Chapter 10
The late-autumn snowstorm promised to be a killer and her car was dead.
Fat flakes swirled lazily in the wind outside the battered 2010 sedan. A curtain of darkness had fallen, turning the pretty country road ink black. She should have checked the battery before leaving Florida. Certainly it would have saved her from being stranded here on a lonely stretch of New Hampshire road.
Meg August—no, she was Meg Taylor now; the “August” part of her life was back in Palm Beach with her soon-to-be ex-husband—tried the engine again. Nothing. She turned and looked at her traveling companion. “Well, Sophie, looks like we are up a particular creek without a paddle or a life raft.”
Woof!
Snug inside her pink-and-black Louis Vuitton dog purse, Sophie licked her hand. Shivering, Meg patted the dog’s head. She’d stopped to let Sophie out for a rest break and the car had died. The icy rain had turned to snow, but not before soaking her blue suede jacket. Perfect for chilly nights in south Florida. Not so perfect for this.
Meg removed the wet jacket and tossed it onto the backseat. Clad only in a thin yellow sweater and black linen trousers, she kept shivering. She went to rub her arms and winced.
Her left arm still felt tender. Prescott’s fists had landed there two weeks ago, shortly after she confronted him about her discovery that he’d shipped out defective body gear manufactured by Combat Gear Inc., the company she’d founded to provide quality, low-cost body armor to US soldiers and law enforcement personnel. Not only did he authorize the shipments months ago, but he’d filed the incorporation papers for Combat Gear Inc. with her first and middle initials, Margaret Elizabeth, and her maiden name, Franklin, as the CEO.
She was the one responsible for any deaths resulting from use of those vests. She had to make this terrible wrong right.
Prescott disagreed. When she’d threatened to call the authorities, he beat her. The bruises were myriad rainbow colors instead of black. She could silently endure his growing rages.
But she would not stand for others getting hurt because of her product.
She’d called her former college roommate, Lacey Adler. Asking for help was the hardest thing she’d had to do since burying her grandmother a week ago. Lacey told her about her charity that helped women flee their abusive husbands.
She’d asked for a safe house in New England, and Lacey had given her directions to a remote farmhouse in New Hampshire. Cooper Johnson, a Navy SEAL friend of Lacey’s husband, Jarrett, agreed to give her shelter through Project SOS Securities, his security firm.
Cooper would give her a place to stay with Sophie as long as she needed. She’d be safe. Coop, as he was called, was great with dogs.
Meg hated relying on strangers. But she needed a hiding place until she could obtain the proof that Prescott knew the body gear was defective.
If Prescott didn’t find and kill her, the New England storm surely would.
Now, they were parked alongside a dark road, no one in sight. She glanced down at her fashionable clothing. Perfect for leaving Palm Beach and avoiding suspicion from any of her neighbors.
Not so perfect for braving the chilly temperatures of the north. She tried turning the ignition again. Nothing.
After putting Sophie on the backseat, Meg climbed over the console and joined her. She reached for her grandmother’s antique quilt, her most precious possession, and wrapped it around them both. Sophie wagged her tail and licked Meg’s face, as if to offer reassurance.
Shivering, she curled up next to Sophie, the cold spiking her body like steel nails, and said a little prayer for some kind stranger to find them.
And not her soon-to-be ex-husband.
* * *
Cooper “Coop” Johnson rubbed the shoulders of the quivering mare. “Easy, girl,” he murmured.
Betsy was going on thirty, and had a mild case of colic. Colic had already killed one horse on the Sunnyside Farm, and he wasn’t about to see his baby sister’s favorite mare succumb to it. He walked her around the barn, mindful of her arthritis, rubbing her down, hoping the heavy blanket would help.
Jarrett, his former squad leader from the teams, had asked him to give refuge to a woman in trouble. Coop agreed because he would do anything for his ex-boss, but family came first these days. He’d taken leave from the Navy to help his mom run the bed and breakfast while her sister’s family visited relatives in Oregon. Mid-November was the slow time, so his aunt, uncle and their three sons decided to combine a family wedding with a much-needed vacation while Coop helped out with the farm and inn.
They’d closed the inn after his oldest sister, Brie, had died. Fiona, his mother, had reopened it two months ago, but with the approaching winter, only a few guests had registered. Keeping horses was expensive. Summer boarders helped pay for food and overhead. Those boarders had packed away their mounts into shiny trailers and headed south.
Probably to Florida, where it was warm.
Or Palm Beach, where it was warm and wealthy, where his assignment was supposedly traveling from.
Meg. He didn’t know anything about her, other than the photo Jarrett sent and the fact that she lived in wealthy Palm Beach and she needed a place to stay while her divorce was being finalized.
No one would take her in because her dog was vicious and bit people.
Jarrett said Meg’s money was all tied up until the divorce and she couldn’t afford a pet-friendly hotel. Coop doubted she was in trouble. The photo Jarrett sent showed a brunette woman who looked like a beauty queen dripping in diamonds. But it wasn’t his place