He Chose Her. I Left Carrying His Heir. novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Blocked on Route 9

Mama stood in the shop with her purse over her arm and a tire iron in her other hand.

"Two trucks," she said. "One at the Route 9 turnoff, one at the creek bridge. Four men. Your husband's in the first one with a bottle."

"How do you know?" Rhett asked.

"I poured the bottle."

"Why are you here?" I said.

She looked at me the way she'd looked at me for eight years across her bar.

"Because you were the only one who ever carried my trays back," she said. "Nobody asked me to come. I came."

Rhett was lacing his boots at the counter, and he didn't look up.

"They'll hold the road until I come out," he said. "I'll ride out first and pull them off her."

"No," I said. "I won't hide in this shop again."

"Ruby."

"I'm not going to sit upstairs while you take it for me." I picked up my keys. "I'm driving out, and you ride in front. Mama comes behind in her truck."

Rhett looked at Mama.

"I like her," Mama said. "She's stubborn."

We left at dusk with the sky going orange behind the feed silos.

Rhett's bike ran ahead of me, a single headlight and a black jacket, and Mama's old pickup followed close behind my bumper.

At the creek bridge, a flatbed was parked across both lanes.

Rhett braked and put a boot down, and three men stepped out of the dark with their hands loose at their sides.

The red-bearded prospect was one of them.

My brakes squealed, and I stopped ten feet short.

In my mirror the second truck pulled out of the turnoff and blocked the road behind Mama.

Cade climbed out of the first truck and walked into my headlights with a bottle in his hand.

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