Free Dawn Stewardson by Five Is Enough

decided that going on to Dead Head would be the better choice.
    Grabbing her purse, she got out of the car, locked it, and started in the direction of town. She’d only gone about a hundred yards, though, before she heard a car coming down the road behind her.
    Fervently hoping it was the Good Samaritan and not the serial killer, she stopped and looked back. What she was hearing actually proved to be an old pickup truck covered with more brown rust than black paint.
    When it pulled up beside her, her heart began beating faster. The two men in the cab were in their early thirties and muscular, with greasy long hair. Neither was wearing a shirt, and for a moment she couldn’t help wondering if they were completely naked—a couple of Adirondack nudists.
    They looked, though, more like they might be escapees from the nearest maximum-security prison than residents of a nudist colony. In fact, one of their faces… She wasn’t sure, but she thought she might have seen it one night while she was channel surfing—on a segment of “America’s Most Wanted.”
    “Hey, darlin’,” the passenger said, leaning his head and bare shoulder far enough out the window that she could smell beer on his breath. “That your Mercedes back there?”
    She nodded, telling herself to relax. She didn’t necessarily have reason to panic.
    “Problem with it, darlin’? Want us to take a look under the hood?”
    For an instant, she considered saying she’d intentionally parked it back there and had some good reason for hiking down the road. When she couldn’t think of any reason that was plausible, though, she simply managed a smile and said, “Thanks, but I just ran out of gas.”
    “Oh, so you need a lift to town,” the driver said. Then he belched and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.
    “Well…no. Thanks again, but I enjoy walking.”
    The passenger’s gaze drifted down to her feet, then started slowly up her legs. When it finally got all the way up to her face, he smiled.
    That made her more nervous yet. In Manhattan, the only time a stranger ever smiled at you was when he wanted something. And she was afraid to even think about what this fellow might want.
    “Darlin’,” he said, “town’s over two miles from here. You won’t enjoy walkin’ that far in those high heels. So why don’t you just slide on in with us? We won’t hurt you none, will we, Roy.”
    The driver shook his head. “You got nothing to worry about from me an’ Snake.”
    Snake? Her heart began beating faster yet. She’d been right about the prison. Surely only criminals were ever called Snake, which meant that getting into that truck with them would go far beyond any little error in judgment.
    Before she could think of what to say next, she spotted a minivan heading down the road and began praying there was a white knight driving it.
    When it pulled up behind the truck, she saw Sully was driving. That certainly dashed her hopes about any white knight, but under the circumstances she was more than happy to settle for him.
    Not surprisingly, the first thing he did was glare at her through the windshield—before he even opened his door. But this time she didn’t care. As long as he got her away from these men, he could feel free to glare at her all the way to the gas station.
    He climbed out of the van and nodded to the two in the truck, saying, “Hey, Roy. Snake.”
    Of course. Sully knew these felons.
    “Hey, Sully,” they greeted him.
    “Let’s go,” he said to Lauren.
    “Lady a friend of yours?” Roy asked him.
    “Something like that.”
    “We were tryin’ to help her out,” Snake said. “But I guess she didn’t like the looks of us.”
    Sully laughed. “No wonder. You two really need cleaning up at the end of the day. Roy and Snake,” he added, glancing at Lauren, “build houses.”
    “Or whatever else needs buildin’,” Snake said.
    Lauren cleared her throat uncomfortably. Just because Snake and Roy weren’t suits, she