B.J. Daniels - Rescue at Cardwell Ranch

* * *

HAYES CARDWELL FELT his stomach growl as he walked down the grocery-store aisle. The place was empty at this hour of the night with just one clerk at the front, who’d barely noticed him when he walked in. The grocery was out of the way and it was late enough that most people had done their shopping, cooking and eating by now.

His plane had been delayed in Denver, putting him down in the Gallatin Valley much later than he’d hoped—and without any food for hours. He still had the drive to Big Sky tonight, one he wasn’t looking forward to since he didn’t know the highway.

Being from Texas, he wasn’t used to mountains—let alone mountain roads. He was debating calling his brother Tag and telling him he would just get a motel tonight down here in the valley and drive up tomorrow in the daylight.

He snagged a bottle of wine to take to his cousin Dana Savage tomorrow and debated what he could grab to eat. The thought of going to a restaurant at this hour—and eating alone—had no appeal.

In the back of the store, he found a deli with premade items, picked himself up a sandwich and headed for the checkout. His Western boot soles echoed through the empty store. He couldn’t imagine a grocery being this empty any hour of the day where he lived in Houston.

The checker was an elderly woman who looked as tired as he felt. He gave her a smile and two twenties. Her return smile was weak as she handed him his change.

“Have a nice night,” she said in a monotone.

“Is there a motel close around here?”

She pointed down the highway to the south. “There’s several.” She named off some familiar chains.

He smiled, thanked her and started for the door.

* * *

MCKENZIE HAD TAKEN a self-defense class years ago. Living in Montana, she’d thought she would never need the training. A friend had talked her into it. The highlight of the course was that they’d always gone out afterward for hot-fudge sundaes.

That’s all she remembered in the split second the man grabbed her.

He tightened his viselike grip on her, lifting her off her feet as he dragged her backward toward the trunk of his car. The man had one hand buried in her hair, his arm clamped around her throat. He was so much taller, she dangled like a rag doll from the hold he had on her. She felt one shoe drop to the pavement as she tried to make sense of what was happening.

Her mind seemed to have gone numb with her thoughts ricocheting back and forth from sheer panic to disbelief. Everything was happening too fast. She opened her mouth and tried to scream, but little sound came out with his arm pressed against her throat. Who would hear, anyway? There was no one.

Realization hit her like a lightning bolt. The parking lot was empty with only one other car at the opposite end of the lot. With such an empty lot, the man who’d grabbed her had parked right next to her. Also the light she’d parked under was now out. Why hadn’t she noticed? Because she’d been thinking about Gus Thompson.

She saw out of the corner of her eye that the man had moved his few bags of groceries to one side of the trunk, making room for her. The realization that he’d been planning this sent a rush of adrenaline through her.

If there was one thing she remembered from the defense class it was: never let anyone take you to a second location.

McKenzie drove an elbow into the man’s side. She heard the air rush out of him. He bent forward, letting her feet touch the ground. She teetered on her one high heel for a moment then dropped to her bare foot to kick back and drive her shoe heel into his instep.

He let out a curse and, his hand still buried in her long hair, slammed her head into the side of his car. The blow nearly knocked her out. Tiny lights danced before her eyes. If she’d had any doubt before, she now knew that she was fighting for her life.

She swung the bag of groceries, glad she’d decided to cook from scratch rather than buy something quick. Sweet-and-sour chicken, her favorite from her mother’s recipe, called for a large can of pineapple. It struck him in the side of the head. She heard the impact and the man’s cry of pain and surprise. His arm around her neck loosened just enough that she could turn partway around.

McKenzie swung again, but this time, he let go of her hair long enough to block the blow with his arm. She went for his fingers, blindly grabbing two and bending them back as hard as she could.

The man let out a howl behind her, both of them stumbling forward. As she fell against the side of his car, she tried to turn and go for his groin. She still hadn’t seen his face. Maybe if she saw his face, he would take off. Or would he feel he had to kill her?

But as she turned all she saw was the top of his baseball cap before he punched her. His fist connected with her temple. She felt herself sway then the grocery-store parking lot was coming up fast. She heard the twenty-ounce pineapple can hit and roll an instant before she joined it on the pavement.

From the moment he’d grabbed her, it had all happened in only a matter of seconds.

* * *

HAYES STEPPED OUT into the cool night air and took a deep breath of Montana. The night was dark and yet he could still see the outline of the mountains that surrounded the valley.

Maybe he would drive on up the canyon tonight, after all, he thought. It was such a beautiful June night and he didn’t feel as tired as he had earlier. He’d eat the sandwich on his way and—

As he started toward his rented SUV parked by itself in the large lot, he saw a man toss what looked like a bright-colored shoe into his trunk before struggling to pick up a woman from the pavement between a large, dark car and a lighter-colored SUV. Both were parked some distance away from his vehicle in an unlit part of the lot.

Had the woman fallen? Was she hurt?

As the man lifted the woman, Hayes realized that the man was about to put her into the trunk of the car.

What the hell?

“Hey!” he yelled.

The man turned in surprise. Hayes only got a fleeting impression of the man since he was wearing a baseball cap pulled low and his face was in shadow in the dark part of the lot.

“Hey!” Hayes yelled again as he dropped his groceries. The wine hit the pavement and exploded, but Hayes paid no attention as he raced toward the man.

The man seemed to panic, stumbling over a bag of groceries on the ground under him. He fell to one knee and dropped the woman again to the pavement. Struggling to his feet, he left the woman where she was and rushed around to the driver’s side of the car.

As Hayes sprinted toward the injured woman, the man leaped behind the wheel, started the car and sped off.

Hayes tried to get a license plate but it was too dark. He rushed to the woman on the ground. She hadn’t moved. As he dropped to his knees next to her, the car roared out of the grocery parking lot and disappeared down the highway. He’d only gotten an impression of the make of the vehicle and even less of a description of the man.

As dark as it was, though, he could see that the woman was bleeding from a cut on the side of her face. He felt for a pulse, then dug out his cell phone and called for the police and an ambulance.

Waiting for 911 to answer, he noticed that the woman was missing one of her bright red high-heeled shoes. The operator answered and he quickly gave her the information. As he disconnected he looked down to see that the woman’s eyes had opened. A sea of blue-green peered up at him. He felt a small chill ripple through him before he found his voice. “You’re going to be all right. You’re safe now.”

The eyes blinked then closed.

Chapter Three

McKenzie’s head ached. She gingerly touched the bandage and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry I can’t provide you with a description of the man. I never saw his face.” She’d tried to remember, but everything felt fuzzy and out of focus. She’d never felt so shaken or so unsure.

“Is the light bothering you?” the policewoman asked.

She opened her eyes as the woman rose to adjust the blinds on the hospital-room window. The room darkened, but it did nothing to alleviate the pain in her head. “It all happened so fast.” Her voice broke as she remembered the gaping open trunk and the man’s arm at her throat as she was lifted off her feet.

“You said the man was big.”

She nodded, remembering how her feet had dangled above the ground. She was five feet six so he must have been over six feet. “He was...strong, too, muscular.” She shuddered at the memory.

“You said he was wearing a baseball cap. Do you remember what might have been printed on it?”

“It was too dark.” She saw again in her memory the pitch-black parking lot. “He must have broken the light because I would have remembered parking in such a dark part of the lot.”

“Did he say anything?”

McKenzie shook her head.

“What about cologne?”

“I didn’t smell anything.” Except her own terror.

“The car, you said it was large and dark. Have you remembered anything else about it?”

“No.” She hadn’t been paying any attention to the car or the man and now wondered how she could have been so foolish.

The policewoman studied her for a moment. “We received a call last night from your receptionist about a man named Gus Thompson.”

McKenzie felt her heart begin to pound. “Gus works for me. You aren’t suggesting—”

“Is it possible the man who grabbed you was Gus Thompson?”

McKenzie couldn’t speak for a moment. Gus was big. He also had to know, after numerous warnings, that she was ready to fire him. Or at least, he should have known. Could it have been him? Was it possible he hated her enough to want to hurt her? “I don’t know.”

“We found a car registered to him, a large, dark-colored Cadillac. Did you know he had this car?”

“No. But his mother recently died. I think he mentioned she’d left him a car.”

“He never drove it to work?”

“No, not that I know of.” Again, she hadn’t been paying attention. She knew little about Gus Thompson because she’d chosen not to know any more than she had to. “I saw him parked outside my house one night. I spoke to him about it and I never saw him again, but I can’t be sure he didn’t follow me sometimes.” She thought of one instance when she’d noticed him driving a few cars behind her. But Bozeman was small enough that it hadn’t seemed all that odd at the time.

The policewoman raised a brow. “You never reported this?”

McKenzie tried to explain it to herself and failed. “I guess I thought he was annoying but harmless.”

“Did you ever date him?”

“Good heavens, no.”

“But Gus Thompson probably knows your habits, where you go after work, where you shop?”

She nodded numbly. Gus could have followed her many times and she wouldn’t even have noticed. She’d been so caught up in making her business a success....

The policewoman closed her notebook. “We’ll have a chat with Mr. Thompson and see where he was last night at the time of your attack.”

“He wasn’t at the office last night when you sent a patrolman over there?” she asked.

The policewoman shook her head. “He’d already left. Your receptionist was unsure when.”

McKenzie felt a shiver, her mind racing. Could it have been Gus who’d attacked her? She swallowed, her throat raw and bruised from last night. Gus was big and strong and she knew he resented her. To think she’d almost reassured Cynthia that Gus wasn’t dangerous. He could be more dangerous than she would have imagined.