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“Casey!” she gasped as she finally sped past that danger, only to have the next heavy nudge throw the car onto the wide graveled shoulder of the road before she managed to fight the car back onto the blacktop.
The headlights stayed behind her. No matter how hard she tried, how fast she went.
“I can’t take much more!” she screamed as the next nudge nearly jerked the steering wheel out of her hand. “Casey, where are you?” she cried out desperately.
“I’m coming, baby. We’re passing Gator Bay. I’m almost there.”
“Oh God.” She pressed the gas harder.
The truck was trying to come around her.
She was afraid of what that meant, terrified of allowing the huge vehicle to come around her. It had been years since Casey had taught her the defensive driving techniques, and then, they hadn’t had someone actually trying to knock them off the road.
“Casey, I can’t keep him behind me,” she said, feeling the tears, the terror threatening to choke her. “Oh God, Casey, I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry I didn’t understand. Casey, I’m so sorry—”
“Sheila, don’t you dare let that bastard win.” Casey felt his guts clenching with pure, unimagined terror as he pushed the truck as hard as he dared, speeding around the curves at a speed he had never dared before as he raced to get to her.
Beside him, Turk grabbed hold of the handgrip above him and, through the Bluetooth he wore, continued to report to Cooper and the others behind them.
Casey and Turk had managed to tear out of the bar well ahead of the others when the call had come through.
He heard her scream again, then swore insanity was only seconds away as he heard the horrifying explosion of a weapon and Sheila’s agonized scream of his name as glass shattered around her.
“Fuck! Fuck! Sheila!” He was screaming her name as he pushed the truck harder, his foot landing heavily on the gas and sending the truck careening around the curves. He listened to Turk yelling out a report to Cooper as he jerked the Glock from the holster beneath the jacket he wore and checked the clip despite the wild ride Casey had him on.
“Sheila!” Casey screamed her name again as he heard an impact and the sound of what he knew was the driver’s-side air bag inflating. “Sheila. Answer me, damn you. You will not leave me like this. I won’t let you.”
She wasn’t answering.
Casey felt such an insane rage overcoming him that he didn’t know if he could control it. God help whoever, whatever, had struck out at her. If she was harmed, if anything had happened to her, the pain he would deal out to the culprit once he found him would be unimaginable. No mercy.
“I have her.” Mechanical, cold, the voice came over the line. “The past has come to collect, and the future no longer has a defense. I have taken her, and there is nothing you can do to stop me.”
Casey heard the weapon cock as he slid around the curve to see the vehicles in the small clearing off the road just ahead.
A black-garbed, shadowed form took off running as Casey raced for the location.
He let it run.
Th
e truck sped away just as Casey swung into the clearing and came to a bone-jarring stop next to Sheila’s car.
He was aware of Turk sliding over and the truck racing off after Sheila’s attacker as he jumped out and ran to the car.
The driver’s-side door was open and his woman, his life, was slumped over the air bag, blood smearing the inflated pillow as he searched desperately for a sign of movement.
“God no! Sheila. Baby.” He was terrified to touch her, fear unlike anything he had ever known in his life gripped him, took him by the throat, and strangled the sanity from him as he reached in for her.
Terrified of what he might see, Casey gripped her shoulders and eased her back carefully.
She was breathing.
Tears, honest-to-God moisture that hadn’t touched his eyes in longer than he could remember, as her eyes slowly blinked open, and he watched her take a shaky, confused breath.
“Casey.” The tears she held back slowly fell from her dazed, confused eyes as he lifted her from the car only to collapse to the ground beside it as he held her tight to his chest.
His head bent over hers as he shook, trembled, and felt the first rivulet of salt water ease from one eye to her hair as he rocked her, held her, and let himself believe she was alive.
