LITMIR.BIZ

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impossible idea. But a faster way to disappear would be to hitch a ride. And if she walked the county roads northwest, she’d hit Highway 67 with plenty of traffic.

      Everything rested with him making a logical guess.

      He turned right instead of left back to town and pushed the truck harder than it had been pushed in a while. It sputtered a bit, but got the job done. The cooler air of twilight passed through the open windows. When he turned again, he could smell hay and cattle.

      Working around Mrs. Mackey’s house for the past couple of weeks had brought back a lot of memories. The third time he’d called his mom, she’d asked him what was wrong and had kidded him about being homesick.

      Homesick? He couldn’t wait to leave his family’s acreage and pass on his riding lawn mower duties to his younger brothers. They’d all left the house and were spread out across the country now, settled with families or kids on the way. He rested his elbow on the door and tapped a drum solo on the old-fashioned vent window.

      Darkness was slowly growing. The moon wouldn’t rise for quite a while so it might be harder to see someone walking in the fields. He’d taken the most direct route to the next county road Kylie might be on. He turned right again and kept the truck in second gear.

      Reminiscing was fine, but his job was to find Kylie Scott. After he got her back to headquarters in Waco, he’d find out how Fred and Richard had known about his cover. The only person who supposedly knew was Mrs. Mackey. Why would she tell anyone?

      It was dark enough that unless Kylie had a flashlight, he wouldn’t be able to see her. He continued along the road at a normal pace for the truck. How would he explain this wild situation to Major Parker?

      If she disappeared again on his watch, he might not have to explain anything to anyone.

      * * *

      THE DAY HAD already been long and exhausting before Kylie had started traipsing through uneven fields in her tennis shoes. She couldn’t rush. There was no flashlight or even a penlight in her bag. And it was just her luck that tonight there wasn’t even a moon.

      Hours after leaving the horse, her legs were cramping and she was thirstier than she’d ever been. And hot. There was no breeze to cool the sweat that dripped in buckets down her back. She’d pulled her color contacts and stowed them in her bag.

      She’d avoided the roads, but kept them just to her left. No one had driven past her. Or at least she hadn’t heard any vehicles. The birds she’d come across had practically scared her senseless.

      Each time she’d carefully squeezed between the strands of wire fence from one field to the other, her fingers were crossed that there wouldn’t be a bull or something more dangerous in her path. She pulled herself through the last pieces of barbed wire fencing and picked up her bag, straightening and stretching her back.

      The hardest part of the hike was done. She could follow this road to the closest thing this area had to a highway—a two-lane blacktop. Then all she had to do was hitch a ride and she was...

      She was what?

      The word free kept trying to finish the sentence. But she wasn’t free. If she was free to choose where she wanted to live, it would be Hico. She’d never felt more at home in a community. They accepted that she didn’t talk about her time before living there. They really didn’t know anything about her.

      At least not the previous her. The Sissy Jorgenson her. Such a fake. It had taken a while, but Sissy had been laid to rest with all the cool kids she’d hung out with.

      Unfortunately, Sissy wouldn’t have had anything to do with Kylie Scott. And she wouldn’t have waited two weeks to have a fling with the guy across the street. One look at his body and Sissy would have been all over him.

      Bryce was nice looking. He was also a Texas Ranger ready to take her back to Austin whether she liked it or not. It didn’t matter if she knew about the Tenoreno family business. The attorneys five years ago had offered her protection in exchange for information.

      Did they really think she would have walked away so quickly if she’d known enough to put those men behind bars?

      Blinding headlights popped on in front of her.

      “I was just coming to look for you.” Bryce’s voice came from next to Fred’s truck. “You going to run again?”

      “Mind shutting off the floodlights?” Kylie saw his silhouette lean through the window and everything got dark again.

      With no place to go and no energy to run, she accepted the setback, but not defeat. Somehow, she’d get away from Bryce Johnson and get on with another new start.

      “Want a ride?” he asked with an air of innocence.

      “Yes, if you’re heading back to Hico.”

      “It’s on the way to Waco.” He casually leaned against Fred’s pickup.

      “How long have you been waiting?”

      “At least an hour.” Bryce tapped the old green truck. “Did the horse throw you or something during your evening ride? Get turned around finding your friend’s house or the way back? I know you weren’t attempting to run away. Right?”

      She didn’t need to answer. He was making fun of her so she glared at him, even though he couldn’t see the glare in the dark. She wrapped her arms around her bag, almost afraid he might arrest her on the spot.

      “Are you as starved as me? Or did Lisa give you something before you left?” Bryce continued, fingers tapping out an unknown rhythm against the old metal truck.

      “I’m actually starved. And parched. Any chance there’s a water bottle in there?” She leaned on the warm hood.

      “Nope. But it’s not far to Hico.” He threw his thumb toward the cab. “We can get something to go.”

      “Nothing is open at this time of night in our little town.” The sun had been down a long time. Too long for the hood to still be as warm as it was. “You must be a really lucky son of a gun to choose the exact road I was heading to.”

      “I like to think of myself as a highly skilled Texas Ranger. Come on, get in.”

      “Who had his gun and ID lifted by little ol’ me,” she mumbled.

      “There’s no reason to get nasty.”

      “I’ll admit defeat when you confess how you found me.”

      “I had a map. Calculated your foot speed—they teach us things like that.”

      “And how long have you really been here?”

      “All right. I tried several roads before deciding on this one. Satisfied? I got lucky and saw something moving from the road over there. Been waiting about fifteen minutes.”

      “So you guessed.”

      “Pretty much.” He grinned.

      The dark wasn’t pitch-black, even with no moon hanging overhead. She could see that he’d found his shirt from where she’d hidden it in the barn. That meant he’d found his gun, too. Bryce could force her to go with him. If he was a dirty cop he could make her disappear. Especially now that she’d told Lisa she had to leave town.

      No one would be looking for her.

      There was nothing she could do to prevent it. Not here. She had to get back to town, maybe show her face at the Stop-N-Get It. But her instincts told her that Bryce was legit. A good person who believed he was following the law and had her best interests at heart.

      Right. That’s what they all say.

      “If I keep walking down this road...” She threw her chin in the direction behind the truck. “Are you going to arrest me?”

      “Don’t make me, Kylie.”

      Her fingers were already wrapped around the handle. She was

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