Rachelle McCalla - Out on a Limb

Brakes squealed as the vehicle threw up a cloud of dust that powdered her face in the same dirty white as the road. Her outstretched hands slapped against the warm hood as the truck’s brakes locked, and it slid another couple feet on the loose gravel, roaring to a stop nose-to nose with her. The instant it came to a stop, she ran around to the passenger side of the vehicle, peeling off her flying goggles as the dust began to settle.

The passenger door opened just as Elise recognized the shade of indigo-blue paint underneath the dust-covered sides of the older Dodge Ram. For a second, she thought about diving back into the bushes.

“Need a lift?”

“No,” Elise answered instinctively. No way was she getting into a truck with Henry McCutcheon IV. McCutcheons were trouble, and Cutch was the worst kind of trouble. He’d broken her heart eight years ago, and she’d never fully recovered. She certainly didn’t need a run-in with him today. His blue eyes twinkled at her from underneath a shock of thick black hair as he leaned across the front seat to address her.

“Elise?” Recognition crossed his perfect features. “Were you flying that glider that just crashed?”

“Uh—”

Before she could fully answer, another gunshot rang through the woods, spitting gravel and shot around her feet and peppering the sides of the truck.

Cutch’s blue eyes widened. “Get in!” he shouted.

Elise dived into the cab, pulling the door shut after her as Cutch took off in a cloud of flying gravel. She ducked down as another shot rang out behind them.

“Is somebody shooting at you?” Cutch asked as he gunned the engine, quickly shifting gears as he accelerated.

“Yes,” Elise admitted, keeping her head low and wishing her flying helmet was insulated with more than a shock-absorbing layer of Styrofoam. It wasn’t made to block a bullet. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Her trembling fingers fumbled with the seatbelt as she attempted to strap herself in. She’d had just about enough after what was supposed to have been a peaceful morning flight through the hills. Her panting stilled as she began to catch her breath.

Cutch quickly put a few more hills between them and their pursuers. “Those guys on foot?” he asked.

“I think so.”

“Anybody else after you?”

“I don’t know.”

The truck slowed as they reached the top of Rink’s Mound, the highest hill in the area. Cutch pulled into the parking area near the Loess Hills scenic viewing tower and the old Dodge rumbled to a stop.

It wasn’t until the truck had completely stopped moving that Elise realized she was shaking.

Cutch killed the engine and looked over at her.

She shrank against the door and pinched her eyes shut. It was one thing to be shot out of the clear blue sky. It was another thing entirely to be sitting in a truck with Henry McCutcheon IV. Elise wasn’t sure which was worse, exactly, but she sure wished she could stop trembling long enough to get the truck door open. They’d dated for a couple of months eight years ago, and he’d only kissed her once, but ever since he’d purposely humiliated her in front of half of Holyoake, she’d steered plenty clear of him.

“Hey.” Cutch reached toward her.

She instantly recoiled. “Stay back,” she snapped.

He slumped against his seat. “You’re the one who jumped into my truck.”

“I wouldn’t have if there hadn’t been somebody shooting at me.”

“You’re welcome,” he said with sarcasm cutting through his voice. “Who was shooting at you, and why?”

“I told you I don’t know.”

“They shot you out of the sky?” Cutch clarified.

Elise nodded, her shoulders sagging forward as the rush of fear she’d felt was replaced with exhaustion. She pinched the clasp on her chin strap and let her helmet sink into her hands. Then she ran her fingers back through her short, cropped hair, freeing her loose brown curls before tucking the ends behind her ears with trembling fingers.

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would somebody shoot you out of the sky?”

“I don’t know.” She sucked in a deep breath and tried to think. Why would somebody shoot her out of the sky?

“Do you think it was some teenagers playing around?”

“They acted pretty serious.” Elise inspected the scratches on her hands and arms from her tangle with the thorn bushes. Drying blood wept from the more serious cuts, but that was the worst of it. She stuck a finger through the hole in her pants where she’d been shot and fingered the spot on her calf where the steel ball had grazed her. It had already stopped bleeding.

Thoughtfully, she prodded the fabric where it gathered at the elastic band near her ankle and felt a ball hiding inside. She leaned down, cautiously peeled back the cuff of her pants and plucked it out.

“What were they shooting?” Cutch continued questioning her. “Birdshot? Do you think they were trying to scare you or something?”

Elise held up the hard metal ball. “Not birdshot. Buckshot,” she held the steel ball—over a half centimeter in diameter—in the palm of her hand so he could see. Shot that size was meant to deeply penetrate flesh. “They weren’t trying to scare me. They were trying to kill me.”

Cutch looked into the warm brown eyes of the woman he’d once loved, and the eight years since their romance seemed to melt away. Elise. She was still so attractive, even covered in dust and perched like a frightened bird in the corner of the cab of his truck. So attractive and in spite of the long separation of time, still so familiar to him. What had happened?

“Why would somebody try to kill you?”

“I don’t know,” she told him again, and he could see from the fear in her eyes that she meant it.

He just couldn’t accept it.

“Okay. Help me figure this out. What would you be doing to cause someone to take a shot at you?”

“I was just out flying.” Her usually strong voice sounded weak.

“In your powered hang glider?”

She nodded and bit her lower lip.

Cutch felt his heart give an unfamiliar flop. He had no business wanting to pull her into his arms and comfort her, and he had no doubt she’d smack him if he tried it, but he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to reach for her. Instead, he gripped the steering wheel, though the truck was parked and the cooling engine tapped out a tune in concert with the grasshoppers whose late-summer songs poured in the open windows.

“So you were out flying in your glider,” he prompted.

The woman beside him sniffled, and he watched out of the corner of his eye as she swiped at her cheeks. Elise McAlister was crying in his truck, and somebody had just been trying to shoot her—from his land. He did not need this, especially not today.

“Did you see anything unusual before they started shooting?” He risked a glance her way, realizing that if he hadn’t gone out early to clear brush on the north quarter, her pursuers would likely have caught up to her. His stomach knotted.

She had her eyes pinched shut, and a trail of wet tears meandered down her dust-cloaked face. “The trees.” She sniffled. “The trees are planted in rows back there. And they’re all the same. Hickory, I think. Or maybe—”

“Pecan,” he supplied reluctantly. It wasn’t as though she wouldn’t have figured it out on her own, and he needed her to rack her brain for what might have triggered the attack instead of focusing on identifying what kind of trees she’d been flying over.

“Pecan,” she repeated in a whisper and looked at him, recognition crossing her features.

She knew. But how much did she know? She didn’t know everything, did she? Eight years before, he’d foolishly shared with her his dream of reclaiming his grandfather’s pecan groves and clearing the McCutcheon name. And now here he was, already admitting things to her that no one else knew.

Cutch tried to tell himself it didn’t matter. What mattered right now was Elise’s safety, and he couldn’t do anything to help her until he understood what had just happened. “Did you get a good look at the guys who were shooting at you?”

“No. Nothing. They were too far behind me, and the trees blocked my view.”

“You ever fly out this way before?”

“Not really. Where were we, exactly?”

“Five miles west of Rink’s Mound.”

“Do you know who owns that property?”

Cutch returned her gaze, feeling a tiny trickle of relief that she’d regained enough of her composure to ask him such an intelligent question. Of course he knew who owned the property. As the Holyoake County Assessor, he knew down to the last lot and acre who owned what in the whole county. “Yup.”

“Who?” An undercurrent of impatience ran through her voice.

He closed his eyes. “Nobody who’d be shooting at you.”

“Cutch—” a strangled half panic, half impatience infused itself in her tone “—somebody was trying to kill me. Do you know something?” She glared at him and reached into one of the many zippered pockets on her pants, pulling out a phone. “That’s it! Why didn’t I think of this sooner? I’m calling the sheriff.”

“Wait.” He reached out his hand to stop her. The last thing he needed was the sheriff stomping around on his property—especially if somebody was doing something illegal out there. And attempted murder was certainly illegal.

He felt Elise freeze the second his fingers brushed her hand. She looked up at him, and for a moment, time rolled back and they were young again, certain their love could conquer all. They’d been so naive back then.

“Just wait a second. Let’s sort this out first.” He watched as she swallowed and obediently lowered the phone, though she still held it tightly in her hand.

She repeated her earlier question. “Who owns that property?”

He didn’t want to tell her, didn’t even want to think about why someone had been shooting at her from his land or what the legal implications might be. But if she was in danger, he couldn’t withhold information that might help keep her safe. He met her eyes.

“I do.”

Elise stared at Cutch, the old feelings he stirred up making her heart flop around like a glider caught in a gale. She needed a steady head to sort out what was going on. Having Cutch so close only made things worse. “You own the land from which someone was shooting at me?” she clarified.

He looked back out the window as though he could still see the spot, though it now lay five miles behind them. Meeting her eyes again, he nodded. “Yup.”

“That settles it.” Elise jerked the door open and slid out of the truck, flicked her phone open and dialed 911. The McCutcheons and the McAlisters had been rivals for generations, even before the McCutcheons had sabotaged her grandfather’s plane long before she was born, though it wasn’t until his fiery death that the feud had become so fierce. It had been eight years since she’d experienced their direct hostility, and she hadn’t thought they’d be so territorial, but she’d always been wrong when she’d dared to trust a McCutcheon in the past. She needed to wise up.

Cutch was out of the truck and around to her side before she could hit Send. “Hang on just a second. This isn’t as bad at it looks.” His hand slid down her arm to her fingers.

Her eyes followed the shiver that ran down her arm at his touch and settled on the place where his strong, calloused hand covered hers. Her heart gave another dying gasp. “Somebody tried to kill me, Cutch. From your land. And now you’re trying to stop me from calling the sheriff? I don’t think so.” She jerked her hand away and looked at him with begging eyes, wanting him to explain, wanting him to say something that would make everything right. But he hadn’t been able to do that eight years ago, and she doubted he could do it now. She knew better than to spend even one more second getting any closer to him than she already was.