her mind was the desperate need to escape, to put miles between herself and whoever or whatever was rapidly closing in.
Hoping to find a key hanging nearby, she left the door to explore the nearby walls of her prison, acting like a mime trapped in an invisible box. Dust coated everything, clinging to her clammy hands and clogging her already tight throat.
An uneven place on the floor caught her attention. Crouching in the darkness, she located a small grit-and-mud-covered mat next to the doorway and recoiled.
Fingertips of one hand resting lightly on the floor for balance, she racked her foggy brain. What were the chances of finding a key under that filthy rug? Slim to none. But there was only one way to find out for sure.
Emma located an edge by feel, tossed the mat aside and began frantically searching the slick, hard floor. There was something there, all right. Something flat and small with distinct edges. Praise the Lord!
If she hadn’t been shaking so badly she might have been able to fit the key into the slot in the center of the knob without delay. Instead, she fumbled the precious metal object and nearly dropped it several times before it finally slid into place.
Twisting with all her might, Emma heard the lock’s tumblers click. The knob turned. Freedom!
Where she was didn’t matter. Where she would go once she left this building or what she might face on the outside didn’t, either. Not really. At least not yet.
She jerked the door toward her on squeaking hinges.
Cold, damp air enveloped her. It was night, and she was staring into the forbidding depths of a forest that lay just beyond a paved parking area.
A man’s coarse voice called, “You’re smarter than I thought you were, Emma darlin’. Stop running. That’s not the way to win me over.”
His words weren’t all that gave her feet wings. It was the way his menacing tone made her bones ache and her heart pound that spurred her to break and run.
She never looked back. Not even when he threatened her again and began to fire a gun.
One of the bullets hit a nearby tree with a dull thunk and rained bits of bark down as she dodged several parked pickup trucks and plunged into the thick underbrush beyond.
Emma wasn’t going to stop just because her enemy was armed. She was finally free. That was all that mattered.
Branches tore at her flimsy T-shirt and scratched her cheeks, although she tried to push the foliage aside as she plunged deeper into the woods. Every breath hurt. Her stomach cramped and there was a stitch in her side that nearly doubled her over.
In her wake, she could hear more shouting, as if her original pursuer had been joined by several others. Whoever they were, their foul cursing told her she’d better not slow down. Not if she wanted to live.
The fact that the shooting had stopped was a good sign. It probably meant they could no longer see her. It also meant that she had less of an idea how close they were or whether they may have fanned out in an attempt to surround her or cut her off.
That frightening thought provided enough incentive to keep her going. She didn’t stop until her headlong dash brought her to a two-lane highway. Resting, bent over with her hands on her knees for support, she fought to catch her breath and assess her situation.
There wasn’t much passing traffic. Emma suspected her enemies might have doubled back to continue their chase via one of the vehicles she’d noticed during her escape. Therefore, she decided to concentrate on flagging down the least likely conveyance to pose a danger—a long-haul semi.
Her shirt was bright white, her hair blond, giving her a fair chance of being noticed if she stepped onto the roadway.
Without taking time to consider the danger of doing so, she scrambled over the shoulder at the side of the slow lane and began to wave her arms above her head, praying a friendly trucker would stop before someone else showed up to grab her.
Two big rigs sailed past. The brakes of the third squealed and brought the semi to a halt as it passed her and eased partway off the road.
Emma was running toward it before it had fully stopped. She jumped onto the outside step, grabbed the door handle and threw herself inside where she collapsed, shoulders on the seat, knees on the floor of the cab.
“Drive! Please,” she wheezed at the trucker. “Get me out of here!”
* * *
Travis Wright had done well at the weekly cattle auction in Serenity. The four yearlings he’d brought to the sale barn had sold for top dollar. He picked up his check from the cashier, stuck it in his wallet and fished his keys out of his jeans pocket as he headed for his farm truck and empty stock trailer.
The setting sun glinted off the windshield, obscuring the interior of the cab. As Travis circled to the driver’s side he noted movement.
Jerking open the door, he was prepared to scold whoever had invaded his space. The only sound that came out of his mouth, however, was a startled gasp.
His jaw dropped. His brown eyes widened. His heartbeat increased. The frail-looking figure cowering on the passenger side was a mere shadow of her former beauty, but he would have recognized her anywhere.
She didn’t smile. Didn’t even blink. A gray hood from her sweatshirt was pulled over her head, nearly obscuring her usually satiny hair, and the hands that clutched the hood close beneath her chin were thin, trembling and covered with nasty-looking scratches.
Travis found his voice. “Emma?”
She nodded.
“Where did you come from?”
Her lips parted momentarily before she bit the lower one and mutely shook her head.
“What’s wrong? Are you sick? Do you need a doctor?”
Again, she shook her head.
Her appearance was so tragic he could only imagine that she had been traumatized and had to restrain himself from reaching for her. “Do you want me to call the police?”
Emma finally managed to speak. “No police. Just take me home.”
“Home? Your mother sold everything and left town after your dad died.”
His heart was already racing. When Emma said, “Take me home with you,” it nearly beat its way out of his chest.
* * *
The closer they got to the Serenity square, the more Emma started to recall about her past. Yes, there were differences in the town but much was unchanged. At least she thought so. Given her lingering feelings of confusion, nothing was certain, least of all fleeting memories.
The denim-clad man who had greeted her with such surprise was the most familiar of all. Clearly he knew her. And he knew where she had once lived. That would be very helpful, particularly if she could get him to fill her in without revealing how little she, herself, recalled, including his full name.
The logo on the truck had said Wright Ranch and she had recognized it immediately, so she assumed his last name was Wright. As for his first name, it kept dancing around the edges of her mind like a will-o’-the-wisp. It was on the tip of her tongue, so close she felt almost able to say it, yet so obscure she feared she might make a mistake if she tried.
For some reason, she kept thinking that hiding her illness, or whatever it was, would be for the best, at least until she knew more about herself. Since she had no idea who had shot at her as she’d fled, she wasn’t ready to trust anybody. Not even the man seated beside her.
The hood of the sweatshirt the kind trucker had given her masked her cheeks enough that she was able to sneak a sidelong glance at this man without making it obvious. He was definitely good-looking, in a rugged sort of way. His hands, clenched on the wheel, were strong and masculine. His jaw was square. His hair—what little she could see of it sticking out from beneath the baseball cap he wore,