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thought of the easy way he’d handled his gun. Colin could help
her, but she wasn’t even sure he’d realized she was missing
yet.
    And her minutes were
numbered. She couldn’t rely on him—she had to come up with
something else.
    Another hairpin turn and
Holly slid against something solid. She tried not to fight the
movement. She wanted to look limp and helpless so that maybe—just
maybe—she could take him by surprise.
    “ What the—”
    The van pitched sideways.
Metal shrieked. Holly’s eyes flew open as they slammed into
something and her body careened against a hard surface.
    Curses erupted from the
front. A door squeaked open and she heard shouting
outside.
    Holly struggled to sit up
and immediately felt dizzy. Bags of animal feed had fallen on top
of her and she bucked them off.
    Rat-tat-tat-tat.
    The staccato of automatic
gunfire made her freeze. Who was shooting? Holly crawled to the
cargo door and sat up on her knees so she could reach the latch
with her cuffed hands.
    Rat-tat-tat.
    Her heart thundered in her
chest as she struggled to pull the latch.
    A single shot rang out,
followed by a hail of machine-gun fire.
    Colin! she thought frantically. Did he not realize what he was up
against?
    She pressed her weight on
the latch. Suddenly, the door swung open and she tumbled backward
onto the snow-covered ground. She blinked up at the blue sky and
realized she was on an incline and gravity had aided her fall. She
rolled to her knees and looked around.
    Rat-tat-tat-tat.
    Bang.
    The shots were somewhere to
her right—much too close for comfort. Maybe she should have stayed
inside. But if—heaven forbid—her captor managed to kill whoever had
run him off the road, she needed to be far away from here when he
tried to flee.
    A flash of metal caught
Holly’s eye. Several guns had slid out when the cargo doors opened.
She spotted something big and black and mean-looking. A
nickel-plated pistol. And a pair of handguns that looked just like
her dad’s.
    Rat-tat-tat.
    Holly leaned sideways
awkwardly and picked up one of the handguns. She had no idea if it
was even loaded, but at least it was something. She looked at her
surroundings. The empty road offered no cover. There were some
woods to her right, but that was where the shots were coming
from.
    Holly glanced at the road
again and decided to risk it. She struggled to her feet and darted
across the highway.
    ***
    The flutter of movement
caught Colin’s eye as Holly sprinted across the road.
    Rat-tat-tat.
    He heard a high-pitched yelp
as she dove into the ditch.
    Christ, what was she
thinking?
    “ Holly, stay down! ”
    Colin steadied his arms on
the hood of his truck and took aim at the shooter’s hide. He nailed
the tree, but the bullet didn’t penetrate.
    A flash of muzzle fire to
the left. Shit, he’d moved. Colin lined up another shot and hoped
to hell Holly would stay low.
    Bang.
    Another hail of gunfire, and
Colin knew his truck was quickly turning to Swiss cheese. This guy
was using heavy artillery. He was making his way to the Suburban,
too, because his Tahoe was clearly out of commission. Colin knew
the shooter’s plan, because it was the same plan he would use if he
were stranded out here with a fleet of feds on the way—he was going
to make a dash for Colin’s vehicle, kill anyone who got in his way,
and hightail it out of here. It was a good plan—and backed up by
machine guns, it was a great one. Colin was down to two bullets—not
even a spare magazine because he was in one of the ranch vehicles
instead of his truck.
    Rat-tat-tat-tat.
    This storm of bullets was
directed at Holly, and Colin felt a swell of anger.
    “ Holly, keep low! ”
    The gunfire shifted toward
him. Glass shattered on the side of the Suburban.
    “ Turn yourself in, Slater!
Every fed in the state is converging on this location!”
    It was an outright lie.
Colin’s team was fifteen minutes away, and it consisted of two
people. Unless they got their hands on a