Watching Over Her. Lisa Childs

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      Chapter One

      Deputy Colt McKinnon caught the blur of motion from the corner of his eye.

      He hit the brakes, not hard, because there was likely some ice on the road, and he pulled his truck to a stop on the gravel shoulder.

      There.

      He saw it again.

      Someone wearing light-colored clothes was darting in and out of the trees. Since it was below freezing and nearly ten at night, it wasn’t a good time for someone to be jogging.

      Colt took a flashlight from the glove compartment and got out, sliding his hand over the gun in his belt holster, and he tried to pick through the darkness to see what was going on. Thankfully, there was a full moon, and he got another glimpse of the person.

      A woman.

      She was running and not just an ordinary run, either. She was in a full sprint as if her life depended on it.

      Colt hurried down the embankment toward her to see if anything or anybody was chasing her. There were coyotes in the woods, but he’d never heard of a pack going after a human. However, before he could see much of anything else, the woman ducked behind a tree.

      “I have a gun!” she shouted.

      Ah, hell.

      He instantly recognized the voice. Elise Nichols. A voice he darn sure didn’t want to hear at all, much less her yelling about having a gun.

      Her house was a good five miles from here, definitely not close by enough for her to be on foot. So what in the Sam Hill was she doing running in the woods in the middle of the night?

      “It’s me—Colt,” he said, just in case she thought he was a stranger.

      “I know exactly who you are.” Her voice was loud but very shaky. “And I have a gun.”

      “So do I,” he snarled, and Colt drew it to prove his point.

      Colt hadn’t exactly expected a warm, friendly greeting from Elise, but he hadn’t thought she was to the point of threatening to do him bodily harm.

      “What the heck are you running from?” he asked.

      She didn’t jump to answer. The only sounds were the February wind rattling through the bare tree branches and his heartbeat pumping like pistons in his ears.

      “I’m running from you,” she finally answered.

      Colt jerked back his shoulders. That sure wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. Nor did it make a lick of sense.

      “I’m a deputy sheriff of Sweetwater Springs,” he reminded Elise just in case she was drunk or had gone off the deep end and couldn’t remember what was common knowledge around these parts.

      And he reminded her also because her comment riled him.

      “People generally don’t feel the need to run from me,” he added with a syrupy sweetness that she would know wasn’t the least bit genuine.

      “They’d run if you were trying to kill them.”

      He tried not to let his mouth drop open, but it was close. “And you think that’s what I’m trying to do to you?”

      “I know you are. You ran me off the road about fifteen minutes ago.”

      He glanced around, didn’t see another vehicle. But there was a road not too far away, and it would have been the one Elise would likely take to get to and from her place located just outside town. It was possible someone had sideswiped her and maybe she’d hit her head during the collision. That was the only explanation he could think of for a fish story like that one.

      “Come out so I can see you,” Colt told her, “and I’ll drive you to the hospital.”

      She didn’t answer.

      Didn’t move, either.

      Fed up with Elise herself, her story, the butt-freezing night and this entire crazy situation, Colt huffed. “Get out here!” he ordered.

      “Right. So you can kill me,” she accused. “Then I can’t testify at your mother’s trial.”

      Good grief. Colt figured that subject would come up sooner or later. But he hadn’t expected it to come up like this, with Elise accusing him of trying to kill her. His mother, Jewell, was the one about to stand trial for murdering her lover twenty-three years ago.

      And Elise would be the key witness for the defense.

      That alone was plenty bad enough because Colt figured his mom had indeed killed the guy. Anything that Elise would say in Jewell’s defense could be a lie at best, and at worst it could tear his family to pieces.

      Because Elise was expected to testify that not Jewell but rather Colt’s father, Roy, had committed the murder.

      No way would Colt or his brothers let that happen.

      His father wasn’t going to pay for Jewell’s sins.

      But there was also no way Colt would murder a witness to stop that testimony from happening. The badge he wore wasn’t for decoration. He believed in the law. Believed that his mother, and Elise, would get what was coming to them.

      Without his help.

      “Come on out here,” he repeated. “You probably got sideswiped by a drunk or something.”

      “A drunk driving a truck identical to yours,” she countered.

      That sent a bristle up his spine, and that bristly feeling went up a significant notch when Elise finally stepped out. He didn’t see a gun, but from her stance, she looked as if she were challenging him to a gunfight in an Old West showdown.

      “Call СКАЧАТЬ