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She must have been backing up, because Joe reached toward her and she scrambled back faster. “Don’t touch me.”
“Ah, God, Lori. I’m so sorry. My little bird. It’s been killing me, all these years.”
“Don’t,” she sobbed. In between the hard beats of her heart, Lori suddenly registered a new sound. The distant grind of tires rolling on gravel.
Joe stopped. His eyes rose over Lori’s shoulder. She kept backing away, and then she turned and ran. She didn’t want to hear any more.
* * *
QUINN WASN’T SUREwhat the hell he was doing. At first, he thought he’d just drop by and find out how Lori was doing. A man could drop by his sister’s house any time he wanted. It wasn’t weird.
But she hadn’t been there. And Molly had given him directions to Lori’s land as if it were natural that he would come find her here. When the dirt road had disintegrated to ripples and ruts, he’d snapped out of his mental auto drive.
What was he doing, following her to this private spot? He wanted to see her, yes, but he didn’t have any right to intrude. She didn’t want his help, didn’t even want his company.
Quinn pressed his foot to the brake, reconsidering. He had no right to interfere. He should go back to his place and console himself with the little bits of information he could glean from theTumble Creek Tribune. The week before, Miles had finally linked Quinn’s name with Lori’s. Sadly, the sight of their names together had made Quinn’s heart spasm.
Staring aimlessly out the windshield, Quinn caught a glint of the sun against metal ahead. He squinted. Her truck was there, pulled over in the high grass.
Stopped in the middle of the dirt road, Quinn stared at her purple truck.
He should go. He should.
Turning the wheel hard, Quinn started to swing the car around. Midturn, he braked so hard that his head snapped forward.
There was another truck there, parked just in front of Lori’s. Well, hell.
He popped open the door without even thinking, and started toward her truck. One raindrop hit him, then two. Then ten. The raindrops became music on the river, barely audible over the water rushing along the rocks on the banks. Just as he reached a bend in the road, he heard another sound, high-pitched like the call of a hawk.
Glancing up toward the clouds, he saw nothing but the rain falling toward him and hunched back down to avoid it.
“Quinn!” the hawk cried, shocking him to a complete stop.
He raised a hand to his brow to shield himself from the rain, and his eye finally caught sight of movement ahead of him. Dark curls whipped in the gusts of wind.Lori.
She was running toward him—running!—and he started to smile just before he registered her waving hands and panicked eyes.
Fear exploded through his veins, and Quinn sprinted forward.
He could hear the strain of her lungs even from twenty feet away.
Finally, she was right in front of him. “Lori!” he yelled, as she held her good arm straight out to push him back. His hands were on her. She wasn’t bleeding.
“It was Joe,” she panted. “It was Joe.”
Quinn shook his head. “What was Joe?”
Stumbling, she pulled him toward her truck, clearly exhausted from running through the knee-deep grass. Quinn glanced back, but he followed her to the road. “What’s wrong? Why were you running?”
“I just have to get out of here. And I think…I think I have to go to the police.”
Alarm flared back to life under his skin. He put an arm around her shoulder and ushered her toward his running car. “Are you okay?”
Shaking her head, she yanked the door open and nearly fell inside. Tears flowed down her face.
He slammed the door and jogged to the other side. As soon as he was in the driver’s seat, he grabbed Lori’s hand. “What happened?”
“Joe…He was the one who attacked my father.”
