Authors: Shirlee McCoy
T
he interior of the store was dimly lit, the aisle stocked with everything from souvenirs to car oil. Ford used an ATM machine, his gaze focused on the large windows at the front of the building, his body humming with an awareness he couldn’t ignore. Intuition. Gut instinct. Whatever it was, Ford’s was alive and kicking, and it was telling him that whatever he’d hoped they’d left behind in Billings had followed them.
“Do you want a sandwich?” Olivia asked, walking over to a refrigerated display and opening it.
No. I want an AK-47 and a cartload of ammo.
Ford didn’t say what he was thinking. What good would it do to worry Olivia more than she already was? If someone had followed them from Billings, they’d know soon enough.
The thought wasn’t nearly as comforting as Ford would have liked it to be.
“Sure.”
“Ham? Turkey?”
“Turkey,” he said absently, shooting a glance in her direction. She’d loosened her hair so that it fell in soft waves over her shoulders, covering the torn fabric of her dress and
the wound beneath it. She looked beautiful and fragile, the subtle roundness of her abdomen drawing Ford’s attention, and making him wish for a lot more than a gun.
A time machine would do it. A way to go back fourteen months to the day Olivia had begged him to take some time off, go with her to a mountain cabin she’d rented for the two of them. The day he’d refused. Told her he had a meeting the next day that he couldn’t miss. When Olivia had said she was going anyway, he’d told her to have fun, then gone over his notes for the meeting while she packed a bag. He hadn’t realized just how much she’d packed until she’d walked into the office, dragging a suitcase stuffed with clothes.
He hadn’t believed her when she’d said she wouldn’t be returning to the penthouse. Had refused to even contemplate the idea that she might be serious about separating.
He’d been a fool to doubt her.
A fool to let her go.
If he could do it all over again, he’d have an associate fill in for him at the meeting, he’d pack a duffel and head out that door with his wife. He’d let her know then and there just how important she was to him.
But there were no time machines. No way to change the past. All he could do was make sure that what he’d set into motion fourteen months ago didn’t end with Olivia’s death. He looked out the window again, frowning. A hundred murderers could be standing on the other side of the glass, and Ford wouldn’t know it until they pulled their guns and shot him.
He moved away from the window, following Olivia down the first aid aisle and grabbing several packages of bandages, a bottle of alcohol and a tube of antibiotic cream.
“Grab some Tylenol, too, will you?” Olivia asked, her hands filled with sandwiches and bottled water.
“Your shoulder hurting?”
“No. My back,” she said, shifting from foot to foot and wincing.
A backache?
Hadn’t Ford read something about backache signaling labor? In the past forty-eight hours, Olivia had been in a smoke-clogged house, had run for her life twice and had been grazed by a bullet. Was it possible that something was wrong with Olivia? With their baby? Their little girl with dark brown curls and deep blue eyes.
Suddenly the thought of losing the baby was much more terrifying than the thought of trying to parent it. He put a hand on Olivia’s arm, holding her in place when she would have walked to the register.
“Maybe we should go to the hospital.”
“The hospital? Why?” She asked, looking genuinely puzzled.
“Just to make sure everything is okay with the baby.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You’ve been through a lot these past few days, and now you’re complaining of a backache.”
“I get backaches all the time. It’s from years of pushing myself as a dancer, not from pregnancy.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Of course I can. Besides, at my last prenatal visit the doctor told me dancing and running were perfectly okay during the beginning months of pregnancy.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to get things checked out, Livy. Just in case.”
“I’ve wanted this baby for ten years, Ford. Do you really
think I’d refuse to go to the hospital if there was any chance at all of there being something wrong with him?”
Ten years?
Had she really wanted a child for that long?
Had Ford really been so deaf to her needs that he hadn’t realized it?
Now wasn’t the time to ask, or to discuss the reasons why Olivia had only brought up the idea of having children in passing, never really pushing for what she must have desperately wanted.
Ten years.
That was a long time to dream of something and go without it.
He grabbed the Tylenol, took the sandwiches and water bottles from Olivia and paid for their purchases, his mind spinning back to the years when they’d just started out. Young, brash and ready to take on the world, that’s what Ford had been. Now he was older, maybe a little wiser.
And ready for a new adventure?
Maybe.
In life, as in real estate, timing was everything.
The timing had never been right to have a baby. Mostly because Ford had never considered himself father material. In the past few months, he’d realized that life was about more than business deals and money making. Maybe he was realizing something else, too. That fatherhood had a lot more to do with attitude and heart than with reliving the past.
He hooked his arm around Olivia’s waist, leading her toward the restroom sign at the back of the store. A small corridor led to two bathrooms, and Ford opened the door to the first. It was a small cubicle. No window. No door to the outside.
He moved to the next door.
“What are you doing?” Olivia asked as he pushed open the second door.
“Looking for another way out of the store.”
“You think we were followed from Billings, don’t you?”
“I’ve been thinking it all along, but I’d hoped I was wrong. Now,” he shrugged. “Now, I’ve got the same feeling I had this morning right before the world went crazy.”
Like the first, the second restroom had no window. Ford frowned, glancing up and down the narrow hallway, and then pulling Olivia to a door marked Employees Only.
“We can’t go in there,” Olivia said, as he tried the doorknob, found it unlocked and opened the door.
“When people want you dead, it’s okay to break a few rules,” he responded, glancing inside and smiling at the row of tall windows across the room. They looked into an alley that appeared empty but for a Dumpster and a few errant pieces of trash. “Bingo. Now, if those windows are the kind that open, we’ll be in good shape.”
He stepped into the room, tugging Olivia along with him and trying the window that was farthest from the front of the store. It slid open easily, and Ford smiled, dropping the bag that contained their purchases and shoving the screen out. Seconds later, he was standing on the other side of the window, cool spring air carrying the sounds of people moving along the sidewalk out front of the store.
“Ready?” He reached for Olivia, and she nodded, grabbing his hand and scrambling out into the alley. The scent of her shampoo mixed with the musty odor of decaying garbage, and Ford wanted to bury his head in her hair, inhale the clean fresh scent of it.
“Which way?” she asked, frowning at the Dumpster and fence that blocked the back end of the alley.
“Do you think you can make it over the fence?”
“I made it down a tree. I guess I can make it over a fence.”
“That’s the spirit,” he said, closing the Dumpster lid and wincing at the loud clang of metal meeting metal. It was easy enough to hoist himself onto the lid and grab Olivia’s hands. Seconds later, she was standing beside him. Disheveled, breathless, and more beautiful than any woman Ford had ever seen.
Please, Lord, help me keep her safe.
He prayed silently as he levered over the fence, and dropped onto the ground below. “Be careful, Liv. Just lower yourself over the side, and I’ll grab—”
But she was already over, hanging on to the top of the fence and dropping into his waiting arms. He grabbed her waist, his hands sliding around her waist as he helped her down. He wanted to rest his hands there, try to feel the baby moving beneath Olivia’s taut skin.
She stepped from his grasp, turning to face him, her cheeks pink. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Let’s go see what’s on the other side of this alley.”
“Hopefully a used car lot with some really cheap cars. Or better yet, a rental company. Maybe we could rent a moving van. I doubt anyone would be expecting that.”
“Or we could hire a private plane. I’m sure there’s an airport around here somewhere.” It was as good a plan as any, and Ford decided to look into it. Taking to the air seemed like a safer route than trying to outrun their pursuers by car.
The alley opened onto a one-way road lined with an
eclectic assortment of stores. Clothes, jewelry, food. Anything they wanted, they could find.
Except a means of escaping town without detection.
Ford glanced over his shoulder, almost expecting to see armed men coming out of the alley. No one appeared, but he wasn’t reassured. Escaping through the office window might have bought them a few minutes, but he doubted it had bought them much more than that.
“I don’t like this, Ford. We’re too exposed out here on the street,” Olivia muttered, her tone reflecting the worry Ford felt. The longer they spent on foot, the more likely it was that they’d be spotted.
If
they’d been followed.
Maybe they hadn’t.
Maybe Ford was overreacting.
Maybe, but he doubted it.
“There’s a pay phone in that store,” he said, gesturing to a pharmacy across the street. “We’ll call information, see if there’s a rental company nearby.”
“Or an airport. Or train station. Or anything that will get us out of Cody,” Olivia responded, smiling up at Ford. His pulse jumped. His grip on her hand tightened. If anything happened to her…
He wouldn’t go there. Refused to even imagine it.
“I’ll get you out of here, Livy. You can count on it,” he said, pressing a hand to her lower back as he took a step into the street, his focus to the left in the direction of oncoming traffic. A sound to his right caught his attention. The roar of an engine. The squeal of tires. And Ford knew. He didn’t look, didn’t wait, just grabbed the back of Olivia’s shirt, yanking her onto the sidewalk as a car sped toward them heading in the wrong direction,
screaming past other cars as if the driver didn’t care if he lived or died.
“He’s going to jump the curb! Run!” Ford shoved Olivia forward as the driver aimed for the sidewalk, gunned the engine.
Olivia screamed, the sound of her terror echoing in Ford’s head. She was a few steps ahead, and he grabbed her hand, pulling her into a store seconds before the car jumped the curb. People scattered, screaming as the driver gunned the engine again, plowed into the storefront. Glass shattered. Olivia screamed again, the sound echoed by other patrons.
Ford lifted her off her feet, nearly throwing her behind a rack of clothes as a man jumped from the car, a gun in hand. Ford expected bullets to fly, expected to die in a pile of bricks and glass in Cody, Wyoming. Instead, two armed police officers stepped into view, shouting orders, demanding that the man drop his weapon.
Ford moved, diving behind the rack of clothes, covering Olivia with his body, pressing her into brick red carpet, praying it would be enough to keep her safe.
Someone shouted. A gun exploded. Another shot followed. Bits of clothing jettisoned from the rack, coating Ford’s head. He tensed, waiting for another shot but all that came was silence so thick and deep Ford thought he might choke on it.
He levered up, looking down into Olivia’s face. Her eyes were closed, her skin paper-white. Fear shot through Ford. Had she been shot?
“Liv?” He laid his hand on her cheek, his heart pounding. He’d been a fool to think he could protect her more effectively than the FBI. A fool to believe they could
escape the Martino family on their own. He’d read the newspaper reports, knew how many times one of a member of the Martino family had escaped prosecution because a witness had disappeared or refused to testify.
He’d known the kind of danger Olivia was in, the kind of men she was running from, but somehow he’d still believed that he knew best how to keep her safe.
And hadn’t that been the problem throughout their marriage? He’d always known best, always believed that his plan was the right one.
“Everyone okay in here?” A uniformed police officer asked as he approached, his sharp eyes skimming over Ford and resting on Olivia.
“Call an ambulance.”
“She been shot?” He knelt beside Ford, pressing a finger against the pulse point in Olivia’s neck.
“I don’t know. Liv?” He patted her cheek gently.
She stirred, opened her eyes and tried to sit up. Ford pressed her back down. “Just lay still. An ambulance is on the way.”
“There’s no need. I’m fine.”
“You were unconscious.”
“I think I hit my head on something,” she said, touching the back of her head and wincing. Ford ran his hand over the spot, felt a hard knot beneath her hair.
“I should have been more careful when I pushed you out of the way.”
“I’d rather have a bump on the head then a bullet in it.” She smiled, her gaze darting to the officer who was speaking into his radio. “Since I’m okay, I think we should just go home, don’t you?”
Obviously, she thought they were going to stick to the
plan, keep out of the reach of the feds, try to stay a step ahead of the Martinos. But the plans had changed. The stakes were too high, and seeing Olivia lying pale and unresponsive was enough to convince Ford that he didn’t have the tools necessary to keep her safe. “You’re going to the hospital, Liv, and I’m going to contact McGraw, have him send some men to escort us to Chicago.”
“But—”
“As long as McGraw agrees to twenty-four-hour armed guards—”
“Armed guards? What’s going on here, folks?” The officer interrupted, his tone sharp.