He sat on the edge of the bed and she could all but feel the reluctance rolling off of him. One roughened hand stroked her back, lingered low on her spine, his fingers digging into the tense muscles there. “If you’re sure you’ll be okay …”
“Well, I’m really anxious to get my boy toy over—so get out already.” Then she sighed, rolled over. She reached out and her fingers brushed his leg. “Ezra, I’m not dying or anything. I’m even starting to feel better and just need some sleep. Go to town and while you’re there, get me some Tylenol and some chicken noodle soup. I almost feel hungry.”
He chuckled. “Now I know you’re sick, if you want me buying you some sort of soup in a can.”
“Hey, I’m sick … it’s not like I can cook it. And I want to get better, which means I can’t trust you to do it.” She forced a smile for him, even though her eyes felt heavier by the second.
“Okay.” He sighed and bent over, his lips brushing over her chin. “I’ll call and check on you in a while.”
“Umm.”
She was asleep before he hit the doorway.
Ezra glanced back, saw Puck lying there, his head on his paws, a mournful look on his face. If Ezra didn’t know better, he’d think the dog was having sympathy sickness or something. And as soon as that thought rolled through his mind, he found himself thinking—morning sickness.
It had been his first thought, but Lena had already shot that idea down. It was the first thing the doctor had checked when she’d been seen. He was fine with that, too. He wasn’t exactly opposed to having kids. He just wasn’t sure he wanted them now. They’d just gotten married. Still getting used to each other.
And here he was, getting used to a new job, doing one thing he hadn’t thought he’d be doing again.
The weapon he wore at his side weighed on him. A lot.
It was a burden he hadn’t planned on taking back up again, but when he’d been approached about taking Dwight’s place, for some reason, he’d been unable to say no.
Not that saying No was hard for him. Ezra was just fine saying no when it suited him. When it felt right.
This time, it hadn’t felt right.
As a matter of fact, saying yes had felt about as right as anything he’d ever done—almost as right as when he’d asked Lena to marry him. Even though this was a burden he hadn’t planned on carrying, it fit.
It was one he was suited to, one he was meant to carry, he supposed.
It was a hell of a lot more laid-back than anything he’d done before he’d been injured. The job with the State Police, the crime rings he’d dealt with, stolen property—chasing after leads, dead ends, all that shit, sometimes spinning his wheels for twelve, eighteen months at a time, all for nothing. No, this was better.
A lot better. And the “staff” meetings Lena had been ribbing him about were a lot easier to swallow. Not that this was a real staff meeting, although they had those, too. Every couple of weeks, he’d meet up with the rest of the staff and just talk.
It had started out informally—and it was still informal, but Dwight Nielson had cast a long shadow here; taking his place wasn’t easy. There were more than a few deputies who felt they should have gotten the job that had been “given” to some outsider.
Trying to establish an environment where they could all work together wasn’t easy and this was one way of moving forward. Trying to win them over one at a time.
Those who didn’t like it, as far he was concerned, they could kiss his ass.
He wasn’t going anywhere and he wasn’t playing by the good ol’ boy rules they seemed to think they could lay out, either. Ezra was in this for the long haul—they needed to deal with it.
Fortunately, the hard cases were the minority.
By the time he made it to the café, it was hopping. Along the back wall, he saw his men, and only two empty chairs. Keith was there, along with Ethan Sheffield, Walter Manning, his deputy sheriff Steven Mabry along with his brother Kyle, Kent Jennings, several of the guys from the night shift … Ezra smiled.
More than the last time. He had to make his way through the maze of tables—like most mornings, the café was packed.
The mayor was at a table with several of his cousins—Carter was there, Remy and Hope, Angie Shoffner and her husband Bill. She’d been a Jennings until she married him. Ezra assumed half of the people at the table were probably from the Jennings clan, too, but he couldn’t be sure. He was still learning names.
Jennings—seemed like they owned most of the damn town.
Lucy Walbash was there, having breakfast with two of her grandsons—Ezra couldn’t remember their names for the life of him. She beamed at him and he smiled, but was glad the crowd kept him from getting to her easily. Lucy had been one of his grandmother’s best friends and he adored her, but she could talk like nothing he’d ever seen.
He dropped into one of the spare chairs and glanced back at the crowd. “Did you all have to threaten to arrest people to clear a table or what?”
“No.” Keith smiled from behind his coffee cup.
Ethan smirked. “He’s messing around with Natalie lately—she kept the table open for him.”
“You and Natalie?” Ezra cocked a brow at his right-hand man and tried to wrap his mind around that picture—it wasn’t quite coming together in his head. Keith had plenty of women who flirted with him—all but threw themselves in his path sometimes, but Keith was oblivious. Maybe that was why the picture didn’t work. The guy just never seemed to notice women.
But now he had a red flush creeping up his neck and had developed a very strange obsession with his coffee cup. “You know, that takes balls,” Ezra said, unable to resist teasing him. “I don’t know if I’d want to go chasing after one of Miss Lucy’s granddaughters. That lady terrifies me—hell, I’d almost rather go chasing after one of Miz Tuttle’s girls than one of Miss Lucy’s.”
Keith gave him a dark look. At the same time, he smacked Ethan on the back of the head. “I’m not chasing after anybody,” he said, his voice stiff and formal. “And don’t we have things to talk about?”
Ezra laughed. “Sure. What do you want to talk about, loverboy?”
“Hey, I saw that woman—Nia, Nia Hollister—a few days ago. Up at the Grill,” Ethan said, swiping his scrambled eggs through some ketchup before he popped them in his mouth.
“Your wife know you still go down there flirting?”
Ethan hunched his shoulders. “Ain’t flirting. Just shooting pool, having a few drinks. She knows I wouldn’t do anything.” He shot Kent a narrow look. “I heard Kent had a few drinks with her last night.”
Kent rolled his eyes. “I didn’t have drinks with her. She was there and I was there. It’s not like there are a whole lot of choices around here if you don’t want frozen food. Plus, it’s close to the hotel where she was staying.”
At the other end of the table, one of the night deputies, Craig Dawson, glanced up, his eyes bleary, a heavy growth of stubble on his narrow face. “You talking about that Hollister lady? Shit, she’s hot. I saw her out with Reilly the other night—they were …” His words trailed off, but the grin on his face did a pretty good job filling in the blanks. He paused long enough to take a drink of coffee and added, “I thought I might have to arrest them for indecent exposure—although it was one hell of a show.”
“Pervert,” Keith muttered, shaking his head.
Dawson smirked. “You’re just jealous you don’t get to see the good shit.”
“Yeah, knocking on windows when kids start getting hot and heavy down at the park, that sounds like my idea of a good time,” Keith muttered with a curl of his lip.
Kyle Mabry leaned forward. “Hell, I saw Hollister and she ain’t no kid.” Although he was only in his early forties, he was already bald, his body built solid as a brick wall, and his face was perpetually red, like he’d spent too much time in the sun. Good-natured and easygoing, Mabry also liked to take things apart, piece by piece, Ezra had learned.
&nbs
p; He should have known Mabry would be the one to ask.
“So how come she’s here, anyway, Sheriff?” Kyle asked. “What’s she doing back in Ash? Not like there’s any reason for her to be here, and you’d think she’d want to put this whole mess behind her.”
Ezra made a noncommittal sound and shrugged. Yeah. One would think that. But Nia wasn’t about to put this whole mess behind her. She couldn’t.
“Her business here is her own,” he said as more and more gazes swung his way. Ignoring the question would just draw more attention to it, he guessed, but for reasons he didn’t completely understand, he was reluctant to voice Nia’s reasons for being here to everybody. Keith knew. And Lena.
That was it.
There were a few in the department who had likely guessed, and more who would guess, the longer she hung around, but he wasn’t going to confirm it. Not just yet.
“Doesn’t much matter,” Ethan said, scooping another bite of ketchup-drenched eggs into his mouth. “Leslie’s sister, she works weekends at the hotel, and guess who checked out today?”
“Nia didn’t leave town.” Kent popped a piece of bacon into his mouth.
“She checked out of the hotel,” Ethan pointed out.
Natalie appeared at the table just then. “Y’all talking about Nia?”
“Yeah. She’s leaving, though.”
“No, she’s not,” Natalie said, shaking her head. She glanced at Keith, brushed a hand along his shoulders as she refilled his coffee cup.
Keith reached up, returned the caress, all without looking at her.
Natalie continued to talk. “She’s already checked in over at the Inn—subletting one of the cabins that Roz doesn’t use much.”
“Really?” Ethan’s brows shot up.
Ezra glanced up at Natalie.
She grinned. “Hey, I hear things.” Then she wagged her eyebrows. “You know one of my sisters helps Roz with the cleaning—she was out there when Nia checked in. Mentioned it when she called a few minutes ago to see if I wanted to go to Lexington with her later.”
Natalie took his order and as she paused by another table, he heard somebody else asking about Nia—that poor girl, how awful it must be for her. Beth Caudill, one of Deb’s cronies. No doubt everybody who didn’t know about Nia’s change in location, well, they’d know by lunchtime. Five o’clock at the latest.
The small-town grapevine, Ezra thought, amused. Nothing quite like it.
She hadn’t left.
Outwardly, he chatted, made small talk, things he’d done all his life.
He ate his breakfast, even asked for a second helping of pancakes. He drank three cups of coffee, expressed his concern about the possibility of a super Walmart that might or might not be built over in Oakfield. He listened to the women gossip, the men complain, and did his own share, as well.
But all the while, on the inside, he brooded. Nia Hollister hadn’t left.
And not only had she not left, she’d settled down at the Inn … in one of the cabins. Those cabins were a more long-term arrangement than a vacation-type stay.
If she was staying there …
Fuck.
This was not good.
The Inn was just a few miles from Law’s place, just as the deputy had promised. Kent had given her directions, a phone number, even told her to use his name—I’m a cousin, sort of.
Nia was starting to think half the town was a Jennings, or a cousin, sort of.
By midmorning that Saturday, she had a better place to stay—a cabin, with a kitchenette, for roughly a little less than she’d be paying at home. That was going to kill her savings, if she didn’t find somebody to sublet her place. Not that it was going to be an issue—finding somebody.
Settling in, though, as expected took awhile.
After all, she had to buy stuff. Especially since Nia didn’t plan on going anywhere just yet—not until she found some of the answers she needed. She had to get food. Had to call back home, see about that subletting deal—yeah, she’d already gotten the ball rolling, but still, checking in never did hurt, right? She also needed to get a friend to go in and send her some more clothes and stuff.
And no, she wasn’t procrastinating—why should she? It wasn’t like she was obligated to go out and see Law.
Even though she wanted to. Even though she needed to, longed to …
There was just other stuff she needed to do. Other, important stuff, stuff that allowed her to … think. Think about the fact that she wasn’t sure she was equipped to deal with him, or the fact that he made her brain shut down, even as he made her heart ache, like no other guy had ever managed to do.
Think about the fact that she was here for one reason—one reason alone, and it had nothing to do with him. Once that was done, she’d leave.
So did she really need to get involved with him?
Probably not.
Not that it kept her from thinking about him …
Law swiped the towel over his face as he came back inside.
Catching sight of a familiar head of hair in the office he’d set up in his living room, he scowled.
Waiting until he could say something without gasping, he just glared.
A minute passed before Hope lifted her head and smiled beatifically at him.
“Hi.”
“It’s Saturday,” he said, pointedly.
“Yes. And tomorrow is Sunday. After that? Monday. Then Tuesday. Just think, they said we’d never use the stuff we learned in school, but here we are, using those basic skills we learned in kindergarten,” she drawled, grinning at him so that a dimple flashed in her cheek.
“I don’t pay you to work on weekends.” Shit, he didn’t exactly pay her an hourly wage, period. And it wasn’t like he cared—he just wasn’t in the mood to put up with anybody today. Except maybe … no. Wasn’t thinking about that, about her. Wasn’t thinking about that rain check he hadn’t cashed in.
Hope smirked. “You pay me on salary—doesn’t matter when I get the job done, as long as I get it done. And the work is piling up since you have a book coming out in a couple of weeks, and a deadline. Figured I’d get a jump on the e-mail and the stuff you need mailed.”
Shit, the book. He’d all but forgotten it. What the hell?
Sweat trickled down his back, but the tension Law had hoped to burn off during the run remained, lurking just under his skin, an edgy, greedy beast. Setting his jaw, he studied the work Hope had already piled around her—settling in. “Don’t you have plans with your hotshot lawyer?”
She shrugged. “No. He got called in for something or other and I didn’t feel like hanging around the apartment.” Cocking a brow at him, she asked, “Is there a problem?”
Shit.
Law sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “No. I just … no. Edgy. Pissed. Distracted.”
“Grouchy?” she offered, helpfully.
He grunted. “I’m going to go shower, get some work done. You do whatever you feel like messing with.”
“Hmmm.” Hope had already shifted her attention to the stack of work in front of her. He barely knew what it was. He knew what she did—in theory. He’d done it for years, but ever since she’d taken over all the chores that went along with writing, his life had gotten a lot easier. She’d streamlined the process and he didn’t even have to think about a lot of it anymore.
He was already dreading the day he lost her, and he was so worried it would happen—would Remy want her to quit? Not that it made any sense or anything, but still. And it was easier to think about that than the other shit crowding his mind.
Like Nia—the rain check.
Fuck.
He’d made up his mind yesterday he wasn’t thinking about her. Wasn’t going to go down that road right now. No. Not right now, because until he had some sort of handle on what he was feeling, how he was going to deal with it, the last thing he needed to do was think about her—especially when he was this on edge.
Because he was all too likely to sto
rm back to the hotel and finish what they hadn’t been able to finish. Damn it all. There came a point in time when cold showers, perseverance, and even a little old-fashioned self-service just didn’t do the trick.
Law was well past that point.
The nightmare came.
In the pretty little cabin, in a bed far softer than anything a budget hotel, even a nice, privately owned budget hotel could provide, the nightmare found her.
Trapped in the woods.
Nia ran … but she was no longer Nia. She thought perhaps she was Joely.
But she wasn’t sure. She only knew she was afraid. And desperate. So desperate. Desperate to live. Desperate to escape the nightmare that chased her. Desperate to escape that evil.
He laughed. He mocked her.
Pain tore through her.
Shuddering, biting, clawing—it flooded and surrounded, encompassing her entire being.
But worse than the pain was the fear. And the knowledge.
She wouldn’t live through this.
She knew. He would kill her.
“Fuck …”
Nia jerked upright, all but sobbing for breath.
Tears burned her eyes and she fought free of the blankets. A cold sweat left her chilled, left her aching, left her burning. She could almost feel the sting of the branches on her flesh, smacking into her as she ran headlong through the woods.
Shit, shit, shit, shit.
Scrubbing her hands over her eyes, Nia swallowed the knot in her throat, tried to brush it off. A dream. Just a dream. Nothing more.
Determined to shrug it off, and knowing that she’d never sleep, Nia made her way to the dresser where she’d stored her meager supply of clothes. There sure as hell wasn’t much to choose from, but she had what she needed—including workout clothes.
What she needed right now was a hard, driving run—something that would exhaust her and wipe that dream from her mind.
With that in mind, she changed. It took her less than five minutes to hit the door. She was halfway down the cobbled sidewalk that wrapped around the property when she ran into Roz—her temporary landlady.
If You Know Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense Page 10