Marine's Mission - Rebecca Deel Page 0,2
returned, Toni would spend a long time answering his questions. If not, Gigi would call Blair Hoffman, Archer’s chief of police. Although she trusted Blair, Gigi trusted Owen more.
Twenty miles from home, Gigi noticed the headlights of a vehicle racing toward them. The other driver was crazy to speed on rain-slick asphalt on a winding mountain road. Gigi changed lanes.
Instead of skirting around her as she’d hoped, the driver dove in behind her and kept coming. Was the aggressive driver responsible for Toni’s slashed tires and Ellis’s disappearance? “Is your seatbelt fastened, Toni?”
“Of course. Why?”
“We have an aggressive driver behind us.”
Toni twisted in her seat to look through the back window. “What are we going to do?”
“Call Owen and pray he’s close.”
Before she could use her hands-free device to call him, the dark-colored truck behind Gigi put on a burst of speed and slammed into the back of her SUV.
Toni screamed as Gigi sped up to create space between the vehicles, but she feared she couldn’t outrun this driver. He seemed determined to force them off the road.
Seconds later, the truck bore down on them again, the jolt harder. Gigi’s SUV fishtailed. She wrestled with the wheel and brought the vehicle under control only to have the truck whip out from behind her and speed up.
Gigi braked, hoping the driver would pass her and keep going. Instead, the other driver wrenched the steering wheel to the right, slammed into the driver’s side of the SUV, and shoved her vehicle off the side of the road.
With the heavy rain turning the dirt-packed edge of the road into a slick ribbon of mud, the SUV lost traction, slid over a steep embankment, and rolled over and over down the hillside.
Toni screamed.
Gigi’s head hit the driver’s door. The world went dark.
CHAPTER TWO
Owen Montgomery glanced at the dashboard clock of his Fortress SUV and grimaced. Might be too late to see Gigi tonight. He’d missed her like crazy while training at PSI for the past few weeks. Owen had lived for the late-night phone conversations and text messages, but they were a poor substitute for seeing Gigi’s beautiful face and gorgeous dark eyes.
He scowled as he thought about his time in Otter Creek. Josh Cahill and Trent St. Claire were sadists. The physical training he’d endured for the past two months was worse than what he experienced during his years with Marine Force Recon. Owen thought he was in good shape until he and his brothers arrived at Personal Security International for training as operatives for Fortress Security. Cahill and St. Claire made Owen feel like a green recruit.
The only Montgomery brother close to keeping up with the trainers at PSI was Elliot. His brother trained hard all the time because his demons drove him hard. Compared to Elliot, anyone looked like a couch potato. Owen snorted. Anyone except the Fortress operatives who had arrived for another round of training while Owen and his brothers were in residence.
Man, the Texas team had knocked him and his brothers flat on their backs more than once during the first two weeks of training. By the time Brody Weaver and his team deployed, Owen and his brothers were holding their own against the team of former Texas lawmen.
Not so much with Cahill’s and St. Claire’s teams. That had taken several more weeks, and Owen had the bruises to prove it. He huffed out a laugh. Even the team medics had wiped the floor with him and his brothers until the last two weeks of training.
His smile morphed into a frown when the rain increased. Heavy rain and low visibility made the conditions perfect for traffic accidents. If Owen didn’t have to stop for one, he might coax Gigi into spending a few minutes with him before he headed to the Rocking M, his family’s ranch. His heart sped up. Maybe he’d initiate his first kiss with the woman who starred in his dreams night after night.
Twenty miles from Archer, Owen spotted headlights down an embankment off the side of the road. He groaned. Resigned to waiting until tomorrow morning to see Gigi, he pulled to the side of the road, and parked on a patch of wet gravel beside the asphalt.
After turning on hazard lights, he tugged a baseball cap onto his head and grabbed his flashlight. Owen exited the SUV and made his way toward the edge of the embankment.
His stomach tightened into a knot. The wrecked vehicle had rolled several times before coming to rest