Wild Revenge: The Dangerous Jacob Wilde / The Ruthless Caleb Wilde / The Merciless Travis Wilde

“Have you ever considered that it counteracts the medal you were awarded?” one had said, and Jake had ignored that for the stupid comment it was.

And all of this was pointless to think about, especially—

“Holy hell,” Jake said, and stood on the brakes.

A deer and her yearling stood twenty feet ahead of him, big eyes filled with innocence as they stared at his truck.

He dragged in a breath.

“Go on,” he said. “Get out of the way.”

The animals remained motionless. Then mama flicked her tail and she and the baby ran into the scrub.

Jake started the truck again.

He’d been lucky not to have hit the deer. His fault, entirely. Antelope, deer, coyotes all used the road, especially at night.

His head had been everywhere except where it should have been….

And the glow of Addison McDowell’s taillights was history.

No problem.

She was heading for the Chambers ranch and so was he.

A few minutes later, he bounced over the familiar pothole that signaled the start of Chambers land.

He slowed, took a good look at the gate and saw what he hadn’t seen the first time. It wasn’t locked. Truth was, the thing was barely a gate. Crossbars, posts, a couple of broken hinges. The gate hung open, swaying drunkenly in the breeze, looking more like kindling than anything else.

Jake eased the truck forward, nosed it through the opening, then started up the long gravel drive to the house.

Still no taillights.

If the McDowell woman had already reached the house, what did he do?

Park? Go to the door and knock? Or did he sit in the truck and tap on his horn? He had the feeling turning up, unannounced on her doorstep, might not be the best—

Light blazed through the windshield, blinding him. Jake cursed, flung his arm in front of his face, and for the second time in minutes, stood on the brakes.

The truck came to a hard stop.

What was he looking at? Headlights? The light from a big flashlight? No way could he see past it.

Cautiously, he opened his door.

“Ms. McDowell?”

Nothing. Just the darkness, the silence and the light.

“Addison? Are those your headlights? Turn them off.”

Still nothing. Jake squinted hard. He took a step to the left. The brightest light remained focused on the Tundra but another light followed him.

Headlights and a flashlight. Addison—it had to be her—was using both.

He couldn’t see a thing.

“Hey,” he shouted. “Didn’t you hear me? Turn off those lights.”

Still no response. Jake grunted, moved another few steps from the truck….

The flashlight beam settled on him and held.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up. He’d had enough of being a living target to last him a lifetime.

“Turn that thing away from me,” he said coldly. “Do it now.”

Survival instinct, honed in a place thousands of miles and many centuries away, kicked in.

This wasn’t Texas anymore.

Jake dropped to the ground and rolled, not toward the truck as the enemy might predict, but away from it, into scrub and darkness.

Everything in him focused on that beam of light.

His heart rate slowed. The sounds of the night faded; he could hear his opponent’s breaths.

The beam of light moved. Swept over the truck. Over the ground. It was searching for him.

Jake rolled again. Pressed himself to the earth ten or twelve feet from the road.

Wait, he told himself. Wait for the right instant, for the opportunity that always presented itself if you were ready….

“Show yourself,” a voice called.

Addison McDowell’s voice.

It shot him back to reality. This wasn’t some hell-begotten dirt track in Afghanistan, it was Texas. And the person with the flashlight wasn’t the enemy, it was simply a woman who’d been frightened by the headlights following her home.

He let out a long breath.

“Addison. Hey. It’s Jake Wilde. You don’t have to—”

The beam of light swept over the road, the truck, the scrub. It would find him soon. Jake started to rise.

“Addison? Listen, I understand why you’re upset—”

“All you need to understand is that I have a gun. And I damn well know how to use it.”