Page 28 of The Unknown Colton
But he kept spinning his back wheels, spewing more gravel. Yet again, instead of going backward, the truck slipped forward a bit more.
“Get out!” she yelled again.
“If I take my foot off the gas, it’s going over,” he told her as he kept gunning the engine.
Her heart pounded hard. “What can I do?” She’d left her phone in her purse. But if she ran to get it and the truck went over… Tears burned her eyes. “I love you,” she said.
“What the hell are you two doing?” a voice asked, the words slightly slurred.
Lakin glanced behind her to see Billy Hoover hanging out the side window of his truck, staring down at them. “Billy!” Was his the truck that had nearly run her off the road and probably Troy as well?
“Do you have a tow strap?” Troy yelled out his window.
Billy nodded, then pushed his greasy red hair out of his face.
“Hurry!” Lakin said. At the moment she was less concerned that Billy might have caused the crash than she was about making him help rescue the man she loved.
She was the one who wrapped the tow strap around Troy’s hitch and then Billy’s, making sure both ends were secure. Billy didn’t even get out of his truck, but that was fine.
“Gun it!” she yelled at them both.
Gravel flew and metal crunched as Troy’s truck came up the side of the mountain and bounced back onto the road, colliding with the back bumper of Billy’s truck as the redhaired man abruptly stopped.
Troy hopped out of his truck. Lakin would haverushed to hug him, but her legs were shaking too badly. She couldn’t get over how close she’d come to losing him forever. If that truck had gone over… She glimpsed over the steep drop. There was no way he would have survived that fall.
“You’re going to have to pay for that, Amos,” Billy shouted over his loud motor.
“Like you can tell what damage my truck did to yours,” Troy remarked as he unwound the strap from his hitch.
Before he could take it off Billy’s, the other man sped away, the strap trailing behind him. The dents and dings on Billy’s rusted truck were undoubtedly caused by how the man drove. Despite his help, Lakin was tempted to call the police. Billy had obviously been drinking. And if he’d caused the crash, she would.
“What happened?” Lakin asked Troy, her heart still pounding frantically even though he was back on solid ground. She wanted to run and hug him even now, but she wasn’t sure her legs would hold her up.
He leaned against the side of his truck still idling in the road near hers. Maybe he was as shaken as she was. “Someone ran me off the road.”
“Was it Billy?” she asked.
He glanced in the direction their old school nemesis had gone. “I don’t know for sure. It was a rusted truck, too, but I didn’t get a good look at it or the driver.”
Could it be Billy who was watching her? Shehadn’t considered it, but he’d been a bully as a child. What could he be now? A stalker? A serial killer?
She shivered as she had that sensation again that someone was watching her. Watching both of them now, and maybe getting ready to try something…while she and Troy were just standing in the road, both easy targets.
“Let’s get out of here,” Troy said, and he levered himself away from the side of his pickup. “It’s not safe standing in the road or even parked alongside it. Get in your vehicle, too, and let’s head back to your cabin.”
Lakin didn’t argue with him. He could have died if Billy hadn’t come along when he had. Even though Troy hadn’t been able to see who’d forced him off the road, they needed to call the police. She would insist that they did.
Later. When they were safe…
* * *
Instead of locking him out, Lakin held open the door for him when Troy walked up to her cabin. Or limped, actually. He tried not to grimace as he climbed the couple of steps and crossed the porch to her.
Going off the road had jarred his back again. Maybe it had already been hurting from taking the turns as fast as he had. And then Billy Hoover jerking the truck up the embankment with the tow strap hadn’t helped, either, but it had kept the truck and Troy from sliding down the mountain.
Was Billy the one who’d driven him off in the first place though? If so, from how he’d slurred his words, it might not have been intentional. Either way Troy should have called the police, but he’d wanted to make sure that Lakin was somewhere safe first.
Once he hobbled inside her cabin, he closed and dead-bolted her door. He wasn’t sure even that would be enough to keep them safe if someone was really determined to hurt them, though.
