Page 31 of Lone Star Showdown

More groans of pleasure.

More need.

He kissed his way back up to her mouth, and cupping her butt, he lifted her so their centers met. Yeah, they’d had practice with this, too, and in the beginning, it’d been their way of getting each other off before they’d learned the pleasures of French kissing in places other than lips.

Jericho was heading in that direction, ready to go to his knees and give Rachel a very memorable kiss, but fate clearly wasn’t on his side since his damn phone rang.

“Hell,” he ground out, adding a lot more profanity in his head.

This was the second time Rachel and he had gotten interrupted, and he didn’t care anymore for this one than he did the first. But the phone call wasn’t something he could just ignore.

“Spike, answer the call on speaker,” Jericho snarled, and he hoped whoever or whatever it was, he could deal with it fast.

“Canyon Ridge Dispatcher,” the caller said. “I have a call for Rachel Franklin. It’s from Woody Barrow.”

“Woody,” Rachel said on a rise of breath. There was instant alarm in her voice. And Jericho knew why. Woody was a leader at Stronghold.

“Put the call through,” Jericho instructed, and seconds later, he heard Woody’s voice.

“Rachel?” Woody asked.

“I’m here. Did something happen?” she was quick to ask.

“Yeah, I’m afraid it did. Something real bad.” The man groaned. “Somebody shot Tilda, and the ambulance is on the way to take her to the hospital.”

Chapter Eleven

----- ??? -----

Jericho could feel the urgency coming off Rachel in thick, hot waves. He could see the worry etched on her face. Everything inside her was probably shouting for him to hurry, hurry, hurry. To get to the hospital and Tilda.

And Jericho was indeed hurrying.

However, before they had left his place, he had also taken some basic security measures. Rachel and he were both wearing Kevlar vests, and they were armed. They were also in his bullet-resistant van. She hadn’t balked about taking those extra seconds to put some measures in place.

Because like him, she knew this could be a trap.

Something meant to lure her out as it had been the previous night at Stronghold. Still, Jericho had known he stood zero chance of talking her out of going so the best they could manage was to protect themselves as much as possible.

He was still a good three miles from the hospital when a message flashed on his dashboard screen. It was from Bree to let them know she was on scene in the ER and was personally standing guard until a deputy could arrive.

Jericho owed her plenty of thanks for that. Bree had jumped right in to help. What the sheriff hadn’t been able to do though was give them a status update on Tilda. By the time Bree had gotten to the hospital, Tilda had already been taken into the evaluation room and was currently with the doctor.

He truly hoped Tilda was going to be okay. Then, Rachel and he could focus on the SOB who’d done this.

For that focus to happen, he’d need a lot more info, and he was relying on Marco to help with that. Marco was already searching the who, what, when, why, and how. Jericho would add to the info pool by talking to Woody, something he was certain Bree was already doing, but it wouldn’t hurt to have an extra set of ears on this.

The van tires squealed on the asphalt when Jericho sped through a sharp, blind curve in the road. A tricky area since the road was not only narrow and wet from a light drizzle but also because there were woods on both sides.

At the end of the curve was the bridge over Cottonwood Creek. Another vulnerable point.

And the killer would know that.

Would know, too, that this was the route Jericho would have to take since it was the fastest. The alternative would be going a good ten miles out of the way and using a series of even narrower back roads to get to the hospital.

Jericho steeled himself up when he finally came out of the curve, and he relaxed just a little when he didn’t immediately see any kind of threat.

But there was one.

---