It might have been seconds later, or minutes or an eternity…She heard the roar of an engine, the screech of brakes, the slam of a door. Pounding footsteps. But her shocked mind heard only more danger. Her body curled itself into a tight, trembling ball, and Deputy Daggett had to almost lift her bodily up off the sidewalk, repeatedly shouting her name, before she was able to comprehend that salvation truly was at hand.
“Go, go, go!” The deputy gave her a powerful shove in the general direction of the salon.
She lurched toward the door-there was no glass left in it, either-and managed to push it open…stumble through it on rubbery legs. From the relative safety inside the shop she looked back to see the impossibly young, downy-cheeked deputy in a half crouch behind the dubious shelter of the clothes rack, weapon in one hand, keying on his shoulder radio with the other and calmly shouting, “Shots fired, officer requesting backup at Queenie’s Hair Salon. Repeat-shots fired…”
Slowly, as if in a dream, Mary lifted a hand to touch her cheek. She pulled her fingers away…saw blood and wetness. And only then realized she was crying.
Roan was in the emergency services command post that had been set up in the back parking lot of the courthouse when he got the call. He and Paul Gunther, owner of Gunther’s Groceries, who also happened to be the deputy mayor and a member of the Boomtown Days planning committee for as long as Roan could remember, had just been congratulating one another on how smoothly everything was going this year. So far, the only arrests had been a handful of D and Ds last night, then the usual rowdiness this morning-including a couple of high-school kids who’d thought it might be fun to set off some firecrackers along the parade route just to see what the mounted units would do. Out-of-towners, Paul Gunther declared-city kids without a clue about the kind of havoc a spooked horse was capable of wreaking on a crowd of people, and what was the world coming to, anyway?
Roan’s radio beeped at him, and both men fell expectantly silent, listening.
And he heard the words he’d half expected and hoped never to hear. “Shots fired…Queenie’s Hair Salon…shots fired!” He was in his patrol car, tires spitting gravel, before the static died.
As the SUV bucked and jounced out of the parking lot and down the dirt alley he thumbed on the siren-something he rarely had cause to do-and spoke into his radio with a calm he couldn’t account for-some kind of protective numbness, maybe.
“SD Mobile One responding to shots fired…requesting all available units…”
When he was done with that and had shut off the radio mike, he began to swear fervently and out loud, repeating every bad word he knew, over and over, almost like a prayer.
As the SUV fishtailed around the corner and onto Second Street, Roan could see Tom Daggett’s patrol car parked cross-ways down in front of Queenie’s, lights on and flashing. At the far end of the street where the crowd had gathered to watch the parade go by, he could see a few people beginning to turn and look to see what all the excitement was about. He didn’t see Tom, and he didn’t see Mary.
He brought the SUV to a screeching halt alongside the curb next to some sidewalk displays of paintings and photographs in front of Betty’s frame shop. Now he saw Tom crouched down behind a rack of clothes in front of Mary’s place, his sidearm braced on the top crossbar, aimed in the general direction of the rooftops across the street. He saw the gaping hole where the store’s front window had been, and the glass all over the sidewalk. He still didn’t see Mary.
Tom looked over at him and straightened up a little, slowly and cautiously, darting glances back and forth between Roan and those buildings across the street. A couple of other units came screaming onto the street right then and skidded to a halt a half block back, effectively barricading it. Roan barked orders for the new arrivals into his radio, telling them to check out the buildings across the street, then grabbed his hat and exited his vehicle. He was pretty sure the shooter was long gone, but he kept his head down just in case.
He started over to where his deputy was, running bent over, dodging in and out among the art display easels, boots crunching on the broken glass with a sound that made his teeth grate and his skin shiver, like fingernails on slate.
Tom saw him coming and diverted him with a gesture, a sweep of his thumb toward the broken window. “She’s okay, Sheriff-she’s inside.”
His voice was hoarse and out-of-breath, but Roan took note of the fact that it looked like excitement, and not fear, that had the kid’s cheeks and eyes lit up like Christmas morning. His greenest deputy had come through his baptism of fire with flying colors, and Roan made a mental note to make sure he got commended for his bravery when all this was over.
Right now, he had other things on his mind. One thing.
Calling her name softly, he stepped through the broken-out window. The salon seemed dim to him after the bright midday sunshine, so he took off his sunglasses and tucked them in his pocket. He could smell some kind of perfume-hair products, he thought, from the different sizes and colors of plastic bottles that were scattered all over the place, oozing their contents onto the black-and-white vinyl tile floor. He walked over glass from a shattered display case, and shredded flowers from the blue-and-white vase that had sat on top of it. He saw a broken mirror, and a rack of magazines lying on its side. But he still didn’t see Mary.
Well, hell. Vibrating with an urgent need to see for himself that she was all right, he crossed to the doorway and moved the pink ruffled curtain aside with the back of his hand. Called her name again. She didn’t answer, but he could hear water running, and he could see a light on in the combination restroom and janitor’s closet off the storeroom. The door was standing partway open. He went to it and tapped on it with his knuckle. “Mary? You in there?”
The door opened wider. He didn’t know what he’d expected-to find her cowering somewhere in a corner, quivering like a trapped rabbit, maybe? He should have known that wouldn’t be Mary’s style-though to be honest, he didn’t exactly know what her style might be. Most of the time he had known her, she’d been pretending to be somebody else.
She was standing in front of the sink, not cowering at all, calmly drying her hands with a paper towel.
“Are you okay?” Roan asked gently.
She turned her head to look at him. “Yes, I’m fine.” Her voice was calm, but her eyes were too bright and the skin on her face looked stretched and shiny. Her color was uneven in a way that was too pretty to be called blotchy-shades ranging from alabaster to the delicate pink of seashells and rose petals, with some deeper pink edging her nose and around her eyes. She had a tiny cut on one cheek, still oozing blood. Roan’s belly burned when he saw that.
Lord, how he wanted to go to her, put his arms around her. The desire to hold her was so powerful his muscles quivered with it. But there was something…a kind of shell around her-pride, maybe, or shock or self-control-he’d seen it before in victims of violence. He knew how fragile she was, and how much she didn’t want to break.
So he kept to a safe distance and said in the gruff but gentle voice he used for comforting victims, “Everything’s under control now, Mary. You’re gonna be okay.” He paused, dipped his head toward her, made a gesture with his hand toward the cut on her cheek. “You need to have that looked at.”
She shook her head. “Just a scratch.” She folded a fresh paper towel and pressed it against her cheek. Then she darted a look at him with eyes hard and green as glacier ice and softly asked, “Did you get him?”
He shook his head-once, quick and hard. “But we will,” he promised grimly, then added in a gentler tone, “Right now, though, I’m gonna need you to come with me.”
She didn’t question, simply nodded. He moved aside to let her pass, reached to shut off the bathroom light, then closed in beside her again.
He couldn’t have imagined how hard it would be, walking beside her like that, close enough to protect her, trying not to crowd her too much…wanting-needing to touch her, knowing he didn’t dar
e…and the frustration of that gnawing at him, a sharp fierce ache in his belly.
“Is there anything here you need?” he asked her as they made their way through the ruined salon.
“My purse.”
“Okay, where is it?”
“I’ll get it.”
He waited while she stepped carefully through the spilled bottles and broken glass to retrieve her purse from a bottom drawer in one of her stations, then motioned her toward the door and opened it for her. She looked up at him as she slipped past him. “Where are you taking me?”
“Someplace safe.”
“Are you going to put me in jail?” Her voice sounded stifled, as if her teeth wanted to chatter and she was determined not to let them.
“No,” Roan said, keeping his narrow-eyed gaze focused over her head as he took his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. “Not that.”
He was pretty sure what he’d told her was right, and that whoever had shot at her was long gone, but just to be sure he kept his body between hers and the street as he walked her quickly to his car, hustled her inside and slammed the door. He went around to the driver’s side, then waited for Tom Daggett to make his way over to him from across the street, jogging through the maze of parked police vehicles and crime-scene tape.
“No sign of the shooter, Sheriff,” Tom said, and Roan could have sworn the deputy’s voice had deepened some since the last time he’d heard it. “Found some shell casings upstairs in one of the buildings. And we got a witness a couple streets over says he saw a man run down the alley and jump in a cream-colored SUV, take off like a bat outa hell. Says the guy was carrying a huntin’ rifle, but he didn’t think anything of it, just thought he musta been in the parade.”
Roan nodded. He could understand that reasoning well enough; there was more than one gun club participating in the parade most years. Boyd, his own father-in-law, would most likely have been marching with the Old West Gun Club he belonged to, if he hadn’t had to stay home with Susie Grace because she hated crowds, particularly crowds of out-of-towners, crowds of strangers who weren’t used to her and therefore likely to stare and ask insensitive questions.
“Keep on with the canvas,” he said to Tom. “And get the description of that SUV to the State Police right away. Then get this place secured. You’re gonna have your hands full with crowd control once the parade’s over. Folks are gonna be coming to see what all the fuss was about. I’ll leave that in your hands.” He jerked his head toward the woman sitting like a statue in the front seat of his SUV. “I’m taking off for a while-taking Mary to a safe house. Nobody’s gonna know where but me, so don’t ask. If you need me, you know how to reach me, but unless it’s a break in this case or a dire emergency, it can wait.”
“Okay, Sheriff.” Deputy Daggett all but saluted, trying hard not to look tickled to death Roan had put him in charge.
Roan got in the car and slammed the door on more of his deputy’s earnest assurances all would be taken care of in his absence. Without looking at his silent passenger, he started up the SUV, put it in gear and backed out of the street along the curb, the way he’d come in. Once he had the vehicle pointed forward again, he glanced over at Mary and growled, “Fasten your seatbelt.”
She obeyed, then fired back breathlessly, “What are you mad at me for?”
“I’m not-” He made a breath-sound like a tire going flat, then hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “Dammit, Mary, I’m not mad at you. I’m just mad.”
Scared, he silently corrected himself. Scared spitless. Because it had almost happened again. Someone had almost taken the life of a woman he cared about and was responsible for protecting. Still could. Because it looked like he wasn’t any better at keeping this woman safe than he had been Erin.
Chapter 13
“Dammit, Mary,” Roan said, “you were supposed to stay inside. What the hell were you doing out there? A sidewalk sale, for God’s sake. What were you thinking?”
Belonging. I wanted to be a part of it…the town, the celebration. I just wanted to…belong.
But she thought that sounded pathetic, so she didn’t say it. Instead, she cleared her throat and contritely muttered, “I’m sorry.”
Roan glanced at her, then shook his head and gave a snort of laughter. “That has to be the worst hitman I’ve ever heard of-or you’re about the luckiest victim. The guy had a hunting rifle with a scope on it. I don’t know how the hell he missed.”
“Luck,” Mary mumbled; her tongue felt clumsy. She frowned and touched the sore place on her cheek. “Something-a jacket, I think-fell off the hanger. I bent over to pick it up. That’s when the window…” She paused, a replay of that moment coming sharp and vivid to her mind. She fought to shut it out…had to shut it out, because right behind those images she could feel it creeping closer, the emotional meltdown she’d managed so far to hold off with a combination of willpower and denial. It was about to pounce…she could feel its cold grip on her throat when she swallowed and tried to laugh. “I guess I should be dead right now.”
It seemed an eternity before Roan responded, in a voice between a growl and a murmur. “Yeah. You should.” He paused, then added grimly, “He won’t miss again.”
She stared at him, swallowing repeatedly and fighting back tears. Wishing she could see his eyes, wishing she knew how to read him. But between his hat brim, the sunglasses and the hand covering most of the lower part of his face, his emotions were well-guarded.
He flicked her another brief glance and his mouth twitched upward at one corner-a hard little smile. “That’s why we’re not going to give him a second chance. I’m getting you out of this town, right now. I’m going to put you someplace where you’ll be safe until we get this guy.”
Something shivered through her…a chilling blast of déjà vu. The small, barren room…a strange man saying, “We’re going to take you to a safe house…”
“I’m not doing this, Roan,” she said in a low, uneven voice. “I won’t do it again. Not ever.”
“Mary-”
“I don’t care!” Her voice rose, both in pitch and volume; the monster was coming and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop it. “I told you. I’m tired of running…tired of hiding. I’m not going to do it. I won’t…be…alone…any…more.”
“You’re not going to be alone.” His jaw looked the way his voice sounded-rock hard. “I’m taking you to my ranch. You’ll be with me. And Boyd and Susie Grace. Think you can handle that?”
She stared at him, her mind gone blank. It was so far from what she’d expected him to say.
He let out a breath, uneven and impatient. “Look-I know it’s a little…unorthodox. But it’s the safest place I can think of right now. My place is out in the middle of nowhere, so unless this jackass comes for you by helicopter or horseback, we’re gonna see him coming a long way off. Then he’ll have to get by me or Boyd first.”
“What-” She cleared her throat carefully. She felt as if everything inside her had shaken loose. Her emotions were vulnerable…uncertain and unformed, like something newly born. “What about Susie Grace?”
There was a pause. She counted heartbeats and watched a muscle work in the side of his jaw. “Like I said,” he growled, “it’s the best I could come up with on short notice.”
Mary went on gazing at him, while those unformed thoughts and fragile feelings filled her head like a cloud of gnats…or soap bubbles. Any attempt to grasp them she knew would be futile, so she didn’t even try. Finally she said in a soft, shaking voice, “I want to go home first.” How strange to hear the word home coming out of her mouth.
“Too dangerous,” Roan said. His jaw and mouth looked implacable again. “The shooter could be waiting for you there.”
“What about my things? I have to pack.”
He shook his head. “I can pick up whatever you need later.”
Anger-with the Fates, with him, with herself for her own impotence-blew through her like pollen in the wi
nd. She sucked in air like someone about to sneeze and gasped out, “What about Cat? I can’t just leave him-”
“Dammit, Mary!”
“Dammit, Roan!” She shot it back at him between clenched teeth, her breathing quick and shallow. “I said I’m not doing this again. I mean it. I’m not running, I’m not hiding, I’m not leaving pieces of myself behind. I’ll stay at your place, temporarily, if that’s what I need to do, but I’m not going without my stuff, and I am not going without my cat.”
He gave her one brief, furious look, then stomped on the brakes, swearing under his breath. The SUV swerved to the side of the road and jerked to a halt. He turned his head to glare at her along his shoulder, and not even the sunglasses could hide the frustration burning in his eyes. After a long pause, he threw a glance over his shoulder, made a tire-squealing U-turn and headed the SUV back into town.
Roan was about as close to losing his temper as he ever got, though if he’d been honest with himself he’d have to admit the burr under his saddle probably wasn’t anger at all. At the moment, though, he didn’t give much of a damn about honesty. What he cared about was keeping it together, and anger seemed a whole lot easier to deal with than some of the other stuff rattling around inside him.
Stubborn woman, he thought, and wouldn’t let himself think about the anguish, courage and vulnerability that were there in her voice too.
Wouldn’t let himself think what a high-caliber slug would have done to her head but for a split-second quirk of Fate.
Wouldn’t let himself picture it, anyway. He was definitely thinking about it when he pulled up in front of the little clapboard house. All his senses were on hair-trigger alert and the short hairs rising on the back of his neck. He wondered how in the hell he was going to be able to check out the house without leaving Mary alone and unguarded in the car.
The Sheriff of Heartbreak County Page 19