Run Wild (7 page)

Chapter Three

Natasha had typed in the address Helen had given her for the exact location of Trinity Ranch. Her head still buzzed with everything the friendly waitress had told her. Helen had been as eager to share what had happened out at Trinity Ranch as she had been to tell Natasha all she knew about their sexy sheriff.

Natasha would find out soon enough how much of a gossip Helen was. She’d asked Helen not to mention to Trent any of their conversation or the questions Natasha had asked. When Helen had cocked an eyebrow over that request, Natasha offered a version of the truth as an explanation.

“He doesn’t think a female bounty hunter can solve this case as well as he can,” she’d offered.

Helen’s reaction had surprised her. “Really? That doesn’t sound like Trent.”

“Turn right in half a mile.” Natasha’s GPS navigator interrupted her thoughts. Already she was outside of town, and she flipped on her brights as she slowed the truck.

Something caught her attention in the road and she slowed more, leaning forward against her seat belt and squinting to better see what lie in the road.

“Shit!” she cried out, screeching the truck to a stop and swerving on the road as she tried to avoid hitting some kind of giant animal lying lifeless right before her turn. “What the fuck!” she yelled, white-knuckling the steering wheel as her heart hammered so hard in her chest she couldn’t catch her breath.

She stopped the Avalanche within yards of what looked like a very big dead deer, at least by the large set of antlers sticking out from his head. She’d never seen one so close before, and staring at the motionless creature didn’t help get her bearings. It took a moment for her to realize the truck was almost sideways in the road, its rear end sticking into the next lane. For a two-lane highway so close outside of town, it was dark as hell outside.

Natasha took a moment to find her purse, which had slid to the floor on the passenger side, grab a flashlight out of the glove box, and fish out her cell phone as she worked to put her wallet and lipstick as well as hand lotion that had fallen out of her purse back into it.

“Okay, it’s obviously dead or it would have moved by now.” The last thing she needed was to try to move the truck and have the thing realize sleeping in the road was a bad idea and try to stampede her with all those antlers. If that was what deer did. She didn’t know a thing about deer, other than they were obviously a lot larger than she’d imagined.

Slipping the truck into gear, she checked her mirrors before moving the truck back into her lane. Immediately she heard a flapping sound and felt the hard pull in the steering wheel.

“Oh my God, you’re kidding me,” she complained loudly, slapping the steering wheel when she’d only succeeded in pulling closer to the dead animal as she maneuvered the truck into her lane, then parked alongside the road. Now she had to deal with a flat tire.

Her cell phone didn’t have a signal. She held it up before her, to her side, even out her window. Nothing. She couldn’t use her phone to call for help. Why hadn’t she pushed her aunt and uncle into activating the roadside assistance program that had come with the truck? She was completely on her own with this ordeal.

Too bad the sexy sheriff hadn’t decided to follow her from the diner, instead of trying to pretend he didn’t know she was there. What an unpredictable man! He’d been all over her earlier, but when both of them were in a public diner he’d never sought her out. Natasha hadn’t complained when the waitress sat her with her back facing Trent. She’d used her compact to confirm he’d remained sitting facing her backside the entire time she’d been there. And the tingles up and down her spine throughout her meal were proof enough he’d seldom taken his eyes off her.

“Wouldn’t he just love playing the knight in shining armor come to rescue the damsel in distress?” Natasha grabbed her flashlight as she slid out of the truck and closed the door, which turned off the interior light and engulfed her in darkness. “And I don’t suppose there is roadside assistance out here,” she grumbled under her breath.

She flipped on the flashlight, giving the dead beast in the road a speculative look. “You’d be smart to stay dead. Do you hear me?” she asked the deer, waving her flashlight at him. Then glancing around at the incredibly dark night, she hopped back into the truck and fished out the small pistol in the glove box.

She’d fired a gun a few times over the years, although mostly during target practice Uncle Greg had taken her and her cousins to when he had time while they were growing up. Uncle Greg believed they needed to understand and respect weapons. It had been an education Natasha had taken to heart. And it gave her a bit of reassurance when she slipped out into the chilly night once again.

Natasha tucked the cold metal inside the back of her jeans, feeling the hard, chilled outline of it pressed against her rear end. It seemed to drop her body temperature a bit and she shivered. It looked a lot cooler when she watched cops and bad guys stuff their guns into their pants in movies. In real life the thing bugged her, didn’t feel really secure, and made it hard to squat down next to the deflated tire when she reached the back of the truck.

Now to remember the lesson on changing tires. She glanced up and down the road, not seeing a soul or any indication of headlights. Natasha shifted in her squatting pose and searched the other highway she would have turned onto if she hadn’t run into the dead deer, or almost run into him. There wasn’t any sign of life down that road, either. An eerie sensation that she was completely alone in this inky black night unnerved her and she shuddered, insisting her imagination choose another time to go overactive on her.

Glancing the way she’d come one more time, Natasha aimed the flashlight beam down the road, honestly surprised the sheriff hadn’t followed her. Either he had something better to do with his time that night, the waitress hadn’t shared her question-and-answer session with Natasha with him, or he wasn’t concerned with her desire to check out Trinity Ranch.

What the hell had she thought to accomplish by driving by the ranch anyway? It was dark as hell and getting colder by the moment.

“Damn it,” she grumbled, not seeing anyone on the road.

The tire wouldn’t change itself and she wasn’t going to leave her uncle’s new truck parked here and walk back into town. Damn it! She could do this. She needed to prove to herself, and the sheriff for that matter, who one way or another would probably hear about her outing this evening, that she was quite capable of handling herself regardless of what might happen. It really sucked at the moment, though, growing up with two male cousins so close in age to her. She’d only had one blowout in her life; it was when she was a teenager and not too far from the high school she, Marc, and Jake had attended. She’d pulled over at the gas station where all the kids stopped before and after school, and word had traveled fast that she’d gotten a flat. Marc and Jake had come to her rescue before she’d figured out how to assemble the jack.

“Well, they aren’t coming to help you out tonight,” she pointed out to herself, speaking out loud, although interrupting the chilled silence around her didn’t help soothe her nerves any.

Standing, she moved to the back of the truck, then found the jack and the pole that would help lower the spare. Tingles shot up and down her spine and she spun around, dropping part of the jack, and searched the dark road behind her. She got an eerie sensation someone was watching her.

The last thing she needed to do was scare the crap out of herself while changing a tire alone on a dark night. Nonetheless, she aimed the flashlight at the road behind her and took her time searching both sides of the road.

That’s when she spotted him. “Son of a bitch,” she hissed, clenching her teeth together when a cold wind whipped around her.

She was almost positive the sheriff’s Suburban was parked in the dark, maybe a quarter of a mile behind her, headlights off and looking as black and isolated as the night.

Why would he just be sitting there and not coming to help her?

The moment that thought popped into her head, another followed suit quickly. He was waiting for her to admit defeat, acknowledge she shouldn’t be out here by herself late at night and would not be able to make it without his help.

“Like hell,” she muttered, and her teeth started chattering when she returned her attention to the task at hand.

Natasha put the jack together, lowered the spare tire, then managed to prop the jack under the truck so she could raise the flat tire off the ground. Her fingers were numb from the cold, and she was shaking uncontrollably. It was hard as hell trying to get the tire off the truck and hold the flashlight so she could see what she was doing. Finally, resolved to change the tire in the dark, she put the flashlight on the ground. It immediately rolled off behind her into the narrow ditch alongside the road.

Natasha stared down at the flashlight, which was at least still on, so she could see where it was, as its beam glared off along the ground, highlighting every blade of grass and each weed in its path of light. The headlights on the Suburban parked just a ways back on the road popped on, startling her and hyping up the nervous trepidation already rushing through her system. She reached for the gun in the back of her pants and slid into the ditch to retrieve the flashlight. When the truck accelerated, driving toward her in the ditch, it crossed her mind to shoot out one of its tires if it didn’t stop soon. Although that would leave her and whoever was in that Suburban both stranded out here, at least until one of them managed to change their tire.

The Suburban slowed, then parked behind her, its headlights making it impossible for her to see who was driving it. She hadn’t taken Trent’s Suburban to memory, other than the sheriff’s logo on the doors. In the dark, she couldn’t see whether there were logos on the doors or not.

The driver’s side door opened and Natasha pulled her gun. She didn’t aim in the direction where she would guess someone would be getting out but held it aimed at the ground, her arms straight and both hands clutching the cold metal. Suddenly that small weapon was her lifeline and clutching it as she did offered a tremendous amount of reassurance. She wasn’t helpless and she’d be damned if anyone in this town saw her that way.

The bright lights kicked on, blinding her and temporarily leaving her teetering as she experienced the sensation that she was losing her balance. Natasha had read how manipulation with lights often helped during interrogation. They were just lights, though, and if they were turned on, the person who did so was standing right by the driver’s side door. She raised her gun and aimed.

“For Christ’s sake, put that thing down!” Trent barked.

“Turn off your headlights.”

“You prefer changing the tire in the dark?” There was that amused tone again.

She couldn’t see a damned thing and listened carefully for any sound of him walking toward her.

“I prefer to see who I’m talking to,” she informed him, tilting her head when she thought she heard boots crunch on the road. “Turn them off now,” she ordered.

Once again she was engulfed in darkness. Or almost darkness. Trent flipped off the headlights but left his running lights on. He was standing with his car door serving as a shield, and his gun was drawn, too.

Natasha blinked. Helen, the waitress, had told her Sheriff Oakley knew who killed the ranch hand at Trinity Ranch. Everyone knew. Apparently the news had gotten ahold of her father’s name. George King was wanted for murder. Helen hadn’t been able to tell her what proof the sheriff had. She’d planned on driving by Trinity Ranch, then returning to her room and finding the articles that supposedly had been published recently about her father. There was also at least one newscast, which she’d intended finding as well. Experience told her reporters often glamorized an unsolved crime, not only making it tougher for investigators to learn the truth but tipping off criminals as well, which sent them on the run. Even if the person was innocent, as she tended to believe her father was, being charged with murder was one hell of a good reason to go into hiding.

“Why did you ask me to come up here?” she asked, reluctantly lowering her gun. It had given her an overwhelming rush of power when she’d held it in both hands and pointed it.

“I need to find your father.”

“Whom you’ve charged with murder,” she accused.

Trent walked around the front of his Suburban, his boots crunching on the gravel along the side of the road. “Yup,” he agreed without hesitating.

She wanted to point the gun at him again and demand he admit he knew her father didn’t kill anyone. Instead she stuffed it down the back of her pants and pulled her sweater over the barrel. “Obviously, you don’t know my father very well.”

“You said you hadn’t seen him in a few years. Sounds like you might not know him that well, either.”

“Then it seems rather pointless that I’m here,” she countered, putting her hands on her hips when he stopped in front of her.

His green eyes pinned her where she stood, incredibly focused and way too sexy for his own good. “It’s easier to tell if a person is telling the truth when you talk to them in person.”

“I’m here. In person,” she added, feeling her anger grow. She didn’t break eye contact, but Trent did.

He walked around her, squatted in front of her flat tire, and began unscrewing the lug nuts. The glow of his running lights reflected off his black hair. Muscles bulged in his arms as he fought each one loose. After a moment, Natasha left him, marched around his Suburban, and opened his truck door. His hands clamped down on her when she reached inside.