Last Stand Ranch. Jenna Night

looking for the spot where Olivia’s car had left the road.

      He found it. It looked as if Olivia had turned off the road deliberately. If there were skid marks showing she’d tried to brake, it was too dark to see them.

      “A tow truck will be here soon,” he said when he got back to her. “Want to tell me what happened?”

      “I ran off the road.” She turned away, suddenly very interested in looking everywhere but at him.

      She was hiding something.

      Elijah would have to find out what that was. Claudia Sweeney might be Olivia’s blood relative, but she’d been Elijah’s neighbor for his entire life. He was not about to let anything happen to her. Painted Rock was full of people he cared about. If trouble was coming to his town, he wanted to know about it.

       TWO

      As soon as Olivia’s car was loaded onto the flatbed of the tow truck and Olivia was safely stowed in the cab with Ricky, Elijah’s fellow riders headed for their homes while Elijah rode ahead to Claudia’s house to wait for Olivia’s arrival. He wasn’t leaving until he knew exactly what was going on.

      “It’s a shame Olivia had car trouble on top of everything else,” Claudia said quietly.

      “Yes, ma’am,” Elijah agreed. He didn’t know what “everything else” was, but he would find out.

      He was sitting on his motorcycle in front of Claudia’s house, a frontier Victorian with pink, yellow and lavender gingerbread. Claudia stood near the bottom of the wooden steps leading to the wraparound porch. At just over six feet tall, Claudia’s regal bearing hadn’t been stooped by the advancing years. But it had turned her formerly auburn hair to silver. She wore it tied in a loose bun, like usual, but in honor of her niece’s visit, she’d dressed up in a long denim skirt and a red flowery blouse. Two of her dogs, Jasper and Feldspar, sat by her feet while the third, Opal, nosed around a flower bed.

      “So you and the guys were just out riding and happened to come across Olivia?” Claudia asked.

      “We were coming back from a home visit. We dropped off a gift card to the grocery store, then rode around and gunned the engines a few times for the kids. I took the oldest kid for a short ride, we handed out a few toys and then we left. We were on our way back when I saw her.”

      The tow truck with Olivia’s car finally turned into the circular drive. Elijah got off his bike and walked over to stand beside his adopted “aunt.” She clenched her blue-veined hands with impatient excitement while waiting for Olivia to climb out of Ricky’s tow truck. Elijah hadn’t breathed a word of his wariness about her grandniece to her. She’d been so anxious for this moment, he didn’t want to spoil it. Not unless he had to.

      The tow truck squeaked to a stop and Olivia opened her cab door. Elijah strode over and offered up a hand to help her out.

      “I can manage,” she said tightly, so he stepped back.

      Ricky hopped out of the driver’s side of the truck and started to pull Olivia’s luggage from the compartment behind the cab.

      Elijah grabbed a couple of bags. If that annoyed Olivia, too bad.

      Olivia grabbed a duffel bag and frowned at him. “Thanks for your help, but I can take care of things from here.”

      She thought she could dismiss him? That was cute.

      He walked beside her across the drive and caught her biting her bottom lip when she saw an Oso County Sheriff’s Department patrol car pull in.

      Ricky had called for a deputy while they were still out on the highway. Olivia had stepped away to talk to the lawman when he arrived, so Elijah hadn’t been able to hear their conversation. Deputy Bedford was newly assigned to Painted Rock. He’d been pretty closemouthed after talking to Olivia, walking around with a flashlight and looking at her car and at the surface of the road.

      Since it was impossible to see very far down the winding road in the darkness, even using the spotlight on his patrol car, Bedford had wanted to drive down the highway and look for skid marks or debris. He’d told them he’d meet them at Claudia’s house to wrap up the incident.

      Elijah and Olivia reached the bottom of the porch steps and set down their bags.

      “You made it!” Claudia cried out in delight, wrapping her arms around her niece and rocking her slightly from side to side.

      “Finally.” Olivia’s voice was muffled as she obediently stayed wrapped in her great-aunt’s enthusiastic embrace.

      Elijah couldn’t see any resemblance between them. Claudia, with her big bones and impressive height, towered over Olivia, who was average height, but scrawny looking.

      Ricky yelled out “good-bye” as he jumped back in his truck and headed for his garage with Olivia’s car.

      Deputy Bedford got out of his patrol car carrying a clipboard.

      “Good evening, Mrs. Sweeney.” He nodded at Claudia as he walked up. Claudia and Olivia were still at the bottom of the porch steps, each with an arm wrapped around the other. Elijah noticed Claudia tightening her hold on her niece as the deputy came closer.

      “I saw some fresh skid marks on the road that came from wider tires than yours, just as you described,” Bedford said. Olivia nodded.

      “Any chance there’s a bigger story you want to tell me?” Bedford added.

      “What do you mean?”

      Bedford looked at her for a moment. “Someone taps your bumper twice, passes you, then comes back and forces you off the highway. That doesn’t sound like an accident. That sounds personal. Who would do that? And why?”

      Those were the questions Elijah wanted to ask.

      “Someone threatened to kill me back in Las Vegas,” Olivia said. “Maybe the guy who drove me off the road tonight was him. Maybe not.” She glanced at Claudia, her eyebrows raised in an unspoken plea for understanding. “I’d hoped I’d get away from him here, but now it looks like I’ll have to move on.”

      So that was why Olivia had come to Painted Rock. She was running for her life. And potentially putting Claudia in harm’s way.

      Deputy Bedford cocked his head slightly to one side. “Who was the man who threatened your life?”

      “His name is Ted Kurtz. He’s an attorney in Las Vegas.”

      “The man you testified against? I ran your name through the computer. As soon as I saw the pictures, I recognized you from the news stories on TV.”

      Olivia had been on TV? Las Vegas was less than three hundred miles away. If anything made the news there, it usually made the news in Painted Rock. But Elijah didn’t have much time for TV. “What happened?” he asked.

      Olivia glared at him. Then she turned back to the deputy and lifted her chin, as if daring him to take his best shot. She was tough. Elijah had to give her that. She might have looked terrified crouching by her car out on the highway, but she’d looked determined then, too.

      “I worked at a safe house for battered women in Las Vegas,” Olivia said, her voice flat and emotionless. “We had a woman stay with us on three different occasions over the course of about six months. Eventually she told us her name, Marion Kurtz, and that her husband was Ted Kurtz. He’s a big-shot defense attorney with links to organized crime.”

      Her gaze shifted to something just beyond Elijah’s shoulder. Sorrow filled her eyes and the defiant line of her lips slackened. Elijah knew from experience what was happening. She was looking into the past.

      “We tried to get Marion into counseling, get her out of danger, get her to file a police report and press charges. She’d show some interest, but then she wouldn’t follow through.” Olivia’s