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CHAPTER THREE
IT ALL HAPPENED in a matter of seconds.
And every one of those seconds felt like a year.
Mace Carson had been cruising along behind the unfamiliar car up ahead ever since he’d cleared the city limits of Mustang Creek a few minutes before, when the other rig suddenly fishtailed on the rain-slick pavement and spun a full 360. The slow-motion spin, weirdly graceful, and at the same time potentially deadly, was sickening to watch.
He eased his truck to the side of the road, jammed down the emergency brake pedal, then groped for his cell phone and muttered an expletive, watching the situation unfold, helpless to intervene as the vehicle shot toward the steep slope on the opposite shoulder, where there were no guardrails. The drop was nearly fifty feet, by his calculations, with no trees or boulders to break the fall.
Not that either would have been ideal, any way you looked at it.
With a second curse, he was out of the truck and running to do what he could, heedless of the pounding rain, phone in hand, thumb on the button that would speed-dial 911.
Meanwhile, the car came to a precarious stop at the edge, teetered and then slipped again, winding up at a precarious angle, half on the road, half off, passenger-side down. The mud, a few inches deep and slick as snot, offered the briefest purchase.
Mace didn’t rattle easily, but in those moments, his heart zoomed into his throat. He was close enough now to glimpse the driver, a woman, pale and wide-eyed with shock, leaning hard into the car door, as if she hoped to waft right through the metal to the safety of solid ground.
“Don’t move!” he said, never knowing if he’d shouted the words or simply mouthed them, dropping the phone to the ground because he was going to need both hands to get her out before the mud gave way and sent her and the car tumbling downhill, ass over teakettle.
He saw her nod. Stiffen.
He gripped the door handle, never taking his eyes off her face, realized instantly that the locks were still engaged.
“Shift into Park,” he told the woman, giving silent thanks that the air bags hadn’t deployed. The mechanisms were sensitive; in some cars, especially newer models, no collision was required. An abrupt change of direction could trigger them. “And then unfasten your seat belt. Slow and easy, now—no sudden moves.”
Another nod from her. He was either yelling or she could read lips, because she did what he’d told her to do. With a flash of relief, he heard the locks release.
The car slid a few inches farther down the hill.
* * *
BRACING HIS FEET, Mace pulled at the door. Gravity worked against him, but he’d bucked a lot of bales in his time, dug a lot of postholes
