. The old man’s murder shook loose old memories and left a gnawing anger inside him. He’d seen His share of dead bodies on the job, but being back in Texas, heading to his father’s hospital bed meant his mom was not far from his mind. Another senseless tragedy. His chest tightened with the grief he’d carried for the past twelve years.

A sense of urgency pounded through Jake. A killer was on the loose, and Jake’s lack of transportation, communication or weapon put him at a distinct disadvantage. He refused to cede the upper hand to a scum like Brady, but he couldn’t abandon Chelsea until he knew she was out of danger.

Sadie sniffed at her master’s hand, and Jake scratched the dog’s ear. “Sorry, girl. Let’s close this place up and get back to the house.”

After putting blankets on all of the horses and securing the stable doors, Jake led Sadie by the collar back to the house. Sadie gave a hard shake as she trotted inside, flinging droplets of melting snow. Jake headed back to the living room, dreading breaking the news to Chelsea that her neighbor was dead. Murdered. “Chelsea?”

The sofa was empty. The living room was dark and silent.

His gut tightened, and his hand reached instinctively for his gun. Which Brady had stolen. Silently, Jake mouthed a curse word and moved deeper into the house. Sadie followed him, giving him a curious look and a tentative tail wag.

Before he reached the hallway to the bedrooms, a thump from the opposite end of the house drew his attention. Sadie heard the noise, too, and hurried off toward the kitchen, tags jingling. Jake followed, and as he eased toward the kitchen, he noticed the gun cabinet in a recessed corner of the living room. The case doors stood open, and every rack had been emptied.

He clenched his back teeth. Wherever he was, Brady was now well armed.

Another scuffling noise from the kitchen drew his attention, and he continued in that direction, picking up a fishing trophy from a bookshelf to use as a weapon if needed. He peered around the corner into the dim kitchen. Saw no one. Sadie paused to sniff around her food bowl.

A squeak of hinges pulled his gaze to a utility closet at the other side of the room. Then Chelsea’s voice. “Oh, thank God.”

Sadie raised her head and perked her ears.

“Chelsea?” Jake crossed to the closet.

“In h-here.” She pushed the utility room door open and shuffled out, into a weak beam of light from the kitchen window. “Gas water heater.” She shot him a wide grin, and Jake’s breath backed up in his lungs. Her bedroom eyes sparkled, and her smile transformed her face. Sure he’d noticed her sexy mouth before, but he hadn’t really appreciated how attractive she was. Okay, her near-nudity had been distracting, and because of their dire situation, he’d tried to keep his mind on the business of saving her life. But gentleman or not, he’d have to have been dead not to notice her womanly curves and smooth skin.

A flash of heat swept through him, reminding him it had been months since he’d been with a woman. Down, boy. Wrong time and place.

Chelsea pulled the throw tighter around her shoulders as she stooped to give Sadie’s head a pat. “I c-can have a hot b-bath!”

Jake set the trophy on the kitchen counter and cleared his head. “No. I mean…later. A hot bath now could cause heart arrhythmia.” Her grin faltered, and he felt as if he’d kicked a puppy. “But hot water is good news. We can fix something warm to drink and wrap you up with a hot water bottle.”

His body tightened, and heat crawled through him. That wasn’t all he wanted to wrap around her… .

She shuffled to a kitchen chair, the dog at her heels. “The b-bad news is the kitchen phone is c-cordless, too. We have n-no way to call the c-cops, unless we find a cell phone.”

Jake grimaced. He considered for a moment keeping his recent discoveries to himself but decided Chelsea needed the truth. “Actually, there’s worse news.”

She met his gaze, her mesmerizing green eyes wide with alarm. “Did you find Brady? Is he here?”

“No, not that I can tell. But…he was.” Jake dragged a hand over his mouth and sighed. “The gun case is open and empty.”

Chelsea puckered her brow. “That doesn’t necessarily mean—”

“I found Mr. Noble in the stable.”

She sat taller, stiffening her back as if bracing for a blow. “And?”

“He’s dead. Gunshot wound to the head.”

Chelsea gasped and slumped back in the chair, shaking. “Oh, my God…”

“I’m sorry. We’re you close to him?”

“I—No, not really. I mean, he’s been our neighbor for as long as I can remember, but…it’s just—” Her gaze drifted down to Sadie, and she stroked the dog’s head. “Sad. Scary.”

“My best guess is Brady came upon the house shortly after he left us locked up, searched the house and took whatever he thought he might need. He ran into Mr. Noble and shot him rather than leave a witness. Don’t know yet if he shot him in the house and dragged him to the stable or killed him there. Hell, Noble could have confronted him with a weapon, for all I know. But however it went down, Brady armed himself from Noble’s gun cabinet and was gone before the hardest snow started.”

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