Riley's Retribution

An antique Hank Williams song filled the cab. Unfortunately, it was the wrong choice, since old Hank was singing about lost love, and she couldn’t stop herself from reacting to the sadness of the lyrics.

When her vision blurred, she blinked her eyes.

“Get a grip,” she ordered herself. “You’ve come through bad times before. You’ll do it again.”

The swirling flakes and another recent snowfall hid the craggy Montana landscape, but she knew this stretch of road as well as she knew the vegetable garden in back of the ranch house.

She’d been born and raised in this country, and she’d been traveling back and forth to Spur City since her mom had strapped her into an infant car seat for the trip.

The Golden Saddle horse farm where she lived was a legacy from her parents. Mom had died five years ago. Dad had lived three years longer. And she’d been back home for the past two years—while her marriage was coming apart at the seams.

Her own lost love. Buried under a clash of lifestyles and values. And finally…buried for good.

She didn’t want to think about that. She’d loved Edward Rogers, even when she’d told him it was all over between them.

But she’d still prayed they could work things out. And after their divorce, her former husband had come to see her one last time before shipping out to an overseas assignment in Lukinburg.

Could they have made the out-of-kilter relationship work? She didn’t know. Because Lieutenant Edward Rogers hadn’t come home alive. He’d left her with a load of guilt and…

She tightened her hands on the wheel.

“Like Daddy always said, there’s no use crying over spilled milk. You’ve got to clean up the mess and go on from there.”

All she could do was go forward and try to dig herself out of the mess that had become her life.

Maybe her new ranch manager, Riley Watson, would make a difference.

And maybe he’d be just another piece of bad news.

Up ahead, the road crossed under a bridge, and she squinted because she thought she saw a figure on the span above her—just visible through the whirlpool of flakes.

A man was looking toward her. She couldn’t see him very well, but his posture looked strangely rigid…as if someone had fashioned him out of ice.

She squinted into the storm, trying to work out what the guy was doing out here in the middle of nowhere. Was he in trouble and looking for help from a passing motorist down here on the highway?

If so, she felt obligated to stop, because in this open country he could freeze to death if his vehicle had broken down.

She slowed, still dividing her attention between the man and the highway. Come to think of it, she didn’t see a vehicle. Had he walked to the bridge from farther down the highway?

As she squinted up at him, he moved. She blinked, trying to figure out what she was seeing. It looked as if he’d raised a rifle to his shoulder and was aiming it down toward her.

There was no other car or truck on the road.

If that guy was really planning to shoot at someone—it was her.

“No,” she whispered into the silence of the car.

Her heart was thumping as she sped up, trying to swerve out of the way or make it under the bridge before he could fire.

But she was too late. A rifle shot cracked. And the slug tore into the glass just above her head and to the right.

It was as though a stone had hit the windshield. Only that was no stone.

She skidded on the snow-covered road, skidded under the bridge, then kept barreling forward. Fighting the wheel, she managed to keep from crashing into the concrete abutment on her right. Defensive driving lessons her dad had given her leaped into her mind, and she pumped the brakes to slow her speed. But she still wasn’t able to control the truck. When she shot out from under the bridge, she was heading toward the shoulder.

Her hands were clenched on the wheel as she plunged off the snow-covered blacktop, crunched across the gravel and into a field.

Lord knew what was under the snow. The truck swayed, and she fought to keep the vehicle from turning over.

Probably her efforts had little to do with the eventual outcome, but she came to a stop against something solid she couldn’t see. Probably a rock.

Quickly she cut the engine. Still clutching the wheel, she struggled to bring her breathing back to normal as she fought a terrible sense of dread.

“Think rationally,” she ordered herself. “Going into panic mode won’t do you any good.”

One by one, she gathered her mental resources. Then, slowly and deliberately, she took a physical inventory. She felt no sudden pains. And when she moved her arms and legs, they worked. With shaky fingers, she unbuttoned her coat and reached inside to press her hand against her middle. Everything seemed to be okay—no thanks to the guy up on the bridge.

Oh, Lord—the guy on the bridge! She’d forgotten about him for a moment. Would he come down here to finish her off? Or was hitting her pickup enough?

With a jerky motion she reached for the gun that she kept in the compartment of the truck door.

Seconds ticked by. Then minutes. And she began to relax a little. It looked as if the shooter had turned tail and run.

But she was still in big trouble. The windshield was a maze of cracks, the temperature was below zero, and the snow was going to bury her truck in no time flat.

With her gun across her lap and one eye cocked toward the road, she picked up the cell phone from the seat beside her and tried to make a call.

Reception out here was never great, and the snow didn’t help. All she got was a notice on the screen that the service couldn’t make the connection.

“Oh, sugar,” she muttered, slapping the phone down and peering outside.

Despite the dire circumstances, she grinned. Her campaign to improve her language was working. She’d reached for a curse and managed to say “oh, sugar” instead of something stronger.

After waiting several minutes to make sure she wasn’t being stalked, she tried to turn the motor on again. But the truck wouldn’t start. Which meant she couldn’t run the heater. And she could already feel the cold creeping inside the cab.

She peered out the window, thinking about her limited options.

She could try to walk, which wouldn’t get her far in this weather. Or she could stay put and hope someone found her—and not the guy up on the bridge who had pulled the trigger.

Neither choice was good. But she figured that staying in the truck offered the best chance of survival.

THE SMOTHERING CLOUD OF SNOW swirling out of the sky was disorienting, Riley Watson thought as he drove toward the Golden Saddle Ranch. In fact, everything about this assignment was disorienting.

Three weeks ago he’d been working as part of a team—the Big Sky Bounty Hunters. With Bryce Martin, Jacob Powell, Aidan Campbell, Joseph Brown and the rest. Now he was all alone on a Montana highway in the middle of a blizzard—and fighting a feeling of unreality.

He swallowed hard. Too bad an explosion had changed everything.

But he knew it had been Big Sky’s best option. After escaping from Boone Fowler’s torture camp on Devil’s Fork Island, they’d pulled off a pretty nifty charade. As far as the world—and the bad guys—knew, everybody on the team, including himself, had been blown to smithereens.