they that determined to kill her?
Lillian needed to get the hell out of there. Her hands shaking, she reached for the keys dangling from the ignition. She turned them but the ignition just clicked. The engine didn’t turn over; it didn’t even rumble. And she remembered that it had sounded funny before she’d heard her cell ringing. She’d shut it off and coasted to a stop on the road just a few yards from the cottage.
The gas gauge proclaimed it had half of a tank. But it had been stuck there since she’d started using it, and she’d driven it all the way into the city to her lawyer’s office building. Oh, no, the gauge was probably broken. She had no gas. No way of escaping.
While she’d been working up the nerve to go inside the cottage and retrieve Gran’s gun and her clothes, she’d seen a van pull in to the short driveway. At least half a dozen men, maybe more, had jumped out and headed for the cottage. She should have run then.
She needed to run now. She threw open the door and headed toward the lot down at the beach. Someone might have left a vehicle there. Sometimes people walked the beach at night, despite it being closed after dark. Tools clanged inside her big purse. She didn’t have the gun. But she had other weapons she could use.
She blew out a breath of relief when she found an older truck parked in the lot. Hopefully, it didn’t have an alarm system. She pulled a slim jim from her bag and, slipping it between the window and the door, unlocked the door. Then she pulled it open and reached under the dash for the wires.
She hadn’t been old enough to drive when her oldest brother, Dave, had taught her how to hot-wire a car. He’d insisted she would need to know how someday. She hadn’t—until today. Could she remember what he’d shown her?
She reached into her bag for the flashlight she’d also stashed in there. She needed to know what color the wires were to remember which ones to splice together. But before she could turn on the flashlight, she heard someone coming—footsteps pounding across the asphalt as they ran—straight toward her.
Had he seen her get out of the Buick and run down here? Was he chasing her? Since she hadn’t heard those footsteps until now, she didn’t think he’d seen her yet.
So she jumped into the truck and pulled the door shut. Maybe she could hide in there. But before she could lock it, he pulled open the door and jumped in beside her, his broad shoulder and hip bumping against her side with such force that he slid her across the long bench seat. She turned away to protect her belly.
“What the hell?” he exclaimed between pants for breath. Then he must have recognized her because he exclaimed, “Lillian!”
Her heart slammed against her ribs with shock at Jake’s sudden appearance. He had definitely found her. Or maybe she had inadvertently found him.
“Were you stealing my truck?” he asked, as he noticed the wires dangling below the dash.
Before she could reply, the back window shattered with another blast of gunfire. He pushed her off the seat and onto the floor as he jammed a key in the ignition and started the engine. Tires squealing and gravel flying, he steered the pickup out of the parking lot.
“Friends of yours?” he asked. “Or family?”
“I don’t know who they are,” she replied. But she had a very good idea who had sent them. Tom Kuipers.
“Did they hit you?” she asked with concern. He must have been inside that cottage with them—with all those bullets flying.
“No,” he said, “which probably disappoints you to no end.”
She’d once considered shooting him herself not that long ago. But she couldn’t imagine actually hurting him or wanting him hurt. There had already been enough pain between them. Unfortunately, all that pain had been hers when he had shattered her trust and broken her heart.
She flinched as the baby kicked her ribs. Her last ultrasound hadn’t been able to determine the sex, but the baby had to be a boy. He was already causing her pain, too, just like his father. Crouched on the floor, she hid her belly behind her raised knees. She didn’t want Jake to see that she was pregnant and it was easier to hide in the dark. She had never wanted him to know—unless he came to her of his own accord. Not to take her to jail, but to apologize for what he’d done. She didn’t think he’d shown up tonight to apologize. But unless she jumped out of the speeding truck, she didn’t know how she was going to get away from him now.
More gunshots rang out, pinging off the metal of the truck. The side mirror broke, sending bits of glass and plastic flying. She gasped in fear.
She didn’t have to worry about getting away from Jake right now. She had to worry about staying alive.
“Stay down!” he yelled at her over the sound of the wind rushing through the shattered windows.
Even if she hadn’t been paralyzed with fear, she wasn’t about to move, not at the risk of getting hit by one of the flying bullets.
“And hang on,” he added, as he jerked the wheel and careened around a corner.
Lillian’s shoulder bumped against the passenger’s door, and she grimaced. But she wasn’t worried about her shoulder. She was worried about her baby. She couldn’t risk anything happening to her unborn child—to their unborn child.
“You have to slow down!” she yelled back at him.
“If I slow down, they’ll catch us,” he countered.
But he must have slowed down enough that the van had caught up with them because something rammed against the back bumper, sending the pickup into a spin.
Lillian grabbed tightly on to the seat and screamed. Earlier she’d been worried about losing her freedom. Now she was worried about losing her life.
* * *
What the hell had Donny Davies done? Guilt weighed heavily on his thin chest, making it difficult for him to breathe.
Lillian had trusted him...
But then the rest of the family had trusted her. And she’d betrayed them with that damn bounty hunter, Jake Howard. She had literally been sleeping with the enemy. She claimed she hadn’t known who he was. But she hadn’t stepped in and stopped the man from taking Dad and Dave into custody. From collecting his bounty.
Sure, she’d been crying, but it had been about the man lying to her. Not about her family getting arrested. Just like Gran, she’d always disapproved of the things some of the Davies family did.
She and Gran would certainly disapprove of what Donny had done. But Dad and Dave had declared that they owed her nothing now...
She was no longer one of them.
But since she hadn’t shown up for court that day, she was a fugitive now. So maybe for the first time in her twenty-five years, Lillian was one of them.
What would it cost her?
Her freedom?
Or her life?
The people after her were more dangerous than Donny had realized. And he had betrayed them, too. But unlike her, he had a place to
