by Lora Leigh
“Damn,” he muttered. “I never knew Robert to be so fucking cruel.”
“Oh, he wasn’t cruel, and you know it,” she assured him. “Just forgetful sometimes. And I hadn’t been home on my birthday since I was nine. It was the first time they forgot.”
“But it wasn’t the last, was it?”
Crossing Second Street, they passed a café and took the shortcut through a narrow alleyway to Third and Corbin Streets.
“No, it wasn’t the last time,” she agreed. “A few days before, a few days after. A couple of times, it was like three weeks before my birthday.”
His fingers rubbed at the small of her back consolingly.
“I’m sorry.”
Anna shook her head, a mirthless grin tilting her lips. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot the last few days. I told Amelia I didn’t make friends, but I did. A few. Not the kind of friends you exchange cards and stuff with, but if I called, I think they would talk to me.”
“I have no doubt they would, Anna,” he sighed. “But you were meant to have friends. You’re too open and generous. I have no doubt you have more friends than you know.”
“Well, little Callie Brock next door seems to like me okay,” she admitted with a grin. “But I think she just wants an invite to the patio. Everyone is way too curious about that hidden patio, Archer.”
She glanced up at him in time to catch his smirk.
“Dad always thought it was funny as hell. The woods border the back of the house, the street on the side of the patio. It kills everyone that they can’t see in there.”
They paused at the corner across from his home.
It was beautiful. Red brick, two stories, with a four-foot privacy fence around the front yard, an eight-foot fence around the small backyard, and the patio at the back corner on the street side. A heavy rock wall about six feet from the sidewalk was overgrown with ivy and wisteria in bloom. The heavy purple blooms sent a light fragrance through the air of the patio, while trailing clematis, pink and white roses, and lilac bushes and lavender plants sent a sultry scent through the air where they hid the rock wall.
Many of the homes were bordered by stone or tall wood privacy fences in Sweetrock. The people in the small town seemed to love their privacy, even as they loved living within the city limits.
“Ready?” There was a hint of amusement in his tone as he urged her across the street.
Anna stepped from the curb, following his lead as they moved across the all-but-deserted street.
It was still early in the day. Most of the small homes were empty, with only a few older couples sitting on their porches to enjoy the cool, late summer day.
Peace seemed to fill the air until it was suddenly shattered by the scream of tires and the sound of a vehicle gathering speed.
“Fuck!”
Archer’s curse split the air before Anna found herself picked from her feet as he raced the last few feet across the street, only inches from a wicked black pickup that had shot from its parked position. And that wasn’t bad enough. As it shot past them, the sound of gunfire splitting the once peaceful setting assured Anna the driver wasn’t playing around.
Archer dove for the ground, covering her body with his as more shots rang out, the pelting bullets hitting the vehicle he dragged her behind, tearing through her senses as she felt the fiery wash of pain at her thigh.
She’d been hit.
It was a distant realization as she heard Archer shouting something into the radio he kept clipped at his shoulder or at his belt whenever he left the house.
He was shouting orders, giving a plate number, and screaming at someone to get the fuck to the house. Even as he was screaming, the second the truck rounded a curve that would have put them in sight of the shooter again, he was moving.
More gunfire rang out, everything happening so fast, yet in such slow motion that Anna found herself unable to process everything going on.
Lifted against him again, as the pain that tore through her thigh nearly stole her consciousness, she found herself rushed along the side of the house and through the gate of the fence. A second later she was all but tossed into the house as Archer slammed the door behind them.
“Stay put!” he ordered as she collapsed on the kitchen floor. “I have to check the house.”
A gun was shoved into her hand and Archer’s face suddenly filled her vision. “If anyone comes through that door, you shoot first and I’ll ask the questions later. And by God, you shoot to kill.”
In the next heartbeat he was racing through the house.
The sound of doors slamming was only a distant awareness of his progress through the house. As she sat on the cool tile of the floor, Oscar slinked from where he hid, moved to her side, and butted his head against her arm for attention.
Glancing down at him, she followed his gaze to the sight of the red stain slowly spreading along the creamy stone floor.
It was her blood.
Her skirt was torn at the side. Shock was obviously keeping her from screaming in agony, she thought.
“All clear!” Archer was yelling as he moved for the kitchen once again.
Anna watched the cat.
Delicately, as though not entirely certain of the slowly, slowly spreading stain, he reached out one huge paw and batted at the thick dampness as Archer suddenly came to a stop, no more than a few feet from her.
He felt poleaxed. Almost unable to function.
“Ambulance,” he snapped into the radio at his shoulder. “Now, Caine. Now, goddamm it, get an ambulance here now—Anna—”
She lifted her gaze as he suddenly knelt at her side, pushing the cat away. There was a handful of towels or clothes in his hands.
Where had they come from? she wondered.
Archer could feel the breath suspending in his lungs, the effort to breathe hard as he stared at the blood-soaked material of her skirt.
Ah God, her thigh was so delicate and small, and there was so much blood.
The sound of sirens blaring barely registered in his head.
“I think maybe it just grazed me,” she said, slowly feeling the pain as it began to radiate through her leg. “It’s going to hurt like a bitch, huh?”
“You’re in shock, baby.” He was suddenly ripping her skirt up the side and pressing the towels to the outside of her thigh. “You’re right, it’s just grazed it.”
The ragged tear in her flesh had him seeing red. The knowledge of the scar it would leave was like a red flag in an enraged bull’s face.
Whatever ammo the bastard had used, had it actually penetrated her flesh, would have shattered bone.
“Archer, we’re coming in,” Crowe yelled from outside the kitchen. “Don’t shoot, man. EMTs are with me.”
The kitchen door was pushed opened hurriedly.
Dr. Krista Mayan was suddenly at his side, shooing at him, trying to push him out of the way as Anna’s fingers tightened on his wrist to hold him to her.
“I’m right here, baby,” he promised, moving behind her instead, holding her to him.
His arms tightened around her as she suddenly whimpered when the doctor began to check the wound.
“I get a doctor instead of an EMT,” Anna suddenly quipped, her voice thick with tears and pain as the doctor’s competent hands quickly checked the torn flesh. Krista Mayan. She’d forgotten the doctor’s mother once worked at the Corbin ranch.
“You got it, girlfriend.” Krista flashed her a quick smile. “And a nice comfy ride to the clinic so we can stitch up this bad boy. I’ll put a call in to Aspen and have a good friend of mine flown right in. He’s a plastic surgeon and treats trauma wounds for a living. We might get lucky and not even have a scar.”
“Oh yeah.” Her voice was thready and weak. “How did I rate that?”
“Because he really likes me, and I really like you,” Krista assured her with a quick smile. “Now I’m going to give you something for the pain here, and it’s going to make you a little sleepy.”
Archer watched as a needle pierced Anna’s arm, and the doctor injected the liquid she’d quickly pulled into the needle.
“It doesn’t hurt real bad yet, Krista,” Anna assured her.
“It’s shock, hon. The shot will help us there, too.” The doctor’s concerned gray eyes shot to Archer. “Let her go to sleep if she can.” She turned to the door. “Get that gurney in here. Let’s move it.”
Archer moved aside only long enough to allow the EMTs with the doctor to lift Anna to the gurney and strap her in.
“Bullet’s in there,” Krista said hurriedly. “It’s an explosive round, Archer, and it’s not gone off. I can see the head of it, but I don’t dare touch it. Keep her calm and still. I’m radioing Aspen now.”
Behind him, Crowe muttered a curse so vile that even Archer flinched.
“Motherfucker’s dead, Archer.” Crowe eased to him, danger and death surrounding him like a cloak. “Let me find him, because I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”
“You’ll have to beat me to him, Crowe. Only if you beat me to him.”
*
Waiting took years off his life.
Anna was rushed into surgery the second the ambulance pulled into the emergency entrance, and within thirty minutes the helicopter landing on the roof delivered three surgeons and two trauma-room nurses from Aspen.
Archer paced the hall outside the operating room, terrified he’d hear the explosive retort of that fucking bullet going off at any second.
If it did, she would lose her leg, and only God knew what other damage it would do. It was lodged in her upper thigh, to the side, in a perfect position to take out her spleen or her abdomen if the second projectile inside it went the wrong way.
Pacing the hall with him were Crowe; Logan and his fiancée, Skye; Rafer and his fiancée, Cami; and surprisingly, Anna’s parents and grandparents.
They’d arrived by helicopter themselves, before the doctors had even arrived.
Crowe ignored them. He was good at that.
As he paced away from the doors of the operating room again, the elevator doors slid open at the opposite end of the hall, revealing Wayne Sorenson and his daughter, Amelia.
“Archer.” Amelia rushed from the elevator and moved quickly to him. “Have you heard anything?”
Archer shook his head, clasping Wayne’s hand as the other man approached him.
“Rumor’s running crazy around town,” Wayne muttered. “Is it true she has an explosive-burst bullet in her thigh?”
Archer nodded tightly. “She’s with three trauma surgeons now who are experienced in removing the ammo. Evidently it’s been used several times in Aspen in the past few months. A theft from Peterson Air Force Base last spring.”
“Hell.” Wayne rubbed at the back of his neck as Amelia covered her trembling lips with one hand.
“I begged her to leave,” she said, shaking her head slowly as her father wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his side. “She was so angry at me, Archer.”
Tears welled in her eyes before she blinked them back quickly.
Archer was damned if he knew what to say.
Thankfully, he was saved from reply as Dr. Mayan moved quickly from the operating room.
Her surgical greens were unstained, other than the line of sweat at the edge of the hair covering, and a smile curved at her Cupid’s-bow lips.
Archer turned fully to her. “She’s okay?”
Relief was already tearing through him.
“Excellent,” the doctor assured him. “The ammo was a real dud, literally. She has some stitches, but the surgeon did an excellent job. She shouldn’t have more than a thin scar, which will disappear over time.” She squeezed Archer’s arm firmly. “Our girl was damned lucky, Archer.”
“Our” girl. Mayan hadn’t seen Anna but a few times over the years, yet, like everyone else Anna met, the doctor was protective of her.
From the corner of his eye he watched as the Corbins slowly eased back, then turned and left the waiting area entirely. Bastards. He was definitely going to have a talk with Robert.
“When can I see her?” he asked.
Krista frowned, and turned to where the Corbins once stood. “Well, I was going to let the family see her first,” she sighed. “But since they’ve left—” She turned back to him, smiling softly as she patted his arm in understanding. “Come on, then. They should be moving her from recovery now. She’s actually been out of surgery for a while now, but I wanted to stay with her until she came out of the anesthesia. She was asking for you before I left the room.”
She was asking for him rather than her family?
The knowledge of that had his chest tightening, emotion swirling to the surface that he didn’t dare contemplate. Emotions he didn’t want to look into or decipher just yet.
“Caine.” He turned to the deputy who was entering the waiting room. “I want you at the house. Go over it completely. Someone was at the door to the study. Nash found ammo casings from the shootings; get his report and see what he’s found.”
“On it, Sheriff,” Caine promised. “When you’ve left the hospital, get hold of me.”
Archer nodded and turned to the doctor without daring to pause. He’d seen the message in the deputy’s eyes and, whatever the other man had to tell him, he didn’t want to say anything in front of witnesses. And Archer didn’t want Sorenson or his daughter to suspect if there was information incoming.
Whoever had shot at Anna meant business, and he was damned if he would underestimate them again.
Four hours later
Wayne entered the back door under cover of night, the woods behind the house sheltering his arrival.
“Have you seen anything?” he asked the man who turned from the living room window to watch him solemnly.
“Nothing. If anyone’s watching her, then they didn’t come out when I fired on her or after I returned.”
Wayne nodded slowly. “Excellent. All we have to worry about is Archer and his deputies now. I wondered if Crowe cared enough to place a protective detail on her. It’s nice to see he doesn’t.”
Satisfaction built inside him, as did anticipation. “If she hasn’t left within the next week, take her, however you have to. Just make sure you’re not caught or identified.”
He nodded carefully. Every movement he made was always done carefully, deliberately.
“Your daughter returned, I see,” the other man stated. “Why not see if she can get her very good friend to visit? It would ensure taking her without being caught.
“Make damned sure Amelia isn’t harmed when you take her.”
“She won’t be harmed, nor will she be able to identify me,” he promised. “If she hasn’t made plans to leave, then I’ll take her that night.”
Wayne was a fool, Amory thought.
He was playing fast and loose with the rules, and actually believed that by making a move on Anna Corbin, he could make it appear as though someone else were trying to kill her.
Someone besides the Slasher.
He wasn’t fooling anyone.
It didn’t matter when the FBI came in, before or after Anna Corbin died. And it wouldn’t matter when the state police took over the investigation. It would still have the same results.
Both their deaths.
Thankfully, he had only a week left in town himself. He’d take Ms. Corbin, and he’d ensure Wayne was revealed in the process.
Revealing himself wouldn’t be a problem.
Amory Wyatt didn’t really exist anyway.
“Do you think she really loves me as she seems to, Amory?” Wayne asked him then, his voice reflective. “She doesn’t seem to hate me, does she?”
His daughter hated him more than anything on the face of this earth. Even as they spoke, she was attempting to find some hint of proof to tie him to the Slasher’s reign of blood. Amory could see it in her eyes and her actions each time he saw her slipping into Wayne’s office after he left or the house.
Amelia Sorenson was no one’s fool. But there was no proof for her to find in that office, where she was currently going through files and desk drawers. No, the proof was in a very well hidden cabin in the mountains. A location her friend, Anna Corbin, would know soon enough.
“I do,” he lied to the other man. “I believe she sees a father whose only goal in life is her protection, and I believe she loves you as any child should.”
As any child should love the father who she knows is a monster. An unprincipled, evil creature whose only true hunger is for blood and pain.
Sorenson nodded, a sickening smile of thankfulness about his lips.
No creature such as Sorenson should ever believe himself deserving of love, let alone feel thankful that it might be his.
“She’s a good girl,” Wayne stated softly. “Perhaps once Anna is gone, one way or the other, I’ll reward her for her loyalty.”
Amory nodded absently as he turned back to the window to ensure that Crowe Callahan’s agents were still well hidden. Too bad they hadn’t seen the other man slip into the back of his house.
“She would make you an excellent wife, Amory,” Wayne stated then. “We could find my inheritance together. The captain’s treasure is just awaiting us, my friend. Enough gold and jewels to finance several generations. Your children’s children would be rich.”
Amory turned back to him slowly, tilting his head thoughtfully as he watched the other man.
“You’d allow me to court her?” he asked, pretending interest.
“If you want her, then I insist upon it.” Wayne nodded. “You’d make a much better son-in-law than any other man I know.”
“Thank you.” Amory smiled back at him as though pleased. “I’d like that. I’d like that very much.”
Fortunately for him, he was already married.
Married, with his own children and wife far away.
Far, far away.
And soon to return to.
Midnight, Archer’s study
The meeting had been put off twice.
Entering the study, Archer glanced at the man awaiting him, but he had to admit, the man who had accompanied was unexpected.
“Ryan, what’s going on?” he asked, watching Ryan Calvert, the fourth of the Callahan brothers, who had been believed to have died at three months of age from a fever.