Closer To You (Callaways Book 11)

by Barbara Freethy

  Two more turns; another straight away. Up ahead she saw a few houses in the trees by the river, a road leading down to them. The car behind them hadn't come around the last bend. They had one chance.

  "Turn there," she shouted, pointing to the road across the highway.

  Ian shot across the pavement with the quickest reflexes she'd ever imagined. Then he did something more terrifying—he turned off the lights.

  Seventeen

  Grace tensed for impact, sure that the many trees flying by her window would somehow end up crushing them. She knew that Ian didn't want to hit the brakes for fear the lights would give them away, but there was a solid chance that this move might kill them.

  Branches cracked against her window as the car bounced off rocks and brush. They were slowing down but not fast enough. Suddenly they were off the road, going down a slippery slope, and then they slammed into something hard. She let out a scream as she was thrown forward. The car came to a crashing halt as the airbag hit her in the chest, and her neck snapped back and forth on her shoulders.

  She didn't know if she passed out for a second, but suddenly she was very aware of the dark silence. "Ian, Ian," she said, finding her voice as she pushed at the airbag so she could see him. "Are you all right?"

  It was dark in the car, only slivers of light peeking through the trees that surrounded them.

  Ian moved his head, blinked. "Grace?"

  Her heart flooded with relief. "Are you okay?"

  "No idea," he muttered. "You?"

  Nothing felt incredibly painful, and she seemed to be able to move her fingers and toes. "I think so." She looked out the window. "We hit a tree."

  "One? It felt like a dozen."

  She looked through the shattered windshield. The front of the car was smashed in, folded up like an accordion. Thank God the structure of the car had held up enough to save their lives.

  She unfastened her seat belt and turned to look behind her. She saw an incline rising up behind them, but the highway was nowhere in view. That was probably a good thing.

  She reached out her hand to Ian.

  His fingers curled around hers.

  "Do you think we lost them?" she asked.

  "I hope so."

  They didn't speak for two more minutes. In fact, she was pretty sure she was holding her breath for most of that time.

  At any moment, she expected to see lights, a car coming off the highway, someone with a flashlight peering down the hill. Then what would they do?

  They waited another few moments. She wanted to get out of the car. She wanted to get to safety. She wanted to try to find her phone, but she felt like any movement, any flash of light could give their position away.

  Ian was also still, waiting, watching, barely breathing.

  "I think we're good," he said finally. "We need to get out of the car."

  "And go where?"

  "Wherever this road goes. I don't think the car is drivable, even if we could get back up the hill. But we can't stay here. It's starting to snow."

  He was right. She hadn't registered the shimmery flakes of snow until just now. "But we can't just wander around the forest."

  "I saw some houses before we turned. We'll look for help."

  "If whoever was following us doesn't see us on the highway, they might circle back, try to figure out where we turned off."

  "Hopefully, the snow will cover our tracks."

  "Then I'm going to start wishing for a blizzard."

  "Don't make that wish until we get somewhere dry. I don't want freezing to death to be one of our alternatives."

  "Good point."

  "Let's see if we can find some shelter. Can you get out?"

  She tried her door, but it wouldn't budge past the tree next to her. "Not on my side."

  He managed to open his door after a few attempts and got out of the car. "I can take a walk, Grace, and then come back and get you."

  "No way. I am not staying here alone. We're sticking together, remember?"

  "Can you climb across the console?"

  "Yes." It took her some awkward and clumsy maneuvering, but she managed to get herself and her handbag out of the car. As her feet hit the ground, she looked around. They'd gone off the road they'd been on and were about thirty feet down a hill. She could hear the sound of water in the distance, which meant they weren't too far from the river.

  She pulled out her phone and checked the bars. "No signal."

  "Mine, either," he said with a frown, slipping the phone back into his pocket. "Maybe if we get to higher ground, we'll have more success."

  Ian led the way up the slippery, rocky hillside. It took them about ten minutes to get to the top and by the time they reached the road, her hair was wet from the drizzling snow and her fingers were very, very cold. Looking down the road, she was happy to see that the highway was still not visible. If the person following them had seen them make the turn, they would have been here by now, which made her feel marginally better.

  "Let's see what's up ahead," Ian said, taking her hand as they walked through the trees.

  It was cold and dark, with blustery gusts of wind and snow. Slivers of light went in and out of the clouds. It was during one of those brief moments that she saw three houses set along the river. All of them were dark. They climbed up the steps to the first house. It was completely boarded up.

  They moved on, finding the same situation at the other two houses. The third house was tucked back even farther into the hillside and behind another row of trees. There were a few boards over the front window, but around the back they found a window near ground level that was uncovered. After a few tries, Ian was able to jimmy the lock and raise the window up high enough for them to climb inside.

  Ian went first, then pulled her in after him. They landed in a bedroom. There was a double bed covered with a plaid quilt and a tall dresser, but no other furniture in the room. Ian used the flashlight on his phone to move through the rest of the house, which was basically only three rooms: a combination living room-kitchenette and a small bathroom along with the bedroom. The furnishings in every room were sparse. It was definitely a rustic cabin and felt masculine. There were fishing pictures on the walls, a brown leather couch in the living room, and a worn recliner in front of a television that had to be at least twenty years old.

  But it was shelter, so she wasn't going to complain.

  "This will work," Ian said, as he looked around. He took out his phone. "Still no signal, though. What about you?"

  She checked her phone and shook her head. "Nope. Maybe we should go back out toward the highway. We can call Officer Stanford. He'll send someone to come and get us."

  "We'd be taking a huge chance if the person following us circles back and sees us."

  "But we're going to need assistance to get out of here."

  "And we'll get it. But we have to be smart about it."

  "You're not the only one with a brain, Ian," she snapped, mostly because she was tired and scared and feeling completely overwhelmed. She wanted to yell at someone, and he was there.

  "Grace."

  "What?" she demanded.

  He walked over to her and put his arms around her.

  She resisted for a moment, but his warmth was too appealing to resist. The stiffness of her body went out of her as she slid her arms around his waist, and they held each other for a long minute. It was really exactly what she'd needed.

  "Damn you," she said, but there was a lightness in her voice now.

  "For what?" he asked warily.

  "For being right. For knowing what I needed."

  A slow smile curved his mouth. "I hardly think that's worth a damn you."

  "I want to be mad at you, because I'm really angry, and I don't know where to put the emotion."

  "You can put it on me. I can take it."

  "But you don't deserve it. I'm sorry. I'm scared."

  "Don't apologize, Grace. I was silently cursing you a little while ago."

&nb
sp; "Really? Why?"

  "Because I wanted to be mad at you, too, for upending my life—the life I keep really good control over. But none of this is your fault. If anything, it's mine for trying to be a bridge between you and your dad."

  "He's the one we should both be mad at," she said.

  "We'll tell him when we see him."

  "If we can get there. That's not looking too good right now."

  "Things will be clearer in the light. We can hike up to wherever we can get a signal and call for help. If we have to get a police escort to the airport, then I'll find a way to make that happen."

  Judging by the steel in his voice, she had a feeling he would do that. "Okay." She stepped away from him. "So I guess we're staying here tonight." She walked over to the lamp and tried to turn it on. "There's no electricity."

  "Just as well. We don't want to turn on any lights. Let's see if there are some candles."

  "I'll look for blankets," she said, heading to the closet. "It's going to get colder, but this will be better than the car."

  She found stacks of blankets in the hall closet, for which she was eternally grateful. She took them out to the couch and sat down. Ian had found a pack of candles in the kitchen as well as matches. He lit one of the candles and put it on the coffee table.

  "Do you think it's too much light?" she asked.

  "I'll take a look from the outside. I want to go back to the car and get the cooler."

  As much as she wanted water and some snacks, she didn't care to be left alone. "I'll go with you."

  "You're freezing already."

  "So are you. Don't argue. I'm your shadow tonight, remember?"

  "You are a stubborn woman," he muttered.

  She smiled. "And you're a stubborn man. Let's go."

  They left the small candle burning as they went out the front door. Checking it from the outside, they couldn't see any light behind the boards. The back might be a different story, but at least from here the house appeared unoccupied.

  They went back down the road. As they neared the incline where they had gone over the side, Ian paused. They waited in silence for a few minutes to make sure no one was around, then they scrambled down the hillside. Seeing the car again made her realize how closely they'd come to a more fatal outcome. Tonight had certainly been a night of near misses. She just hoped that bad things didn't really come in threes, because the first two events had almost killed her.

  Ian grabbed the cooler out of the back seat, then opened the trunk. "Do you want your overnight bag?"

  "No, I'm good with these clothes, and it will be too hard to get it up the hill."

  "Can you carry this?" he asked, putting a box into her hands.

  "Yes, but what's inside?"

  "My great-grandfather's journals. This is the box your father sent me. It's been in my trunk all week. I kept meaning to get it out and look through it, but there never seemed to be time."

  "And there's time now?"

  "I'm going to make time. The only places that were never searched were our cars, and that's where you had your puzzle box and where this box has been. I should have looked through it before. I don't think it's important, but you never know." He paused. "Before we go…" He pulled some heavy branches off the ground and across the roof of the car.

  She quickly realized he was trying to hide the vehicle. She set down the box so she could help. They couldn't completely cover it, but unless someone looked very closely, they wouldn't see it from the road. Then she grabbed the box while Ian swung the cooler strap over his shoulder and they made their way up the hill.

  The snow was coming down harder when they reached the road, and she was happy to see an inch of the white flakes covering the road they'd driven down earlier. Hopefully, no one would ever realize where they'd made their turn.

  When they got back to the cabin, Ian locked the front door and then went into the attached garage to find some blocks of wood, which he hammered up against the window they'd climbed through earlier.

  While he was doing that, she grabbed a bottle of water and some cheese and crackers from the cooler and then rummaged in the kitchen for a knife and a couple of plates. By the time Ian returned to the living room, she had snacks ready to go.

  "It's not much," she said, "but if you're hungry…"

  "I am."

  He sat down on the couch next to her as they ate, and finally, she started to relax.

  "My heart rate is going back to normal," she told him, settling back against the couch. "I'm sure yours recovered within five minutes. You're a very calm person."

  "Tonight it was more like fifteen minutes," he said with a wry smile. "But I try to think through the fear."

  "I wish I could get better at that."

  "Or we could just get rid of the scary situations," he returned.

  "Or we could do that," she agreed. "I just don't know how. I feel like every minute gets worse, and I don't know why. We're racing a clock, but we don't know how much time we have left."

  He frowned. "Okay, that kind of talk is not going to be good for your racing heart."

  She smiled and blew out a breath. "You're right—again. I need to think about something else."

  "You do."

  "Okay. What do you think your brother is going to say when you tell him you smashed his car?"

  "A lot of bad words. But Dylan is the one who insisted I take it. I had to have some repairs done on my car, and he said take the Mustang, have some fun for once in your life."

  "I wish you could say you were having fun when you crashed it. I think the car is beyond repair."

  "I'm sure of it. But I'm grateful we were in it. We needed that horsepower to make our turn. I'll have to pay Dylan back. But I will say that out of everyone in the family, he'd probably appreciate the move I made on the highway more than anyone. He loves fast cars. At one time, I thought he'd be a race car driver instead of a firefighter."

  "He's a thrill seeker?"

  "Actually, I'd call my brother Hunter the thrill seeker. Dylan is more restrained, but he loves speed. The only place he lets loose is on the racetrack. I think it's his outlet for stress. But we don't talk about it."

  "Why not?"

  "Because we don't talk about our feelings, Grace."

  "Not macho enough?" she teased.

  He took a swig of water. "My dad always said actions speak louder than words. Don't talk about what you want to do; do it. We all took that to heart in some way."

  "That's a good philosophy." She leaned over to brush a strand of hair away from his bruised forehead. "You have a bump." She gently ran her fingers over it. "I hope you don't have a concussion."

  "I'm fine. I've hit my head harder than this."

  "On what? A physics problem?"

  He laughed. "You're feeling better."

  "I am. I'm starting to appreciate the fact that I'm alive. I just hope there isn't a third strike."

  "I think we're safe here for the moment, Grace. If they'd seen us come down the road, they'd have been here already. With the storm picking up, they'll probably have to get off the road until morning."

  "That would be good." She licked her lips, still feeling the adrenaline rushing through her body, and she thought she had a good idea on how to burn it off. She leaned forward and kissed him.

  His surprise didn't last more than a second as he put his hands on her head, taking the kiss deeper. She fell back against the couch cushions, and he went with her. She loved the feel of his hard body on hers, and as she ran her hands up under his sweater, his skin heated up with her touch.

  Ian lifted his head for a second, his gaze searching. "Grace? Are you sure?"

  "Didn't you just tell me actions speak louder than words? Don't talk about what you want, just do it. I want us—together, the way we were last night. I want that more than anything."

  "That's the perfect answer."

  She laughed. "I'm not as smart as you, but I get some questions right. Now show me what you want."

 
; "Oh, I will show you," he promised as he kissed her mouth and started a fire that would burn all night.

  Eighteen

  Ian woke up as dawn was starting to break. He wanted to get up and out on the road early, but as he glanced at Grace curled up against him on the couch where they'd spent the night, he felt like she could use a few more minutes of happy sleep before she had to deal with reality. He carefully slid away from her.

  She muttered something sleepily as he got up, but then she just rolled onto her side and fell back asleep. He fixed the blanket around her bare body before heading to the bathroom to change. Once he was dressed, he returned to the living room and sat down on the recliner. The box he'd been lugging around since he'd left San Francisco was sitting on the floor next to the chair.

  He opened the box and picked up the journal on top. The leather-bound book was very old, the cover scratched, the pages faded. He could hardly believe the year printed on the first page, 1918, almost a hundred years ago. His great-grandfather had been a teenager at the time, and throughout the journal, he'd jotted down experiments, ideas, sketching out things he wanted to do.

  In between those pages of science, he talked about his hopes and his dreams. He kept changing his mind on what kind of science he wanted to do, but Ian could feel his energy, his desire to learn, his obsession with invention and change in every page.

  As he read through each journal, he grew more and more impressed. Donald Rafferty had certainly been prolific, filling page after page with his thoughts. There were certainly some interesting ideas in there, too. A few gave him pause as he realized that his great-grandfather had actually been ahead of his time, dreaming of things that would be invented fifty years later.

  He wished he could tell his great-grandfather what had happened after his death, answer the questions he'd written up in his notes. It made him think about the questions he had now and how they might be answered one day in the future. Science was always evolving…mostly for the better, but sometimes for the worse.

  "What are you doing?" Grace asked, interrupting his thoughts. She sat up on the couch, wrapping the blanket around her body as she gave him a sleepy smile.