Showdown!

She fought a guilty conscience for taking advantage of his offer, knowing she wasn’t the cousin he sought. However, she had to protect her brother, and that surely outweighed Zack’s concern for his uncle. Didn’t it? Anyway, he was the one who’d insisted she come with him, and truly she didn’t mean the Daltons any harm.

While he drove, she studied him covertly. He was an attractive man. He wore no ring and had mentioned no wife in his list of family members, so she assumed he wasn’t attached. If circumstances had been different, they might have met, fallen in love, even married.

Ah, she’d always been a romantic. A sigh, filled with sadness she couldn’t quite fathom, worked its way out of her. At his quick look, she managed a smile.

Life was what it was, she reminded herself sharply. All the wishing and hoping and dreaming she’d ever done had never changed her fate, not one iota.

As the day grew longer, she became weary. She’d had no sleep the previous night due to her preparations for leaving. Her head dropped forward, startling her as she drifted into sleep. At last she asked, “Are we going to travel all night?”

“We’ll stop at the next town if you’re tired.”

“How far are we from the ranch?”

“Four or five hours.”

“I can make it. Are we in Idaho yet?”

“Just about.”

She fell silent as tension crept up her neck. Whatever happened, she was committed to this course. For a moment she felt the way she had the day the social worker left her and Adam at her aunt’s house, only this time she didn’t have her brother’s hand to cling to. She exhaled shakily. She was really, truly on her own.

Darkness closed around them. She glimpsed the sign that welcomed them to Idaho as it flashed past. At one point she heard his voice, but the words didn’t register. “What?”

“You can let the seat back a little,” he said more loudly. “The barrier keeps it from going very far.”

She did so. The act was merely a blink on her consciousness, then it was gone.

Sometime later she was woken by a curse. She grasped warm flesh and felt the contraction in his thigh muscles as he braked, then the wild skid of the SUV as it swung in an arc. The rear end slid past the front and they came to an abrupt halt facing back the way they had come.

“What is it?” she asked, releasing her hold on him.

His snort was sardonic. “There’s water across the road. Sit tight.” He removed his shoes and socks, got out and checked the depth of the water.

Cold air swirled into the warm vehicle. Rain splattered in waves across it. She shivered and pulled her shirt closer around her. August in Idaho was definitely cooler than in Las Vegas.

The deputy returned, letting in another blast of chilly air. She looked around. There wasn’t a house or building in sight, not even a distant light to indicate civilization.

Hail suddenly hit the windshield. “It’s cold,” she said. She was shivering.

“Yeah. We’re caught in a freak storm. We’re stuck until the water goes down.”

Her escort dried his feet on a handkerchief, put on his shoes and socks, then restarted the SUV. He parked off the road at a wide point that looked out on a shallow valley and a long range of mountains. The landscape all around them was lit by flashes of lightning.

She could detect evergreen trees and the ever-present desert sage. Along the edge of the road, Russian thistle and wallflowers formed soft mounds that constantly changed their shapes in the brisk wind. She shivered as if someone was walking on her grave.

“What do you mean, stuck?” she finally asked.

“As in, we can’t go on.”

“Well, let’s go back,” she said, wary of the storm and the dark.

“Where?” His tone was sardonic.

“The last town. We can stay in a motel until the storm is past.”

He shook his head. “Sorry, but the last town was a hole in the wall with one quick-stop market-gas station combo, which, I might add, wasn’t open.”

“No motel?” she asked. Something akin to panic shot through her. She forced herself to stillness.

“Nothing.” He slammed his fist on the steering wheel, the perfect picture of male irritation.

After a couple of minutes of silence, she dared ask, “What now?” The fact that not one car was visible in any direction wasn’t lost on her.

“There’s a town fifteen or twenty miles down the road. That’s a far piece to walk for help, even if we got across the flood over the road.” He glanced at her. “The current is swift, but I could probably make it.”

The thought of being left behind caused the near-panic to stir painfully. “Maybe the water will subside soon.”

“Probably not before morning.”

He picked up the handset of a police scanner, his manner resigned but not particularly worried. All she heard was the crackle of static with a sharper crack at each flash of lightning on the horizon as he turned the dial. He tried calling several times, but got no answer.

When the lightning hit close, he turned the radio off. “Too dangerous in this storm,” he muttered.

“I have my cell phone.” She got it out of her bag. When she tried to reach an operator in order to locate a nearby town and, she hoped, a place to stay, she got mostly static and faintly heard a recording that told her she was out of range. “Out of range.”

He didn’t appear surprised. “Yeah. There’s nothing open now, anyway.” He yawned and stretched. “We’ll have to wait it out. Luckily the land drains fast. I have a sleeping bag.”

With that enigmatic statement, he got out, opened the rear door and climbed in. He laid the rear seats flat and spread a puffy bag over the cargo space.

“I can move our luggage so you can curl up back here and sleep,” he told her.

Silently she watched while he stacked her three bags and one other against the back of the front seat.

“Sorry, no pillows,” he said. He twisted and looked at her. “Your bed’s ready.”

The cold was getting to her now, and shivers racked her. “Where are you going to sleep?”

“In the front seat.”

She immediately saw that this wasn’t fair. “You’re taller than I am. You take the back and I’ll stay in the front.”

He yanked a heavy parka from his bag and pulled it on. “I want to keep an eye on things. Excuse me,” he said, then headed into the trees with a flashlight.

When he returned, he handed the light to her, got inside and slammed the door. She sat there for a minute, then also headed for the trees.

The rain had lightened to a fine mist, but the wind was still fierce. Upon returning, she hesitated, then climbed into the back of the vehicle since he already had his legs stretched along the bench-type front seat.

Even with the sleeping bag, she was aware of the cold seeping into the truck now that the engine was no longer supplying them with heat. The wind rocked the SUV like a dog shaking a bone as it moaned through sparse trees, across the road and over the ledge overlooking the valley. Other than the wind, no sounds disturbed the night.