Читать книгу To Protect His Own - Brenda Mott - Страница 7

“BE CAREFUL DRIVING HOME, Caitlin. It’s starting to snow.” Shauna pulled her head back inside, then partially closed the front door behind the other woman.

“I will. Don’t forget—the indoor arena, six sharp.” Caitlin pointed an accusing finger at her longtime friend. “No hitting the snooze button. We need to get in one last practice session before I head back to school.”

“I’ll be there,” Shauna promised with a laugh.

Caitlin waved and hurried toward her Pacific-blue Jaguar, parked near the barn a short distance from Shauna Meyers’s front yard. As she headed down the dirt-and-gravel road, she flipped the heater on full blast. February in Colorado could be brutal, and it looked like tonight would be no exception. She regretted that she hadn’t worn a coat this afternoon when she’d left for Shauna’s house. She should’ve known the fickle mountain sunshine and mid-fifties temperature made no promises. But it didn’t matter. The Jaguar X had heated seats, and her long-sleeved sweater was warm enough.

She slid a CD into the stereo, then turned her wipers on as the overture to the Marriage of Figaro filled the car. The snowflakes were getting bolder, bigger, and she flicked her headlights to low beam. By the time she reached the two-lane highway, the snow was coming down in earnest. She’d hoped to get home before the roads got bad, but the ranch was a good seven miles from the Meyers’s place, and the snow was starting to stick to the pavement. Suddenly her car shimmied. She looked in her mirrors but couldn’t see anything. Yet the car handled in a way that told her something was wrong, so Caitlin pulled over to the shoulder.

Nuts! A flat tire. Left rear side. If only she’d taken Dillon up on his offer to teach her basic vehicle maintenance, including how to change a tire. At the time, his big-brother concerns seemed unnecessary. After all, she had her auto club membership. But as she stood in the falling snow, the thought of waiting for the auto club to send someone from town didn’t seem like such a good idea after all. At the pace people moved in Deer Creek, it might take a while, and she didn’t relish the thought of sitting in her car at the side of the dark mountain highway.

Besides, she realized with a groan, she’d left her cell phone at home. Again. Should she walk back to town and find a pay phone, or stay here in the hope a Good Samaritan came along? The thought was no sooner in her head when a Chevy Blazer eased around a bend in the road from the same way she’d come, and slowed to a crawl. Relieved, Caitlin waved frantically at the driver to stop. But as the Blazer pulled in behind her, the vulnerability of her situation made Caitlin suddenly wary. She relaxed, though, when she saw the lone occupant was a woman who looked not much older than her own twenty-three years.

Before she could make a move toward the vehicle, another SUV rounded the curve in the Blazer’s wake, swerving wildly. It crossed over the highway’s dotted yellow line, then veered back toward the shoulder of the road. Toward the Chevy Blazer.

Caitlin froze in the headlights.

The SUV struck the Chevy with such force, a deafening screech rent the air, and Caitlin tried to scramble out of the way. Tried to flee from the on-coming vehicles. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as the Blazer skidded sideways and plunged into the ravine below. The dark-colored SUV fish-tailed as the driver attempted to correct his mistake in judgment, and struck Caitlin’s car.

Her sluggish mind reasoned that even diving into the ravine would be better than being run down. But the Jag clipped her before she could reach safety, flinging her not into the ravine, but in the opposite direction. Onto the highway. She heard squealing brakes and felt intense pain that seemed to wrack her entire body.

Then nothing.