Return of the Lawman

by Lisa Childs

  He’d told himself he wasn’t a good risk. His job was too dangerous. His past too painful. A woman didn’t need a man like him in her life.

  Lindsey didn’t need him. She was better off without him.

  He pounded the pavement into town. Sweat streaked from his hair and flowed into his eyes, burning them. He welcomed the pain.

  Mindless of his sweat-stained clothes and rapid breaths, Dylan jumped onto the sidewalk and pulled open the door to the diner.

  The dinner hour had long passed.

  “Hey, Marge!”

  When Marge glanced up from wiping down the counter, she glared. Dylan turned on his heel, the rubber sole squeaking against the vinyl tiled floor.

  “That was cold, Dylan, accusing the man of murder. He loves you like a son.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. How had he forgot ten how fast word got around in Winter Falls? “I was doing my job, Marge.” Dylan forced away the guilt and the suspicion, made it impersonal. He remembered his duty. “I have to find who committed these murders. I—”

  She nodded and patted a hand over her blond hair. “I know, Dylan. But it’s nasty. Are you going to arrest him?”

  “I can’t say, Marge.” He sighed. “I’ll never get over how quickly rumors spread in this town. And nobody forgets, no matter how much time passes.”

  She sniffed. “The rumors keep the dead alive.”

  Into his mind sprang an image of a laughing Jimmy. Maybe that was why he’d come home, more than his personal vow to clear his name.

  He blew out a ragged breath. “Maybe the past should be kept there, Marge. It’s point less to talk about it.”

  “Some times the past comes back to haunt us, Dylan. Some times it can’t just lie.” Marge’s smile didn’t brighten the sadness in her eyes.

  He’d never dealt with his feelings regarding Jimmy’s death, or his parents’, for that matter. Maybe he should plan on taking Mrs. Warner’s vacated bed at Arborview.

  “You want something? A bottle of water?”

  Dylan shook his head. “No, I have to get back to my jog.”

  “Where you headed? The sheriff just left. He wouldn’t talk about it, either. Just said you moved out.”

  He ran a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. For a lot of reasons he couldn’t talk about the sheriff. “Maybe I’ll swing by the Warners’, check on the officer who’s watching for Mrs. Warner’s return.”

  “Check on Lindsey,” she said with a smile.

  Dylan shook his head. “The hospital would have kept her for observation.”

  Marge arched a brow. “That head strong girl?”

  “Who? Lindsey Warner?” he said, with a feeble attempt to lift his lips into a smile.

  Marge politely chuckled as he pulled open the door to jog off into the gathering dusk.

  Chapter Eleven

  DYLAN STOPPED at the cross roads. One path led to the sheriff’s house, the other to Lindsey. Was Marge right? Was Lindsey home? Was she resting? Or hurting?

  His heart ached, and not from physical exertion. He longed to see her impish face. His arms tingled with the desire to wrap around her small, curvy body and just hold her. Hold her close. As he had after the explosion. The paramedics had had to literally pull him away until he’d come to his senses.

  Until he’d shut it off. He needed to do that now. He needed to ignore his aching heart and bypass the road to Lindsey. Every time he came close to her, he put her in danger. Each incident had become more perilous.

  Just by being, he was a threat to her safety. He blinked away the sweat burning his eyes and he shivered as the night air penetrated his damp clothes. He had to head home, wherever that was.

  His muscles ached, but he forced himself into motion. He jogged toward the sheriff’s house. He wouldn’t talk to him, not yet. He’d just check that the old man’s car was parked in the drive. Then he’d head back to the impersonal motel room he’d rented.

  Around him, the breeze rustled through the remaining leaves on the trees. The fallen ones crunched beneath his feet as he ran.

  The shrill ness of a car horn shattered the quiet of the autumn evening. Dylan glanced behind him, around him, but the noise came from a distance yet. Ahead. Toward the sheriff’s. He pushed himself, forcing his weary muscles to greater speed.

  A half a mile ahead, he glimpsed the sheriff’s old police cruiser. The front end had slammed into an enormous oak at the edge of a curve in the back country road.

  Dylan scram bled around the car and tried to wrench open the driver’s door. The twisted metal refused to budge. Through the shattered glass of the driver’s window, he saw the portly sheriff pinned between the steering wheel and his seat, leaning on the horn. The old man’s eyes were closed.

  “Damn it!” He slammed his fist into the glass, knocking shards to the ground. A few stray pieces penetrated the flesh of his forearm. A bite of pain drew a curse from him. He shut it off.

  He checked the sheriff’s wide neck, searching desperately for a pulse. No beat was discernible beneath the thick flesh.

  Automatically he reached for the car radio and sent up brief thanks that it wasn’t crushed. He forced his voice to steady as he called for help.

  With trembling fingers he searched for the lever beside the seat and forced it back. Care fully he loosened the sheriff’s seat belt and eased him to his side. Then he began chest compressions.

  Even though he shoved back the emotions, his thoughts taunted him. Had his interrogation of the sheriff brought on a heart attack? What other reason would have caused the sheriff to run off a road he had traveled so often?

  Old pain rolled over the new. He closed his eyes and for the second time that day he fervently prayed. And he hoped his prayers would be answered again.

  “I DON’T KNOW IF IT’S a good idea to tell the deputy.” Evan Quade maneuvered around a sharp turn.

  Lindsey grasped his arm when he reached for the clutch in his cramped sports car. “Stop. There’s a wreck!” She peered through the darkness at the car crumpled against a tree.

  A tall, lean man loomed beside the car. Even from a distance, Lindsey sensed his desperation in the agitated motion of his hands. The head lights glinted off his golden hair. Panic clawed through her. Dylan.

  “Stop!” she yelled again.

  “Okay.” Quade screeched the car to a halt.

  She vaulted out before he turned off the ignition. “Dylan! What happened? Are you all right?” She grabbed his arm to pull him toward her. Blood oozed between her fingers. “You’re hurt!”

  “I wasn’t in the accident. I’m fine. It’s Sheriff Buck.” Dylan jerked a hand toward the car.

  “How bad is he hurt?” Quade asked, his cell phone cradled in his hand.

  “I already called it in. Thank God the radio was working.” Dylan jerked his bloody arm from Lindsey’s fingers and ran his hand through his tousled hair.

  “I’m okay, boy!” the sheriff gasped in a poor imitation of his notorious bellow.

  “You’re not okay.” Dylan’s words escaped through his clenched teeth.

  “What the hell do you think? I wake up to you giving me mouth to mouth.” The old man spat onto the gravel shoulder of the road as he twisted in the shortened front seat of the car. He could probably free himself despite the close ness of the steering wheel, but Dylan’s imposing stance pre vented him from trying.

  “Thank God you’re all right,” Lindsey said, and reached down to squeeze the old man’s shoulder.

  “Thank the boy.” The sheriff’s voice broke, and he rubbed a knuckle into his tearing eye. “Fool kid jogging all around the country side. Lucky for me, though.”

  Lindsey blinked back tears at the sight of the sheriff’s affection for Dylan.

  “Yeah,” Dylan rasped, “lucky for you. I know how this happened. It was my fault.”

  “A lot of stuff seems to be your fault,” Quade commented, and Lindsey shot him an annoyed grimace.

  “And you keep turning up.” Dyla
n’s sharp gaze swung toward Quade.

  Her brother shrugged.

  Lindsey reached for Dylan’s arm again. “You’re hurt.” She gingerly touched a fingertip to the glass embedded in his skin. “This is really nasty. We have to stop the bleeding.”

  “I’m fine.” Dylan tried to pull free again, but she tightened her hold on him.

  Due to the cool night air and her in sis tent father, she’d worn a sweater. She shrugged out of it, dropping his arm only long enough to free hers. She caught his hand again and loosely wrapped the cashmere around his bleeding forearm.

  “Lindsey,” he pro tested. “You’re ruining your sweater. Come on…”

  “It’s just a sweater,” she said dismissively. But it had cost a day’s salary.

  “Why are you here?” He stared down at her makeshift bandage.

  “We have something to tell you. It can wait now.”

  Dylan caught her chin in his hand and glided his fingertips over her cheek bone to the bandage on her forehead. “You’re all right? You shouldn’t be out of the hospital.” His gaze slid to Quade. “And you shouldn’t be with him. There’re things you don’t know, Lindsey. I checked him out.”

  She nodded, tears over his concern stinging her eyes. “I—I have things to tell you, too.”

  Distant sirens heralded the ambulance. He sighed. “It’ll have to wait.” The ambulance approached, its lights flashing. He caught the lapel of Quade’s jacket in his bloodied fist. “If anything happens to her…”

  Quade nodded. “She’s safe. Safer with me than you.” His dark eyes gleamed.

  Dylan shoved the other man back and strode to the sheriff’s crumpled car.

  Lindsey reached for the passenger door of the sports car. “Let’s get out of the way.”

  Quade ran his fingers over the wrinkled lapel. “Yes, now is not the time to talk to him about this.”

  Lindsey shook her head and ignored the hustle of paramedics as they rushed to the sheriff. “You didn’t want to tell him, anyway. But not now. He’s upset.”

  “Despite threatening me, he doesn’t seem that concerned about you. Never came to see you. Although he had no way of knowing you were out of the hospital, he was out jogging tonight.”

  Lindsey glanced back at the wreck. The sheriff waved away the paramedics and stood up with Dylan’s help, his pudgy arm wrapped around his young friend’s shoulders. She remembered the sheriff’s words about Dylan trying to outrun his pain.

  “Actually, his running is a sign in my favor. But I’m not interested.”

  “Oh, you’re not?” Quade’s lips twisted into a mocking smile.

  She watched Dylan help the paramedics lift the sheriff’s stretcher into the back of the ambulance. Then he hopped into it, too. He never looked back at her before the doors closed. Lindsey blinked back the threat of tears.

  Quade slid behind the wheel, and she marveled that such a tall man would choose to drive such a tiny car. “You’re making the fatal mistake.”

  “What’s that? You can’t believe Sarah Hutchins’s paranoid ranting about Dylan!” disappointment washed over her, and she shivered in the chill night air. A few snow flakes danced in the darkness and kissed the windshield. She shivered again.

  Quade turned on the heater. The blast of warm air didn’t dissipate the chill.

  “I’d say it is funny that all this stuff happened the minute he strolled back into town.”

  “He wasn’t the only one to come back now. I did, too. And I don’t believe you or the Hutchinses have been here long. Just long enough to stir up trouble, proposing a controversial project.”

  “I kinda like stirring up trouble.”

  She had to laugh. “So that is genetic.” She allowed a dry chuckle to escape.

  Quade executed a sharp turn to head them back toward Lindsey’s home. “I would keep your eyes open. Some times people you think you know do unexpected things.”

  “Dylan is not responsible for any of this,” Lindsey insisted. “There’s no way.” But she wondered if his return hadn’t set into motion the tragedies that had struck Winter Falls.

  Quade shrugged. “You’re doing it.”

  “What?” God, the man was annoying. So this was what it was like to have a brother? And she resented all the years she’d missed.

  “You’re trying too hard. You’re giving up everything you have and are to make this person happy, to make this person want to ‘keep’ you. I thought that feeling was exclusive to adopted children.”

  Lindsey squeezed her eyes shut against a wave of pain for them both. “You’ve done that?”

  His nod was short, and she glimpsed the tension in his jaw despite the dim light.

  “I’ve done that, too,” she admitted. “You thought she gave you up? That she didn’t want you?”

  “That’s usually how adopted children feel, that their birth parents didn’t want them. That they weren’t good enough to keep.”

  Lindsey laid her hand over his on the leather-wrapped steering wheel. “She wanted you. She never wanted to give you up. I don’t think she ever did in her heart.”

  He turned his hand over and squeezed hers back. She thought it a rare show of affection for him. “Thanks.”

  “She loves you.”

  “I know that now. But it still feels too late….”

  Lindsey couldn’t argue with that. She stared through the wind shield at the sparsely falling snow flakes. “At the hospital you showed me your birth certificate, but you never told me how you got it. Are you the one who broke into Chet Oliver’s office?”

  He chuckled. “Breaking and entering? You do believe the rumors about me.”

  “I don’t know the rumors about you.”

  “Your deputy does.” He sighed. “But know this, they’re just rumors. I hired a private investigator to find my birth parents. He brought me a box of records he bribed off a guard at Arborview.”

  “So that’s how you got them.”

  He nodded. “The private investigator traced my birth to the home and got the records. I don’t know why he gave me all of them. The information is incomplete, regard less—my father unknown.”

  She could admire his tenacity, if not his methods. But she worried that the rest of the information he sought was locked in the mind of a woman who may never be lucid enough to release it. “Can you drop me at the hospital?”

  “I’d like to think you want to go there because you regret checking yourself out against the doctor’s wishes. But that’s not it.”

  “No.”

  “Did you listen to anything I said?”

  Unfortunately she had. “I’m trying too hard, so what! But this isn’t about Dylan and me anymore. After all that’s happened, I’m not a big believer in accidents. I need to know what happened here. The public needs to know.”

  “I’m sure Deputy Dylan is checking into it.”

  “You know what this means?”

  “That you have no reason to go to the hospital.”

  “What it means is there’s a serial killer in Winter Falls. Two men have died. Maybe the sheriff was supposed to be number three.”

  “I doubt it, Lindsey. This looks more like the work of a person with a score to settle. something he came home after a decade to do.”

  She tensed. “You’re wrong. Drop me at the hospital.”

  “And then what?”

  “You’re right. Drop me home. I’ll borrow Dad’s car.”

  “You were told not to drive yet. You have a knock on your head, remember?”

  Since it throbbed incessantly, she could hardly forget. But she needed to see Dylan. Two attempts had been made on his life. No doubt existed in her mind that the killer intended Deputy Dylan Matthews to be the next victim.

  DYLAN STOPPED AT THE FOOT of the hospital bed to glance at the sheriff one more time. Despite the monitors beeping around him, the old man slept peace fully, snoring as loudly as he spoke. Dylan smiled and opened the door.

  He nodded to the Traverse Cit
y police officer he’d re quested posted to guard the sheriff.

  Then his gaze shot beyond him to Lindsey Warner. She had curled up in a vinyl chair in the hallway, her head resting on one knee. Her dark lashes lay against the bluish shadows below her eyes. He could have walked right past her. She would not realize he was gone until she awoke.

  With a sharp pang, his heart pro tested the thought. He knelt beside her and brushed a knuckle across the satiny softness of her cheek.

  Her long lashes fluttered apart. In that un guarded moment her dark eyes brimmed with an emotion that caused Dylan’s heart to leap and then clutch with fear.

  “Hi,” she murmured with a sleepy smile.

  “Hi yourself,” he said, and he tried to harden his heart. He tried to think of her safety, and that just being around him threatened it. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to talk to you.”

  He remembered her words at the crash site. She had something to tell him. She’d been with Evan Quade. He rose to his feet. “It’s going to have to wait. I’m really busy right now.”

  “How are you getting home?” She stood behind him now. Her arm brushed his.

  He stopped at the automatic exit doors to the hospital. “Well…”

  “You’re not going to get a taxi to take you to Winter Falls tonight.”

  “I’m not?” He tightened his jaw over the acknowledgment that she was right.

  “No, but you can get a ride home with me.”

  “You drove? You took a knock on the head. Should you be driving?” He turned back to scan her weary face.

  Under a fall of curls, a small bandage covered a bruised area on her forehead. When he squeezed his eyes closed, he could see the explosion propel her to ward his Expedition.

  “I could, but Dad dropped me and the car off and Evan picked him up.” She slid past him and through the automatic doors.

  He caught her in the parking lot beside a white Pontiac. “Your mother’s stolen car?”

  She nodded. “That’s part of what I have to tell you. You’re the acting sheriff now that the sheriff’s hurt? I tried to get past the guard at his door, but he said no one was allowed in but you. What’s going on, Dylan? Was this another attack?”