heart pounded. Her breathing grew shallow, rapid. Had Thad noticed what was going on? It sure didn’t look like it.
Again, Lindy changed speed, shoving the gas pedal to the floor. Forty became fifty. Then fifty-five.
The rear of Thad’s truck loomed ahead. She thought she saw his head turn, saw him look back.
Suddenly, the white truck swerved.
Slammed into the side of her sedan.
Hit hard enough to shove her onto the narrow shoulder!
Metal crunched and grated. Gravel flew. She almost overcorrected and went into a ditch, then regained the edge of the roadway and came to a stop as the reckless driver accelerated and sped away.
Incredulous, she just sat there, her fingers clamped to the steering wheel, her eyes wide. Staring blankly.
The driver who had forced her off the road passed Thad as if his truck were standing still and disappeared around a curve.
She could barely breathe, barely think straight.
This was turning into the second worst day of her life.
* * *
Thad stopped the moment he realized what had happened. Jumping from his truck he ran back to Lindy. “Are you all right?”
The side window rolled smoothly down. Her breath was condensing into visible clouds and her complexion had lost its rosy glow. “Did you see that? That idiot was trying to wreck me!”
“Sure looked that way.” Thad continued to check the road as he spoke in case the heavy-duty truck came back. “I thought he just wanted to pass us until I saw him deliberately ram you.” He was leaning against her car with both hands capping the edge of the door over the window slot. “Who was he?”
“I don’t have the slightest idea. I didn’t recognize his truck, either.” She peered forward and winced. “How bad is the damage?”
“Looks mostly cosmetic,” Thad said. “Though you should still have a garage check over the car before we go on.”
Lindy let go of the steering wheel and stared at her hands, watching them shake. “I’m not sure I’m ready to drive again, anyway.”
“No problem.” Straightening, Thad slipped his cell phone from the clip on his belt, flipped it open and stepped away from her car to speak. He didn’t ask Lindy’s permission. He simply called the sheriff.
She was tugging at his elbow long before he finished the call but he persisted. “That’s right. Hit-and-run. Highway 9, south of town. Nobody’s injured. A guy in a white truck sideswiped Mrs. Southerland’s car then took off. No. We didn’t get a license number and we didn’t know the driver.”
Lindy yanked on his arm. “Stop!”
He ignored her. “It’s pretty cold for us to wait out here. How about we leave the car as it sits and I take her with me to the warehouse? Is that all right with you?” He recited the license plate number and make of her vehicle. “Okay. If you have any questions for us, you can reach us at this number. It’s my cell. Or at Pearson Products. We’re headed there.” He ended the call with, “Right. Thanks.”
“What did you do that for?”
Lindy was practically screeching at him so he reached to place a calming hand on her shoulder. To his amazement, she ducked as if expecting a blow.
Thad raised both hands and backed away. “Whoa. I’m not going to hurt you. Just calm down. You’ve had quite a shock.”
“I told you I didn’t want the authorities involved in my business. Why did you have to call them?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because somebody almost rolled your car into a ball—with you in it.” He knew he’d spoken gruffly but he didn’t know how else he was going to get through to this stubborn, irrational woman.
Lindy covered her face with her hands.
Thad started to reach for her, then stopped himself. She’d already indicated reluctance to accept physical comforting. He could get himself into deep trouble by trying to give it again.
Instead, he waited patiently until she pulled herself together, then nodded toward his pickup. “My ride’s not fancy, but right now that’s our only transportation. Unless you want to wait out here for the cops and freeze to death, I suggest you come with me the way I told them you would.”
She stood so still for a few moments he wondered if she was going to refuse. Finally, she seemed to regain her composure. “I’ll need my purse. And I suppose I should take the groceries in case they tow my car.”
“I’m assuming they will,” Thad said. It was a relief to see her acting more stable. “They probably won’t need your keys so you’d better pull them. The dispatcher said they were really busy today. Since nobody was hurt here, it may take them a while to respond and we don’t want your car stolen before they arrive.”
Lindy almost laughed. At least Thad thought she did. She’d been so upset before, it was hard to tell how she was feeling until he heard the sarcasm in her tone when she said, “The way my life’s been going lately, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. I’d expect it.”
He stood back while she unlocked the trunk, then carried her purchases to his truck and placed the plastic bags in the cab between the driver and passenger seats. The way he saw it, he was already on thin ice with this woman and having a pile of groceries as a buffer between them was to his advantage.
Did he wish he hadn’t volunteered to help her? Not really. If he hadn’t been there when she’d almost wrecked, she’d have been stranded, particularly because she was so against police involvement.
Thad observed her as he held open the passenger door and she climbed in. She seemed pretty normal in most ways, so why was she so scared of the cops? Could there be a connection between her current problems and her late husband’s criminal activities? Had she been personally involved?
No. No way, his instincts insisted. He’d know if Lindy was a crook at heart. Truth to tell, she seemed so totally innocent it was laughable. He could far more easily imagine her as a helpless lamb being circled by a pack of hungry wolves than the other way around.
That picture of helplessness stuck in his mind as he rounded the truck and slid behind the wheel. If he were to consider the accident he had just witnessed as a deliberate attack, how might that change his tactics going forward?
He cast a sidelong glance at the woman riding beside him. She was obviously still tense. Her hands were clasped around the strap of her purse and she was holding on to it as if she were suspended above a bottomless chasm by that one, thin strip of leather.
Strange notions kept surfacing, insisting to Thad that he had been put there to provide an anchor for Lindy’s lifeline. Was that possible? Sure. Why not? If someone had asked him a few years ago what he’d be doing these days, he would never have guessed he’d be managing a kitchen-gadget business in a little Ozark town. And if they’d suggested he’d be playing bodyguard to a pretty but unstable widow, too, he’d have laughed in their faces.
So, what now? Only one thing was certain. No matter what his original motives had been or how circumstances had conspired to draw him into this woman’s problems, he was committed. He knew Lindy Southerland needed help and it was his duty to provide it. Period.
THREE
Pearson Products was located next to the single-runway Serenity airport outside town. Lindy had passed the site often but other than the one time she had tried to apply for a job there, she’d never had reason to stop.
As Thad drove around to the rear of the largest metal building, she was struck by how isolated the manufacturing and shipping complex seemed. The hardwood trees on the surrounding hills were bare but would soon begin to bud, and by summer the open area would feel like