Page 76 of Waiting in Wyoming

To protect Michelle. Sierra and Jonathan. Wayne was nothing when it came to protecting his family.

Dale pressed on the gas as he came up to the last curve in the road—Wreck Curve. He had always hated that part of the road. Most rational people did. It had always freaked him out a little there. Especially those crosses that shadowed the road.

He didn’t see the box van coming right at him until it was almost too late.

Dale swerved and slammed into the guardrail.

He was lucky—his truck was big enough, heavy enough, and he hadn’t been going fast enough to send his truck plummeting.

But the van blocked him in.

This was the last thing he needed now. Dale unsnapped his seat belt and opened the door. Just as a man with blue eyes and a furious face yanked him out.

“Hello, Judge. Ready to meet your maker yet?”

Bruce Tyler slammed his fist right into Dale’s face. Dale crumbled at the younger man’s feet.

68

Dylan hated drivingdown the stretch of highway called Wreck Curve Road. The highway wound all around the north and west side of the county. Couldn’t drive a straight line around here. Nope. Not in Masterson County. The road had to weave around the “important people” ranches. Even if that meant everyone had to hug the center of the road and pray until they made it safely to the other side. Nope. Not around here.

She’d already had one hold-your-breath-hope-you-don’t-pee-your-pants moment with an old brown truck on this road just five minutes ago.

Dylan’s little car, complete with band-aid decals over the body damage those buttheads had done to her car back when they’d kidnapped her sister Devaney, was just not made for mountain roads. Or, well, anything that passed as a road around here, really. It was more of a stay-in-town-forever kind of a car.

But, well, her car. Her matter of pride.

Her father had promised to get her a new car—now that he had access to all of his savings from before she was even born. But that just wasn’t going to happen.

Her dad had put far too many conditions on everything. Just like he always did. Well, Dylan Geraldine Brown-slash-Talley didn’t roll like that. He wasn’t going to buyher.

He sure was trying to, though. He’d picked a fight with her just that morning. Right in the middle of the inn. So fun, so fun.

Dylan rounded the bend, holding her breath and telling herself she was a strong, brave, independent woman—she could make it down the mountain. She could do it. It wasn’t even snowing that hard or anything. And it was still daylight out.

She was going to find Meyra and get the full scoop. That cousin of hers had most certainly spent the night with the most delicious Brandt Barratt. All night. And had been with him all day today, too. That was serious relationship time now.

And Dylan wanted details. She kept that thought to herself, though—Dorie was beside her, and, well, her sister was young and innocent. Dylan was planning to keep Dorie that way as long as possible, too.

“I don’t like this road,” Dorie said, echoing Dylan’s thoughts. “It almost feels haunted.”

Dylan hadn’t missed the wooden crosses next to the road, either. She shivered.

Now she was going to see ghosts in the twilight every single time she drove through here. Thanks, Dorie, for that.

Dylan was the big sister—she wasn’t allowed to be the scaredy cat.

Well unless Darcey, Dixie, Dusty, or Daisy were around. Then Dylan got to be the scared baby sister and everything.

She was still getting used to that part.

She was almost down to the bottom of the curve-of-doom when the trucks came right at her. Dylan swerved, aiming for theoppositeditch from Wreck Curve Road.

Thankfully her little car was small enough to slide right between the two dumbasses—yes, she could say that word at her age—who had been barreling down the road side-by-side.

They all could have been killed.

Dylan threw her car into park and just sat there shaking, one hand wrapped around Dorie’s.Thiswas bringing back some bad memories here. Devaney had been abducted out of her car just like this. Dylan had been run off the road, and that monster had justtakenher little sister.