Under Duress

No one except the guy she had just rear-ended.

Lily gawked with her face smooshed against the windshield and elbowed her. “He’s ginormous.” She paused, a frown wrinkling her forehead. “Is he safe?”

Samantha pushed her door open to see a man of giant height unfold slowly from the Jeep as he removed his sunglasses. His face was clean shaven, although adorned with a scowl, and he was wearing a dark blue knit shirt with short sleeves that strained against his biceps. “I guess we’ll find out.” Despite his almost scary size, this had to be a far better encounter than their one with the guy who had a gun peeking out from under his shirt.

What other choice did she have? She would have to trust this man with the vaguely familiar face.

* * *

His first day back in town, and some crazy driver had to mangle his bumper? Reid Palmer shook his head and whispered a prayer for patience as his shoes hit the asphalt. The Lord certainly knew how practiced that request was, and Reid tamped down the niggling worry that he would never be free of making that particular supplication. Growing up with an abusive father hadn’t helped him learn how to handle life with a calm and patient spirit. Anger had been his father’s way of life, and Reid had thought it would be his, until he had met God. Then everything had changed, but prayer remained a constant companion.

A slight breeze, definitely not enough to dry the perspiration that beaded on his forehead, ruffled the strawberry blond hair of the woman stepping out of the compact car behind him. She frowned, but he couldn’t tell if it was due to the impending storm or the damage to her car. Probably both. When their gazes collided, she narrowed her eyes at him. He wanted to step back or apologize at the force of her unspoken accusation, but he hadn’t done anything wrong. She was the one who had rear-ended him.

He scrubbed a hand through his hair. Why did she look so familiar? It had been a few years since he’d been in Heartwood Hill, but he quickly ran through his mental contact list of faces from the area.

Law school. That was it. He’d attended a few classes with her and her twin. Which one she was he had no idea, but it didn’t really matter. In the end, he would probably let her out of any responsibility for damage to his Jeep in the interest of forming amicable working relationships with the local lawyers, and they would part ways. In an hour, he’d be eating take-out Chinese and sitting on the floor of his new unfurnished apartment.

She leaned back into her car, talking to a girl in the front seat, probably retrieving her insurance card from the glove compartment and her phone to call local law enforcement. The girl clutched a large leather bag and shared a worried look with the redhead. Reid shot up another prayer, this time that the woman wouldn’t call the police to write up an accident report. There was no need to involve law enforcement, and one encounter with a person from his past was enough for this evening. He didn’t want to face that difficult reintroduction sooner than he had planned.

The redhead straightened and hurried toward him, but her attention focused everywhere but on him. She glanced over her shoulder twice as she walked the short distance. Reid’s training whispered to him that she had the manner of a person afraid someone was after her. He peered past her, but nothing suspicious presented itself.

Without a greeting, she asked, “Can I borrow your phone? Mine got damaged, and I need to call the police.”

He reached toward his pocket for the cell. “I think you need a tow truck more than—”

A scream of tires interrupted him. The redhead gasped and spun around. A moment later, she signaled to the girl in her passenger seat. The girl slid out of the car and rounded the front in a jog, a purple backpack clutched to her front. When the girl was within reach, the redhead nudged her toward Reid’s Jeep.

Whatever was going on, this woman was scared to a degree Reid hadn’t seen in a long time. He leaned around her and spied a large black SUV completing a turn, its driver gunning the engine. There were no outward indicators that the SUV was after them, but the woman and girl scrambling into his backseat were an obvious clue that something was wrong.

With her hand on the door handle, the woman whispered to him, “Get us out of here. Now.” She glanced back again, a hunted look creasing the area around her eyes. “Please.”

Was this for real? This woman rear-ends his Jeep and then jumps into his backseat and demands he drive her away from whoever is pursuing her? It was like an action movie where the hunky hero saves the girl and they drive off into the sunset together. Except he was no hunk or hero, and he could guarantee that they wouldn’t drive off into a happily-ever-after together.

He stared at her, immobile, as she pushed the girl into his backseat and then clambered in behind her. She slammed the door shut, then rolled down the tinted window a couple of inches. She poked her lips up to the opening to growl at him. “Come on!”

Apparently he was moving too slowly for her liking. He cut-timed to the driver’s door and slid into the seat. The engine roared to life, and as he pulled away, the bumper of the woman’s compact car dropped to the ground with a clamoring clunk.

From her hunched position in the back, the redhead held on to the shoulder of his seat. “I’m so sorry to impose. I don’t normally jump into other people’s vehicles and bark at them to drive. But we’re being chased by that black SUV, and we had to get away.” She threaded her free arm around the girl’s shoulders. “I will not let them take my Lily.”

In the rearview mirror, Reid saw Lily lean into the woman. He stifled the urge to wrinkle his nose. In the enclosed vehicle with the air-conditioning blowing, an odor wafted from Lily as if she had been camping and hadn’t showered for a few days.

The redhead turned to peer out the back window, drawing Reid’s gaze back to her car, abandoned in the turn lane of the busy road. The black SUV had pulled off in front of it, and a man with a blue ball cap was stalking the perimeter of the car, peering into the windows.

“That’s him. He chased us all the way from the church.” She twisted back to the front, seeming to realize where they were. “We need to get to the police station. It’ll be safe there.”

Reid gripped the wheel, an unsettling sensation seizing his middle. “Have you called nine-one-one?”

“No. I smashed my phone when I hit that guy with my purse to get him to let go of Lily.” She swiped her hand across her lips. “Can we call the police with your phone?”

“Sure.” Reid startled at how quickly he’d answered. After his multiple motorcycle crashes and resignation from the local police force a few years back, he wasn’t eager to make contact with local law enforcement, but the woman needed help. He commanded his hands to relax on the steering wheel and his voice to take a gentle tone. “In a minute. Let’s just talk about this first and see if we can figure out what’s happened.” Reid signaled to turn left, watching to see that the SUV wasn’t following. Now would be the proper time for introductions, a time to reassure her that she could trust him. But she hadn’t recognized his name earlier, and he wasn’t ready yet to remind her of his identity. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re in my backseat?”

“There’s not much to tell. I was picking Lily up from a day camp at church, and the guy in that big SUV had his hands on her when I pulled up. I jumped out of my car to stop him and ended up hitting him in the face with my bag.” She hefted the leather tote to show him. “I think the buckle hit him because there was blood on his face. That gave us time to get away, but he shot out the back window of my car. I thought we had lost him in the traffic on the way to the police station, but then I hit you, and here we are.” She paused to take a deep breath. “I have no idea who he is or why he would want us.”

Kidnapping. Pure and simple. If the man had wanted them dead, he could have done it right there in the parking lot. But the motive was a mystery. Why them, and what did he want?

“You’re safe now.”

“Thanks for letting us jump in your car. By the way, I’m Samantha Callahan, and this is Lily, my soon-to-be daughter. I’m her guardian right now, but I have the adoption in the works.”

Of course, Samantha. One of the Callahan twins and the smartest in their law class. He should have known by her assertiveness that she wasn’t the sweet and optimistic Mallory.

She scanned the passing buildings as they merged into a commercial area. “You’ve passed the police station. If you turn right up here, we can circle around.”

Reid sucked in a breath. There was no avoiding it. “You don’t need the police.”

“Why not?” Her hand clutched the back of his seat, pulling the fabric away from his shoulder. “You look familiar. Who are you?”

He turned as Lily leaned against the back of the front seat. “Are you a giant? You’re really big. I don’t think I know anyone as big as you.”

That was a new one. But then he hadn’t spent much time around kids who spoke their minds freely. Maybe this was a perfectly acceptable question.

Samantha shushed her. “You can’t go around asking a stranger if he’s a giant. Maybe we need to work on your manners.”

“What’s wrong with that? I’m making conversation. I’m trying to look him in the eye, but he’s driving. And I didn’t get a chance to try out my firm handshake since you shoved me in the car. I’m being polite.”

“Lily.” She dragged out the last syllable.

Reid held up a hand. “It’s fine.” He turned enough to meet Lily’s gaze for a nanosecond then returned his attention to the road. In his peripheral vision, he caught her smile. “No, I’m not a giant, technically. I’m only six feet four inches tall.”

He met Samantha’s gaze in the rearview mirror and forced a lopsided grin. Frustration glinted in her blue eyes. “I’m Reid Palmer,” he repeated. “We attended our first year at law school together.”

The color slid from her face, and she licked her lips before she could recover her composure. “Reid.” She drew out his name as if fighting to keep her tone steady. “Yes.”

She sat back against the seat and turned her attention to the window.

His mind blanked on what to say as he surveyed the surrounding area for the big SUV. A simple you-can-trust-me speech seemed inadequate. They hadn’t known each other well in school, but from what she probably remembered of him, her anxiety was warranted. Mere words wouldn’t matter to her now.

Samantha swiped a hand through her hair. “I still need to involve the authorities. At least file a report or something.”

It wasn’t exactly the timing he had hoped for to make amends with his buddies. But he couldn’t just drop her off. And even though he hadn’t witnessed what had happened at the church, he’d seen the black SUV that was after them.

Another thought niggled the back of his mind. This was his chance to prove to himself that he had changed since the last time he was in town. That his personal dragons had been slayed. That even though he didn’t trust himself in a romantic relationship, he was a gentleman not only capable of protecting and serving but also eager to do so.

For her own safety, he had to convince her that she could trust him. This wasn’t exactly the way he wanted to be reunited with his former brothers on the force, but it was too late to enact his original plan of bringing gifts of a case of pop and a couple buckets of chicken wings. Dark thunder-boomers dotted the sky, scudding and bumping into one large mass, as Reid turned his Jeep toward the police station. The first streak of lightning jagged across the sky.

TWO (#ulink_ba2e1569-518b-5559-811d-4fae2052b848)

“If you aren’t taking us to the police as I requested, then legally, we’re still kidnapped.” Samantha’s tone of accusation cut to his core, and Reid swiped his hand across his jeans to keep from digging his fingernails into the flesh of his palm.