don’t want Kirby left alone. How long before the others get out here?”
“Twenty minutes maybe. The bottom part of Durham Road is flooded so they’ll have to drive around.”
Another complication he didn’t need, but Dallas had no choice but to end the call and wait. If there was someone armed out there, he wanted backup.
“Maybe it’s my imagination,” Joelle whispered, “but I think I smell smoke.”
Dallas lifted his head, sniffed. Yeah, there was a the faint smell of smoke, but he thought it might be lingering from what had happened the day before at Rocky Creek.
He looked out but didn’t see any signs of fire or smoke, and even if there had been, the rain would have likely doused it. But the smell got stronger, and Dallas finally saw something he didn’t want to see.
The wisps drifting up from beneath his truck.
“It’s smoke,” he confirmed.
Joelle automatically lifted her head to have a look, but he pushed her right back down. Dallas mumbled some profanity and inched closer to the side mirror so he could try to see what was going on. Still no flames, but he was getting a bad sense of déjà vu. Maybe the person who’d orchestrated that smoke at Rocky Creek had managed to do the same beneath his truck. Of course, it could be a real fire, too.
Either way, he had to move Joelle.
He couldn’t wait twenty minutes for backup because they might be dead by then.
Since that shadow was on his side of the truck, Dallas figured they needed to go out Joelle’s side. He reached across her and slightly cracked the door.
“I’ll go first,” he instructed, “and the second your feet hit the ground, I want us away from the truck.”
She gave a shaky nod, and even though he could feel her fear, there was nothing he could do to lessen it right now. “Run where?” she asked.
There were several trees. Not good cover. But maybe they wouldn’t need it. “Just stay next to me,” Dallas said.
He crawled over her and used his shoulder to fully open the door. In the same motion, he caught her by the arm and helped her scramble from the truck. Dallas had already told her to hit the ground running, but they’d barely made it a step when a shot blasted through the air.
Joelle made a gasping sound, and both Dallas and she dived to the ground. It was like landing in a massive mud puddle, and he had to roll to the side and keep his gun lifted so that it wouldn’t get wet.
“I’m Marshal Walker,” he called out just in case this was a stray hunter.
But no such luck.
Another shot came right away, cracking through the rain, and this one slammed into the truck. Not the driver’s side where he’d last seen that shadowy figure. No, this bullet tore into the back.
Dallas made a quick adjustment, slinging Joelle behind him so that he’d be between the shooter and her. It wasn’t enough because from the sound of the shots, their attacker was using a rifle. A high-powered bullet could easily go through him and into Joelle.
Still, it was too risky to move.
Or maybe not.
The next shots weren’t single rounds but three bullets that came back to back, and each of them smacked into the ground between the truck and them.
The shooter was moving. Getting closer. And that meant Dallas had to do something. He tried to pinpoint where he thought their attacker was, then he levered himself up and fired. He wasn’t sure where his shot went, but it hadn’t hit a person.
Joelle was shaking now. Probably a combination of the fear and the fact she was lying in cold, muddy water. Dallas was cold, too, but he tried to keep his hands steady, and he also tried to listen for the sound of any footsteps or movement.
He finally saw something.
The shadowy figure was back. Someone wearing dark clothes and moving from the side pasture and ducking into the trees that lined that part of the fence.
Another shot came at them.
But this time Dallas saw the person lift the rifle. Not an ordinary lift, either. Their attacker didn’t even aim. He blindly shot toward them and kept moving. And he wasn’t moving in a direction that Dallas wanted him to go.
The shooter was headed straight for the house.
Chapter Seventeen
Joelle felt every muscle in Dallas’s body tense, and he cursed. Even though he had her pressed against the soggy ground, Joelle managed to lift her head enough