Read Online ROCKY MOUNTAIN RESCUE by Cindi Myers - Free Book Online Page B

contact police immediately.”
    The reporter described Patrick as two inches shorter than his true height, with brown hair. The screen then flashed a photograph of Stacy that had been taken at her wedding, almost five years before. She’d worn her hair long then and looked all of sixteen, swallowed up in yards of billowing tulle and satin.
    Patrick punched the remote to turn off the television. “I don’t think we have to worry about anyone tracking us down based on that description, but we shouldn’t take any chances.”
    “How did they figure out who we are?” she asked. “I registered at the hotel under a fake name.”
    “I used my real name,” Patrick said. “And I showed the clerk my U.S. Marshal’s ID. He probably gave that information to police and someone made the connection to Sam Giardino. Nothing is really secret anymore.”
    “What are we going to do?” she asked.
    “Keep moving and try not to attract attention.”
    “I’m ready to leave now.” She stood and brushed crumbs from her lap. “You said we were going to Uncle Abel’s ranch?”
    “That’s the plan. Do you know where it is?”
    She shook her head. “Just Crested Butte. I don’t think the town’s that big. Maybe we could ask?”
    “We could, but we’ll have to be careful. We don’t want to let them know we’re on their trail, if they have Carlo.”
    “Do you think they do?”
    “I don’t know. But it’s the only direction I can think to go at the moment. I asked my office to look for an Abel Giardino in Crested Butte, but they haven’t turned up anything yet.”
    “Maybe he’s using another name. The family story was always that he didn’t want anything to do with the business.”
    “That could be. I think the best thing for us to do now is to go to the town and see what we can find out.”
    “How long will it take us to get there?” she asked.
    “About five hours, if the weather cooperates.”
    She glanced out the window. “It’s gray out there, but it’s not actually snowing.”
    “We should be fine. Come on.”
    They carried the supplies and their dirty clothes with them, not wanting to leave behind anything the authorities—or their enemies—could use to track them. Though not as comfortable as his Rover, the Jeep ran well, and the heater worked, blasting out heat to cut the frigid outside temperature.
    They soon reached the outskirts of town and drove past empty snow-covered fields and expanses of evergreen woods and rocky outcroppings. Occasionally one or two houses sat back from the road, or small herds of horses or cattle gathered around hay that had been spread for them. “How do people live out here?” Stacy asked. “It’s so remote.”
    “It is, but maybe you and I think that because we’re city people.”
    “Where are you from?” she asked.
    “New York. I grew up in Queens, just like you.”
    She hugged her arms across her chest. “I don’t know if I like that you know so much about me. I’m not a criminal, you know. I’ve never had so much as a parking ticket.”
    “I know.” At least, she hadn’t actively participated in any crimes that he knew of. “But you married into a criminal family.”
    “So that makes me guilty by association?”
    “In a way, it does.” Innocent, law-abiding people didn’t have intimate connections to mob criminals, in his experience.
    “Was that why you followed me to Durango? Because you thought I was going to commit a crime?”
    “I wondered why you were running away from the protection we offered. I wanted to see what you would do.”
    “You call it protection—I call it another form of prison.” She looked away. “I’ve had enough of that, thank you.”
    “Are you saying you were a prisoner of the Giardinos?”
    “I might as well have been. I promised ’til death do us part, and Sammy made it clear I had to keep that promise.”
    “You told me your father and his father arranged the marriage, but you never told me why you agreed to