Mysterious Montana

by B. J Daniels

WILL DREW BACK from the kiss, startled by the distinct click that reverberated through the Firebird. He felt something cold and metallic, looked down at his right wrist, and was shocked to see the handcuff there. Instinctively, he pulled, only to find the other end attached to a piece of steel that had been welded under the dash. How convenient.

  “Samantha?” he asked, feeling a little disoriented.

  “Will, I hate to do this, but you left me no choice.” She slid out of the car before he could ask exactly what she hated to do. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

  Like he was going anywhere. “Samantha?” But she was already gone, jogging toward the Lazy Rest. He thought about calling after her as he watched her run, her ponytail pendulumming back and forth—but he didn’t. What would be the point? He doubted she’d have handcuffed him to the car if anything had been up for discussion.

  The short guy who’d come out of the rest home was standing by the car, looking around. He seemed edgy when he saw Samantha. Will couldn’t blame him.

  She’d almost reached the tan Buick and Shorty, when she stopped beneath a large willow tree and leaned with her palms against the thick trunk to stretch her calves. Very nice calves, he noticed.

  The man beside the Buick, he saw, was noticing, as well.

  Just then, another man came out of the rest home, this one taller and a little less stocky, but definitely muscular. He had a kid with him, a small boy wearing a Mariners baseball cap and a navy backpack over his red jacket. The kid had the cap pulled down so low his ears stood out like thumbs from his head; a pair of headphones hung around his neck; and he cradled what looked like a CD player in his hands.

  The man had one hand on the boy’s shoulder. He looked around, and noticed Samantha stretching.

  Samantha straightened and started jogging again—right toward them. The man’s steps slowed as he and the boy approached the Buick, and Shorty, who was waiting there.

  Samantha didn’t appear to notice as she jogged in their direction, but Will had the distinct impression she was watching them. That she’d been waiting for them to come out. And if she kept running she’d connect with them in a matter of—

  “What the—”

  To his amazement, Samantha tripped and fell. She tumbled onto the lawn just feet from them and grabbed at her ankle. From where he sat, he heard her cry out in pain.

  He jerked on the handcuff, wanting to go to her. What had the woman been thinking, locking him up like this?

  The two men seemed startled, almost leery of her, and glanced around as if looking for something or someone. The quiet neighborhood dozed in the warm fall afternoon sun as Samantha cried and hugged her ankle.

  After a moment, they hesitantly stepped over to her. No doubt her skimpy attire helped convince them.

  Will couldn’t hear what was being said even though the driver’s window of the Firebird was still down, but it was obvious they were offering some sort of assistance. The short one helped her to her feet. The second man released the boy to take her other arm.

  She appeared afraid to put weight on her injured ankle. Slowly, she attempted a step.

  Then everything happened so fast Will wasn’t even sure later what he’d seen. Maybe because he was hoping he’d just imagined it.

  He watched in horror as Samantha dropped Shorty with a swift kick, sent the other man sprawling face-first onto the grass with some sort of karate chop, and grabbed the kid.

  In the blink of an eye, Samantha was running back toward the Firebird with the boy in her arms. She opened the driver’s door, tossed him the kid and leaped in.

  The Firebird engine roared, and she peeled out, throwing gravel and dust as she whipped a cookie in the middle of the street, then took off in a tremulous thunder of engine and speed that flattened him against his seat.

  “Wow,” the kid said.

  “Samantha?” Will asked quietly, the way he might talk to a disturbed patient on a mental ward. “I know this probably isn’t a good time, either, but could you tell me what’s going on here?”

  The Firebird screamed around a corner. “I’d suggest you get the boy buckled in,” she said calmly. “You might want to do the same.”

  Being handcuffed to the dash didn’t make the task easy, but as she took the next corner on two wheels, Will managed to get the kid buckled in between them on the bench seat before the Firebird rocked back down on all four tires. He snapped his own seat belt as she took a gravel-throwing turn.

  “Nice car,” the kid said.

  Will looked down at him. The boy was all of five, with large brown eyes that twinkled in a positively angelic face. Along with the Mariners cap and red jacket, he wore faded worn jeans, a Pokémon T-shirt and sneakers. The headphones still hung around his neck, with a cord that ran to the CD player cradled in his lap on the small navy backpack. Unlike Will, the boy didn’t seem all that surprised by this turn of events.

  Will turned to catch sight of the Buick coming up fast. Great. “Just tell me you don’t kidnap children. I mean, this isn’t just some random thing you do, right? You know this child, right?” He looked expectantly at her, waiting.

  “Only from a faxed photo of him. He’s cuter in person.” She shot the kid a quick smile, then went back to her driving, which Will was thankful for. “His name is Zackarias Lucien O’Brien, age five-and-a-half, of Seattle, Washington. That about covers it.”

  “Just ‘Zack,”’ the boy said quickly. “Just Zack” didn’t appear in the least upset as Sam took a turn on two wheels.

  “Am I missing something here?” Will asked.

  Samantha turned onto a paved two-lane and tromped down on the gas. The car took off like a rocket.

  “What is under the hood?” he yelled over the roar of the engine.

  She shot him a grin. “You like it?”

  Not really. He liked it when he thought she was someone else: a nice, single woman who drove a Lexus.

  “Sorry about the cuffs, but I couldn’t let you ruin my show.”

  She made the whole thing sound theatrical and almost innocent. He nodded, telling himself again that she’d have a good explanation for this. It was just getting harder to believe.

  She glanced over her shoulder. He looked back, too. The Buick wasn’t far behind them now.

  “And those men?” he enquired.

  She shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.” She looked over at Zack. “Who are those guys?”

  He shrugged, too. “They said they were friends of my birth mother’s.”

  She raised a brow as she looked at the boy.

  Will wished she’d keep her eyes on the road. Not that she didn’t seem capable of doing any number of things while driving. “Where exactly are we headed?” he asked, as the flat landscape flashed by in a blur and he realized they’d left Wolf Point far behind.

  “Seattle, eventually. Right now—” she glanced into her rearview mirror “—anyplace where they aren’t,” she said, indicating the Buick gaining on them.

  Seattle? He thought about telling her that Seattle didn’t fit into his plans. But what she did next made him lose the thought.

  He watched her reach under the seat, pull out a handgun and lay it across her sun-browned thighs. He told himself he shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. How could he have been so wrong about a woman?

  He wondered what Jennifer Finley was doing right now.

  “You can just drop me off when you get the chance,” he said—not that she seemed to be listening. “Anywhere would do.” He noted that the Firebird was pegged at over a hundred miles an hour and that the Buick was right behind them.

  “See that box on the floor at your feet?” she asked.

  He looked down to see a cardboard box about eight inches square. “Yes?”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d pick it up.”

  Amazingly, it didn’t seem like such a strange request, all things considered.

  He rattled the handcuff. “I’m not sure I can do it locked to your dash.”
r />   She shot a look at him. “Oh, I think you can handle it.”

  He wasn’t sure that was a compliment. Worse, it appeared she wasn’t ready to uncuff him.

  He lifted the box from the floor with his free hand. It was much heavier than he’d expected. “What’s in here—iron?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He turned back the cardboard flaps on the box. At first it looked like a box full of children’s jacks, the kind his sister used to play with. Only these jacks were huge. But as he looked closer he saw that the box was packed with sixteen-penny nails welded together and ends sharpened to make large, ugly-looking multi-sided spikes.

  He looked at her askance. He was in the construction business but had no idea where anyone would buy something like this, or let alone have it made. Or why anyone would want to.

  As she took a curve to the left, she rolled down her side window, grabbed the box from him and hefted it out the window.

  Stunned, he swung around just in time to see the box explode as it hit the blacktop. Spikes pelted the Buick’s windshield. An instant later, the Buick’s front tire blew and the car began to rock, then swerve. The Buick hit the ditch in a cloud of dust, burrowing into a small dirt hillside.

  “Wow,” the kid said. He’d unbuckled his seat belt and now stood looking back as the dust settled over the Buick. “Awesome.”

  Will pulled Just Zack down and got him buckled in again as Samantha slowed. She smiled down at the boy and gave him a high-five. The kid was grinning from ear to ear. This woman was not a good role model.

  “I’m Samantha but most people just call me ‘Sam.”’

  Just Zack turned shy.

  “And this is—” her gaze shifted to Will “—Will, an acquaintance of mine.”

  Passing acquaintance, he thought. What was going on? Why had she grabbed this kid? And who were those men? And more to the point, who was this woman?

  He realized he was getting a headache just trying to figure it all out. And what was the point? Obviously, she was all wrong for him.

  Absently, he considered what he might be doing right now if he’d listened to his sister’s advice. He glanced down at his left wrist to check the time. His watch was gone! How was that possible? He’d just had it.

  “My watch—”

  “Give it back, Zack,” Samantha ordered, not even looking at the boy.

  Zack let out a long-suffering sigh, reached into his jacket pocket and extracted the watch.

  Samantha snatched it from the kid and handed it to Will. “Sorry. I should have warned you.”

  Will stared down at the boy, then at Samantha. They both looked so…innocent.

  Samantha turned off the highway onto a dirt road.

  “There is a good explanation for all of this, right?” he asked, sounding pathetically hopeful. He glanced over at her when she didn’t answer.

  She no longer had the gun resting on her thighs. The late-afternoon sun slanted into the car, turning the wisps of hair around her face golden as she slowed the Firebird to an almost legal speed and glanced over to meet his gaze.

  “There is always an explanation. I’m just not sure it’s one you’re going to like.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  A fork in the road loomed ahead. Left would take her to the nearest town where she could get rid of Will. Right would put some distance between her and the kidnappers and take her to someplace safe for the night.

  Relatively safe, she amended. Being around Will made her feel anything but. He reminded her too much of her girlhood dreams of love, marriage, babies and happily ever after. All the things she didn’t want to be reminded of, especially right now. That’s why she’d like nothing better than to take Will into town and be done with him.

  “Just out of curiosity, how many men have you handcuffed to your dash?” he asked, jerking her from her dilemma.

  “Not that many,” she said, sounding defensive even to herself. Most males gave her a wide berth. Her mother said it was because she intimidated men. “Act helpless,” her mother advised. “Men like that. Look at your cousin Shelly. Men just flock to help her. Have you ever met a more helpless woman?”

  The truth was, she was no Shelly. She didn’t even think she could act that helpless.

  As she slowed for the fork in the road ahead, she felt Will studying her like a bug in a mason jar.

  You should never have kissed him!

  Oh? What would you suggest I should have done? Get us both killed?

  You could have told him the truth after the kiss.

  Oh, come on, give me a break. I thought I was never going to see him again. And anyway, I liked the kiss—

  “Hello?”

  She blinked and glanced over at him. He was looking at her oddly. She stared out over the hood and saw that she’d stopped in the middle of the road at the fork.

  “Well?” he asked, looking worried.

  She glanced down at Zack. He looked worried, as well. She smiled at him and winked as if to say, No problem here. But even as she hit the gas, she wasn’t sure she was making the right decision. That alone scared her.

  She took the fork to the right, heading for the hills. Will Sheridan be damned. She had to hide out for a while until the dust settled. Until she figured out what was going on. There was little doubt in her mind that something was wrong with this case.

  And as for Will—well, he’d just have to cool his heels, too. She still couldn’t believe he’d tracked her down—Let alone tracked her down to ask her for a date! Her luck with men definitely wasn’t improving.

  When he’d first gotten into the Firebird, she’d been so sure it was about her busting the commissioner at his sister’s party. Obviously he still didn’t realize what she’d been doing there. But when he did—

  She glanced over at him. What would he do? She’d thought she had him all figured out. Until he climbed into her car and refused to get out. From what she’d learned about the man, that was so far out of character that it wasn’t even in his solar system anymore.

  She eyed him, wondering what had caused such impetuous behavior.

  Hello? Remember the way you kissed him at the party?

  Come on, one little kiss?

  She narrowed her gaze at him. Did she have reason to be concerned about what he’d do next? No, she didn’t think she could expect any more surprises out of him. What you saw was what you got: a successful businessman in control of his normal everyday life and happy about it. Except, he didn’t look all that happy right now.

  She grimaced at the thought, as the Firebird left the pavement and barreled up the narrow dirt road toward the mountains. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Will’s brow shoot up. She ignored his pointed look.

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re not taking me to the next town where I can get out?”

  “We can’t go there just yet,” she said. “But trust me, I’m as anxious to let you out of this car as you are to get out.”

  “I highly doubt that.”

  She groaned inwardly, wishing they could have met under other circumstances—Who was she kidding? It wouldn’t have made any difference. Eventually he’d find out the truth about her, and a man like Will Sheridan wasn’t going to take that well.

  No reason to think about might-have-beens. She had to deal with now, and that was going to be challenging enough.

  * * *

  WILL LOOKED UP the empty road, at the sun setting behind distant low mountains, the day fading into the horizon. This was all his fault. What kind of fool spotted a woman at a party and followed her out to the patio with two full glasses of champagne, thinking to himself, This is the woman I’m going to marry?

  He didn’t even want to consider what kind of fool would get into her car and refuse to get out.

  Just a fool who knew what he wanted and went after it, the consequences be damned. He’d planned his life since before kindergarten, from when to become skilled at the alphabet to what point he should move on to the multiplication tab
les.

  In high school he’d decided he wanted to construct buildings and eventually start his own construction company. He wasn’t like his college friends who changed majors four times. Or who, unbelievably, started college not even knowing what they wanted to be.

  He couldn’t imagine letting life toss him around like a fallen leaf, blowing wherever the breeze took him. He had a plan—from the clothing he wore to the food he ate to the woman he wanted to marry.

  So what was he doing handcuffed to the dash of this woman’s Firebird? This had definitely not been in his plan.

  Worse yet, he’d never been so aware of a woman. Or less happy about it: the faint smell of her perfume, the soft sound of each breath, the warm pulsing air around her.

  Not that she was making it easy to ignore her. Especially the way she was dressed. What little her sparse clothing did leave to the imagination, he had no trouble supplying.

  But she was all wrong for his bride. That much was obvious. He wanted a woman with a career that at least complemented his. A woman who wanted to bear his children. Not steal someone else’s. A woman who didn’t carry a gun. Or beat up strange men in broad daylight in front of rest homes. Was he asking too much?

  God, I’ll bet she hasn’t even started a 401K, he thought miserably.

  He watched as she drove up a narrow dirt road as if she knew where she was going. He didn’t doubt she did.

  The road ended high on a mountainside at the bottom of a rock cliff. Through a stand of dark green ponderosa pines, he spotted a house set back against the cliff.

  He stared at the small wood-frame house with the two-car attached garage. The place appeared empty, the curtains drawn, no lights glowing behind them in the growing dusk.

  Samantha pulled up to the garage door on the left and reached under her seat. He half expected her to come out with a weapon again. Or a crowbar to break into the place. Nothing would have surprised him at that point.

  Except a garage-door opener. She hit the button, and the door groaned open, the light coming on inside to reveal a single empty bay separated from the other half of the garage by a wall with a door.

  “You live here?” he asked in shock.