Cowboy's Texas Rescue. Beth Cornelison

banging from the trunk got louder. “Help! Someone help! Please.”

      Turning the ignition key one notch to access the battery power, Brady opened the window, switched on the radio and turned it up full blast.

      Jake narrowed his gaze on the ancient Cadillac sitting on the shoulder of the isolated highway. As he drove past the parked car, he spotted a man in the driver’s seat, slumped low, his expression dour. Car trouble? If so, the poor schmuck could be waiting hours for a wrecker out here. Big trouble, what with the winter storm approaching.

      Jake’s conscience kicked him. Be the Change You Wish To See had been his mother’s mantra, paraphrasing Gandhi, as he grew up. She’d lived by those words. And died by them.

      No matter how pressed for time he was, trying to reach the hospital before the snow hit, he had to at least offer the guy help. Pulling to the shoulder in front of the Caddy, Jake jammed his black Stetson on his head and cut his engine. The screech of electric guitars and chest-vibrating thump of bass wafted to him, growing exponentially louder when he opened his truck door to climb out. The dude in the Caddy had a heavy metal rock party for one blaring through open windows.

      Before exiting the truck cab, Jake recalled the report of the escaped prisoner, took his SIG-Sauer 226 from the glove box and stuck the pistol in his jeans at the small of his back.

      He scowled as he walked toward the Cadillac. Open windows when the temperature hovered in the low thirties? Maybe the guy was high on something. “Hey.” He shouted to be heard over the blaring music as he approached. He flashed a friendly smile and tugged the brim of his cowboy hat. “You need any help?”

      The man, wearing a rather effeminate pink pullover sweater, shot Jake a wary look but didn’t answer, didn’t bother to turn his radio down. The bass continued thudding, and high-pitched voices screamed unintelligible lyrics.

      “Can you turn the music down?” Jake asked, stopping a few steps from the driver’s door and stooping to peer through the window at the man behind the steering wheel. His feminine attire, his odd behavior and his unresponsiveness all rang warning bells in Jake’s head.

      The man shook his head and leveled a flat stare.

      “Are you having car trouble? Do you need help?” Jake asked, yelling to be heard over the ruckus.

      “I’m fine.” The man shifted slightly and jerked his head toward the looming clouds. “You best move on before that storm hits.”

      Jake lifted an eyebrow. “I could say the same for you.”

      “Mind your own business,” the guy snarled.

      Jake gritted his back teeth and swallowed his retort. If the surly jerk didn’t want his help…screw him.

      He’d turned to leave when the pounding he’d assumed was the bass from the speakers sounded from the rear of the Caddy. From the trunk. He stopped and listened, turned back toward the driver.

      Was that scream part of the music or…

      His senses ramping into high alert, Jake edged toward the rear of the vehicle, reaching behind him for his pistol. The guy could be a drug smuggler. A human-smuggling coyote. Or about a half-dozen other options that sprang to mind. Jake divided his gaze between the man and the interior of the car as he did a fast check for weapons, for hiding passengers, for contraband as he crept backward to check the trunk. “Buddy, why don’t you step out of the car and—”

      Jake’s adrenaline spiked.

      An orange jumpsuit had been stuffed halfway under the backseat.

      The escaped prisoner lunged from the car, whipping a gun out from under the pink pullover.

      Instantly Jake raised his own weapon and squeezed off a shot. Spinning, he dived behind the protective cover of the Caddy’s rear bumper. The inmate—Edward Brady, the radio had called him—returned fire. Brady’s rounds deflated a back tire and pinged off the heavy steel fender.

      Hearing the scuffle of feet, Jake peered around the back of the Cadillac. Brady was running toward Jake’s truck.

      “Oh, hell no, you’re not takin’ my truck,” he growled. Jake leveled his pistol, aiming for the guy’s leg rather than a kill shot. He’d leave the cretin alive for the local authorities to deal with. He fired once, and the inmate fell to the ground, clutching his left leg. Staying behind the protection of the Caddy, Jake crept to the passenger door, reached inside to turn off the blaring music, then eased forward to the front fender. “Toss your gun toward me now, or I’ll shoot your other leg!”

      Brady returned a scathing epithet and fired twice toward the Caddy.

      Jake scowled his irritation but kept his focus on subduing Brady. He narrowed his eyes on the weapon Brady had. It looked like a .40 Smith & Wesson M&P. Pretty typical police sidearm. Sixteen rounds in a standard magazine. Call it eighteen rounds, in case he was wrong about the model of pistol, and it was a 9 mm instead. Jake made a few calculations—two shots to kill the police officers in his getaway, four shots fired at him just now. Brady could have as many as a dozen rounds left. Brady needed to surrender the gun or spend those remaining rounds.

      “Toss me the gun!” Jake repeated.

      Brady answered with two more shots toward the Cadillac. Jake fired near Brady once to encourage returned shots. The escaped inmate didn’t disappoint. Five more shots.

      By lifting his hat into Brady’s view, Jake drew three more rounds. Jake monitored the injured convict from behind the Cadillac, waiting for more shots.

      Instead the gunman struggled to his feet and headed toward Jake’s truck again.

      Muttering a curse under his breath, Jake darted after Brady, overtaking him easily and knocking him to the pavement. With a punch to the jaw, Jake disoriented Brady enough to wrest the police sidearm from the escapee, which he quickly stashed at the small of his back. Then twisting the man’s arms up behind his back, Jake dragged Brady to his feet and shoved him back toward the Caddy. “Had to do it the hard way, didn’t you?”

      Brady glared at him and bit out another curse that would make a sailor blush.

      In the glove compartment, Jake found a roll of duct tape—probably the same one the owner of the car had used liberally on the vinyl seats—and he helped himself to a strip for Brady’s filthy mouth. Next Jake bound the inmate’s ankles and wrists, leaving Brady’s arms in front of him so that he could self-administer pressure to his bleeding leg. After dumping the inmate on the backseat, Jake ripped a larger hole in the jeans around the man’s gunshot wound and gave the injury a cursory inspection. The gash was deep but was still a flesh wound. No broken bones or major blood vessels damaged. The thug would live to be a burden to society.

      Jake yanked off the man’s sock and pressed it against the wound. “Hold still while I tape that up to stanch the bleeding.”

      Brady glared at him the entire time as he pulled the duct tape around the man’s leg, creating a makeshift bandage. Nothing fancy, but good enough to stop the bleeding until the authorities arrived. “Keep pressure on that to slow the bleeding.”

      With his prisoner subdued, Jake took the Cadillac’s keys from the ignition and moved toward the trunk to investigate the thumping noises he’s heard earlier. Leveling his weapon with one hand, he keyed open the trunk and cautiously raised the lid.

       Chapter 2

      Tremors racked Chelsea, a combination of the cold, her fear and the surging adrenaline in her veins. She curled in a tight ball, trying to stay warm and keep her panic at bay. She’d never been claustrophobic, but being locked in the Cadillac’s trunk was making her rethink that position.

      Fumbling blindly, she’d tried to open the trunk from the inside to no avail, and her attempts to punch out a taillight and flag a passing car had been equally futile. Ethyl was a tank, and no amount of awkward kicking or beating on the walls of the trunk had made any difference.