Page 83 of Long Arm of the Cowboy

Now she recalled faces flashing past her vision after they drugged her and they bundled her out of the meeting—and into the coffin.

This can’t happen here,one had said.

Anger ripped through Lark. And she’d given two of those people the benefit of the doubt.

Clay was hardened to honed steel for a reason—he’d spent years in this line of work, and she’d been at it mere days. Next time she would not be so lenient about the people who smiled or took selfies with her. And maybe not so convinced she could handle herself without any actual training or experience.

Okay, getting more air was her next priority. She’d once read that you could kick out the sides of a coffin. They were less sturdy. But she didn’t have the strength for that.

Running her finger along one crack, she located the seam of the lid. Poking her fingers at the seal, she racked her brain. If she could stuff something in there, she could maybe force it open just a tiny sliver of a crack, enough to let air move.

What could she use? Her head rested on a small pillow. Whipping it out from under her, she attempted to wad it up enough to stuff into the crack, but it was far too puffy.

Hands shaking, she dropped the pillow and took up the phone again. Clay. She needed to reach Clay.

She was so damn afraid he’d leave her, just like everybody else. Andrew meant well, and he’d still left. What was to stop Clay from doing the same?

Her mind flitted over their moments together. So many and yet so few too.

As her brain crashed into one of those instances, her breathing came in short pants, and it wasn’t from the lack of air in this thing.

That look he’d given her…was filled with love.

Pure freakin’ love. The kind that was forever.

Hope bubbled inside her like the champagne fountain they’d have at their wedding someday. Clay Lexis loved her. The man wasn’t walking away. She wouldn’t let him.

When she opened the messages, she found them blank. Her contacts had been wiped. Her phone had probably reset when they yanked the battery.

Think, Lark.

She only had to see or hear something one time in order to recall it. So why wasn’t she able to pull up Clay’s phone number from the recesses of her mind?

Panic swept in. She started to hyperventilate and her lungs burned for the air she was certain she wasn’t getting enough of.

She had to calm down and think harder.

One time she’d lost a cheap birthstone ring that Andrew had given her for her birthday. Thinking back, he’d probably stolen it just to have something to give her when she turned nine. But that wasn’t the point—she’d lost the ring.

He’d told her to retrace her steps and search until she found it. So she’d started in her bed and followed her own path to the bathroom, even pulling open the drawer where her toothbrush was kept until she finally located the ring in the entryway where the too-big band had slipped off her finger when she put on her shoes.

She could do the same with a mental map of what happened leading up to the point where Clay entered his number into her phone.

Spinning the wheel of time backward she put herself back in the house with Clay wiring her. How grim his expression had been. Almost pissed off. But she knew that emotion wasn’t for her. When he looked at her, nothing but love shone in his eyes.

Her heart peaked and dipped with the rise and fall of her own emotions for the man she’d come to love in a few short days.

She loved Clay.

“Give me your phone.”

Her mind zeroed in and faded out until she mentally leaned closer to Clay to see the number he punched into her contacts.

“Yes!” she burst out and thumbed the number into her phone again.

It rang once…then the call disconnected.

Dammit, she justhad touse the phone carrier that didn’t provide reception from inside a coffin. Next time she wouldn’t skimp on the service. Only the best from now on, even if she had to take twice the jobs on Quick Bunny.

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