Deliverance at Cardwell Ranch. B.J. Daniels

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СКАЧАТЬ restrain you. I can’t trust that you won’t hurt me or yourself if I don’t.” He said all of it apologetically.

      Something in his voice must have assured her because she let him lead her over to a chair in front of the fireplace. He snapped one cuff on her right wrist and the other to the frame of the heaviest chair.

      She looked around the small cabin, her gaze going to the back door. The terror in her eyes made the hair on the back of his neck spike. He’d once had a girlfriend whose cat used to suddenly look at a doorway as if there were something unearthly standing in it. Austin had the same creepy feeling now and feared that this woman was as haunted as that darned cat.

      With the dried wood from the back porch and some matches he found in the kitchen, he got a fire going. Just the sound of the wood crackling and the glow of the flames seemed to instantly warm the room.

      He found a pan in the kitchen and, filling it with snow from outside, brought it in and placed it in front of the fire. It wasn’t long before he could dampen one end of a dish towel from the kitchen.

      “I’m going to wash the blood off your face so I can see how badly you’ve been hurt, all right?”

      She held still as he gently applied the wet towel. The bleeding had stopped over her eye, but it was a nasty gash. It took some searching before he found a first aid kit in one of the bedrooms and bandaged the cut as best he could.

      “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

      She shook her head.

      “Okay,” he said with a nod. His head still ached, but the tire iron hadn’t broken the skin—only because he had a thick head of dark hair like all of the Cardwells—and a hard head to boot.

      The cabin was getting warmer, but he still found an old quilt and wrapped it around her. She had stopped shaking at least. Unfortunately, she still looked confused and scared. He was pretty sure she had a concussion. But there was little he could do. He still had no cell phone coverage. Not that anyone could get to them with the wrecks and the roads the way they were.

      Picking up her purse, he sat down in a chair near her. He noticed her watching him closely as he dumped the contents out on the marred wood coffee table. Coins tinkled out, several spilling onto the floor. As he picked them up, he realized several interesting things about what was—and wasn’t—in her purse.

      There was a whole lot of makeup for someone who didn’t have any on. There was also no cell phone. But there was a baby’s pacifier.

      He looked up at her and realized he’d made a rooky mistake. He hadn’t searched her. He’d just assumed she didn’t have a weapon like a gun or knife because she’d used a tire iron back on the highway.

      Getting up, he went over to her and checked her pockets. No cell phone. But he did find a set of car keys. He frowned. That was odd since he remembered that the keys had still been in the wrecked car. The engine had died, but the lights were still on.

      So what were these keys for? They appeared to have at least one key for a vehicle and another like the kind used for house doors.

      “Are these your keys?” he asked, but after staring at them for a moment, she frowned and looked away.

      Maybe she had been telling the truth about the car not being hers.

      Sitting back down, he opened her wallet. Three singles, a five—and less than a dollar in change. Not much money for a woman on the road. Not much money dressed like she was either. Also, there were no credit cards.

      But there was a driver’s license. He pulled it out and looked at the photo. The woman’s dark hair in the snapshot was shorter and curlier, but she had the same intense brown eyes. There was enough of a resemblance that he would assume this woman was Rebecca Stewart. According to the ID, she was married, lived in Helena, Montana, and was an organ donor.

      “It says here that your name is Rebecca Stewart.”

      “That’s not my purse.” She frowned at the bag as if she’d never seen it before.

      “Then what was it doing in the car you were driving?”

      She shook her head, looking more confused and scared.

      “If you’re not Rebecca Stewart, then who are you?”

      He saw her lower lip quiver. One large tear rolled down her cheek. “I don’t know.” When she went to wipe her tears with her free hand, he saw the diamond watch.

      Reaching over, he caught her wrist. She tried to pull away, but he was much stronger than she was, and more determined. Even at a glance, he could see that the watch was expensive.

      “Where did you get this?” he asked, hating that he sounded so suspicious. But the woman had a car and a purse she swore weren’t hers. It wasn’t that much of a leap to think that the watch probably wasn’t hers either.

      She stared at the watch on her wrist as if she’d never seen it before. The gold band was encrusted with diamonds. Pulling it off her wrist, he turned the watch over. Just as he’d suspected, it was engraved:

      To Gillian with all my love.

      “Is your name Gillian?”

      She remembered something, he saw it in her eyes.

      “So your name is Gillian?”

      She didn’t answer, but now she looked more afraid than she had before.

      Austin sighed. He wasn’t going to get anything out of this woman. For all he knew, she could be lying about everything. But then again, the fear was real. It was almost palpable.

      He had a sudden thought. “Why did you attack me on the highway?”

      “I...I don’t know.”

      A chill ran the length of his spine. He thought of how she’d kept looking back at the car as they walked to the cabin. She had thought someone was after her. “Was there someone else in the car when it rolled over?”

      Her eyes widened in alarm. “In the trunk.”

      He gawked at her. “There was someone in the trunk?”

      She looked confused again, and even more frightened. “No.” Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know.”

      “Too bad you didn’t mention that when we were down there,” he grumbled under his breath. He couldn’t take the chance that she was telling the truth. Why someone would be in the trunk was another concern, especially if she was telling the truth about the car, the purse and apparently the baby not being hers.

      He had to go back down anyway and try to put up some kind of flags to warn possible other motorists. He just hated the idea of going back out into the storm. But if there was even a chance someone was in the trunk...

      Austin stared at her and reminded himself that this was probably a figment of her imagination. A delusion from the knock on her head. But given the way things weren’t adding up, he had to check.

      “Don’t leave me here,” she cried as he headed for the door, her voice filled with terror.

      “What СКАЧАТЬ