Leland’s shoulders went rigid. “I’m seventy-two and ready to take it easy. You just want to continue shirking your responsibilities Get out of my face.”
Tires crunched on the gravel drive out front, drawing Kurt’s expectant gaze out the window. Disappointment swamped him as he saw it wasn’t Leslie but one of the hands. He thought they’d been getting along great the past few weeks, and he had no complaints. He enjoyed taking her out as much as he’d relished her willing submission to anything he proposed afterward, and she appeared equally pleased with their budding relationship. If she didn’t show up soon, he would go after her. He wasn’t ready to let her go yet, not without a fight. But, first things first.
“I returned to help you as soon as I could, so I don’t know how you can accuse me of shirking my duties.” It was time to lay what was really standing between them out on the table. “You’re the one who drove me away when you refused to admit Brittany’s death was no one’s fault but her own.” Leland’s face paled, a bleak expression entering his eyes, but he still stared out the window. Kurt sighed, wishing he could get through to him. “I came home because I only want what’s best for you, and I know damn good and well you don’t want to sit around inside this house feeling sorry for yourself. Even after Mom and Brittany’s deaths, you refused to turn over the running of things to either me or Roy. Be very careful you don’t let your stubbornness drive me away again.”
Turning his back on him with that idle threat, Kurt missed the spasm of fright crossing Leland’s face and the sheen of sorrow in his father’s dark eyes. Stomping down the hall, he shoved Leland’s uncharacteristic, annoying behavior to the back burner and engaged fully on one stubborn submissive. Detouring into the kitchen, he put the fried chicken he picked up from Dale’s Diner into the refrigerator. He’d been looking forward to taking Leslie for her first ride today, nestled in front of him on Atlas, snacking on chicken as he showed her his ranch. Since she was over an hour late, they might not have time to ride as far as he’d planned, and if he couldn’t get her out here, there wouldn’t be time to ride at all.
Snatching his hat off the hook by the front door, he stepped outside, the brisk October air cooling his temper as he walked to his truck. Maybe she had a good excuse, he considered, driving down the long lane toward the highway. Or maybe her sense of direction was as piss-poor as Sydney’s. That possibility worried him. He hated to think of Leslie this far out of the city, surrounded by the endless miles of wide-open spaces and worrying about finding her way to his place.
Once on the highway, he drove toward Billings, hoping to see her on the way. The flashing lights of emergency vehicles forcing him to slow down after a few miles filled him with sudden dread. Sweat pooled at the base of his spine as an icy knot of foreboding gripped his abdomen. Idling down to a stop, he saw the under carriage of a car lying on its side out in the field to his right, several cars and trucks pulled over along the side of the road, Grayson’s official sheriff’s cruiser and the county ambulance. It wasn’t until he hopped out that he got a clear view of who was sitting up on the gurney, her face white as a sheet, a bandage on her forehead and eyes glazed with shock and pain.
A fear-induced adrenaline rush propelled Kurt forward, his pulse skyrocketing into his throat with anxious apprehension. He caught sight of Grayson walking around Leslie’s upended vehicle with a deputy, the scowl on his face sending another wave of uneasiness through him. Balling his hands into fists, he paused to suck in a deep, fortifying breath before taking the last few strides to reach Leslie’s side.
“I’m sorry, you’ll need to stay back…”
Kurt whipped his cold-eyed stare on the hapless EMT, shutting him up. “She’s with me,” was all he said. Nodding, the medic stepped back to give him room to stand by Leslie’s side. Leaning over, he brushed his lips around the bandage covering her bruised, swollen forehead. “Jesus, sweetheart, tell me you’re all right.”
Kurt’s dark face swam in front of Leslie’s vision, the deep, concerned rumble of his voice reaching inside her to dispel the last remnants of fog clouding her head
, keeping her insulated from the pain and terror of what just happened. She’d roused to voices calling to her, careful hands freeing her from the seatbelt, more hands catching her as she tumbled down and then gently extricating her from the wrecked car. A cold chill snaked down her spine as she recalled the rapport of gunfire and the loss of control, and shuddered in lingering fear of realizing someone had come after her on purpose.
Glascott, if it was him behind this attack, had wasted no time following the breach of sealed, government files. She doubted he would execute his own dirty work. No, he’d likely hired it out, and that person could very well still be aiming at her from the trees. The field where her car had gone careening off the road might be a vast expanse of prairie grasses, but a mile or two off the highway on the other side lay tree-shrouded woods that made for excellent cover.
She didn’t realize she’d turned her head toward those woods until Kurt placed two fingers under her chin and nudged her to face him again. “Leslie, baby, talk to me. Are you okay?” When she nodded, her throat too dry with fear to talk, he looked at the EMT who had shifted to her other side. “Can you tell me her condition?”
“Concussion, bruised ribs from the seatbelt, left arm is swelling and should be x-rayed but she’s refusing to go to the hospital. She kept mumbling something about it not being safe, but that was likely from being disoriented.”
“Or, it could be because she knows something we don’t,” Grayson stated, joining them with his sharp, assessing gray/green eyes zeroing in on Leslie.
Shit. Hiding her emotions from one narrow-eyed, astute Dom was difficult enough. Now she had two of them regarding her with intense concern.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kurt demanded to know.
“It means your girl didn’t just have an accident. There’s a bullet lodged in her front tire and one embedded too damn close to the gas tank to make this anything except a deliberate attempt on her life.” The fury in Grayson’s tone matched Kurt’s darkening, thundercloud expression.
Now what do I say? With her head and arm throbbing and the three faces staring at her turning blurry, Leslie closed her eyes and leaned her head back, unable to cope with anything right now except to reiterate no hospital. “I thought those sounded like gunshots, which is only one reason why I’m not going to the hospital.” Her voice emerged from her constricted throat as a reedy whisper but she opened her eyes to see they heard her just fine.
“You’re in no condition to make that decision,” Kurt snapped.
Grayson took charge by asking the medic, “Do you know where the Willow Springs clinic is, one street over from the town square?”
The young man nodded. “Yep. We can take her there as long as there is a doctor waiting.”
Catching on, Kurt whipped out his cell. “There will be. I’ll follow you.”
Leslie watched Kurt and Grayson turn away and heard Mitchell’s name before Kurt started conversing with the new doctor. If she weren’t so scared, and didn’t hurt so much, she might have gotten excited about the prospect of the hot doctor putting his hands on her. But as the EMT slid the gurney into the ambulance and then hopped in to join her with a rap on the side to get them going, all she could think about was the jeopardy she was putting everyone in.
The next two hours were the longest of Kurt’s life. Mitchell hadn’t hesitated to open the clinic on a Sunday afternoon, but friendship came second to his patient as soon as Leslie was wheeled into the exam room where the weekend nurse waited with him. After his friend shut the door in his face, he’d turned to find Grayson leaning against the wall, arms crossed, toothpick returned to his mouth, regarding him with a solemn expression.
“I need to know what you know,” he said.
“Yeah, well I need to know a hell of a lot more than that.” Unable to stand still, Kurt paced the hall, the quietness of the clinic grating on his nerves as much as the sheriff’s silent, watchful gaze. Frustrated, worried and scared to the bone, he finally whirled to face his friend and ground out, “She has a sister, haven’t a clue where or even what her name is. Her apartment is devoid of any personal articles and her life was lacking in personal involvement until I pressed her into an affair. Oh, and she likes animals but hasn’t owned a pet since she was a kid. There, does that help?”
“Now that you’ve got that out, why don’t we put our heads together and figure out who would want to harm her, or worse,” Grayson drawled.
Kurt went rigid with rage imagining someone deliberately setting out to kill Leslie, vowing right then and there not to let her out of his sight until the fucker went down. “Jesus, Monroe, I haven’t a fucking clue.” He sliced a hand through the air between them, swearing. “She’s a second-grade teacher, for God’s sake.”
“With a secret past no one knows anything about, an aloof manner when it comes to forming relationships or friendships and, according to you, she doesn’t even have a photo of her sister in her apartment. Want to know what I deduce from all of that?”