The Salt Maiden (Leisure Romantic Suspense)

by Colleen Thompson

  A second hand grasped her belt, above her backside, and just that quickly she was yanked out and flipped over. Strong legs straddled her, and before she could react something hard and metal was jammed beneath her chin.

  “Don’t move—don’t you fucking move or I’ll blow your goddamned head off,” her attacker snarled before saying something else she couldn’t understand.

  But Dana had already gone limp in her terror—stunned to recognize the voice of the man who meant to kill her.

  “Jay, Jay, please stop,” the terrorist begged him.

  Urgent as it was that he should keep his focus, it threw him how she kept repeating his first name in the most American of accents. Maybe she’d been educated in the States, as rare as that was in a woman. But how could she know who he was? Had some traitor hajji, an informant in the U.S. Army’s employ, passed on such intelligence to enemy combatants?

  “It’s me, Jay. Me—it’s Dana,” she wept.

  Her last word sliced through to the bone, shattering the nightmare that had gripped him. But instead of waking tangled in his sweat-soaked sheets, he found himself straddling a sobbing female, his hand clenching a gun jammed into the tender flesh beneath her jaw.

  “Dana.” With a shout of horror, he jumped off her and tossed aside his weapon as if it burned his hand. “I thought you were a—”

  As he leaned forward to scoop her into his arms, she shrank away and cried out, “Don’t. Don’t touch me. Don’t…you…ever, ever touch me.”

  “Dana, I’m so sorry. I never meant to—”

  “You’re insane—you know that?” Her voice receded as she crawled away. “You could’ve…you would have killed me.”

  “I never would have hurt—” He stopped himself, confusion spinning through him. He might never have lifted a finger to harm Dana, but it had not been Dana he’d been fighting. Not in his mind. The same mind that had betrayed him back in a suburban theater.

  The VA doctors and the Dallas PD shrink, his superiors and Special Agent Tomlin—even Abe Hooks—were all right: Jay wasn’t fit for duty. Wasn’t safe to have a weapon. Or to be near a woman, either.

  “I was back at the house sleeping. And I heard…I thought you were…God, Dana, I’m so sorry. Please believe me.” He pressed both hands to his temples, his back bent against the weight of his regret. He never should have come back from his tour. Never should have come home, unharmed, when family men—his men—had not. Tears streaming down his face, he understood he had to stop this. But first he had to see to Dana, had to make her understand.

  She stood and opened the door of the SUV, and for the first time he could see her, hunched, with her left hand holding her ribs. “You…you’ve got to get help.”

  He stood to face her, raising his palms in supplication. “I know I do. I know. But we have to take care of you now. You’re hurt. I…I hurt you, Dana.”

  It echoed through his mind, her body thumping hard against the SUV, and he felt himself kicking her and dragging her screaming from beneath the vehicle. “I’m so, so sorry…”

  “I know, Jay. You don’t have to keep saying it.”

  He heard her terror give way to something more like sorrow: the pity a veterinarian felt for a crazed animal that needed to be put down. A landslide of shame and horror buried him.

  “You need…you’re going to need a doctor. Or a hospital more likely.” She reached out as if to touch him, but at the last moment she shook her head and let her hand drop. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this. But I-I wish you all the best.”

  “Dana. Please. Please don’t leave like this. I’m awake now. I know you; I swear it.”

  When he moved closer she tried to pull the door closed. But he caught it first, prevented it from shutting.

  “I’d do anything to make this up to you,” he said. “Please let me. I-I love you, Dana.”

  She pulled her key out of her purse, then tried three times before jamming it into the ignition and starting the engine. “I’m sorry, Jay. I really am. But please don’t make this any harder.”

  The hopelessness in her expression forced him to look away.

  “I know this is it for us,” he told her. “I-I understand what I’ve done. But could I call you anyway? To make sure you’re all right? And to try to explain what happened?”

  “I know what happened, Jay. And…I think I understand it. I’ll…I’ll be all right, I promise. Just as soon as I get clear of Devil’s Claw.”

  Jay wanted to beg, to drop down on his knees and plead for real forgiveness. But he knew it wouldn’t make a difference. Besides, it would be wrong to attempt to bind her to him with pity.

  “I’m sorry, Dana,” he repeated.

  She looked him in the eyes, her own still damp and red. “I believe you,” she said, just before he closed the door.

  He stepped back from her SUV and watched her leave. Then he turned away and headed for his kitchen, where he hurled a full pot of hot coffee against the freshly painted wall.

  Making his own spike strip hadn’t been that difficult. The Hunter had merely pounded some nails he’d found through an old fence rail.

  He hadn’t known for certain he would need it, especially after seeing Dana’s vehicle turn into Eversole’s driveway. But as he’d settled in to watch he’d been reassured that he had one more contingency covered.

  Later would come the call guaranteed to draw the sheriff from his home. Leaving Dana Vanover alone, his for the taking.

  Except something had gone badly wrong between the lovers. The Hunter heard the ruckus from the place where he’d pulled off the road outside the ranch gate. First the hunting cat’s cry, and then—in the direction of the ranch house—the authentic screams of a woman, followed by a man’s voice that rolled like thunder through the darkness.

  The Hunter had no clue what could have happened, but for his part he was grateful for the warning the noise gave him. Warning enough to drag the strip of nails across the drive’s end just moments before Dana Vanover’s SUV rolled across it.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Hey, sis,

  Sorry I didn’t call you back. Haven’t felt too much like talking lately.

  John packed up his things and moved out—went to stay at his brother’s place (you remember Kyle, the divorced jerk who thinks he’s the second coming of Hugh Hefner?) in Midtown. John said this has been coming for a long time, that he’s just been waiting for things to “run their course with Nikki” so he could get away from all this and remember what it was to laugh and live and maybe even have a sex life. He sounded as shallow and selfish as Kyle when he said it, but in spite of that I could see the pain and desperation in my husband’s eyes. And I could see I’ve lost him—even though when this all started, we swore to each other we wouldn’t be one of those couples who let a child’s illness wreck them.

  I swear, every time I think my heart has shattered, something like this comes along to grind the broken pieces underfoot. But I can’t run away like he has. I can’t do anything except be here for my daughter—because I’m all that she has left.

  And she’s everything that I have, too. God help us both.

  —E-mail message from Laurie Harrison

  As she approached the gate, Dana felt a hard bump, followed by the flump-flump of a flat tire, probably the left front. Not now, she wanted to scream.

  With her body shaking and every breath an agony, she decided to continue. Who cared if she wrecked the rental’s wheel?

  But it quickly became apparent that whatever she had hit had taken out not one tire but two. There was no way she could make Pecos driving with that kind of damage.

  And even if she had two spares, there was no way she could change a tire in her present condition. Closing her eyes, she swore at the realization that the only sensible thing to do would be to walk back to Jay’s. But this time she’d be sure to warn him by phone that she was coming.

  She grimaced as their shouted conversation replayed itself through her mind. She could still feel
the muzzle of the pistol jammed beneath her jaw and her terror as he’d kicked her while shouting in what might have been Arabic.

  Almost as disturbing was the memory of her reaction. When he’d awakened from whatever madness gripped him, there had been no mistaking the regret in his voice or the depth of his despair. Yet she had rejected his attempts to help her, had virtually ignored his explanation. Worse still, she’d called him insane, when she knew that was the one thing he feared most.

  “Oh, Jay,” she whispered to the darkness.

  After putting the SUV in park, she climbed down from the vehicle with the intention of checking out the damage and seeing what she’d hit before she phoned him. She moved forward, her head bent to take a look.

  This time there was an instant’s warning in the crunch of stone beneath a heavy foot, a noisy exhalation, rough and hot where it fell against her ear. She leaped forward, reacting on pure instinct, turned to protect her injured left side, and ran blindly past the rear quarter panel toward the safety of the darkness.

  How could Jay have possibly gotten here so quickly, unless he’d run after her when she’d left? And how could she have been so wrong in believing his violent episode was over?

  She tried to scream his name, thinking she might once more jar him out of his hallucination. But it was all she could do to keep moving as agony pulsed across her left side and set off fireworks in her vision.

  She wanted to throw herself to the ground, to collapse and fold her arms around her throbbing rib cage. But she heard him closing in behind her, knew instinctively that if she went down he’d be on her, and that this time she couldn’t find the breath to stop him.

  But neither could she find breath to keep moving. The fireworks intensified, exploding across her vision as pain and lack of oxygen sent her stumbling to her knees.

  Hard on her heels, Jay’s shin caught her hip. When she dropped he went flying over the top of her, smacking the ground with a grunt that sent a sick chill arcing through her.

  Because it wasn’t Jay. She wasn’t certain how she knew, whether it was the size of the body that brushed past her or the timbre of his exclamation, but she knew to her marrow that this was no lover she might waken with a word.

  Fresh adrenaline ripped through her, giving her strength to clamber to her feet—and tearing a scream from her when she was tackled from behind.

  Jay had brought a flashlight outside to find his discarded weapon, with defeat slowing his steps and Max following close beside him, nervous in the way that dogs got after an owner’s outburst.

  Jay scratched the dog behind the ears and said, “It’s nothing you did, buddy. Maybe your next owner will be less screwed up.”

  He would have to see to it. Maybe talk Dennis into giving Max a home. The man could use a good dog since that big golden hound he used to ride around with—Annie, Jay remembered—had died years before and Dennis hadn’t been able to bring himself to replace her.

  But if not Dennis, Jay would find someone. Someone good with animals. His heart spasmed as he thought of Dana. Dana, whom he loved but hadn’t been able to keep himself from hurting.

  “You…you’ve got to get help,” she had told him. As if what he had could be cured with drugs or therapy. As if his life could be reshaped into something safe and useful. Something worth a damn to him or anyone around him.

  Maybe Weevil Jenkins would give the dog a good home. Jay could tell him Max was trained to guard stock against aliens. Jay chuffed a laugh as joyless as his mood.

  Something banged from the direction of the road. Max barked, his body stiffening as he bounced on his front legs. Jay grabbed the shepherd’s collar, not wanting him to run off and tangle with some animal—or maybe the three men Jay had been expecting.

  He shushed the dog and stood there, straining his ears for any other noise as Max pulled, hackles raised, and growled deep in his chest.

  Jay had just about convinced himself that it was nothing—or more likely a band of foraging javelinas rattling the gate—when another sound carried on the night air: the sound of a car or truck door opening.

  Wild pigs didn’t show up in pickups, but Hooks and his friends might have.

  “You sons of bitches,” he muttered under his breath, and resumed his hunt for his weapon. This time he moved with far more determination than he had earlier, slowed only by Max’s struggle to escape.

  “It’s okay,” Jay whispered to the shepherd—then turned to where his light’s beam caught the brushed-stainless-steel finish of his .45. The same gun that had come damn close to killing Dana.

  He froze midreach, his stomach knotting at the thought of touching it. And then he heard a scream of terror—a scream that could only be a woman’s.

  His thoughts flew to Dana, so determined to get away from him and on to Pecos. Something must have stopped her—or someone who’d been caught on his way to burn Jay out.

  Max tore free to disappear into the darkness. All hesitation vanquished, Jay grabbed his gun and did the same.

  He might not be so certain that his own life was worth saving, but he had no such doubts when it came to Dana’s.

  His beam bobbed and jerked as he ran. Though the light might alert whoever was out there that he was coming, his instincts roared the message that speed counted for far more than stealth. Besides that, Max, who had pulled far ahead of him, was barking furiously, providing one hell of a diversion.

  Soon Jay spotted lights ahead: headlights pointed toward the road, taillights gleaming like a pair of red eyes, and the dimmer illumination from the dome light, where the SUV’s driver’s-side door had been left open. The same SUV that Dana had been driving, but he couldn’t see her inside or anywhere around.

  He slowed, listening for something beyond his own panting progress, trying to discern which direction Max had taken. The dog’s barking, off somewhere to his left, had turned to an aggressive snarl, and he heard someone—he was certain it was Dana—shrieking, “No, don’t!”

  And then a crack that split the darkness, the ringing thunder of a gunshot, followed by a feminine cry of pain and a furious, “You bastard!”

  But Max had abruptly fallen silent, leaving only what sounded like a human struggle from the direction of the road.

  Jay shunted aside the wave of emotion bearing down on him, switched off his light, and barreled forward. He had nearly reached the road when he heard a vehicle’s door slam shut, followed by the sound of an engine as it cranked to life. Panic blasted through him—was Dana’s attacker taking her away?

  Horrified, Jay burst out into the road, gun raised in the direction of the unseen engine. He was blinded as the driver flipped on the high-beam headlights, but he heard the growl of the fast-approaching motor bearing down on him.

  Leaping out of its path he twisted his body, desperate to take out the driver. But before he could pull the trigger he was struck by two things.

  The first was a terrifying recognition.

  And the second was the bumper as it caught his left leg and sent him spinning through the air.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.

  —Jeremiah 17:6

  The Holy Bible (King James version)

  The Hunter backed the truck a few feet so he could pull around the writhing form instead of running over it. He wasn’t certain why he did this, since Jay had never been anything but an unwelcome complication in his life, one last burden dumped on him by his useless younger brother—the brother who had somehow pushed past him and claimed every opportunity…including the one woman R.C. Eversole had wanted for his own.

  “No—no. We can’t just leave him,” Dana cried.

  The Hunter turned a fierce gaze on her, but she didn’t shrink back, despite the way he’d bloodied her face. Tougher than she looked, this one—maybe even tougher than her sister.

  And she was r
ight as well. He couldn’t leave the new sheriff. Better to disarm and take him instead of leaving him to recover and shoot after them or call for help.

  Besides, despite their argument Dana clearly cared for Jay. The Hunter reasoned that he could use that to his advantage.

  He pointed his handgun at her chest. “You move from that spot, I’ll kill him. And then I’ll flay the flesh off that body of yours inch by fucking inch. You hear me?”

  She nodded, eyes glazing over with fresh terror, so he bailed out and walked around to where Jay was already crawling toward the pistol knocked from his hand.

  The Hunter kicked it out of range and said, “On your feet. Now.”

  Jay didn’t rise, but he looked up, his face a mask of horror. Head shaking, he squinted against the headlights’ glare and said, “No, this…this can’t be right. This can’t be. You aren’t—”

  “You never should’ve come back here. Can’t imagine what the hell you were thinking.” A sign of weakness that the boy had taken the chance for escape he’d been given and had blown it. A sign that, like a sick bull or an injured buck, his nephew—her son—needed culling. Before, he wouldn’t have allowed himself to see it. But the desert and the long hunt for Angie had burned away all sentiment to leave behind only the stark truth.

  “What’s…what’s wrong with you?” Pushing himself onto hands and knees, Jay asked, “What in God’s name happened to make you—”

  “Something that should’ve damned well happened years ago. Something I should have goddamned well demanded, except I was always taking care of someone else’s messes—”

  As Jay grabbed for his ankles, the Hunter stepped back out of range and kicked the sheriff sharply in the temple.

  He felt only the dimmest echo of remorse as his nephew dropped face-first into the dust.