Yuletide Abduction. Virginia Vaughan

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СКАЧАТЬ the car that had been following her for three blocks. An older-model gray sedan with one occupant. She stood and stretched her arms and legs, casually scanning the early-morning downtown area. The buildings had been decorated for Christmas, but the streets were uninhabited at this time of day. Stores were locked up and secured. Only the street lamps lit the sidewalk as her feet pumped against the pavement once again. And she was exposed without her gun and without her cell phone.

      Who knew an early-morning jog would necessitate weaponry?

      She rounded a corner and found more of the same. Christmas adornment. Empty streets. Locked shops. No one in this sleepy town of Westhaven, Mississippi, was at work yet.

      Except the guy in the car following her.

      She kept her speed consistent, but her legs and her lungs were already burning from the run. If she could circle the block perhaps she could make it to her hotel. She pushed through the pain and quickened her pace. The car matched her speed. She rounded another corner. The slow-moving car did the same.

      She had no idea who was following her or what they wanted. Who even knew she was in town? She hadn’t checked in with the local police department yet since she’d arrived last night. She turned her head and glanced at the car again. Sunglasses and a hat hid his face, but he flinched as if realizing he’d been spotted. He gunned the engine. Elise took off running and this time the driver made no pretense. He swerved onto the sidewalk, barely missing her before she jumped over a concrete barrier and across a grass partition. The car rammed the barrier then backed up and sped toward her, its wheels squealing against the asphalt and metal screeching as it swiped the pavement.

      She ran past an outdoor café, taking a moment to fling the metal chairs into the path of the oncoming vehicle that swerved to miss them but didn’t stop pursuing.

      She heard a horn blare and tires squeal from a different direction. She turned to look and saw a black truck swerve into the path of the car then slam into it. Elise dived into the alcove of an office building to escape the debris. Her head hit the hard glass doors and the mounted Christmas wreaths fell on her. Blinding pain exploded in her head and the world spun. The howl of metal on metal roared in her ears. She tucked her head into her knees and used her arms to shield her, but shards of glass and metal bit into them. Another blinding pain ripped through the back of her leg. She cried out, realizing a fragment had lodged in her upper thigh.

      Tires screeched again, and she peered out to see the sole figure in the gray sedan shake his head and regain his composure before ramming the car into gear and speeding away as fast as possible with the damage done to the driver’s side of the car.

      The truck’s driver stumbled out, obviously shaken by the crash but heading unsteadily toward her. Elise braced herself for a confrontation and rummaged beneath fallen lights and garland for a piece of metal matching the one in her leg. Could this man be trusted? He had just saved her life, hadn’t he? Had he not rammed his truck into the sedan, she would be roadkill. Still, she hesitated, her instinct melting into her fear. She felt naked without her gun, and the blinding pain in both her leg and her head could be hampering her judgment.

      Before she could decide if he were friend or foe, he was beside her. “Are you injured?” He glanced at the weapon in her hand then where her other hand cradled the piece in her leg. “You are hurt.” He knelt and examined her wound. “Can you speak?”

      She had to be delirious. Perhaps she was already unconscious because the man before her was someone who couldn’t possibly be there. She recognized the strong, triangular jaw from the image on her faded newspaper cutout and even more vividly from the night that had changed her life ten years earlier. She remembered those intense blue eyes gazing at her from beneath dark, brooding eyebrows that matched his black hair, sideburns and the hint of a stubbled beard—the face of her own personal hero.

      But it couldn’t be.

      Max Adams had died ten years earlier...the night he’d saved her life.

      The piece of metal slipped through her fingers as her mind swirled. “Max?”

      His head jerked as she said the name, and his eyes grew dark and inquisitive. “Max was my brother. My name is Josh Adams.”

      She cried out as a sharp pain pulsed through her, and Max...Josh...grabbed her hand.

      “Hang on. Help is coming.”

      She chuckled at the idea. What were the chances of being rescued by another of the Adams brothers?

      “Stay with me,” he commanded, doing his best to keep her conscious. “Talk to me. Tell me how you knew my brother.”

      She struggled with the memory of another man stepping between her and an armed assailant. “He saved me.” And died doing it. She didn’t need to verbalize that part. He knew his brother had died.

      His eyes widened in surprise. “What’s your name?”

      She struggled to fight off the darkness but finally gave in to it. “Elise Richardson,” she managed to mumble before the shadows overtook her.

      * * *

      Sitting in the ER waiting room, Josh gingerly touched the goose egg on his forehead from where the air bag had deployed. He’d rammed his truck quite hard into the car gunning for Elise, but he was no worse for the wear.

       Elise Richardson?

      It wasn’t possible, was it, that this woman was the same girl whom his brother had rescued from an attacker ten years ago? The woman he’d died protecting? He’d imagined her many times—the woman who’d caused his brother to step to his death—but he’d never imagined the thin, toned body, the dark hair and olive complexion or the beautiful hazel-green eyes with specks of golden brown glancing up at him. In his mind, she’d always been a caricature of a coed who’d selfishly placed herself in danger. But he’d remembered her name. He’d held on to it as a target for his anger through three tours of Afghanistan.

      And now she was in danger again.

      He folded his arms as he stared through the windows into the ER room where she lay unconscious on the bed. Why had someone been chasing her? He thought he knew most folks in Westhaven even if just in passing, but he didn’t recognize the dark-haired beauty who’d passed out in his arms, or the driver of the car that had tried to run her down, as locals.

      Daniel Mills, the current police chief and his brother’s childhood friend, approached him and glanced into the room. “She had no ID on her and no cell phone.”

      “She said her name was Elise Richardson, but I don’t think she’s local. She could be visiting someone in town for the holidays.” He hesitated, wondering if he should mention her connection to Max. His brother had worked on this police force and was well known and liked by guys still on the job. There might still be some hard feelings from them about this woman who’d cost him his life... At least for his part there was.

      Daniel’s eyes widened. “Seems like you two had a nice conversation before she passed out. Did she happen to say who ran her down or why?”

      “No. I didn’t recognize the car. It was a gray sedan with darkened windows. Mississippi plates but I couldn’t see the county or catch the tag number. But the car was like a hot rod, probably custom-rebuilt.”

      “Did you get a look at the driver?”

      “He СКАЧАТЬ