Out of the Storm (Buckhorn, Montana #1) - B.J. Daniels Page 0,97
the road, a light snow cloud settling around the truck.
“Kate, get away from the SUV,” Jon yelled just a second before, to her horror, she heard Collin firing the gun. Pop, pop, pop.
The pickup’s side window shattered. She couldn’t see Jon. Heart lodged in her throat, she couldn’t even scream as she struggled to drag herself out of the deep snow in the ditch and onto the road. She rushed to the pickup as Jon crawled out the passenger side. He had a gun in his hand as he crouched down beside her.
“Katie. Run up the road over the hill that way,” he said, pointing back the way they’d come. She was shaking her head, mouthing I can’t leave you again over the sound of Collin’s gunfire and the tinny pings of the bullets ricocheting off the pickup’s body. “Think of Mia and Danielle. Do it for me. Please.”
At the sound of more shots from Collin’s gun, she felt Jon’s shove and took off running up the road. She heard more shots, only louder as Jon returned fire, no doubt providing cover for her. She could see the hill ahead. She didn’t think. She didn’t question what Jon had told her to do. She trusted him. She just ran, praying he would be right behind her.
* * *
COLLIN STOPPED SHOOTING. There was no sign of Jon Harper and that made him nervous as he stayed by the open driver’s-side door. He realized he was still standing by the SUV in a couple feet of snow. In the adrenaline-powered excitement, he hadn’t felt the cold. But now it settled around him. The deep, snowy quiet, the aching chill that had started with his feet and now moved up his body into his shoulders.
He shivered and waited, ready should there be any movement around the truck. Only minutes had gone by. He looked up the road. He could see Kate. How quickly she’d done as Jon had ordered her. It grated on him since she would have argued with him. Crazy woman. A bomb in the car? She’d believe anything if Jon Harper said it was true.
Still no movement by the pickup. Maybe he’d gotten lucky and wounded him. He considered pushing through the few yards of snow between him and the road to check, but he wasn’t sure how much more ammunition he had in the weapon. He’d lost track of how many times he’d fired. He would have to dig another clip out from under the seat.
But he hesitated, realizing that first he had to know the truth. The passenger-side door was still standing open. He reached back to grab the large box with the wedding dress in it. Earlier he’d put the two back seats down to shove the box forward when he loaded their suitcases. When they’d gone off the road, the box had come crashing forward and was now against the back of the two front seats. He lifted a corner of the box. The heaviness of it assured him that it was exactly what he knew it to be. A wedding dress full of drugs. No way was Gerald going to blow that up, so there was no bomb. It had all just been a ruse to get Kate out of the car—and it had worked.
His cell phone began to ring. He pulled it out.
“Don’t answer it!” Jon yelled as he suddenly came barreling around the front of the pickup, diving from the edge of road to grab for him. His cell phone dropped into the snow as Jon grabbed his arm and drove him backward away from the SUV. Collin tried to fight him off as the two grappled with Jon driving them both farther back.
Jon was yelling something Collin couldn’t hear, when the phone quit ringing—and Collin realized he still had the gun in his hand.
He swung around with just enough room between them to point the barrel at Jon’s midsection. He pulled the trigger. The shot made a puff sound with the silencer on it in the closeness between them. He pulled the trigger again. Click. Click. Click.
“You fool,” the carpenter said, his hand going to his side. Blood seeped from his fingers as he stumbled back.
Collin swung the gun, catching Jon in the face and knocking the man backwards. Caught off guard, Jon stumbled and fell over a rise. Collin watched him roll down into what appeared to be a gully, blood staining the snow in his path. He wanted to go