It was a relief when Clay found her again.
“Dance?” he asked, holding out his hand.
She looked up into his laughing blue eyes and was mightily tempted, if only for the sake of feeling a part of the gathering. Finally shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Come on. Your long skirt will hide the monitor cuff, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
That had been the point of the matchstick skirt in rich turquoise and burgundy, of course, one that Pop Benedict had bought for her at the local discount store. She didn’t remember ever wearing anything quite so thoroughly noncouturier in her life, or anything she appreciated more. Still, she shook her head. “It wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“Who cares for that? Fun belongs to everybody.” He reached to help her to her feet. “We’ll stay out here in the hall, if you’d rather.”
How could she refuse in the face of such logic? In any case, she didn’t want to, not really. She longed to feel a part of the day, the moment and the family in some fashion, at least for a few minutes. It was ridiculous, but she couldn’t help it. She put her hand in Clay’s and let him pull her to her feet.
He danced well, but she’d never expected anything else. Anyone who played and sang as he did had to have music in his soul. She complimented him on his earlier performance, and watched in bemusement as his face shaded with color. That he wasn’t blasé about such things was a part of his charm, however, and she liked him better for it.
They moved to the music of a Texas-style waltz only a few seconds, however, when someone tapped Clay on the shoulder. Tory looked up to see Luke waiting expectantly.
“Oh, come on,” Clay protested as he came to a stop. “Go dance with your wife, for Pete’s sake!”
“I did that,” Luke said as he stepped between them and encircled Tory’s waist with a long arm. “And now she’s dancing with Pop, the man of the hour.”
“Fine,” Clay warned. “I’m going to go get in line.”
Luke only laughed and whirled Tory away. After a moment, however, he glanced down at her. “I hope you don’t mind. I couldn’t let Clay monopolize the woman of the hour.”
“Hardly that,” Tory said in dry correction as she looked up at April’s husband. “I feel more like the ghost at the banquet.”
“And a gorgeous one, too—I’m speaking, you understand, as an objective, and very much married, bystander.”
“Understood,” she said with some amusement for his worry that she might take the compliment personally.
“Not that April would ever be jealous, since she knows she has no cause. Roan, on the other hand, is a different story.”
He had her sudden and complete attention. “Did he send you to separate me from Clay?”
“Not exactly. It was my idea, since I’d rather not see two of my favorite cousins tie up and fight.”
Tory was growing a little tired of this preoccupation with her relationship with Roan. “If your cousin is concerned, it’s probably because he’s afraid I’ll talk Clay into helping me escape.”
“And would you?”
“Why not?” she asked, drawing back enough to meet his dark eyes.
“Consideration? Gratitude?”
“Because Roan took me into his home? I didn’t ask him to do it. Not that it matters. I doubt Clay would ever go against him.”
Luke’s smile held approval. “Smart of you. Which leads me to the interesting conclusion that Roan must be obtuse where you’re concerned, or else he’s putting himself in Clay’s place and none too certain he could resist.”
“I don’t see that at all,” she said in flat denial. “He’s just covering all the bases.”
Luke tilted is head. “That’s possible, knowing Roan. But I doubt it.”
The best answer she could make to that was a dignified silence. Before the quiet between them could grow too strained, there was a movement behind her. A man spoke above her head. “My turn, Cousin. You’ve been dancing with the lady long enough.”
It was Kane, whom Roan mentioned more often than the others since they both worked at the courthouse.
“It’s the same damn—excuse me—darned, waltz,” Luke said in exasperation.
“Sorry. Sheriff’s orders.”
Luke gave Tory a crooked smile as he relinquished her. “See what I told you?”
She still held to her own opinion as to Roan’s reasoning, but returned his smile anyway. Even she could see that the situation had its droll aspect.
The music ended just then. A slow ballad began, a crooning tune about a cowboy falling in love with the sound of a woman’s voice. “Much better,” Kane said as he moved into the dance. “Now, which would you prefer? Shall I be discreet or fan the flames?”
“I’m not sure you have a choice,” she said without pretending to misunderstand him. “Surely Roan trusts you, of all people.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? I mean, if Regina doesn’t present me with a son and heir in the middle of this party it will be a miracle. But I still have orders to keep it clean and make sure you turn into a wallflower again before too long.”
A slow tide of anger began to rise in Tory. “The nerve of that man! If he doesn’t want other people dancing with me, why doesn’t he ask me himself?”
“He’s somewhat occupied with His Honor the mayor, or I’m sure he would.”
She hadn’t noticed, not that she’d have recognized the official in any case. “How is that? According to Jake, they’re barely on speaking terms.”
“Seems the men with the gambling consortium swept into town without advance warning, so the big parade from the airport to Turn-Coupe that His Honor had planned came to nothing. Roan was asked to provide a police escort, understand, but had more or less refused to have any part of it. The mayor is convinced Roan either knew the men were coming and failed to sound a warning, or else he dropped the ball by not knowing.”
“This gambling consortium,” she said, her voice tight, “how many men are involved? That is, how many are here?”
“A couple, I think. They checked into the motel about noon, so Betsy tells me. That’s a cousin of ours who owns the motel and convenience—but I was forgetting. You know about her, don’t you?”
“We met, so to speak,” she said in distraction, hardly registering the apologetic smile Kane directed at her. Her thoughts were chaotic, a confusion of fears and impulses. If the men from the gambling consortium were here, that meant Harrell could be in Turn-Coupe already. Her time had run out.
Or had it? Maybe he wasn’t here because of the report by Zits and Big Ears. Maybe he’d been coming anyway because of the gambling operation, which was why the two crooks had brought her to Louisiana in the first place. Maybe he had no idea that she had been injured and was in custody, so she was panicking for nothing.
At that moment, the front door swung open, letting in a blast of hot summer air. The late arrival was brash and beaming as she greeted everyone in sight, laughing as she made her excuses about being late. A pleasingly plump woman with streaked blond hair, she looked very different from the last time Tory had seen her behind the counter of her convenience store, passing over cash from the register with both hands. Then she turned to usher inside the man who mounted the steps behind her, saying something about a guest at the motel who’d been at loose ends on a hot Sunday afternoon.
The guest was Harrell Melanka.
15
Roan was preoccupied. He’d been short enough with the mayor that the man had stalked off in a snit. Now he allowed a mild baseball argument to flow back and forth around him without notice. He was off duty today and responsible for no one’s welfare. It was a welcome change, or would have been if he could avoid thoughts of Donna and what she was doing, who was with her and what they were saying.
God, but she stayed with him. He couldn’t make a decision worth carrying out, couldn’t sleep or eat for thinking of her. The hot love they’d made in the barn haunted him; the need to go
to her, to have her, to hold her against him in the night was so strong he shook with the effort to suppress it.
He couldn’t give in. She was his prisoner, a woman under his protection. He’d been guilty of forgetting that once, and must not do it again. It went against everything he believed about the cool, unemotional exercise of his duty as a law officer. It condemned him in his own eyes as a man who took advantage of his position to enjoy the favors of a woman who had little defense against it. It made him the kind of dishonorable lowlife that he most despised.
And yet, the memory of Donna’s surrender was as warm and delicious as the cobbler she’d made, and as tempting. They blended together so closely in his mind until the mere thought of blackberries could make him ache with need for her. He couldn’t take the taste of them anymore; he’d learned that much today. They could be off his list for good.
The sound of a commotion brought his head up. It came from near the front door, where he’d last seen Donna. He’d put Kane in temporary charge, but his cousin had other concerns just now with Regina so near her due date. Roan started toward the noise.
Donna stood near the doorway in frozen immobility while Cousin Betsy introduced a newcomer. The man with her was well-dressed and urbanely self-assured, with the vapid good looks of a male model. He glanced around and saw Donna, and his mouth dropped open in a parody of shock.
“Tory!” he exclaimed, starting forward with his arms outstretched. “God, but what are you doing here?”
Triumph shafted through Roan. At last he was going to find out the real identity of his Donna Doe. Hard on the heels of that realization came something close to dismay as he saw all too well that it meant an end to having her at Dog Trot.
He transferred his gaze to Donna. Her face was as white as the sleeveless blouse she wore, and her eyes appeared wide and empty. It was plain she knew the smooth dandy, but she stepped away from his embrace, putting up a hand to ward off his approach.
Roan moved forward, barely noticing the friends and relatives who whispered among themselves even as they gave way for him. Infusing his voice with every ounce of authority he possessed, he asked, “What’s going on here? Is there a problem?”
“Roan, thank goodness,” Betsy exclaimed. “I didn’t mean to upset anybody, or cause a to-do. But when Mr. Melanka said he’d never seen a country homecoming, of course I invited him along. I mean, it just seemed neighborly.”
“Melanka?”
“Harrell Melanka, staying at the motel. He’s from Florida, with the—”
“Gaming consortium,” Roan finished for her, his voice grim.
“That’s right,” Melanka said with a lift of his chin. “And you might be?”
Betsy gave a loud laugh, a sign of her discomfort. “Oh, Harrell, this is our host I’ve been telling you about, Sheriff Roan Benedict.”
To offer his hand was an engrained response for Roan. It was also a test. A man with the kind of quiet self-confidence that mattered had a firm, brief grip. He didn’t feel the need to impose his strength on others or to make a contest of a simple greeting. Roan made a mental bet that Melanka wasn’t that kind of man, and he was right. His handshake was too hardy and too hard. He was trying to prove something, but Roan wasn’t impressed.
As he stepped back again, he said, “You know my prisoner?”
“Prisoner?” The other man’s frown drew his brows together over his cosmetically straight nose.
“The lady you called…Tory.” It was amazing how hard it was to make himself say the name.
“If she’s your prisoner, there’s some mistake,” Melanka replied, his voice hardening as he took an aggressive step closer. “She’s Victoria Molina-Vandergraff, stepdaughter of industrialist Paul Vandergraff, and the hereditary Princess de Trentalara of Italy. She’s also my fiancée.”
Roan felt as if he’d taken a hard right to the stomach. For a long second, he couldn’t breathe for the clutching pain in his chest. He’d known that the woman he’d called Donna must have another life somewhere else, but he’d never dreamed of that kind of background. It was transparently clear that nothing and no one in Turn-Coupe could ever hold her now, least of all him.
“Ex-fiancée,” she said.
That cold correction was made by his prisoner. It didn’t exactly make Roan’s heart bleed, though he had no intention of asking himself why. It was enough that he could drag air into his lungs again.
Then she turned her head in his direction. He met her soft hazel gaze, so defensive yet aware, and knew at once that he’d been right all along, that there had never been a moment when she hadn’t known exactly who she was and what she was doing.
“Victoria.” He tried the name in his mind, and was surprised to discover that he’d spoken aloud.
“Tory,” she said. “The people I know best call me Tory.”
“Good Lord, Tory,” Melanka said. “Don’t tell me you’ve been hiding out under another name? I don’t know what kind of game you’ve been playing with these good people, but it’s over. Let’s go home.”
She gave him only a fraction of her attention. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m certainly not going anywhere with you.”
“I know you were a little upset with me, darling, but I promise that’s all behind us.”
“Not for me, it isn’t.”
It was time, Roan thought, to introduce the new arrival to the reality of the situation. “Excuse me,” he said in neutral politeness. “But the lady is still in my custody. I’ll say where she goes, and when.”
“Is that right?” Melanka asked on a short laugh. “When I let Paul Vandergraff know his daughter is being held in some Podunk town instead of sunning herself on the Riviera like he thinks, he’ll have so many lawyers slapping you with writs and injunctions you’ll feel like a punching bag.”
“That’s his privilege, but I should warn you that it may only ensure that formal charges are pushed forward so she’s put under lock and key.”
“No formal charges?” Melanka said, picking up on the one point Roan would just as soon he’d have missed. “What are you trying to pull? Seems Mrs. North mentioned some tale about you and your prisoner, a woman you’d shot, even if I didn’t know it was Tory at the time. If it’s true, damn you, I’ll not only get Tory away from you, but I’ll see you stripped of your badge and run out of office.”
Roan gave a short laugh. “You’re welcome to try. But let me get this straight. You’re so concerned about your so-called fiancée’s welfare that you’re threatening court action, but she’s been missing for weeks and you’re just now discovering she was gone?”
“You don’t know Tory. She does things like this, running off without a word to anyone. Then it blows over and we’re back to square one.”
“That’s not true!” Tory exclaimed. “At least…I may take off now and then, but I know my own mind.”
Was that what she’d been doing with the petty thieves who’d hit Betsy’s store, Roan wondered, running away with them as a way of getting back at her fiancé? Roan didn’t like to think so, but it seemed to fit. At the same time, he had nothing but contempt for a man who would publicly brand someone he was supposed to care about as that spoiled and irresponsible.
“She claims she was kidnapped,” he said deliberately. “I don’t suppose you can shed any light on that?”
“Does it seem likely?” Melanka asked with a pained expression.
“You’re saying it’s not possible then?”
“I’m saying I don’t know a thing about it!”
“Or about the robbery committed while she was with the men who are supposed to have abducted her?”
“Give me a break. Why in hell would she want to rob some penny-ante store when she has an annual income in the high six figures from her mother’s estate? Does that make sense?”
“Penny-ante?” Betsy cried, even as he spoke. Behind her, somebody whistled, an admiring salute to such a hefty income.
“So no one has reported her disappearance,
you or this Vandergraff?”
“Obviously,” Melanka drawled.
That explained why he’d found no description on the police network, at least. “And that doesn’t strike you as strange?”
“You have to know her.”
Melanka was using condescension to try to make Roan look and feel like a fool. That only worked, Roan knew, if he allowed it, and he wasn’t in the mood. “On the other hand, it could be that you didn’t know because the lady’s right, you’re no longer in the picture.”
Melanka seemed to consider, then gave a judicious nod. “I’m sure it may look that way. But the fact is, Sheriff, that you and I both know how this is going to turn out. Save yourself a lot of grief and just turn her over to me. I’ll take her home and her stepdad can handle it from there.”
“No!” Tory stepped to where he stood, and put her hand on his arm. “Please, Roan.”
“You heard her. She doesn’t want to go with you. That’s the end of it, as far as I’m concerned. Now, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Melanka turned to the woman beside Roan. “Tory, honey, this has gone far enough, don’t you think? I know we had our differences, but come on, now. Let me take you home where you belong. You don’t even have to talk to me if you don’t want. Once we’re back in Florida, everything will be fine. You’ll see.”
“No,” Tory said again, her voice tight.
“That’s it,” Roan said, moving toward the other man.
Abruptly, Melanka leaped to grab Tory’s left wrist and jerk her toward the door. She cried out and clutched her injured shoulder.
Something snapped inside Roan. He sprang at the ex-fiancé, fastened hard fingers on his arm so he released Tory. Then Roan landed a hard right to the man’s too handsome chin.
Melanka staggered back out through the front doorway, stumbled, regained his feet. Rage twisted his face. He lunged forward again. Roan met him, blocked his wild punch, and then connected with another smashing right. The other man grunted as he spun around with the force of the blow. He went down with a thud that rattled the porch floor and lay stunned.
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