Since it was early morning by then, he might assume she’d go toward the restaurant where she worked. Penny steered clear of that end of town.
She wasn’t going to work. She was going home. Done with LA, she had no desire to stay or ever return to California. Her heart and soul belonged in Montana.
Without her cell phone, she had no GPS to guide her. As soon as she could, she pulled into a truck stop and bought a paper map of the city and an atlas with all the states and major highways.
She had every intention of driving all nineteen hours straight through, only stopping for gas, food and bathroom breaks.
After seventeen hours on the road, she stopped at a truck stop just short of Bozeman, Montana, to get fuel one more time before driving the rest of the way along the curvy, deserted highways of the Crazy Mountains heading toward Eagle Rock.
She’d been standing in line to pay for snacks she’d collected when the woman behind her asked, “Headed to Bozeman?”
Penny nodded. “Going through Bozeman to Eagle Rock.”
“Oh, really? Me too,” the woman said. “We still have a way to go.”
“Yes, we do.” Penny gave her a tired smile. “It’s been a long day.”
“Maybe we’ll see each other on the road.” The lady gave her a commiserating tilt of her lips. “Safe travels.”
Penny carried her bag out to her car.
The woman who’d spoken to her left the truck stop, climbed into an SUV and drove away, waving a hand as she passed Penny.
As Penny drove through Bozeman, tears welled in her eyes. She’d gone to college at Montana State University in Bozeman for a year before she’d left to follow Derek to LA. Where would she have been now if she’d stayed in college? She would have finished school and gotten a job as an accountant if she’d followed the degree plan she’d mapped out for herself. She was good with numbers. Hopefully, she could go back to school.
But first things first, she wanted to go home to Eagle Rock. She’d had a life and friends in there.
Because of her hectic work schedule, she hadn’t had time to nurture any friendships. And Derek had demanded her time when they’d both been home.
Penny couldn’t wait to get back to Eagle Rock to see her mom and dad and the friends she loved as much as sisters.
Her heart swelled, and more tears welled in her eyes.
Several miles outside of Bozeman, she slowed as she entered the curvy roads leading into the Crazy Mountains. Not long after traversing the winding road, she rounded a bend. An SUV was pulled to the side of the road with the hood up. The woman she’d seen at the truck stop stood beside the vehicle, waving her hands.
Penny didn’t like stopping on the lonely road at night, but the woman was alone and obviously experiencing engine trouble. The least she could do was to offer her a ride into Eagle Rock. Especially since they were headed the same direction.
She pulled up alongside the stranded SUV and rolled down the passenger window.
The woman leaned in, her lips twisting. “I don’t know what happened. The engine just stopped working. I got out and opened the hood, but I don’t know anything about how the thing works or how to fix what’s wrong to get me where I need to go.”
“I can get you there,” Penny assured her. “Hop in.” She hit the unlock button.
The woman closed the SUV’s hood, reached inside the driver’s side for her purse then closed the door. She climbed into Penny’s passenger seat and gave her a weak smile. “I really appreciate the ride.”
“No problem,” Penny held out her hand. “My name’s Penny.”
The stranger shook her hand. “I’m Linda. Nice to meet you.”
“Where are you going in Eagle Rock?” Penny asked as she shifted into drive and drove away from the SUV. “I probably know where it is. I grew up in Eagle Rock.”
“Actually, I’m not going all the way to Eagle Rock. There’s a turnoff a few miles further,” Linda said.
Penny glanced in her rearview mirror and frowned. Linda’s vehicle had moved into the road behind Penny’s car. “What the— Isn’t that you’re SUV?”
Linda glanced in her side mirror. “Dang. It sure looks like it.” Her lips quirked upward, and her eyes narrowed as she reached into her purse and pulled out a gun.
Penny’s heart flipped, and her foot lifted from the accelerator. “What the hell?”
“Keep moving, or I’ll shoot you,” Linda said.
Penny had thought she’d left a bad situation in LA. Surviving her ex-boyfriend’s anger ranked right up there with the gun pointed her direction. But she had a bad feeling that her life might just get a whole lot worse.
Chapter 1
Eight months later…
* * *
Joe “Judge” Smith scratched at his beard and pulled his NRA ball cap low on his forehead. The cap, the beard, the gun rack and rifle hanging in the back window of his pickup, along with the white supremacists’ stickers on his bumper were all part of his disguise as he drove through Whitefish, Montana.
Former US Army Delta Force operator, he’d left the military killing and combat situations behind. Or so he’d thought. He’d gone to Eagle Rock, Montana to start a new life with a team of like-minded former military who only wanted to build things with their hands.
They’d hired on as a construction crew, renovating the Lucky Lady Lodge for Molly and Parker Bailey. In the process of restoring the lodge, they’d been involved in one incident after the other where their combat skills had come in handy to protect others and themselves.
Hank Patterson had wanted to hire them for his security agency, the Brotherhood Protectors, but the five men of the Lucky Lady renovation team had politely refused. Yet, here Judge was, back in the thick of the action.
His current mission was to find the new location of remnants of the group calling themselves The Chosen Way, after members of his team and the Brotherhood Protectors had stormed their recruiting and training grounds. They’d freed individuals who’d been brainwashed and trained as soldiers or assassins and captured or killed the leaders who’d been responsible for kidnapping young people to staff their army.
Despite the intelligence they’d gathered, they hadn’t been successful in finding the main man in charge. To stop the practice of abducting innocent young men and women, they needed to find their leader and take him out.
Liza Gray, a young mother, and her daughter had escaped one of the camps with the help of a woman who went by the name, PJ. She hadn’t been among the people captured. They wanted to find and help her, if possible.
They’d also uncovered information about a young woman named Penny Baker, a friend of Molly’s, who’d gone missing months ago on her way home from LA. Her name was noted in The Chosen Way’s master list of recruits.
With the grand reopening of the Lucky Lady Lodge looming and members of The Chosen Way still loose and willing to create more havoc, they’d decided to send out a scout to find the group before they caused more trouble. Only they didn’t want to send members of the Brotherhood Protectors as they’d made such a name for themselves that Hank was afraid they’d be recognized too quickly.