Authors: Becky McGraw
Wes had activated his equine search and rescue team, but he was in no shape to take charge of that right now. He didn't have a choice though. It was his team, his men, and women and he needed their help to find her. They had to find her, she might be bleeding to death somewhere. He had commitments from three people who said they were on the way, one of them was Roxanne. The others were getting their stuff together, but told him it would be at least two hours before they arrived. The Texas Rangers were sending their canine search team too, but again, that was going to take hours to get started too.
If Leigh Ann was in these thick woods injured and dehydrated, she could die by the time they found her.
If she isn't already dead
, his mind interjected and he forcefully shoved that back where it belonged. They would find her alive. Wes had to believe that, or he wouldn't be able to focus on what he needed to do.
After the third unanswered ring, Wes stuffed his phone back in his pocket, and headed for his truck. He'd make calls on the way, but he couldn't wait for everyone else, he needed to start searching for her now. Once he got back with his horse and gear, he was sure Rocky would be here, and they could head out to search, leaving instructions for the rest of the team.
He and Rocky were the most qualified riders on the team, but the last two people who should pair up on the search. They were both personally vested in the outcome, and had the most to lose. That wasn't the ideal way to do things, not their normal protocol, but that was how he was going to do it. Because he wasn't waiting, and he damned sure wasn't sitting on the sidelines for this search. Someone else could be base commander.
A slow-moving emergency vehicle blocked the road as it moseyed on by the crash scene, the occupant rubbernecking and gawking, but not stopping to offer help. Frustration poured through him, as he waited for it to pass. When the guy finally cleared the road Wes ran across the road to his truck. Guiding his truck onto the pavement, Wes put his foot down on the accelerator.
He was thankful his mother had picked up his distraught son a few minutes ago, because comforting him, while trying to search would be impossible. He told his mom to keep Trey home from school today, feed him ice cream and cookies, whatever it took to calm him down. Ice cream and cookies weren't going to do the trick though, Wes knew that. The only thing that would help is if he found Leigh Ann. It was the only thing that would help him too. Like his son, he loved the woman they were looking for, and was worried sick about her.
Wes was going to find her if it was the last thing he ever did.
Thirty minutes later, Leigh Ann couldn't wait any longer. "I have to use the bathroom," she said squirming on the seat where she lay. "And my hands are numb. Can you loosen the tape a little?" If he did, she could probably wiggle out of it. She had been trying, but it hadn't budged a millimeter. Instead the skin at her wrists was nearly bleeding from being rubbed raw by the rough edges of the tape.
A deep sigh preceded Trace Rook's answer. "We need to keep moving. I'll stop in a little while to pass you off. You can use the bathroom then."
"P-pa-pass me off?" Leigh Ann stuttered as a knot of fear choked her, and she clamped her knees together.
"Yeah, we're meeting the feds at a rest stop about ten miles ahead."
"The feds?" This was getting stranger by the minute.
"I can't explain, all I can say is you really know how to cause trouble, lady. If I get out of this alive, it will be a fucking miracle. You're damned lucky to still be alive yourself."
Still be alive
? More fear followed and settled in the pit of her stomach. "Are you going to k-kill me?"
"Why the hell would I go to all this trouble to save you, if I planned to kill you?" he asked sarcastically. "But you seem damned determined to do yourself in. What the hell were you thinking coming out to the ranch and threatening Roy Brown?"
"I was collecting money they owe Wes for vet services." If this was the result of her collection activities, it was no wonder Wes had ordered her never to do it again.
"He send you out there?" Trace shot back angrily glancing at her in the mirror.
"Um, no..." she admitted. "He didn't know I was going out there."
"That was stupid--
hairbrained
," he told her with a snort. "You nosing around out there made the bosses think you were looking for more than a little money. They told me to kill you, and if I don't convince them I did,
I'm
dead."
He said he wasn't going to kill her, but someone was trying to do it, and she wanted to at least know who that was. "Who are the bosses?" she squeaked and sat up, then wished she hadn't when her head swam sickeningly. Quickly, Leigh Ann laid back on the seat and closed her eyes. "Please tell me what's going on," she begged softly.
"You stepped on a hornet's nest, princess, and
we
are about to get stung in the ass."
"Oh, that tells me everything I need to know," she spat, totally fed up with his evasion. If she was on some kind of hit list, she at least wanted to know who was going to, um...hit her.
"Suffice it to say that The Diamond Bar is owned by a group of men you have pissed off royally, Miss America."
"I was crowned Miss Texas USA," she corrected automatically and felt her face heat.
"Whatever you were crowned, you're a royal pain in my ass for sure," Trace told her gruffly, but the side of his firm lips cocked up in a half-grin, or it could have been a grimace.
Silence was her best friend. One thing was sure, she didn't want to make her captor any madder than he already was. If she kept talking that is exactly what was going to happen. He said he was saving her, so she had no choice but to trust that is what he was doing. Leigh Ann was hog-tied in the back of his pickup truck without many options to save herself.
A few minutes later, the truck weaved to the right, and Leigh Ann sat up to see if she could tell where they were. Sure enough, they were pulling into a rest stop lined with eighteen-wheelers near the front entrance. Cars dotted the spaces nearest the tan brick building behind the trucks. Trace pulled into a spot next to a black van and shut off the engine. Without a word, he got out of the truck and headed to the bathroom, leaving her sitting there, knowing that she had to go too. What a jerk!
Something moved to her right and Leigh Ann's head jerked that way. A dark-haired man in equally dark sunglasses shaded his eyes with his hand to peer inside the window. He stepped back then the back door of the truck was flung open. Without a word, the man reached inside to grab her ankles and drag her toward him. A scream strangled her, and Leigh Ann pulled against the tape, but it held tight. Her legs weren't bound like her wrists though, so she kicked at him with the leg he wasn't pulling.
Her boot clipped the man under his chin and he grunted as his head jerked back. He let go of her ankle and she scrambled across the seat. Leigh Ann fumbled with the door handle then yanked when she finally got it in her grasp. The door flew open, but instead of going out feet first like she planned, she was thrown over another man's shoulder and held tight.
"If you scream, I'm going to spank your ass," Trace growled as he stomped around the truck toward the van. Leigh Ann had no doubt that is exactly what he would do too, so she went limp and didn't let go of the scream that had finally worked loose in her throat.
She heard a sliding door open, before she was tossed onto a hard seat on her back. She bounced a couple of times, then scrambled away to sit up.
"I'm not a sack of potatoes," she told him indignantly throwing her shoulders against the back of the seat to glare at him. "And I'm injured."
Trace stuck his head inside the van. His dark eyes were concerned as he scanned her from head to toe. "You have a cut on your forehead. Anything else hurt?"
"My head hurts, and I feel a little queasy," she admitted. "I think I'm fine though.
"I think you're going to have a black eye, princess," he informed her and leaned forward to rub the spot under her left eye with his thumb.
"That didn't come from the accident," she told him with a huff.
"Don't worry, it'll just make your eyes look bluer," he said with a chuckle. "If you need to go to the hospital though, these guys will take you."
Trace leaned forward and kissed her temple. His deep voice rumbled over her skin as he said, "Take care, Miss Texas," before he backed away and pointed a finger at her. "And stay out of trouble."
The van door slid shut and she was in total darkness, because there were no windows in this van. Leigh Ann wondered who he was turning her over to. She didn't know the man who had tried to pull her out of the truck, so she didn't trust him. What if Trace was turning her over to someone else to do his dirty work?
Why would I go to all this trouble to save you, if I was going to kill you?
No, this guy wasn't going to kill her either, if that was the case. She had to trust Trace knew the man, and knew he wouldn't hurt her. The van door slid open again and Leigh Ann squinted against the bright light backlighting the tall dark haired man that was her new captor. "Do you need to go to the hospital, Miss Baker?" he asked evenly.
"No, thank you. I just need to use the bathroom really bad. And this tape is cutting off my circulation."
He reached inside his dark suit jacket, and pulled out a folded pocket knife, then extended the long blade. She held back a squeak when he reached inside to grab her wrists, and put the wicked looking blade against her skin. He didn't cut her, he just sliced through the tape and blood rushed to her fingers painfully.
"Thank you," she said weakly, as she pulled the tape off of her skin.
"I can't let you go to the bathroom here, too many people, but I'll stop soon."
Rubbing her tender wrists, she nodded and he stepped back then slid the door closed again. Leigh Ann felt like she was in a hot metal box, because she couldn't even see the front seat. It was closed off by a metal barrier, so she didn't know who was up front, or where they were going. All she could do was trust that Trace Rooks wasn't sending her off like a lamb to the slaughter.
It was getting dark and Wes was losing hope that they would find Leigh Ann before nightfall. "Let's make one more pass to the East," Wes told Rocky and laid the reins against his horse's neck to turn him.
"We've been that way twice, Wes...she's not here."
"Where the hell could she be then?" he asked with frustration sharpening his tone.
Wes's radio squawked and his heart raced, as he pulled it from his waistband to listen. "CSI says that the truck was pitted on the left rear quarter panel."
"What the hell does that mean?" Rocky said leaning closer to him and the radio.
"Someone clipped the truck on the left side and that's what caused her to crash," Wes explained as he nudged Luther in the side to turn him toward camp. "We need to get back to camp." Wes keyed the radio, "Did you find her?" he asked impatiently, holding the radio to his ear to listen. Other than scratchy static a few times, there was no response.
Wes had heard all he needed to hear for now anyway. Someone had clipped the back of the truck to make her crash. That meant she was probably not out here in the woods, someone had taken her from the scene, so they were wasting time out here. Anger and adrenaline mixed into a toxic stew in his veins, and Wes urged his horse faster.
It took over an hour for them to get back to camp. The brush and bramble that choked the trail had made getting back as slow as going out there. Sweat dripped into the scratches on his face to burn like hell, but he didn't mind the pain. He deserved it, and the pain that was pressing down on his chest so hard, he couldn't breathe. Wes was even more afraid now than he had been when he thought she was in the woods. Tonight, instead of being out there with wild animals, she was with the animal who had abducted her, either way she had no way of protecting herself. And it was all his fault for sending his son, a boy, to do a man's job. He thought she would agree to stay for dinner if Trey asked, that way he would have a chance of talking to her. Cowardly.
Right before they made the clearing at base camp, Wes knew he had to come clean with Roxanne, she deserved to know this was all his fault. "I'm sorry, Rox...I should have stopped her from leaving last night. I asked her to stay for supper, but she was upset."
Roxanne's head swung his way, her eyebrows drawn over her gray eyes. "Why the hell was she upset?"
"Well, I gave her mixed sig--" he started, but his phone chimed in his pocket. Wes leaned up in the stirrups to pull it out. "Yeah?" he answered without even looking at the screen.
"Wes, it's Leigh Ann," a soft voice whispered and Wes wanted to howl his relief.
Relief swamped him, making him slightly dizzy. Swallowing hard, Wes's voice wavered as he asked her, "Where are you, baby?"
"In a van, somewhere..." she replied unsurely.
The fear in her voice made his own anxiety shoot up to defcon level one. "With who? Who has you?" She was alive, that's all that mattered, he reminded himself.
"Well, Trace Rooks did at first..."
The name made anger surge up to his throat to choke him. Taking a breath to calm himself, so he didn't upset her too, he asked, "Did he hurt you, sweetheart?"
Wes held his breath waiting for her answer. He would track the bastard to the ends of the earth and peel his skin inch by inch from his body if he hurt one hair on her head.
"My head hurts, but I'm..." The phone line crackled and her voice faded, before the line went dead and his chin dropped to his chest in frustration.
"
Was that Leigh Ann?!?
" Rocky demanded anxiously.
"Yeah, it was her..." He punched redial on the phone, putting it on speaker phone this time, so Rocky could hear too. But Leigh Ann didn't answer. She was in the back of a van, with someone she didn't know, and she was hurt. Wes felt more helpless than he'd ever felt in his life, as he disconnected the call and put his phone back in his pocket.