by Linda Style
“The gate’s broken and the dogs are gone.” She stopped, rubbed her temples. Took a step, then stopped, then took another, as if she couldn’t decide what to do.
“Broken? How?”
“I don’t know how. But I’ve got to call the sheriff and find my dogs.”
“Maybe it wasn’t closed proper—”
“No,” she interrupted. “It’s broken. The security box was vandalized and disconnected.” She whirled around. “I’ve got to go.”
“I can help.”
She stopped in her tracks and gave him a blank look. She didn’t say he wasn’t in any shape to help, but he knew that’s what she was thinking.
“I can ride along. Two pairs of eyes looking are better than one. And you’ll have to concentrate on driving.”
She grabbed her keys and started punching numbers on her phone. “Okay. C’mon.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“THIS IS TORI. Is Karl there? My dogs are missing.” Tori held the phone to her ear and spoke to the sheriff’s wife as she pulled her SUV from the garage.
“Hello, Tori. No, he’s not here right now, but I’ll give him a holler and let him know.”
The Spirit Creek sheriff’s department bore no resemblance to any law enforcement agency Tori had ever seen before she’d moved here. Marlene Masterson, the sheriff’s wife, was the dispatcher, and the sheriff seemed to work more from his home than he did the sheriff’s office.
“Thanks, Marly. Can you do it right away? This is really urgent.” She pulled onto Miner’s Gulch Road, the main road to Spirit Creek. Several smaller unnamed dirt roads connected with the Gulch and she didn’t know which way to go first. She drove a half mile and took the first one.
“When did this happen?” Marly asked.
“I’m not sure.” She’d let them out when the sun was just beginning to come up and she hadn’t paid any attention to whether the gate was open or not. It was always locked unless she opened it for someone. “An hour, maybe. But the point is, they’re missing and I have to find them. Please tell Karl that I need help.”
Linc placed a calming hand on her arm. She took a breath.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m doing that right as we speak. Now give me more details.”
“I don’t have any more information and I’m trying to drive, so I’m going to hang―” She swerved to miss a jackrabbit that dashed in front of the car.
Linc’s arm flung out over her chest, bracing her as one might a child to keep her from flying forward. She straightened the car and Linc said, “Sorry.”
An automatic reaction on his part, she knew. But nice.
“Wait,” Marly said, still on the phone. “I have to get a description so I can tell Karl what they look like. And give me their names. I have to write a report.”
“Damn it, Marlene. You know what they look like, and their names are Bruno and Cleo. Now please get Karl on it.” She clicked off the phone and tossed it on the seat. “That woman has no sense of urgency. If someone was stealing her purse, she’d probably want to write a report before telling the sheriff.”
Linc kept quiet while he scanned one direction and then the other. After a moment, he said, “It’s obvious someone tried to break in.”
“Yeah, and I have no idea why.”
“I’d say you can probably narrow it down to robbery or dog theft. Your dogs are purebreds, aren’t they?”
She nodded, unwilling to let that thought settle. She could deal with the loss of material things, but not the loss of Bruno and Cleo. “Could be vandals, too.”
Tori saw movement in the bushes at the side of the road. Her heart leaped. “There, look there.” Another rabbit scurried out of the bush, she hit the brakes and screeched to a stop. Seeing the animal lope off, she rested her forehead on the steering wheel for a second, then sat up and took a breath. “I guess I’m a little uptight,” she said.
He looked sideways at her. “You think?”
She had to smile. “Okay. A lot. But Cleo and Bruno are like my children. I’d die if anything happened to them.”
“I’m sure they’re fine. I’ve heard of dogs getting lost and finding their way home years later.”
“If you’re trying to reassure me, it’s not working.” She put the car in Reverse to head down a different road.
“Okay. Maybe not. But they’re pretty capable animals.”
“They are…but the gate didn’t break on its own and the dogs would normally have barked if anyone was there. So capable or not, something isn’t right.”
“They could’ve seen one of those rabbits and gone after it.”
“They’re trained to stay in the yard…and to alert me if someone is there.”
“Really?” He gave her a quizzical look. “How’d that come about?”
She gripped the wheel tighter. Now was not the time to explain. She needed to shut up and just drive. “I just meant they always bark if someone comes or something unusual happens. Like most dogs do…and that gets my attention.”
As they reached the outskirts of Spirit Creek, she slowed, scanning between the prickly pear, sage, scrub oak and manzanita bushes, and the boulder-sized outcroppings of red rock, where her dogs could easily hide. The rugged terrain was excellent camouflage for many desert animals.
“How long have you had the dogs?” Linc asked.
“Since they were babies. My husband was out of town a lot and they kept me company.” Kept her safe.
“Was that the reason for the divorce? Him being gone a lot?”
She stiffened. Not her favorite subject, but it was inevitable he’d ask. “There’s never just one reason, is there?” She continued looking from side to side. “And usually, both people can share some blame. I’m sure we were both at fault. Marriage is hard, especially when you’re young and don’t even know yourself.”
He nodded. “They told me I was engaged before prison, but apparently my fiancée believed I was guilty, too.”
His light tone and joking manner belied the sadness in his eyes. “Well,” Tori said, turning to look at him. “She was wrong. And it’s her loss.” His eyes caught hers. Uncomfortably so. She looked away, her focus on the road again. But in her peripheral vision, she saw him smile.
“I’d like to believe that, too, but until I find out more, or my memory returns, I can’t be sure who I was.”
“Look.” She motioned to a boy on a bicycle. “It’s Benny. His parents own the hardware store. Ask him if he’s seen anything.” She pulled close and hit the power button to open Linc’s window.
“Excuse me,” Linc said to the boy.
Benny stopped.
“We’re looking for two golden retrievers. Have you seen any dogs around?”
The boy shook his head, then seeing Tori, he gave a huge smile, braces showing. “No, but I can help find them.”
Tori checked the time. “Thanks, Benny, but if you’re on your way to school, you better keep going.”
As she reached to find the phone, Linc handed it to her. “Thanks.” She hit speed dial for Serena, told her what happened and asked if she could help. “Can you please call Natalia, too, and anyone else you can think of who might be available?”
“Sure.”
Two hours later, she’d called Serena to say they’d meet her at the café. Then she called Marly to let the sheriff know where she was in case he found Cleo and Bruno.
Pulling into a parking space at the Cosmic Bean, Linc said, “I need to make a pit stop. But I don’t think I can get inside without some help.”
They’d been in such a hurry, they’d left his chair in the garage and hadn’t taken his crutches, either.
Serena drove up just then, parked her van next to Tori’s SUV, got out and walked over to talk. Seconds later, Natalia zoomed in and parked her red Mustang two spaces away.
“We need a potty stop,” Tori said to Serena. “And we were in such a hurry, we didn’t bring Linc’s chair.”
“Got it,” Serena said. “Human chair.”
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br /> “Maybe a crutch,” Tori said, and once they were out of their cars, Linc included, Tori motioned Serena over. “Here, Linc, just lean on me and Serena and we’ll go slow.” Just as Linc draped an arm around each of them, Tori heard barking and whining, and suddenly both dogs careened around the corner of the old Victorian house. Bruno barreled forward while Cleo seemed to be limping behind. Sheriff Masterson ambled along behind them.
Seeing Linc, Bruno stopped, growled and bared his teeth. Cleo joined him, barking and snarling, and in the next microsecond, Bruno leaped forward, paws first, and landed on Linc’s chest. Serena fell to the side, Tori lost her footing, and they all tumbled down together.
“No, Bruno, no,” Tori said. “It’s okay. Sit. Sit.” Bruno hesitated, then finally backed off and obeyed the command. “Good boy, good boy,” Tori said soothingly.
Linc’s eyes rounded to the size of satellite dishes.
“Are you hurt?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay. Don’t move yet.” Tori began stroking his arm as she called the dog over. “Good boy, good boy,” she repeated to Bruno, still stroking Linc’s arm.
The sheriff came over to help, but she waved him off. “Good boy, good boy. Come,” she called softly.
As Bruno came forward, she took Linc’s hand and held it out. Linc’s muscles tensed. “I rounded up some friends to look for them,” she said to the sheriff, hoping he’d leave it at that. Bruno licked her hand, then sniffed Linc’s. After a moment, Bruno seemed to accept that Linc was safe, so Tori nodded to Serena to call the dogs.
“C’mon, kids.” Serena pulled a couple of dog biscuits from her pocket. She crouched to get them to come, but Cleo held back a few moments before approaching. Natalia came over and helped Tori get Linc up so they could go inside.
“I found them on the side of the road about six miles from here,” the sheriff said. “They were headed this way, so they may have been coming back. I had one heck of a time getting the big one into the car. The smaller one wouldn’t budge, and when I tried to lift her, I thought the male was gonna take one of my legs off.”
She would’ve gone over and hugged him if she hadn’t been holding Linc up. “I can’t thank you enough, Karl. I really can’t.”
“Just doing my job.” He was about to go, but stopped. “Marley said you were freaking out. Are you okay now?”
Tori nodded. “I just panicked. The gate is broken and the lock was ripped off, all the electronics torn away.”
“Could be teenagers looking for excitement,” the sheriff said. “There are a couple of troublemakers who’ve been keeping me pretty busy these days. I’ll check them out.” He glanced at Tori over the top of his glasses. “You better get that gate fixed. I can’t be chasin’ dogs when I’ve got a town to worry about.”
Serena snickered and Tori bit her lip to keep a straight face. Nothing ever happened in Spirit Creek. “Right. I’ll do it as soon as possible.” As the sheriff walked back to his car, she called out, “Should I fill out a complaint of some kind?”
He turned. “Nope. I’m on it.”
“Okay. Thanks again,” she called out, her attention coming back to Linc’s body against hers. “Okay. Let’s get you inside.”
Linc hopped on one foot while resting one arm on Tori’s shoulders and the other on Natalia’s. When they finally reached the bathroom, Natalia slipped from under his arm so Tori could get him through the door. Once inside, Tori moved away to let him get his balance. He reached for the sink. “Okay,” she said, “you’re on your own from here.”
“Darn,” Linc said teasingly. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Tori said emphatically, then pushed the door shut. She turned to see both of her friends standing there, arms crossed, disapproval radiating like laser beams from their eyes. “What?”
Natalia raised one dark eyebrow and mimicked Linc’s question. “‘Are you sure?’”
Yeah. Good question. Right now, she wasn’t sure of anything.
“You know you’re playing with fire, don’t you?” Serena said.
She knew. God, how she knew.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LINC HEARD THE WOMEN talking outside the door, but then it got quiet. He smiled and looked at the stranger’s face in the mirror. He might not know his past, but he knew what he wanted in the future.
He wanted Tori. He wanted to know her in every way possible. His body responded at the thought. He’d spent nearly every night since he’d met her imagining the two of them together, fantasizing about kissing her, caressing her, making love to her in a dozen different ways, and yet somehow, his fantasies seemed like more than lust. Oh, it was that for sure, but there was something else.
Being with her was like being in a safe place during a storm. And when she wasn’t around, he felt a free-floating anxiety about almost everything. She grounded him, made him stay focused. But he couldn’t hold back the bone-deep fear that he may never remember. What if he never remembered? Would he just continue on making himself into this new person, whoever he was…or would be?
And what if he did remember, and he turned out to be someone he didn’t want to be? For all he knew, he could’ve been a real jerk. There was no way to know if his personality was the same now as it was before.
And then there was his family. What he knew so far wasn’t good. He’d had a brother who’d been a gang member and had died in a shooting. His parents were divorced and his mother now dead. He hadn’t been told about any other family members, grandparents or aunts and uncles, and none had been on his visitor list at the jail. He had so many questions; he didn’t know how he’d ever have a life if he couldn’t put the pieces together.
But when Tori was there, he had a sense that everything was going to be okay. A few times he’d thought that if he had to make a life without remembering, he could handle it if Tori was part of it. She was honest, loving, sincere, warm, confident, and it didn’t hurt that she make his heart skip a beat.
She seemed to like him, too, though it was hard to tell how much. But even if she were receptive, he had nothing to offer. No money, no home, no job, no family. No education. Hell, he didn’t even know if he was any good in bed.
Finished, he washed his hands and pushed open the door expecting to see someone waiting to use the bathroom next…or at least give him a shoulder to lean on, but no one was around. He glanced down the dimly lit hallway and heard noise at the other end where it turned a corner. He couldn’t get very far without help, so he called out, “Anyone here?” He held on to the wall and tried to hop a few steps. Suddenly his vision blurred. The room tilted and images flickered in his head. Dark. Small. Cold. A tiny sliver of light. Panic. Shivering. Walls closing in. Banging and banging. Black. Everything swirling black.
“Linc?”
Tori’s voice. A warm hand on his arm. “What?” He broke into a cold sweat.
“Are you okay?”
“I—I don’t know. I think I had some kind of flashback.”
Her eyes searched his.
“It’s gone now. It didn’t make sense anyway. Just some disjointed images.” Prison. Was that it?
“Do you want to sit down and wait a little before we go?”
“No, I’m good.”
“Here, lean on me. I put the dogs in the car already.”
When he put his arm around her, she braced herself against him, one arm around his back. The movement, the touch of her body sent a jolt of desire directly to his dick. His cheek brushed against her hair—soft, silky hair. Her touch, her scent, her femininity captivated him, held him prisoner. He couldn’t have moved away if he tried.
“We have one stop to make before we go back,” she said.
“I’m in no hurry. My therapy isn’t until three o’clock, and if you have the time, I’d like to see a little more of the area before we go back.”
“Sure.” Tori helped him walk to the car and get inside the vehicle. When he was buckled in, she went around and
climbed into the driver’s seat. The dogs settled quietly in back.
“But before we do anything, I have to stop at the vet’s to see what’s going on with Cleo…her leg.”
“That’s right. She was limping.” He turned to look at Cleo, who put her head down on a pillow, big eyes looking up at him. “I thought your dogs had gotten used to me,” he said. “But then today, they were ready to tear me apart. That was more than a little scary.”
“It’s probably because you were touching me. They thought you were hurting me.”
Oh, that was reassuring. If he ever wanted to get intimate with Tori, he’d have to lock up the dogs first. “Doesn’t that kind of hurt your social life?”
She grinned. “It might not be a bad thing if I didn’t like the guy.”
“So, I better stay on your good side then.”
“Yes, and don’t forget it,” she said with a wicked smile. “The vet’s office is right up the street. It shouldn’t take long, and if there’s time after that, I’ll drive the long way home so you can see some more. Anything in particular you’d like to see?”
“No. I’d just like to be outdoors and breathing the fresh mountain air.”
He glanced from one side of the street to the other. “There were days in the hospital that seemed to go on forever, and because I couldn’t go anywhere, I thought that’s what prison must’ve been like. Except worse.”
The weight of her guilt pressed like a heavy yoke on her shoulders, always pulling her down. Every time she began to feel good, something would happen, or Linc would say something to remind her of what she’d done. How could she ever being free of it?
“Having grown up with overprotective parents, I sort of know that feeling,” she said. “In a minor way, though, compared to what you’ve been through.”
“Maybe I should be glad I don’t remember,” Linc said. “At least I don’t have any bad memories.”
“That’s optimistic. A glass half-full attitude.”
He glanced over, then fixed his gaze on the road again. “I wish that were true. I wish I could stop wanting to know who I am. It would make things a lot easier.”