Asking For Trouble (31 page)

The headlights wobbled around and
illuminated a bullet ridden white van down the embankment. The
tires were shot out and the doors were wide open. Beau held back a
groan, hoping Jazzie and Cole weren't in there full of bullets too.
"Stop!" he yelled. "There's the van that Cole and Jazzie were
in!"

Beau looked to the left and saw an opening
in the trees and broken fencing that looked like where they'd come
through. As soon as the Susan stopped the car, Beau flung open the
door and ran toward the van, then slid on his butt down the steep
embankment. The lights on the van were off, and it was damned dark,
so he announced himself to make sure Cole didn't shoot him. "Cole,
Jazzie, it's Beau...are you okay?"

His stomach boiled with acid as he got
closer to the van and nobody answered. Quickly, he ran to the
passenger side and breathed a relieved sigh when he saw the seat
was unoccupied. The driver's seat was empty too. He leaned inside
the darkened cab and yelled, "Cole! Jazzie!" and still there was no
reply. After checking the back of the van and underneath and not
seeing any sign of them, Beau huffed a relieved breath, then clawed
his way back up the steep slope to the car.

He got back inside and said, "They're not
there, I didn't see any sign of them."

***

It was dark, the ground was cold against her
skin, and things Jazzie didn't even want to identify were crawling
on her. Of all places, Cole had to pick underbrush with itchy pine
needles for them to hide in. She felt like she was in some bad war
movie, without her pants on, which made it ten times worse. Jazzie
had kicked herself a hundred times since she'd taken her jeans off
in her feeble attempt to escape. Her feet felt like they were
bleeding from stepping on pine cones and things while they ran. But
she was alive, and thankful to Cole for keeping her that way.

The gunfire had ceased, but Jazzie knew the
three men chasing her and Cole were still in the woods looking for
them, she heard them walking nearby, and held her breath. Cole
grabbed her hand and squeezed in encouragement and she squeezed his
in return. He was lying next to her and his body was as tense as
the strings on her fiddle.

The other seven or so bad guys were trading
fire with Dave Logan and his men near the exit to the road from the
parking lot. Jazzie swallowed down a whimper at the thought that
Frankie was there with Dave and his men.

She and Cole had accidentally driven up on
them, and when Cole realized there was a mini-war going on and they
couldn't get through the exit, he threw the van in reverse and
hauled ass back the way they had come The only problem was three of
the men in that group had peeled off and followed them, shooting up
the van and nearly shooting them. The only thing that saved them
was Cole turning off the head lights and finding an opening in
trees where he crashed through the fence. After the van stopped
just short of the ravine, they got out and pushed it into the ditch
and ran into the woods.

The sound of a motor back near the tree line
caused Jazzie to stiffen, and Cole did too. All they needed was
more people after them. The men tramping through the woods
evidently heard it too, because the footsteps stopped and all she
heard were a few bugs chirping in the night, and her and Cole's
soft breathing. She heard the motor of the vehicle shut off and
doors opening, and she held back a moan.

Suddenly, loud pops from machine gun fire
broke the silence, and she heard a few slower pops as someone fired
what she guessed was a pistol intermittently. There was a grunt
nearby, then a thud as someone landed on the ground, and Jazzie
squeezed Cole's arm. He eased up from the ground and stuck his head
out from the brush covering them.

"Get ready to run," Cole instructed barely
above a whisper, and she shoved up to her feet and squatted.

He leveled his gun at something or someone,
and squeezed the trigger, and she heard a yelp, then another thud.
"Let's go," he told her then grabbed her arm and dragged her behind
as he ran deeper into the trees. A couple of bullets pinged off of
trees near them, but they were moving in a zigzag pattern through
the trees to avoid getting hit.

Cole found another hiding place and pulled
her behind some trees and they ducked down waiting to see if anyone
was following. After a minute, he told her, "I want to get to the
tree line to see if they left that car running, or if the keys are
there." Crouching, he tugged on her arm, then headed that way.
"Follow me and stay down," he said sternly.

It took a few minutes for them to get near
the edge of the woods, and when they got there he didn't walk out
in the open. Instead, Cole edged back the way they'd come inside
the cover of the trees. When they got close enough to see the car,
he put his hand behind him and stopped her, then said quietly,
"Someone's in the front seat, but they're slumped against the
window."

Jazzie peered around him, but it was dark
and she couldn't see anything inside the car. "You must be
descended from bats, because I can't see a damned thing," she
hissed.

He chuckled, then moved a little farther
down the line, until he could see into the car through the open
door. "There's only one way to see if the keys are in there, and
that's to get closer. You stay here and I'll wave at you if they're
in there."

"Okay," she said quietly then added, "Be
careful."

"I'm always careful, sugar," he told her
with a grin in his voice. "You squat down and make yourself
invisible, I'll be right back, or signal you."

Cole paused for a moment and squatted down,
then he darted toward the car, zigzagging his way to the door. He
crouched behind it, then pounced around with his gun leveled on
whoever was in there. Jazzie's shoulders relaxed when she saw him
drop the gun to his side, before he slid into the driver's seat. He
waved at her and Jazzie stood then ran toward the car with relief
washing over her. Maybe they'd make it out of this after all, she
thought, with tears burning behind her eyes.

When she got to the car, she ran around to
the open door and slid inside, then shut it, and huffed out a
breath, then realized it was her brother in the front seat. "Oh, my
god, Carlos!" she said as happiness shot through her. Leaning over
the seat, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed his face.
"Oh, thank god," she whimpered, then sobbed unable to hold back the
tears that had been threatening for hours.

"And thank God you made it too, sis," he
said and his voice wavered.

"This isn't over ya'll...not by a long
shot." Cole reminded them and asked gruffly, "Where are Beau and
Susan?"

"In the woods, they went looking for you
guys. That Hanson guy was handcuffed in the back seat, but he
escaped when they left. I couldn't stop him...my ribs are busted up
pretty badly," he told Cole with a groan.

Cole huffed out a breath then told them, "I
need to let them know we're here, and find them, so we can get the
hell out of here, but I can't leave you two unarmed."

"Maybe if you crank the car, they'll hear it
and head this way," Carlos suggested weakly.

"Great idea, man," he said then twisted the
keys in the ignition and the sedan's engine roared to life. "Ya'll
put your seat belts on, because we're hauling butt if someone other
than Susan and Beau come out of those woods."

They waited for a few minutes with the
engine idling, then all of a sudden two figures broke from the tree
line just about where Jazzie and Cole had been hiding earlier. Cole
flicked on the headlights, then turned them off.

"It's them," he said and put the car in
drive them moved toward them. Jazzie breathed a sigh of relief, and
leaned forward so she could see better out of the windshield. It
was a good thing she did, because the window beside her shattered,
and she dropped to the floorboard and prayed.

"Shit!" Cole shouted, then hit the gas and
Carlos slid down farther in the front seat. More bullets pinged off
the car, then the back window shattered and Cole ducked down some.
"Oh, fuck, they got Beau," he said and threw the car into park, and
opened the door then took off running.

A wail started at Jazzie's toes and worked
it's way through her chest and up to her throat then burst from her
lips. Tears scalded her cheeks as grief and loss tore through her,
and she flung open the back door.

"Jazz, no!" Carlos yelled and reached over
the seat to grab her arm, then sucked in a sharp pained breath.
"They don't need to worry about you too. Get up here in the front
seat, in case we need to leave quickly," Carlos told her.

"I have to try and help him...I love Beau,
Los...if he dies," she whispered in a choked voice.

"You can help by keeping yourself safe, and
driving this car like crazy, if we need to get out of here," he
said then released her arm.

Jazzie gnawed her lip, then swiped her tears
with the back of her arm. Taking a deep shuddering breath, she
stood up in the back then climbed over it to sit behind the wheel.
When she settled into the seat, she looked up and saw Cole had
reached Susan and Beau, and he was hefting Beau up onto his
shoulder. Both he and Susan took off running toward the car.
Thankfully, the gun fire had stopped for a couple of minutes. She
didn't know what the bad guys were up to, but she was relieved that
they chose to stop shooting for now. Her nerves couldn't take much
more drama for one day.

When Cole reached the car, he shoved Beau
into the backseat, and Susan got in on the other side. Jazzie
leaped out of the car and asked in a scared whisper, "Is he..."

"He's fine..." Cole told her shortly, then
moved to take the driver's seat. Susan got in on the other side,
and Jazzie crawled over Beau to sit between them, then leaned back
over to slam the door shut. Cole cranked the engine and it roared
to life. He gunned it backwards to the opening in the trees where
they had broken down the fence with the van, then did a three-point
turn and got them facing the other direction.

Jazzie rocked against Beau, when the car
bounced, and he moaned. With a gasp, and fear shooting through her,
she asked, "Where are you hurt, baby? Are you bleeding?"

"Chest," he said in a breathless
whisper.

"Oh, god, Cole, he's shot in the chest--get
to the hospital
now
!" Jazzie wailed, then straddled his lap
and ran her hands over his shoulders and across his chest. She saw
where the bullet hole was in his shirt. "Oh, god,
oh god
,
it's in his
heart
!" she wailed, then threw her arms around
his neck and sobbed into his shoulder. "Don't you dare die on me!
We have unfinished business! I
love
you dammit!"

Susan chuckled in the seat beside her, and
Jazzie wanted to choke the unfeeling bitch. "What the hell is so
funny, Susan?" she demanded angrily.

When Cole chuckled in the front seat, she
felt like she was in an alternate universe or something, where
people laughed when someone got shot in the heart! "You guys are
pissing me off, and I don't think you want to do that right now,"
Jazzie grated, then sat up on Beau's lap leaning back against the
door.

"No man, you really don't want to piss her
off," Carlos chuckled then groaned before he finished, "She is
mean
--trust me, I've had twenty-eight years experience with
it."

"He's wearing armor, sugar," Cole said and
looked up in the rearview at her. "He just got the wind knocked out
of him, and he's gonna have a helluva bruise probably."

"I'm also gonna have a helluva
hard
time sleeping tonight, if you don't get your beautiful round ass
off my lap," Beau said gruffly near her ear, and all of them,
except for Jazzie, howled laughing. Jazzie bounced her butt on him
hard and he grunted, then she scooted over to sit on the seat
beside him, folding her arms under her breasts. Tears of
embarrassment burned behind her eyes and she turned her face from
him, and felt her lower lip trembling as she fought hard to stop
them from falling.

Beau slid his arm around her shoulders and
hugged her to him, then kissed her hair. "I'm sorry I scared you,
baby..."

Jazzie nodded, but was afraid to say
anything or she'd lose her battle to control her emotions. Beau
leaned over and scooped her up, pulling her onto his lap again,
before his mouth covered hers in a hot needy kiss that was both
comforting and exciting at the same time.

Jazzie opened her mouth and his tongue slid
inside and danced erotically with hers. She slid her arm up to
circle his neck and tangle in his thick hair, and pressed her
breasts against his chest. His hand moved down to cup her ass and
he squeezed. Jazzie moaned softly into his mouth and tried to get
closer to him.

He pulled back suddenly, and breathing
heavily he held her at arm's length and looked her over closely.
His hand moved up to her hair and his fingers gently probed around
her skull, until he found the gash that had bled so badly earlier,
but was now was just sore as hell.

"Are you dizzy, baby? Seeing double?
Nauseated?" Beau asked her and gingerly felt along the gash and she
saw him flinch and grit his teeth. He swallowed a couple of times
then said in a choked voice, "I thought you were bleeding to death,
and there was nothing I could do help you."