Cowboy's Texas Rescue. Beth Cornelison

scared her.

      He leaned toward her, getting in her face. “With my bare hands if I have to. But I hear if you get juiced long enough with one of these babies—” he waved the stun gun “—you’ll go into cardiac arrest.” He leered at her. “Care to try it and see?”

      She gasped and pulled away but stayed planted between him and the unconscious cowboy. Firming her jaw, she rallied for another show of chops. “A car could come by anytime. Do you really want to be seen standing here with me nearly naked, you holding that gun thing and him slumped on the ground? We’re bound to cause a passerby to take a second look.”

      Brady frowned. She had a point. He had to do something with them and get moving. Before the cowboy woke up. Before a cop spotted him. Before his leg bled out.

      Before this sucky day took another piss on him.

      He needed to cover his tracks and find a hideout. Fast.

      He opened the Caddy’s trunk and faced the girl. “Get up!” he ordered the brunette. “Get his arm. Help me put him in the trunk.”

      Limping forward and keeping most of his weight on his good leg, he shoved a hand under the cowboy’s armpit and waited for the girl to comply. When she hesitated, he snarled, “Look, girlie. I’m in pain, and I’m in a hurry. I have exactly no patience left.” He aimed the stun gun at her. “Get him up.”

      With wide eyes locked on the stun gun, she grabbed the cowboy’s other arm, and they heaved him up, dragged him to the trunk and draped him over the back of the open well. When he lifted the cowboy’s legs and swung them into the trunk, Brady’s injured leg throbbed, and he dumped the cowboy in the Caddy with an unceremonious shove.

      The brunette sent him a disgruntled look. “You bully. Your mother must be so proud of you.”

      Brady bristled, then lobbed a glancing blow to her chin. The brunette gasped and clutched her face.

      “My mother could care less,” Brady grated.

      “Couldn’t care less,” she muttered, picking up the cowboy’s hat and carefully putting it in the trunk beside the unconscious man. “Learn English, jerk.”

      Brady’s temper spiked. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head toward the trunk. “Get in! Now. Or I’ll give hero boy another jolt.”

      “No! Don’t hurt him!” Whimpering in pain as he towed her forward, the brunette climbed in the trunk and tucked herself into a ball beside the cowboy. He released her hair and was about to slam the trunk closed when he saw the woman’s expression change, and she gave a soft gasp.

      He followed the direction of her gaze…and saw the second gun tucked at the cowboy’s back.

      Her hands lunged for the weapon. Fumbled.

      “Don’t!” he warned. He raised the stun gun, shoved it against her shoulder and squeezed the trigger.

      The brunette screamed. Jerked stiff. Dropped the pistol.

      “I’ll take that.” Brady took the pistol as well as the cop’s empty service weapon and shoved them in the waist of the girl’s oversized jeans. “You’re not the first chick to screw me over, and because I am, as you said, a bully…” He leered at the brunette, who gaped at him with tear-puddled eyes and an expression of horror. He wished he could put Angi, his backstabbing ex, in a trunk to freeze, but this girl could pay for Angi’s sins. “I think I’ll let you die slowly. Suffering.” He wrenched the ranch coat off the girl and shoved his own frozen arms in its warmth. “Thanks. I’ll take this, too. Call it payback for the bullet in my leg.”

      He closed the trunk, retrieved the ignition key and locked them inside. Slapping the trunk lid, he shouted, “Have fun, girlie. You should freeze to death by morning, if you don’t suffocate first!”

      With that he limped to the backseat of the Caddy, collected his prison jumpsuit, the girl’s purse and cell phone, then glanced about for any other evidence he’d been there. He couldn’t do anything about the broken rear windshield or bullet holes in the Caddy, but he could take the cowboy’s truck and get the hell out of there before a witness showed up.

      Hobbling to the pickup, Brady tossed the armload in the back of the truck and sent a disgusted look toward the darkening sky. The wind had started gusting, and the first wet snowflakes swirled from the sky.

      Time to find shelter.

      Jake woke by degrees, fighting the black abyss that sucked at him. He cracked his eyes open slowly, taking in information from all of his senses. He lay on his side, a hard, cold, lumpy surface beneath him. His head throbbed. Darkness surrounded him. He could smell motor oil, mildew and…something sweeter. Flowers? Peaches?

      All was quiet, except for the whoosh of gusting wind…until a quiet sniff and muffled sob reached him through the blackness. He wasn’t alone.

      A soft body nestled against him, shivering, shifting. He tried to move, to sit up, but he immediately hit his head on an unyielding barrier above him. Lightning bolts streaked through his skull, and with a groan, he sank back to the cold surface below him.

      A soft gasp filtered through the dark.

      “You’re awake?” a female voice whispered.

      Jake raised a hand to his pounding temple. “Yeah. I…Where are we?”

      “He put us in the t-trunk.” The woman sniffled again, then added, “I’m sorry. I tried to stop him, to shoot him, but your gun was out of bullets.”

      A flurry of memories scrolled through his brain. Gunfight with an escaped con. A nearly naked young woman in the trunk—a brunette with big green eyes and freckles on her pale cheeks. Pain screaming through his body. “Taser,” he groaned. “Hell.”

      “A-are you all right?” she asked, and her teeth chattered.

      “I’ll live. You?”

      “J-just scared. And c-cold.”

      He felt the tremor that rolled through her and reach blindly for her in the darkness. Her arms, torso and legs were bare except for her bra and panties. That matched his memory of her lack of clothes when he’d opened the trunk earlier, but…

      “What happened to the coat I gave you?” But he knew the answer.

      “The convict took it,” she confirmed. “H-he stole your t-truck.”

      Jake gritted his teeth, fury and frustration coursing through him. Reaching behind him he felt for his pistol and the police sidearm he’d lifted from the convict. Both were gone. “Hell.”

      Drawing a slow breath, he focused on the situation at hand and the more immediate need to get them out of the trunk and warmed up. Based on his companion’s shivering and state of undress, she was well on her way to hypothermia. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

      “Ch-Chelsea Harris.” Her voice cracked with emotion and from the cold.

      Compunction and compassion twisted inside him. He was cold, but she had to be miserable. And if he’d been more thorough ensuring the area around his prisoner was secure, they wouldn’t be in this mess. Hell and damnation.

      “Hi, Chelsea,” he said in a calm, reassuring tone. “I’m Jake Connelly, and I’m going to get us out of here. I need you to trust me. Okay?”

      She hesitated, her skepticism obvious in the silence, then she whispered, “Okay.”

      “First things first. I’m going to chafe some warmth into your arms and legs. Your shivering means you’re dangerously low on body heat. I’m not groping you. Got it?”

      “Y-yeah.”

      Jake wrapped his hands around her arm, which was frighteningly cool to his touch, and vigorously rubbed her skin. “Did he hurt you?”

      “Not as b-bad as he hurt you.”

      “Meaning