Hawk (A Stepbrother Romance #3)(60)

I'm in a battered '89 pickup and he's on a motorcycle, there's no way I can outrace him. He pops off a shot and it goes right over my shoulder, so close I can feel it pass before I hear the shot, and it punches another hole in my windshield. I can't f*cking see. If I lean out the window, he'll blow my brains out.

I can hear the engine of the bike coming up alongside me.

Fuck it.

I swerve over. Now I see him. He veers off but not in time, and the ass end of my pickup clips his back fender. The bike wobbles, he tries to correct, swerves, and then he's pavement surfing, the bike scraping along on its side in front of him. I turn back and see the Amish guys racing at me in their all-black pickup, and floor it. No choice now, I lean out my window to steer as the speedometer passes eighty miles an hour.

One of the Amish guys is standing up in the bed of the truck, leaning over the roof, aiming his shotgun at me. I split my attention between the road ahead and the end of the shotgun barrels bouncing up and down, bobbing left and right. Once he has that lined up he's going to give me both barrels and this time I don't think he's going to miss. It won't matter how fast I'm going, I'm not going to outrun buckshot.

They're getting closer. I have the pedal to the floor and I'm not going any faster, she's topping out at about eighty-five. The goddamn Amish truck is catching up.

So, I pull on my seat belt and slam on the brakes.

The driver swerves and dumps the gunman in the bed as his tires squeal and his brakes lock. The thing about playing chicken is knowing when to flinch.

I don't. I keep my foot on the brake until I leave a set of smoking tracks of rubber behind me and the front end of the black pickup crashes into the back corner of my pickup's bed with a solid jolt that sends me snapping forward against the seatbelt. The world goes wild as the truck spins around and me with it, until the force feels like it's going to rip my stomach out through my nose.

Dazed, I blink a few times and realize I'm sitting in the opposing lane facing the side of the road, the back wheels of my truck in the ditch. My engine is still running. I hit the gas and my tires spin. She'll still drive, but I'm not going anywhere. The Amish truck is flipped over on its side and it's laying in the ditch, the underbelly facing me.

The f*cking driver is climbing out of the window. His door is bent shut but he's kicked out the glass and he's climbing out.

Are you shitting me?

He drops down to the ground and limps around the side of the truck, lifting his right foot. His leg must be broken.

Doesn't matter. He grabs the shotgun by the barrels and tugs it loose. The buttstock is snapped off but it doesn't matter, it'll still work. He snaps it open and closed again, checking that it's loaded, and raises it.

I throw the truck into reverse and slam the gas pedal. The whole thing lurches backwards, the tires bite, and I slam it into drive and floor it, swerving around, and duck.

I hear the shot. When I sit up again I hear the flub-flub-flub of a flattening tire, but the Amish guy with the shotgun is receding behind me, even if I'm going about thirty-five and the back wheel is starting to spark and burn.

Fuckers.

I text Alex.

Can you talk?

With my luck, she's back in my father's office.

Not five seconds later, my phone is ringing.

"Hawk?"

"Yeah. Listen-"

"Are you okay? I'm in the car, I had to go… it doesn't matter. What's wrong?"

"A bunch of Amish guys just tried to kill me. My truck is f*cked up to no end. Can you call you friends for me? Tell them where I am?"

"Yeah, yeah I can do that. Where are you?"

I give her a rough location.

"Hawk, are you okay?"

"I'm not hurt. I'm fine, Alex."

"Okay. Call me when they pick you up."

For the next half hour my truck, which I f*cking bought three days ago, limps back towards town, until a little Toyota pulls up alongside me and I see Jennifer motioning for me to pull over.

Wearily, I muscle the beast off the road and into the soft shoulder. It's not going anywhere now. I step out, and realize I'm stiff all over. I feel like I've been run through a giant clothes dryer.

"What the hell happened to you?"

"I pissed off the Amish."

"Get in the car. I'll have somebody along to get this wreck off the road."

I collapse into the passenger seat of her little car, and she drives off, already on her phone.

"Yeah, this location. Move fast, we need it off the road."

She turns to me. "What were you doing?"

"Driving to Philadelphia to get a suit for this stupid rally." I sigh. "Then here come the Barbarian Brothers on motorcycles and Jedediah and Clem in a pickup trying to f*cking kill me."

"Clem isn't an Amish name."

"Whatever! They're not real Amish anyway. Amish don't cook meth and kill people."

"What do you want to do? Where's Alexis?"

"Out running errands for my father. Jesus, Jennifer. He tried to kill me."

"Call her, tell her to meet us at the park. Do it."

My head feels like it's stuffed with pencil erasers, but I do as she says. Alexis doesn't argue with me, thank God.

Jennifer drives us to the park and we step out, walk through the wrought iron gates and head down the path. Alexis comes jogging up and throws her arms, and then her legs, around me, almost bowling me over.