But nothing happened.
Colt tried again. And again. Still nothing.
“Hang on,” Colt warned them a split second before he hit his accelerator. The cruiser bashed into them.
The jolt caused Blue’s pain to spike again, but it would have been well worth it if it’d worked. It hadn’t. Roy cursed when the SUV still didn’t budge.
“I’ll pull up beside you,” Colt finally said. “I want all of you to climb into the cruiser.”
Blue didn’t care for the idea of Rayanne being outside for even a second or two, but he couldn’t see another way out of this. Cooper and the others wouldn’t be able to get close, not with the bullets flying, so escape in the cruiser might be their best bet.
Colt pulled up on the driver’s side of the SUV, and he aligned the cruiser’s back door with the SUV.
“Go,” Roy said, motioning toward Rosalie since she was the nearest to the cruiser.
Rosalie gave a shaky nod, and with a firm grip on her gun, she opened the back door of the cruiser. The moment she was in, she scrambled to the side, motioning for Rayanne to follow her.
Despite the roar of the bullets, Rayanne hesitated. She was no doubt thinking a jolt like that could harm the baby. And it could. But staying put could do the same.
“Just take it as easy as you can,” Blue told her.
Her gaze met his, and even in the darkness he could see the raw emotion in her eyes. Emotions that Rayanne rarely allowed anyone to see.
“You’ll be right behind me,” she said, and it wasn’t a question. More like an order.
“I promise.”
But the words had no sooner left his mouth than there was a flash of headlights behind them. The driver had on the high beams, and with the wisps of smoke still stirring around, it made it hard for Blue to see.
However, he could make out two men leaning out of the car windows. Both were armed.
And the car was headed across the pasture right toward them.
Chapter Eighteen
Rayanne got only a glimpse of the gunmen before Blue pushed her back down on the seat. It wasn’t a second too soon, because the men started firing.
Not from a distance like before.
These shots were deafening, and they were no longer aiming at the tires. These ripped through the roof of the SUV. If the men were trying to scare them, it was working.
At least, it did for a few seconds.
Then the anger slammed through her. These idiots were putting all of them at risk—including the baby—and for what? Rayanne wished she could grab one of them and demand answers.
Since the SUV door was still open, Rayanne could see Rosalie on the backseat of the cruiser. She had a gun, but like her, Rosalie was having to stay down, too, since some of those shots were coming much too close to her.
So far the back windshield of the cruiser was holding, but it might not for long. It was bullet resistant, but eventually enough shots might be able to tear through it.
Roy threw open his door, positioning it so that it was aligned with the cruiser’s door. It would give them a little more protection if they jumped to the cruiser. Still, Rayanne was worried about what could be a hard fall and the seconds that she’d be in the open. She and the baby would be a clean target for those bullets.
“Move over,” Roy told Rosalie. “Get on the floor.”
The moment her sister did that, Roy threw himself onto the backseat. Well, the edge of it, anyway. He was taking a huge risk by not staying behind cover.
And he was doing it for her.
Rayanne realized that when he motioned for her to jump. He was going to catch her while using his body to shield her.
“Do it,” Blue said. “Now!”
She wanted to jump. But wanted Blue to be safe, too, and in that split second of hesitation, Rayanne heard a sound she didn’t want to hear.
More tear gas came at them, the metal canister bouncing onto the SUV.
Everything seemed to happen at once. Roy reached for her, but the jolt sent him flying back. Not a jolt from the tear gas. This was another explosion, and the blinding white light from it flashed on the side of the SUV.
The blast vibrated through her body, pounding in her ears while the tear gas blistered her eyes. The coughing started again. Not just for her but for all of them.
And that wasn’t the worst of their problems.
She figured those gunmen would soon be out of their vehicle and on their way to take them.
Or kill them.
“Go!” she managed to shout out to Colt. “Leave now!”
At least that way, Rosalie would be safe. Colt, Reed and her father, too.
But Colt didn’t leave.
Instead he threw the cruiser into reverse and positioned it between their attackers and the SUV.
“I’m getting Rayanne out of here,” Blue said to Colt through the phone. And that was the only warning Rayanne got before he took hold of her.
“Come on,” Blue said to her in a whisper. He shoved his phone in his pocket, crawled over the seat and maneuvered her out the door.
“Try to stay quiet,” Blue added. “They can’t see us. And this is our best chance of getting out of here.”
Staying quiet was next to impossible because of the coughing, but at least the combined sounds of the engines helped drown it out. Maybe it’d help enough for all of them to get to safety.
Blue didn’t lead her toward the cruiser. Instead they headed toward the fence that fronted the ranch road.
“Rosalie,” she said in a rough whisper. Rayanne didn’t want to leave her sister back there.
“Colt will get her out,” Blue promised.
Rayanne prayed that was true. Colt had put himself, Roy and Rosalie in danger to save Blue and her, and she hoped that didn’t cost any of them their lives.
“Keep moving,” Blue mumbled.
She did. There was no turning back now. Even when the shots started again, Rayanne knew she had no choice but to keep moving.
The fence was a good twenty yards away, but if Blue and she reached it, they’d have decent cover between the fence and the ditch. Plus, they wouldn’t be that far from Tucker’s house, and they could duck inside until Cooper and the others could make it to them.
Each step was a challenge. Mainly because her legs were shaking, and it felt as if someone had her heart and lungs in a vise. But each step also took them farther away from the tear-gas fog. The coughing faded, and Rayanne focused just on getting to safety.
Behind them the pace of the shots picked up. Not just from one gun, either. It sounded as if several different weapons were being fired. Maybe from Colt and Reed. If so, that could mean they were in the middle of another gunfight.
The moment they reached the fence, Blue hooked his arm around her to hoist her up onto the rungs. As a kid, she’d climbed this fence dozens of times, but it suddenly felt a mile high.
She glanced over her shoulder, hoping to see Colt’s cruiser racing away from the tangle of smoke and vehicles. But it wasn’t. Worse, those shots were still coming.
“We have to help them,” Rayanne insisted.
“I will. Once I get you to safety.”
Rayanne was about to argue with that, but a sound stopped her.
Footsteps.
Not coming from behind them but directly in front of them. Both Blue and she automatically took aim in that direction but didn’t fire in case it was family or one of the ranch hands.
It wasn’t.
“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” the man said.
It took Rayanne a moment to pick through the darkness and find him. Wearing dark clothes, he looked like a shadow when he glanced out from the side of Tucker’s house.
Blue pulled her to the ground and fired at the mystery man, but the guy had already taken cover.
“Like I said, I wouldn’t move if I were you,” the man repeated, not leaving the cover of the house. “You’re both belly-down on some explosive devices, and if you so
much as wiggle your toes, you’ll be blown to bits.”
* * *
BLUE AUTOMATICALLY FROZE.
He hadn’t felt anything unusual when he’d dropped to the ground, but that didn’t mean a bomb wasn’t close enough to do some serious damage.
Of course, this could be yet another part of the ruse to get them to stay put.
If Rayanne and he didn’t fight back, then they’d likely be kidnapped or harmed in some way. Because if this clown had wanted them dead, he would have already fired the shots to make that happen.
So what the heck was going on here?
Blue checked over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t about to be ambushed from behind.
No one was anywhere near them.
But in the pasture he could see Colt driving the cruiser away from the stuck SUV. Rayanne’s brother wasn’t coming toward them but rather headed to the back of the pasture, and there were gunmen in pursuit.
Maybe Colt would manage to get Rosalie and the others to safety, but it was obvious Colt had his hands full. And Blue couldn’t wait on Cooper and the ranch hands to come to their aid. He had to do something to get Rayanne and the baby to safety, too.
“What should we do?” Rayanne whispered.
Her voice was shaking a little, just enough for him to hear the fear in her voice. However, she had a firm lawman’s grip on her gun, and she had it pointed directly at the man behind Tucker’s house.
Blue looked around, still didn’t spot an explosive, but the man did have a gun trained on them. If they moved, he might feel compelled to start shooting. What Blue needed to do was figure out a way to defuse this situation or else wait until the guy left cover so he’d have a decent shot.
“What do you want?” Blue demanded from the man.
“Me? I don’t want nothing. Well, other than for you to stay right where you are. Pretty soon you’ll be somebody else’s problem and not mine.”
Even though the guy stayed hidden, Blue saw him mumble something and lean in toward his collar. No doubt where he had some kind of communication device.
“Someone else?” Blue repeated.
“The person who hired me to do this, and before you ask, I don’t know who he is. Personally, I’d like to keep it that way. Knowing that kind of stuff can make a person a loose end.”
Yeah, it could, especially if it was a federal agent trying to cover up his part in a string of felonies.
“Are you the one who took shots at us at the ranch?” Blue asked. He purposely kept his voice low, hoping the idiot would lean out from cover to better hear him.
He didn’t.
The man stayed put. “Yeah,” he finally answered. “Nothing personal.”
“A man died,” Blue reminded him.
“Still don’t make it personal.”
Blue had hoped he would just keep yakking, because it might help him figure out who was behind this. Plus, it might distract him enough for Blue to get off a shot.
“Someone’s coming,” Rayanne whispered. She tipped her head to the end of the ranch road. No headlights. But there was a dark vehicle creeping its way toward them.
“Cooper, maybe?” Blue asked.
“No. I don’t recognize the car.”
Now what? Blue didn’t figure this was good news for Rayanne and him, since this was likely the “someone else” that the bozo had mentioned earlier.
And that someone else might have a different notion about keeping Rayanne and him alive.
“Stay down,” Blue whispered to her.
“What are you planning to do?” Rayanne immediately snapped.
“First I’m going to try to shoot the guy hiding behind the house, and then you’ll roll in the ditch so I can try to deal with whoever’s in that car.”
Even with just the moonlight, he could see the disapproval on her face. “And if there’s really an explosive device?”
“That’s why I want you to roll into the ditch. I’ll cover you as best I can.” Which he hoped was enough to keep Rayanne from being hurt.
“We don’t have time to debate this,” Blue reminded her, and tipped his head to the vehicle that was now only about twenty yards away.
“Y’all better not be thinking about doing anything stupid,” the man warned them.
But Blue was already past the point of thinking about it. He took aim.
And fired.
The second the thick blast rang out, Rayanne went toward the ditch.
No explosion, thank God.
Blue held his breath, praying, and he got off another shot before he rolled in front of her. Both his shots missed, but it brought the man out from cover so he could return fire. Blue pulled the trigger again.
This time, he didn’t miss.
“Move,” Blue told Rayanne. He wanted to put as much distance between them and the approaching vehicle as he could.
But they didn’t get far.
They’d made it only a few inches when both the front passenger’s-and driver’s-side doors opened. Two armed men jumped out, and they pointed their weapons right at Rayanne and him.
“Move and you die,” one of the goons said. Both were heavily armed and were wearing bulletproof vests.
“I’ve heard that before,” Blue snarled. “Heard there were explosives beneath us, too. That turned out to be a lie, didn’t it?”
A lie Blue wished he’d figured out sooner so he could have maybe gotten Rayanne out of there.
If the man had any reaction to that, he didn’t show it. He mumbled something into the grape-sized communicator clipped on his collar. “Drop your weapons, put your hands in the air and get up,” he ordered. “Then walk slowly toward the car.”
Blue huffed. “And why would we do that? You’ll just gun us down.”
“My boss doesn’t want you dead,” he assured them. Coming from him, it was no assurance at all, of course.
“Really?” Blue asked. He adjusted his position so that he was between Rayanne and the gunmen. “Because I’m getting the feeling that death is on the agenda here.”
The goon had another mumbled conversation with the person on the other end of the communicator, and he glanced up the road, where there was another car coming toward them. He didn’t react by turning his gun in that direction, which meant this wasn’t a threat. It could be yet more hired guns.
“We can go ahead and shoot McCurdy,” the man said to his partner the moment the second car pulled to a stop.
“No!” Rayanne shouted. And she would have scrambled in front of him if Blue hadn’t stopped her.
“Why’d your boss change his mind?” Blue demanded. He got ready for the worst. If the bullets started flying, he’d just have to throw himself over Rayanne and pray that he got off the right shots before these two killed him.
There was more whispered conversation on the communicator. “He says he’s getting tired of waiting for Miss McKinnon to cooperate.”
“And why should I?” she fired back.
“Because it’ll save McCurdy and you’ll get to see your mother.”
Blue heard her pull in a breath. “My mother?” she mumbled.
“You’ve got five seconds, Miss McKinnon,” the man said, motioning with his gun.
Thank heaven Rayanne didn’t make a move, but Blue braced himself for the fight that was about to come.
However, before the five seconds ticked off, the back door of the second car flew open, and someone stepped out.
“Either get in the car now,” he growled, “or your mother and both of you die.”
Chapter Nineteen
Rayanne glared at the man who’d just threatened them.
Wendell.
He glared right back at her, and she saw the sheer anger on his face that was no doubt mirrored on her own.
“You hurt my mother,” Rayanne managed to say. Not easily. It felt as if someone had hold of her throat—her heart, too—making it hard to speak.
Blue tried to step in front of her. Trying to protect her as he’d
done over and over again since this nightmare had begun. But Rayanne held her ground. She wanted to hear what this piece of slime had to say, and she wanted to look him in the eyes when he said it.
“What happened to Jewell was an accident,” Wendell said as if it excused everything. “I wanted her very much alive and aware of what was going on, but the idiot who set the explosives didn’t do a good job. He’ll pay for that.”
It tightened her throat even more to hear Wendell admit it aloud. It didn’t matter that her mother wasn’t supposed to have been hurt. She had been.
And Wendell would pay for that.
“The explosives were only meant to draw you out,” Wendell added. He sat down on the edge of the backseat. “No one was supposed to have been hurt.”
“Well, they were. Your hired gun could have killed the sheriff, your own grandson,” Blue pointed out. Like her, he sounded as if he barely had a choke hold on the anger boiling inside him.
Blue’s reminder turned Wendell’s jaw to iron. “Like I said, he’ll pay for his mistake. Just like Jewell will for killing my son.”
Wendell glanced around him, no doubt looking for any signs that Cooper, Colt and the others were approaching.
And they would be.
The question was, would they get there in time to stop Wendell from kidnapping Blue and her?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Wendell said, his mouth bent into a near smile. “That your brothers or daddy will come to the rescue. Well, that’s why we’re waiting out here. For a little while, anyway.”
“You want them dead,” she mumbled.
“All of them. And I figure you’re a delicious little piece of bait standing out here like this.”
Sweet heaven. He was right. Despite the bad blood between Roy, her brothers and her, Roy had already tried to save her once tonight, and he would no doubt try to do it again.
“Killing Roy won’t get back at Jewell,” she tried.
Wendell lifted his shoulder. “You’re wrong about that.” He studied her, smiled. “Oh, you didn’t know they’ve been chatting regularly. Ever since your sister’s baby was stolen.”
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