A Billionaire's Redemption - By Cindy Dees Page 0,88
Ward, who was staring grimly at the winding road ahead through a pounding rain. His route today was slightly different than hers yesterday, but the road was still steep and winding, made even more treacherous by the rain. He was driving like a madman through the arroyos and canyons where he’d nearly succeeded in killing her last night.
Oh, wait. He was a madman.
Lord, Willa must be terrified. To have the horror repeat itself like this, for her attacker to get hold of her again—it must be every victim’s worst nightmare.
* * *
“James, do you want me to drop the charges against you? Is that what this is all about? Because if you want, I’ll do it. My life has moved on, and I’ve gotten past what happened between us.”
“You think dropping the charges removes the stain on my reputation?” he snarled.
“If you’re worried about your reputation, why are you kidnapping me? This won’t help matters, you know,” she said reasonably. “Why don’t we just go back to town, get a cup of coffee and talk this over?”
He glanced over at her, and she recoiled from the flat, blank, almost reptilian quality to his eyes. She asked carefully, “How are you feeling, James?”
“Head hurts,” he whined in a weirdly childlike voice. “Pain won’t stop. Brain’s exploding from the inside out. Keep telling them. But they won’t believe me. Damned head’s splitting in two.”
“Do you want to pull over and rest a little? I can drive you to a drugstore. Get you some pain relievers.”
“All your fault,” he mumbled. The van swerved dangerously close to the edge of a steep drop-off and she let out a little squeal of fear as he jerked the van back onto the road.
She thought fast. Headaches. Stress, maybe? Lack of sleep? Were they associated with mental illness, maybe? She had to keep him talking. Get him to reveal what was really going on with him. Figure out a way to diffuse his unreasoning rage.
He drove on in silence. His foot must be mashed down on the accelerator all the way to the floor. The only thing keeping them from tearing along this road like a bat out of hell was undoubtedly the steepness of the grade and the van’s underpowered engine. But as it was, they careened around every curve, and it felt like they were going to skid out and plunge over the edge of the road to their deaths at any second.
Terrified beyond the ability to speak, Willa clung to the armrest and braced her feet against the floorboards, praying for all she was worth just to make it to the Vacarro Field alive.
Finally, they topped the highest of the ridges and the road began to go downhill. Thankfully, on this side of the canyon, the road’s curves were gentler and finally straightened out completely. The van picked up speed and tore along the asphalt road at nearly a hundred miles per hour.
When her heart came down out of her throat enough to speak, she asked, “What’s so significant about the Vacarro Field to you?”
He glanced over, and the van careened to the right. “Eyes on the road!” she blurted.
He sneered. “Damned schoolteacher. So self-righteous. Willa Merris, goody two-shoes. So charitable and noble. Giving up wealth to teach goddamned brats.”
“I don’t teach because it’s noble. I do it because I love kids. I love teaching.”
“Bitch.”
“We were talking about the Vacarro Field,” she prompted, trying to steer his erratic thoughts back to the topic at hand.
“Son of a bitch thought he’d screw us good, didn’t he?”
“My father?” she guessed. Most times when someone got called an SOB around her, he’d been the recipient of the epithet.
“Tried to buy us out. Rob us blind. And my old man was gonna do it, too. But my mother wouldn’t let him. Good thing, or the bastard would have succeeded.”
“My father tried to buy the Ward interest in the Vacarro wells?” This was the first she’d heard of that.
“Tried to steal ’em, more like.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Offered about a tenth of what they’re worth.” He mumbled incoherently under his breath for a few seconds and then his words became clear again. “Gotta have that money. Save my ass. Debts. Bad investments. Not my fault. Who’d a’ thunk those calls would get exercised. Damned bankers...”
She frowned, confused. “If you were in financial trouble, why didn’t your family take my father’s offer and pay off your debts?”
“Oh, that’s what you’d have liked, isn’t it?” James exploded. “Screw us when we’re