Page 5 of Silos and Sabotage

“It wasn’t a suggestion.” Gage edged closer to them with his hand still resting on his gun. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

Ella’s creepy visitor stood, snarling something she couldn’t make out as he attempted to get in Gage’s face. It wasn’t an easy task, since he was a good three to four inches shorter. “You have no idea who you’re talking to!”

Gage didn’t budge. “Someone who doesn’t understand it when a woman says she wants to be left alone.” His molten brown eyes flashed an angry warning.

“We were just talking.” Instead of returning to his table on the other side of the room, the blustering cowboy stomped toward the front door. He kicked it open, leaving a crack in the glass that Ella didn’t recall seeing there before.

“Whoa!” The three elderly farmers stood so quickly that one of them knocked over his cup of coffee. The one to his left tipped his chair backward.

Ella watched dazedly through the picture windows in the front of the diner as her tormentor leaped into a vintage blue-black Chevy pickup with oversized tires. A hard-looking truck for the bully who drove it.

Gage ran after him, whipping out his cell phone to take a picture of the truck’s license plate. The angry cowboy revved his motor a few times and rocked his truck forward, as if he was considering driving it straight through the windows of the diner. Then he abruptly backed away, skidding his tires and spraying dirt and pebbles everywhere.

Practically tasting the gravel dust he’d kicked up, Ella reached for her glass of water and took a sip. She immediately grew lightheaded.

Gage stalked back inside, barking into his cell phone while he moved in her direction. It sounded like he was talking to the police. “Got a partial plate. First few digits were covered in mud. It ended in 3A2H.”

Casey reappeared. “Just let it go,” she sighed, shaking her head at him. “My parents aren’t gonna press charges against Billy Bob Bolander, and you know it.”

Billy Bob Bolander.Ella repeated the name inside her head. It didn’t sound familiar.

“Hold on a sec,” Gage instructed the person he was talking to. Holding his phone away from his ear, he growled, “Why not? There are…” his angry gaze flicked to the frowning farmers and back to Casey again, “a good five witnesses, at least, to the damage he did to your front door.”

“Nah, that crack has been there a while.” Casey glanced guiltily away from him.

She was lying. Despite the fresh wave of brain fog Ella was battling, she was sure of it.

“You havegotto be kidding me!” Looking royally incensed, Gage abruptly ended his phone call.

One of the elderly farmers picked up his overturned chair, turned it around, and straddled it. “That’s the problem. Ain’t nobody willing to stand up to them Bolanders.”

“Nope,” one of the other men grunted. “If you ask me, it’s a crying shame that punk made parole again. You’d think after the last time…” Whatever else he said faded into the background as Gage finished stalking back to Ella’s table.

He took a tentative seat on the bench beside her. “You okay?” Though he was a good three feet further away than Billy Bob Bolander had been, his hulking shoulders seemed to fill the room. She couldn’t see anything but him.

“I am.” She nodded dizzily and took another sip of water. “Thanks to you.” All the moments of clarity she’d experienced during the past half hour or so were fast disintegrating back into the fog.

Gage’s brown gaze narrowed with suspicion. “How’d you know my name?”

She wasn’t sure about that, so she skipped to the part she did know. “I’ve been looking for you.” She held on to that thought like an anchor, the same way she always did when the fog threatened to pull her under.Gage Hefner. Brown hair. Square jaw.Another wave of lightheadedness rocked through her. She instinctively reached for him.

He scooted closer, looking worried.

She wilted against his chest. “I’m so glad I found you.” Her words came out slurred. She was almost too weak to move, but she managed to curl one arm around his middle — his very solid middle. “So tired,” she muttered as the most profound exhaustion she’d ever experienced swept over her.

Then everything went black.

Chapter 2: Mystery Woman

What in the world?Gage Hefner gazed down at the lovely cowgirl in growing alarm. Though she’d said she was tired, there was no way a perfect stranger would launch herself into his arms merely to fall asleep.

Nothing about their encounter felt normal. For one thing, she felt way too thin and fragile, and her face was way too pale. The lack of color in her cheeks made her skin nearly a perfect match for the white-blonde braids resting against her shoulders.

Her breathing was slow — the shallow intakes and exhales of someone in a deep slumber, and the intakes seemed to be slowing. He reached for her wrist and discovered her pulse was also abnormally slow.

Not good. Not good at all.It didn’t take a medical background to deduce she was fading quickly. “Somebody call 9-1-1,” he shouted. “This woman needs an ambulance!”

The farmers dug for their phones, but Casey was quicker. In two snaps, she was speaking rapidly to the answering attendant. “I don’t know, but it’s serious,” she snapped. “A heart attack, maybe? Hurry!”

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