Last Stand Ranch. Jenna Night

she could hear Raymond working as she drew closer. On the way, she passed a large shed with the door propped open. She slowed down, hesitated to pass, but saw only some trucks and farm equipment inside. No Ted Kurtz waiting to jump out and get her.

      What a drama queen she’d become.

      Raymond had turned a couple of horses out in a corral while he lugged feed from the back of a truck into a storage building.

      “Hello,” Olivia called out.

      Raymond started and spun toward her, a scowl slashed across his face. Then he stood and replaced the scowl with a thin smile. “Hello.”

      “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

      “Oh, it’s my own fault.” His smile strengthened as he wiped the sweat off his brow with his lower arm. “I heard about what happened to you on the highway last night. I guess it’s made me a little jumpy.”

      “I feel like I’ve been jumpy forever.” She scratched her thumbnail against a loose fleck of paint on the stable wall. “Could you use some help?”

      “Sure. There are always things to do. But don’t you want to spend your time visiting with your aunt? Your vacation here will fly by before you know it.”

      “Actually, I’m thinking about staying in Painted Rock.” Maybe her plan to get a new start here was back on again. There was no harm in mentioning it out loud and seeing how it felt. It felt pretty good.

      “You think you might settle in here? Claudia must be thrilled. I wasn’t sure she even had any living relatives until we found out you were coming for a visit.”

      Olivia felt a twinge of guilt. She scratched at the peeling paint a little harder. “Just something I’m thinking about.”

      “And you want me to put you to work?” He grinned. “You want me to help you figure out if you’re cut out for ranch life?”

      “Physical work might make me a little less jumpy.”

      “It probably will.” He rubbed his hand across his chin while he looked around at the various sheds, stalls and other buildings on the property. “If you don’t mind getting your hands dirty, I might have something for you to do. Most of these buildings haven’t been cleaned out and organized in a while and I don’t have time to do it.”

      “I love organizing things,” Olivia said.

      “I’m in the middle of a couple of projects right now. Give me until tomorrow morning and I’ll set you up with something.”

      “Sure.” She could feel her spirits lifting already. “Thanks.” This was a good idea. Coming to Painted Rock was a good idea.

      He brushed his hands together to wipe off the straw and dust. “Enjoy your day off.”

      Olivia relaxed into a genuine smile as she walked out of the corral, through a maze of gleaming white fences and across a section of pasture. Chin up, shoulders back, she was finally feeling like her old self.

      Arms swinging at her sides, she ploughed up a nearby grassy hill toward the tree line. There was one particular pine she’d spotted from Claudia’s back door. A big one with a wide, lacey-looking shadow underneath it. It would be an easy hike up there and she could get a good view of Claudia’s ranch.

      The view was as gorgeous as she’d imagined. She could see a good chunk of the ranch and even a little bit of downtown Painted Rock.

      A little farther up the hill, into the thicker part of the forest, a rocky shelf jutted out of the earth. If she stood up there she’d get an even better view of the town. She headed toward it, soaking up the sun and enjoying just being outside.

      She was nearly there when she heard a cracking sound. Then another.

      No, not a crack. A rifle shot.

      Ice water swirled through her veins. She spun around, but she didn’t know what she was looking for. Which direction had the sounds come from?

      Her pulse hammered furiously and it was hard to take a breath. She tried to tell herself that in a wilderness area, gunfire wasn’t a big deal. People probably shot at things all the time. Rattlesnakes. Mountain lions. Rabid coyotes. No one was targeting her. She was overreacting.

      Then she heard another shot. This one was closer. Something tugged at the shoulder of her shirt. She looked down and immediately wished she hadn’t.

      Blood. Sprayed like a fine red mist across the stones. She put her hand to her shoulder and pulled it away. More blood. Her blood.

       FOUR

      Olivia’s legs felt as heavy and unwieldly as bags of wet cement. Dizziness sent her vision spiraling in such nauseating waves she thought she might be sick.

      Her injured shoulder burned like fire, but the arm below it felt strangely numb and useless. Blind panic propelled her forward. She didn’t have a destination. She just flung herself onward, driven by terror. He’s trying to kill me.

      Another shot cracked through the silence. From a different direction this time, but she couldn’t think where. Behind? In front?

      She clambered over the rocky hillside as best she could, between pine trees and over tall, yellowing grass. She stumbled over the stone shelves jutting up from the ground, narrowly avoiding a face-plant.

      Which direction had the shot come from? What if she was moving toward the shooter?

      She tried to clear her mind, but her senses were abandoning her. Except for her vision. That was improving as the swirling dizziness slowed and finally stopped.

      At that point a dormant part of her brain woke up. A part that told her she was smarter and wilier than she thought herself to be. Look! Use your eyes! Find a place to hide!

      She’d received safety training for her job at the shelter, but that focused on urban situations. Most of it didn’t apply here. Disoriented, she had no idea which way to run for help. Trees, rock outcroppings and tall grass surrounded her. A few minutes ago they had been beautiful but now they were terrifying. Any one of them could be hiding the shooter.

      Claudia’s house was downhill, but downhill which way?

      Think! If she kept stumbling around, the shooter was sure to find her. She was acting like panicked, witless prey. But that was not the true Olivia Dillon. It was not.

      She slid to a stop, ignoring the way her heart hammered. In the quiet stillness between her own raspy gasps for air she heard a snap.

      Not a gunshot. Something else. Coming closer.

      “Oh, God, help me.”

      The sound of her own desperate, whispered cry brought a fresh round of tears to her eyes. Her gaze lit on a rock shelf with a pair of short, slender pine trees in front of it. The hollow between the flat slab of stone and the dirt beneath wasn’t very big, but maybe she could lie down and slide in. It might be full of snakes but they’d just have to get out of her way. She was not going to just stand there and get shot. She was not going to give up and collapse in terror. Not this time.

      She dropped down and crawled forward toward the mouth of the opening, forcing her numb arm to do its share of work despite the searing pain in her shoulder. She refused to look behind her. If the shooter was there, she was already trapped. If that was the case, she didn’t want to know.

      As she crawled forward, her hand slid across a long, narrow tree branch that had fallen to the ground. She wrapped her fingers around the branch and held on tight. Inching forward, she reached the opening beneath the rock shelf and jabbed the tree branch into it. She braced herself for a snake’s venom-tipped strike—but it didn’t happen.

      Gritting her teeth, she reached forward, pushing aside the young pines in front of the opening and crawling into the small void formed between the rock and the