by Linda Turner
The whole gym seemed to hold its collective breath. Poor Wade, too irritated with his wife to realize that he was standing on the edge of a cliff, foolishly jumped off.
"You're darn right. Isn't that just what I said?"
It was, unfortunately, the wrong thing to say. Every woman in the place rose to her feet in protest. Amanda Sellars, huffing in outrage, declared loudly, "I'll have you know I can outrun you any day of the week! And if you don't believe me, I just dare you to show up at the cross-country race in your running shoes. Because I'll have mine on. Then we'll see who's faster, hotshot. Just you wait."
In the blink of an eye, other wives were publicly challenging their husbands, demanding that they be given a chance to prove themselves.
Stunned, Becca could only stand at Riley's side, struggling with the laughter that suddenly bubbled in her throat as normally peaceful men and women argued over who was stronger and faster. Before all the jawing died down, the cross-country run that had originally started out as a competition between her and Riley had turned into a hotly debated community-' wide race. If she hadn't seen it with her own two eyes, she never would have believed it.
Chapter 6
Everyone should have gone home soon after that, but no one seemed to want to be the first to leave. The women streamed down from the stands to surround Becca, all talking at once as they congratulated her on holding her own with Riley, who, like the rest of the men in the gym, needed to be brought down a notch or two.
Laughing, touched by their support, Becca tried to tell them that she'd never intended to stir up trouble between them and their husbands—she just needed a job. But no one seemed to listen.
Shrugging off her concerns, several women assured her that not only could they handle their men, they'd beat their butts on race day.
With her eyes frequently drawn like magnets across the gym to where Riley stood surrounded by his own supporters, Becca didn't feel quite as cocky. Some of the women probably would beat their beer-drinking, couch potato husbands. But those men weren't in the same league with Riley.
Where they were soft and out of shape, he was as tough as a cedar fence post that had been hardened in the blazing sun. And quick. Her pulse still racing, she didn't think she'd ever forget how quickly he'd tripped her or the strength of his arms when he'd wrapped her close as they were falling.
He looked up once and caught her watching him, and for a moment, she could have sworn he knew what she was thinking. He didn't smile, didn't move a muscle, but something in the depths of his knowing blue eyes told her he was remembering, too, what it was like to hold her and not just tonight.
Blushing, she quickly turned her back on him, only to find herself facing Lucille and her two buddies across the gym.
Their knowing gazes swung back and forth from her to Riley, and they were practically glowing with approval.
Groaning, she knew she should go over to them and tell them not to get any ideas that their little plan was going to work. But the television reporter from Santa Fe stuck a microphone in her face then, wanting a few comments about Riley, and Sydney needed her prediction on the outcome of the competition still to come. By the time Becca turned around again, her neighbors were gone and the crowd was starting to disperse.
Chloe, anxious to get on with her sleep-over at her friend's now that the excitement was over for the evening, kissed her good-night and happily darted off to join Karen and her parents.
But it was still another fifteen minutes after that before Becca was able to get away from the handful of excited women who wanted to linger.
Escaping outside, she waved to a few teachers from the elementary school who called good-night to her, then made her way to the loading zone where she'd left her Jeep. The lot was emptying quickly, but Riley's patrol car was still parked next to her, which wasn't surprising. He'd been deep in conversation with the Rawlings brothers and some of the other local ranchers when she'd slipped out of the gym, and she doubted he was going anywhere fast.
That was just fine with her. Her senses were still vibrating from that fall to the mat with him, and the last thing she needed was to run into him in the dark.
But when she dipped behind the wheel of her Jeep and turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.
"Oh, no!" she cried. It couldn't be the' battery—she'd bought a new one.
"You can't quit on me now," she declared, jiggling the key.
"Please! Just get me home and you won't have to move for the rest of the night."
But the Jeep wasn't going anywhere any time soon under its own power.
As silent and cold as a rock, it just sat there. Muttering a curse, Becca pushed open the driver's door, praying that Margaret and the grannies hadn't left.
But when she looked around at the few cars left in the dark lot, none of them were familiar.
"Damn!"
"Problems?"
Riley stepped out of the shadows, his voice a low ramble in the night, sending her heart slamming against her fibs.
"Oh! You scared me!"
"Sorry about that. I thought you heard me walk up. What's wrong?"
She didn't want to tell him, didn't want to ask him for help, not when just the sound of his voice in the darkness turned her knees to water.
But the few people who hadn't left yet were parked at the other end of the lot and total strangers to her. Stuck, she blurted out, "I can't get my Jeep started."
"Do you need a jump? Is it your battery again?" She shook her head.
"No, I just bought a new one, so it can't be that. I don't know what it is. It's just dead."
"Try it again," he suggested, moving around to the front of the four-wheel-drive vehicle to lift the hood.
She did as he asked, but just as before, nothing happened. The motor didn't so much as whimper when she turned the key. Stepping back, Riley let go of the hood, letting it slam back into place.
"I'm no mechanic, but it sounds to me like your starter's gone," he told her, pulling his handkerchief from his back pocket to wipe his hands.
"Juan Martinez can tell you for sure in the morning when he opens his garage."
"In the morning?" she echoed in dismay.
"Fraid so," he said.
"You can leave it here for the night and I'll give you a ride home.
Tomorrow you can call Juan and ask him to stop by and check it out for you. A starter's not all that complicated to install, and if you're lucky, he'll be able to put one in for you right here."
With every instinct shouting at her that she was in no condition to be alone with him, she opened her mouth to politely refuse the offer, but the words just wouldn't come. They both knew it was the only logical solution, and unless she was prepared to tell him why she didn't want to ride with him, there wasn't much she could say. Without a word, she collected her purse and keys and joined him in his patrol car .
Within seconds, they were headed out of town and swallowed up by the night, the silence that separated them deeper than a chasm. Aware of Riley's every move, Becca stared straight ahead. She was searching for a way to break the quiet when his radio suddenly crackled to life.
"You got your ears up, Boss?"
Wincing at Myrtle's radio etiquette, Riley reached for the mike.
"I've got the rest of the night off, Myrtle.
Whatever the problem is, call Mark. He can handle it."
"Not this one he can't," she retorted in disgust.
"Hank Crawford's on the rampage again."
His face carved in harsh lines, Riley swore.
"What set him off this time?"
"Dunno, but it's the same old same old. He blamed Connie, just like he always does. Only this time, he threw a bottle at her and she ended up getting cut."
"What? Is she badly hurt? Get an ambulance out there"
"She's already driven herself to the Rawlings Clinic," Myrtle said, cutting in.
"But she said Hank was still raging when she left. I thou
ght you'd want to know. You're the only one who can handle him when he's like this, and there's no telling what he's liable to do if I send Mark over there."
Becca, blatantly eavesdropping, saw him hesitate and said quietly,
"Don't let me stop you from taking the call. Chloe's spending the night with a friend from school, so I'm in no hurry to get home. And this sounds important. "
It was, but she was the last person he wanted to take with him on a call, especially when that meant tangling with Hank Crawford. But Myrtle was right—he did know just how unreasonable a drunk the man could be, and' there was no time to waste.
"I'm on my way," he said into the mike.
"Call Connie back at the clinic and tell her not to go anywhere until I get there."
"I thought you'd see it my way," Myrtle retorted with the smugness of an old employee who knew her position was secure.
Riley scowled at the radio, but before he could respond, she'd cut the connection. Switching on his flashing lights, he warned Becca to hang on.
The Crawford place was fifteen miles south of town and consisted of a desolate trailer on a rough plot of land that seemed to be growing only rocks and cacti. Stripped of color by the night and Riley's headlights, it was hardly a welcoming sight. Someone had tried to brighten the place up with pots of hot pink bougainvillea, but nothing could help the peeling metal of the mobile home or the screen door that hung unevenly on its rusted hinges, creaking to the rhythm of the wind.
Surrounded by the emptiness of the desert, it was the most depressing place Becca had ever seen in her life.
Hugging herself, she wondered what kind of people would cling to a plot of dust that looked like it should have blown away years ago.
"Stay here," Riley ordered as he threw the car into park and pushed open his door.
"Hank doesn't take kindly to strangers, especially women, when he's drinking." He was gone before she could object, his long legs quickly carrying him to the trailer's open front door, where light from the bare bulb hanging from the ceding spilled out onto the weathered porch. Hesitating there, he frowned at the silence that shrouded the place, not liking it one little bit. Hank had a tendency to yell and throw things when he was in a rage, and the quiet just didn't feel right.
"Hank? You home?" he called, knocking on the doorjamb.
"It's Riley Whitaker. I heard you had a little trouble out here. I'm coming in."
Becca watched him cautiously disappear into the trailer and had to consciously remind herself that this wasn't Dallas or her call. She was a civilian, and Riley knew what he was doing. He'd made it clear he didn't need any help from her, and she wasn't going to interfere.
But seconds turned into minutes, and her ears started to ring with the creepy silence that surrounded her. Still there was no sign of Riley or the notorious Hank. Frowning, Becca couldn't stop thinking about what Myrtle had said about Hank—that he'd just cut his wife, and Riley was the only one who could handle him.
Refusing to question the wisdom of her actions, she pushed' open her door. She didn't care if Hank Crawford disliked strangers or women, she wasn't going to just sit there and twiddle her thumbs while Riley walked into possible danger.
And if he didn't like it, that was tough! She didn't knock at the front door as Riley had, but simply stepped over the threshold as quietly as possible. The living room—or what was left of it—was in shambles and deserted. Following the rumble of male voices, she soundlessly made her way to what turned out to be the kitchen.
"I didn't mean to hurt her," the grizzly faced man seated at the small kitchen table cried, tears streaming down his unshaven cheeks.
"You know I would never harm a hair on her head, Riley. I love her."
"I know you do," Riley told him.
"Connie knows it, too. Now put the gun down, Hank, before you hurt yourself. You've done enough damage for one night." It was only then that Becca saw the shotgun cradled in the drunken man's arms like a baby. She swallowed a quick gasp, but it was too late. Riley didn't spare her a glance, but his back was suddenly as stiff as a fence post and she knew he'd heard her.
Ignoring her, Riley slowly approached the older man and held out his hand.
"Give me the gun, Hank. You know Connie will have my hide if I let you blow your head off."
"She's a good woman," the other man sniffed, meekly handing over the gun.
"Too good for the likes of me. Oh, God, I love her?" And with that, he burst into tears and buried his head in his hands.
Quickly unloading the shotgun, Riley set it out of reach by the back door. The second he straightened, his narrowed eyes swung to Beeca in the doorway.
"Get out of here," he mouthed before turning his attention to the blubber hag drunk at the table.
"C'mon, man, let's get you to bed. Then I'm going to drive over to the Rawlings Clinic and check on Connie."
Stunned, Becca realized that instead of arresting Crawford, he was going to put him to bed! Outraged, she opened her mouth to protest, but after one look at Riley fierce expression, she choked back the words.
She wouldn't push the issue for now. Not when Crawford was likely to explode into another rage if he caught sight of her there.
But this discussion wasn't over. Not by a long shot.
Retreating to the car, she waited impatiently for Riley join her, but it was several long moments before he finally stepped out of the trailer. The minute he slid in be-inside her, she turned on him.
"I can't believe you did that..."
"Did what?"
"Put that man to bed when you should have been reading him his rights! He hurt his wife, for God's sakes! Don't you think you should have at least taken him in to sleep it off? What's he going to do when she comes home? Throw another bottle at her?"
"It won't do any good to take him in," he retorted as he turned around and headed down the rocky driveway.
"Connie won't press charges."
"But he cut her! She had to go to the doctor."
Becca was so outraged, she could hardly sit still.
The Rawlings Clinic was a converted farmhouse out in the middle of ranch country and the brainchild of Josey who had established the clinic close to home., one of them was always available, and it was a godsend to the ranchers and cowboys who lived south of town.
Josey Rawlings, on call that night, met Riley at the at-front door.
"She's in the examining room getting ready. How badly he cut her?"
"Twenty stitches," she replied promptly "She claims it was an accident, talk to her, but you know how she is. When she slid "It was," the older woman insisted stubbornly.
Missing……and high school and Riley was giving me a ride home when he had the circumstances been different, Riley would have got the call about the Crawfords. " He grinned. He couldn't imagine any man, drunk or sober, hitting someone as feisty as Becca Prescott.
"Oh, that's right," Josey said, snapping her fingers as being stupid enough to throw a bottle at her. Not if he she remembered the competition that had been the talk of wanted to live to tell about it.
But not all women were as the county all week.
"Tonight was the big event. So who won? Becca's eyes started to dance."
"I handcuffed him."
"It was a draw and you know it," Riley argued.
He'd seen it happen like I said I would happen time and time again, and for the life of him, he still " many— just them, but kept coming back for more and not only took the ugliness their men dished out.
He couldn't understand it or do a damn thing about it.
Just then, the door to one of the examining rooms
"I know it doesn't make sense, but you'll understand, the door opened and Connie Crawford stepped into the hall that what we're up against when you meet Connie Crawford went to the waiting area. A pale slip of a woman with wiry be iron gray hair, she wore a shapeless housedress that was helped. " splattered with blood. Hugging her stitched left arm to her flat breasts, she start
ed to sputter excuses the minute she saw him.
It wasn't Hank's fault, she whimpered. I didn't phone Rawlings and her sister-in-law, Tate, who together and have supper ready when he got in, and I should have. He offered the on! medical service for miles The two work hard out in all kinds of weather, and the least I can do so at least make sure he’s got something to eat when he comes in at night. That's not too much for a man to ask.
It's hard to help a woman who doesn't want to.
"I'm not was waving his arms around, and the beer bottle he was going to ask what the two of you are doing together—it's holding just happened to slip and crash' into the wall next a full moon and we've had all sorts of crazies in here toto me. He was as sick as I was when a piece of glass accidentally stuck in my arm. " night.
"I know it looks strange, but believe it.
"If that bottle slipped, it slipped on purpose, sweet or not, there is an explanation. My car broke down at the heart," Riley told her gently, escorting her over to one of the plastic chairs that lined the waiting area. Squatting down directly in front of her, he took her hand and patted it like she as a child who needed soothing.
"You've got to quit making excuses for him, Connie. This time he didn't just yell at you, he hurt you. And that's inexcusable-" "He didn't mean to" — Ignoring the interruption, Riley squeezed her fingers.
"You don't have to let him get away with it. Not this time.
We've finally got something more than Verbal abuse against him. All you have to do is just press charges."
"Oh, but I can't!"
"Yes, you can," he insisted patiently.
"I know you don't want to believe it, but he's abusing you, and you're the only one who can stop it."
"But he'll be so ashamed in the morning," she murmured, her big brown eyes begging him to understand.
"He was already crying when I left."
"Tears come easily to a drunk, Connie. They aren't worth the water they're made of." He might as well have saved his breath. Lost in her misery, she could only shake her head and rock back and forth pitifully.
"I can't. Don't ask this of me. I can't do it."
She barely spoke above a whisper, but after all the fights he'd refereed between her and Hank, Riley knew when she'd made up her mind.