by Jodi Thomas
“Already have,” Cap shouted. “Just in case you needed it.”
Dan rushed back to the jail and knelt beside Lucas. “Is he breathing?”
“He is,” Lucas answered. “He’s been shot twice. I tied off the arm, but I can’t stop the bleeding on his side.”
Dan took a breath and tried to reason. Two men locked in a room. One gun. One man shot. This might be the dumbest question he’d ever asked but Dan looked directly at Lucas and said, “Who shot him?”
“I don’t know. He went to get his phone. I asked him to stop by my truck and pick up mine. I thought I heard two shots. A few minutes later when he ran back in, he’d been shot.” Lucas leaned back as the medics moved in.
Lucas stared at Dan with tears in his eyes. “They must have thought he was me. He had my clothes on. We’re about the same size. He’d pulled the hood up because of the rain. I... I...” Lucas pulled himself together as if testifying. “The bullets were meant for me.”
“We don’t know that,” Dan said, unsure if he was trying to convince himself or Lucas.
The medics laid their hands over Lucas’s and replaced pressure on Blade’s wounds as Lucas slid his bloody fingers away.
Dan linked his arm under Lucas’s shoulder and helped him up. The lawyer was badly shaken. They moved to the cot that would have been Blade’s bed for the night. Lucas took a few deep breaths, as if there weren’t enough air in the room to fill his lungs.
“It’s my fault, Sheriff. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t been so close when the barns burned. If I hadn’t been one of the first there. They wouldn’t have thought I saw something. Knew something.”
“Who is ‘they,’ Lucas?”
“Reid’s new men. They saw me there. In the firelight I saw worry in their eyes and I looked back silently shaking my head like I knew they’d set the fires. Like I might have some evidence. That’s why I encouraged my dad and mom to leave. I knew there would be trouble, but not this. I thought one of the thugs would just break and come forward when they couldn’t get to me.”
Dan knew Lucas was rattling. Somehow, Lucas felt this shooting was his fault.
He thought he was doing the right thing.
“I loaned him my clothes. I didn’t think.” Lucas’s eyes turned liquid with pain. “Don’t you see? It’s my fault. Whoever shot Blade thought he was me. I was bluffing that I had information on the chance of breaking their line. I thought if they could get to me they might try to frighten me off.”
Dan patted Lucas on the shoulder, knowing that he didn’t feel any comfort. “This is not on you, son. It’s not. You didn’t fire the shot.”
Lucas nodded and dropped his head into his bloody hands.
Dan rose and walked back to Blade. Lucas needed time to calm down.
A fireman was cutting the ugly brown jogging suit off as two men treated Blade.
Dan reached for the gun that was lying beside the special agent in a stream of blood. The barrel was cold. It hadn’t been fired. Dan carried the Glock back to the cot where Lucas sat. “Why’d you have the gun, Lucas?”
“I was afraid whoever shot him would come after us both. Finish him off and kill me. If you hadn’t yelled our names, if I hadn’t heard the sirens, I might have shot you.”
“But you didn’t. You did the right thing, Lucas. You protected him until you knew I was on the other side of that door.”
One of the EMTs looked up. “Steady vital signs. We’ll make sure he’s stable and then get him ready to transport.”
Dan hadn’t noticed that two more men had come in, carrying a board to move Blade. They all worked like a well-oiled machine, each with his own job, as if they were professionals and not volunteers who trained on their own time.
In what seemed like seconds, they were lifting him, tied to the board, into the air.
“How is he?” Dan asked.
Only one man glanced back as they began to move their patient. “Stable. He’ll be up and riding that hog by the time I get it rebuilt.”
“Take care of him, Lou,” Dan ordered.
“I will, Sheriff.” The mechanic smiled. “Like he was a vintage Harley.”
Slowly, the men carried Blade down the two flights. The helicopter was landing in the middle of the highway, stopping traffic in both directions.
Dan walked down beside Lucas and they watched from the shadows as the firemen handed Blade off to men and women in scrubs.
As the crowd observed the helicopter, Dan leaned next to Lucas and said, “How about we go somewhere and talk because we both know we’re not going back to that jail cell.”
“Where?” Lucas finally seemed to relax a bit.
“Somewhere safe.”
Lucas let out a sharp laugh. “I thought I was somewhere safe.”
“See that rust bucket of a Jeep? You can slip off the side of the porch and be in it before anyone sees you.”
“Tim’s Jeep?”
“You got a better idea?”
“No.”
“Good. I’ll round him up and tell him to go home. Stay at his place. I can walk from my house to his after I get back from Lubbock. I need to talk to you, but I have to make sure Blade is okay first.”
“I don’t want to get Tim mixed up in this. It’s just a rumor that I know something and they’re after me.” He shook his head. “I even egged them on at the fire. Thought I was being smart.” Lucas looked up. “I’m an idiot, Sheriff.”
Dan patted his hand. “Never heard a lawyer admit that. You got a chance of being brilliant and don’t worry about getting Tim involved.”
“It’s dangerous. I see that now. I don’t want him hurt.”
“Are you kidding? Tim will love this kind of thing. He’s been hanging around this office for years, wanting to get involved. He’ll jump at the chance to help you and maybe fuel his own imagination. Who knows, we might make it into one of his books. Reid’s men will never guess you’re with him. I doubt anyone will even remember you two guys were once friends.”
“We still are,” Lucas said. “Or at least I hope we are.”
“If anyone is looking for you, they will try your three cousins and their families first. That’s your closest kin in the county after they learn your parents are gone.”
Lucas nodded. “All three live on farms so far from town they’ll see trouble coming and meet it armed. You’ll let them know I’m safe?
“I’ll call my brothers and sisters. Half the time I can’t find them, but I’ll leave a message for them to report anything strange.”
“I plan to tell everyone in town I transported you to a safe house. No one, and I mean no one, is to know where you are. Not until I figure out why someone wants you dead. They must be holding some kind of secret to be willing to shoot someone they think might know something. I got enough bodies showing up in my county. I don’t want another one.”
“Got it,” Lucas said as the engines of the helicopter roared and dust whirled in the air, blowing trash and tumbleweeds around like brown snow.
When the dust settled, Lucas had vanished, and Dan walked through the crowd, knowing that somewhere among the curious was one man who’d meant to be a killer tonight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DAKOTA STOOD AMONG the crowd, watching with her sister on her left and Grandmother on her right. They’d heard Dakota talking to Blade when he’d called and a moment later when she’d relayed the message to the sheriff. There was no way either would have stayed home.
Yet even with them by her, Dakota felt alone. She’d searched the crowd for Blade. He had to be there; he’d called.
“What’s happening?” Maria whispered.
“They loaded a man into the helicopter,” Dakota answered. “He looks hurt bad. I can see blood on the blanket and more on two of the fire
men.”
“Is it our Hamilton?” Grandmother said, not caring who overheard. “I couldn’t see the bloody man’s face.”
“I think so. I heard one of the firemen say that the deputy was shot.” She looked for one detail, one thing to prove it wasn’t Blade. “I see dark hair. The guy on the stretcher is about his size.”
Grandmother grumbled. “He’s our Hamilton. If anyone is going to shoot him it should be us. This makes me fighting mad.”
“What should we do?” Maria asked.
“I vote one of us goes to the hospital.” Dakota saw the fear on her big sister’s face. “I’ll take you and Grandmother home first. But, I have to go, Maria. I have to know if it’s him.”
Maria nodded. “He’ll understand why I can’t go. Tell him I wanted to, but I can’t go back there. The smells. The noise.”
Dakota gripped her sister’s hand and held on tightly like she had years ago when Maria was so afraid of the dark that she couldn’t find her way out of. “I’ll tell him. He’ll understand.”
“If he’s got any sense left,” Grandmother added. “A bullet in the brain could scramble him good. I wouldn’t want that, not even for a Hamilton.”
“He told me to call the sheriff. All he said was ‘man down.’ He didn’t tell me it was him.”
Maria gripped Dakota’s arm. “Maybe he didn’t want to worry you. Maybe he knew he was dying.”
An old man slapped the side of the helicopter and yelled, “Get Deputy Hamilton there fast, boys!” The engines roared.
Dakota felt tears on her cheeks. “It’s him. I have to go.”
They started back to the pickup with Grandmother talking to no one in particular. “I’d go with you, girl, but I’ve got to get back to watching that ghost crawling around near Indigo Lake. I need to be on guard, or he might just float over the water and step foot on our land.”
Dakota didn’t want to fall into one of Grandmother’s stories. Not tonight. Not with Blade on his way to the big Lubbock hospital.
They rode home in silence. Once inside, Maria made her a basket of food while Dakota packed a few things in a bag. Hospital things she might need. Water, a toothbrush, aspirin, change, a notebook, a small pillow.
“Call me and let me know how he is.” Maria hugged her. “He’s a good man. Don’t let him be there all alone.”
Both women knew the other’s world. When time was measured in shift changes. Dakota couldn’t leave Blade there, hurt and by himself.
“I will,” she promised. She was in a hurry.
“He doesn’t have any family, Dakota. Stay close. Someone tried to kill him.” Maria had come to the same conclusion she had.
“You mean besides Grandmother?” Dakota smiled.
Maria shook her head. “I think Grandmother likes him too. She asked me if we had enough in the Mason jar to buy his land. She said it wouldn’t be Hamilton land anymore if we bought it. It would be Davis land.”
“I’ll suggest that if no one looks at his property. Maybe he’d let us pay him in jelly because the Mason jar only has ones in it.” She picked up her bag and the basket. “I’ll call in with reports. I promise.”
They hugged as if Dakota were leaving on a long journey and not simply driving two hours to Lubbock. Maria remained on the porch, worry on her beautiful face as Dakota got into the pickup and headed out.
Dakota drove the two hours to the hospital, playing the radio as loud as it would go, but she didn’t remember a single song she heard. Once parked and in the hospital she spent half an hour talking her way up to Blade’s room. The guard just outside the door searched her bag and the basket, then frowned when he finally let her in. “I was told he wouldn’t have visitors.”
“I’m family,” she answered. After all, her family had killed most of his family, so that had to make her near to being next of kin.
She bumped her way in and was surprised to see Blade sitting up in bed. Bandaged, plugged into machines and looking very sleepy.
“Hi, Elf. About time you got here.”
“How’d you know I’d come at all, Hamilton?”
He was drugged up enough on painkillers to be honest. “Whether you want to admit it or not, we’re attracted to each other and I don’t mean in a let’s-be-friends kind of way. I’d find you if you flew off in a bird and I figured you’d find me.”
She moved closer, making sure one of those shots he took wasn’t in the head. Absently, she combed his curly hair back. She needed to touch him.
He closed his eyes and smiled. “You could do that all night.”
“I’m just checking that some of your brains aren’t leaking out. I heard someone say you were shot in a dark parking lot wearing black. Were you trying to hide or just make it hard on the shooter?”
“Brown.” His eyes slowly closed. “Get the facts right, sweetheart.”
“Since when did I become your sweetheart?”
“When I passed out from losing a few quarts of blood in the third-floor jail, the last face I saw before all went black was you. I guess that makes it simple. You’re my sweetheart. We need to sleep together to make it official, but not tonight. I’ve had a rough day.” He was fighting sleep and losing the battle. “There’s no privacy around here, anyway. They even cut my underwear off.” He managed a weak smile. “Want to look?”
“No.” She laughed.
She might as well be honest. “I’m not a one-night-stand kind of girl, Blade. I thought you understood that, so you might as well give up on the sweetheart label. We won’t be sleeping together.”
“And I’m not a stay-around kind of guy so you won’t have much time to change your mind.”
He closed his eyes and she wondered if he was asleep.
She moved along the bedside and took his big hand between hers. There were tubes attached to him, but she needed to feel him, flesh on flesh. He was an interesting man. If she ever decided to sleep with a stranger, it would be a man like him. Someone who could make her laugh. Someone who could make her feel.
She had dreams, goals, responsibilities. She didn’t have time for a few wild nights that would probably mix up her mind for months. One-night stands were for wild people, free people, but the what-if settled into the corners of her mind.
What if she risked one night of her life? One piece of her heart. Would she live the rest of her life regretting it, or treasuring the memory?
He opened his now bloodshot gray eyes and mumbled, “Couldn’t we meet in the middle? You come away with me for a few weeks. I could recover. We could talk and go out to eat, and sleep together if it felt right and I was up for it. Think of it as a vacation.”
Shaking her head, she realized that wasn’t what she wanted at all. It would have to be far more, or nothing at all.
She thought of hitting him, but that didn’t seem fair. His left shoulder and arm were bandaged and his right side had a long line of tape on it. “No, Hamilton. I can’t leave for weeks,” she answered politely, “but I will stay here and watch over you while you sleep.”
He closed his eyes again but his hand held on to hers.
“Now get some sleep, Hamilton,” she whispered.
“You running my life, Elf?” he whispered with a smile.
“Someone needs to,” she said, knowing he was probably too far into sleep to answer. “The minute I wasn’t watching over you, you managed to get yourself shot.”
She studied him as he rested. Cleaned up, he looked almost handsome. His jaw was cut a little too hard. His hair a bit too long. But his lips were perfect. She leaned over and kissed those lips softly. “In another lifetime, maybe,” she whispered. This one was already packed.
He didn’t open his eyes again as the night slipped away into morning. Dakota never left his side, not even when the sheriff came in to check on him. Brigman stayed
awhile, then went out in the hallway to talk to the guard. The sheriff didn’t leave until the nurse assured him they would watch over Hamilton.
Dakota snacked on the cookies and fruit in the basket Maria had sent and watched the nurses come and go, but she didn’t talk to them.
Finally, a team of doctors came in. They didn’t seem to notice her as they checked Blade.
As they were leaving, one doctor, a woman in her forties, smiled at her, so Dakota asked, “How is he?”
The doc raised an eyebrow, “You family?”
“I’m all he’s got,” Dakota lied.
“I figured that, or the guard outside wouldn’t have let you stay.” She moved closer to Dakota and lowered her voice.
“The federal agent has had many inquiries about his health. He is doing great. He was very lucky. The bullet in his arm didn’t hit any bone, so it wasn’t hard to extract. It’ll heal quickly. The one at his side slid along, tearing up flesh and causing blood loss exacerbated by heightened activity after being shot.”
Dakota finally relaxed. Blade wasn’t going to die.
The doctor paused at the door. “You can go home if you like. We’ll watch over him.”
“If it’s all right, I’ll stay just a little longer.”
She pushed the recliner close to his bedside to hold his hand as she slept. Just before she drifted off, she smiled. He might not know it, but they were finally sleeping together...again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DAN PULLED OUT a cot he kept in his office. There wasn’t enough time to bother going home. He’d made the two-hour trip to Lubbock and back. He’d rest a few hours, and at sunup he’d start his investigation.
Someone had shot his deputy last night and Dan didn’t have a single clue why.
He didn’t call Brandi tonight. He couldn’t. What could he say to a woman he missed so badly, even in all the insanity? It was a mess here. He hadn’t solved one crime, and they were piling up. Two barns had been burned. Two bodies found. One burned. One with his head bashed in. Reyes was playing some kind of dangerous game, trying to figure out what was going on at the ranch where he grew up. And now, tonight, Blade had been shot while wearing Lucas’s clothes.