no one would ever find her out here. She had no idea where she was. There were so many trees overhead that she could barely see the sky through the canopy of thick branches. She had no idea which direction was which—even if she was strong enough to escape him. She already knew he was strong from his grip on her wrists; he was so tall and broad shouldered, too.
“Please,” she murmured. “Please, don’t hurt me...”
She shouldn’t have wasted her breath. Uttering those words had cost her so much of what little was left of her strength, and she had no hope of appealing to his sense of humanity. She doubted he had one. He must have been the person who had put her in the trunk, who had hurt her.
He was standing over her, restraining her...and he had the gun. He had to be the one who’d...
But she couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember what had happened. The pounding in her head increased as she struggled to summon memories.
But her mind was blank. Completely blank.
She didn’t even know who she was...
* * *
THE MAN WAS totally focused on the woman—so much so that he would be easily overpowered. And the blaring car alarm would drown out the sound of his approach. Ready to attack, he moved forward, but then sunlight seeped through the thick branches of the trees overhanging the road and glinted off the metal of the weapon the man held.
Just as he’d suspected, this guy wasn’t just some Good Samaritan who had happened along to rescue the woman. Despite the tuxedo he was wearing, he had to be some type of lawman. An armed lawman.
Frustration ate at him—joining the bitterness he had always felt for law enforcement. The gun would complicate things. But it wouldn’t stop him.
He would enjoy killing the man, too—now that he knew he was in law enforcement. But he would have to act quickly, before any reinforcements arrived.
He had to act now. He had to make sure that the woman really died and the lawman died along with her.
* * *
THE PANIC ON the young woman’s face struck Dalton like a blow. Those already enormous silvery-gray eyes had widened more with fear while her face had grown even paler.
Aware that he was scaring her, that he was intimidating her, he stepped back. But he was afraid that if he completely released her, she might injure herself as she tried to get away from him. So he continued to hold her wrists.
“Don’t move,” he cautioned her. As wounded as she was, she shouldn’t risk causing more damage to her battered body.
But she ignored his advice and struggled even harder, thrashing about inside the trunk. Maybe she couldn’t hear him over the blare of that damn car alarm. But like her, it was growing weaker—probably either as the battery ran down or was damaged from the water flooding the engine, which had already died.
Now he just had to make sure that the bride didn’t.
“You’re hurt,” he told her—in case she hadn’t noticed the blood that had stained her dress and made her long hair wet and sticky.
She had lost so much blood that some had even pooled in the trunk beneath her. She needed medical attention as soon as possible. Or he wasn’t sure that she would survive.
“You need to hold still,” he advised her, “until I get help for you.”
But to get help, he would have to put away his gun and take out his cell. He glanced around to see if the driver of the Mercedes had returned. The towering trees cast shadows throughout the woods and onto the gravel road—making the time of day appear closer to night than midafternoon.
The driver could have circled back around—could even now be sneaking up behind them. Dalton peered around—over his shoulder and into the woods, checking for any movement. Sunlight glinted within the trees.
Off a gun?
Or maybe it was a beer can that some teenagers or a hunter had tossed into the woods.
Dalton had spent his life on the streets; he knew what dangers he would face there. He had no idea what lurked out here—where it was so remote. He couldn’t see anyone, yet the skin tingled between his shoulder blades. He felt as though he was being watched. Maybe being out of his element was what made him so uneasy—made him reluctant to put away his weapon.
But Dalton had no choice. He had to get help for the battered bride. She had already lost so much blood—maybe too much to survive.
“You’re going to be okay.” Because he had told so many over the years, lies came easily to him now. But maybe he wasn’t lying; he wasn’t a doctor. He had no way of knowing how gravely she was injured, so maybe she would be okay. “But you need to calm down. You need to trust me.”
Because of all those lies he’d told and all those old friends from the gang that he had betrayed and arrested, few people trusted him anymore. Certainly no one who knew him.
But he was a stranger to her. Maybe that was why she stopped struggling. Or maybe she was just too weak from all that blood loss.
So he released her wrists, then holstered his weapon and pulled out his cell. But the phone screen blinked out a warning: no signal.
He cursed. He couldn’t leave her here while he drove around until his phone had a signal again. She might not survive until he returned. Either her injury might claim her life or the man who’d put her in the trunk might return for her.
Dare Dalton try to move her? To carry her to his SUV and drive her to a hospital? Hell, he didn’t even know where a hospital was in this area.
Maybe she wasn’t as weak as he’d thought, though, because she drew in an unsteady breath and then tried again to climb out of the trunk. He put a hand on her shoulder to hold her still, though he probably hadn’t had to bother. The weight of the blood-soaked dress was already holding down her body.
“You have to take it easy,” he warned her. “You have a head injury.” At least that looked to be where her blood was coming from. Had she been shot?
In his experience, most of the people he had found in trunks had been shot, execution-style, in the base of the skull. But all of those people had died. If she had a bullet in her head, and he moved her...
She would probably die, too. But if he didn’t move her, she still might die. There was too much blood.
She lifted one of her hands and touched her head. Her beautiful face contorted with pain and she jerked her hand back. Staring down at her fingers, which were stained with her own blood, she gasped.
“Do you know what happened?” he asked. Maybe she could tell him if she’d been shot.
But from the dazed and glassy look in her pale gray eyes, she appeared to be in shock. Or maybe it was the injury that had her so groggy and weak.
“Noooo...” she murmured.
Wouldn’t she remember being shot? He remembered every time that he had been shot.
“Maybe
