Page 93 of A Cowboy's Trust
“Oh, she knows exactly what she’s doing. She’s setting up an alibi for down the road when she returns and claims to have been doing the best thing for her son.” The chill from the frozen spot in the middle of Jake’s chest seeped into his words. “Where’s Jeffrey?”
“The barn?” Aiden turned to Petra. “Can you track Melissa? Or Tansy?”
“How about both? I’m on it.” Petra had her phone out, fingers flying.
Jake and Aiden raced for the barn. “Declan wasn’t at the auction. He should be here,” Aiden said breathlessly as they pushed through the door.
“Shit.” Jake shot toward the crumpled form lying on the ground outside one of the horse stalls. He rolled his brother carefully, cursing harder as blood slicked his fingers.
But Declan’s eyes fluttered open and he swore softly. “Fucking Melissa.”
That answered that question. “Sorry, bro. We’ll get you fixed up, but do you know where Jeffrey is?” Jake demanded.
His brother shuffled to a sitting position, one hand cradling the lump on his head as he pointed. “He was there. Standing at the end of the hall. I came out of the stall and he was there, but when I went toward him, Melissa must have brained me. The last thing I remember is his face.”
“Jeffrey’s?”
“Yeah.” Declan pulled his hand from his head and examined the blood. “The kid was pissed, and I don’t mean at me.”
“Good. Maybe?—”
“Jake, I got a bead on Tansy,” Petra shouted from where she hung on the barn door. “And the she-witch. They’re both at the Heart Falls lookout.”
Christ. “Come on, Deck. We’ll get you to the house?—”
His brother waved him off. “I have my phone. I’ll message Sydney to come rescue me. Go find Tansy. She needs you right now.”
Jake squeezed Declan’s shoulder then hightailed it for the truck, Petra and Aiden on his heels.
Minutes earlier…
Speedingat the maximum allowable before the RCMP would pull her over, Tansy put all her attention on keeping ZenBaby on the road. It had been a long winter and a busy spring, and her poor SUV needed a tune up in the worst way possible. She’d kept putting it off, and now she was regretting it with every fiber of her soul.
At least the dangerous trip kept her mind on the road and not on the crazy she was headed to meet. Leaving when she had might have been foolish, but she didn’t see any other way around it.
Ten minutes later, when her phone started going off with a series of text messages from Jake and Petra, followed by insistent phone calls, she ignored all of it, both for safety’s sake and so she didn’t cave and tell them exactly how foolish she was being.
Besides, she was nearly there. Nothing anyone could do to stop her at this point.
The final turns up the forestry service road to the lookout were extra tricky, and the undercarriage seemed to shimmy harder than usual. Tansy fought with the wheel and finally convinced it to head in the right direction.
At the top of the hill, the road leveled out to a slight incline instead of the steep slope it had been to that point. Melissa’s familiar black car was parked past the usual pullover spot, nose down toward arriving traffic.
Tansy manoeuvered to the left, off the road and facing uphill. Hand brake on, wheels locked. God, she hoped the beast didn’t decide to give up the ghost right now.
As she slipped from ZenBaby and approached the other car, Melissa stepped into view. She snatched Jeffrey off the ground and balanced him on a hip, and the plan Tansy had to rush the other woman vanished. They were too close to the escarpment on the eastern road edge, and Tansy knew Melissa would drop Jeffrey in an instant to save her own skin.
Melissa grabbed a tire iron out of the open trunk of her car. Great. That was a potential problem.
Still, it was time to focus on the part she was in control of. Tansy was close enough now to check Jeffrey. “Hey, kiddo.”
“Don’t talk to him,” Melissa ordered. “Throw your phone over the edge.”
Tansy sighed. “Really? That sucks. I just put a new case on it. Also, not very environmentally friendly.”
The other woman’s nostrils flared, but she held onto her anger by a thread. She waited until Tansy had done as ordered before speaking again. “Here’s the deal. I’ll leave Jeffrey with Jake if you get in the trunk of my car.”
What the hell? It wasn’t much of a threat—not in Tansy’s books. Trunks could be gotten out of fairly easily. “You’re not serious.”
