Paula Graves - Hitched and Hunted

But what if they were?

Mariah looked up, her forehead wrinkling a little as she caught him watching her. “What’s wrong?”

He tried to shake off his doubts. “Nothing. Just—you’re so quiet. You’re not feeling worse, are you?”

She flashed an unconvincing smile. “Still cold, I guess.”

He started to reach behind him to the bench seat when a sharp snapping sound caught him by surprise. Almost immediately, the steering wheel grew stiff under his hand, and the engine power dropped precipitously.

He fought the unresponsive steering wheel, bringing the truck to a shuddering stop at the side of the road. The engine idled unsteadily for a few seconds, then died. When he tried to crank the engine again, the starter struggled to engage.

“What happened?” Mariah’s eyes widened with concern.

He reached over to touch her hand. He felt her hands trembling. “I think a belt must have broken,” he reassured her, although he’d checked all the belts and hoses before they left home. “I’ll take a look.”

The rain had slacked off, thankfully, only a light mist falling now. Jake slipped the hood of his windbreaker over his head and hurried to the front of the car. He raised the truck’s hood and looked inside.

The serpentine belt was hanging loose, snapped in two.

He uttered a low curse, wishing he’d taken his brother J.D.’s advice and packed extra belts for the journey. But J.D. was a control freak—who ever listened to his advice about things? He was the kind of guy who’d pack a parka for a trip to Florida, just in case another ice age hit unexpectedly while he was there.

He closed the hood and pulled out his cell phone, but his phone couldn’t find a signal. They were in the middle of nowhere, thick, piney woods flanking them on both sides. He’d taken a side road rather than the main thoroughfare, which was still clogged with traffic in and out of Buckley. He wasn’t sure there were even any houses within a square mile.

“What is it?” Mariah joined him in front of the truck.

“Belt broke.”

“What do we do now?”

Jake was about to suggest walking back to Buckley, but the sound of an approaching vehicle distracted him. He saw a white van coming up the road toward them. “We flag down this van and see if he can take us into town.”

He started waving at the van, which slowed as it came nearer. A mild glare off the windshield obscured the driver until the van was nearly on them.

It was Victor, the man from the tornado zone.

Mariah’s fingers closed around Jake’s arm, digging in. “Let’s just walk—”

He looked away from Victor to Mariah, who was gazing up at him with wide, terrified eyes. “What is it?” he asked.

“You folks need a ride?” Victor called out. Jake saw Mariah’s gaze shift behind him. Her face blanched white.

He turned, following her gaze, and saw Victor Logan standing in the open side doorway of the van, arm outstretched. In his hand, Victor held a large black Smith & Wesson semiautomatic, its barrel leveled with the center of Jake’s forehead.

“Let me rephrase,” Victor said, his voice cold and steady. “Get in the van or I’ll kill you.”

Jake wanted to make a move on him. Victor saw it in the younger man’s watchful eyes, the taut set of his muscles as he backed up against the interior wall of the van. Victor had spent the last three and a half years honing his ability to spot danger coming from miles away. A man his age and size didn’t survive prison without knowing how to avoid danger.

When it could be avoided. And sometimes, it couldn’t.

Victor shook off the grim memories before they could paralyze him. He had work to do, and he wasn’t about to drop his guard with Jake Cooper.

Marisol was Victor’s protection. Jake would weigh any move he might wish to make against the danger his action would pose for her. It had taken only seconds for Victor to read the situation and train his weapon on Marisol rather than Jake.

He hoped it was enough to keep Jake at bay.

“I’m waiting,” he said aloud, not hiding his impatience.

Marisol’s hands shook as she followed Victor’s directions, fastening the plastic cuffs around Jake’s wrist, then hooking the cuffs through the metal clips attached to the inside of the van. The clips had been there when Victor bought the delivery van used, probably to secure stabilization ropes for transporting furniture or other large items.

He’d spent many long hours contemplating the various ways those clips could come in handy one day. He just hadn’t anticipated the day coming quite so soon.

“Sit over there.” Victor flicked the barrel of the gun toward the long wood bench that lined the opposite side of the van. Marisol glared at him with eyes full of equal parts hate and fear as she did as he demanded.

“What do you want with us?” Jake asked, not for the first time. Over his head, he flexed his wrists, testing the plastic cuffs, his movements subtle.

Victor wasn’t worried that Marisol had tried to trick him by leaving the cuffs loose. She knew better by now than to cross him. She knew the consequences.

“Marisol, do you have an answer for your husband?”

“Why do you call her Marisol?” Jake’s curious gaze slanted toward his wife.

She looked over at Jake, fear and guilt written across her face as plainly as words. Slowly, she turned her gaze to Victor, and for a brief, breathtaking moment, rage and hate eclipsed her earlier fear.

Victor’s breath froze in his throat.

Then fear took over again, and she dropped her gaze.

Victor breathed again, crossing to her side. He almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

He secured her wrists, taking care that the bindings were tight enough to pinch. Drinking in her soft gasp of pain, he took strength from the sound. Who has the power now, Marisol? Who’s in control this time?

Hooking her cuffs to the clip over her head, he stepped back, surveying his handiwork. The man was glaring at him, impotent rage shining in his eyes. But Marisol kept gazing down at the floorboard, her whole body slumped with defeat.

If only Alex were here, Victor thought with pride. If only he could see what Victor had done, how he’d taken the gift the universe had given him and turned it to his favor, things between them would be different.

With a sigh of regret Victor turned his back on his captives and slipped into the driver’s seat of the cargo van. He cranked the engine, and the van roared to life.

“I’m going to tell you a story,” he said over the engine noise, slanting a look toward the rearview mirror. In the reflection, he saw Marisol’s head snap up, her gray eyes blazing hatred as they met his in the mirror. He fed off her hatred, his voice gaining power. “It’s the story of a lying, stealing, whoring piece of street trash who had the chance to change her entire world. And failed.”

THE PLASTIC RESTRAINT cuffs were painfully tight. Jake had hoped Mariah would leave them loose deliberately, had even tried to communicate that plea with his eyes as she cinched his wrists together, but she’d left him little slack to work with. Still, they were plastic and, unlike the disposable cuffs he and other deputies were used to handling back at the Chickasaw County Sheriff’s Department, these cuffs were cheaply made. He had a small butane lighter in his front pocket—one he’d bought the day before at a convenience store near the motel when weather reports made it clear they might be experiencing long power out-ages due to the coming storms.

If he weren’t hanging like a side of beef from the overhead clip, he might be able to burn through the cuff in no time. All he needed was the right opportunity.

In the driver’s seat, Victor began talking, his voice deep and surprisingly cultured. Jake had noticed it before, back at the disaster site, but the smooth, educated accent was even more noticeable now, echoing through the cargo van.

“She was given everything, asked for nothing but her effort and her loyalty.”

Jake glanced over at Mariah, trying to catch her eye. But she was glaring at Victor, her color high. “Shut up!” she shouted. “You lying son of a bitch!”

Jake stared, shocked at her outburst. Mariah was one of the most gentle, even-tempered people he knew. He’d never heard a curse word pass her lips in the three years he’d known her.

“Would you prefer to tell the story, Marisol?” Victor asked, apparently unfazed.

“Why do you keep calling her Marisol?” Jake repeated before Mariah could speak again.

“Would you like to answer that, Marisol?”

Jake looked across the van at his wife, who continued to stare at their captor, her eyes ablaze with unadulterated hatred. “Mariah?”

Her gaze turned slowly to meet his, and the rage died, leaving only despair in its wake. Tears welled and spilled over her bottom lashes, trickling down her cheeks.

His gut knotting, Jake waited for her to tell him Victor was lying, that he was crazy. But she just looked down at her feet, teardrops splattering the muddy metal floorboard between her shoes.

“Your wife has kept secrets from you, Jake.” Victor’s voice nearly quivered with anticipation.

“Is that what this is all about?” Jake asked, his gaze still fastened on Mariah’s downturned face. “You knew each other before? What—he’s Micah’s father?”

“No!” Mariah’s gaze flew up, not to Jake but to Victor’s reflection in the rearview mirror.

“Micah?” For the first time since he forced them into the van, Victor sounded uncertain.

Jake didn’t answer, keeping his eyes on his wife as he struggled to understand. So whoever Victor was to Mariah, he didn’t know about her son. And clearly, she didn’t want him to.

And neither did Jake. Even if he was Micah’s father, no way in hell would Jake let him anywhere near the little boy he thought of as his own son.

“Do you have a child, Marisol?” Victor asked in a strangled tone that caught Jake by surprise.

“I meant her husband, Micah,” Jake lied quickly as he saw Mariah’s face turn deathly pale. “Are you his father? Mariah told me his parents didn’t approve of their relationship.”

Victor laughed. “No.”

“Victor killed Micah,” Mariah growled, her voice dark with old pain.

Jake had heard that sound, more often than he liked to remember, in the early days of their courtship and marriage, but he’d thought she was past it now, moving forward into their new and promising life together.

Clearly, he’d been wrong. In so many ways.

“It was an accident.” Victor’s flat tone was unconvincing. “I paid for my mistake.”

“You killed him so I couldn’t be with him,” Mariah countered fiercely. “That was your twisted idea of disloyalty to you. Is that why you’re doing this now? Are you going to kill Jake, too?”

“If all I wanted was to kill your latest lover, he’d be dead already,” Victor said calmly.

“Easy to talk big when you’ve got the gun and your opponent’s trussed up like a turkey, little man.” Jake watched Victor for a reaction.

Victor ignored the taunt, but Jake noted that his back stiffened at the hard words. The older man turned his attention back to Mariah, his dark eyes focusing on her in the mirror. “You made things very difficult for me. You ruined everything.”

“You ruined everything,” Mariah spat back at him. “You’re the one who couldn’t let me go.”

“Your name is Marisol?” Jake asked quietly, partly to defuse the escalating tension but mostly to distract himself from the twisting in his gut. He knew that Victor wanted him to feel disgust and betrayal at Mariah’s lies. He could see very well that Mariah wanted—needed—him to trust her.