about, it was no wonder she looked so mad.
“I don’t,” he answered honestly. All he knew was that it had been too fast. “About the cell phone...”
She had already pulled out her notebook and was jotting things down, but she looked up to level him with a glare. “Important call?”
He didn’t miss the sarcasm lacing her tone. “Look, Shiloh...”
“Officer Evans.”
Really? She was mad.
“Officer Evans.” He forced the words out even though they seemed awfully formal for the woman he’d been planning to marry five years ago. “The phone call honestly was an emergency. Someone was contemplating suicide, and I was afraid to hang up abruptly. And once I did end the call, I needed to phone someone nearby to put him in touch with her. I am sorry.”
Her eyes flicked up from her notepad, and she gave a slight nod, though her taut facial muscles didn’t relax.
“License and registration, please?”
He handed her both and waited as she took down the information, then checked the rear of the car to write down his plate numbers and walked back to him. She handed him the yellow ticket along with his documentation. “Here you go.” Shiloh turned to her cruiser, not giving him a second glance.
“That’s it?” Adam called out the window. “Not going to say hi, fill me in on what you’ve been up to for five years? Ask why I’m in town?”
The eyes she turned on him flashed fire. And, yeah, he’d provoked her deliberately, but it got to him that seeing him didn’t affect her at all.
“Fine. Hi, Adam.” She stumbled over his name, as though it hurt her to say it. “I’m a police officer now. What are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you, too,” he said calmly. “A police officer, huh? I’m the new pastor for Creekview Church.”
“Like father, like son, right?” She shook her head. “Guess I’m not surprised. Welcome to Treasure Point.”
Funny, she sounded slightly less than welcoming.
He reached to roll up his window as she walked away, until he caught the words she tossed over her shoulder.
“By the way, your rear left tire is flat. Must’ve run over a nail.”
It figured. He had been so caught up in his conversation that he hadn’t noticed. He squeezed his eyes shut, running over his options. He was now more than fifteen minutes late to his meeting. There was no way he had time to change a tire first.
He was stuck. And Shiloh—Officer Evans—was his only option.
He pushed open the truck door, walked to her car and tapped on her window.
She jammed her finger down on the button and glared up at him when the window was fully open. “What?”
Adam smiled what he hoped was his most charming smile. “Any chance you could give me a ride?”
She flung her door wide, narrowly missing hitting him in the leg.
He raised his hands in mock surrender. “You don’t have to get upset. I won’t be any trouble. And I can let myself in.” He headed toward the passenger side until the sound of Shiloh snickering stopped him.
“What?”
She reached for the rear door of the patrol car, opened it and motioned to the backseat. “You can ride here.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
She only raised her eyebrows. “Did you want a ride or not?”
Adam climbed in, thankful that he’d left his dog with a friend in Savannah and made plans to pick him up and bring him to town along with the rest of his belongings in the next day or two. He couldn’t imagine how well it would have gone over if he’d had to ask for a ride for both him and the dog, especially since he seemed to rank somewhere near the bottom of Shiloh’s “favorite person” list.
He tried not to think about where he was sitting as he took in the scenery, observing the town through the windows.
It looked like every other small town he’d been in along Georgia’s coast, but it appeared to be a nice place to live. Anticipation coursed through his veins—hopefully, it would be a good place for his first solo pastoring job. His dad’s connections had found the job for him, and Adam wanted to do his best work here—make sure he didn’t let God, or his dad, down. He wasn’t sure which possibility scared him more.
He looked at Shiloh and noticed she was checking the rearview mirror every few seconds. The tense set of her jaw made it clear that something was wrong. Something more than having her ex-fiancé in the backseat of her cruiser.
Adam looked over his shoulder. An older-model gray sedan was following them.
He glanced at Shiloh, still staring in the rearview, so he turned his head again. The car behind them inched closer.
Shiloh sped up.
So did the other car.
Adam turned to the front again, watching Shiloh’s face through the clear barrier. Her jaw was set, but there was a glimmer of fear in her eyes.
“Shiloh, what’s going on?”
She didn’t answer.
He looked up the road ahead of them. If they made it across that bridge, then they’d be in town.
“Do you think they’ll back off once we’re in town and there are people around?”
“I don’t know.” The dread he heard in her tone settled deep in his own gut.
A car in the approaching lane sped toward them. Adam tensed. Not likely that was a coincidence.
The bridge loomed closer. They were twenty, maybe thirty, yards away when the car coming at them swerved deliberately into their lane.
Understanding slammed into Adam, made him work to catch his breath.
They were trying to force them into a collision. Were they after Shiloh? And why?
He didn’t have time to ask more questions or to figure out anything else. They’d reached critical mass. Adam braced himself for impact, thankful that he was spiritually ready to die—even if he’d have rather put it off for a while—and closed his eyes. Visions of fiery car crashes he’d seen during his chaplain training haunted him. He didn’t want that to be his final thought.
So he opened his eyes, took one more look at Shiloh.
Instead of looking resigned, she appeared ready for a fight. Adam’s eyes widened as he realized what she was doing.
Shiloh yanked the wheel hard right, and the car clipped the guardrail with their left front side as she avoided the bridge and careened straight toward the last place Adam would have thought
