Read Online Lone Star Burn: Taken by Surprise (Kindle Worlds Novella) by Desiree Holt - Free Book Online Page B

wouldn’t have known if she hadn’t seen him that first time and then started watching for him. If she could just go back to that last night they’d been together, she would do everything differently.
    She thought again about Delfina’s letter, about the sadness and regret she felt in every word. The words rambled through her mind constantly. Her great-aunt had made a life for herself here in Fort Mavis, but she’d done it alone. The love she’d had for Jessie’s grandfather had never weakened, probably the reason why she’d never married.
    Jessie didn’t want that to happen to her. The problem was, she didn’t know how to fix it. It would take more than a few words to breach the high wall Jack had erected between them. But she would do it, somehow. As soon as she returned from Houston, she’d make a plan. A plan that would work because she wouldn’t give up until it did.
    She was so distracted by her thoughts, her reaction time slowed by lack of sleep, that she didn’t see the car swerving into her lane until the last minute. In a panic, she jerked the wheel to the right but not quite fast enough. The other car clipped her left front end and pushed her onto the shoulder and into a tree. The last thing she remembered was an explosion of some sort and a sharp pain in her head. Then she fell into blackness.
     
    *****
     
    Jack was sitting at his desk in the sheriff’s office, reviewing the security details for the upcoming rodeo, when the call came in. The dispatcher handed him the information.
    “Better get moving,” she told him. “Someone ran our new little restaurant owner off the road.”
    “What?” Cold panic seized him. “How do you know?”
    “Frank Mayfield was heading out of town and came across the wreck. I’m dispatching tow trucks and an ambulance.”
    “Ambulance?” He couldn’t seem to make his brain work.
    “Yes. Our girl is out cold, and Frank doesn’t know how bad she’s hurt. The other driver’s got a big bump on his head and maybe a broken arm.” She made a shooing motion with her hand. “Get moving. I’m paging Andy and Sam to get out there, too.”
    Jack hit the lights and siren even before he left the parking area. He swerved around two cars, cut in front of another, and finally hit the highway. His heart pounded like a jackhammer as fear raced through him. He forgot all about being angry with Jessie. About being hurt. About “getting back” at her. If she would only be okay, he would figure out how to get them back together.
    Fifteen minutes and eighty miles an hour later, he pulled up to the scene of the wreck. The ambulance was already there along with the tow truck from Tommy Mann’s garage. His heart nearly stopped beating when he saw Jessie’s SUV smashed against the tree, the other car still hooked into her left front end.
    He threw his car into park so hard it rocked. In seconds, he was next to her vehicle, dismayed to see that she was still inside.
    “What’s the deal?” he asked the driver of the ambulance. “Why is she still inside?”
    “Take it easy, Jack.” Andy Warfield, one of the other deputies, walked over to him. “The door is jammed, shut and we need to separate the other vehicle before we can get to it. Look.” He pointed. “Tommy’s working on it right now.”
    Jack looked where Andy pointed and saw Tommy hooking chains to the rear bumper of the other car.
    “I’m about ready,” he yelled. “Stand back.”
    “Her car could explode before we get them separated,” Jack protested. “What about getting her out the other side?”
    Andy shook his head. “If you’d take a minute to assess the scene, you’d see that side of the SUV is smashed against that big tree trunk. Take it easy, Jack. We don’t smell gasoline, and Tommy’s cranking up the winch right now.”
    Jack glanced over to the ambulance, standing with its rear doors open, a man sitting in the open space. He was heavyset, his open jacket exposing his bulging belly. Even at