style="font-size:15px;"> When the crackling noise stopped, Chelsea plucked the prongs from the cowboy’s neck and felt for a pulse. She released a shaky sigh when she palpated a steady throb.
Hearing scuffles from the car, she rose warily to peer into the backseat. The convict pulled The tape from his mouth, wincing and growling obscenities, then set to work gnawing at the tape on his hands with his teeth.
Fresh prickles of fear spun through Chelsea. The inmate would be free soon, and she had no doubt he’d be set on vengeance. She needed a way to protect herself. Think!
She glanced around. The cowboy’s truck sat about one hundred feet down the road. If she made a dash for it, could she get there before the inmate shot her? Unlikely. And what about the cowboy? She couldn’t steal his truck and abandon him. Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm her adrenaline-charged brain enough to make quick, logical decisions. With another glance over the trunk, through the shot-out window, she watched the inmate rip tape from his wrists, then bend down, presumably to work on freeing his feet.
Her gaze darted to the broken glass. Gunfire…
The cowboy had been holding a gun when he opened the trunk!
Dropping to her knees beside the cowboy, she shook him. “Where’s your gun? I need your gun!”
Still no response. Either the stun gun or the hit he took to his head had knocked him out.
She heard Ethyl’s back door squeak open. The inmate was coming… .
With frantic hands, Chelsea patted down the cowboy. Chest, waist, hips…dear God, the man was solid muscle. Finding nothing, she grabbed an arm and tugged, struggling to turn him over. Groped behind him…
“Nice try, girlie.”
Gasping, Chelsea jerked her gaze up.
The convict hovered over her, a gloating expression twisting his face.
Icy fear slithered down her spine. Finally, her fingers closed around the butt of a gun, and she yanked it from the cowboy’s belt. Swinging the weapon toward her kidnapper, Chelsea gritted her teeth. “Stop where you are!” She worked up enough spit in her dry mouth to swallow. “Don’t come any closer, or I’ll shoot.”
The convict hesitated, eyeing the gun. He had a wad of white cloth taped to a bleeding wound on his leg. “You won’t do it. You could never live with yourself knowing you’d killed another human being.”
Her pulse kicked. Was he right? Could she pull the trigger if she had to? “If you force my hand, I will kill you to save my life—” she nodded toward the unconscious cowboy “—and his.”
The convict’s expression hardened. “Get back in the trunk, girlie, or I’ll fry you like I did John Wayne.”
The frigid wind and her fear brought the sting of tears to her eyes again. She blinked hard, fighting to keep the inmate in focus, her attention glued on him. Shoot him. Just shoot him. It’d be justifiable homicide.
Her hands shook, and her stomach roiled. “Just…t-take his truck and leave us here.”
The inmate’s eyes narrowed, and his brow furrowed as he studied the gun in her hands. “Good idea. But…you’ll still be in the trunk. Just in case you had any ideas about goin’ to the cops.”
He took a step forward, and Chelsea tensed, her finger curling around the trigger. “I said stay back! Don’t touch me.”
“Go ahead,” the convict taunted, “shoot me. I dare you.”
He took another step toward her, and Chelsea squeezed the trigger.
Click.
Her insides clenched at the telltale sound.
With a low rumbling laugh, the inmate closed in on her. “Well, well. Maybe you would shoot. Too bad you’re out of bullets.”
Brady knocked the emptied gun out of the brunette’s hands and nudged the cowboy with his toe. The guy was out cold. Good. He gave the guy a hard kick in the ribs. “Sorry son of a bitch.”
“Don’t!” The brunette moved between him and the cowboy. “Leave him alone! Haven’t you hurt him enough?”
“He shot me!” Brady growled back, pointing to his bleeding leg. “I should put a bullet in his head and be done with him.”
“No!” She draped herself over the cowboy’s body like some modern Pocahontas saving John Smith, and Brady scoffed. The girl had guts, standing up for the cowboy, trying to protect him, but Brady had other plans for the jerk.
“Get out of the way, or I’ll kill the both of you!” He shoved her with his foot, and pain radiated up his leg.
“With what? The gun’s empty.” She raised her chin, visibly shivering in the cold. Or fear. He liked the idea that he scared her.
He leaned toward her, getting in her face. “With my bare hands if I have to. But I hear if you get juiced long enough with one of these babies—” he waved the stun gun “—you’ll go into cardiac arrest.” He leered at her. “Care to try it and see?”
She gasped and pulled away but stayed planted between him and the unconscious cowboy. Firming her jaw, she rallied for another show of chops. “A car could come by anytime. Do you really want to be seen standing here with me nearly naked, you holding that gun thing and him slumped on the ground? We’re bound to cause a passerby to take a second look.”
Brady frowned. She had a point. He had to do something with them and get moving. Before the cowboy woke up. Before a cop spotted him. Before his leg bled out.
Before this sucky day took another piss on him.
He needed to cover his tracks and find a hideout. Fast.
He opened the Caddy’s trunk and faced the girl. “Get up!” he ordered the brunette. “Get his arm. Help me put him in the trunk.”
Limping forward and keeping most of his weight on his good leg, he shoved a hand under the cowboy’s armpit and waited for the girl to comply. When she hesitated, he snarled, “Look, girlie. I’m in pain, and I’m in a hurry. I have exactly no patience left.” He aimed the stun gun at her. “Get him up.”
With wide eyes locked on the stun gun, she grabbed the cowboy’s other arm, and they heaved him up, dragged him to the trunk and draped him over the back of the open well. When he lifted the cowboy’s legs and swung them into the trunk, Brady’s injured leg throbbed, and he dumped the cowboy in the Caddy with an unceremonious shove.
The brunette sent him a disgruntled look. “You bully. Your mother must be so proud of you.”
Brady bristled, then lobbed a glancing blow to her chin. The brunette gasped and clutched her face.
“My mother could care less,” Brady grated.
“Couldn’t care less,” she muttered, picking up the cowboy’s hat and carefully putting it in the trunk beside the unconscious man. “Learn English, jerk.”
Brady’s
