To Have And To Hold: Made for Marriage / To Wed a Rancher / The Mummy Proposal. Helen Lacey
But with Noah … well, she thought about sex a lot. And she felt certain he thought the same. Since they’d almost made love by the river she’d been distracted and unable to think about much else.
Except now she was thinking about Lily. The young girl’s obvious confusion and pain lingered in the back of Callie’s mind. She needed to talk with Noah before their relationship went any further. She needed to be sure she wasn’t unsettling Lily too much.
“There’s the turnoff,” Fiona announced.
Callie slowed down and turned into a long gravel driveway. An old farmhouse came into view behind a row of wild bamboo. The settling dusk set up an eerie mood. “Are you sure this is the right place?”
“Absolutely. Put the headlights on, will you? It’s getting dark.”
Callie flicked on the lights and pulled the truck to a halt. “Looks like a gate over there,” she said and pointed to a break in the fence line where an old timber gate was tethered between two posts. Fiona grabbed the flashlight on the seat between them and got out. Callie followed and retrieved three halters and ropes from the back of the truck before tracing her friend’s footsteps.
“I can see them,” Fiona announced when she reached the fence line. “Look.”
Callie saw the three horses silhouetted against the diminishing sunlight. “You get the trailer ready,” she said. “I’ll grab them.”
“Be careful,” Fiona warned and headed back to the truck.
Callie looked at the chain and padlocks on the gate and tapped the pair of bolt cutters in her back pocket. She slipped through the barbed-wire fence and headed for the trio of horses who were now watching her suspiciously. The closer she got, the more appalled she became. They were clearly neglected. Two bays and one grey, all of them in need of decent feed and veterinary attention. She haltered one of the bays and the other two automatically followed. Once the three horses were secured, Callie grabbed the snips and cut through the barbed wire. Within minutes they began angle loading them on the trailer.
Fiona suddenly shrieked. “Callie, look. A car’s coming.”
Sure enough, a pair of headlights turned toward the long driveway. “It could be nothing,” Callie assured her friend.
Fiona didn’t believe her. She didn’t believe herself. “They must have seen our lights. We have to get out of here.”
Callie agreed. They quickly secured the horses, closed the tailgate, then jumped into the truck. Callie turned the truck and trailer in a sharp arc and headed down the driveway.
The car kept coming. Conscious of both their own and the horse’s safety, Callie accelerated fractionally and stayed on the track. With just meters to spare, the car veered to the right with a loud blast of its horn. She kept going, giving the task her full concentration. Fiona told her the car had turned and was now on their tail as they headed out of the driveway. They hit the main road and Callie increased speed. Behind, the car closed in, tailgating them, striking the horn in an attempt to intimidate. The driver didn’t give up, following them down the narrow country road. In the side mirrors Callie could see that the car was in fact a truck with a menacingly heavy-duty push bar out front. And it was getting closer to the back of the trailer with each passing second. At the first contact on the push bar against the rear of the trailer, Callie was thrown forward. Fiona screamed. Callie gripped the steering wheel and held on, managing the impact by pressing the gas and surging forward. She could feel the horses moving in the trailer and straightened the rig quickly. The truck collided again, harder this time, sending them into the gravel rut on the edge of the road. Callie held her nerve and pulled the wheel with all her strength.
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