“Really?” He snorted. “Because I can remember some car trips that could rival Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.”
Her chest tightened and her nose tingled. “Normal parents.” She brushed the back of her hand along the sleeve of his jacket. “Parents like us.”
He dipped his head and glanced in the rearview mirror, as if to make sure his son wasn’t an illusion. After he pulled into her driveway and carried Travis to his bed, he settled his hands on her hips and propelled her toward the couch. “Sit down and rest. I see a teakettle on the stove. Do you want me to put some water on for tea?”
Hugging her jacket with the hole in the arm around her body, she kicked her feet up on the coffee table. “Sure, thanks.”
He clanged around in the kitchen and then headed for the front door. “I’m just going to check around the property, make sure that wood over the garage window is secure.”
She hunched deeper into her jacket and nodded. She gritted her teeth at the thought of being scared in her own house. She’d get her shotgun locked and loaded and take on anyone who dared cross her threshold.
Flipping her hair back, she smiled, the tough thoughts shoring up her courage. Just as the teakettle began its high-pitched whistle, Ian stomped through the front door.
“You doing okay? Everything looks fine outside.” He strode into the kitchen and called out. “Tea bags?”
“They’re in the cupboard next to the stove. Earl Grey would be great. Or I can get off this couch and do it myself.”
Ian appeared at the kitchen entry, a steaming cup in hand. All that was missing was the apron. Meg giggled at the mental picture.
“What? You think I can’t make a cup of tea?”
She sniffed the air. “It smells perfect.”
He crept toward her, holding the mug in front of him. He placed it on the table with a click and snagged the phone from its cradle. “I’m leaving you with the tea and the phone, so you can call in your order. Do you need anything else?”
Meg hunched forward and wrapped her hands around the warm mug. She eyed him over the rim of the cup, through the curling steam, her eyes watering. She knew what she needed, but right now she had a dinner to throw.
She flicked her fingers toward the door. “I’m good to go. You should get back to work.”
“If you need anything, call me.” He stopped at the door and made a gun with his fingers, pointing in her direction. “And remember, shoot first, ask questions later.”
When Ian closed the door Meg sat still, holding her breath and listening to the creaks and pings of the house. She released it with a gush and blew on her tea before sipping it. She didn’t have to worry about anyone charging up to her house with a gun blazing. The guy shot at them today because they had stumbled onto the territory he was searching and guarding.
He probably tried to break in last night to look for anything belonging to Kayla. That’s why he broke into Ian’s hotel room. And knocked out the maid.
She shivered and slurped more hot tea. When she drained the last drop from the cup, she walked to the hall closet and peeked in at her rifle—stashed well within her reach for a quick grab, and well out of Travis’s reach.
Then she took a bath, careful to hang her arm outside of the tub. She called in the order for the Chinese food and busied herself in the kitchen, getting paper plates and plastic utensils. She hadn’t been kidding when she told Ian she’d planned a strictly casual affair.
She and the other parents at Eloise’s Day Care held a rotating dinner each month, meeting at a different family’s house each time. Travis was already picking up on the fact that some of his buddies had a mom and a dad. Now he did, too. How long would it last?
She spent the next hour straightening up the house and waking Travis from his nap. When the doorbell rang, her heart picked up speed. She peered through the peephole at the young man on the porch, plastic bags clutched in his hands, wound around his fingers.
She had a fleeting thought that her shooter could’ve taken out the delivery guy, stashed him in the bushes at the end of the driveway and picked up the cashew chicken and egg rolls.
Good thing she recognized Brendan Chu from his family’s restaurant, Han Ting.
“Hi, Brendan. Is there more?”
“You ordered a lot, Ms. O’Reilly. Company tonight?” He glanced down at Travis, who had grabbed his leg. “Hey, little dude.”
“Yeah, just a small party.” She picked up Travis, and hitched him onto one hip and held the door wide for Brendan. “Could you put the bags on the kitchen counter?”
“What happened to your arm?” He tilted his head over the bags of food in his arms, toward the sling.
“Accident on a hike today.”
He placed the bags on the counter and brushed his long bangs out of his eyes with the back of his hand. “Another accident? I heard a woman fell yesterday, and then another tourist disappeared.”
“Yeah, you could say the end of the season is finishing with a bang.”
“My parents aren’t very happy about all this. They still need the business to tide them over until ski season.”
Meg looked up at the pewter-gray sky. “Ski season may be coming early this year. Do you need help with the rest of the bags?”
“You’ve got a bum arm. If my parents heard I accepted your help with the bags, they’d lock me out of the house for five days and five nights, or at least take away my cell phone.” Brendan jogged down the steps and returned with the rest of the food. He accepted her tip with a big grin and scurried back to his car, as if afraid she’d change her mind and take it back.
As soon as she began to pull cartons of food from the bags, the doorbell rang again. Her gaze shot to the clock glowing on the microwave. Must be the guests arriving.
A HALF HOUR LATER, grown-ups and kids crowded Meg’s small house, talking, laughing and negotiating chopsticks. She brushed off their questions about her shoulder, although talk of the two dead bodies permeated much of the conversation.
Sophia, the mom of a little girl a few months older than Travis sidled up next to Meg. “I heard Sheriff Cahill has some competition.”
Meg nearly inhaled a peanut and coughed. “What are you talking about?”
Sophia pursed her lips. “Don’t be coy, Meg. Word is, there’s a smokin’ hot FBI guy here investigating the hiker murders and doing a little recon on you, too.”
Meg rolled her eyes. How did the half truths and rumors get started? But if that’s what everyone believed about Ian, she didn’t have any intention of correcting them. Pete must be keeping quiet about her past relationship with Ian, and Eloise must be keeping her lip zipped, too. How soon before everyone made the link between Ian Dempsey and her son, Travis Dempsey?
“Obviously, he’s questioned me. I was leading the hike for both of those tourists.” She poked Sophia with one of her chopsticks. “And I told you before, I’m not interested in Pete.”
“Pete’s interested in you. He’s a fine-looking man, if wound a little tightly, and Travis really needs a dad.”
“Travis has a dad.” Meg spoke sharply and almost dropped her plate.
“Then maybe it’s time to locate him.” Sophia sauntered away and sat on the arm of her husband’s chair, slanting toward him in a possessive manner.
Meg cruised the room with a trash bag dangling from her wrist. Despite the gossip about the deaths on the mountain and the ridiculous rumors about Ian, she was glad she’d gone ahead with the party. The buzz of voices, the squeals of the children and even the greasy paper plates made everything feel normal.
That feeling lasted two seconds after the last guest left.
Travis could barely keep his eyes open as Meg brushed his teeth. She tucked him into bed and he didn’t even ask for a story. He did mumble one word as he burrowed into his pillow. “Daddy.”
Meg peered through the slats of the blinds in Travis’s room. His window looked out on the side of the house that led to the bushes where Ian had heard the intruder make
his escape.
She left Travis’s door open while she packed up some remaining cartons of food. She’d sent her guests home with leftovers, and they’d responded by thoroughly cleaning up after themselves.
She slid a glance toward the closet. She figured she could always sit in a rocking chair facing the front door with her rifle slung across her lap like Annie Oakley or something.
Maybe she should’ve just invited Ian to the party and introduced him as Travis’s father…her husband. It would’ve quelled the rumors, and better yet, he’d still be here right now.
No. Ian had work to do. She wasn’t a helpless woman like her mother; like her twin sister who’d meekly gotten into the limo with a drunk driver. They’d been so cowed by her Dad, they couldn’t speak up for themselves, even when their lives depended on it.
Despite her father’s disappointment, Meg remained standing. And she could take care of herself and Travis.
As she cinched up a trash bag, the doorbell rang. She froze. The doorbell rang again. She dropped the bag on the kitchen floor.
A killer wouldn’t come calling at the front door.
Just in case, she tripped to the closet and dragged out the rifle. She cocked it, nice and loud, and crept toward the door. Then the banging started and she jumped back, clutching the gun to her chest.
She leaned forward and peered through the peephole. Matt. She almost collapsed on the floor in relief. What was her boss doing banging on her door in the middle of the night?
“Hold on, Matt.” She leaned the rifle against the wall behind the chair and threw the dead bolt.
She yanked open the door and Matt stumbled into her house. He lurched against her and she sucked in a breath as he tugged on her injured arm. “What’s wrong with you?”
His grip loosened as he slid to the floor…leaving a trail of blood on her shirt. Her mouth dropped open, but she couldn’t form one word.
Chills gripped her body. Matt’s voice rasped from his throat and Meg leaned over to hear his words.
“He killed me. And you’re next.”
Chapter Eleven
Ian’s pulse quickened, and he focused the night vision binoculars on the car as it pulled up to Meg’s house. A returning guest? No, he’d memorized those vehicles, and this one didn’t match.
A car door flew open and a man emerged as if spit out by the vehicle. He took a few stumbling steps, not bothering to shut the door behind him. His heart thundering, Ian curled his fingers around the door handle as he sharpened the focus of his binoculars.
The pressure against his temples eased when he recognized Meg’s boss Matt, staggering up the walkway. The guy looked like he’d had a few too many. Maybe that’s how he relaxed, because Ian had rarely seen anyone as tightly wound as that dude.
A slice of light appeared as Meg opened the door. She must’ve already seen Matt through the peephole. As Ian had the binoculars trained on the two of them, Meg stumbled backward. Ian swore and launched out of the car. His hand hovered over his weapon as he charged up the walkway to the porch.
Matt lay crumpled at Meg’s feet with Meg bent over him. As Ian’s boots crunched the gravel, Meg’s head shot up. Her mouth formed an O in her white face.
But Matt’s face looked whiter.
“What the hell happened?” Ian dragged Matt from where he was bunched around Meg’s feet and ankles. Matt groaned and rolled onto his back. Blood oozed from several gashes across his chest and belly.
Meg found her voice in a big way and let loose a scream that carried outside and over the mountains. A dog barked and Travis cried out from the bedroom.
“Oh no, no, no. Don’t let Travis see this.” She crushed her fists to her mouth.
Her body was trembling so fiercely, Ian didn’t think she could walk to Travis’s room. He crouched down and dragged Matt’s legs into the house and shut the door behind him. He then jogged into the kitchen and grabbed a dishtowel and the phone.
Ian handed the phone to Meg. “Call 911.”
He folded the dishtowel in two and applied it to Matt’s fiercest wound. Travis cried out again, and Meg almost dropped the phone on Matt’s head. Ian cinched Meg around the wrist and yanked her down. “Keep the pressure on. You call 911 and I’ll see about Travis.”
As he headed down the hall, Ian could hear Meg’s shaky voice talking to the dispatcher. Outside of Travis’s room, Ian took a big breath and tucked his weapon behind his back.
Ian perched on the edge of Travis’s bed, where Travis was sitting up, rubbing his eyes and crying. “Hey, Travis. Did you have a bad dream?”
Travis dragged his fists down his tear-streaked face and nodded. “Dog barking.”
“I hear him. Maybe he had a bad dream, too.” He tugged at Travis’s pajamas to get him to lie back down, but Travis fell into his lap instead.
His hand hovered above his son’s head. Then he stroked one light brown curl. Travis sniffled and ran the back of his hand across his nose. Closing his eyes, he wrapped a small arm around Ian’s thigh.
God, he should be doing what he could for Matt out there. He hadn’t wanted to leave Meg alone with him, but she’d been in no condition to comfort Travis. He glanced down at his son and shifted his sleeping form back onto his bed.
He crept out of the room and snapped the door closed behind him. Maybe Travis would sleep through the sirens and commotion. If not, maybe his mom would be sufficiently recovered to calm his fears.
Ian strode into the living room and banged his knee against the coffee table. Meg had retrieved more towels and bunched them against Matt’s chest and stomach. She was dabbing his face and mouth with a wet cloth and had hooked her arm behind his neck.
She glanced up. Her face had lost the panicked look and the wide eyes. “He’s still breathing, and at least the blood’s not gurgling out of him anymore.”
At the first wail of the siren, Meg’s shoulders rounded forward. “Thank God. How’s Travis?”
“He went back to sleep.” Ian kneeled beside her, placing his fingers against Matt’s faint pulse. “I just hope the sirens don’t wake him up again.”
“I can handle him if they do. Thanks for stepping in.”
He tilted a chin at Matt. “Thank you for stepping in.”
“I wasn’t going to let my boss bleed out on my living room floor.”
The whoop, whoop of the sirens stopped and revolving blue and red lights splashed through the front window of the house. Ian eased up and opened the door to the EMTs storming the front walkway. “I think he’s been stabbed.”
Ian peeled Meg’s red-stained hands from Matt’s body and nudged her away as the EMTs swooped in to start their hero work. She tilted her head and blew out a breath. “I think Travis is still sleeping.”
The second set of sirens wailed down the street and she bit her lip. “At least he was.”
Wrapping an arm around Meg’s waist, Ian pulled her flush against his body. “Matt was conscious when he dragged himself up to your house. Did he say anything before he collapsed?”
“He said somebody killed him and I was next.” She held her free hand in front of her, studying the blotches that resembled red wine. Her hand was as steady as the granite in the mountains beyond her front yard.
Ian tightened his hold on her, and then again, as Sheriff Cahill marched up the driveway. Cahill’s eyes narrowed as his gaze darted from Matt to Ian and Meg framed in the doorway.
“I oughtta run you out of my town, Dempsey.”
For the violence that seemed to follow him everywhere, or for his arm around Meg?
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Ian said, “I don’t blame you, Sheriff.”
Cahill loomed over Matt, the EMTs still attaching tubes and masks to him. “What happened to him, Meg?”
The EMT jabbed another needle into Matt’s arm and answered Cahill without looking up. “Someone stabbed him three times.”
The sheriff smacked the doorjamb. “Did it happen here during your party?”
Ian wonder
ed how the good sheriff knew about Meg’s party, while Meg snapped, “Of course not. Matt banged on my front door and then collapsed in my arms.”
“Did he say who did this?” Cahill’s gaze wandered to Ian’s hand resting lightly on Meg’s hip.
“No.”
“Did he say anything?”
Ian felt Meg’s body stiffen. Then she cleared her throat, a sure indicator of a lie. “N-no.”
She even had the stutter. If Cahill were any kind of cop, he’d read the signs. To his credit, the sheriff’s lips tightened.
One of the EMTs sprang to his feet and jogged out to the ambulance. The other one held aloft a bottle connected to a tube that snaked into Matt’s arm. “We’re loading him up now. Are any of you next of kin?”
Meg visibly shuddered. “I thought you said he was going to be okay?”
“He lost a lot of blood. You’ll still want to notify next of kin.”
Sheriff Cahill raised his brows at Meg, as the two EMTs shifted Matt onto the gurney. “Does Matt have family in Crestville?”
“His ex-wife lives in Colorado Springs and his girlfriend is traveling for business. I’ll call both of them from the hospital.”
Ian sliced his hand through the air. “You’re not going to the hospital. What about Travis?”
“Can you stay here with him, Ian? I want to be there for Matt. Somebody stabbed him and Matt got in his car and drove out here to…” she trailed off as a light glinted in Cahill’s eyes “…to my house.”
“Now, why did he do that?” Cahill started when the ambulance came to life, siren and all.
“I don’t know, Pete.” Meg’s good arm flailed at her side. “Maybe to warn me. Someone shoots me, someone stabs him, what next?”
“That’s what I want to know.” Cahill folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb as if he had all night.
“Stay tuned.” Ian shrugged. “Will Meg be safe at the hospital?”
“I’ll stay with her.” Cahill straightened his stance. “I want to question Matt when he regains consciousness anyway. I noticed your car isn’t in the driveway, Meg. I’ll give you a ride.”
Mountain Ranger Recon Page 12