Читать книгу The Bounty Hunter's Baby Surprise - Lisa Childs, Lisa Childs, Livia Reasoner - Страница 15

Chapter 6

Lillian’s lungs burned with the breath she’d been holding since that barrel had pressed against her temple. Even though the man had pulled the gun away to take out his cell phone and make a call, she hadn’t released it.

She’d overheard that call. The cell phone must have been on speaker because she had listened to every vicious word her former boss had spoken. She had no doubt now that the man, even after learning she was pregnant, wanted her dead. As if framing her for a crime hadn’t been cruel enough...

Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back. She wasn’t giving up yet. She still had time to escape, especially when she heard her captor place another call.

“Not now, Jimmy.” The voice emanated from the speaker of the man’s cell phone.

Jimmy must have been the man left behind in the van. Why hadn’t she noticed him right away?

“We’ll get you to the hospital,” the man assured him, “once we find her.”

Jimmy was hurt. That was why he’d stayed in the van, why he must have been lying in the back when she’d looked through that open front window. How badly was he hurt?

Bad enough that she could overpower him?

“I’ve got her,” Jimmy interrupted. “She walked right up to the van and climbed inside with me.”

“Did you do it yet?” the guy asked, his voice rising with excitement. “Did you kill her?”

“The boss wants us to bring her to the warehouse,” Jimmy replied with obvious relief. “He wants to be the one to pull the trigger. Get back here. You need to drive.”

Jimmy must have been too injured to drive. So he would probably be too injured to chase her if she could manage to escape.

She reached for the door handle. And that barrel pressed against her temple again.

“Don’t even try it,” Jimmy warned her. Then he told the man on the phone, “Hurry the hell up!”

He was worried she would get away from him. And Lillian was worried that she wouldn’t.

What about Jake?

Had he escaped the men? She wished Jimmy would have asked about him. But obviously she was the one they’d been after, and her bounty hunter had just gotten in the way.

“You aren’t going to shoot me,” she said. Or he would have already done it. She wrapped her fingers around the door handle and popped it open.

And the gun cocked. “I will shoot you,” he promised.

“You heard Mr. Kuipers,” she said. “He wants you to bring me to him.”

“He won’t mind if I shoot you first,” he said.

“But you don’t want to.”

“I don’t,” he admitted. “But I don’t want to die. And if I let you get away, Kuipers will kill me for certain.”

“He will anyway,” she said. “He’s not going to leave any witnesses to all these crimes he’s committed. Why do you think he wants me dead?”

The guy said nothing now. She’d obviously made him think. Or maybe he was beginning to lose consciousness. The others had left him behind because he was hurt. How badly?

“You need medical attention,” she said sympathetically. And all that sympathy wasn’t feigned. She hated to see anyone in pain. So she offered, “I can drive you to the hospital.”

He snorted. “Give it up, lady. I’m not falling for any of your tricks.”

“I’m not trying to trick you.” She knew how that felt—to be deceived.

Jake had taught her that.

And she’d learned another lesson when she’d trusted someone else with that flash drive. She should have brought it directly to her lawyer—no, to a judge—herself.

But she hadn’t exactly legally obtained it or the information on it. She’d been worried that she might be charged with breaking and entering. She’d worried that it might not even be admissible in court. But she’d trusted her lawyer to try.

When would she stop trusting the wrong people?

Her baby kicked, and her belly shifted against the steering wheel. She flinched and sucked in a breath.

“What is it?” the guy asked.

“The baby,” she murmured as she rubbed her belly. “I might be going into labor.” It was a lie. Even though she hadn’t had any contractions yet, she knew they would be far more painful than the baby’s kicks. But she couldn’t have any contractions yet. It would be way too soon for her baby to be born.

The guy cursed and murmured, “They better hurry up.” He peered through the open front window into the woods.

And Lillian took the opportunity to push open the driver’s door and run. But as she ran, shots rang out behind her. She flinched with the report of each shot, waiting for the bullet to strike her, to tear into her flesh.

Then she fell and she didn’t know if she had been hit or if she’d just stumbled. But her knees hit the asphalt hard before she fell forward. And she couldn’t get back up.

* * *

I’ve got her. She walked right up to the van and climbed inside with me.

Jake had been close enough to the guy Jimmy had called to overhear their conversation. And he’d been close enough to take out that man, wrapping his arm around his neck and squeezing until the man passed out.

Jake hadn’t wanted him to alert his buddies that Lillian had been captured. He wanted to get to the van before the rest of them did. But as the shots rang out in the woods, he knew he was too late. Either that man must have regained consciousness or someone had spotted him.

But those shots weren’t that loud, so they couldn’t have been that close to him. They sounded as if they were coming from the road.

From the van into which Lillian had unsuspectingly climbed—probably in order to hot-wire it like she’d tried to hot-wire his truck?

Damn it!

He ran toward the road, heedless of the branches slapping across his face and arms. He didn’t give a damn about himself. But if something had happened to Lillian...

If she’d been shot...

Or worse.

He didn’t know what the hell he’d do.

The shots died down ahead of him. But they began to ring out behind him, the bullets rustling the trees around him. He felt the whizz of one close to his ear.

The other men had heard the shots, too, and had come running. And shooting.

Ducking low, Jake rushed forward toward the road. He circled around the van and found two bodies lying on the pavement. One body, a long one, was right next to the van, blood pooling beneath it.

He grabbed the weapon from the man’s outstretched hand and tucked it into his waistband. The other person had made it farther, to the shoulder on the opposite side of the road. She lay half on the pavement, half in the underbrush off the shoulder, her hair lying across the branches.

“Are you hit?” he asked her as he ran toward her.

She whimpered. “No, I’m stuck.” And she tugged, but her hair was tangled in those briar branches. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes as she struggled to free herself.

“We’ve got to go!” he said as he wrapped his hand around her arm and jerked her to her feet.

She cried out as her hair came free, leaving several strands behind in the briars.

Jake turned back toward the van. Shots rang out from the woods. He positioned himself between her and the men firing at them. Then he lifted his weapon and squeezed off several shots in the direction of the woods and those men. He hoped his barrage of bullets provided enough cover as he tugged Lillian over the unconscious man and pushed her through the open driver’s door. Then he stepped inside the van and swung the door shut behind him.

“The keys are in the ignition,” she said.

That was why she’d gotten right into the van. She’d been trying to escape. And he figured it wasn’t just those men she’d hoped to elude but him, as well.

He turned the key and the engine roared to life, along with more shots from the woods. He pushed her low as the window in the passenger’s door shattered. Another bullet whizzed past his head.

Too close.

He’d been lucky so far, with all the shots fired at him, that no bullets had hit him yet. But his luck was eventually bound to run out.

“Stay down!” he yelled as he slammed the transmission into Drive, pressed on the accelerator and shot forward. The men rushed from the woods, firing wildly.