palms turned slick, but she couldn’t risk wiping them. Mandy squeezed the steering wheel tighter, praying she wouldn’t make a wrong turn. The road had to level out. It had to.
But it just continued its steep decline. No escape. No emergency exit.
Emergency.
Her emergency brake.
She grabbed the handle next to her seat and pulled it as hard as she could. It refused to engage. The red light on the dashboard didn’t even appear. The rapid-fire beating of her heart drowned out everything except the truth. Someone had cut her brake lines and disabled her emergency brake. Someone wanted her to go off that cliff.
The same person who had tried to run her over.
Suddenly the headlights in her mirror barreled down on her, almost reaching her bumper before swinging up beside her.
She couldn’t make out the car or the driver in the dark, and he swerved closer. As if in slow motion, she waved him off, but he just drew nearer. Was he trying to push her over the edge?
She wouldn’t give him the chance.
Leaning into the steering wheel, she swallowed the lump in her throat and pressed the gas. Her car gained a little ground before her pursuer caught up. His whole car seemed to be shaking with the effort to maintain the speed, but he kept his distance from her, hugging the far line as he whipped down the opposite lane.
Risking a glance in his direction, she caught a waving hand and a familiar mane of shaggy blond hair.
Luke.
He motioned for her to roll down her window, but did she dare risk taking her hand off the wheel again? But what did she have to lose? She was dead either way.
With one flick of her finger, the window automatically went down. Tears filled her eyes at the wind’s unrelenting assault.
“Emer—cy. Bra—”
The howling wind seemed to steal his words, but she tried to respond. “Broken!”
He didn’t reply. Maybe he hadn’t heard her. She tried again but stopped short as a set of headlights glared right at them.
“Car!”
Luke shook his head and cupped a hand to his ear. Forgetting all about her sweaty palms, she jerked a hand in the direction of the truck heading right for him. At the same moment, the other driver leaned on his horn.
Suddenly Luke was gone. Vanished as the truck careened past her, still honking his displeasure. But all she could hear was the no, no, no that crashed through her mind.
She craned around as much as she could without losing sight of the road and caught a glimpse of the car behind her, just as the road swung wide. Overcorrecting for it, her back wheel caught the yard of gravel at the edge of the incline. The back end of her car whipped to the left. Then dangerously close to the cliff. Her heart stopped.
This was it.
She was going over.
Suddenly she was back on the road, her speedometer pushing ninety.
She wanted to cover her eyes or hold her breath or do anything to keep from seeing her inevitable end.
Lord, let this be quick.
“Run—way. —uck. Ramp!”
Luke had returned to her side, and he pointed just to her left.
A brown sign pointed to a gravel runaway-truck ramp. It was going to total her car. And maybe her body. It was also her only hope.
Heart in her throat, she jerked the wheel toward the exit, praying that she hadn’t chosen the wrong way out.
Gravel crunched beneath her tires, the momentum of the car sending her flying forward.
And then it all slammed to an end.
* * *
Luke skidded to a halt at the base of the ramp, grabbing his crutches and leaping from the car before it had fully stopped. He set the foot of his injured leg down, immediately regretting the decision. “Ahhh!” Fire shot through his knee at even the lightest pressure, but he swung his way toward the cloud of dust masking Mandy’s SUV. When he reached the rear bumper, he tossed his crutches down and used the vehicle to keep his balance as he hopped toward the driver’s door.
There was no sign of movement from within, and Luke forced his voice to remain steady as he called out. “Mandy? Doc? Are you okay?”
She didn’t respond, and he hopped a little faster, matching the rising tempo of his heartbeat. He hadn’t thought it could go any faster than it had when that truck had come flying around the curve and he’d had to slam on his brakes. He’d whipped behind Mandy only a fraction of a second before the big rig would have slammed into him.
But the thought of what he might find inside her car had his heart hammering a painful tattoo.
“Luke?”
The voice was no more than a breath, and he thought he’d imagined it until he hopped another foot in her direction.
“Luke? Are you okay?”
The sudden quiet in the center of his chest echoed through his limbs, and he closed his eyes to capture the memory of that peace. “Fine. I’m fine. You?”
There was a long pause. He couldn’t move fast enough to get to her door. Finally his fingers wrapped into the open window, and he pulled himself even with it, staring hard through the muddied air.
Large brown eyes blinked twice before closing for a long moment. Her pink lips formed a tight line as though she was trying to pull herself together before speaking. The rest of her face was painted in a fine layer of grime.
He reached for her cheek, but stopped short. She hadn’t moved any of her limbs yet, and he wasn’t about to touch her before he knew how badly she was injured. “Can you move your arms and legs?”
Without opening her eyes, Mandy waved both hands and bounced both of her knees. A soul-crushing groan followed.
“Where do you hurt?”
“Everywhere?” She swung her head in his direction, and only then did he see the streaming red line above her right eye.
Shrugging out of his long-sleeved overshirt, he pulled it inside out, wadded it up and pressed it against the gash. With his other thumb, he swiped at the dirt on her cheeks, looking for other abrasions. “You hit the steering wheel?”
She started to nod but seemed only able to manage a grimace. “How bad is it?”
“It could have been a whole lot worse.”
She opened her eyes at that. Fear and something close to panic lurked in the depths there. They were on the same page. She’d dodged another bullet, another attempt on her life. But someone was more calculating and brazen than they had guessed. Whoever it was had access to Mandy and her car. And
