New York Times bestseller Allison Brennan’s latest standalone is an unputdownable race to the dramatic finish.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Allison Brennan’s North of Nowhere, which is out August 8th.
After five years in hiding from their murderous father, the day Kristin and Ryan McIntyre have been dreading has arrived: Boyd McIntyre, head of a Los Angeles crime family, has at last tracked his kids to a small Montana town and is minutes away from kidnapping them. They barely escape in a small plane, but gunfire hits the fuel line. The pilot, a man who has been raising them as his own, manages to crash land in the middle of the Montana wilderness. The siblings hike deep into the woods, searching desperately for safety—unaware of the severity of the approaching storm.
Boyd’s sister Ruby left Los Angeles for the Army years ago, cutting off contact in order to help keep her niece and nephew safe and free from the horrors of the McIntyre clan. So when she gets an emergency call that the plane has gone down with the kids inside, she drops everything to try save them.
As the storm builds, Ruby isn’t the only person looking for them. Boyd has hired an expert tracker to find and bring them home. And rancher Nick Lorenzo, who knows these mountains better than anyone and doesn’t understand why the kids are running, is on their trail too.
But there is a greater threat to Kristen and Ryan out there. More volatile than the incoming blizzard, more dangerous than the family they ran from or the natural predators they could encounter. Who finds them first could determine if they live or die. . .
He woke Kristen at five-thirty, as soon as he returned from his morning recon. She sat bolt upright, her hand reaching for her nightstand where he’d taught her to store her weapon. His chest tightened. He’d trained his sixteen-year-old daughter to be a fighter.
She’s not your daughter.
“Plan B, baby,” he said.
She stared at him, fully awake, fists clenched. What kid woke up alert and ready to fight?
She didn’t ask questions, she didn’t argue. Five years in hiding, and she still knew that hesitation could mean death. Or worse.
Silently, Kris swung her feet over the bed and slipped on her sturdiest boots. She slept in sweats and a tank top, even in the cold; she pulled on a thermal shirt then a school sweatshirt. She played soccer for her high school, the Bobcats. Green and gold, like her eyes.
Just like her aunt Ruby.
Just like her murderous father.
It was cold; the air damp, the sky gray. Snow would be here tonight, if not sooner. But if Plan B worked, they’d be sequestered in a remote cabin no one knew about, more than three hundred miles from Big Sky, with enough food and wood to last them all winter if necessary, until they could disappear again.
Confident that Kris knew what to do, Tony went to saddle the horses. As soon as Tony didn’t show up for work this morning, the men would report to Boyd. Tony wondered why Boyd hadn’t shown up here already—certainly, if he had men in town, he knew where Tony lived.
Except, Boyd wouldn’t want the kids to see him kill Tony. If Boyd wanted the kids to go with him willingly, he would have to convince them that Tony was the bad guy, much harder to do if he was murdered in front of them. If Tony had been the one planning this snatch and grab, he would grab the kids on their way to school. Safer that way for all involved, and less likely that there would be witnesses.
That was probably Boyd’s plan. Grab the kids, then kill Tony quietly, out of their sight.
His fists clenched and Leader, his gelding, whinnied. Tony soothed him, tried to keep himself calm. If he panicked, the kids would sense it just as sure as the horse did.
Once Tony didn’t show up as expected at Triple Pine, Boyd would know Tony had spotted his people and he’d come here, to the house. The only way to access the property was from a narrow, half-mile-long gravel driveway off a remote two-lane road. In the five years Tony had lived in Big Sky, he’d learned every trail and path that cars could not travel, even more important when dealing with a city boy like Boyd and his crew. Now he had to use that advantage to maximum effect.
Stay and fight.
He wanted to. Damn, he wanted to make his stand here, where he knew the area. Where he could set a trap and draw Boyd away from his bodyguards. Where he could push a knife into his chest and watch him die, fully aware that Tony was the one to kill him.
And why.
He let out a long, deep breath. He hadn’t killed anyone in five years. He’d promised himself, for the sake of Maggie’s kids, that his killing days were over. But the idea of ending Boyd McIntyre gave him a rush, a warm feeling of satisfaction.
Though Plan B was workable, he’d much have preferred Plan A—driving from Big Sky to Bozeman, trading vehicles, then heading the back way to Kalispell. It would be faster, safer, to hide until they could disappear again. He’d do anything to protect Kris and Ryan.
Anything.
Even kill again.
He had to assume Boyd had people on the roads; they would know his truck and any truck he had access to at the ranch. They could already be watching the house, but certainly the main road. Though the single access road was good for security, it was bad now that he needed to escape. So Plan B.
Once the kids were safe, he’d call their aunt Ruby. She had already sacrificed so much for the kids, he didn’t want to ask her for anything, but she would help. She would help because she understood the stakes and, like him, would do anything to protect Kris and Ryan.
Ruby had been so angry when he cut off ties. He had no other choice. It wasn’t about trust, it was about everyone’s safety. Ruby, Kris, Ryan. Even if Ruby never consciously told Boyd or Frankie where he’d taken the kids, she might slip up. They’d found her fiancé Trevor, who had attempted to help. His murder was a warning—to him, to Ruby, to anyone who tried to stop the McIntyre organization.
Tony shoved his emotions to the back of his mind. He couldn’t do his job if he thought about the past, his rage, his mistakes. Because he’d made a lot of mistakes.
Plan B: Steal his boss’s twin prop and fly to Ennis. As the crow flies, from take-off to landing, would be fifteen, twenty minutes tops. Land in a field, steal a car, and head to the cabin outside Kalispell, near the Canadian border, swapping out cars along the way. Same endgame, different path. Time wasn’t on his side—he had to get out of here before Boyd arrived, but he couldn’t take off for an hour, at sunrise.
He soothed the horses again. They’d picked up on his primal need to fight.
“I know, boy. This is a bad situation.” He ran his fingers along Leader’s mane and whispered in his ear, calming himself as much as the horse. As soon as Leader was calm, the other two quickly fell into line. He brought the three horses out of the stable and loosely tied them to the rail, then went back inside their small cabin to get the kids. They didn’t have any more time. He wanted to be in the air before Boyd ever found out they’d run.
He grabbed his bag, double-checked his gun, then put it into his holster. He’d trained Kris how to shoot; this was Montana. No one batted an eye when they went target shooting or hunting in rural America.
It was a lot different shooting a person instead of a buck.
Tony knew it.
Kristen knew it.
He stepped into Ryan’s room. Kris had her bag over her shoulders and was helping her brother with his.
Tony squatted in front of Ryan. He signed, “Help your sister, okay? Do what she says and I’ll see you soon.”
Ryan was a month shy of eleven. He was a smart kid, but he was still a kid. Tony never thought of Ryan as being handicapped. He couldn’t hear, so what? His other senses were better than most hearing folks, which helped him make up for the silence he lived in. But today, it could hurt him. Today, not hearing a warning could get his son killed.
He’s not your son.
Ryan hugged him. A simple gesture. Tony wasn’t an emotional man, but his eyes heated and he had to blink rapidly to stay in control.
Ryan signed, “I love you, Dad.”
I love you too, kid. More than you can know.
Tony turned to Kris and said, “You good?”
She nodded, checked her gun, and spoke behind Ryan’s back, where he couldn’t read her lips. “He comes near me or Ryan, I’ll kill him.”
“Don’t think that, Kris.”
He didn’t want her to have to kill another person. Not ever again, if he could help it.
Especially not her father. She thought she could handle it, but Tony knew different. Killing a man to save someone was a world apart from killing your father, the man you once believed could walk on water and fix any problem. It would tear her apart and she’d bury the pain so far down she wouldn’t survive. She’d already suffered so much in her short life.
She stared him in the eyes, didn’t blink. “I hate him.”
“Do what I told you, understand?” He didn’t want to get angry with her, but if she went off, blinded by revenge, it would ruin the plan. The plan was to get them safe. They couldn’t do anything with a target on their back.
“Yes, sir,” she said, teeth clenched, and started to turn away.
He grabbed her arm, forced her to again look him in the eye. “I swear to God, Kristen, if you engage Boyd now, he will win. You and Ryan will be on the road back to Los Angeles so fast your head will spin. Get to the plane and wait, understood?”
She nodded, a hint of fear in her eyes. He had never hurt her on purpose. He’d trained her, and she had the bruises to prove it. But the training was to keep her safe, to prepare her to take care of her brother if he wasn’t here.
But Kristen McIntyre Reed knew exactly who Tony was, and she should fear him. That she didn’t bothered him . . . and made him proud.
“Go,” he ordered. “Now.”
Kristen gave him an odd look—almost a challenge, as if she wasn’t going to obey. Or that she knew something that he didn’t. Then it was gone. She grabbed Ryan’s hand and ran out of the house without looking back.
***
Tony hadn’t noticed anyone following them, but he wasn’t taking chances.
“Kris, start the plane, pull it out of the hangar.” He tossed her the padlock keys. He’d made copies two years ago, when he started taking the plane out alone, and developed this backup plan if the McIntyres ever found him. “Check the gauges, I’ll be there in a minute.”
Kristen had been flying many times. His boss, Nick Lorenzo, had taken to Kris and given her a few lessons, said she was a natural. Tony knew Lorenzo had a sad story in his past—he’d heard through the longtime ranch hands that he’d lost his wife and younger son in some sort of tragic accident a decade ago—but he’d never asked the details, and Lorenzo had never offered.
Tony tied the horses to a pipe rising from the ground on the edge of the airstrip. It wasn’t much of an airport—no lights, no staff, just a couple of metal hangars that locals used. Rich folks who flew into Big Sky, mostly to ski at the resort or go hunting, used the main airstrip to the south with full-time staff and fueling services.
Tony had taken Lorenzo’s plane out last week and knew the tank was more than half full, so he wouldn’t have a problem getting to Ennis. Twenty-two miles as the crow flies. Should be a piece of cake.
Except for the winter storm warning, which troubled him. Visibility sucked, but at least the light had begun to creep over the horizon. He should be okay for the next hour, even with the gray skies, and they’d would be on the ground in Ennis long before any snow fell.
Ryan was tapping him repeatedly on the shoulder.
After putting on his pack, Tony finally turned and signed, “What?”
“The horses will die here,” Ryan signed. “You have to let them go.”
“They’ll die in the wild. It’s going to snow today.”
Ryan stared at him, his large brown eyes imploring him. Ryan had Maggie’s brown eyes. Warm, thoughtful, kind. Tony loved this kid more than his own life.
And Ryan was right. If something happened and he couldn’t call Lorenzo when they reached Ennis, the horses might be stuck here for days, maybe weeks. They wouldn’t survive.
“Get in the plane, I’ll call Mr. Lorenzo, okay?”
“You broke our phones.”
He pulled a burner phone from his pocket. “Untraceable,” he said and Ryan smiled. The kid could read lips as well as he understood sign language.
He signed, “Thank you,” then ran to the hangar.
Tony knew he shouldn’t do this, but it would take Kris a few minutes to warm up the plane, and Lorenzo was fifteen minutes from the hangar even if he drove like a bat out of hell.
Tony didn’t want to betray his employer who’d been very good to him for the last five years, but these kids were more important. He dialed his boss’s house phone. It was after six-thirty now, but Lorenzo was always up before the sun.
Two rings later. “Lorenzo.”
“It’s Tony.”
“Yep.”
“I’m borrowing your plane. It’s an emergency, I’ll call you when I land and tell you where you can pick it up. My horses are at the airstrip and I don’t want to leave them overnight.”
“Wait, Tony. What happened? Can I help?”
“I’m sorry.”
He couldn’t tell him the truth, not just because Tony was a fugitive, but because knowing too much could put Lorenzo and his family at risk. “My kids are in danger. I have to go.” He folded the small phone. Lorenzo was a good man and more, he loved horses. He would retrieve them. He might call the police or the FAA or whatever entity dealt with stolen planes, but by the time anyone acted, they’d be so far away no one would be able to trace him.
He watched as Kris rolled the plane out of the hangar. His eyes clouded, an odd mix of love and pain. He’d put a lot on her shoulders in the last five years. She’d grown from eleven to thirty overnight, it seemed.
She’s a McIntyre. She’s always been an old soul.
As if that explained everything. Deep down, Tony knew that it did, in part. He’d known with Ruby, Kristen’s aunt, that there was something different about her. Stronger. Better.
Kristen, the same. Except for the rage that flowed through her, she was so much like her aunt.
Ruby had felt such rage once. She had learned to control it.
Kris steered the plane over to where he stood near one end of the runway, turned, stopped, and slid over to the copilot’s seat. Ryan was sitting in the back, still looking at the horses, a frown marring his face. Sometimes Tony thought Ryan loved horses more than people.
Tony didn’t blame him.
The plane was so loud that he saw the truck speeding up the road before he heard the engine.
He couldn’t imagine that Boyd had found him so quickly—then he saw a police car behind the truck, lights flashing, another car behind that.
Boyd must have paid off one of the deputies. There was a corrupt cop in every town, even a place as small and tight as Big Sky. Tony should have anticipated it.
Tony ran to the plane and jumped into the pilot seat. “Buckle up now.”
He accelerated as fast as the plane would allow while simultaneously checking the gauges. Fuel, heading, oil—he should be good. It would be a very short flight to Ennis.
Because Kris had already started the engines and the plane had begun to warm, he picked up speed quickly, but it wasn’t like a sports car; he couldn’t go zero to sixty in six seconds.
Kristen said, “It’s Boyd, isn’t it?”
“He found us faster than I thought.” His boss hadn’t turned him in. Even if Boyd had been standing right next to Lorenzo when he called, he couldn’t have gotten here this fast.
He glanced over his shoulder. The truck was pulling up beside the plane. Tony punched it, willed the plane to gain speed. He had to be going fast enough to clear the trees at the far end of the short runway. The air was thick, wispy clouds floating around them. Visibility was bad, but not zero. Behind him, the increasing light from the rising sun helped.
He could make it. Focus on the trees, make sure he could lift high enough to clear them.
Focus, Tony. Control the plane, don’t let the plane control you.
Then he saw Boyd in the passenger seat of the truck, window down, a handgun in his grasp.
Idiot! No, no, no!
“Down!” he shouted. Kristen motioned for Ryan to get down because she knew that Tony had to keep his hands on the yoke.
He glanced to the left. Boyd was waving at him to stop the plane, a fierce look on his face. He fired at the body of the plane. What the fuck did he think he was doing?
Tony needed more speed before he could lift off the ground. He couldn’t imagine Boyd shooting at his own kids.
He just wants you to stop. He’ll kill you, take the kids.
His window shattered and pain hit him hard in his bicep. He couldn’t hear anything over the twin prop’s engines and tried to keep his head down while also making sure he could see over the controls. A warning shot. Boyd wouldn’t kill his kids. In his own twisted way, he loved Kristen and Ryan. At least, Tony had never believed Boyd would hurt them—until now, when he was shooting at them.
Suddenly, a rapid ping of bullets on metal startled him, the sound echoing. Immediately, Tony felt a burn in his chest. He’d been hit again, this time worse than the first. He bit back a scream as he worked the pedals, outpacing Boyd. Did Boyd think that shooting at the plane would make him stop and surrender? Except . . . he’d already passed Boyd in the truck, left him behind. These last bullets didn’t come from Boyd; they came from somewhere else, beyond the truck, in or on top of one of the hangars. Tony couldn’t take the time to look for the source, the end of the runway was imminent.
“Dad, you’re bleeding,” Kris said, her voice cracking in fear.
Tony glanced out the shattered window in the direction he thought the volley of bullets had come from. He glimpsed a man on the roof of the larger hangar. Was he with Boyd? All Tony could make out was that the man wore a dark hoodie; he couldn’t see his face and only had a vague sense of a lean build.
He pulled up on the yoke. The wheels of the plane cleared the trees and he breathed easier.
