Page 52 of Dark Side of the River

Or would he go back to check on the other rider? To get help? To let whoever was in charge of the meth lab know that they’d been busted?

Heart in his throat, Cooper listened, relieved when he heard the sound of the four-wheeler’s engine growing fainter and fainter until he couldn’t hear it at all.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

TILLYHADBEENTERRIFIED, looking over her shoulder for Cooper. She’d heard the four-wheeler engines, heard what sounded like a rockslide, then the engines stop, then gunfire. Her heart had dropped. She’d been about to turn back when he’d appeared. Relief had brought tears to her eyes. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she reined in under a large ponderosa pine to wait for him.

She couldn’t hear the four-wheelers. She didn’t know what that meant or what had happened. He rode up to her and reined in next to her. She wiped hastily at tears at just the sight of him. He had some small cuts on his handsome face. But he was all right.

“You okay?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Are they still following us?”

“I don’t think so.”

“They have to be the ones who shot Oakley.”

“Maybe, if one of them had a 270 rifle. The men who fired on us were using AR15s. Let’s get off this mountain. We’ll go to my house since it’s not far from here. I’ll take you and your horse home.”

She looked at him. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“I need to call the sheriff as soon as I can get cell phone service.”

Tilly nodded, although she was worried about what kind of reception she would get at the McKenna house. But he was right. It wasn’t far. There they would be safe. She thought about that and tried to forget that people had been trying to kill them as she spurred her horse. They rode off the mountain and down toward his family’s ranch house.

She kept thinking of her sister running for her life from killers. Oakley had to have found the meth lab. It was the only thing that made sense. Except, like Cooper said, the men who shot at them were using AR15s—not a 270 rifle, which was what Oakley had been shot with. She kept thinking about the other rider Howie and Tick had seen, the one who hadn’t followed Oakley. The one who had turned toward either the McKenna Ranch house or the Stafford Ranch property, the same way she’d ridden earlier.

THEMOMENTTHEYleft the pines on the mountain, the sun bore down on them until they reached the cottonwoods and what relief the thick leaves overhead offered. Cooper reined in his horse to look back. They hadn’t been followed. They were almost to the house, safe here in this wooded grove.

Tilly reined in beside him. He could see the green of her eyes accentuated by the dark green of the cottonwood leaves overhead. The sun-dappled ground around them was at odds with the coolness under the canopy. He could see that she was shaken, just as he was. “Tilly.”

When the men on the four-wheelers had started shooting at them, he’d just reacted on instinct. He hadn’t taken the time to realize just how much danger they were in—let alone to be terrified.

But, looking at her now, he felt pure gut-wrenching terror at the thought that he’d almost gotten her killed. He reached over to cup her cheek, then leaned toward her, pulling her against him for a moment. The feel of her was his undoing.

“Tilly.” That was all he had to say before he was off his horse, reaching up to lift her from the saddle and into his arms. She wrapped her arms around him as he held her tight against him, her feet dangling above the warm soil.

She held on to him as if they were in a fierce storm. They were.

“Those men tried to kill us. Cooper, they tried to kill us.”

He cupped the back of her head, pressing her into his chest. “We’re okay.” It wasn’t true, and he suspected she knew that. They’d been seen. They had no idea who was behind the meth lab, but it wasn’t those men who’d chased them. The operation had an organized feel to it. Someone higher up was in charge. More than likely someone they knew.

“Even if they didn’t shoot Oakley,” Tilly said against his chest, “they chased her out of that ravine. It had to be them.”

He didn’t argue. So who had shot the 270 rifle? The man waiting for her in the ravine, the man on the horse? “You’re going to be all right,” he told her, not sure of that at all.

Checking his phone, he saw that he had service now that they were out of the mountains. “I have to call the sheriff.” She nodded and stepped away as he made the call.

He got Stuart’s cell phone first, then his office. Forced to leave a message on both, he told Stu about the meth lab, about the men who’d shot at them, chased them, how one of the pursuers’ four-wheelers had been destroyed, the rider injured or dead, and where he could find him. Knowing there was nothing more he could do, he left his cell number and disconnected.

Tilly was standing nearby hugging herself as he looked back toward the rugged mountains drenched in sunshine. They looked so peaceful. Everything about the summer day felt normal. But under the surface...

He stepped to Tilly, pulled her to him again and held her for a few minutes.

“I’m just not used to people trying to kill me.”

“Me either.” He drew back to smile at her. He told himself that this wasn’t the time or the place, but he wanted her with a kind of desperation he knew stemmed from almost being killed. “Let’s get you home.”

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