Page 31 of Seized by the Lawman

She needed to also get her head on straight. The man was undeniably sexy, but so was her ex and he’d screwed her over. Big time. She’d been captivated by whiskey colored eyes and a beckoning smile. Then regretted that she’d ever met him. Nix was different though. In many ways. He didn’t send off a player vibe.

Interestingly, no matter where he was on the land, her internal Nix-radar told her where. He was a beacon that drew her attention. A virile magnet. Whether he was mucking the stalls, riding a horse, pounding a nail in a fence…she noticed. Oh brother did she notice.

Her nipples tightened and sweat beaded between her breasts. She’d been watching him but was quick enough to turn her gaze if he glanced her way. He’d been riding her to learn everything about cattle and the financial side of the business, they’d even burnt the midnight oil last night as he explained the books. He had also told her he was learning some new things himself.

But they’d parted ways as each headed to their own beds. Denying that she’d wanted to invite him home with her would be a waste. The chemistry was rocking when she’d denied herself and took the lonely path home to drop into a cold bed.

Good girls could be bad when no one was watching, and her thoughts teetered on pure eroticism. She’d fantasized about cornering him in the barn, ripping his clothes to shreds and doing what she ached to do with him. Not the way a woman should feel when a man was off limits.

To make her situation more difficult, Brad had called her again, but she didn’t answer. He’d left her voice messages telling her that he missed her. She tottered on how she should approach the situation. He didn’t seem to want to believe that she truly had moved on. No way in hell would she get on that crazy train again. Undeniably, he’d find comfort from her rejection with his groupies…just as he had when they were seeing each other. The odd thing, she almost felt relieved when she found out he was cheating because then she knew it was truly over. Closure came in all forms, and for her that was what she needed.

The sun was setting and she clicked on her headlights. The orangish-red sunsets were breathtaking out here in the Wyoming mountains. To think she would see this amazing view each and every day was just another reason why she couldn’t wait to make the ranch her permanent homestead. This was her home. Life could take the girl out of the mountains, but nothing could take the mountains out of a girl. She had so many ideas and plans that she wanted to put into place on Shy Brooke. Excitement gurgled up inside of her for the first time in a such a long time as she realized more and more that she’d been trying to find herself over the years. Now she woke up grateful for the gifts God had given her. This was the life.

Hearing the low rumbling of an exhaust, Melly looked in the rearview mirror and saw lights. They were coming up on her fast on the narrow road. There wasn’t much out on the country road except for Shy Brooke and a few other farms. Melly looked at her speedometer and she was going the speed limit. The approaching truck slowed but rode her fender for almost a half mile. Frustrated, Melly slowed down and stuck her arm out the window, waving the vehicle to pass. The driver laid on the horn and pulled around her but stayed beside her for the entire straight stretch. She tried looking inside the cab, but it was too dark to see who was driving. The truck wasn’t familiar either.

Headlights popped up around the curve from the opposite direction. The truck made no move to get the hell out of the way of the oncoming car. . “You idiot. Go around,” Melly muttered, slowing her own truck to a crawl. She clenched her fingers tight around the steering wheel, anticipating a head on collision between the vehicles. With no time to spare, the truck beside her whipped in front of her as the car coming the opposite direction passed, holding down on their horn.

Melly felt like puking as her adrenaline finally started to settle. The truck in front of her took off with a loud roar and their backlights faded into the darkness. She rolled her window down the rest of the way and allowed the cool air to splash her face.

The baby moved and she touched her stomach. “I know, little one. That was close. I’m sorry I woke you,” Melly whispered.

She pressed on the gas pedal and picked up speed. It was completely dark now and the lights on her truck were dim. Clicking on her brights, they didn’t work as they should, but they helped some.

Her phone rang from the console. Glancing over, she saw that it was Nix. She didn’t answer.

Bringing her gaze back to the road, the lights feathered across something in the middle of the road. She screamed and jerked the wheel at the same time slamming her foot on the brake. The truck slid sideways and she saw a flash of a woman in white as Melly bounced in the seat, luckily constrained by the seatbelt, until finally coming to a rest when the front fender struck the ditch on the other side of the road. After realizing what had happened, she looked around frantically for the woman. The road was empty. What the hell?

The smoke rolling out of the top of the truck’s hood made it clear she wouldn’t be driving it home. The second thing she realized was that she had a dull pain in her forehead. Bringing her fingers to her brow, she felt something sticky on her skin and realized she was bleeding.

“Damn.”

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