Badge and a Saddle (Heroes in the Saddle Book 2) Read Online Free

online. I don’t look like any of the other
female teachers.” She closed her eyes. Now would be the time for her to admit
she knew one of the men, but if Rex knew why she’d been there that night, he
would not be going to these extremes to save her. She needed to be safe first,
then honest.
    “What about
students? There have to be a lot of students who—”
    “I thought of that
too, on my way home that night.” She’d thrown her bike in the back of her
pickup and had raced to her apartment just off campus, knowing he would
have recognized her immediately. “I grabbed a few things and left, just in
case, hid out at a friend’s place. The next morning, my landlord called, saying
my apartment had been broken into, then the head of my department called and
requested a meeting with me in his office.”
    “And that was
unusual?” He gave her a level look. “The meeting, not the break-in.”
    Mina couldn’t tell
if he was trying to be funny, or was just intent on clarifying his question.
Either way, he was kind of funny. “My department head sounded strange, so I asked
if it was about the telescope. He stammered for a few seconds, muted the phone,
then came back and said it was about scheduling.”
    “And that was
unusual?”
    “Yes, very. I knew they were there.” That cold dread that had made her heart stutter back
then washed through her again. “I knew I had to run.”
    He handed her the
camera. “So you sank your phone, took cash from an ATM, and grabbed a taxi to
the bus station. You took a bus to Fort Worth, and jumped on a shuttle headed
for the Bing River Ranch, signed up for a turkey hunt, then disappeared that
night.” He drank half his coffee in one shot.
    “You knew all
that?” Impressed and frightened at the same time, she felt justified in her paranoid
belief that hiding on the remote ranch was not enough to keep her safe. What he
didn’t know was the part where she’d taken rusty scissors and chopped off her
long, thick red hair, cutting it into little pieces and flushing it down the
toilet. 
    And where she’d
snuck into the ranch’s kitchen and taken bread and cheese and a few bottles of
water to keep her alive until she figured out where she was going next.
    “That’s where we
lost you.” Rex pulled back onto the highway.
    Mina stayed quiet
for a while, and closed her eyes. What if she hadn’t run? She rubbed her hand
on her belly, nerves making the contents of her stomach feel like a heavy
weight. They would have found her. As it was, they’d seen Rex’s report and were
now looking for her in the Fort Worth area, and that was too close.
    “Do you need me to
pull over?”
    She shook her head
without opening her eyes. “I’m fine, for now.”
    He checked his
watch. “If you need a break, we’ve got a couple hours if you want to sleep a
while.”
    She snuggled down
into the soft seat, and looked at his strong profile. His concern warmed her,
but she couldn’t get too complacent. “I’ll finish my story, then if you have
questions…”
    His gaze shot to
hers. “If?” He snorted. “Yeah, I’ve got a few questions for you, Doctor. Like,
what did you do with the footage on the camera, and how did you get from the ranch
to my house, and how the hell did you know where I lived?”

Chapter Three
    “Oh, right. The
camera.” That was the most important part of this, and she’d skimmed right over
it. Not enough sleep and too much fear didn’t make for much brain activity. She
adjusted her seatbelt and turned toward Rex, wanting to see his reaction to her
next statement.
    “I saved the video
from the memory card onto the camera.”
    He nodded. “And
the memory card?”
    He wasn’t going to
like this. “I went to a shipping store and had them send it by courier…to the
governor.”
    “To the…” His
brows drew down. “Why the governor?”
    “I didn’t know who
else would take it seriously. Who would actually do something about it and not
destroy it to protect someone