“Yes?”
“The pistol he was using matched the weapon used to kill Pete Saldana, but when we searched his apartment in Dallas, the rifle that killed Coy Whitmore wasn’t there. There were two men using the apartment. Two men, Tory, not one. That means there’s another terrorist still out there.”
A heartbeat of silence fell. “Oh, my God.”
“Can you get word to Josh? His life could be in danger.”
“I’ll find him, don’t worry.”
“Have him call me as soon as he gets the message.”
“I will. I’ve got to go!” Tory hung up and quickly phoned Mrs. Thompson. “Clara, I’ve got an emergency. I need you to come and sit with Ivy.”
“Of course. I can be there in five minutes.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“What is it, Tory?”
“Josh is in danger. I have to go.” The call ended. She ran into the living room. “Ivy, honey, I need to find Josh. Mrs. Thompson is coming over. Come out to the barn while I saddle Rosebud.”
“It’s raining, Mama.”
“Not that hard.” She tugged the little girl out the front door and they ran to the barn. Only a smattering of rain was falling, but it was sure to get worse. Tory finished saddling the sorrel just as Clara Thompson drove up and got out of the car.
Tory led the horse up to Clara. “Hold Rosebud for a second. I have to get something.”
Standing under the covered porch, Mrs. Thompson held the horse’s reins while Tory ran back to the trailer, down the hall to her bedroom. After he’d found out she knew how to shoot, Josh had insisted she take his .38 revolver and the portable gun safe and keep them next to her bed.
She unlocked the safe and grabbed the holstered revolver, took a belt out of the drawer, slid the holster onto the belt, and strapped it around her waist. Couldn’t stop a smile as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror looking like Annie Oakley. Her life had surely changed.
But the FBI had just phoned. She wasn’t taking any chances.
Hurrying back to the main house, she took the reins from Clara and swung up on the little mare’s back.
“Be careful,” Clara Thompson said.
“I will. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Nudging Rosebud into a trot, then a gallop, she headed for the gate that led into the big, open pasture and the woods and ponds beyond.
There was a lot of land out there, but much of it was wide-open country. Sooner or later, she would spot Josh or he would spot her. The thought occurred that if she could find him, so could the man who was hunting him.
Tory urged the mare faster. Josh could be in very grave danger.
She wasn’t coming home until she found him.
*
Josh rose from the wooden bench he’d been sitting on beneath the covered porch of the dilapidated old cabin. He’d been there awhile, staring out at the muddy river. During the hours he’d been there, the wind had picked up and so had the rain, but it had slowed to a stop now. It was time to go home.
He swung back up on Thor and headed out, took the main trail, the fastest, most direct route back. The restlessness he’d been feeling had passed. The storm seemed to have cleared his head, leaving his mind razor-sharp, everything in perfect focus.
He’d been thinking of Tory ever since he’d left the house. Victoria Bradford was everything he had ever wanted in a woman. She was smart, beautiful, and sexy, and her desires stood up to his own. He hadn’t wanted another woman since the day she’d driven up in front of his house.
Tory was strong and brave and loyal. He would cut out his heart before he would let anything happen to her or Ivy.
His heart. That, he’d discovered, had been the source of his troubles all along. He’d fought it, tried to ignore it, tried to deny it, but the straight truth was, he had lost his heart to Tory Bradford.
He was in love with her. The day she drove up in front of his barn was the luckiest day of his life.
At thirty-one, he hadn’t planned on having a family—at least not for a few more years. But sometimes good things came along when you least expected them. As Linc had said, sometimes you had to make adjustments.
Josh found himself smiling. He wanted Tory with him. He wanted to marry her.
The rightness of it poured through him, settling deep in his bones. Tory was his woman. She and Ivy were his family. He’d been a fool not to see it a long time ago.
He was a little over halfway back to the house when he spotted a lone rider coming from the other direction, riding at a fast clip across the grass. He recognized the size and shape, knew that fiery red hair. She was riding like the wind, in perfect rhythm with the animal beneath her. A feeling of pride slipped through him.
Another feeling arose, this one deep and frightening. Something was wrong. Tory needed him or she wouldn’t be out there.
Josh tugged the brim of his hat down, dug his heels into the sides of the buckskin, and the horse leaped forward. The gelding ran full tilt across the open grassland, flinging mud from its hooves.
Tory spotted him, turned the sorrel, and raced toward him. They met near a dense copse of trees along the bank of a pond and both of them drew rein. The buckskin slid to a halt and so did the sorrel, the animals dancing and blowing, still high from their run.
“Josh! Thank God, I found you!”
“What is it? What’s going on?”
“Taggart called. There were two men—two terrorists, Josh, not just one. The man who killed Coy is still out there.”
The words solidified in his brain. Pete had been killed with a pistol. A rifle shot had killed Coy. His anxiety seeped into the buckskin and the horse sidestepped beneath him. At the same instant a muffled thud sliced the air and a searing pain burned into his chest.
“Josh!”
“Get down!” Jerking his rifle from its scabbard as he leaped off the horse, he launched himself at Tory the instant her feet hit the ground and both of them went down.
Pain shot up his arm and his hat went flying. The horses bolted, scattered. Ignoring the blood soaking his shirt just inches away from his heart, he hauled Tory behind the trunk of a big oak tree and settled her on the ground out of the line of fire.
“Oh, my God, you’re hit!” As he crouched beside her, Tory dragged his rain poncho over his head. She unbuttoned his shirt with shaking hands and he could hear her rapid breathing. “We need to stop the bleeding. Oh, God, Josh.”
It was meant to be a heart shot. If Thor hadn’t moved . . . He looked down to see that the bullet had torn through the flesh on his upper left chest but had missed a rib and continued on through. “It’s not as bad as it could have been.”
“It’s him—oh, my God, it’s the terrorist.”
He nodded. One thing he knew. The shooter was no amateur. Not firing a sniper rifle with a sound suppressor.
“We need . . . need to put pressure on the wound,” Tory said, her voice shaking. The bullet had hit on his left side and gouged through the flesh beneath his arm. The shot hadn’t broken any ribs, but he was hurting like a mother-grabber and losing a lot of blood.
He didn’t have time to worry about it. He needed to end this bastard. Now.
Propping his elbow on the ground, he rested the rifle stock in his palm, gritted his teeth against the burning pain, and sighted through the scope, scanning side to side through the trees until he spotted movement three hundred yards away.
Hidden deep among the foliage, the shooter, heavily camouflaged among the thick green leaves, would have been impossible for any but a trained eye to see.
He glanced back to see Tory whipping off her lightweight rain jacket, then unbuttoning the soft cotton blouse she wore underneath. She tore the fabric into pieces, made a pad, reached beneath him, and stuffed the fabric into the wound.
“I wish there was more I could do.”