Royal Trouble (35 page)

Didn't it suck to finally realize that too late?  To decide to try again, after running off the one woman he could let himself try again with?

Leigh Ann was gone for good this time.  In his mind he knew it, and his heart did too.  The way she ran to the truck told him that.  He doubted she was coming back to finish out her two-weeks notice.  Unless Wes did something, he wouldn't ever see her again.

As he watched his son scrub his eyes with his forearms, Wes lost a little more of his heart.  Trey loved Leigh Ann too, and that was the worst of it.  Trey would blame him for her leaving them too.  Wes flinched as Trey opened the door and walked inside, then ran over to him and threw his arms around his waist. 

"She wouldn't say yes," he said in a broken whisper that caused a fist of misery to punch Wes in the gut.

"It's okay, sport.  It was just dinner," Wes comforted him, but he knew better.

"Said she had plans," he told Wes with a sniffle.

"Did she say she'd see us in the morning?" 
Please say yes, please say yes
, his mind begged as he waited for his son to respond.

"Did at first, then she said wanted you call her," Trey replied.

Not a good sign.  "Okay, we need to get dinner and you have school tomorrow, so you need to get a bath before you go to bed."  Normal things, things he needed to do to distract himself. Otherwise, Wes would get in his truck and drive hell bent for leather to the R & R and beg Leigh Ann to come back.  But he had seen how upset she was when she left, so he would give her tonight to get herself together. 

Tomorrow would be soon enough to start his mission to convince Leigh Ann Baker he wasn't the asshole she thought he was.

CHAPTER TWENTY

After she left Wes's office, Leigh Ann had pulled over on the side of the road and had a mini-breakdown.  The sun had set by the time she got control of herself, and got back on the road.  Now, not only was her vision clouded by bucketsful of tears, it was dark and had started raining.  The fine mist turned the dust and oil on the windshield to sludge, making it almost impossible to see through the windshield.

Only halfway to the ranch, nose almost pressed to the windshield, she leaned even closer and in between swipes of the wiper blades, she watched for the yellow line dividing the dark country road.  At the rate she was going, it would take hours for her to get back to the ranch.  Suddenly the slow, sad country song playing on the radio, one about love and loss, penetrated her concentration and tears welled in her eyes again. 

Turning loose of the wheel with her right hand, she flicked it off.  She did not need to hear that right now, it was bad enough to be living it, without hearing it too.  And she didn't need to be distracted from the road either.  Thunder rumbled overhead, before lightning struck somewhere in the woods at the side of the road.  The cab of the truck shook, and Leigh Ann's fists tightened on the steering wheel.  Another clap sounded and she flinched waiting for the lightning. 

Bright headlights hit her rearview mirror and blinded her. When she crested a slight hill, she was able to see it was a truck, a big truck, and it was traveling entirely too fast for the road conditions.  Hazarding another glance in the mirror again, she realized the guy was tailgating her now, he wasn't letting up, or trying to pass her.  The front of his truck had to almost be touching her bumper.  Leigh Ann was scared if she had to brake, he was going to smash her truck up to the hood.  Pressing down on the accelerator to put space between them, the truck fishtailed a little and her heart ricocheted in her chest, until it straightened. 

Tapping her brakes, she blew the horn and threw up her hand, hoping to send the moron a message.  Instead of backing off though, the guy sped up again and hit her! 

At impact, she jerked forward over the wheel, then hit her head on the side window, and pain shot through her skull.  Dazed but conscious, she realized her truck was spinning in the road.  Gripping the wheel in a white-knuckled hold, Leigh Ann tried to correct the spin, but knew it was useless.  The trees at the side of the road flashed in her headlights twice, before the truck careened across the centerline. 

In slow motion, her headlights pointed directly at a big oak tree.  Slamming her foot on the brakes, knowing that was the worst thing she could do in this situation, she fought to regain control, then realized it was useless.  No matter what she did she was going to hit that tree and probably die.  Leigh Ann took her foot off the brake, braced for impact, then covered her face with her arms to protect herself.

Wes's phone rang on the night stand beside his bed and he opened his eyes, but still only saw blackness.  Glancing at the table, he rolled over and patted around on the table until he found his phone.  All the while praying it wasn't a middle-of-the-night farm call, he blinked three times to clear his vision and kick his brain into gear, before pressing the button to talk.  "Yeah," he said, his voice gravelly with sleep.

"Wes, is Leigh Ann over there?" Rocky asked, her voice edgy.

"No, she left around six-thirty," he told her, but worry shot through him.  "She's not there?"

"No, she didn't come back to the ranch, and didn't call, so I figured she stayed there, but then at three a.m., I don't know why but I sat up in the bed and knew something was wrong."

Wes glanced at his phone and saw it was three-fifteen.  "I'll get dressed and head that way, see if I can find her."  He would have to wake up Trey, get him dressed for school, then drop him off at his mother's place first.  That was going to take too long.  Trey would just have to come with him. 

"Did you try calling her phone?" Wes asked throwing back the cover and rolling to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Yeah, but it goes straight to voice mail." 

Wes's stomach turned, as adrenaline and worry consumed him.  "Keep trying, and head this way...we'll meet in the middle."

"If you find her, call me."

"I will.  And Rocky?" 

"Yeah?" she asked impatiently.

"You do the same, and be careful." 

Wes disconnected, then sat up on the edge of the bed and rubbed his hands over his face.  He sent up a prayer that Leigh Ann hadn't been in an accident, but what else could explain why she hadn't made it to the ranch? 

Unless, she had been so upset when she left here she just kept going back toward Dallas.  His heart squirmed in his chest, but he stilled it.  If she had, Wes would go there to tell her what he had to say. 

But she had been in the R & R truck, not her convertible.  Her car was still at the ranch or in the shop, he imagined because she didn't have the money to fix it.  No way would she have taken off in the truck, without at least calling her sister.

Someone needed to start checking the local hospitals, so he called Rocky back and asked her to have someone do that before she left the ranch.  Wes threw on his clothes, then ran from his bedroom to Trey's and dragged him out of bed. 

"C'mon kiddo, wake up, you can sleep in the truck."

"What's wrong, daddy?" he asked and rubbed his eyes, squinting in the bright overhead light that Wes had turned on when he entered the room.

"I need to go find Miss Leigh Ann,"  Wes said.  He wasn't going to explain further, because he didn't want to worry his son.  Right now, Wes was worried enough for both of them, overwhelmed by it, paralyzed by the thoughts that kept running through his mind.  Leigh Ann hurt and bleeding somewhere, or kidnapped, carjacked, or...dead.

Wes swallowed down the bile that shot up to his throat.  "Hurry, Trey."

"Is Miss Leigh Ann okay?" Trey asked as he stepped into his jeans and fumbled with the snap.

"Yeah, she's fine, I just need to talk to her."  Wes hoped she was fine, and that he did have the option of talking to her.  He had so much to say.

***

Leigh Ann opened one eye, because that was all she could manage her head hurt so badly.  Bright sunlight knifed through her skull like a laser beam, so she squeezed the eye closed again and groaned.  Various aches and pains in her sore body brought Leigh Ann to the conclusion that she was alive, but death might be welcome, because there were so many of them.  Pain shot through her head again, and she tried to raise a hand to massage her temple.  Her eyes flew open then downward to her bound wrists.  Duct tape.  No wonder her hands were numb.  Leigh Ann tried to pull them apart, but the tape was tightly wound.

Heart pounding she looked around and got her wits about her.  She was laying across the backseat of a moving vehicle.  A truck.  The swaying motion, and rough suspension intensified the nausea she was feeling.

Trying to put the pieces of her situation together, Leigh Ann realized that her hands being bound meant her captor hadn't just found her on the side of the road and decided to take her to the hospital.  This guy didn't have good intentions, that was a sure thing.

Her eyes flew to the back brim of the driver's cowboy hat.  Afraid to alert him that she was awake, Leigh Ann snapped her eyes shut again to think.  The guy was alone in the front seat, with no passenger.  That meant she only had one person to contend with.  Good news, but with her hands tied, not such good news at all.  Even with her hands free, the guy was a lot bigger than she was.  His broad, muscular shoulders showed well above the front seat.  Leigh Ann wasn't a fighter anyway, but she could run pretty damned fast when she had to.  If he freed her hands, that is exactly what she would do. 

The cell phone in her pocket vibrated, and Leigh Ann held her breath, hoping the guy wouldn't hear it, because silent mode wasn't totally silent.  There was a low-pitched hum that went along with the vibration.  Her eyes flew to the mirror, and she watched nervously, as it continued to vibrate in her pocket.  When it stopped and he hadn't looked back there, she relaxed a little.  Knowing that she at least had some way of communicating if she got the opportunity, she slowly let out the breath in her lungs. 

What the hell could this guy want from her? 

Rape was the first thing that came to mind.  Mortification gripped her, then faded.  If that was his intention, surely he would have stopped and done it already, even if she was unconscious.  It had been near midnight when he hit her truck and she crashed.  The sun was up now, so she must've been out quite a while.  Leigh Ann crinkled her forehead in thought sending another pain shooting through her head.  Her skin crackled like it was coated in dried blood, and she flinched.  After a few more minutes of thought, Leigh Ann decided the only way she was going to find out her captor's purpose was to ask him.

She tried to swallow, moved her tongue around in her mouth to work up some saliva, then asked, "Where are you taking me?" Her words rasped in and out of her dry vocal chords.  The man titled the mirror down and looked into it.  Their eyes met, his eyebrows slammed down over his angry amber eyes.

Leigh Ann sucked in a breath, her heart tripping in her chest.  "
You
?" she whispered in confusion.

"You messed with the wrong man, lady," Trace Rooks told her darkly, his jaw clenched making the scar on his cheek whiten.  He dragged his hot gaze from hers back to the road, and she saw his hands tighten on the steering wheel.

Who was he talking about?  Lester Fallon?  Red Jones?  Wes?  or Senator
Rooks
?  Fear shot through her as she realized Trace must be related to him somehow.

"What did I do to you?" she asked, her voice an octave higher than normal, her mind flitting over the events in her brief association with the ruggedly handsome cowboy.

"You didn't do a damned thing to me, but you fucked with someone you should have left alone.  Even I know to leave my father alone.  You not only messed with his wife, you screwed up his business.  Don't you have any sense at all?"

The pieces of the puzzle she'd tried to put together the night Wes took her to the hospital fell into place, and a knot formed in her stomach.  Rooks...
Rooks
...oh, Lord.  "Allison is your mother?" Leigh Ann squeaked.

"Yes, Mrs.
Leland
Rooks is my mother," he said with disgust.  "Or used to be..."

Leigh Ann snorted. "She still is your mother, always will be.  That is something that you have for life, no matter how much you'd like to change it.  Trust me, I know."

"Well, my mama filed for divorce yesterday, you nosed around out at the Diamond Bar and the ranch manager freaked out, so now Leland is freaked too."

"So he had you kidnap me?" she asked, amazed that the tough, seemingly independent man who had rescued her when her car broke down was his father's minion.

Trace threw back his head and laughed, swerving on the road a little, before he steadied the truck.  "That's the funniest damned thing I've ever heard."

"Well, it's not so unbelievable.  I'm in the back of your truck and I'm tied up.  That usually means I've been kidnapped.  Since your father is the one mad at me, and you're the one doing his dirty work, I guess that means you're my kidnapper."

"Not likely, lady," he told her with a snort, his jaw tightening even more.

Leigh Ann shut up, because she figured that was the best thing she could do.  It was obvious to her he was extremely angry, and probably done talking.  And that was too damned bad, because she still couldn't figure out why she was tied up in the back of Trace Rooks truck, or where the hell he was taking her.

Wes stood on the shoulder of the road, and shoved a hand through his hair as he made yet another call.  His eyes fixed on the mangled mess that had been the R & R Ranch truck Leigh Ann had been driving.  The twisted heap of metal told him, most likely she was in bad shape.  But she wasn't in the truck, and she wasn't in the hospital according to Terri Rhodes. 
So where the hell was she
?

Lost in the woods, because she was hurt and disoriented?  Had someone picked her up after the accident?  If they had, why the hell wasn't she at the hospital? 
Where was she
?

After a cursory foot search of the surrounding area, the officers on the scene said they found nothing.  No pieces of clothing, shoes or blood.  He was thankful about them not finding blood, because there had been some inside the truck.  On the steering wheel.  Which meant Leigh Ann probably hit her head, or broke her nose, or needed stitches somewhere on her beautiful body.  The sickening thought sent added fear to mix with the healthy dose already in his bloodstream.