Grant (Riding Hard) - Jennifer Ashley Page 0,71
it.”
“Where’s the girl?”
Grace blinked. “Girl?”
“He named her Faith. Dumbass named her that to get back at me.”
Grace blinked few more times, then she remembered where she’d seen eyes that shape, a mirror of the expression in them.
Holy shit, she was Lizzie Fredrickson. Faith’s mother.
“Um,” Grace said, finding her voice. “She’s not here.”
“Where the hell is she then?” The voice was harsh, filled with volumes of rage.
Nine years ago, this woman had come to the house, shoved a bundle into Carter’s arms, and taken off down the road. The bundle had contained a newborn baby, screaming with fear at the enormity of the world.
Carter had been in complete shock, but once he realized the baby was indeed his, he’d devoted himself fiercely to taking care of her.
And now Lizzie had come back, asking for Faith.
Grace’s own anger grew. She’d watched how Carter had struggled, still a kid himself at eighteen, to be a father, and a good one. He’d given up a lot to make sure Faith was taken care of, kept safe, loved. He’d been a damn good dad, while this woman had utterly abandoned her.
“You gone deaf?” the woman barked. “Where is my daughter? I want her.”
Grace remained silent, her fury mounting. Damned if she would send this woman to a school full of kids to pull Faith out and take her God knew where. Carter needed to know Lizzie was back in town, needed to know now.
“How about if I get Carter on the phone?” Grace asked, striving to maintain an even tone. “You can talk to him about this.”
“Like hell.” The woman dropped the leather jacket, pulling a black pistol from its folds as it went down.
Grace found herself looking into the round barrel of a gun as flat black as the woman’s hair. Her mouth went paper dry, her voice dying off into a tiny squeak. Fear she’d never known wedged in her throat, all from a hunk of metal with a hole in it pointed at her heart.
“Where is my daughter? Tell me now, bitch.”
Nothing came from Grace’s mouth. If she’d been hesitant about sending this woman to Faith’s school before, she certainly wasn’t going to let her go down there with a gun.
“I said now.”
Lizzie didn’t raise her voice—no chance of the guys down the hill in the stables hearing—but the words were final.
“Let me call Carter,” Grace said quickly. She needed to hear his voice—not only that, Carter would call Ross, his deputy brother. “You two need to work this out.”
The gun didn’t waver, but Lizzie sneered. “Figures. He’d go for a snotty little soft girl like you.”
“You need to go.” Grace firmed her voice, like she did when her two older brothers got too bossy and obnoxious. What she wouldn’t give for a chance visit from Kyle or Ray now.
“Not until you tell me where Faith is. I want my kid.”
Damn it. Grace would never tell her—and anyway, what kind of woman wouldn’t understand that on a school day, during the school year, her daughter would be at the elementary school in White Fork? But Lizzie wasn’t from Riverbend. She’d known Carter in his gang days in Houston, and she’d come here to find him. After a brief and much gossiped about fling, she’d vanished just as quickly.
The silence went on too long. Grace saw the tightening of Lizzie’s eyes and her finger on the trigger.
In that split second, Grace dove back behind the kitchen door, but not fast enough.
The sound of the shot exploded in Grace’s ears, blotting out all else, except pain. Then came the bright smell of blood to overpower the warm, chocolate-cake scent of the kitchen. Grace fell to the floor, her legs no longer working.
The last thing she saw of Lizzie was the woman turning and running, a black flash in the bright sunshine. Grace heard shouting from the men at the stables, the neighing of startled horses.
Grace’s limp fingers closed around the cell phone in her pocket. Her hand was all bloody, the red obscuring her contact list, so annoying. She managed to touch her thumb to the name Carter. Her ears still ringing from the shot, she could barely hear him answer in his rumbling, beloved voice.
“Carter,” she whispered. Whatever happened after that was a blank.
End of Excerpt
Recipes
Grant Campbell’s
Hotter ’n’ Hell Texas Chili
And its milder cousin
Makes about four servings
(a nice hearty bowl)
Ingredients
1 1/2 to 2 pounds ground beef (ground sirloin works well)
1 yellow onion, chopped (or two teaspoons of dried, minced onion)
2 cloves of garlic,