Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

CALLIE

I glance in the rearview and see Gabe get into the SUV, but I don’t wait to see who else joins him before I put the gas on the floor. The tears roll down my face because nobody has to tell me how these things work.

A decision not to build that mill will mean none of the jobs that people have been hoping for come to be. Bill and Linda will have relocated themselves and the kids for nothing. How are they supposed to make money if there are no places to work that have good wages, employee benefits and stability for a family like the ones here in Western North Carolina?

A pothole in the road causes the truck to lurch. I swerve to avoid it, leaning to the right as I feel the wheels tip up slightly with the corner. I inhale on a sob. Deep breath. It’s not the first guy who lied right to your face and it won’t be the last. Clearly, he takes advantage of other people’s situations for money, the same as all the other city slickers who come waltzing into a small town, ready to buy up their heritage right along with their acreage with a zip of their pen.

The sound of thunder cracking in the distance causes me to hurry. I put my foot on the gas, and the tire jumps, landing in a rut that’s probably been in this holler since the beginning of time. I hit the gas again, and this time it moves, but just barely a little. The third time, I keep my foot on the gas, hoping against hope that it won’t blow the engine up.

The minute the tire breaks loose the pressure against the gas sends me flying over the bedrock but when I try to slow it down the brakes don’t engage.

I push a crumpled napkin against the window and crank on the air conditioning, trying anything and everything to clear the fog so that I can see, but at this speed, things are passing with a blur. I pump the brakes, trying to get them to engage, but they go to the floor without slowing the vehicle at all.

Not until the wheels hit a big rock and the front end of the truck hits something solid, the seat belt digs hard into my chest, and the airbag blows right into my face.

My name screamed in the distance is what draws my senses back. I scramble quickly, pushing the used airbag aside, just as the door flies open.

Gabe pulls me into his arms. “Hang on, someone’s following us and there’s no time to explain,” he yells, literally running with me to the SUV behind us before another one pulls up behind him and those four security guards run to meet us.

Gabe yells to them. “I’ll drive. Sit in the back with Callie. I know these roads like the back of my hand.” He looks to the other two. “You two follow us up to the cabin. Get on that phone and get that helicopter in the air. Have it circle the cabin and secure the perimeter. Do it, go!”

He slides behind the wheel of the SUV as we get settled in the back, and the others get into the vehicle behind us. “Hang on everyone.” He flies through the back roads of the Appalachians, moving through hollers I’ve only heard about and never seen, hitting the under bottom of the SUV as it hits dirt and tree roots that have been there for ages and probably haven’t been traveled for years.

“Who’s chasing us?”

His jaw tightens in the mirror. “No one that matters. Old friends of the family.”

Gabe meets my eyes in the rearview and guilt settles in my chest for the damage I’ve caused. “Dawson’s truck is a wreck and your vehicle is getting pummeled.”

His eyes don’t even meet mine. “The truck is replaceable.”

I nod, and swallow down the bubbling emotion. “Sure, with all your money. Nothing matters. Just replace it or don’t. A steel mill or none. No skin off your nose.”

Chet scowls from next to me, but I divert my attention to watch the road which is getting more fraught with hairpin turns as we go.

“Hold on!” Gabe yells as the vehicle pitches forward, gaining speed with the acceleration, as a huge black off-road truck comes at us from a branching road, moving like a bat out of hell, just missing us before skidding off the side of the road.

Chet clears his throat and inhales a deep breath. “Good driving boss.”

“Yeah, last time I drove out this way we were avoiding the main roads. Just a stupid-ass kid that could have gotten me and my cousin killed. We could have lost a life that night. At least I can chalk this time up to saving one.”

He navigates the back roads and heads north, deeper into the mountains until a sprawling cabin comes into sight nestled in the variation of green trees surrounded by the looming mountain range that stands majestically proud. “This, this sprawling log cabin mansion is the cabin the guys come to fish?”

Gabe glances at me in the rearview. “Home sweet home.”

I turn away, because it was hard enough to digest when I thought he was part of the crime family everyone talks about around these parts. But clearly, I had that all wrong. I let a city slicker with his small-town charm sweet talk me into banging in the bar, just using me to pass the time until he makes the call that will destroy the town’s economy and all of my family in the process. “I liked you better when you were just a two-bit hood. You’re nothing more than a greedy, billionaire, city slicker in disguise.”