Page 67 of River Legacy
At the roar of a vehicle engine, they all looked up to see Ryder come to a skidding stop. The distraction was exactly what her father had apparently been waiting for. He grabbed her before Claude could react, shoving her out of the way as he went for the gun. She screamed as she fell to the tarmac, but in an instant Ryder was there helping her up and pulling her aside.
When she looked toward her father, she saw that Claude had the gun pressed against his side as he backed him toward the plane.
Ryder couldn’t believe how close a call it had been getting here. If he’d been even a few minutes later...
“Don’t try anything, cowboy,” Claude warned as he maneuvered his boss over to the plane’s steps.
“Don’t worry, this is between you and the man who stole my ranch,” Ryder said. “You work it out between yourselves.”
“Ryder, no,” Victoria cried and tried to get past him to help her father. He held on to her, not about to let her go. From the look in Claude’s eyes, he feared the man would gladly kill both Victoria and her father, so he held her back.
Not that he was doing it for her father’s sake. Wendell Forester had made this mess. Let him figure it out, he thought, though he feared Vicky wouldnever forgive him if Claude shot her father. But he knew this woman. She would attack Claude if he let her go, and that would get everyone shot.
“He doesn’t have the guts to kill me, don’t worry,” Forester said to Victoria. “We’re just going to go for a plane ride. I’m sure Claude and I can work it out.” The security guards had started to approach again, but Wendell waved them back. “Everything’s fine!” he called to them. “Just a little disagreement. We’ll be leaving now.” Clearly, he thought he could talk Claude down.
Ryder wasn’t so sure about that. Claude seemed to be at the end of his rope.
“Right, we’ll work it out, unless I drop him off over the mountains,” Claude said with a laugh as he pushed his boss up the first couple of steps. Forester tripped on the third one and teetered for a moment before taking a step back as if to catch himself.
At Forester’s stumble, Ryder realized that he’d been waiting for an opportunity to present itself. He shoved past Vicky and rushed forward as Claude, too, was thrown off balance.
Knowing he was taking a hell of a chance for a man he despised, Ryder grabbed the weapon and wrestled it out of Claude’s hand, hoping the man didn’t pull the trigger and shoot Forester.
Claude stumbled into Forester, knocking him over the railing to the tarmac. Vicky cried out and rushed to her father as Ryder quickly pocketed the weapon so one of the security guards didn’t get trigger happy and shoot him.
Claude, no longer armed, apparently saw his chance. He ran up the steps into the airplane, pulling the door closed quickly behind him. The security guards advanced as its engine revved and it began to pull away.
“You can still stop him,” Ryder said as airport security and law enforcement officers reached them. “Security can keep him from taking off.”
Forester shook his head. “No, let him go. He’ll be dealt with when he reaches Texas.” He was cradling his arm and limped over to talk to the guards. Ryder could hear him telling them to let him go. “No harm’s been done. I’ll take responsibility.”
The guards and cops hesitated a moment, then must have remembered who they were talking to because they turned and headed toward the terminal. Ryder heard one of them on the radio telling the tower to let the jet take off. He was sure that money would change hands.
As he joined Vicky, Ryder said, “Sorry about your dad,” although he wasn’t that sorry when he thought about it.
“You saved him,” Vicky said as she stepped into his arms. “I knew you couldn’t let Claude take him.”
Ryder shook his head. “You don’t know how tempted I was to let them both fly away. He just wasn’t taking you.”
Her father walked back to them, looking confident that he’d handled things. “Thank you,” Forester said as he cradled his left arm, looking in pain. “ButI would have been fine if I hadn’t stumbled. I could have handled him.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” Ryder snapped. “I did it for your daughter.”
“Yes, of course,” the man said. “My daughter.”
At the sound of the plane taking off, they both turned to watch it soar into the air. “I wonder what’s waiting for him in Texas,” Ryder said.
“Knowing my father, I wouldn’t want to be Claude.”
Claude moved up into the cockpit once the jet was in the air. He dropped into the copilot’s seat and looked out at the mountains looming ahead. He liked the view. He could get used to this.
“I suppose we could steal the plane and take it to South America,” he said, only half-joking.
JJ laughed. “Why not? It’s a nice plane. We could run drugs.”
It wasn’t the future Claude had envisioned for himself, but at this point it sounded good to him. “You’re sure Wen wouldn’t have us shot down before we could leave the States?”
“He’d have to find us first,” JJ said.
