by Eileen Green
Gleaming fixtures in the kitchen and the bathrooms surprised Brooke since the hardware in the kitchen had been what the assistant had said was the problem needing to be sorted out.
The house looked as if it was nearly ready to occupy. That both thrilled Brooke and ticked her off that she had made this trip for nothing. She had been pulled away from her men.
Bradley and Frank nearly demanded she wait until one of them was able to go with her, but she wanted to get this taken care of. She assured them she would be all right.
Heading back to Kalispell, Brooke hoped she would get back to town in time to join her men, who were in a meeting with security at SmartTab.
Only a couple miles away from the house, Brooke realized she wasn’t alone on the highway.
Bright lights in her rearview mirror were blinding as they zigzagged behind her. The person not only had their fog lights on along with their regular lights, but also their high beams were on. A row of lights were perched on top of what appeared to be a pickup if the height of the lights were any indication. On this dark, lonely stretch of highway, the lights were too much for Brooke.
Too tired to deal with assholes in a hurry, Brooke signaled and pulled onto the shoulder of the road. She thought the person would move around her and continue on their way.
The jolt to her truck surprised her as it was pushed farther from the road. She thought she had pulled far enough off the side of the road, but she realized quickly that the driver had intentionally hit her.
Brooke hit the gas and tried to speed away from the unknown assailant, but the other vehicle caught up to her, smashing into her rear end and sending her spinning. A scream split the air, surprising her as she tried to turn into the spiral. Once she was back on the road, she was at a diagonal but facing toward Kalispell. The lights on the other vehicle had been distinguished, yet Brooke could make out the outline of a truck built up high.
Fear raced through her as she sought her cell phone with her right hand and hit the gas, launching her forward. The dark truck moved forward at the same time she did, catching the bed of Brooke’s truck. This time, she didn’t spin. She was being pushed toward the drop on the other side of her.
Praying she would be able to get past the truck, she floored the gas and shot forward, her truck fishtailing wildly. Finally bringing the one-and-a-half-ton vehicle under control, Brooke sped toward town. In her rearview mirror, she could see the ghost of a truck coming up behind her again, panic clutching at her heart. Bringing her phone up so she could see the display, she hit Frank’s number with shaky fingers. Not expecting a call, she didn’t have her Bluetooth on, so she was trying to hold the phone to her ear as she sped along the highway.
Racing around a curve, she maneuvered the best she could, slowing her speed just a bit. The call connected when she heard a cheerful Frank say, “Well, hello, Brooke!”
Trying to hold the panic from her voice, she knew she didn’t do a good job of it. “Frank! I’m…” The thud on the back of her truck had her lurching forward, almost striking the steering wheel despite the confinement of the seat belt.
“Brooke? What’s wrong?” Exactly what she didn’t want to have happen did. He was instantly in panic mode.
“What’s going on?” she heard Bradley ask in the background.
When she lost control of the truck as the wheels hit the gravelly shoulder, she tried to correct her movement as she exclaimed, “Fuck!”
“Brooke, stay calm.” Fear etched Frank’s voice as it sounded as if he was on the move. “Where. Are. You?”
“Between town and my house!” That was all she got out before she tossed the phone in the shotgun seat. She needed her hands for the steering wheel.
Gripping it tightly, she tried to get the truck back on the pavement but didn’t do well. The tires on the right side were still tossing gravel, which told her they were still on the shoulder. She veered farther into the road until she felt smoothness on both sides. She gunned the engine.
It was then she realized she didn’t see the truck that had hit her. No hulking dark mass was on the road either.
“Did I lose them?” she asked out loud to no one in particular.
“Brooke!” she heard faintly and remembered her phone. “Brooke?”
Blindly, she searched the seat for the small device. Feeling the smooth plastic surface, she picked it up with shaky fingers and held it to her ear. “Frank? Someone tried to…”
The thud on her side of the truck was deafening as metal and fiberglass crunched. The force of the impact thrust her body to the side. The seat belt did its job, but it dug into her flesh while her hip was ground into the middle console.
As if in slow motion, she felt the truck being pushed off the road. It then tipped first on the passenger side when it lost contact with terra firma, and soon the driver’s side followed. A scream ripped from her as the vehicle began to roll.
Chapter Nineteen
Fear knotted in Frank’s belly. He tried to remain calm as he sped down the highway, but he felt like decking his best friend if Bradley asked him one more time what Brooke had said before the cell connection went dead.
He had heard the unearthly thud as she spoke, and his heart flew to his throat, threatening to choke him. They were already out the door of the hotel when she had screamed and the connection was lost. Not bothering with the elevator, they had taken the beautiful wooden stairs despite Bradley’s grunts and hisses from the pain of his own injury.
Although the highway patrol had been called, Bradley couldn’t give an exact location of the incident because they didn’t know where Brooke was. After Bradley identified himself, the dispatcher connected him with Brian Hawthorne at Bradley’s insistence. Explaining what had taken place on the phone call, Brian immediately contacted units in the area. Supposedly, units from both directions were moving toward them to help in the search.
Bradley was Frank’s eyes, looking for anything that might appear out of place, even in the dark. Several times Frank slowed when Bradley thought he saw something. At one point, he pulled off into a driveway because the gravel looked displaced. The longer they looked, the more anxious he became.
A gnawing fear had been building in his stomach since he had heard Brooke’s frantic voice when he had answered the phone. When he had heard the crunch of metal combined with her scream, anger mixed with fear had consumed him. He prayed they wouldn’t lose her before they had a chance to show her how much they loved her.
“There!” Bradley called out as he pointed across the road, his other hand reaching into the pocket on the passenger door. He pulled out a flashlight.
From the dim light that shone from the moon, Frank could see skid marks that went all the way to the gravel on the shoulder of the road. But they weren’t from a vehicle veering off the road. They were straight across the road, from one side to the other. The gravel had been displaced by tires moving sideways down the embankment. Skidding to a stop at an angle so that Bradley’s Yukon sat across both lanes, he could see the destruction of damaged trees.
Despite his own injury, Bradley jumped from the SUV and was running for the shoulder of the road before Frank had the vehicle in park. Frank was right behind the Brit, raising his phone to his ear and waiting for Brian to answer.
“Shit!” he heard Bradley exclaim as he came to an abrupt stop at the edge of the road, the beam of the flashlight spotlighting the damaged trees about ten feet away from the road.
Mutilated branches and trunks indicated recent damage, and when Bradley skimmed the light downward, the evidence came in the form of Brooke’s damaged truck.
The beams of her headlights were dim and directed at different angles, but neither showed up toward the road.
Bradley started down the embankment as a voice sounded in Frank’s ear. “Frank? You there?” Brian asked as if he had missed Brian asking the first time.
Snapping back to reality from his shock of seeing Brooke’s truck, Frank answered quickly. “Yes. I’m here, B
rian. We found her. We’re going to need a tow truck and an ambulance about nine miles south of Kalispell. Her truck is down an embankment. Also, looks like someone pushed her off the road. We’ll need a CSI unit out here.”
“Jesus Christ!” Brian exclaimed. “There should be a unit there within a minute or two. I’ll get a bus and a tow out there immediately. How’s Brooke?”
“Don’t know. Bradley’s on his way down to her.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in a few.”
“Roger that,” Frank said before hitting the disconnect button on the phone and shoved it in his back pocket.
Knowing someone needed to wait for the officer to arrive, Frank stood on the shoulder and watched as Bradley made his way to the broken truck.
* * * *
His heart was pounding so hard in his chest, he was expecting it to break some ribs any second. Carefully he moved down the grassy embankment, occasionally sidestepping broken pieces from the truck that were scattered about. He ignored the pulls and twinges of pain in his leg, for Brooke was more important.
Arriving at the driver’s side, he could see that the window had been broken and the mirror was missing. He shone the torch in the window.
The organ in his chest missed a beat when he saw Brooke lying at an angle toward the passenger seat, the belt holding her from completely falling over.
Blood was oozing from the side of her head above her ear. A bruise was developing on her cheek and forehead.
“Brooke!” he exclaimed.
There was no answer. She was so still, her eyes closed, that Bradley was afraid the worst had happened.
Trying to open the door, he found it wouldn’t budge. Looking across the cab, he could see that the truck had come to rest against some trees, the passenger door blocked by a thick tree trunk.
Sirens faintly reached his ears in the still cold air. He had to hope one of them was an ambulance and a fire truck to help get his woman out of the truck.
The sirens stopped just up the embankment, and it wasn’t long before streaks of light moved above him, settling on the pickup. He hadn’t realized how dark it had gotten while he tried to get to his lover.
Leaves crackled and branches snapped as what sounded like several people made their way down the small hill. It was only moments before a firefighter in full gear, save his mask, and a similarly dressed man minus his helmet came to a stop on both sides of him. Bradley recognized the latter man as Jake Ramsey, from one of poly groups in the area. His friend Andrew Collins was most likely up top waiting for a report on triage.
“Hey, man,” Jake said as his gloved hand slapped Bradley on the shoulder. “What have we got?”
“Brooke’s unconscious,” Bradley responded, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. He knew it wasn’t a time to lose his wits. “The other side of the truck is flush up against a tree, and I can’t get this door open.”
“Best bet is to break open the window and pull her out,” the other firefighter said as he gently pushed Bradley out of the way.
An ax was in the other man’s hand in a flash. As he raised it, Jake sheltered Bradley with his body, shielding him from the shattered glass he brought forth. Two strikes sounded, and then the tinkling of more glass. There was a thudding sound and then a creaking of metal.
Once Jake released Bradley and he had turned, the window in the door had been decimated, and the door itself had been pried open.
The firefighter removed his helmet and tossed it to the side, revealing himself to be Morgan, another in one of the poly groups. He, his partner, Kyle, and their woman, Lily, lived in Kalispell. Bradley had met him when they were all trying to rescue Brooke from her captors, but he had been aloof because his partner had been kidnapped himself, shot, and then left for dead.
“All right,” Morgan said as he laid his ax aside also. “I’m going to pull her out gently and have Jake check her before we take her up the hill.”
Bradley wanted to help, but he knew it was better for Brooke to let the professionals conduct their jobs.
“How’s she doing?” he heard Frank call down from above. His voice was shaky.
“We’re taking her out of the vehicle right now,” Morgan called back. “We’ll know in a minute.”
“Andrew, bring down the board and a neck brace. We’ll triage up there,” Jake yelled at his partner.
“Sure thing!” Andrew responded.
Morgan moved carefully into the opening of where the door used to be. After releasing the seat belt that held her in, he carefully pulled Brooke up into a seated position against him as Jake eased in next to him. Bradley could tell that the latter was going over her injuries as best he could.
Sound coming from up by the road alerted Bradley to another person coming down, most likely Andrew. It was only a moment before the man himself arrived carrying the two things Jake had requested.
“Nothing seems to be broken,” Bradley heard Jake say. “We just need to take precautions.”
Quietly the men worked in unison. With slow precision, Jake slipped the white collar around Brooke’s neck to stabilize it in transit. Once that was done, Morgan and Jake carefully slid Brooke out of the cab of her truck and onto the board Andrew had positioned between them.
Bradley moved in to the grasp a corner of the board to help the other three men carry his woman up to the waiting ambulance. A moan emanated from her as if pain was registering within her. Bradley hated the thought of hurting her any more than she already did, but it had to be done to get her to safety.
The light was near blinding when the small group set foot onto the blacktopped road. Lights from the firetruck and ambulance, with their siren lights still flashing, along with Bradley’s Yukon illuminated the area.
Frank rushed up to Bradley’s side, his anxiety showing. “How’s she doing?”
“We’ll know in a minute,” Morgan responded.
The four of them set the board down on the gurney that Andrew had waiting for them. Bradley took a step back, as did Frank, and they let the two EMTs perform their job. Morgan disappeared back down the embankment, probably to get the equipment he left behind.
There wasn’t much triage to be done. No broken bones. No major lacerations. Blood pressure was good. The only issue was the bump behind her ear that was bleeding.
“One of you can ride with her,” Jake said as he and Andrew loaded Brooke into the ambulance.
Glancing at Frank, Bradley gave a quick nod toward the open back doors of the vehicle. “Why don’t you go ahead? I’ll meet you there.”
Frank nodded his gratefulness before stepping up into the truck. Frank sat on the bench across from the gurney and reached out for Brooke’s hand. Bradley could tell his friend was distraught, almost as much as he was. Bradley just knew that they had to let their friends do their jobs. Once at the hospital, there were going to be more people helping their woman, and they would have to rely on everyone’s expertise to help the woman they loved.
* * * *
“Mr. Smith,” she heard vaguely through a dark haze. “Mr. Smith?”
Fluttering her eyes, Brooke opened them to find a curvy blonde standing in front of Bradley. Her dark blue eyes registered a bit of concern as she looked down at him.
“Mr. Smith, Doctor Anderson will be out to see you in a moment. He’s finishing up Miss Alton’s paperwork.”
Brooke had seen this nurse before. It was the last time she had been here in the hospital last July. She remembered a very large man was interested in the woman. Brooke had to wonder how that was going.
Bradley reached out to find Brooke’s hand as if he was wanting to make sure she was still there.
“Hi,” he said groggily. “How are you feeling?”
Bradley hadn’t left her side since she regained consciousness several hours ago. Frank hadn’t either, until Brooke began to hear grumbling stomachs. He did finally go to seek out some caffeinated reinforcements and some snacks.
“I’m good. Just a little bump.” Thankf
ully, there was only the bump. It could have been a lot worse. Thank God for seat belts and airbags.
“Good. Once we get you home, you’ll be taking a break from work for a couple of days.”
Nodding, she smiled as she agreed with him. “Of course. I’m in need of a vacation anyway.”
Both men had told her how they had gone out looking for her. Bradley had run down a hill to get to her truck, most likely hurting his leg in the process if the constant swipe of his hand across his thigh was any indication.
“Did you hurt yourself again?” she asked as she brought Bradley’s hand up to her lips and kissed the knuckles.
Her Brit lover opened his hand and cupped her cheek lovingly. “It hurts some, but at least the scar didn’t pull open. It’s not bleeding.”
Demurely, she pressed her face into his hand. “Thank you for saving me.”
Bradley leaned forward and added his other hand to her face. “I would die to make sure you are safe, love. Don’t ever doubt that.”
“I won’t. You and Frank have shown your love in so many ways. I am so blessed to have you both in my life.”
“We’re lucky to have you in ours also, sweetheart.” Frank was standing in the doorway holding a tray of food.
The blush seeped up on her from her chest on up to her face. She would never take their love for granted. She would show them every day for the rest of her life.
Frank entered the room fully and set the tray on the rolling table halfway over Brooke’s bed. He handed a steaming cup of brew to Bradley before handing a cup to Brooke. “I got you some hot cocoa,” he said to her. “I thought you probably needed it instead of coffee. I also got some pastries.”
The three of them sat in silence as they ate and drank, waiting until the nurse returned with Brooke’s release paperwork. Once she was sprung, her men took her back to the hotel where she was put to bed and let sleep wash over her.
Chapter Twenty
Killer dress, low-cut of course!