Page 49 of Outlaw Ridge: Jesse
“Griff, we’ll be there soon,” Jesse assured him.
“Got it,” Griff replied, then ended the call.
Jesse set aside his phone, pulling back the covers as they climbed out of bed. Their clothes were scattered across the room so it was a hunt to find everything. As she reached for her pants, Jesse reached for his jeans, and his fingers brushing against hers for just a second. The touch sparked something electric—something hot and undeniable.
Yes, she definitely felt closer to him than ever, and her body was wishing they could get a whole lot closer right now. She leaned in, her mouth meeting his in a quick, heated kiss. Jesse didn’t hesitate, deepening it, his hands sliding to her waist, pulling her closer for a breathless moment.
But reality snapped back very fast for both of them.
Lauren broke the kiss, her forehead resting against his for a brief second, both of them catching their breath. “We’ve got to go.”
“Yeah,” Jesse murmured.
They forced themselves away from each other. No more touching. No more kissing. For now anyway. They dressed quickly, and once they were ready, Jesse grabbed his phone and keys, and they headed to the garage.
Lauren climbed into Jesse’s truck, her mind still tangled with the weight of Griff’s call and with all these feelings that she had for Jesse. The timing was so bad for this, but she was certain of one thing.
She was falling in love with Jesse.
No way would she mention that now. Maybe not ever. She didn’t want him to think she was some starry-eyed teenager who could mistake sex for love. Plus, it might send Jesse running ifhe thought she had these deep feelings for him. It was best not to wear her heart on her sleeve.
Jesse slid behind the wheel of the truck, started the engine, and backed out of the garage once he’d used the remote to open the door. The headlights swept across the gravel drive, cutting through the darkness. A full moon did some cutting, too, the illumination making his pasture look like the picture on a postcard.
“Do you think the third woman was still in the bunker when you escaped?” Jesse asked.
No more picture postcard moment. She knew he hadn’t wanted to sling her back into that nightmare, but they still had questions about what’d happened, and Lauren knew she might unknowingly hold the answers.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I heard two other voices—faint, muffled. Mostly sounds, not words. But I remember one of them screaming.” She paused, the memory so sharp, so clear. It was a sound etched deep into her bones. “I didn’t hear the screams on the last day. Shortly before I got out. It was… quiet.”
Jesse glanced at her, his jaw tight. “Quiet because she wasn’t there anymore—or because she couldn’t scream?”
Lauren felt that question like a stone dropping into her chest. She didn’t have the answer. Maybe she didn’t want it.
She shook her head slightly. “I don’t know. But if Isabel saw anything—if she remembers something—we need to find out.”
Jesse nodded, his gaze fixed on the road ahead, but his hand drifted over the console, brushing against hers briefly. Just a small touch, grounding her.
As they neared the end of Jesse’s long driveway, Lauren’s thoughts were tangled with the echoes of screams from the past—muffled, distant, but never really gone. The truck’s headlights carved through the darkness, the beams stretching ahead toward the open road.
Then it happened.
A swooshing sound a split-second before all hell broke loose.
Chapter Nineteen
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Flames shot up in front of them, an explosion of orange and red roaring to life. The heat slammed against the windshield, the fire crackling, already wild and angry. Jesse hit the brakes, the truck skidding on the gravel but not stopping until the front end and engine were right in that wall of fire.
“Shit,” Jesse muttered, his heart pounding. His hand shot out instinctively, pressing across Lauren’s chest like a protective barrier as his eyes scanned the edges of the flames. This damn sure wasn’t an accident. It was too precise, too sudden. A barrier. A trap no doubt meant to kill them.
Reggie was dead. But the nightmare wasn’t over.
Someone else was still out there.
Lauren’s gaze met his for just a second, but he saw the sickening dread in her eyes. Here they were, right back in the middle of danger, and they still didn’t know who wanted them dead.
Jesse thought of their suspects. Of Reardon, Dr. Graves, and Isabel. One of them could want something silenced for good, and they obviously thought the way to do that was to murder Lauren and him.
