One of the mask-wearing men scooped her up, giving Josh a hard kick to the chest in the process. Another jolt of pain, but despite the searing pain and the tear gas, he didn’t stay down. He fought to get up and stumbled across the room toward the still-open door.
He had to get to her.
Had to stop these men and save her.
Though it seemed to take an eternity, Josh made it to the doorway. And he took aim. But the men had already made it all the way down the stairs and were heading toward the rear of the barn.
“Stop!” Josh yelled. He knew they wouldn’t listen, but he hoped to alert some of the ranch hands. There were several already running his way.
He was dizzy, still fighting to breathe and see, but Josh got down the stairs. Running as fast as he could. But he heard two more sounds that he didn’t want to hear.
Jaycee’s scream.
And the engine of a vehicle starting up.
There were several vehicles parked back there for the ranch hands to use, but he doubted any ranch hand was behind the wheel. No.
It was one of the guards.
Josh took aim, praying he’d be able to shoot out the tires. But the truck didn’t come his way. He caught just a glimpse of the bloodred taillights as the truck sped across the pasture.
With Jaycee inside.
Chapter Seventeen
Jaycee fought as if her life depended on it.
Because it did.
Her life, the baby’s and Josh’s were all hanging in the balance. She’d seen the way the goon had kicked Josh and bashed him with a gun. Jaycee prayed he wasn’t hurt. Or worse. And while she was praying, she added one for her to get away from these monsters.
It wasn’t working.
No matter how hard she fought or how loud she screamed, it didn’t help. The hulking scumbags just held on to her and shoved her into a truck a split second before it sped away. They peeled off their gas masks, tossing them on the truck floor, but it was hard to see their faces because they were covered in camouflage paint.
She kept blinking her eyes, trying to focus even though they were still stinging and watery from the tear gas. But she finally got just a glimpse of Josh in the side mirror. He was running toward her like a madman, and he had his gun aimed but didn’t shoot.
Couldn’t.
Because he wouldn’t risk hitting her.
Her heart went to her stomach as the truck drove away and Josh disappeared from sight. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t go through this again.
She tried to push aside the fear and the dread and concentrate on what she could do. Not much with three armed goons squeezed into the truck with her. It was a two-seater vehicle, and one of the guys was in the back, a gun pointed at her head. She was on the front seat sandwiched between the other two.
Jaycee reached between the driver and her, hoping to snag a weapon he had in his pocket, but the other two jerks stopped her before her hand even made it to the man. The one on her right cursed her, calling her a bad name, and he grabbed the seat belt and buckled her up.
“Who are you and what do you want?” she demanded, and Jaycee hoped she sounded like an FBI agent and not a terrified pregnant woman.
None of them answered. In fact, the two in the front seat didn’t even spare her a glance. The driver had his attention on the rocky dirt road, and the one in the passenger’s seat was looking in the side mirror. No doubt looking for whoever would follow them.
And someone would follow.
Josh, no doubt, and she prayed he didn’t get himself killed while trying to rescue her again.
The goon in the passenger seat didn’t take his eyes off the side mirror, but he made a call. Because he sheltered his hand over the phone, Jaycee couldn’t see the numbers that he pressed in, and she didn’t hear who answered over the noise of her heartbeat crashing in her ears. However, she did hear his single-sentence response.
“We have her.”
So none of these three were in charge. They were just minions for the person who was no doubt responsible for the baby farms.
Jaycee couldn’t go back there.
She looked around the cab of the truck for anything she could use as a weapon. The discarded gas masks were on the floor, and if she could grab one she could wallop one of them with it. Of course, the other two would just stop her attack.
Or they might crash.
A crash
might
get her free of them, but it was a huge risk to take.
So what could she do to get away from them?
Normally, she’d try negotiation, but Jaycee seriously doubted that would work with these three. No. They were on a mission to take her to someone who would do heaven knows what with her baby and her.
She had a very short list of things she could try to get herself out of this mess. And next up was some old-fashioned deception. She clutched her stomach and moaned as loudly as she could.
“The baby,” she yelled. “Oh, God. The baby! I think I’m miscarrying.”
Just as she’d hoped, that got their attention. The two in the front seat exchanged concerned glances, and the goon on her right took out his phone to make another call.
“She’s making a fuss about the baby,” he said to the person on the other end of the line. “I’m pretty sure she’s faking it, but better get the doctor out there just in case.”
Jaycee wished she could reach through the line and crush the person her captor was talking to, because he or she had almost certainly orchestrated all of this. She seriously doubted she’d get to see the culprit though because this dirtbag was a coward, letting the hired muscle do the kidnapping.
The guy put his phone away again. And he cursed. For a moment Jaycee thought she was the reason for the renewed profanity, but she followed his gaze to the side mirror.
There were headlights behind them in the distance.
It was an SUV, and it looked like the one that’d been parked behind the barn.
Josh.
Maybe he’d brought a family full of backup with him.
She kept up the moaning and arched her back so that her elbows jabbed into the men on each side of her. They didn’t seem to notice, and the one in the backseat swiveled around and took aim. Not at her but at the person trying to rescue her. There was a small slide window that was open so the idiot goons would likely have a good shot.
Jaycee needed to do something about that.
She upped the volume on her moaning and levered herself up even higher when she pretended to have a contraction. In the same motion, Jaycee threw back her hand, knocking into the arm of the man in the rear seat. Now he cursed her and raised his left hand as if he might slap her.
“Keep your eyes on the SUV behind us,” the driver snarled.
Even in the dim light, she saw the anger flash in the guard’s eyes, but he turned back around and pointed his gun again.
Now Jaycee cursed.
She’d failed.
And worse, the guy fired a shot at the SUV. Not one shot but two. She couldn’t tell if he’d hit anything, but she prayed Josh and anyone else inside were all right.
The truck bobbled over a rough patch of road, and the driver had to give the wheel a sharp turn to the left to stop them from going into the ditch. Behind him, the other vehicle gained some ground. Probably because the driver was familiar with every inch of this road and the guard wasn’t. Her captor practically had to slam on his brakes when they reached a sharp turn.
Jaycee saw another of those sharp curves ahead, and she held her breath, waiting for the driver to slow down so he could safely take the turn. Anything she did at this point was a huge risk, but so was just sitting there while the idiot behind her continued to pop off shots at the SUV.
Shots that could hit Josh.
When the driver slowed as much as she figured he’d slow for the curve, Jaycee drew back her elbow and rammed it as hard as she could into his ribs.
He howled in pain.
The other one in the passenger’s seat reached for her, but she grabbed a gas mask and bashed first him, then the other. More howling. And the truck did more than just bobble. It went into a skid.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the guy in the back turn his gun on her, and her heart went into overdrive. He was going to shoot her.
But he didn’t get a chance to fire.
The truck skidded right off the road, hurling them over some rocks and shrubs. Jaycee’s head hit the ceiling, and the guards and she bobbled around like rag dolls.
Ahead she saw the tree, but there was nothing she could do except shelter her stomach with her hands.
They plowed right into a sprawling oak.
* * *
J
OSH
’
S
BREATH
VANISHED
when he saw the truck leave the road. He figured the driver had lost control, but then he could see some kind of struggle going on in the cab.
Hell.
If Jaycee was hurt, every one of those men would pay for it.
Josh pulled his SUV to a stop and barreled out. Grayson and a ranch hand weren’t too far behind him, but he didn’t want to wait for them. He had to make sure Jaycee was all right.
His head was still pounding. So was the pain in his chest where the kidnapper had kicked him. But Josh fought through the pain, jumped the ditch and ran full speed toward the collision.
The truck was wrecked, no doubt about that, and there was steam spewing from the hood, which was now smashed against the tree.
The driver’s door flew open, and the man practically spilled out. He was armed, but he didn’t take the time to turn around and aim at Josh. He just raced behind a big clump of rocks and dropped to the ground.
Not good.
Josh ducked, darted behind a tree. The passenger’s side door opened, too, and he braced himself to see scumbags number two and three.
However, it was Jaycee who crawled out.
Not easily. She climbed over one of the men, who appeared to be only partly conscious. He was moaning and cursing at the same time, but Jaycee managed to get by him. The moment her feet touched the ground, she ran toward him.
Josh caught her in his arms and pulled her behind the tree with him. He didn’t kiss her. Didn’t want to take his attention off that truck and the kidnappers, but he was beyond thankful that she hadn’t been hurt.
“You’re okay,” he managed to say at the same time that Jaycee said it to him.
“I was wearing a seat belt,” she added. “They weren’t.”
Thank heaven for that, and Josh added a wish that the trio was hurt too badly to put up much of a fight.
His wish didn’t come true.
A bullet smashed right into the tree, just inches from where Jaycee and he were standing. Josh pushed her against the rough bark, protecting her as best he could with his body, and he glanced out to see what was going on.
Scumbag number one had been the person to fire the shot. Scumbags two and three were climbing out on the driver’s side. Away from Jaycee and him.
Which meant Josh didn’t have a good shot at any of them.
Three guns to one weren’t good odds. Especially when all three of them opened fire. The shots blasted into the tree.
“Give me your backup weapon from your boot holster,” Jaycee insisted.
But Josh had to shake his head. “I don’t have it.” Because he’d literally had to throw on his clothes after the power had been cut.
“How about a knife, anything?” she pressed.
There was no knife or anything else he could give to Jaycee. Only himself. And that had to be enough, because he wasn’t willing to deal with the alternative of her being taken captive again.
Josh looked behind him and saw truck lights slash through the darkness. His backup was on the way, but it was dangerous for Grayson to drive straight into a hail of bullets. He handed Jaycee his phone.
“Text Grayson.” He had to yell over the noise from the shots so she could hear him. “Let him know where we are and that he needs to stay back until they stop shooting.”
Josh wanted backup now, but it’d be suicide for Grayson to come driving into this.
Jaycee sent the text and shoved his phone back into his pocket. Josh fired off a single shot at the gunmen just so they’d know he was armed and so they wouldn’t try to come closer.
Just up the narrow dirt road, Grayson stopped his truck, but he kept the headlights on. It was a like a beacon for the kidnappers because they sent some of the shots in that direction. Josh hoped his cousin and the ranch hand stayed down. Sooner or later these idiots were going to run out of ammunition.
He hoped.
Then Josh could make his move. He wasn’t sure exactly what his move would be, but he needed to get Jaycee far away from these men who’d kidnapped her.
It’d been a brazen attack. The kind that only dangerous criminals would attempt, and he had to do everything humanly possible to make sure they didn’t get their hands back on her.
His phone dinged, indicating he had a text message, and Josh motioned for Jaycee to read it. “Grayson says he’s going to create a diversion. His brothers are closing off the other end of the road.”
So the kidnappers would be trapped. That was good. He wanted them trapped and caught, but Josh wasn’t so sure about this diversion.
“What diversion?” he asked Jaycee. But she didn’t have time to answer.
“Put down your weapons!” Grayson shouted.
Of course, the men didn’t listen. That only caused them to fire more shots in Grayson’s direction. Josh wondered if this was a ploy to make them use up the ammunition even faster, but then he saw Grayson’s truck.
It was creeping along, headed not toward Jaycee and him but right toward the clump of rocks that the men were using for cover.
Not a bad diversion.
Josh put his mouth against Jaycee’s ear. “When the truck gets between us and the men, we move.”
She gave a shaky nod. Actually, everything about her was shaky, and he hoped she hadn’t lied about being okay. It seemed to take an eternity for the truck to reach them, and the gunmen cursed it and kept shooting. When it gave Jaycee and him the best possible cover, he caught on to her hand and got her moving.
They’d only made it a few steps before the shots came right at them.