Her heart stuttered as she looked at him. She loved him. Yes, she loved him. She couldn’t stop if she tried.
“But I didn’t die.” He took her other hand in his. “I hope... I hope you’ll change your mind about me leaving.”
Tears flooded her cheeks. Okay. Not good. She swiped them away. “I can’t stop myself from loving you, Bryce, no matter if I’m afraid to take the risk. Even if you leave, I’ll still love you.” She stepped closer until her face was a few inches from his. She looked up at him, remembering that kiss.
Emotion stirred behind his gaze. “I’m right here with you. We’re together in this and we can always be together if you just... Just say the word. I won’t leave.” He let his gaze drop to Samson who breathed peacefully on the table. “And as long as Samson approves, of course.”
Samson moaned and barked and rolled up to sit.
“Samson!” Sierra and Bryce shouted in unison.
“Oh, Samson.” Sierra hugged his neck. Then she peered at his face. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.”
Harry was at his side in a flash and listened to the dog’s heart and breathing again. “The antidote worked. He sounds good all around. I think you can take your dog home, boys and girls.”
Samson hopped from the table. Harry poured water into a bowl and the dog lapped it up. Sierra crouched next to him, thrilled that he’d made it.
Samson licked her face, then Bryce’s.
She laughed and then stood up. Bryce stood so close and she was drawn to him. She stepped into Bryce’s arms. “I think Samson is giving his approval. His approval for... What did you mean when you said you wouldn’t leave? Do you mean you’re going to move out here to the middle of nowhere?”
He chuckled. “Only if that’s okay with you.”
“What are you really thinking?”
“I’m thinking I want to get a dog and have puppies with you and train them for SAR rescues. Anything to spend more time with you. I love you, Sierra. I thought my heart would stop when you said you loved me. What I’m really thinking... Okay, here it goes... I want to marry you. I’ve wanted that since the first year I knew you. What do you say?”
She stood on her toes and pressed her lips against his. Wrapped her arms around his neck and then up into his hair and pulled him closer to her, pouring all her answer into the kiss.
He broke away, leaving her breathless.
“Does that answer your question?”
* * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from Falsely Accused by Shirlee McCoy.
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading Fugitive Trail! Some of you might recognize the scenery—the ice climbing park and festival—as what takes place in the small town of Ouray, Colorado. I changed the name and county so I didn’t have to worry too much about the exact details but rather could have fun writing my story—you know, artistic license and all that! The toy store is loosely modeled after the real store there in Ouray—O’Toys, which is owned by my brother and sister-in-law! I had hoped to write a story that would include their store and the opportunity came when my editor contacted me about writing a story in Colorado. I love it when that happens!
I also love to hear from my readers. Please hop on over to my new website at elizabethgoddard.com to find ways to connect with me and sign up for my newsletter.
Blessings!
Elizabeth Goddard
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Falsely Accused
by Shirlee McCoy
ONE
This was wrong. All of it. The squad car speeding along the winding mountain road, heading away from town and deeper into the Maine wilderness. The blood dripping down her arm and onto the leather seat. The silence of the two deputies who had arrested her.
Deputies?
Special Agent Wren Santino wasn’t sure about that.
Not anymore.
They hadn’t used their police radios. Not to call for medical assistance for her or for the deputy who had been shot. Not to call in a location, call for backup or do as she requested and ask for the FBI Boston Field Office to be contacted.
She might not be an expert on much, but she knew law enforcement protocol, and, after nearly a decade working as a special agent for the FBI, she knew this was going down all wrong.
She shifted in the seat, the scent of leather mixing with the odor of stale vomit and sweat. Blood oozed from the bullet hole in her forearm and snaked around her wrist, sliding under the metal handcuffs. She should be heading to the hospital. Not the town’s small sheriff’s department. And Ryan? The deputy who had been shot? The closest thing to a brother she’d ever had? They should be life-flighting him to a trauma center.
The thought of him as she’d seen him last—lying in a pool of his own blood—made her even more desperate to escape.
She twisted her uninjured wrist, hoping the seeping blood would make it easy to slip her hand out.
But, of course, that wasn’t how cuffs were designed.
She knew that.
The same way she knew that she was in trouble.
She glanced out the back window. Her SUV was a dark smudge against the sepia tones of the forest behind it. She could still see Deputy Ryan Parker’s squad car, parked just behind the SUV, pulled a little crookedly onto a grassy area beside the road.
She shouldn’t have stopped. Not on a road like this. Not at this time of night. He’d have understood if she’d put on her hazards, slowed her pace and continued driving until she’d reached a less lonely stretch of road. That was the advice she gave students in the women’s self-defense classes she taught.
Don’t stop if it feels unsafe.
Any legitimate officer will understand.
Hazards on.
Slow your speed.
Keep going until you reach a more populated area.
She hadn’t followed her own advice. She’d seen the lights, and she’d pulled over. Maybe because she hadn’t expected trouble. Maybe because she was always prepared for it. She hadn’t been carrying her service weapon, but she’d had mace in the pocket of her jacket and a repertoire of self-defense tactics that had served her well in the past.
At thirty-six years old, she knew how to defend herself, and how to guard against danger and trouble.
She hadn’t thought it would come to her on the lonely stretch of highway between town and the farm belonging to her foster mother, Abigail, but she should have been able to extricate herself from it.
She turned her attention to the two men dressed in Hidden Cove Sheriff’s Department uniforms. They looked legit. The jackets. The badges. The shirts and hats that were pulled low over their eyes. Clean-shaven. Caucasian. One with fair skin. One with an olive complexion. The fact that she could see those things meant they weren’t trying to hide their identities. She wanted to believe that was a good thing, but her gut was telling her something different.
No legitimate law enforcement officer left a man lying on the ground bleeding.
“What about Deputy Parker? You can’t just leave him there. He needs medical attention,” she said, trying to engage them in a conversation that went beyond the Miranda rights they’d read her before they’d cuffed her and shoved her in the back of their squad car.
“You probably should have thought about that before you shot him,” the driver said. Mid-to late-twenties. Slim build. A small scar on his jaw. His hair was hidden, but Wren would guess it to be dark to match his tan skin.
“I already told you, I didn’t shoot him. The shots were fired just before you arrived.” Ryan had pulled her over. She’d realized it was him after he’d gotten out of his squad car. He’d
told her that he was in trouble and that he needed her help. She’d stepped out of the SUV. Before he could explain more, a shot had been fired, and he’d gone down. She’d reached for his service weapon and had been shot while trying to free it.
Not a kill-shot.
Not like the one that had taken Ryan down.
She swallowed a wave of grief. Like Wren, Ryan had been one of Abigail’s foster kids. A teenager with no future who’d been shuffled through too many placements for too long, he’d arrived at the farm three years after Wren. It had taken a while, but eventually they’d warmed up to one another. By the time she’d left for college, she’d thought of him as her annoying kid brother—still finding trouble, still not settled into the structured life Abigail offered. She had been frustrated with his lack of progress, but she had also been hopeful that he would grow up and mature.
Still, she had been surprised when he’d told her he planned to become a police officer. She’d been even more surprised when he had decided to stay in Hidden Cove. Small-town life wasn’t anything either of them had been used to when they’d arrived. Both had often complained about the constraints of living in a town where everyone knew everyone else’s business. As a teen, Ryan had always been chomping at the bit, ready to break free of the life he had been forced into. The idea of him getting a job with the local police and staying in Hidden Cove hadn’t been on Wren’s radar.
But then, she had never been close to Ryan.
She’d loved him like a brother, but they had been too far apart in age and in personality to be friends. The inner workings of his mind had always been as mysterious to her as hers had been to him.
Now, he was gone, and she was being questioned about his murder as if she were a suspect or the perpetrator.
“I didn’t have anything to do with the shooting. Swab my hands for gun residue, take me in for questioning, but while you’re doing all that, make sure you have someone out there looking for the real perpetrator,” she said, hoping to illicit a response from one of the men.
They remained silent. No further comment on her supposed shooting of a man she considered a brother, no questions asked in the hope of getting answers that could be used against her. The silence in the vehicle was eerie. The space between her and the two officers was unencumbered by mesh or Plexiglas.
This wasn’t like any police cruiser she had ever been in. There were locks and handles on the interior door panels. Easy escape for a criminal who wanted to get away. As far as she had been able to see, there wasn’t a radio or computer attached to the console. Even a low-budget, low-tech police department would have radios in the vehicles.
She shifted forward to get a better look, and the fairer-skinned man lifted a gun and aimed it in her direction.
“Back off,” he said harshly, barely glancing in her direction.
She did. She’d already seen what she wanted to. She had been correct. There was no police radio in the car. No computer system. Nothing tying this vehicle to the sheriff’s department. If these men were imposters, they had to be tied to Ryan’s shooting. If that were the case, they had an agenda that didn’t include taking her to the sheriff’s department and booking her on federal charges. This area of Maine was largely unpopulated, deep forest and stretching across the landscape. It would be easy to get rid of a body here—to hide someone and make it seem as if that person had gone on the run.
What kind of trouble were you in, Ryan? she silently asked. Something big. So big he had been killed because of it, and it looked as if Wren was being set up to be the fall guy. If she didn’t escape, her SUV and Ryan’s squad car would eventually be found. His body would be discovered, and she would be gone—a story people told for years to come. How an FBI agent killed her foster brother and then went on the lam. The police would be searching for her instead of searching for the real killer, but she would never be found. Her body would be buried somewhere deep in the Maine wilderness.
And that was something she couldn’t allow.
Not just because she was innocent and needed to prove it, but because she wanted justice for Ryan. She wanted the person who had shot him to be punished to the full extent of the law. She had gone into law enforcement to make that happen to as many criminals as she could. She had committed herself to that goal, and she had spent more than a decade of her life devoted to it. Everything she was, all that she did, was tied up in her need to see justice served. She had no regrets about that.
Lately, though, she had been tired.
She had returned home after long days of work at the FBI’s Boston field office and asked herself if her devotion to justice was worth the silent and empty apartment, the lack of romantic relationships, the bonds of friendship that had become frayed and worn after years of missed and rescheduled get-togethers. Returning to Hidden Cove to help Abigail had seemed like the perfect opportunity to reassess her life and her goals. Wren had imagined plenty of downtime spent walking the farm or hiking through the woods.
She hadn’t imagined this.
She hadn’t anticipated it.
She was neck-deep in trouble, and she was the only person who could get herself out of it.
She slid sideways on the seat, watching as the vehicle zipped past shadowy trees. She knew this road well and knew exactly where she was. She’d traveled this way hundreds of times as a preteen and teenager. She knew the curves and the hills, the places where it opened up and where it narrowed.
She knew that the next turnoff led down a long dirt driveway to a tired-looking bungalow-style house that overlooked Mystic Creek. She thought the place had been abandoned years ago, but she wasn’t sure. She hadn’t asked Abigail, because she hadn’t wanted her to know that there were still times when she thought about the bungalow and about Titus Anderson. Even after all these years.
She watched as the driver flew past the old white mailbox that marked the Anderson property. They were going too fast for the road, taking curves too quickly, tree branches scraping the sides and roof of the vehicle. If she jumped out now, she could be too badly injured to run.
She waited, her arm still seeping blood, her attention focused.
* * *
They traveled another couple of miles, and then the driver braked hard, spinning onto a side road, the car slowing just enough that she was willing to take the chance. Had to take it, because it might be the only one she got.
She opened the door and threw herself out, trying to jump clear of the back wheels. Her shoulder slammed into the thick trunk of a pine tree, needles jabbing her face as she stumbled and tried to regain her balance.
She fell, her forehead glancing off the rough bark, knees sliding across dead leaves and aromatic needles. The screech of brakes spurred her up and on.
Faster.
Faster.
The word chanted through her mind, her pulse matching the frantic rhythm of it. She was making too much noise, giving away her location with every frantic push forward.
She needed to slow down, be quiet, think through her options, because if she didn’t, she’d die. And, in a place like this, it might be years before she was found.
If she ever was.
And maybe that was what this was about. The trouble Ryan was in had led to his murder, and she was slated to be the fall-guy for it. All the perps had to do was get her away from the murder scene, kill her and hide her body where no one would ever find it. With her vehicle left near Ryan’s body, she could be pinned with the crime and called a fugitive from justice. She wasn’t going to let that happen.
She forced herself to stop and listen.
They were behind her, crashing through the thick undergrowth, breaking branches and twigs. They’d have lights. She was certain of that. She didn’t glance back to see if she was right. She turned to her left, walking parallel to the road rather than away from it. Moving deliberately, being careful where she stepped and what she b
umped. The moon was high and bright. It had been rising when she’d left the rehabilitation center where Abigail had been staying since she’d broken her hip. Now, it had reached its zenith and was descending. She used it as a guide. East would lead her back to the dirt driveway and Titus’s childhood home. His mother had died when they were in college, overdosing on the drugs that had stolen her away from him years prior to her death. He’d inherited the house, but he’d told her that he never planned to return to it.
They’d still been best friends then.
Now they were strangers, but she knew how to find her way through the woods and to his childhood home. She knew that the back door didn’t lock properly, that there was a rotary phone hanging on the kitchen wall, that an old Chevy truck sat in the garage near the back of the property.
At least, those things had been true when she’d left town eighteen years ago. Maybe they were still true. Maybe she could walk in the back door, grab the phone and dial 911. She knew enough about Titus to know he wouldn’t have let the property go to waste. He would have rented it out or sold it, and he would have made certain the electricity, water and phone were always on. There had been too many times during his childhood when they hadn’t been.
So, the phone would be working.
It had to be.
And the place would either belong to someone else or be a rental property managed by Titus.
Either way, she should be able to find the help she needed.
She hoped.
Staying in the woods, trying to keep a step ahead of her pursuers when she was cuffed and injured would be a death sentence.
She shuddered, her body suddenly cold with shock.
Ryan was dead.
The reality of it seemed to finally be sinking in, and she was sick from it. Her stomach churned, her head pounded, her feet felt numb. She stumbled down a steep slope, falling face-first into a small creek. Cold water filled her mouth and nose, nearly choking her. She refused to cough, afraid her pursuers would hear. She could hear them shoving through the trees, closer than she wanted them to be. They hadn’t been fooled by her change in direction. They were hot on her trail, and if she didn’t do something quickly they’d find her.
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