Page 44 of Cowboy Friend Zone for Christmas

“Noelle!” He pushed through the front doors, hollering her name. “Noelle Ward! Are you in here?” In seconds, two uniformed officers converged on him.

“State your name and business, sir,” one of the lawmen ordered sternly. He wore a sheriff’s badge and had his police visor pulled so low over his eyes that it was impossible to read his expression. A guy with a medium build and average features, he could’ve been thirty or fifty.

“I’m Nash Carson. Noelle Ward’s boyfriend. Where is she?” He shot a frantic look around the dining establishment, sensing that something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

“We’re trying to figure that out, sir. I’m Sheriff Dean Skelton. If you’ll come with me and Deputy Cannon.” He angled his head at the younger officer at his side. They proceeded to escort him to a private room in the back of the restaurant that was normally reserved for parties and other small gatherings. He found Noelle’s mother weeping hysterically on her husband’s shoulder.

At the sight of Nash, she wailed, “He t-took her!”

“Who took her?” Terror leaped into his chest.

Sheriff Skelton quickly squared Nash away on what few details they had. Apparently, Noelle’s father was in debt up to his over-starched shirt collar, and his business partner had offered to make all of his financial problems go away if they’d arrange a lunch date between him and Noelle. The sheriff went on to explain that Noelle had once dated the guy. It hadn’t ended well.

“We never d-dreamed he would d-do something like this,” Triss Ward wailed. “He was always such a n-nice man!”

Nash stared at her parents in disbelief. Talk about betrayal! Unable to think of anything pleasant to say to them, he whipped out his cell phone and pulled up Noelle’s GPS tracker.

Stepping a little away from her parents, he conferred in undertones with the sheriff. “Looks like she’s on the highway heading toward Phoenix. Wait! No!” He watched the flashing dot on his screen make a hairpin turn. “The slime ball just pulled off the road with her.” Horror stained his voice.

“Let’s go.” The sheriff motioned for Nash to follow him and his deputy. The three of them took off running.

Dean Skelton took one look at Nash’s truck and muttered, “What a joker!”

“It’s mine.” Nash dug for his keys. “Sorry. I’ll move it.”

“There’s no time,” the sheriff growled. “Worst-case scenario, you can pick it up from the impound lot later.”

That was fine with Nash. He climbed into the back of the cruiser and navigated the two officers toward the spot where Noelle’s phone tracker was leading them.

“The tracker,” he muttered hoarsely. “It stopped moving.” It had been sitting in the same place since its original hairpin veer off the highway.

“We’re almost there,” the sheriff growled. “Keep your eyes peeled for a silver BMW. Unless the scallawag managed to swap vehicles somewhere along the way, that’s what he’s driving.”

Around the next bend of the highway, they discovered why Noelle’s tracker had stopped moving. The silver sports car they were searching for hadn’t just left the road. It was lying upside down in the field to their left. Smoke was rising from its hood.

The car skidded to a halt, and the officers leaped out, opening the back door for Nash. With a prayer on his lips that they would reach Noelle in time, he ran like mad toward the smoking car, shouting her name.

Footsteps pounded behind him as the two officers followed.

Reaching the car, Nash dropped to his knees. “Noelle?” He hollered her name over and over again.

The interior of the car was so filled with smoke that he could barely make out the outline of two figures inside. The driver wasn’t moving. The passenger, however, was kicking frantically at the window. A black cowgirl boot came crashing through the glass.

“Noelle!” Nash reached through the window to assist her out. As she started to crawl his way, a flume of fire shot across the ground between them.

She pulled her head back inside the vehicle with a muffled shriek of alarm.

“It’s gonna blow,” the deputy warned.

Nash rolled up the sleeve of his bionic arm, knowing the titanium steel components would have a better shot at surviving what he was about to do.

“Here!” The sheriff knelt beside him to throw a silver emergency blanket over the line of flames beside the passenger door, snuffing out the closest flames.

“Noelle, grab my hand,” Nash hollered, knowing they didn’t have much longer.

Another flume of fire shot along the ground between them. He kept his bionic arm on the burning side of the blanket, using it to shield her body from the flames as he dragged her through the window. He was more thankful than ever for the rubber piece of padding between his prosthetic limb and the stump of his arm. Otherwise, he might not have been able to bear the searing heat.

A new wave of fury overtook him when he pulled Noelle free of the wreckage. That’s when he saw her abductor had locked a set of handcuffs around her wrists. What an animal! Her palms were scratched and bleeding a little from the glass shards, and her face was smudged with smoke, dirt, and tears. However, she appeared otherwise unharmed.

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