Justice Burning (Hellfire #2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

hell had to start acting like it. “Put me down. I can manage.”
    “The hell you can.” He juggled her body and opened the back door to the SUV, setting her on the seat. Then he pointed a finger. “Stay.” Before she could respond, he turned toward the rear of the vehicle and opened the hatch.
    “I’m not a dog,” Phoebe grumbled. Just like her father, the deputy had given her a command and expected her to follow it. If she weren’t bleeding and barefoot, she’d get her ass out of the back of Grayson’s vehicle and march right out of his life. But she was bleeding…and barefoot. As Grayson appeared, Phoebe’s stomach rumbled loudly. And hungry.
    It didn’t seem possible, but the deputy’s frown deepened. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”
    Phoebe didn’t want to think about food. She had a dead fiancé in the trunk of a stolen car. An even louder burble sounded from her belly. Pressing a hand to the tight wedding dress, she shrugged. “Yesterday evening at the rehearsal dinner,” she answered, although she hadn’t really touched the expensive filet mignon the chef prepared for her and the rest of her bridal party.
    Sitting at the table with Ryan on one side and her father on the other, her mother across the table from her, laughing and flirting with one of her father’s business partners, Phoebe had experienced a wave of panic. Her stomach knotted and her hands clenched in her lap. She was marrying a man her father had selected. A man she’d dated and kissed several times, but she really didn’t know. How had she let this happen?
    “Hey, it’s not all that bad. Just a little cut.” Deputy Grayson glanced up from the first-aid kit he laid on the ground.
    Phoebe bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling. So much for being tough and independent. “I’m okay. Really.”
    “Trying to convince me?” He glanced up, his mouth quirking upward on one corner. “Or yourself?”
    She laughed, though it sounded more like a sob. “Ever have one of those days that goes wrong in so many ways your head spins?”
    He snorted. “As a sheriff’s deputy and a ranch owner, yes. More often than you can imagine.”
    Phoebe stared down at the top of his cowboy hat as he bent to open the first aid kit. “You own a ranch?”
    He nodded, extracting an alcohol prep pad. “My brothers and I own a ranch close to town. We run cattle and horses.”
    “And you’re a deputy?”
    He shrugged and tore open the packet. “I like to keep busy since coming home from the war.” He lifted her foot in one of his big hands and studied the cut. “I don’t see anything embedded in the wound.”
    Phoebe wiggled her toes. “I can’t feel any.”
    “This might sting a little.” He touched the alcohol-soaked pad to the pad of her toe.
    A sharp flash of pain ripped through her toe. Phoebe instinctively gasped and jerked back her foot.
    Grayson held her foot firmly in his hand and waited for her to relax. “Ready?”
    She braced herself and nodded. “Just do it.”
    He cleaned the wound and applied a sterile bandage. Then he tucked her into the back of the vehicle. “Let’s find some shoes, before you cut another toe.” He closed the door, effectively locking her in the SUV.
    Phoebe sat in the back seat, her foot and leg tingling from the deputy’s gentle touch. Shoes, clothes and then she had to find a way to get out of Hellfire. The deputy was proving to be far too attractive. For a woman who should have been married by now, she was having highly inappropriate thoughts about a virtual stranger.
    The handsome deputy stowed the kit in the back of the vehicle and climbed into the driver’s seat. Without a word, he drove a couple blocks, turned and parked in front of another building.
    Phoebe grabbed the door handle and tried to open it, remembering at the last minute it was locked.
    He opened it. Instead of backing away to let her get out on her own, he bent and lifted her into his arms.
    Rather than argue,