by Debra Cowan
O’Kelly glanced at Mace. “I’ll run the scumbag NCIC.”
As O’Kelly hurried off to run a check through the National Crime Information Center, Mace turned to Linc. “It looks like revenge. A brutal attack and now I see why.”
“What are you going to do to help her?” Linc snapped, suddenly wanting to hit something, someone.
Mild curiosity gleamed in his brother’s eyes, then he scratched his head. “Well, we’ve got to get her somewhere safe in case this guy comes after her again.”
Linc froze. “Do you think he will?”
“Very possible. We’ll have a better idea after O’Kelly gets back.”
Just then Mace’s partner strode up, dodging an orderly and a nurse. O’Kelly’s face was grim. “Nurse Farrell said a call about Dr. West came in last night.”
Mace’s lips flattened. “So, he’s already looking for her.”
This was the closest Linc had ever been to Mace’s work. Besides having a sense of stepping out of reality, Linc felt totally inept.
O’Kelly edged closer. “Ramsey finished his time, but he got out of the penitentiary at McAlester two weeks ago.”
“Damn,” Mace said.
Linc kept his voice down, not wanting to alarm the Wests or their daughter. “Are you saying this Ramsey knew exactly where to find Jenna?”
O’Kelly shrugged. “Well, it didn’t take him long.”
Nausea rolled through him.
Mace shoved a hand through his hair, his gaze flicking to his partner. “What’s the story?”
O’Kelly didn’t even glance at the notebook he held. “She testified in a rape case against him and they put him away for eight years. He played football for OSU and—”
“I remember.” Mace snapped his fingers. “He was all set to sign a letter of intent to go pro when they handed down his sentence.”
O’Kelly nodded.
Linc felt as if he were spinning into a cone of fury.
“This guy played football for Oklahoma State University?”
“If you didn’t work so much, you’d remember,” Mace said dryly. “It was her testimony that convicted him. After she came forward, so did several other women.”
“That was Jenna?” Maybe everyone in Stillwater knew the particulars, but not in a city the size of Oklahoma City. Linc felt a surge of admiration. He shook his head, astonished at the secret pain this woman hid.
He noted that Mace wore his gun, strapped in a shoulder holster and he wondered if Jenna had been at all intimidated by the cops in her room. Sadly he realized she was probably used to them.
O’Kelly lowered his voice. “Look, Mace, this guy wants her bad. He knew where she was. He’s already killed one man who tried to help her. What are we going to do with her until we find him?”
“First, put out a radiogram on his whereabouts.”
“Done.”
O’Kelly and Mace efficiently and briskly put together a plan of action while Linc stood by feeling as useless as he had his first year of med school. He kept seeing the vicious bruises on her throat, the blood under her fingernails attesting to the fight she’d waged against her attacker.
Mace braced one arm on the wall. “We need to find somewhere for her to stay.”
“What about her parents?” Linc offered.
Mace looked doubtful. “Not a good idea. If he could find her that easily—”
“Detective?” Mr. West stepped outside Jenna’s room and closed the door. “Could I speak with you a minute?”
“Certainly.” Mace shifted toward the older gentleman, who looked to be in his midfifties, just at six feet tall, robust with a thick head of gray hair.
Linc observed absently that Jenna got her cheekbones from her mother, but she had definitely inherited her determined jaw from Dave West. And her eyes were a perfect combination of her father’s blue eyes and her mother’s green.
The older man glanced hesitantly at Linc and O’Kelly.
“It’s all right, Mr. West,” Mace reassured gently. “We’re all working on this together.”
Once again Linc marveled at the way his brother firmly, yet kindly handled the people he dealt with. Linc himself felt as if he were about to disintegrate into a wild sweeping rage.
“Barbara and I thought you should see this. We found it in our morning paper today, just before we got the message about Jenna.”
He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, handing it to Mace.
As Mace read, his face tightened with concern. He handed it to O’Kelly and turned back to Mr. West. “Has your daughter received any others?”
“Not that we know of, but you should ask her.”
Mace nodded. “You did the right thing by showing this to us. We’re going to put your daughter somewhere safe, but I’m afraid it can’t be with you.”
“That’s why I thought you should know.”
Linc’s nerves stretched taut and he leaned toward O’Kelly, reading the short handwritten note addressed to Jenna.
D - E - A - D
Dead is what you’re gonna be.
The floor seemed to tilt beneath him. Had Jenna seen this? How was she handling it?
Resistance rose up, fierce and abrupt. He didn’t want to get involved. But wasn’t he already? Something about Jenna West, or perhaps it was her circumstances, pulled at him deep inside, where he hadn’t allowed himself to feel anything for a long time.
He could tell himself he wasn’t involved, but the truth was he had become involved that long-ago night in the bam when she’d rescued him.
Mace and O’Kelly talked with Mr. West, trying to figure out a place for Jenna to stay.
“She won’t go far,” warned her father in a low voice. “She won’t let Ramsey control her life again.”
“But she needs to stay clear until we can get our hands on him.” Mace’s voice was hushed as well.
“I agree,” said Dave West. “But you’ll have a hard time convincing her. Especially if you try to get her to give up her work.”
“You said her sister lives in Tulsa?”
The older man nodded. “But she won’t go there. She’ll say it’s too far to drive if she needs to get to her patients.”
“We’ll find a safe house for her.” Mace exchanged a look with O’Kelly. “Assign police protection—”
“She can stay with me.” Linc couldn’t believe he’d said the words. He’d meant only to consider it, not to offer.
Mace, O’Kelly and Mr. West all turned to him, astonishment on their faces.
“What!” Mace exclaimed.
“I said—”
“I heard you. I think.”
“That’s a great idea,” O’Kelly agreed, looking relieved. Mace eyed him speculatively. “That means you’ll have to take some time away from the sacred halls of medicine.”
Linc shifted, uneasy with the pointed speculation of the three men in front of him. “I have some time coming.”
“Yeah, about twelve years’ worth,” his brother drawled.
Linc ignored him.
“That would be very kind of you, Doctor.” Dave West studied Linc warily, his sun-weathered features concerned. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but why?”
The same question was in Mace’s eyes and O’Kelly’s, too.
Linc saw no reason to go into specific detail. “Your daughter is my veterinarian and she helped me out once. A long time ago.”
“That’s my Jenna.” Her dad’s face softened and love glowed in his eyes so brightly that Linc’s chest hurt.
“Well, then it’s settled. Now, we have to figure out a way to get her out of here.” Mace’s tone was strictly business, but he considered Linc as if trying to figure a code.
Linc still felt as if he’d been broadsided. He couldn’t imagine what Jenna had gone through last night. In addition to being brutally assaulted, she had to have relived what Deke Ramsey had done to her eight years ago.
“After seeing this note, there’s
no doubt he’s serious,” Mace said carefully, glancing at Dave West.
“He wants to kill her. He’s said it often enough.” The older man’s voice was flat, yet it shook.
Mace said gently, “I’m afraid it looks that way, Mr. West.”
Linc’s stomach rolled, much as it had the first time he’d cut into a cadaver. “Man, what has she been through?”
“More than anyone should have to,” her father said tightly.
Mace turned to Linc. “How’s her condition?”
“She’s stable, but she’ll need to take it easy for a few days. Just to make sure she’s all right internally.” Linc wondered if his voice always sounded so clinical, so detached. He didn’t like it much.
“We don’t have that kind of time. We need to move her, now.”
“You can’t do that!” Linc clenched his fists. “She needs to remain stable for at least twenty-four hours.”
“The guy’s already called the hospital, Linc. We can’t leave her here.”
“Look, bro, in the precinct you can call the shots, but not here on my turf.”
“You can supervise the move, but I’m serious.” Mace stared grimly into his eyes. “She can’t stay.”
“I think we should talk to Jenna.” Mr. West’s quiet suggestion served to remind them all that they were talking about her as if she didn’t exist.
Ashamed, Linc nodded. “You’re right. We should.”
“All right,” Mace said briskly.
The four of them walked back inside the hospital room and Linc listened as Mr. West calmly explained to his daughter what had happened. When he showed her the note he’d found in the morning paper, fear crested her swollen features.
She paled beneath the bruises, but she nodded and said softly, “I think Detective Garrett is right. I shouldn’t stay with Mom and Dad.”
Linc tried to summon a reassuring smile though he was still numbed by all he’d learned about this woman today.
“Have you gotten any other notes like this, Dr. West?” Mace asked.
She hesitated, then nodded. “A couple. And some weird phone calls.”
“Did you report it?” Mace’s voice sharpened.
“No. I thought I was refusing to allow him to intimidate me. I see now, he was just warming up.” The bitterness in her voice was directed at herself.
Linc’s heart went out to her.
Mace considered her for a moment, as if he would reprimand her. When he spoke, he said only, “Do you still have the notes?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll need them.”
“They’re at my house—”
“We’ll find them. You don’t need to go there.”
She nodded, turning to her mom. Pain shunted through her at the motion. “My Jeep is still at the clinic. Could you and Dad pick it up for me?”
“Don’t worry, doll.” Her dad gently rubbed the back of her hand. “We’ll take care of it.”
Linc turned to his brother. “So, how are you going to get her out of here without anyone seeing?”
“You leave that to me.” Mace turned to Jenna, visibly relieved at her agreement. “There are some options. We can put you in a safe house. Or a rehabilitation center out of town. Or you can stay with my brother.”
“Your—” Jenna’s gaze sliced to Linc. “Oh, no. I don’t think so.”
Her mother gasped and her father frowned, but Jenna focused on Linc Garrett’s smoky eyes. There was no hurt there, simply an expectancy and a remoteness. Always that remoteness.
Last night his eyes hadn’t been so distant, had they? She recalled warmth, concern in those crystal eyes, but her memory was probably distorted by the drugs she was taking.
A sudden resentment crowded through her. Was he always so detached from everyone and everything? Realizing he was waiting for an explanation for her blunt refusal, she sighed, feeling the pain carve through her.
“Why?” she asked flatly. “Why would you offer such a thing?”
“Jenna—” Her mother began.
“It’s all right, Mrs. West.” Linc edged closer to the bed.
“Don’t you know?”
“No.” She tried to focus on him. Though still groggy, this news had zinged through her like a shot of adrenaline. “I don’t understand. Why are you doing this?”
“You helped me once, a long time ago,” he said quietly, still cool, still aloof. “Do you remember?”
“Oh, that.” Of course she remembered, but taking care of her would be more than a one-night ordeal. She tried to push herself up on her good elbow, but weakness washed through her, incapacitating, annoying. She could barely summon the energy for a fight, but she didn’t want to be alone with him, even though she knew how large his home was. “I need to be close to my animals. With Wilbur gone—”
She broke off, her head throbbing, her heart hurting.
Linc said quietly, “I can help with the animals. I can check your messages. Or help you with procedures. You certainly can’t drive. I can do that, too.”
“Steve can help me take care of the animals.”
“Steve?” Linc recalled she had mentioned a Steve in the emergency room. “Is he your boyfriend?”
“He’s her best friend. He’s a vet, too,” Barbara West put in.
Linc nodded. “Well, that’s fine, but he can’t take care of you. You need a doctor for that.”
She stared at him, wanting to refuse, but remembering the note her parents had found, the anonymous phone call to the hospital about her.
“I don’t need a baby-sitter.”
“Trust me, I’m not one of those.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. This guy tried to kill me. If he finds you—”
“He has to find me first.” He flashed a rare smile.
“This isn’t a joke, Dr. Garrett. He killed Wilbur—” Her voice cracked and she searched for anger, something to give her strength. “He wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. Trust me on that.”
“He won’t find us,” Linc insisted, grave now, his eyes dark as shattered glass. “I live north of the city limits. There’s no real connection between us. There’s no reason he would ever suspect that you would be with me.”
“If something happened to you... There’s no reason for you to get involved. And you will be involved.”
She didn’t know him well, but she knew Dr. Linc Garrett didn’t like to be involved, not with patients, not with women, not with anything.
Surprise flashed across his features, as if she’d discovered some kind of secret. Then his eyes crinkled at the corners and she realized he was smiling. Smiling! These drugs must definitely be getting to her.
“My house isn’t Shangri-la, but it’s comfortable.”
Since that night in the barn she’d been careful not to think about Linc Garrett. Something about him drew her, something that made her wonder what it would have been like if he’d kissed her. She didn’t want to be drawn to him, didn’t want to wonder about him or any man.
But right now she didn’t have the luxury of want to. Deke Ramsey was after her and she needed a place to stay, a safe place near her animals. That place seemed to be Linc Garrett’s house.
She nodded, her eyes burning with fatigue and tears. “Thank you, Doctor. I do appreciate it. I just hope you don’t come to regret it.”
She hoped she didn’t, either. Something about Linc Garrett threatened her carefully erected defenses, the sense of control she’d clawed tooth and nail to build after the rape.
She wouldn’t give that up to anyone, ever again. Certainly not to a handsome man, even if he did have haunted gray eyes and gentle hands.
“I won’t get in your way,” she said in a rush. “You’ll hardly know I’m around.”
His gaze swerved to hers, deliberate, probing, promising nothing.
Frustrated at his remoteness, she nearly snarled, “What I meant was, I’ll keep my distance. And you can keep yours.”
Beside the bed, her mother gasped a
nd squeezed her hand, but Jenna kept her attention on Linc Garrett.
Finally, he gave a curt nod. “Good idea.”
His words were far from a promise, but Jenna sensed they were the best she would get. She gritted her teeth and determined to ignore him as much as possible.
Linc had every intention of abiding by Jenna’s wishes. He had no desire to get any closer to her than he did anyone else.
What on earth had possessed him to sign on as a baby-sitter? Especially for a leggy redhead with eyes the perfect blue-green of Caribbean waters?
As they stepped into his house early that evening, Linc’s pulse kicked into overdrive. Muscles knotted in his shoulders, spasmed down his spine. He flipped on the lights in the spacious living room and stood aside as Detective O’Kelly double-checked the interior, then the exterior of the house. Mace had said he would try to stop by later.
After pronouncing everything clear, O’Kelly left and Linc stared solemnly at the trim back of the woman standing in his living room. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a woman in his house, but he knew what it had been for. His mother would kill him if she knew that he was perilously close to living the chauvinistic adage that women were good for only one thing.
And now he had a woman here, not for sex, but because he’d volunteered to take care of her.
A vaguely recognizable sensation slid through him and it took a few seconds to identify. Need-purely physical Undiluted and sharp. The realization jolted him. His defenses sprang up and he reminded himself of the fear in her eyes and the vicious battering she’d taken, but it didn’t lessen the tension coiling through his gut.
On a deep core level, he felt something for Jenna West. Perhaps it was because he knew her. Perhaps it was because he’d seen the cruel handiwork of a vicious man focused on revenge. Perhaps it was that the wariness in her eyes matched the wariness in his own.
Whatever it was, he’d offered her shelter and now here they stood, two quiet strangers edging away from each other. And he suddenly, fiercely, wanted it to stay that way.
She burst on his senses like a sharp explosion. It rattled him. It annoyed the hell out of him. He could still recall the glide of velvet skin beneath his fingers at the hospital, could still smell the faint hint of plain soap and lemony shampoo, could still remember with a clenching gut the way her jewel-colored eyes had pleaded with his.
