Page 55 of Lone Star Rescue

“It’s Buckner,” Tessa cried out. “I know it’s him. He probably had someone watching the place and saw me come here.”

That was indeed possible. There were plenty of woods around Rafe’s property and on the road leading up to it. Buckner’s henchmen could have done surveillance from there or even set up some kind of monitoring equipment, all without triggering any of the sensor detectors.

Bree figured Buckner had someone watching her place as well, and the man had probably been irked when they hadn’t gone back there. With no sensors and a bare-bones security system, Buckner and his thugs could have broken in her door and been on Rafe and her before they even knew what was happening. At least here they’d had some warning though she still had no idea what they were up against.

“God, Rafe, I’m so sorry,” Tessa wailed.

Rafe didn’t answer her. Instead, he kept arming himself with weapons he was taking from the closet, and he handed Bree another gun as well.

“Just a precaution,” Rafe said, their gazes meeting.

She saw no fear in his eyes. Just an intense determination. He’d almost certainly faced situations like this before, but this was a first for her.

He put his full attention on the monitors when there was a series of more beeps, and Bree saw four men, all dressed in combat gear and gas masks, making their way to the house. They looked like giant insects.

But that wasn’t all.

There was a whirring sound, and it took her a moment to realize it was a helicopter landing in Rafe’s pasture.

Again, Rafe didn’t react. He waited and watched. So did Bree, and she saw Buckner climb from the helicopter. He, too, was wearing combat clothes, and he made a show of lifting his phone. Seconds later, Rafe’s own phone rang. He answered it and put it on speaker, keeping his attention pinned to the screen.

“Hello, Rafe,” Buckner greeted. “I understand you have a visitor. Someone I very much want to see. Tessa, if you can hear this, you know we need to talk.”

Tessa was frantically shaking her head. Clearly terrified. And on the verge of losing it. “He wants me dead because I can tell the cops he’s an accessory after the fact to Sandy Lynn’s murder.”

That made sense to Bree. The penalty for accessory could end up being the same for the person who’d killed, and that would potentially put Buckner behind bars for a very long time. No wonder he wanted to keep Tessa a prisoner.

And now he wanted her dead.

Correction: he’d want all three of them—Tessa, Rafe, and her—dead so there would be no witnesses. It made Bree want to kick herself for not alerting someone that Tessa had arrived. That way, they could have had backup already in place.

But she immediately rethought that.

Any deputy on the grounds now would be facing certain danger. Above and beyond the call of anything they’d ever been trained to face.

“Rafe,” Buckner went on after Tessa didn’t speak. “My men have three China Lake grenade launchers aimed at your house.” As if on cue, the four hired guns stopped, and three of them took aim. “I’m sure you know what China Lakes can do to a house. And, yes, even when a house is reinforced as yours is.”

The adrenaline was already racing through her, but hearing that gave her another jolt. She muted his phone so she could ask Rafe a very crucial question.

“Can the grenades blow up the house?” she muttered.

“If he uses enough of them.”

Bree had no doubts, none, that Buckner would use enough of them.

“Come on,” Rafe added, hitching his shoulder toward that large closet where he’d pulled out the vests and guns. “I have an escape tunnel beneath the house.”

That eased some of the tightness in her chest. Of course, Rafe would have a security measure like that, and it could end up saving them. Unless Buckner could manage to block it. The man had come prepared so he might have assumed there’d be an escape route.

“He’ll kill us all,” Tessa blurted. There was intense, raw panic in her voice. “And this is all my fault. It’s me he wants, not you.”

Rafe spoke a command to open another door inside the closet, one that she hadn’t noticed earlier since it had no knob or hardware, and then he looked at Tessa. “We’ll get out and regroup. Everything will be okay.”

Tessa didn’t move.

But the house seemed to do just that.

Three blasts, one right behind the other, rammed against the outside wall, shaking the floor beneath them. Shaking the very foundation. Pictures fell off the mantel and wall and crashed to the floor.

---