Stolen Moments. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ foot came off the gas. She stared into the mirror, then turned to look out the back window.

      There were no car lights behind her. No cars. Nothing but empty road. She was alone. Completely alone.

      Panic curled tight fingers around Levi’s throat as she stared back at the growing darkness. She swallowed, telling herself there was no cause for concern. But the lie wouldn’t go down. She’d lost her security guards. Wasn’t that what she’d often wished for? Freedom? Anonymity? What she considered an ordinary life?

      She stared at the empty gravel road behind her. Suddenly she had her freedom, but she knew instinctively, this was not what she wanted. Not today.

      For a moment, she thought about turning around and going back to look for them. But the thunderstorm was right behind her, moving in fast.

      She sped up, watching the road ahead as she picked up the car phone and hurriedly dialed the ranch. Her hand shook as she held the phone against her ear and checked the rearview mirror. Nothing but the storm, the empty back road and the growing darkness.

      She’d known for years that there were people who might use her to get to her father, but until tonight she hadn’t realized just what that meant, the danger not only to herself but ultimately to her father. She was Senator James Marshall McCord’s daughter. His only offspring. The daughter of a possible future president. He’d done everything he could to protect her from publicity and keep her out of the public eye. But being a politician’s daughter had always come with a price, none higher than at this moment.

      As she waited for the phone to ring, she tried to think of a half-dozen good reasons why the security men weren’t behind her. She couldn’t come up with even one. They’d been told never to leave her. Never. Under any circumstances. They wouldn’t disobey Senator James Marshall McCord. They’d all been handpicked by him personally. So where were they?

      It took Levi a moment to realize the phone wasn’t ringing. She hurriedly dialed again, thinking she’d missed a number, but halfway through she heard the silence and knew the phone was dead. She shook it, then checked the battery. For a long moment, she stared, uncomprehending, into the empty hole where the battery should have been. Had it fallen out? How could that have happened?

      Her fear escalating, she threw down the phone and locked all the car’s doors. Ahead, the solitary beams of her headlights cut through the dark late Texas afternoon, making her feel all the more vulnerable.

      She pushed down on the gas pedal, gathering speed, gathering courage. She was safe. There was a logical explanation for this. A logical explanation for everything that had happened today. But she knew better. She was alone for the first time since her father’s death threat more than a year ago. All alone on an isolated back road, miles from the ranch, miles from town.

      Fear mixed with anger. She didn’t want this. Any of it. Her father had put his life in danger and hers, as well. Tears of anger blurred her vision.

      The car fishtailed around a corner and she slowed, but not much. She knew she was driving too fast. But she felt an urgency to get to the ranch as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the road ahead was even more narrow and full of curves as it wound through the hills, and the storm was gaining on her.

      She careened around another corner and was forced to slow even more for the next one. Ahead she could see Natalie’s new car in the barrow ditch where she’d left it earlier.

      If the Mustang hadn’t broken down, Levi would be at the ranch now. The thought raced past, making her heart race with it. Surely Natalie’s car trouble wasn’t part of some plot to—To what? To get her out on this road today?

      She was telling herself she was just being overly suspicious when she looked in her rearview mirror again. Instead of the blank darkness, light shone a few miles behind her. One of her security guards?

      Suddenly she could think of several scenarios to explain their temporary absence. Maybe one had broken down, like Natalie’s car. Just an odd coincidence. Nothing to panic over.

      Or maybe there’d been an accident involving one or both of the cars. It didn’t matter. She was convinced that at least one of them was with her again. She let out a sigh of relief as she waited for the car to catch her.

      But as the vehicle neared, she saw that it wasn’t a set of headlights but a solitary light speeding toward her. And the vehicle didn’t slow, nor did it drop in behind her. It kept coming, moving faster than she thought necessary or prudent.

      Ahead she could see a sharp curve in the road. Behind her, the single light grew larger and larger until it filled her car, blinding her.

      At the curve, she belatedly realized she was going too fast. She hit the brakes and the car began to slide around the corner. Behind her, the single headlight stayed on her. But as she came out of the curve, it moved up fast on her left and roared past.

      That was when she saw that it wasn’t a car at all but a motorcycle. A dark, hooded figure hunched over the bike as it disappeared over the next rise in a cloud of dust and dusky darkness.

      Shaken, Levi slowed the car and relaxed her hands on the wheel, keenly aware of the trembling in her fingers, in her legs. She tried to calm herself. She felt idiotic. She’d actually thought the biker had planned to force her off the road. Instead, the fool was probably just trying to outrun the storm.

      This wasn’t like her. She didn’t panic easily, didn’t let things spook her. But she was spooked.

      Behind her, the road was again empty but darker as the storm swept in. Ahead, the single headlight beam of the motorcycle shone in the distance then disappeared around a bend in the road.

      It comforted her a little just knowing she wasn’t alone on this back road. The ranch wasn’t far now. Another five miles to the turnoff. Then she’d be home. Safe.

      Rain began to fall, huge, sopping drops that pelted the windshield like pebbles. Lightning lit the sky for an instant, then thunderclouds obliterated everything like some ominous eclipse.

      She turned on the wipers, dropped down a hill and around a sharp curve. Her headlights picked up the stone abutments of the bridge over the creek and something else. Something in the middle of the road at the mouth of the narrow bridge. Something large and bright. The rain-streaked shine of polished chrome turned into a motorcycle. The motorcycle lay on its side in the middle of the road, the rider sprawled next to it, blocking the road.

      Levi laid into her brakes, the car skidding through the downpour toward the fallen bike and rider.

      The fool, she thought frantically. He’d been going way too fast for the conditions and the storm had still caught him.

      She stopped the car just feet from the rider. Her headlights pierced the falling rain to illuminate skid marks in the gravel and mud, the wrecked bike, the motionless rider.

      Levi didn’t remember rolling down her window as she brought the car to a standstill. But now rain swept in, accompanied by a low, mournful moan.

      In the headlights, she saw the rider lift one arm, then let it drop again. As the rider tried to get up, the hood fell back, exposing a head of long red hair and a distinctive female profile. Another moan shattered the stillness.

      Levi hesitated, but only for an instant. She realized that the woman could lie there for hours and no one else might come along on this road tonight, especially with it being Thanksgiving.

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