Where was she supposed to stay? She hadn't seen a hotel or bed-and-breakfast in town. Not that she could afford one.
Behind her, she heard Cord's voice as he spoke to Rick in low tones.
Outside the window, someone was coming up the sidewalk. A man. Tall. She couldn't make out his features in the haze of ice and the glare of the streetlight right behind him, but something in the way he moved...
Cord said something. He sounded closer, but she couldn't tear her gaze away from the man getting closer to the hardware store with each step.
Panic coiled in her belly, and she froze.
Fight or flight?
Flight—
Someone touched her elbow, and she reacted by instinct, shoving away the touch. She raised frantic eyes and saw Cord back up a step.
"What…?" he started to ask.
She couldn't breathe.
She had to get out of there. She had to run.
And then she was out of time as the man on the sidewalk pushed through the door and stepped inside the store.
She shouldered into Cord, trying to escape, before she registered that the stranger was at least two decades older than Toby and looked nothing like him.
It wasn't Toby.
Not Toby.
Not Toby.
Her heartbeat seemed to pound the words into her skull. She couldn't stop trembling.
"Molly." Cord's voice shook her out of the haze of panic and confusion. "You all right?"
Molly gulped a breath so big it must've burned her lungs, but Cord didn't think that was why her eyes were bright with tears.
The guy who'd entered the hardware store—the guy who'd spooked her—barely gave them a glance before he approached the counter and moved out of their line of sight.
"I need to—" Molly gasped the words as if she couldn't quite breathe. And then she fled, running out the door into the icy wind.
Like a stupid sap, he followed her. Same way he'd followed her into the store. The closer they'd gotten to town, the more jumpy she'd been. The way she'd darted glances up and down the street after she’d gotten out of the truck...
He'd been trying to distance himself from her for almost twenty-four hours, but the truth was, he could see she was in trouble. He'd wanted to make sure she was taken care of. He'd wanted to make sure the store could help her with the part.
What he'd witnessed was worse than the fear he remembered as a boy. She'd been in an all-out panic attack. One that made him forget everything he'd just heard from the bank manager about Mackie's mortgage.
He followed Molly outside in time to see her dart toward the front end of his truck. A blue sedan was approaching from the east, going a little too fast for the layer of ice that was covering the street.
Molly looked as if she was going to run past his truck and right out in front of the car.
He shouted her name.
She threw a glance over her shoulder, and he witnessed the pure fear in her eyes. No trace of self-preservation there, no awareness of the oncoming car.
He bolted after her, catching her arm just before she ran into the street.
"Molly!" He backed her against the side of his truck and could feel it as she huddled into herself, making herself as small as possible. Her face was white, her eyes big and unseeing. Every breath rattled her chest as if she couldn't get enough air.
"Mol. Hey."
He shook her a little, but she only trembled in his arms, still struggling for breath.
Could she even hear him? Or was she stuck in her own head? Stuck in that bad place, seeing whatever or whoever had caused this?
"It's Cord." His voice was too rough but it couldn't be helped. "I'm here. I've got you."
She took a shuddering breath.
And then she folded against him, keening slightly. With his palm flat on her back he could feel how bony her spine was. He'd thought she was slender, but this was...
She’d served him breakfast. Had he actually seen her eat?
He couldn't stand it and he cupped the back of her head. What had happened to her?
"You're safe," he whispered.
The keening noise stopped, but she shook her head tightly.
She wasn't safe.
His mind spun.
"Is it safe on the No Name?"
A slight nod. Oh, the irony. He'd spent many nights huddled in his bed, frightened of Mackie and what she might do.
Am I safe? He didn't utter the words.
What was he supposed to do now?
She wasn't his problem, even if she was trembling in his arms.
He didn't need this. Didn't need a complication like her, not with the ranch weighing on him.
But he couldn't walk away.
"Do you want to go back to the ranch?"
Another slight nod.
He helped her into the truck, still vacillating. He wasn't qualified to handle somebody with obvious trauma in her recent past. He didn't know anyone he could call. And her truck was still stranded on his land.
He got behind the wheel and started the truck, cranking up the heat.
She didn't look at him.
He didn't have to decide right this second. Maybe if they could get her truck fixed, he could take her somewhere else safe.
He turned the truck toward home.
She was silent the entire twenty-minute ride to the ranch, staring out her window.
Once, he saw her raise one hand to wipe her cheek.
She wasn't outright crying, and maybe that was something to worry about. Was keeping everything inside the wrong thing to do?
He itched to ask her what had happened, who she was running from.
But there was a big part of him that didn't want to know. If he didn't know, he didn't have to be involved.
Except a tiny voice in the back of his head kept telling him he was already involved. Already in over his head.
6
Cord stared out the front window to where Molly had the hood up on her truck. She'd asked permission to borrow the battered toolbox
