The Marshal's Hostage - By Delores Fossen Page 0,66
he has Kirby by now.”
Oh, mercy. “Why Kirby?” Joelle asked. “He’s a sick man.”
Sarah nodded. “And he’s my insurance policy. If Dallas won’t destroy that evidence for you, he’ll do it for Kirby. At least he’d better. I used every penny of my savings to hire these two to help me.”
So they were hired guns. Which meant they had nothing to lose. Sarah was paying them to do whatever she asked, even if meant sending Kirby to an early grave.
“You there?” the driver said into the ear communicator he was wearing, and he kept driving. Seconds later, he repeated his question.
Still no answer.
Good. Maybe that meant Harlan had stopped him.
Sarah cursed again. “He better not have failed,” she snapped. And she jammed the gun harder against Joelle’s ribs. So hard that it nearly knocked the breath out of her.
Clearly, the woman was working on a short fuse. Maybe even an unstable one. It was a risk—anything Joelle did at this point would be—but she was certain of one thing. Even if Dallas managed to destroy that evidence, Sarah wasn’t going to let them live.
Dallas and she were the ultimate loose ends.
With that realization slicing through her, Joelle gathered all her strength and breath. She dug her feet into the floor to anchor herself. Then she slammed her entire weight into the driver.
Thankfully, he hadn’t seen it coming. The steering wheel lurched to the left. So did the truck. And it flew off the trail right into the boggy ground. The jolt was instantaneous, as if they’d been in a collision. The truck jerked to a stop, tossing them forward into the dash and windshield.
The impact stunned her, and the pain shot through every part of her body. But she didn’t let it stop her.
She pulled back and started fighting as if her life depended on it.
Because it did.
* * *
DALLAS RAN AS FAST AS HE COULD, battling both the rain and the mud. He had to get to Joelle, had to stop her from being taken away from the ranch. But he also couldn’t risk another shot being fired. That’s why he stayed off the trail, behind the trees and shrubs.
He had to believe that shot had been meant for him. He couldn’t stand to think otherwise. No. He wouldn’t go there. He would get to her and he would save her.
His brothers were somewhere on the grounds. Maybe one of them would be able to stop that truck before it reached the main road. Of course, that was a risk for them, too, but he knew without a doubt that each of them would take it to save Joelle’s life.
Ahead of him, he heard the heavy thudding sound. And the scream. It was a woman’s, but it didn’t sound like Joelle. Still, that pushed him to pick up the pace, and when he threw back a low-hanging branch, Dallas spotted the truck sitting nose first in an irrigation ditch.
“Harlan has the other gunman!” Clayton shouted. He sounded close, but Dallas figured he was closer.
He hurried to the truck and threw open the first door he could reach—the one on the passenger’s side. Two people came spilling out. Both of them fighting. Both yelling.
One of them was Joelle, thank God. Alive and okay, for the moment at least.
The other woman was Sarah. And she was fighting, too, but she had the advantage because she had a gun in her hand. Joelle had a death grip on the woman’s wrist, but from what Dallas could tell Sarah’s finger was still on the trigger.
Sarah’s henchman, the driver, came scrambling across the cab of the truck and tried to latch on to Joelle. Dallas didn’t let him do that. He rammed himself into the man, knocking him away from the fray.
Unfortunately, that took Dallas away from it, too.
From the corner of his eye, Dallas saw Clayton approach them. His brother had his gun aimed and ready, but he didn’t shoot. Sarah and Joelle were practically wound around each other, and Dallas had no choice but to drag the gunman to the ground so he couldn’t try to help his boss.
“Harlan has the other gunman in custody,” Clayton called out. “And the guy’s already squealing about a plea deal to testify against his boss, Sarah Webb.”
Whether it was true or not, Dallas prayed that would make Sarah surrender.
It didn’t.
The woman kept fighting, kept trying to aim that gun right at Joelle.
Enough was enough. Even though the hired gun outweighed Dallas and was probably a