LITMIR.BIZ

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the Twinkie halfway to her mouth when another clap in the distance stopped her. This time, she recognized the sound.

      The gunshot came from the vicinity of the mesquite grove behind the fields.

      Maybe she had a lost hiker on her land, or a birdwatcher—it had happened before. Then another shot came quickly, and another. Nine altogether.

      Bam. Bam. Bam. Pause. Bam. Pause. Bam. Pause Bam. Pause. Bam. Bam. Bam.

      Morse code or coincidence? If it was Morse code, the pattern spelled SOS.

      Getting in trouble was easy around here, what with the snakes and the heat and other hazards of the land. And with the storm coming… Nobody should get stuck out there in that kind of weather. She set the Twinkie back in the box and put a bowl over it upside down on the counter so it wouldn’t tempt the cat. Comfort food would have to wait. She’d need both hands for driving in the dark.

      She hurried back to the front door and stepped into her boots, made sure she had her cell phone in her pocket and grabbed the industrial-strength flashlight from the peg. On second thought, she grabbed her grandfather’s old hunting rifle, as well, along with a handful of bullets, then rushed to her car as the first raindrops splashed to the ground.

      The paved road that led to town snaked in the opposite direction from where she was headed. She took the dirt road to the fields, beyond which lay sparse woods and brush and grassland—God’s best country.

      Darkness surrounded her, nothing visible beyond the path the headlights illuminated as the pickup rattled over the uneven ground. She wasn’t scared, not on her grandfather’s land. Her land. She knew every acre of it, had driven over it, ridden over it.

      The road soon turned into an overgrown trail, bushes scratching against the side of the pickup. She pushed through and came to an open area, rattled over the dry clumps of grass. She slowed for two dry creek beds, then took the bumpy ride across them. It hadn’t rained in forever. According to Dylan, just the week before, they’d had a pretty bad dust storm.

      When she reached the spot she thought the shots had come from, she drove around in expanding circles, then continued on foot when the pickup could no longer handle the terrain. The flashlight found a pair of armadillos out on a date, but no humans. She loaded the rifle and squeezed a shot into the air.

      A full year had passed since the last time she’d pulled a trigger. Tension settled into her shoulders, pulling her muscles tight.

      The shot reverberated in the silence of the night. Then another shot answered. Her heart rate picked up as she ran that way. Her palms were sweating. The trembling came. Then the flashbacks—of other dark nights, other shots, blood and pain, people dying. She kept on running.

      After a few hundred feet or so, she could see a pinpoint of light in the distance, a flashlight that led her to a barely conscious man.

      For a terrifying second, she was still on a battlefield, her mind unable to distinguish between past and present. Then the gruesome images slowly faded and she came back to reality, to the man lying on the ground in front of her.

      “Are you okay?”

      In his early thirties, he wore black cargo pants covered in blood, a black T-shirt and military-issue boots. She would have taken him for a border agent, but he didn’t wear their insignia.

      Not a local, either. She’d known most everyone around these parts at one point. He was about her age, so if he’d grown up here, they would have gone to the small school together in Hullett. She would have recognized him, despite the smudges of blood that covered his features.

      Probably not one of Dylan’s businessmen, unless he was their trainer. The stuff on his belt was all professional grade and then some. Question was, what was he doing here all alone, so far from the ravine? She took his gun and tucked it into her waistband behind her back, out of his reach. Probably an unnecessary precaution. He didn’t look ready to reach for anything.

      “What happened? What’s your name?”

      His eyes fluttered open, then closed again. He was only semiconscious, but he kept his hands pressed tight against a wound on his thigh. Smart man—he was focusing his energies where it most counted. She held the flashlight closer.

      Gunshot wound. The bullet had gone in the back and came out the front. Definitely not a self-inflicted, accidental injury.

      Keeping her rifle close at hand, she slipped off his belt and made a quick tourniquet. Then she ran back to her pickup, grabbed a half-empty water bottle that was still warm from the day’s heat. It’d do in a pinch. She shook him so he’d revive enough to drink. He needed to replenish his fluids.

      He needed an IV, but he wouldn’t get that here.

      When she had done all she could, she dialed 911. She didn’t get through, of course—no reception. Cell phone coverage was spotty out here on a good day. With the storm moving in, the bars on her display were flatlining.

      “Help.” The single word slipped in a rasp whisper from the man’s lips.

      And when she looked up, his eyes were open again. She couldn’t see their color in the dark, only that they were disoriented. “I’m trying.”

      He was a big man but, like her brother, she’d served in the United States Army and had gotten the best possible training. She bent and worked the guy’s arm over her shoulder, supported his body weight as she struggled forward and dragged him toward the truck.

      The rain had been picking up steadily, turning into a downpour. Her feet slipped in the mud, but she wouldn’t allow herself to stop, wouldn’t allow him to slide to the ground. If he did, she might not be able to pick him up again.

      She peered through the rain into the darkness, making sure she kept aware of her surroundings and didn’t let him claim all of her attention. Hurry. Her rifle hung over her shoulder, his gun tucked behind her back, no way for her to quickly reach for either if whoever had shot him came back and caught her by surprise.

      Lightning lit up the sky. The water was coming down in sheets by the time she reached her pickup. She dumped him in the passenger seat then ran around and jumped behind the wheel. The dry creek beds could fill quickly in weather like this. Then they’d both be trapped out here.

      He coughed and opened his eyes as she drove way too fast over the uneven road, the pickup rattling.

      “Can you tell me your name?”

      “Ryder… McKay.”

      She didn’t know any McKays around here. “Do you know who shot you?”

      He passed out again before he could have answered.

      Hot anger hit her, a hard punch right in the chest. This was her land, dammit. Stuff like this wasn’t supposed to happen here.

      The creek beds were filling up, but she made her way across them. The mud proved more dangerous, at the end. The pickup’s tires spun out on a steep incline she tackled. Long minutes went wasted before she could maneuver the truck free.

      “Hang in there,” she murmured, not knowing which one of them she meant to bolster.

      Her windshield wipers swished back and forth madly and still weren’t enough. Intermittent lightning flashed across the landscape. The thunder sounded like heavy shelling. The ground shook as if bombs were falling. Not now. She bit her lip hard and used the sharp pain to yank herself back from the edge.

      She navigated the barely visible road, doing her best to pay attention to everything at once: the mud, the injured man, the trees that could be hiding the shooter.

      The drive back to the house took three times as long as the drive out. “Okay, we’re here. You’ll feel better once you’re flat on your back and we’re out of this rain.”

      She parked by the front door and dragged the man in, ignoring the mud they tracked all over the floor. A particularly nasty bolt of lightning drew her gaze

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