Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57350 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 287(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57350 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 287(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Another shot blasted through the air.
Ewan jerked violently as a bullet tore into him. Blood sprayed across the ground and his body twisted before collapsing heavily beside the churned dirt of the mining site. He gasped as blood spread fast beneath him.
Bianca screamed and ran toward him. “Ewan.” She crouched and pressed her hand against the wound in his chest.
Boyd staggered upright, breathing hard. The gun came up again, steady now as he pointed it straight at them. “Get moving.” He gestured toward a deep cut in the hillside where the machines had been tearing gravel from the earth, a wide ramp sloping down into the pit below.
CHAPTER 21
Bianca blinked back tears and tried to keep from sneezing from the dust all around. They had already helped Ewan down into the pit.
The excavation spread wide at the base of the cut, a rough bowl carved into the mountain where the earth had been torn away in layers. Tall dirt walls ringed the space, bands of soil and broken stone stacked like a cross-section of the hillside. Conveyor belts ran overhead, silent now, their rollers coated with powdered rock. Piles of crushed stone rose in uneven mounds around the idle machines.
Everything stood still.
No engines.
No workers.
Only the wind slipping across the rim of the pit and Ewan’s ragged breathing.
Bianca sat holding him to her side, trying to keep her hand over the wound in his upper chest. “What were you thinking?” she whispered, a tear tracking down her cheek. He was so brave.
Ewan blinked, his eyes unfocused. “Tried… to help.”
“You did,” Maggie said softly. “Just stay with us.”
Boyd stood several yards away with the gun still pointed at them. He had backed toward the base of the ramp that led up the side of the pit, placing himself where he could watch both the women and the slope above. The position gave him a clear line of sight up the incline and across the open ground. “Why the hell didn’t you just do what I asked?” he spat, his eyes wild.
Bianca’s hands were slick with blood and her mind raced through useless thoughts about pressure, wounds, and the terrible truth that she had no idea how to save Ewan.
The silence in the pit pressed down on her. “You shut this all down?” she asked.
“I only needed a little more time,” Boyd said.
Maggie stared at him in disbelief. “Boyd, this is our land.”
“That’s why it worked.” Spittle flew from Boyd’s mouth. “I’ve been here for a year, and you had no clue. This isn’t hurting you at all.”
Wait a minute. Bianca coughed out dust. “That’s why you helped give them a loan? So they wouldn’t have crew members running all over the property?”
“Yes.” Dirt marred his face and clothing. “Even if they were just filming at the house, I’m sure somebody would’ve headed out here and explored. I’m shutting it down now, Maggie. I promise.”
Maggie just looked at him, shock in her eyes. “You stole gravel from us.”
Bianca felt another realization push through her thoughts, sharp and sudden. “You didn’t want anybody out here? Wait a minute. Did you shoot out my tire?”
“Yes, and you should just fucking thank me. I could’ve shot between your eyes.” Boyd looked frantically around as if wanting a way out.
She gulped. The man owned a freaking nursery. “You sent the flowers. To scare me off?” How did that make any sense?
“At first,” Boyd agreed. “Then when you were with Adam, I figured it’d make him go all protective and not let you out of his sight.”
“So she couldn’t come out here?” Maggie asked slowly, still sounding befuddled. “That’s fucked up, Boyd.”
Bianca coughed out a shocked laugh. Dust particles danced all around them.
Boyd pointed the gun at her. “I tried to keep you safe, Maggie. Even suggested you go be an extra at Adam’s place. I’m almost all wound down here. I’m so close.”
Ewan groaned, looking down at his bloody chest. “You can’t fill back in the material you stole, you idiot.” His face was an unnatural greenish white.
“Yeah, but nobody would’ve known it was me,” Boyd snapped. “They would’ve noticed the land had been mined, but I’m not leaving any evidence.”
“Except us,” Ewan grunted, more blood dripping from him.
Boyd stared at the rock walls. “In a couple more days, I could’ve shut everything down clean,” he said. “No trucks. No machines. No sign anything happened.”
Ewan groaned weakly on the ground.
Bianca dropped back beside him and pressed harder against the wound. “Stay with me,” she whispered. His breathing came rough and uneven.
Maggie knelt on the other side of him. “Boyd, please,” she said. “He needs help.”
Boyd didn’t move. “He rushed me.”
“He was protecting us,” Maggie snapped.
Boyd’s jaw set.
Bianca lifted her head and looked at him. “So what now?”
He stared at them for a long moment. Then he looked up toward the rim of the pit where the ramp cut a path through the dirt wall.