by Unknown
Right after that, she needed to disappear forever.
Jayla turned the car south on Interstate 15, and headed toward Conrad. Thankful Wild hadn’t settled at the main section of the Dancing Star Ranch closer to Rimrock, she speeded on. Everyone in Rimrock knew her, knew the lies she’d told. She’d never be up to facing that, and certainly not right now. Maybe one day, when she felt stronger in her mind.
However, her destination wasn’t the little city of Conrad either. Right before reaching the city limits, she turned west on Highway 44 until it met U.S. Highway 89. Dupuyer set at the base of the Rockies on the east side. However, she had no intention of going all the way into Dupuyer, but rather kept an eye out for the barely-there turnoff she needed that’d take her to what had once been an old wagon road. From there, she’d be on the farthermost western edge of the Dancing Star, and the section of the ranch Wild had inherited.
If luck stayed with her, she’d reach her objective before dark. Close now, close enough to her goal she could smell it—so close, yet still so far away.
The snow the weatherman predicted while she’d downed coffee from her thermos arrived, ruthlessly plunging the temperature to near zero, slowing traffic to a crawl. Even so, luck remained on her side. So far, she hadn’t had to stop and have chains put on her tires, but if the snow turned to freezing rain or sleet, or continued piling up like it threatened with every flake that fell, she’d have no choice. It never paid to underestimate Mother Nature. In this part of the country, she ruled like a bitchy Ice Queen.
Jayla’s shoulders slumped. Exhausted, she was damn tired of running. Did she have a choice? Nope. Not today. Not yesterday, and most likely, not tomorrow. If she stopped running, stopped hiding, she died. It was that plain, that simple, and that scary.
She nibbled on her lower lip. She’d given up on lip-gloss days ago. The thought of Kane Masters coming after her was even more frightening than getting shot. Everywhere he went, someone died—a regular Grim Reaper that one.
Why hadn’t she seen him for the cold-blooded bastard he was?
She snorted.
Why?
He’d cloaked himself in sheep’s clothing when really, he was a dark, dangerous wolf—a complex hunter of the weaker prey. He struck without warning, without mercy, and because she’d been blinded by the man, she’d allowed herself to be separated from friends, herded like a lamb to slaughter.
She needed rescuing.
For a very little while, Kane had been her hero, until she’d seen beneath the smooth veneer to the layer of ice, death, and destruction. What a trusting fool she’d been, and the thing was, she should have known better.
Jayla sniffed and knuckled away the tears that threatened. Kane Masters had lost his humanity. Deep inside, where things should matter—they didn’t. Yeah, he’d lost his humanity, and he’d almost cost her hers. The suspicions she had about him were too horrible to contemplate, but in her heart, she knew they were all true.
Swearing, Jayla ordered herself not to second guess the decisions she’d made once upon a time. There was nothing she could do to change those stupid mistakes. She’d been trying to survive then, just like she was trying to survive now. She couldn’t bear to think about her role in everything back then. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Certainly she couldn’t undo the damage she’d done. Living with the guilt every single day seemed like just punishment. She accepted that, but it gnawed at her soul like a hungry beast.
Oh God, if only she’d realized sooner what a monster he was, then maybe she wouldn’t carry around this terrible burden, the self-reproach, or this awful emptiness that’d never be filled again.
Three nights ago, she’d left the D.C. area with a bulletin her shoulder that plunged her into a nightmare of white-hot pain, and a dead woman’s blood staining her clothes. Too frightened to seek treatment, the bullet remained lodged in her shoulder. Her arm hurt like a mother, and the hired gun was hell-bent on finishing the job he’d started.
She’d seen too much, knew too much.
Powerful people in high places wouldn’t stop until she lay dead and buried. She wasn’t about to go to a hospital where doctors would have to report a gunshot wound. From there, it’d be too easy, and just a matter of time before Kane tracked her down. He excelled at that sort of thing.
So many lies. So many wasted years. But time marched on as time did. There was nothing left of the young girl she’d once been, nothing remained of her innocence where Kane Masters and her stepfather, Senator Hamilton Ross, were concerned. Her blinders were off now, if she’d ever worn any. What she saw, what she knew about them, about herself, was ugly and evil.
Jayla cut off the sob that threatened to choke her. “God, please give me time to fix at least this one horrid lie I told.”
Quickly she glanced in the rear-view mirror and sighed—nothing behind her on this snowbound, mountainous, friggin’ Montana highway that was quite possibly the evil twin to Donner Pass. She bit her lower lip. All she wanted was a warm bed, a hot meal, and someone to love her. Was that asking too much? A sob caught in her throat. She swiped at an angry tear. Damn it, was she such a horrible person that she was unworthy of love? If she had to answer her own question, then yes, she was undeserving. She had no doubts Wild Remington considered her quite contemptible.
And Kane—
Kane Masters would never stop searching for her. So therefore, the urgency to keep moving was neither imagined nor easily ignored. She had no choice other than to keep moving. Driving in these conditions shattered her nerves. Jayla gripped the steering wheel, her body tense. Stress had the nape of neck feeling tight and in knots. Her shoulders ached from long hours of driving.
She needed to relax.
She wasn’t used to driving in this kind of terrain, and she never drove in bad weather. Give her straight-line asphalt without curves, dips, or dangerous rocky cliffs hugging the narrow sides of the highway. Distractions were deadly as sin, and boy, she should know. She’d had plenty of experience indulging the velvety taste of dark sin. Hell, her life—what time she had left to live it—was a freakin’ disaster.
Death waited for her, and he was a patient sonofabitch! It was just a question of when he showed his skeletal face. One outran a bullet for only so long. She was far from adept at hiding. Lord willing, there was something she wanted to do before she left this world. God knew she owed Wild Remington an explanation. He deserved to know why she lied on the witness stand seven years ago and ruined his life. She needed to go back to the beginning and purge herself of the guilt—the only one she could still seek forgiveness for, maybe then she’d feel a little better about herself.
Focusing her attention on what was in front of her, she narrowed her eyes. Mumbling, she steadily cursed the lumbering SUV in front of her. The single vehicle lurched along like a log wagon, dark-colored, with the slowpoke driver from hell behind the wheel.
Why anyone chose this dangerous stretch of winding asphalt to sight-see this time of year was beyond her comprehension, but it was exactly what the driver ambling along without regard to self-danger was doing.
“Sure, I have to be the one behind you.” Jayla clenched the steering wheel a little tighter. Frustration ate at her and left her on edge.
With the snow piled high on the outside lane, her side of the highway was it, follow the snail or stop. Since there was nowhere to pull over and park, thanks to the straight up, jagged rock wall on her right, she had little choice but to follow the slug. Her mother would have told her if she wanted to lead, she should have started out earlier.
Well, she hadn’t started earlier, so she took revenge by glaring at the SUV’s tags. “Oklahoma.” First chance she got she was lowering the passenger side window, flipping off the driver, and yelling, “Go back to Oklahoma or learn to drive!”
Jayla scowled, wrinkling her brow. Her fingers clung to the wheel as if they were glued to the steering mechanism. For three days she’d traveled, barely taking a moment to relax or let do
wn her guard, stopping at out-of-the-way places to grab a bite to eat or catch a few hours of sleep. Mostly, she tried to avoid people by ordering meals at a drive-thru or skipping them all together.
Her arm felt heavy, as if an iron weight roped it down. She was pretty sure the bullet had lodged in the meaty muscle of her shoulder, or maybe she simply had a bad infection. It wasn’t like she’d been able to rush to a hospital and have the site looked at. No, her first thought had been to get out of D.C.
Somehow, she’d managed to scrape out of the precious Jackie suit she wore to the Vintage Party, ruined now, and shimmied into a pair of old jeans and a red sweatshirt she’d left on the backseat of her car.
God, she’d felt like a flippin’ orphan—homeless, nowhere to hide. The spare clothes she had in her luggage were mostly all beach wear, sandals, and evening wear. Somewhere along the way, she decided she had little choice but to splurge the money she’d saved for the trip to Hawaii with Samantha Rivers and buy some warmer clothes.
Maybe splurge was too strong a word.
No doubt she needed to be thrifty and save her money, much wiser to buy some cheap winter clothes, purchase a couple pair of jeans, two or three T-shirts, a sturdy pair of shoes and keep moving. She stopped once to make a quick purchase of those items, plus three pairs of slacks, underwear, and other things she needed, but they were all cheapies, purchased at a well-known discount store.
She detested cotton underwear. First chance she got, a self-treat, frilly, silk undies, classy jeans that hugged her butt just right and sexy blouses that clung to her full breasts. Nothing felt better than the brush of silk against a woman’s skin to make her feel sexy, unless it was a man’s body pressing intimately inside her.
The vacation she’d planned with her friend, Sam, was shot to hell, but out of those ashes rose the opportunity to apologize to Wild.
One good thing, and thank God for it, she had plenty of cash in her wallet or Kane would have already found her. The first thing he’d check for was a paper trail. Huh. Well she was smart enough not to use her cell phone or her credit cards, opting instead to pay cash for everything. She’d done her best to remain inconspicuous, but there was bound to be someone who’d remember her along the way.
Where did a person run to when she’d witnessed the First Lady of the United States gunned down in a hotel elevator?
How far did she run?
And who the hell did she trust?
The answers were simple—she couldn’t run too far or too fast, and she didn’t dare trust anyone.
But she needed help.
God knew she’d spent years looking out for number one, never asking anyone for help. She was pretty sure she couldn’t do this one all by herself, and the weight of it crushed her down. The scope of it was huge, overwhelming, and right now, she felt pretty small.
There was only one person she could think of who—even though he despised her—wouldn’t leave her to fend for herself in a sea of sharks.
Why she thought, believed Wild Remington might help her was insane. The man hated her. He had just cause to loathe her, but the one thing about him she knew for certain was that he also possessed integrity. The John Wayne of Montana, Wild was a man with true grit. Honorable. The most decent man she’d ever met.
His principles were what put her in such a tangle to begin with. She counted on that same nobility to save her life, but supported it with prayers just in case. She didn’t think he’d turn his back on her—not again, but best not to depend on her hunches.
Hitting a patch of black ice, Jayla drew a short breath when her car suddenly skidded toward the rock wall at a cockeyed angle. Gasping, she fought to turn the wheel in the opposite direction. She sighed, her shoulders slumping as she pulled the vehicle out of the impending spin and crash, but every movement sent shards of pain ripping through her poor abused shoulder.
“Damn ice! Damn snow! Swear to God, if I see one more snowplow barreling down the opposite side of the highway, I’ll scream.” Why weren’t they clearing her side of the road where all the traffic was moving? Jayla snorted. “All the traffic?” Okay, so maybe there were all of two vehicles buzzing down the highway in her lane, but so what? They were buzzing. The only thing animated on the other side was the friggin’ snowplow. “Whoa!” Jayla took a hairpin curve much faster than she intended. Startled, her heart pounded over the fact she’d nearly collided into rock wall.
Her lips parted in awe at the sight of a small herd of bighorn mountain sheep standing on the narrow ledge of blacktop to her right. “Holy cow,” she muttered. Too late, she saw the driver in front of her whip the SUV off the side of the road, slam on the brakes, and bail out with camera in hand. “For God’s sake, what the hell does she think she’s doing?”
Determined to snap her picture of the dumb animals grazing at the edge of the asphalt, the woman hadn’t even noticed she’d practically landed under the wheels of the Mustang. Jayla swerved, narrowly missing her, but she couldn’t avoid the big patch of black ice layering the asphalt.
For a second, she thought, prayed the car would hang in there, but no, no way, because her life really sucked, and death was damned determined to catch up with her. The Mustang slid across the narrow lane straight toward the colossal snowplow that was making another long sweep. Jayla thought of the song by Carrie Underwood, Jesus Take the Wheel. Only, she wondered if He took the wheel, where would He take her—crashing into the side of the intimidating rock wall on her right, or cross onto the opposite side and over the sheer drop-off on her left, or head-on into the plow.
She turned the wheel, fighting to pull the car back on her side of the highway, and at the last minute, whipped it back in her lane. Clenching the wheel, she cursed the stupid woman, uttered a prayer of thanks, and tried to ignore the blood rushing to her head and the racing of her heart. She relaxed her iron grip on the poor steering wheel, but she was more than ready to get off this icy highway and away from the camera-happy tourist.
At once, Jayla busied herself with searching for the turnoff she knew had to be near. After another half hour, she decided her memory had failed her. There wasn’t a hint of an old road or turnoff anywhere. Obviously she had about as much luck finding the exit as she did locating the yellow brick road.
Damn highway was getting icier by the minute. Gripping the steering wheel once more, she tried to relax with deep breathing exercises. She’d been gone from the area for years, and the breathing workout only distracted her when she’d needed to pay attention. Things had changed, and with the snow, everything looked a bit surreal.
She banged the wheel in frustration. “Where’s the damn road?” Wild had pointed it out to her once, long ago, so it still had to be there. Didn’t it? Jayla zipped past another oncoming plow. “Crap! Crap! Where is it?”
There! Finally the overgrown, barely noticeable turnoff came into view. She turned the wheel hard to the right, and hit the dirt road at a higher rate of speed than she liked. For a second, the car lurched from side-to-side, out of control, but she didn’t let up on the gas. Instead, she pressed down on the accelerator and gripped the wheel for dear life.
Maneuvering the car back to the middle of the road, she released a deep breath. Finally, she was off the asphalt. The sooner she was out of sight of any potential witnesses to verify where she’d gone, the better. Tall, skinny pines whizzed by as the car shot down the muddy road, fishtailed, and finally leveled off into a straight line.
The powerful engine hummed its sweet lullaby and the wheels hugged the soft frozen mud like an angel, guided once more by her capable hands. She’d never been so happy to get off a highway in all her life. First chance, she was taking a defensive driving class against idiot drivers like that woman.
Jayla moaned and rubbed her arm. Fighting the wheel like she’d had to do for the last half hour or so ignited the fire in her shoulder into a blazing inferno. Nausea bubbled like sour grease in her stomach. God, she didn’t have time to be sick. She had to go on. And on. Time
passed. The tires hit patches of ice in places and came perilously close to sliding into a ditch a couple of times, but Jayla managed to keep the compact car on the road.
Caught off-guard, she blinked and wondered how long the sleet had been falling. She’d been so busy trying not to hit the woman from Oklahoma or collide with the snowplows, then stay out of the ditches—she hadn’t realized when it started. The snow, yeah, she’d noticed that, but not these bullets of ice peppering her windshield.
When had this road become more treacherous than when she first drove onto it?
Why on earth had she imagined a dirt road would be better than asphalt? Sure, there was no traffic, but it was slicker than honey on a doorknob. This was ten times worse than getting shot at—getting shot!
Sleet poured from the sky now. Fierce little pellets of ice bounced off the windshield. Jayla shivered and flipped the defroster to high. She squinted, barely able to make out the road ahead. The ruts, nearly invisible, were buried by a sea of dead grass that looked as if it’d piled up for years.
“What the hell?”
How long had it been since anyone traversed this piece-of-crap road? It’d be just her luck to have taken the wrong turn and stumbled across some old wagon trail that hadn’t been used in a hundred years. It sure looked like it.
How far had she traveled down the weedy dirt path? Ten miles? Fifteen? Thirty? How long since she’d turned off the main highway? Jayla glanced at the slim watch on her wrist. Two hours? She’d lost track of time. Worse, she wasn’t sure exactly where Wild’s cabin was located—just somewhere on the west side of the Dancing Star near the old wagon road.
God, she’d forgotten how big and intimidating this part of the country was.
What in the world made her think she could find his cabin in the middle of this wilderness?
And her sweet-natured little car, what had pissed on its toasties? The windows were icing over and so fogged up it looked like the inside of a sauna. The heater—what the hell was wrong with the heater and defroster?