Page 109 of Promised to the Cowboy

Toward the engines.

Toward home.

Chapter 26

Gabriel

The trucks crest the ridge, and I see her.

Evie is running across the open field. Hair half out of her braid. One hand beneath the curve of her stomach, the other pumping hard at her side.

Three men are behind her. One is close enough to reach.

Everything Daniel said in the truck goes.

Hold position. Assess the field. Wait for Wire’s team to flank east. Do not run blind.

All of it gone.

There is only Evie.

Alive.

Running toward me.

A man reaches for her arm.

“Stop the truck.”

Daniel doesn’t.

“Daniel.”

“We’re still exposed.”

“He has her.”

“He nearly has her. There’s a difference.”

The truck tears down the slope, bouncing hard over the uneven ground. Caleb braces himself against the headrest of the front seat and points through the windshield.

“Drainage cut ahead. Go left.”

Daniel jerks the wheel. The truck drops off the rise and hits flatter ground. Ahead of us, the field resolves into pieces. The white plane sitting on a strip of scraped earth. Men spread around it. A utility truck abandoned near the edge. Falcon standing apart from the others.

And Alexander Voss at the foot of the aircraft stairs, coat moving in the wind, watching his daughter run as though the entire field belongs to him.

A man to Evie’s left raises a weapon. My blood turns to ice.

Then Voss’s voice carries across the field. “Do not shoot!”

The weapon lowers.

Daniel brakes hard. “Out.”

I’m through the door before the truck fully stops.

“Gabriel!” Daniel shouts.