Last Stand Ranch. Jenna Night

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      She checked her phone. No service.

      The heavy pulse in the center of her gut thumped harder. And faster.

      What options did she have? Get out of her car and hike down the road until she picked up a phone signal? That didn’t sound very appealing.

      Or she could stay in her car and wait for help. A sitting duck. An easy target for someone wanting to come back and finish the job.

      Hiking down the road was starting to sound like the better option. She could run if she saw someone coming or hide in the woods. Not an ideal situation, but it beat cowering in her car.

      She’d been so shocked and terrified on that sidewalk back in Las Vegas, when Kurtz suddenly appeared at her side, smiling snidely while promising to catch her alone and kill her someday. Too stunned to collect herself in time to call out for help from the people passing by. After he walked away she could only take a few fumbling steps around the corner before her knees buckled and she’d slid to the concrete. Helpless. All she’d done was whimper.

      Afterward, she’d promised herself she would never let fear do that to her again.

      Now she summoned up what little bit of stubborn courage she had left and tucked her phone into her front pocket. She grabbed her wallet from her purse and shoved it in her back pocket. Then she set a couple unopened cans of soda in the center of her jacket and twisted it. Not the best weapon in the world, but better than nothing.

      She shoved hard against the dented, protesting door, climbed out and crouched down low, pressing against the side of the car and balancing on the balls of her feet. Just in case. If that had been Kurtz driving, he could be watching her every movement right now. He was a crack shot. He’d mentioned that in his testimony in court.

      Stop stalling.

      A deep breath, and then... She heard something. The sound of an engine. In the distance, lights flickered between the trees. But something didn’t look right. They weren’t car headlights.

      A motorcycle appeared at the turn in the highway. Then another, and another. In the illumination spilling from their headlights she could see the riders wore leather vests with some sort of patches. Colors, she’d heard them called. Gangs wore them.

      A biker gang? Seriously? Someone drove by when she desperately needed help and it was these guys? She stayed crouched down low.

      The first rider roared past her. A dozen more filed by after him. Should she ask them for help?

      The decision was made for her. The rider in the front slowed, made a U-turn across the highway, and then headed back. He rode up closer to her and stopped. Then he put his hand down to the side and made a backing motion. The other riders came to a stop a few yards away. He killed his engine.

      Now what? There was no point in hiding, so she stood. Her calf muscles registered a cramped, painful protest.

      He pulled off his helmet and rested it on his thigh. “Need some help?” He stayed seated on his chopper. His hair was dark and short, almost a military cut. His eyes were hidden in the shadows cast by the other riders’ headlights.

      He didn’t smile, but his tone was friendly enough. The fact that he wasn’t trying to charm her made him seem somewhat more trustworthy.

      At this point, what did she have to lose? “I had a little trouble,” she said.

      He nodded. “I can see that.”

      “And I can’t get reception on my phone.”

      He kicked out the kickstand on his motorcycle and stood up. Medium height. Medium build. Not a huge guy, but there was something imposing about the way he moved, nevertheless. He swung a leg over his bike and started toward her, his heavy boots crunching atop the loose gravel on the road. She was already pressed up against her car or she would have backed up. He finally stopped a couple of paces away from her, reached a leather-gloved hand into his pocket and pulled out a small satellite phone. He glanced at the screen. “Here, my phone’s working.”

      She hesitated to close the gap between them. But if he meant her harm, why would he go through such an elaborate act? She reached for the phone, her trembling hand betraying her fear. “Thanks.” The wallpaper on the screen was a black oval with a silver sword in the middle. Beneath it were the words Vanquish the Darkness. Olivia had no idea what that meant. She wasn’t about to ask.

      * * *

      The woman was in trouble and Elijah could tell it went well beyond her battered car. He’d spotted her crouched by the car, eyes wide with fear, looking like a cornered coyote ready to bolt.

      Elijah continually scanned his surroundings, paid attention to small details and saw a lot of things other people never noticed. “Head on a swivel” was the term they’d used over in the sandbox. The practice of looking everywhere, all the time, was a skill he’d first learned in Iraq and later used in Afghanistan. A habit that had kept him alive, and one he didn’t plan to ever lose.

      The woman watched him warily while she looked up a contact on her own phone and then punched the numbers into his. He didn’t mean her harm, but she didn’t know that. He’d left his phone on speaker and she didn’t change the setting, so a few seconds later he was surprised to hear a familiar voice say, “Elijah, honey, is that you?”

      The woman stared at him, eyes widened. Her jaw dropped slightly. “Aunt Claudia?” she finally said into the phone. “Is that you?”

      There was a pause, and then, “Olivia?”

      “Yes!”

      Elijah could practically see relief cascading over Olivia as her shoulders relaxed.

      Olivia. So this was the grandniece Claudia Sweeney had been telling everyone in town about for the past two weeks. The first blood relative to come visit the eighty-year-old woman in as long as Elijah could remember. Of course she was bringing trouble with her. She hadn’t seen fit to visit her great-aunt in the past, which meant she was probably here now because she wanted something.

      He watched her shift her weight back and forth, nervously glancing up and down the highway. She was trying to outrun some kind of trouble, which meant she was bringing it to the doorstep of a woman who’d always treated Elijah like family. If her problems caused harm to Claudia, she was going to find herself moving on a lot sooner than she thought.

      “Are you already here in town?” Claudia asked.

      “Not yet,” Olivia answered. “I’m still on the highway.” She glanced back toward her car. “I’ve had some trouble.”

      “What kind of trouble?” Concern was evident in the way Claudia carefully spoke each word. “And why are you calling on Elijah Morales’s phone?”

      Olivia turned back to face Elijah and moved the phone slightly away from her face. “Is your name Elijah Morales?”

      He nodded once.

      “Do you know my great-aunt Claudia?”

      “Claudia Sweeney? Yes.”

      She knit her brows together. “How do you know her?”

      “We’re СКАЧАТЬ