Shielded by the Lawman

by Dana Nussio

Without another word, she started into the hall and took an immediate right toward the restrooms.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Jamie said, as soon as the older gentleman turned back to him.

  “Oh, that?” His gaze shifted to the spot where Jamie and Sarah had been making out only a few moments before. “Well, don’t make a habit of it, okay?”

  Jamie cleared his throat. “Oh. We won’t.”

  “Let’s not repeat the other thing, either.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You know. All the calls. The tears.”

  Oh, right. Her boss had thought he and Sarah had been arguing. Jamie couldn’t explain his mistake without giving other details, so he told the part of the truth he could tell. “I won’t.”

  “Sarah’s a gem,” Ted continued, crossing his arms. “I think of her as a daughter. She and that boy of hers deserve wonderful things. I hope you have good intentions...”

  Jamie’s cheeks burned as the man stared him down, evaluating, warning. Like the next best thing to the father Sarah had lost.

  “The best intentions. I promise.” They might not be speaking about the same things, at least for now, but Jamie meant every word.

  Ted nodded, appearing satisfied.

  “If you’re planning to join your friends, you might want to head out the back door and come in through the front again. Like I said before, nobody’s business, though you might want to stop by the men’s room on the way out, too.”

  Did he look as disheveled as Sarah had?

  “Oh. Okay. Thanks.” Jamie slid around him and stepped into the hall.

  “And Trooper Donovan?” Ted waited until Jamie glanced back at him once more. “Good for you.”

  Chapter 22

  “You sure you have everything you need?”

  Sarah had already asked her houseguest that question but couldn’t resist posing it again. From the safe distance of the kitchen. Where she was too far away to touch him. She couldn’t keep a clear head if she fell into his arms again, and she needed to think tonight. About sweet Tonya. About monsters who reached out in the night. And about the confession she had to make to the police in a few hours.

  “I’m fine. Again.” Jamie fluffed his pillow and pulled up the blanket that he’d folding in half like a sleeping bag. “You’re the perfect hostess.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to open the bed? It’s right inside the couch you’re on.”

  “That’s okay,” he said in a strained voice. “Thanks for the reminder, though.”

  “Sorry.”

  Sarah’s face heated. Leave it to her to make a clumsy comment about him sleeping in her bed when they’d been blissfully together in his fourteen hours before. Even if that truth had been on her mind since he’d offered to stay at her place for extra protection in case Michael showed up.

  “It’s fine. You should get some rest. I probably wouldn’t have gotten much sleep before, but now I’ll be wide-awake and guarding my post all night.”

  That made two of them, except for the post part. How could she sleep when so much emotional upheaval had been squeezed into one day? After a sunrise of freedom in Jamie’s arms had turned to a sunset of possible captivity and separation from her son. And after tonight’s glimmer of hope peeked through her afternoon of despair.

  Jamie loved her. Why his confession emerged from the tangle of so many significant events and discoveries, she wasn’t sure, but it still shamed her. It didn’t matter that she loved him, too, and that she’d begun to imagine a future with him and Aiden, where they could all live together without fear. How could she think of her own happiness today of all days?

  “You never told me what Aiden said when you let him know I would be staying on your sofa and you would be taking the top bunk in his room.”

  “You think I told him either of those things? He would still be awake now if I had.” She shot a look at the bedroom door and found it still safely closed. “Also, I would have had to explain why.”

  “You’re going to need to tell him something, especially about tomorrow.” He lifted his arm and used his other hand to flick the light on his watch. “I meant later this morning.”

  She swallowed. “I’ll figure out something. But remember, you have to be out of here in the morning, so I can send him off to school and get to work. Ted will pick me up. Then you can meet me at the diner after the morning rush.”

  “I know. I still don’t see why you’re going to work tomorrow morning. They can survive one morning without you.”

  “The cinnamon rolls. The customers expect them.” That it might be her last chance to make them for Casey’s clientele could also have had something to do with it, but she didn’t share that part.

  Jamie nodded, though he clearly didn’t understand her insistence on keeping the schedule as normal as possible on a day that would be anything but. She didn’t want to analyze it herself.

  “One more thing,” he said. “I wanted to apologize again for that text at work. I was just worried about you staying alone tonight.”

  He held his hands wide, his trademark grin appearing on his face. “Bad timing, I know. Anyway, I felt terrible when you dropped that tray.”

  “No big deal. Only two plates.” She lifted her shoulder and lowered it. “I was already jumpy, serving the officers at your table after...you know. I also don’t usually receive texts from guests at one of my tables.”

  “We were just glad the only plates that bit the dust were Vinnie’s and Dion’s and not ours.”

  “Glad I could help out. At least Ted didn’t fire me. I gave him enough reasons to today.”

  “Fire you? I think he wants to adopt you.”

  “Oh, no.” She squinted and pinched the bridge of her nose. “What did he say to you after I left?”

  “He just wanted to make sure I had your best interests at heart. I assured him that I do.”

  Their gazes caught and held in a way they never had before. Where they’d been using conversation to fill the vacuum in the room, now it seemed unnecessary. Unwanted even.

  Just fifteen steps. She blinked as the calculation appeared in her thoughts, but that was exactly how much effort it would take for her to reach him now. Just one good-night kiss. That was all she needed.

  Her lips lifted of their own accord. Who was she kidding? If she hadn’t been able to stop with one kiss from Jamie so far, she had no chance of pulling away from him tonight. On a night when her heart ached with the loss of her friend and her skin craved the warmth of his touch, if only to prove she was still alive.

  “Um, Sarah...”

  As his words broke the silence, she blinked, her head shifting. “Yeah?”

  “I need you to stop looking at me that way and to go into that bedroom and shut the door.” He cleared his throat. “And once you’re in there, I’ll stick my head in the freezer to cool off.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “And like I said, get some sleep. Everything’s going to be fine. I’ll make sure you and Aiden are safe.”

  It took more strength than she knew she had to slip inside the bedroom instead of going to him, despite his request, but soon a door separated them. She stood with her hand on the knob for a few seconds, both to get her bearings in the room, lit only by moonlight, and to catch her breath. Then she started up the ladder at the end of the bunk bed. The wood creaked when she was halfway up, but Aiden didn’t even turn over.

  Once she was under the covers, she finally allowed herself to replay Jamie’s promise in her thoughts. He would keep them safe. The strange thing was that she believed him. She could trust him with their lives just as she’d entrusted him with the delicate care of her body. She could even rest if she wanted to, knowing that Jamie had the situation under control and would do whatever was necessary to protect them. Including putting himself in danger.

  But how cou
ld she let him? Didn’t she already have enough blood on her hands after her best friend had risked her life...and lost it? Could she live with herself if something happened to Jamie while he was trying to protect them?

  No, she couldn’t, and she also couldn’t let him take that chance.

  Now the pieces of the puzzle that had eluded her since she’d first agreed to go to the police with him appeared in the darkness, the peninsulas and gulfs of their shapes clicking easily into place. Because she loved him, she couldn’t go to the police with him. She couldn’t make him Michael’s target.

  She had to run again. Without Jamie. It couldn’t matter that he would never understand. That he would believe she’d run to save herself from a prison sentence, though that was only a small part of it. She couldn’t let someone else she loved risk his life for her and Aiden. She couldn’t, and she wouldn’t.

  Her decision made, Sarah nodded into the darkness. If only the image of Michael squeezing the life from her friend hadn’t appeared in her thoughts, cutting off her own breath. She shivered as she stared up at the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets on the ceiling. She refused to let panic overwhelm her this time. She needed a second plan, one that didn’t involve Jamie, but it surprised her to realize she’d been forming it in her mind all night. Her determination to work in the morning had been just part of it.

  Jamie had been right about one thing: Michael would never give up looking for them. He would keep coming after her with his bastardization of love. The kind that destroyed and maimed. But Jamie’s other prediction, that she would have to keep running forever—he was wrong about that.

  She was tired. Of running. Of being afraid. Of blaming herself for mistakes she’d made a lifetime ago. She couldn’t do it anymore. This time if Michael caught up with them, she would stop him from getting to Aiden, even if she had to kill him herself.

  * * *

  The scents of cinnamon and yeast bread that wafted from the oven as Sarah pulled out the first batch made her stomach roll. Maybe it hadn’t been the greatest idea to insist on keeping the morning schedule the same, even if she’d needed Jamie to go home to shower so she could pack the two bags that would be the only possessions she and Aiden took with them. At least he’d bought her theory that Michael was too smart to come after her in broad daylight.

  She managed to slide the trays into the cooling racks without dropping them, then and rushed into the ladies’ room to slap water on her face. She closed her eyes and waited for the nausea to pass.

  Feeling a little better, she started back to the kitchen, only to have Ted call out from the office as she passed. “Hey, you okay?”

  She turned back and leaned in the doorway. He sat next to the desktop computer where she’d been researching intercity bus schedules, stations and ticket-purchase sites an hour before.

  “I’m fine.”

  “And you’re still sure you want to go through with all this?”

  She wiped her face with a paper towel and met his gaze steadily. “I am. Are you? Because if you don’t want to do it, I can just take a cab to the bus station.”

  “Clear to downtown Detroit? You don’t have the money for that.”

  Since they’d already planned a stop at one of the few locations where travelers without credit cards could pay cash for bus tickets, she appreciated that he didn’t mention using a shared-ride service.

  “I can still figure out something.”

  “No, I’ll take you...if that’s what you want.”

  “It’s what I want.”

  “So, you just want me to pick up Aiden at school and then swing by to pick up you and the bags at your apartment?”

  They’d already been over the details twice, but she nodded, anyway. If only there was an uncomplicated way for someone without a car to catch a bus out of Brighton, when all the major bus stops were more than forty miles away. She should have realized how trapped they would be when she’d settled in the small Detroit suburb.

  “Glad I’ll get to see my little buddy before you go. Maybe the two of you will come back and visit sometime.”

  She smiled, her throat feeling thick. Saying goodbye to her friend would be almost as tough as leaving Jamie. Her chest ached over the quick kiss she and Jamie had shared as he’d slipped out her apartment door that morning. He’d promised her that he’d see her in a few hours. She’d known the truth.

  “Sure you don’t want to go with me to the school?”

  “I still need to take care of a few things at home.”

  It was also best that no one see her and Aiden leaving the school together, but she didn’t add that.

  “What are you running from, Sarah? You’ve been running the whole time I’ve known you.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t ask, Ted. The less you know, the better.”

  “Then why don’t you let Trooper Donovan help you? I’ve seen the way that young man looks at you. And after what I saw in here yesterday, well...”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “It must be. Otherwise, why would you leave the guy who’s finally put a sparkle in your eyes? And made you drop a whole tray for the first time ever.”

  At that, her eyes filled with something besides sparks, but she forced a smile anyway. “He told me you were giving him the third-degree last night.”

  “I just want what’s best for you. I believe that the trooper wants that, as well. That boy’s in love with you, and I would say the feeling’s mutual. You know how lucky you are to find that?”

  She did. That was the problem. But she couldn’t think about that now, couldn’t wonder what it would have been like if she’d met him when she was free to love him the way he deserved.

  “Can we not talk about this? Look, I want good things for Jamie, too. All good things. That’s why he can’t know where I’m going.”

  “Are you going to tell me where?”

  “No. I love you too much for that.” She pointed down the hall. “Now let me get back to those cinnamon rolls and that pie, so we can get out of here before...well, before customers come clamoring for them.”

  She hurried away before he could ask more questions. Before she told him something that might put him in danger.

  She went through motions of making more yeast dough and giving it time to rise before treating it to the magic of butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. She would miss this and all the people she’d met while living this ordinary, wonderful life, even for a little while. Jamie, Ted, Nadia. Even fellow workers like Marilyn, Léon and Marty.

  Later, when all this was over, and she and Aiden had safely vanished again, this time in a big city like Atlanta, she would allow herself a few minutes to mourn all she’d lost.

  Chapter 23

  This was taking too long. The words repeated in her head in the rhythm of her footsteps as she hurried the last block to Heatherby Elementary School. She was supposed to wait for them at the apartment. That was her plan. She knew better than to change it at the last minute.

  The bags were ready by the door, two bus tickets from Detroit to Atlanta tucked in the outside pocket of hers, but something just wasn’t right. She’d felt it from the moment she’d gone to her bookshelf to pack her precious family photo album and found it missing. When she hadn’t been able to find it, other possibilities had slipped into her thoughts. Could Jamie have taken it? Had someone else come into her apartment?

  Neither of those ideas made any more sense than her impulse to call Jamie with her worries, when she had no right now that she’d left him. Then Ted had been running a few minutes late, and here she was, showing up like a cavalry officer who’d lost her horse.

  There were plenty of reasons they would be running behind, anyway. Maybe something had happened at the diner, forcing Ted to pop back over there. Or maybe school officials had caused the delay by questioning Ted’s authority to pick up Aiden, even though his
name was on Aiden’s emergency card.

  Both of those were at least more reasonable than her theories about the missing photo album, but only when she reached the school parking lot could she release the breath she’d been holding. Ted’s sedan was parked in one of the guest spots, just as it should have been. If they moved quickly, they would arrive in Detroit with even enough time to grab lunch before their three o’clock departure.

  The car was there, but the two of them were nowhere in sight. No one was entering or exiting through the main entrance, and even the playground was deserted, so the students couldn’t be just coming in from recess. She started toward the school entrance, anxious to solve the mystery.

  But movement in her peripheral vision drew her attention, and her stomach dropped as she caught sight of the two men wrestling a man and a boy into the open sliding door of a white cargo van. Then the child—her child—screamed.

  “Aiden!” The name felt as if it had been ripped from her soul. “Ted! Let them go!”

  Both men, one of them so familiar, looked back at her from outside the van. The distraction gave Ted the chance to shock the other guy with an uppercut, which he paid for when the man returned a knife-hand strike to his throat that dropped him to the ground.

  Sarah sprinted toward them on shaky legs, seeming to make no progress, as though she was running through sludge. Her heart felt like it was trying to punch its way out of her chest. But she had to reach them. Her son. Her friend. She had to stop those men before—

  Her mind froze as the man from her nightmares stepped out from between two of the other cars and right into her path. She tried to stop, but the momentum was her enemy as she smacked into Michael’s chest. She recoiled as the pungent scent of unwashed male invaded her nostrils. She tried to hold back a scream, but a muffled wail escaped her anyway.

  “Honey, I’m home.”

  “But my friend. My son...”

  Using both hands, she pushed against his chest so that she could see past him, but he was wider than he’d been when they were married. He only tightened his hold on her back. Always stronger than her. Even stronger now.