Читать книгу Grayson - Delores Fossen - Страница 8

What the hell was going on?

That was Grayson’s first thought, quickly followed by the realization that if Eve and he had stayed inside the house just a few more minutes, they would have both been blown to bits.

Behind them, the cottage had orangey flames shooting from it, and there was debris plunging to the ground. Maybe a propane tank had exploded or something, but Grayson wasn’t sure it was an accident.

After all, there was a guy hiding in the trees.

Grayson figured it was too much to hope that the two things weren’t related.

Had this person somehow rigged the explosion? If so, that meant the man would have had to have gotten close enough to the cottage to tamper with the tank that was just outside the kitchen window, but Grayson hadn’t heard him. Of course, he’d been so involved with Eve’s baby bombshell that he might not have noticed a tornado bearing down on them. He would berate himself for that later.

Now, he had to do something to protect Eve.

Grayson took cover in front of her and behind the car door, and he re-aimed his gun in the direction of the person he’d seen just moments before the explosion.

“Get out here!” he shouted to the person.

After hearing no response to his last demand, Grayson didn’t expect the guy to comply this time. And he didn’t.

No answer.

No sign of him.

Grayson kept watch behind them to make sure no one was coming at them from that direction. Other than the falling debris, the fire and black smoke smearing against the sky, there was nothing.

Except Eve, of course.

Her eyes were wide with fear, and he could feel her breath whipping against his back and neck. “We could have died,” she mumbled.

Yeah. They’d been damn lucky. A few minutes wasn’t much of a window between life and death, and her storming out had literally saved them.

Because she looked to be on the verge of panicking, Grayson wanted to reassure her that all would be fine, but he had no idea if that was true. The one thing he did know was that it wasn’t a good idea for them to be in the open like this. There could be a secondary explosion, and he needed to get Eve someplace safe so he could try to figure out what had just happened.

He glanced at his truck, but it was a good thirty feet away. Too far. He didn’t want Eve to be out in the open that long. There wasn’t just the worry of a second explosion but of their tree-hiding friend and what he might try to do.

“Get inside your car,” he told Eve, “and slide into the passenger’s seat so I can drive.”

“Oh, God,” he heard her say.

And Grayson silently repeated it. He didn’t know just how bad this situation could get, and he didn’t want to find out with Eve in tow.

“Put the keys in the ignition,” Grayson added when he felt her scramble to get into the car. “And stay down. Get on the floor.”

No Oh, God this time, but he heard her breath shiver as it rushed past her lips. He wasn’t exactly an old pro at facing potentially lethal situations, but he had the training and some experience during his time as sheriff. This had to be a first for Eve.

Not too many people had ever come this close to dying.

Grayson glanced behind him to make sure she had followed his orders. She had. Eve had squeezed herself in between the passenger’s seat and the dashboard. It was safer than sitting upright, but Grayson knew a car wouldn’t be much protection if anything was about to happen. A secondary explosion could send fiery debris slamming right into them.

He tried to keep watch all around them while he eased into the driver’s seat and adjusted it so he’d fit. He needed to put some distance between the cottage, woods and them, and then he would call for assistance. Someone could take Eve to the sheriff’s office, and Grayson could figure out why all of this didn’t feel like an accident.

While keeping a firm grip on his gun, he shut the car door and started the engine. He took out his phone and handed it to Eve. “Call the fire department.”

She did but without taking her stunned gaze off the flames that were eating their way through what was left of the cottage. It had to break her heart to see the damage, and later the full loss would hit her.

As if she hadn’t had enough to deal with for one day.

Even now, with the chaos of the moment, he still had her request going through his head.

I need you to get me pregnant.

He’d made it clear that wasn’t going to happen, so the situation was over for him. But not for Eve. He had seen that determination in her eyes, and one way or another, she was going to get this dream baby. Hell, this near-death experience might even make her more determined.

“Hang on,” Grayson warned her as he drove away—fast. He didn’t exactly gun the engine, but he didn’t dawdle, either.

The narrow road was dirt, gravel and mud since it had rained hard just that morning. With the sinkholes poxing the surface, it was impossible to have a smooth ride. But a smooth ride was an insignificant concern. Right now, he just wanted Eve out of there so he could deal with this situation on his own terms.

In other words, alone.

“The gas was turned off,” Eve murmured. “It’s been turned off for months. So, what caused the explosion?”

“Maybe a leak in the gas line.” And if so, that would be easy to prove.

“Call the first number on my contact list,” Grayson instructed. It was for the emergency dispatcher in the sheriff’s building. “I want at least one deputy out here with the fire department. Have them meet me at the end of the road.”

Once help arrived, he could hand off Eve to whichever deputy responded, and Grayson could escort the fire department and others to the scene. He didn’t want anyone walking into a potential ambush.

Eve made the call, and he heard her relay his instructions to the emergency dispatcher. Just ahead, Grayson spotted the first curve of the snaky road. He touched the brakes.

And nothing happened.

Nothing!

The car continued to barrel toward the curve. So, Grayson cursed and tried again, but this time he added a lot more pressure.

Still nothing.

Hell.

“What’s wrong?” Eve asked.

Grayson dropped his gun onto the console between them so he could use both hands to steer. “I think someone cut the brake line.”

Eve put her hand against her chest. “W-hat?”

She sounded terrified and probably was, but Grayson couldn’t take the time to reassure her that he was going to try to get them out of this without them being hurt. The curve was just seconds away, and the road surface was as slick as spit. But his biggest concern was the trees. The road was lined with them, and if he crashed into one of them, Eve and he could both be killed on impact.

“Get in the seat and put on your seat belt,” he told her, fastening his attention on the curve.

She scrambled to do just that, but he figured there wasn’t enough time. To buy them a little more of that precious time, Grayson lifted the emergency brake lever, even though it wouldn’t help much. The emergency brake would only work on the rear brake, and it wouldn’t slow them down enough. Still, he had to try anything to reduce the speed.

“Hold on,” he warned her.

Eve was still fumbling with the seat belt when the car went into the curve. Grayson had no choice but to try to keep the vehicle on the road since the trees were just yards away.

The right tires caught the gravel-filled shoulder, kicking up rocks against the metal undercarriage. The sound was nearly deafening, and it blended with his own heartbeat, which was pounding in his ears.

Eve’s car went into a slide, the back end fishtailing. Grayson steered into the slide. Or rather that’s what he tried to do, but he soon learned he had zero control. He saw the trees getting closer and closer, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

For just a split second, he made eye contact with Eve. Her gaze was frozen on him while her hands worked frantically to fasten the seat belt. Her eyes said it all.

She thought they were going to die, and she was silently saying goodbye.

Grayson didn’t say goodbye back because he had no intention of dying today.

He heard the click of her seat belt, finally. And Grayson jerked the steering wheel to the left. The car careened in that direction, but not before the back end smashed into a live oak tree. The jolt rattled the entire vehicle and tossed them around like rag dolls.

Thank God they were wearing their seat belts.

He also thanked God that he was able to hang on to the steering wheel. They’d dodged a head-on collision, and the impact with the tree had slowed them down some, but they literally weren’t out of the woods yet.

The car went into a skid in the opposite direction.

More trees.

Grayson didn’t even bother to curse. He just focused all his energy on trying to control an out-of-control car.

And it was a battle he was losing.

There was a trio of hackberry trees directly in front of them. If he managed to miss one, he would no doubt just plow into the others, or one of their low-hanging limbs.

He fought with the wheel, trying to make it turn away, but they were in another skid, the mud and rocks helping to propel them in a direction he didn’t want to go.

“There’s the man we saw earlier,” Eve said, her voice filled with fear.

She pointed to Grayson’s right, but he didn’t look in that direction. Not because he doubted her. No. The hiding man probably was there, but Grayson had to give it one last-ditch effort to get the car into the best position for what would almost certainly be a collision.

“Cover your face,” Grayson managed to warn her. Because the limbs would probably break the glass.

His life didn’t exactly flash before his eyes, but Grayson did think of his family. His brothers. His little niece, Kimmie.

And Eve.

She was there, right smack-dab in the middle of all of his memories.

He watched the front end of the car slide toward the middle tree, but at the last second, the vehicle shifted. No longer head-on. But the driver’s side—his side—careened right into the hackberry.

Grayson felt the air bags slam into his face and side. The double impact combined with the collision rammed him into Eve and her air bag. There were the sounds of broken glass and the metal crunching against the tree trunk. The radiator spewed steam.

“We’re alive,” he heard Eve say.

Grayson did a quick assessment. Yeah, they were alive all right, and the car was wrapped around the hackberry.

“Are you hurt?” he asked Eve, trying to assess if he had any injuries of his own. His shoulder hurt like hell, but he was hoping it was just from the air-bag punch and that it hadn’t been dislocated. He would need that shoulder to try to get them out of this crumpled heap of a car.

When Eve didn’t answer, Grayson’s stomach knotted, and he whipped his head in her direction. Her hands were on the air bag that she was trying to bat down, but her attention was fixed on the side window.

Grayson soon saw why.

The man, the one who’d hidden in the trees, was running straight toward them.