by Nora Roberts
It slowed her progress, but she had a good bead on where she’d seen that figure standing in the trees. From the direction Jake had taken, they’d come up on whoever was watching the house on either side. Flank him, she thought, biting back a hiss as another rock jabbed the bare arch of her foot.
One of those jerks—Austin or Jimmy again—she figured, pausing to listen, listen hard. Or someone like them. The type that spray-painted insults on a car. Probably waiting until the house was dark and quiet so they could sneak up and screw with another of the cars, or pitch a rock through a window.
She heard an owl hoot, a pair of mournful notes. In the distance a dog was barking in incessant yips. The creek gurgled to her right, and the tireless cicadas sang as though life depended on it.
And something else, something larger, crept in the shadows.
She eased back from a sliver of moonlight, thumbed off the cap on the can.
She started to shift when she heard a sudden storm of movement to the left, back toward the house. Even as she braced to spring forward and give chase, a gunshot exploded.
Everything stilled in its echo—the barking, the humming of insects, the mournful owl. In those seconds of stillness, her own heart stopped.
It came back in a panicked leap, filling her throat, exploding out of her as she shouted for Jake. She ran, sprinting over rocks and roots. Her fear and focus were so complete she didn’t hear the movement behind her until it was too late.
As she started to whirl around, to defend, to attack, the force of a blow sent her flying headlong into the trunk of a tree.
She felt the shocking flash of pain, tasted blood, then tumbled into the dark.
More terrified by hearing Callie scream his name than by the gunshot, Jake reversed directions. He raced toward the sound of Callie’s voice, ducking low-hanging branches, slapping at the spiny briars that clogged the woods.
When he saw her, crumpled in a sprinkle of moonlight, his legs all but dissolved.
He dropped to his knees, and his hands were shaking as he reached down to check the pulse in her throat.
“Callie. Oh God.” He hauled her into his lap, brushing at her hair. There was blood on her face, seeping from a nasty scratch over her forehead. But her pulse was strong, and his searching hands found no other injury.
“Okay, baby. You’re okay.” He rocked her, holding tight until he could battle back that instant and primal terror. “Come on, wake up now. Damnit. I ought to knock you out myself.”
He pressed his lips to hers and, steadier, picked her up. As he carried her through the woods toward the house, his foot kicked the can of insect repellent.
All he could do was grit his teeth and keep going.
She began to stir as he reached the steps. He glanced down, saw her eyelids beginning to flutter.
“You may want to stay out cold, Dunbrook, until I calm down.”
She heard his voice, but the words were nothing but mush in her brain. She moved her head, then let out a moan as pain radiated from her crown to her toes.
“Hurts,” she mumbled.
“Yeah, I bet it does.” He had to shift her, to open the door. Since his temper was starting to claw through the concern, he didn’t feel any sympathy when she moaned again at the jarring.
“What happened?”
“My deduction is you ran into a tree with your head. No doubt the tree got the worst of it.”
“Oh, ouch.” She lifted a hand, touched the focal point of pain gingerly, then saw the mists closing in again when her fingers came back red and wet.
“Don’t you pass out again. Don’t you do it.” He carried her back to the kitchen, set her down on the counter. “Sit where I put you, breathe slow. I’m going to get something to deal with that granite skull of yours.”
She let her head rest back against a cabinet as he yanked open another, one they’d earmarked for first-aid supplies.
“I didn’t run into a tree.” She kept her eyes closed, tried to ignore the vicious throbbing in her head. “Someone came up behind me, shoved me into it, right after I—”
She broke off, jerked straight. “The gunshot. Oh my God, Jake. Are you shot? Are you—”
“No.” He grabbed her hands before she could leap down from the counter. “Hold still. Do I look shot to you?”
“I heard a shot.”
“Yeah, me too. And I saw what I cleverly deduce was a bullet hit a tree about five feet to my left.” He ran water onto a cloth. “Hold still now.”
“Someone shot at you.”
“I don’t think so.” It was a nasty scrape, he thought as he began to clean it, more gently than she deserved. “I think they shot at the tree, unless they were blind as a bat and had piss-poor aim. He wasn’t more than ten feet ahead of me when he fired.”
She dug her fingers into his arm. “Someone shot at you.”
“Close enough. I told you to lock the doors and stay inside.”
“You’re not the boss. Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not hurt. But I can promise, you’re going to be when I put this antiseptic on that scrape. Ready?”
She took a couple of cleansing breaths. Nodded. The sting took her breath away. “Oh, oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Almost done. Keep swearing.”
She did, viciously, until he blew on it to ease the burn. “Okay, worst is over. Now look at me. How’s your vision?” he asked her.
“It’s okay. I want some pain meds.”
“Not yet, you don’t. You were out cold. Let’s go through the routine. Dizziness?”
“No.”
“Nausea?”
“Only when I remember how I let that jerk get the jump on me. I’m okay. I just have the grandmother of all headaches.” She reached out. “Your face is scratched up some.”
“Briars.”
“Could use some of that nice antiseptic.”
“I don’t think so.” But he put it back in the cupboard so she didn’t get any ideas. “It couldn’t have been just one guy. You were down and out a good fifty feet from where I was when he plugged the tree.”
“And he came up behind me,” she agreed. “I heard the shot, and I took off.”
“You screamed.”
“I did not. I called out in understandable concern when I thought you’d been shot.”
“You screamed my name.” He positioned himself between her legs. “I always liked that.”
“I called out,” she corrected, but her lips twitched. “And I took off running. But I didn’t get far. I’m thinking it was ten, fifteen seconds between the shot and when the lights went out. So there had to be at least two of them. Our old pals Austin and Jimmy?”
“If it was, they’ve upped the ante.”
“I want to kick their asses.”
He touched his lips, very gently, to the unbroken skin beside the scrape. “Get in line.”
“I guess we call the cops.”
“Looks like.”
But they didn’t move, not yet, just continued to look at each other. “Scared me,” Callie said after a moment.
“Me too.”
She put her arms out, drew him in. Funny, she thought, how much shakier she felt now that she was holding on to him than she’d felt before. But she didn’t let go. “If anybody gets to shoot at you, it’s going to be me.”
“Only fair. And I’m, obviously, the only one entitled to knock you out cold.”
Oh yeah, she thought as she kept her cheek pressed to his. The irritating son of a bitch was the love of her life. Just her bad luck.
“Glad we agree on those points. Now let’s call the sheriff.”
“In just a minute.”
“You know, what you were talking about before we were so incredibly rudely interrupted? About how we never took the time to, like, romance each other? How you never seduced me? I never seduced you either.”
“Callie, you seduced me the minute I laid eyes on you.”
She let out a half laugh, nea
rly as shocked by the statement as everything that had come before. “I did not.”
“You never believed it.” He eased back, touched his lips to her cheek, then the other in a gesture that had her staring at him in equal parts surprise and suspicion. “I could never figure out why you didn’t. I’ll call the sheriff, then get you something for that headache.”
“I can get it.” She started to boost herself down, but he gripped her arm. There was frustration on his face now, something she’d rarely seen unless it was laced with anger.
“Why can’t you let me take care of you? Even now, when you’re hurting.”
Baffled, she gestured to the cupboard. “It’s just . . . right there.”
“Fine. Great.” He let her go, turned his back. “Get it yourself.”
She started to shrug it off, scoot down. Then stopped herself. She wasn’t sure of the steps of this new dance they seemed to have begun, but at least she could try to find the rhythm.
“Look, maybe you could give me a hand down. If I jar something, I think my head’ll fall off. And I guess I banged up my feet some, too.”
Saying nothing, he turned back, lifted her feet one at a time. He swore under his breath, then caught her at the waist, lifted her down to the floor. Gently, she noted. He’d been gentle several times that night—more in that single night than she could recall him being with her since they’d met.
His face was scratched, his hair was wild, and his eyes annoyed. Everything inside her softened. “I guess you carried me all the way inside.”
“It was either that or leave you out there.” He reached over her head, took the bottle of pills out of the cabinet. “Here.”
“Thanks. You know what, I think I need to sit down.” She did, right on the floor, as much to see how he’d react as for necessity.
She saw it, that quick concern that raced over his face before it closed down again. He turned on the faucet, poured her a glass of water, then crouched down to give it to her.
“You dizzy?”
“No. It just hurts like the wrath of God. I’ll just sit here, take drugs, wait for the cops.”
“I’ll call this in, then we’ll put some ice on that head. See how it does.”
“Okay.” Thoughtfully, she shook out pills as he went to the phone. She wasn’t sure what this new aspect of Jacob Graystone meant. But it was certainly interesting.
Fifteen
Callie didn’t trust herself to dig on three hours of spotty sleep. The knot on her forehead brought a dull, constant ache that made paperwork unappealing.
Napping was a skill she’d never developed, and was only one step below her least-honed ability. Doing nothing.
For twenty minutes, she indulged herself by experimenting with various ways to disguise the scrape and bruise. Swooping her hair down made her look like a low-rent copy of Veronica Lake. Tying on a bandanna resulted in a cross between a time-warped hippie and a girl pirate.
None of those were quite the effect she was looking for.
Though she knew she’d probably live to regret it, she snipped off some hair to form wispy bangs.
They’d drive her crazy as they grew out, but for now they met the basic demands of vanity. With her sunglasses and hat, she decided, you could hardly make out the sunburst of color and patch of raw skin.
If she was going out, and she was, she didn’t want the goose egg to be the focus of attention.
She’d put off going by Treasured Pages as Doug had asked, and it was time to stop procrastinating. She understood why he’d asked it of her, and she could admit to her own curiosity about another member of the Cullen family.
But what was she supposed to say to the old guy? she asked herself as she hunted up a parking spot on Main. Hey, Grandpa, how’s it going?
So far her time in Woodsboro had been just a little too interesting. Old family secrets, crude graffiti all over her Rover—which was why she was driving Rosie’s enormous Jeep Cherokee—murder, mystery and finally gunshots and mild concussions.
It was enough to drive a person back to the lecture circuit.
Now, she thought, she was forced to parallel park in an unfamiliar vehicle, on a narrow street that had, to spite her, suddenly filled with traffic.
She didn’t see how it could get much worse.
She muscled the car in and out, back and forth, dragging the wheel, cursing herself and the town’s predilection for high curbs until sweaty, frustrated and mildly embarrassed, she finessed the Jeep between a pickup and a hatchback.
She slid out, noted that now that she’d completed the task, traffic was down to three pokey cars and a Mennonite with a horse and carriage.
It just figured.
But the mental bitching kept her from being nervous as she walked down the block to the bookstore.
There was a woman at the counter when Callie walked in, and a man behind it with wild gray hair and a white shirt with pleats so sharp they could have cut bread. Callie saw the instant shock run over his face, heard him stop speaking in the middle of a sentence as if someone had plowed a fist into his throat.
The woman turned and glanced at Callie, frowned. “Mr. Grogan? Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Sorry, Terri, my mind wandered there. Be with you in just a minute,” he said to Callie.
“It’s okay. I’ll just look around.”
She scanned book titles, finding ones she’d read, others she wondered why anybody would read, and listened to the conversation behind her.
“These are very nice, Terri. You know Doug or I would have come to appraise them for you.”
“I thought I’d bring them in, let you make me an offer. Aunt Francie loved her books, but I’ve just got no place for them now that she’s gone. And if they’re worth anything, I could use the money.” She glanced back over her shoulder again, toward Callie. “What with work slowing down for Pete. This one here’s worth something, isn’t it? It’s leather and all.”
“It’s what we call half-bound,” he explained, and tried not to track Callie’s every movement. “See here, the leather’s over the spine, then about an inch over the front and back. The rest of the binding’s cloth.”
“Oh.”
The disappointment on her face had him reaching out to pat her hand. “You’ve got some fine books here, Terri. Francie, she took care of them. And this Grapes of Wrath is a first edition.”
“I didn’t think that would go for much. Cover’s torn.”
“The dust jacket’s got some rubbing, a tear or two, but it’s still in very good condition. Why don’t you leave these with me for a few days, and I’ll call you with a price?”
“Okay. I’d sure appreciate that, Mr. Grogan. The sooner you can let me know, the better. Tell Doug my Nadine’s asked after him.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Nice to have him back in town. Maybe he’ll stay this time.”
“Could be.” Wanting her gone, he started around the counter, prepared to walk her to the door, but she wandered out of reach, toward Callie.
“You with those archaeologist people?”
Callie shifted. “That’s right.”
“You look sort of familiar to me.”
“I’ve been around for a few weeks.”
She looked at the bruising under the curtain of bangs, but couldn’t find a polite way to ask about it. “It was my brother-in-law dug up that skull that started things off.”
“No kidding? That must’ve been a real moment for him.”
“Cost him a lot of work. My husband, too.”
“Yes. It’s hard. I’m sorry.”
Terri frowned again, waited for some argument or debate. Then she shifted her feet. “Some people around think the place is cursed because you’re disturbing graves.”
“Some people watch too many old movies on Chiller Theater.”
Terri’s lips quirked before she controlled them. “Still and all, Ron Dolan’s dead. And that’s a terrible thing.”
“It is. It’s shaken us all up. I never knew anyone who was murdered before. Did you?”
There was just enough sympathy, just enough openness to gossip in Callie’s attitude to have Terri relaxing. “Can’t say I did. Except my grandson goes to preschool three days a week with the Campbell boy, and his daddy was shot dead in a convenience-store robbery up in Baltimore. Poor little thing. Makes you stop and think, doesn’t it? You just never know.”
She hadn’t known that, Callie realized with a jolt. She’d spoken with Lana about intimate details of her own life, but she hadn’t known how she’d been widowed. “No, you don’t.”
“Well, I got to get on. Maybe I’ll bring our Petey out to see that place y’all are digging up. Some of the other kids’ve gone by.”
“Do that. We’re always happy to show the site, to explain what we’re doing and how we do it.”
“You sure do look familiar,” Terri said again. “Nice talking to you anyway. Bye, Mr. Grogan. I’ll be waiting for your call.”
“A day or two, Terri. Best to Pete now.”
Roger waited until the door shut. “You handled her very well,” he said.
“Maintaining friendly relations with locals is part of the job description. So.” She gestured to the cardboard box, and the books spread on the counter. “Does she have anything spectacular?”
“This Steinbeck is going to make her happy. It’ll take me a while to go through the rest. I’m going to put the Closed sign up, if that’s all right with you.”
“Sure.”
She slid her hands into her back pockets as Roger walked to the door, flipped the sign, turned the locks. “Ah, Doug asked me if I’d come by. I’ve been pretty busy.”
“This is awkward for you.”
“I guess it is.”
“Would you like to come into the back? Have some coffee?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
He didn’t touch her, or make any move to take her hand. He didn’t stare or fumble. And his ease put Callie at hers as they stepped into his back room.
“This is a nice place. Comfortable. I’ve always thought of bibliophiles as stuffy fanatics who keep their books behind locked glass.”
“I’ve always thought of archaeologists as strapping young men who wear pith helmets and explore pyramids.”