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that much more determined to reclaim its sense of peace and safety.
“We’re almost home,” she said firmly, shifting the rearview mirror until she could see her son’s sleepy face. He met her gaze in the mirror and grinned, melting her heart all over again.
She reached the cabin within a couple of minutes and parked in the gravel drive that ended at the utility shed at the side of the house. She paused for a moment, taking a thorough look around for any sign of intruders. But the night was dark, the moon fully obscured by lowering clouds that promised rain by morning. She still hadn’t changed the front-porch light bulb, she realized with dismay. The only light that pierced the gloom was from the Jeep’s headlights, their narrow beams ending in twin circles on the flat face of the shed wall.
Don’t borrow trouble, Briar Rose. The voice in her head was her mother’s, from back when she’d been as strong and immovable as the rocky face of Hangman’s Bald near the top of Smoky Ridge. Don’t borrow trouble—it’ll come in its own sweet time, and more than soon enough.
She cut the Jeep’s engine and walked around to the passenger side to get Logan out of his seat. He lifted his arms with eagerness, despite his sleepy yawn, and she unlatched him as quickly as she could, wanting to get inside the cabin before the Jeep’s headlight delay ran out.
She had just pulled him free of the car-seat belts when the headlights extinguished, plunging them into inky darkness.
Without the moon and the stars overhead, the darkness was nearly complete. The town center lay two miles to the south; her closest neighbor was a half mile up the mountain, invisible to her through the thicket of evergreens and hardwoods that grew between them.
Tucking Logan more firmly against her side, she reached in her pocket for her cell phone. Her fingers had just brushed against the smooth casing of the phone when she heard a crunch of gravel just behind her.
She let go of the phone and brought her hand up to the pancake holster she’d clipped behind her back before leaving work. But she didn’t reach it before hands clawed at her face, jerking her head back until it slammed against a solid wall of heat. She heard Logan’s cry and felt him being pulled from her grasp.
Clutching him more tightly, she tried to get her hand between the body that held her captive and the Glock nestled in the small of her back, but her captor’s grasp was brutally strong. His fingers dug into her throat, cutting off her air for a long, scary moment.
Then the air shattered with the unmistakable crack of rifle fire, and the world around her turned upside down.
Chapter Four
The rifle kicked in Dalton’s hands, nearly knocking him from his feet, but he tightened his grip and fired another warning shot into the ground, his pulse stuttering in his ears like a snare drum.
He’d had little hope that his desperate intervention would work, but to his relief, the two figures tugging at Briar Blackwood dived for cover at the second bark of the Remington.
The darkness of the night was near total, but he’d been dozing in the car for hours, his eyes adjusting to the gloom enough for him to make out the shadowy shapes of the two men escaping into the woods. Definitely both men—he had quickly discerned that fact as soon as he’d seen them gliding out of the woods in the wake of Briar’s arrival.
He’d had no time to warn her, only enough time to unstrap the Remington 700 rifle that hung on a rack in the back window of the S-10’s cab, another gift from his campaign manager. He knew enough about rifles to check that it was loaded and to point the barrel where it would make a loud noise but have no chance of causing injury, but in truth, he was damned lucky his ruse had worked, and he was praying like crazy as he raced toward Briar’s still figure on the ground by the Jeep that the men didn’t figure out he’d been bluffing.
She stirred as he came closer, putting her son between her body and the Jeep as she rose to her knees and turned a pistol toward him.
“Don’t shoot! It’s Dalton Hale.”
She held her shooting stance for a heart-stopping moment while he froze in place. Fear flooded him, roared in his ears like a storm-tossed sea and made his hands shake as he held the rifle away in a show of surrender.
“Cover me until we reach the cabin,” she rasped, shoving her weapon behind her back and turning to scoop up her son.
He hurried behind her, keeping his eyes on the woods, looking for any sign of the intruders returning, but the gloom was absolute. He heard no sounds of movement in the underbrush, however, as they hurried up the cabin steps. With a rattle of keys, Briar unlocked the door one-handed and shoved her way inside, growling for him to hurry and come in behind her.
Once he was inside, she turned the deadbolt and slumped hard against the front door, her chest rising and falling in quick, harsh gasps.
“Are you okay?” he asked, setting the rifle aside and reaching for the little boy, who was wobbling precariously in her faltering grasp.
She tried to pull her son away from him, but her knees buckled, and he grabbed the boy quickly, keeping him from falling. With alarm, he watched her slide to a sitting position in front of the door, her breath labored.
“Mama!” The child started crying, wriggling against Dalton’s grasp.
“It’s okay, little man. Your mama’s going to be okay.” He lowered the boy to the floor, and he raced away on stubby little legs, throwing himself at his mother.
She lifted her arms and hugged him close, her face buried in his neck. “Call 911,” she said, her voice muffled against her son’s body.
Pulling out his cell phone, he reached for the light switch on the wall by the door. Golden light flooded the front room, making him squint as he punched in the numbers and crouched in front of Briar. A female voice came through the phone speaker. “911. What’s your emergency?”
He summarized the situation quickly, putting his hand on Briar’s shoulder. “I can’t tell if she’s injured—”
“I’m okay.” Briar pulled her face away from her son’s neck and met Dalton’s gaze. She was pale, and her eyes were red-rimmed and damp, but her voice sounded a little less tortured, and color was coming back into her cheeks. “Tell her to call Walker Nix.”
Dalton gave the instruction. “Do you want paramedics?” he asked.
Briar held her crying son away from her, looking him over for injuries. “Logan, are you okay? Do you have any boo-boos?”
“Mama!” he wailed, tightening his grip on her neck like a baby monkey.
She hugged him close and looked up at Dalton. “I think we’re both okay. No paramedics.”
He wasn’t so sure. Dark bruises had begun to form along the curve of her throat. “You’re injured,” he murmured, reaching out to touch the purple spots before he realized what he was doing.
She stared up at him with wide stormy eyes, a dark flush spreading up her neck into her cheeks. “I’m fine,” she said again, forcing her gaze back to her son’s tearstained face. “Just get Nix here.”
“Just get the police here,” Dalton told the dispatcher. “I’m going to hang up now.” He pocketed the phone and tried not to tumble backward out of his crouch. His knees were starting to feel like jelly.
“Can you help me up?” She reached out one hand.
He took her hand and pushed to his feet. Her fingers tightened around his as he helped her up, and she didn’t let go right away, as if afraid that she might topple over again if she let go of his grasp. She had a warm, firm grip, even in her present distress, he noticed. She apparently came from what his grandfather would have called “hardy stock,” for already she looked close to full recovery, save for the mottled contusions on her throat.
“Did you hit either of them?” she asked, rocking slightly