When You Call My Name

by Sharon Sala

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I didn’t say anything that wasn’t already in my heart.”

  “Oh, Wyatt! You don’t have to pretend with…”

  “If you need to go to the little girls’ room, now’s your time,” he said quietly, aware that she looked as scared as he felt. But as Glory had said, who knew what tomorrow would bring? Denying his feelings for her seemed a careless thing to do.

  She got out of the car with her head in a whirl, her heart pounding with a hope she thought had died. Was there a chance for her after all? Could she have a future with a man she’d just met? More to the point, would she even want to try it without him?

  Chapter 10

  Anders Conway entered his office with a beleaguered air. Having to explain to a U.S. marshal why two of his patrol cars had not been able to apprehend a hit-and-run suspect hadn’t set well with his lunch. His eardrums were still reverberating from the dressing down he’d gotten over the phone from Lane Monday, and while he wanted to resent the constant interference of Glory Dixon’s newfound friends, he couldn’t bring himself to blame them. It was obvious they were truly worried about her welfare and afraid for her life.

  What surprised him was that they believed her story without a single doubt. She’d lived in Larner’s Mill all of her life and had been looked upon as something of an oddity. Why two strangers should suddenly appear in her life and take her every word as gospel was a puzzle.

  But the fire marshal’s report sitting on his desk was strong evidence that Glory Dixon had something going for her. After reading it, Conway been unable to deny the truth of the young woman’s claim. Whether he believed her story of how she saw it happen was immaterial. Fact was, someone had meddled with gas stoves, causing the deaths of her father and brother.

  Conway paced the room, mentally itemizing the series of events concerning her. Her claim that she’d been the target for the fire was too farfetched for him to buy, and he chalked it up to a guilt complex for not having died along with her family. And then she wanted him to believe that she was still in danger, and had used the accidental shooting of her dog as more proof.

  Conway snorted softly, muttering beneath his breath. “This isn’t the kind of place where people go around killin’ dogs for sport.”

  He started to pour himself a cup of coffee and then cursed when he realized it was cold. Someone had gone and turned the darn thing off, leaving the black brew to congeal along the sides of the pot.

  “To hell with dogs…and coffee,” he grumbled, and slammed his cup down with a thump.

  But his mind wouldn’t let go of his thoughts, and he kept dwelling on the oddity of the pup being killed so soon after all of the other trauma in Glory’s life. He hadn’t actually viewed the carcass, but he was inclined to believe that if it had been shot, it was most likely by accident, and someone hadn’t been man enough to own up to the deed.

  He fiddled with the papers in the file on his desk, staring long and hard at the evidence bag containing the bit of fabric that was supposed to have been caught in the dog’s teeth, certain that it meant nothing, either.

  Yet as hard as he tried to convince himself that there had to be a reasonable explanation for the things that had been happening to Glory, last night was an altogether different circumstance.

  Watching that car take aim at her, and then seeing Wyatt Hatfield suddenly turn and leap, had been like watching a scene out of a bad movie. Although it was an improbable thing to be happening in Larner’s Mill, he had seen someone purposefully try to run her down.

  “But damn it, I can’t take the word of a psychic to court. If only my men hadn’t lost that damn hot rod on the logging road, I’d have me a bona fide suspect to question. Then maybe I could get to the bottom of this mess.”

  “You talkin’ to me, Chief?” the dispatcher yelled from the other room.

  “Hell, no, I am not!” Conway shouted, and then winced at the tone of his own voice. If he didn’t get a grip, he was going to wind up a few bales short of a load and they’d be shipping him off in a straitjacket.

  He cursed again, only this time beneath his breath, shoved the file back into the drawer and stomped over to his desk, slumping into his easy chair and feeling every day of his sixty-two years. If only his deputies had been able to keep up with that hit-and-run driver. Everything had hinged upon finding the suspect, and he’d gotten away.

  His stomach began to hurt. The familiar burning sensation sent him digging into his desk for antacids and wishing he’d taken early retirement. But when he found the bottle, it was empty. With a muttered curse, he tossed it in the trash and then walked back to dispatch.

  “I’m going to the drugstore. Be back in a few minutes,” he said, and ambled out of the office without waiting for the dispatcher’s reply.

  As he walked down the street, a car honked. Out of habit, he turned and waved before he even looked to see who had hailed him. Across the street and directly in his line of vision, he saw Carter Foster locking his office and putting the Out to Lunch sign on the office door.

  “Now there’s another man with problems,” Conway muttered, looking at the lawyer’s rumpled suit and pale, drawn face. “Poor bastard. I wonder how much Betty Jo took him for when she left?”

  Then he shrugged. He didn’t have time to worry about cheating women. He had a belly on fire and an office full of trouble just waiting for him to return. Just as he was about to enter the drugstore, an odd thought hit him. He turned, staring back down the street where the lawyer had been, but Carter and his car were nowhere in sight.

  Well, I’ll be damned. We do have one missing person…of a sort…here in Larner’s Mill, after all. Old Carter is missing a wife, isn’t he?

  But as swiftly as the thought had come, he shoved it aside. “God Almighty, I am losing my grip. Everyone knows that Betty Jo would bed a snake if it held still long enough for her to get a grip. When her money runs out, or the old boy she took off with runs out of steam, she’ll be back. And poor old Carter will probably be stupid enough to let her.

  Satisfied with his conclusion, he entered the store, heading straight for the aisle where antacids were stocked.

  Carter drove toward the café, unaware of the chief’s discarded theory. Had he known, he might have kept on driving. As it was, he was going through the motions of normalcy while fighting a constant state of panic. He firmly believed that if Bo Marker didn’t put Glory Dixon out of the picture, he was a ruined man.

  But, Carter kept reminding himself, there was one thing about this entire mess that had worked to his benefit. No one questioned his drawn countenance or his lack of attention to details, like forgetting two court dates and missing an important appointment with a client. It could all be attributed to a man who’d been dumped by his wife, and not a man who’d tossed his wife in a dump.

  He switched on the turn signal, and began to pull into the parking lot of the café when a deputy stepped in front of his car and waved him to a different location. Surprised by the fact that nothing ever changes in Larner’s Mill, he followed the officer’s directions. But after he had parked, he couldn’t contain his curiosity, and wandered over to the area to see what was going on.

  “Hey, buddy, what’s with the yellow tape?” Carter asked, and flipped it lightly with his finger as if he were strumming a guitar string.

  “We had ourselves a crime here last night!”

  Carter watched with some interest as another deputy was measuring some sort of distance between two points.

  “What kind of crime? Someone steal hubcaps or something?”

  “Nope. We had ourselves a near hit-and-run, and I got in on the chase afterward.” And then he frowned and turned away, unwilling to admit how it galled him that the perpetrator had escaped.

  Carter grinned. “How do you have a near hit-and-run, as opposed to an actual one?”

  “Someone deliberately tried to run that Dixon girl over. You know, the one who just buried her daddy and brot
her?” He was so busy telling the story, that he didn’t see the shock that swept across Carter Foster’s face. “Anyway…her and her friend was just comin’ out of the café when some guy took aim and tried to run her down. If it hadn’t been for that man who’s stayin’ with her, he would have done it, too.”

  Damn, damn, damn, Carter thought, and then worry had him prodding for more information.

  “Have you considered that it might have been just a drunk driver?” he asked, hoping to steer their investigation in a different direction.

  The deputy shook his head. “No way. It was deliberate! Chief Conway witnessed the whole thing. We was in fast pursuit within seconds of it happenin’, and would have caught him, too, except the guy was driving a stolen car. It was that Marley kid’s hot rod. Ain’t no one gonna catch that car, I don’t care who’s drivin’ it.”

  The hunger that had driven Carter to the café was turning to nausea. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.

  “Anders Conway witnessed the incident? He saw someone try to run her over?”

  “Yes, sir. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Foster, I’d better get back to work. We got ourselves a felon to catch.”

  Carter stood without moving, watching as the officers picked through the scene. The longer he stared, the more panicked he became. The thought of food turned his stomach, and the thought of Bo Marker made him want to kill all over again. The stupidity of the man, to attempt a crime in front of the chief of police, was beyond belief.

  Disgusted with the whole situation, he stomped to his car, then drove toward home while a slow, burning anger built steam. At least there he could eat in peace without watching his life go down the toilet.

  He was already inside the kitchen, building a sandwich of mammoth proportions, when realization sank in. So Bo Marker was stupid. Carter had known that when he’d hired him. He’d counted on his dim wit to be the deciding factor when he’d offered him the job of murderer.

  Carter dropped into a chair, staring at the triple-decker sandwich on the plate, as well as the knife he was holding, watching as mayonnaise dripped from it and onto his lap.

  So, if I hired Bo Marker, knowing his IQ was that of a gnat, what, exactly, does that make me?

  He dropped the knife and buried his face in his hands, wishing he could turn back time. A saying his mother once told him did a replay inside his head. It had something to do with how the telling of one lie could weave itself into a whole web of deceit. Carter knew he was proof of his mother’s wisdom. He was caught and sinking fast. Unless Bo Marker got his act together and did what he’d been hired to do, he was done for.

  Using the trees around Granny Dixon’s cabin as cover for the deed he had planned wasn’t unique, but Bo Marker didn’t have an original thought in his head. He was still mad about missing his mark last night, but had gotten some joy out of the wild ten-mile chase afterward. Running from the cops like that made him feel young again.

  He glanced down at his watch, wondering when that Dixon bitch and her lover would come back home, and cursing his luck because he’d come too late this morning to catch them as they’d left. It would have been so easy just to pick them off as they’d walked out to the car.

  He sighed, shifting upon the dirt where he was sitting, searching for a softer spot on the tree against which he was leaning. That knothole behind his back was beginning to feel like a brick.

  Bo was at the point of boredom with this whole procedure and kept reminding himself what he could do with the money he would get from this job. As he sat, he rested his deer rifle across his knees and then spit, aiming at a line of ants that he’d been watching for some time. It wasn’t the first time he’d spit on them, and in fact, as he spit, he was making bets with himself as to which way they’d run when it splattered. But his mind quickly shifted from the game at hand when something moved in the brush behind him. He grabbed the rifle and then stilled, squinting through the brush and searching for a sign of movement.

  “Don’t you think that rifle’s a bit big for huntin’ squirrels?”

  Startled, Bo rolled to his feet, aiming his gun as he moved. But the man who’d come out of the brush was ready for the action. When Bo moved, the man swung his gun downward, blocking the motion. It took Bo all of five seconds to forget about tangling with the big, bearded mountain man.

  The man stood a good four inches taller, and was more than fifty pounds heavier. And while Bo’s gun was more powerful, that bead the man had drawn on his belly was all the incentive Bo needed to show some restraint. Being gut-shot wasn’t a good way to die.

  “Who said anything about hunting squirrels?” Bo muttered, and tried taking a step back. The big man’s gun followed his movement like a snake, waiting to strike.

  Teeth shone, white and even through the black, bushy beard. It might have passed for a smile if one could ignore the frosty glare in the mountain man’s eyes.

  Bo had no option but to stand and wait while the man took the rifle from his hands and emptied the shells in the dirt, then tossed back the empty gun.

  Bo caught it in midair.

  The man grinned again as he spoke. “Now you’re not about to tell me you’re huntin’ out of season…are you? We don’t like strangers on our mountain…especially out of season.”

  Bo paled. The threat was all too real to ignore.

  “Well, hell, if that’s the way you wanna be, then I’m gone,” he muttered, and tried a few steps of retreat.

  “You know, that might be the smartest thing you did all day,” the man said.

  Bo nodded, then took a deep breath. Daring to turn his back on the man with the gun, he began to walk away. Just when he thought he was in the clear, a shot rang out, and he fell to the ground in mortal fear, fully expecting to be shattered by pain. Seconds later, something landed with a heavy thud in the middle of his back.

  His face buried in his arms, sucking dirt and old leaves into his mouth, he began to shriek. “God have mercy! Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!”

  The man cradled his rifle in the bend of his arm and bent over Bo’s body. “Now…whatever made you think you was in danger?” he asked.

  Bo held his breath as the weight suddenly disappeared from his back. Shocked, he slowly lifted his head and then rolled on his back, staring up in disbelief at the big gray squirrel the man was holding by the tail. Blood dripped from a tiny hole in the side of its neck, and Bo had a vision of his own head in the same condition, and shuddered.

  The man waved the squirrel across Bo’s line of vision, breaking the thick swirl of his beard with another white smile.

  “Got myself a good one, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, God, I thought you was shootin’ at me,” Bo groaned. He started to crawl to his feet when the man stuck the barrel of the gun in the middle of Bo’s fat belly. “Should I have been?” the man asked quietly.

  The tip of the barrel penetrated the fat just enough to hurt. Bo was so scared, that had he been a cat, eight of his nine lives would have been gone on the spot.

  “No, hell, no!” Bo groaned. “Now are you gonna let me up, or what?”

  “Be my guest,” the man said, and waved his arm magnanimously.

  Five minutes later, Bo burst out of the woods on the run, sighing with relief to see his truck right where he’d left it.

  Considering his bulk, he moved with great speed, his rifle in one hand, his truck keys in another. But his relief turned sour when he noticed the tires. All four were as flat as his old lady’s chest, and just as useless. Fury overwhelmed him. He couldn’t believe he’d let himself be bullied by some mountain man. And now this. He spun, staring back at the woods.

  “For two cents,” he muttered, “I’d go back in there and…”

  And then the sound of breaking twigs and rustling bushes made him pause. A picture of that squirrel’s bloody head and limp body made him want to retch. All of his bravado disappeared as he pivoted. Dragging the empty rifle behind him, he made a wild dash for the truck, an
d moments later, started down the mountain. The truck steered like a man crawling on his belly, but Bo didn’t care.

  Putting distance between himself and this place was all he wanted to do.

  The sound of flapping rubber and bare rims grinding against the gravel on the road could be heard long after Bo had disappeared. And finally, the rustling in the underbrush ceased.

  A short time later, the sounds of the forest began to revive. Birds resumed flight, a blue jay scolded from an overhead branch, and a bobcat slipped quickly across the road and into the trees on the other side.

  Pine Mountain was alive and well.

  It was close to sundown when Wyatt turned off the main highway and onto the one-lane road leading to the Dixon farm. A soft breeze circled through the car from the half-open windows, stirring through Glory’s hair and teasing at the skirt of her blue dress like a naughty child. She’d been asleep for the better part of an hour with her head in his lap, and without thinking, Wyatt braced her to keep her from tumbling as the car took the turn.

  He drove without thought, his mind completely upon the revelation that he’d had this day. It didn’t matter that a week ago, he hadn’t even known she’d existed. In his heart, it felt as if he’d known her for years, even from another lifetime. The years stretched out before him in his mind, and he couldn’t see a future without Glory in it. But when he drove past the burned-out remnants of her home and headed down the old road toward Granny’s cabin, his gut twisted. Marriage was the last thing he should be worrying about. Right now, all that mattered was keeping her alive.

  His foot was on the brake when half a dozen men began coming out of the trees. They walked with the air of men who knew their place on this earth—with their heads held proud, their shoulders back. Some were bearded, some clean-shaven. Some wore jeans, others bib overalls. Some were short, while others towered heads above the rest. It was what they had in common that made Wyatt afraid. To a man, they were armed, and from where he was sitting, they definitely looked dangerous.