The Sheriff’s Christmas Surprise

by Marie Ferrarella

  Sheriff Hudson pulled up his sagging khaki trousers, mumbling something about the weight of the gun belt dragging them down, and gestured for Rick and Olivia to follow him out of the office.

  “Doc Moore’s got ’im on ice, so to speak.” He looked over his shoulder at Olivia. “Didn’t know what else to do with him. Nobody to claim him until you came along,” he told her. “First dead stranger we’ve had in these parts in a decade or so. ’Fore my time, anyway. I can take you to the car after you see him,” he volunteered. “Harry towed it to his shop. Not that it can be fixed,” he confided. “But Harry figures maybe some of the parts can be salvaged. Unless you want the car, of course,” he qualified. Slanting a glance in her direction.

  “No, Harry can have it,” she assured Josh, freely giving up any claim to her sister’s car. “I just need to check out the glove compartment.”

  She wanted to make sure she had the registration and insurance information before the car was stripped down. Someone in the family had to be practical, she thought. And the job always fell to her.

  “Sure thing,” Josh said cheerfully.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  Hudson beamed. Turning to his other side, he slanted a look toward Rick, as if to silently call attention to the fact that the woman had just thanked him. They didn’t often see a woman as classy as this one.

  “Hey, no problem,” Josh assured her.

  It occurred to Olivia that this man was the last one to have seen her sister. Any details he could volunteer were more than welcomed. She needed something to cling to, to fuel those so-called optimistic thoughts that Santiago kept pushing.

  “And my sister?” she asked. “What can you tell me about her?”

  “She was bleeding pretty badly,” Hudson said. “But she was definitely breathing. I checked. The ambulance from Pine Ridge came right quick enough and the medical guys took her to the hospital there. Doc Moore said she was pretty banged up, but he thought that she’d make it if they got her to the hospital in time.” There was sympathy in Hudson’s eyes as he concluded, “Dunno any more than that.”

  His small eyes shifted from her to Rick and then back again.

  “We appreciate the information, Josh,” Rick told the older man when Olivia said nothing.

  Rick could see that she was having trouble dealing with all this and wordlessly placed his hand to the small of her back, silently communicating his support. In response, he felt her stiffen against his palm, but she didn’t pull away.

  Rick thought of it as progress.

  “I’LL LEAVE YOU alone with him,” Dr. Evan Moore volunteered after introductions and explanations had been made.

  Olivia raised her eyes to the friendly physician. She appreciated his thoughtful gesture, but there was no need for it. She shook her head.

  “No need, Doctor. I’ve seen all I need to see.” And what she needed to see was that the man who had all but literally destroyed her sister’s life was truly dead. He couldn’t hurt Tina—or Bobby—anymore. And for that she was truly grateful. “Thank you,” she added belatedly. With that, she turned away from the body on the table and walked away.

  The doctor’s next question stopped her in her tracks. “What do you want me to do with the body?”

  Olivia set her mouth grimly. She supposed telling the man to feel free to cut Don’s lifeless body up for fish food sounded a little too harsh. But there was absolutely no way she intended to go through the time and expense—not to mention mental distress—of having Don’s body transported back to Dallas. She wanted him permanently flushed out of Tina’s life—and as far away as possible. She’d figure out what to tell Tina later.

  “Bury him,” Olivia instructed tersely. Turning around, she placed one of her business cards on a nearby table. “Send the bill to me at this address. I’ll mail you a check.”

  “Maybe you could give the doc a partial payment?” Rick suggested tactfully. “As a sign of good faith. Times are hard,” he reminded her.

  He was right, but she couldn’t help resenting it. She should have thought of that herself. She didn’t like having her shortcomings pointed out to her.

  Wordlessly, without looking in Rick’s direction, she took out her checkbook and wrote a check for five hundred dollars. Tearing it off, she crossed back to the doctor and handed it to him.

  “If that’s not enough,” she told him, “let me know. I’ll send you the rest.” And then, as if reading the man’s mind, she added, “Nothing fancy. He doesn’t deserve it.”

  The doctor nodded knowingly. “Nothing fancy,” he echoed. He put the check and his hands deep into the pockets of his lab coat. “Consider it taken care of, Miss Blayne.”

  Before making their way back to Hudson’s office, the older sheriff took them to the town’s only garage to see what was left of Tina’s car.

  The air in Olivia’s lungs backed up when she first saw the wreckage. The entire front end was pushed in, looking like a crumpled accordion. Seeing it, she couldn’t understand how her sister hadn’t met the same fate as Don. Or how either one of them had managed to avoid becoming one with the twisted metal.

  “You okay?” Rick asked.

  She nodded numbly, not trusting her voice to answer him.

  The glove compartment door had been knocked off and she could see some things inside the narrowed space. Olivia took out the papers she needed and tucked them into her purse.

  All she wanted now was to leave this behind her and see Tina.

  “Can we get going now, please?” she asked Rick.

  “Absolutely.” There was no reason to stay any longer. He’d already exchanged a few words with Josh and satisfied himself that the other man had relayed all the details of the accident. As they passed Josh’s office, Rick said with a grin, “You can get back to that dream you were having, Josh.”

  “Got a better one in mind now, Santiago,” Hudson told him, staring unabashedly at the woman his fellow sheriff had brought with him.

  Rick didn’t have to guess the subject of the other sheriff’s new dream. His grin widened.

  The grin remained even as he got back into his car. Olivia was already inside, buckled up and ready to go. When she saw Rick’s expression, she couldn’t help questioning it.

  “What?”

  Rick started up the car and pulled out. “Nothing,” he said, diminishing its importance. Then, because she continued watching him, he said, “Josh’s got something new to dream about.”

  Olivia sighed. The man talked in riddles, giving her bits and pieces instead of a whole answer. What little patience she had was all but gone. “What?”

  “You.”

  He got a kick out of saying that, even though he had a feeling it wasn’t being received in the same spirit. The woman needed to learn how to laugh at herself. How to lighten up a little bit.

  “Unlike Forever, Beaumont doesn’t get all that many people passing through,” he said. “It’s usually a while between new faces.”

  From what she’d seen, the town looked to be the size of a postage stamp. And it was off the beaten path, which was probably why Don had chosen to pass through it on the way to who-knew-where. She had no doubt that the town enjoyed very little variety. One day, most likely, was pretty much like another.

  “How do they stand it?” she asked.

  Not only did the good people of Beaumont “stand it,” they seemed to thrive on it, he observed. “They find ways to entertain themselves. I suspect they’ll be talking about your sister and her boyfriend and the accident for some time to come.”

  Olivia couldn’t imagine a life like that. Couldn’t imagine submitting to it willingly. She suppressed a shiver that threatened to dart down her spine.

  “The boredom would kill me.”

  Rick laughed. “Everybody’s gotta die of something.” He spared her a long, appreciative glance. “You look like you’d be pretty hearty to me.”

  Just how deeply had this man analyzed her? And why? She wanted to ask, to have
him explain himself and what he meant by some of the things he’d said. But she told herself not to go there. Knowing would only lead to more dialogue and, just possibly, more insight into the man in the driver’s seat. She didn’t want more insight; she just wanted to find Tina and get the hell out of Dodge, or, in this case, Forever.

  Olivia shifted restlessly. “How much farther is it to Pine Ridge?”

  He did a quick calculation, glancing at his odometer. “Ten miles as the crow flies.”

  That would be a straight line. Almost nothing worked out to be a straight line when it came to traveling. Paths were always comprised of twists and turns. “And if the crow is driving a sheriff’s car?”

  He grinned. “Depends on whether or not he can reach the gas pedal.” He saw that his response aggravated her. The lady had a short fuse. He wondered if she erupted for other reasons as well.

  Why was he thinking about that? He hadn’t had those kinds of thoughts, or questions, since his fiancée had died a week before their wedding. Why now?

  “Same amount,” he finally told her. “The land’s flat.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” Olivia cracked.

  The monotony of the road was enough to put a driver to sleep, she thought. Was that what happened? Had Don fallen asleep behind the wheel and crashed into the utility pole?

  She needed answers.

  “I doubt if there’s very much you don’t notice, Olivia,” Rick commented without looking in her direction.

  As a trial lawyer, she’d learned to question everything, to hold everything suspect. Nothing was ever taken at face value, which was both her loss and her strength.

  “Trying to flatter me, Sheriff?”

  Someone else might have taken offense at that, but he didn’t. “Calling it the way I see it, that’s all. Besides,” he pointed out, “in case it hasn’t occurred to you, there’s nothing to be gained by flattering you, Olivia.”

  Impatience ate away at her. Theirs was the only vehicle on the road. And he was going just under sixty. What was the purpose of staying under the speed limit out here?

  “Can this thing go any faster?” she asked shortly.

  “It can,” he replied, continuing to drive at the same speed.

  You would think the man could take a hint, she thought, her frustration growing. “In this lifetime?” she prodded.

  He glanced in her direction. “Are you asking me to speed?”

  Was everything black and white for this man? She hadn’t thought that men like Rick Santiago still existed. Law-abiding to a damn fault.

  “I’m asking you to get to the hospital before I start collecting social security checks.”

  “Don’t worry, your sister’s stable.”

  She frowned. “More positive thinking?” Olivia asked sarcastically.

  He made no comment about her tone, simply said what he felt she needed to know. “Just before we left for Beaumont, when I went into the office, I had Alma call Pine Ridge Memorial and ask about your sister.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?” she demanded.

  She had that edge to her voice again, he noted. “I thought I just did.”

  “I mean sooner,” she stressed.

  He lifted the shoulder closer to her in a half shrug. “If I did, you might’ve thought I was making it up just to get you to calm down.”

  She supposed that he had a point, but if she followed that line of reasoning, why had he picked now to tell her? “And now?”

  “Now we’re pretty much almost there. It’ll help you hang on for the last leg of the trip.” He paused, debating. But she would find out this part, too. She might as well be prepared for it. “There is one thing, though.”

  Olivia braced herself. “What?”

  “According to the hospital, your sister hasn’t regained consciousness yet.”

  “She’s in a coma?” Olivia cried incredulously. All she could think of was that some people never woke up from a coma. “Why didn’t you at least tell me that sooner?” she demanded.

  “Because it would upset you—just like it’s doing now,” he said. “And I figured you had enough to deal with.”

  She began getting a claustrophobic feeling. “So you decided to appoint yourself my guardian?” she demanded.

  He sounded as low-key as she was uptight. “Just trying to help,” he told her mildly.

  “I don’t need any help,” Olivia snapped.

  He shrugged, letting her declaration slide. “Whatever you say.”

  She took a deep breath, struggling for control. Struggling to keep from feeling overwhelmed. God, but she wished there was someone to turn to. But there hadn’t been anyone there for her for more than ten years now.

  She should be used to this by now, used to soldiering on alone. And, for the most part, she was. But that didn’t make times like this any easier. And it didn’t keep her from longing, every once in a while, for a handy pair of shoulders to lean on….

  And what’s the sheriff? Chopped liver? He just tried to help and instead of thanking him, you bit his head off and handed it to him.

  Taking another deep breath, she let it out slowly, then glanced in the sheriff’s direction. She turned her face forward before she spoke. “I’m sorry, I do appreciate everything you’re doing, Sheriff. I didn’t mean to lose my temper.”

  Yeah, you did, he thought, but he left that unsaid. “Apology accepted,” he told her. “By the way, that’s Pine Ridge just up ahead.”

  A sense of excitement and foreboding mingled inside her as Olivia sat up straighter, straining to get her first glimpse of Pine Ridge. With any luck, maybe her sister had come out of the coma and she could take her back home.

  Startled, she realized that Santiago’s optimism was infectious after all.

  Chapter Eight

  For a relatively small town—Olivia judged that it was perhaps a shade or two larger than Forever—Pine Ridge’s hospital was surprisingly modern in appearance. The inside of the building looked fresh and crisp, as if it had been recently renovated. Two storied, it boasted of “over eighty beds,” six of which were dedicated to the intensive care unit.

  The ICU was where the attending physician, a general surgeon named Dr. Owen Baker, had placed her sister after he and another surgeon had finished operating on Tina for close to five hours.

  Feeling increasingly agitated and stressed, Olivia forced herself to let Rick take over. He was the one who approached the woman at the admissions registration desk to ask about her sister. She knew that had she been more clearheaded, she would have resented his acting on her behalf. But now a part of her was grateful to him.

  Dr. Baker had to be paged more than once before he finally came to the ICU area to speak to them. Or rather, to her, Olivia silently amended since she sincerely doubted that Santiago was even mildly interested in her sister’s condition, despite his disclaimer about taking a personal interest in the people he found himself dealing with.

  Narrating a quick synopsis for them—the six-foot-four, prematurely gray surgeon was obviously anxious to be on his way—Dr. Baker concluded by saying, “And now we just have to wait and see. It’s out of our hands. We’ve done everything humanly possible for your sister.”

  She wanted to ask if he was referring specifically to himself and the other surgeon, or lumping together the staff as well. And was he thus stepping away from the situation, leaving it “in God’s hands,” the catchall phrase she felt people used to absolve themselves of any guilt.

  Personally, she had decided at her parents’ funeral that God had better things to do than to dabble in her life. Whatever happened to her—and to Tina—was on her, and she was the one responsible for their lives.

  And how’s that working out for you?

  She wanted to ask Baker more questions, to ask him how well he and the other surgeon fared in their surgeries. Were they usually successful? But questions like that often sounded bitter and, at the very least, antagonistic. It would have sounded as if she was taking out
her helpless frustration on the surgeon when the man had probably done his best.

  She wanted to get back to familiar ground, take Tina home.

  “I’d like to take my sister back to Dallas. Can she be moved?” Olivia asked, fully expecting the man to say yes.

  Maybe it came off sounding condescending, but there were top surgeons in Dallas. No doubt any one of them was better equipped to help Tina than a doctor in this one-and-a-half-horse town.

  To her surprise, Dr. Baker shook his head and said firmly, “Absolutely not—unless your goal is to kill your sister. She’s definitely not strong enough to be moved. There were serious internal injuries. She has several cracked ribs, we barely saved her right lung, her liver was badly bruised and we had to remove her spleen—among other things.”

  She could feel Rick watching her. He probably thought she was crazy, too. It didn’t matter. She just wanted what was best for Tina, what would give her sister the best chance at recovery.

  “Even by helicopter?” Olivia pressed, determined to get Tina the best of care, not have her sister languish here.

  A half smile curved the surgeon’s thin lips. “Not even by a transporter beam.”

  Great, the man’s a science fiction aficionado. Just the quality she was looking for in a physician. “When can I move her?” she asked, not bothering to bite back her impatience.

  “When she gets stronger,” Baker answered simply, then glanced at his watch.

  She knew that was for her benefit, but she still had questions. “And when do you think that’ll be?”

  “A few days, a week, a month—”

  “A month?” Olivia echoed incredulously, staring at the man.

  Dr. Baker seemed unmoved by her distress. “Everyone gets well at their own pace.” His pager went off and he looked relieved to be able to turn his attention away from his patient’s pushy sister. “Sorry, I really have to get back to the emergency room. I should have been back there already,” Baker said.

  Not waiting for her to say anything further, Tina’s surgeon turned on his heel and hurried away. He nodded at Rick before he left.