“Well, son of a gun,” her uncle muttered, as though speaking to himself.
“You haven’t received any queries about him, have you?”
“If I had, do you think I’d be sitting here asking you what happened?” Duke’s tone went from annoyed to concerned. “What is this about the hospital? How badly was he injured?”
“He was shot at least twice. I saw the wounds.”
“And where on his anatomy are they located, or do I want to ask?”
“Don’t be a prude, Chief.”
“That’s not your boss asking, it’s your uncle, and you know it.”
Unable to help it, Alana had to smile. “He was just tugging on a T-shirt when I arrived. Ask Eberardo. I also introduced them to each other. Mack messed up his bandages and, since they’re on his back and hard to reach for him, I helped redo them.”
“Are you sure he’s not some deserter trying to cover up something?”
The resentful tone was as unkind as the suggestion. “That’s a horrible thing to say!”
“I’m a cop, not a priest doling out absolution,” Duke groused. “It’s my job to weigh all possibilities.”
“All he’s asking is that we keep his arrival in town to ourselves as long as possible. He’s dreading that the local newspaper will want to do a local-hero story—or, worse yet, the local TV stations.”
“And how is he going to manage that and still eat? I guess there’s always Eberardo to shop for him,” Duke continued, as though thinking out loud. “Not that he’s a town man, either. But he’ll do it to keep his job.”
Here goes nothing, Alana thought. “I’ll do it. Eberardo has enough work on his hands.”
That brought a stretch of silence from Duke. “I think I’ll just take a ride over to Last Call and extend my own welcome,” he finally said.
Alana knew it was useless to try to stop him, particularly once his mind was made up, but she hoped to at least delay him. “The front gate is locked.”
“Oh, and I can’t pick up the phone and tell him to unlock the thing?” her uncle challenged. “Or use the same gate you did?”
Accepting that she was beaten, she replied with equal feistiness, “Just don’t honk or call me when you pass by. I’m heading for bed.”
“It’s about damned time!” Duke muttered, and hung up.
* * *
Mack wasn’t thrilled to get the heads-up from Alana that her uncle was going to pay him a visit, but he appreciated that she’d stuck out her neck for him. As for the visit, he wasn’t surprised. He knew without asking that she hadn’t said anything about what had passed between them, and concluded the chief of police was curious as to what his old friend’s son had amounted to, considering his full parentage. More likely the ex-marine wanted to determine for himself whether or not he was hiding something beyond the reason he’d given for wanting to keep a low profile.
However, and interestingly, the hour passed and Chief Duke Anders didn’t show. Another hour went by, and then another. That’s how Mack’s day crawled by. It wasn’t totally frustrating—he started to familiarize himself with the house. He began looking through old records to glean what it was he was being asked to take on, and finally made himself a sandwich from the supply of groceries Alana had brought over that morning. It still felt odd to be here, but his military life had taught him to adapt easily enough to location changes. Even his apartment back east didn’t really feel like home, and despite the blandness of this decor, it wasn’t a boiling or freezing tent in the environmental armpit of the world.
It was after four o’clock in the afternoon when, dozing on the couch, Mack heard a noise that sounded like a vehicle was approaching. He’d instantly checked his stainless waterproof wristwatch the moment he’d awakened and thought, Alana should be clocking in about now. Was the chief ready for his visit?
He came to the kitchen in time to see a police SUV pull up to the house. Although somewhat frustrated that he’d been kept in anticipation all day, Mack accepted he didn’t know the older man’s schedule and would give him the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, the old codger probably knew that Alana would warn him, and pulled this on purpose.
He opened the door to the man he recognized mostly from photographs scattered around the house. Duke Anders now had wilder eyebrows, and a salt-and-pepper mix of color instead of the stark black shown in earlier photos. There was plenty of gray in his marine-burr haircut, as well. But his brown, eagle-sharp eyes remained clear. His waistline might be a few inches bigger, but Mack figured he was still capable of subduing a perp without too much trouble, if necessary.
“Heard you’d made it back.” The lawman extended his hand as he approached Mack. “Welcome home.”
Mack returned his powerful clasp. The trick was not to laugh out loud at the obvious power crunch. “Thank you...sir. Sorry that it’s under these circumstances.”
“That should be my line. This would have been a banner day for Fred.”
While Mack gauged himself a couple of inches taller than Ally, Duke Anders stood another inch or two taller than him. After stepping back for him to enter, he shut the door, then gestured farther into the kitchen. “You should be off duty, and I was about to open a bottle of beer. Can I offer you one?”
“That sounds great. It’s sure a miserable time of year to be in a dark uniform, even with the short sleeves. My predecessor never wore a uniform—it was always white cotton and jeans for him, and the Western hat. He liked to appear that he was still one of the fellows, but that seemed to compound some crime problems we had, so I made myself revert back.” Duke accepted the bottle and saluted Mack with it. “Then again, where you’ve been, I imagine this heat is nothing.”
Mack unscrewed his bottle’s cap. “Once it gets over 105, it’s all hell.” He indicated the breakfast table. “Care to sit in here or would you prefer the living room?”
“This is perfect.” In fact, Duke had already begun reaching for a chair before the words were out of Mack’s mouth. “That room catches the afternoon sun. In summer, it’s unbearable until almost bedtime.”
“Yeah, I took a break from familiarizing myself with things and discovered that.” The comment gave Mack the opportunity to tug at his damp T-shirt and pry it from his overheated skin. He’d turned down the air conditioner on his way to getting the door, but he didn’t feel much relief yet. He took a swig of beer hoping none of the heat he was feeling was the return of a fever. The return of an infection was the last thing he needed. Hopefully what he was feeling was a simple case of nerves. After all, since he wouldn’t be confronting his father, this was the next most important male to be facing around here.
Settling in the seat beside him, Mack watched Duke take a healthy swig of his drink. Except for those keen, dark eyes, he saw little of Ally in him. Of course, he preferred hers framed with lush lashes, especially when they twinkled with wicked humor and flashed with daring. There was something of a dare in Duke’s gaze, too, though. Something like, Think again if you plan to play fast and loose with my niece.
“So what do you think?” he asked, as the older man continued to study him. “I take it you’re deciding whether or not I look anything like him?”
“There’s enough Fred in you to assure your pedigree. Let’s just hope your mother’s contribution only went skin deep.”
It was hard to keep from choking. The man was ten times as frank as Alana. “I’m starting to think surviving the marine corps was a breeze compared to this.” Lifting his hands in surrender, he offered, “I’m not here to defend her or myself. I have my own feelings about my parentage. All I want is to mind my own business and not upset anyone else’s.”
After another studious stare, Duke asked, “And how does turning down that medal fit in that attitude? Seems to me you’re upsetting someone’s apple cart.”
Mack nodded and started to attack the bottle’s label with his thumbnail. “With all due respect, sir, that’s my business. Suffice it to say, I didn’t do any
thing except my job. Even at that, I wasn’t successful.”
“Are you the only one to get out alive?”
Mack just met his direct gaze, but refused to say more.
Grunting, Duke continued, “That’s all I need around here, another person who doesn’t sleep worth a damn. Are you at least taking the meds they prescribed for you? I don’t need any post-traumatic-stress situations popping up in my jurisdiction.”
It struck Mack that the top cop was mostly fishing, but he knew better than to show any weakness. “I guess at the first sign of trouble you’d have the right to ask me that, sir, but at this moment, that’s none of your business.” He’d left the pain pills back at the hospital, and he might have regretted that more than a few times during his journey, but he felt better for it now.
Duke didn’t take his reply well. “I might as well be talking to Ally.”
“She’s a strong lady,” Mack replied. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Don’t. In fact, I’m not sure that I like the idea of her being around you any more than necessary.”
Although Mack nodded—realizing that Duke really had reason to be protective of Alana—he wasn’t going to ask for his permission, either. Alana was a grown woman and whatever did or didn’t happen between them was their business and no one else’s.
“Did you really walk all the way from Virginia?”
“I hitched some rides. It was good therapy. Maybe if I’d started out sooner, I would have gotten here in time.”
“From what I heard about your wounds, if you had, Fred might have had time to bury you before we did him.” Duke shrugged. “It wouldn’t have helped him to see you in bad condition, and he wouldn’t have wanted you to see him in the shape he was in.” He slid Mack a sidelong look. “Did she tell you that he tried to talk her into giving him the key to his gun cabinet?”
“No.” Mack’s response was spontaneous and he was left to wonder why Ally hadn’t used that to sway his decision to stay on. That certainly would have heaped on the guilt and sense of IOUs for what she’d endured on his behalf.
“I substituted for her and sat with him for most of his last two days. She was shaking so badly she didn’t want to cause him more distress than he was already enduring.”
“Thank you.”
Duke nodded. “All I’m asking is for you to be straight with me—with us—so we can work this out.” Finishing off his beer, he pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket and placed it on the table. “But let me reiterate, I have enough worries without adding you to them.”
Mack eyed the card. “That’s not my plan, sir. If I had my way, I’d borrow my father’s pickup and head out tomorrow. Would you have a problem with that?”
The older man jolted as though a geyser from the aquifer was about to launch him out of his chair. “I most certainly would. Knowing what you now know—how this place is your responsibility now—I trust you won’t do that. There’s work for you to deal with here,” he said. punching the table with his index finger. “Take the burden of this place off my niece’s shoulders. I take it she’s told you about her brother and parents?”
“The matter came up,” Mack said with feeling, as though he was about to be caught between two traps, and while the middle ground could be tantalizing, it wasn’t much less precarious.
“It’s not in my power to make her believe that she’s a remarkable woman deserving to live a full life and love, and be loved. Believe me, I’ve tried. My only hope is to stay close enough to keep her from pushing against that belief one time too many.”
“From what I gathered—just in fragments, mind you,” Mack amended, “she seems to be aware of your concern.”
“Awareness isn’t cooperation just as a bucket of water isn’t going to do squat against an inferno.” Duke leaned forward, although he kept his tone calm. “She broke more bones through her middle school and high school years during riding lessons than some professional jockeys experience in their entire careers. I lost count of how many instructors quit on her. She suffered a collapsed lung while in the police academy, and then the day before graduation, she saved another cadet from being electrocuted at the train station in Dallas. But the fall caused her heart to stop.” Duke sat there and shook off the memory. “Fortunately, an off-duty EMT happened to be close and he saved her.”
Mack didn’t want to hear anymore. He desired Alana. He wanted to have sex with her—hot, exciting sex with no strings attached. He didn’t want to think of her lovely body broken beneath a horse or God knew what, let alone lifeless on train tracks. He didn’t want anyone to look at him as though asking if he was the solution to her problems.
“Why don’t you just tell me what you want me to do, Chief?” he asked quietly.
“You do what you feel is right with this place,” Duke replied, suddenly pragmatic again. “I won’t try to stop you if you decide you’d prefer to sell. I won’t even try to stop Alana from coming over here to heal you instead of healing herself—even if it gets me enough ulcers to bleed like my gut is a sieve.” His tension building again, he paused to take a stabilizing breath. “But if you hurt my girl—”
“Sir, that’s not my intention,” Mack assured him.
“If you hurt Ally,” Duke continued, “you’ll wish you came out of Afghanistan the same way your buddies did.”
Chapter Four
When Alana checked in at the station that afternoon, her uncle was already gone for the day. That was disturbing, since they usually sat in his office for a bit to exchange the day’s news until he either met some friends or associates for dinner or went home. As this was also the first day of Mack Graves being back in town, her imagination and suspicion went into overdrive.
“Did the chief have a meeting or appointment that I overlooked?” she asked Ted Musgrove, the day dispatcher/desk sergeant, as he relinquished his seat to Bunny.
The retired Dallas cop, who in the evenings wrote a movie review blog online, smoothed his already neatly trimmed mustache. “Not that I know of. You look worried, Ally, is there something I can help you with?”
Not in this lifetime, Alana thought, although she managed to sound sincere as she turned him down. “I appreciate that, Ted, but I was just surprised, that’s all. Usually, we’re in sync, schedule-wise. I’ll catch him by phone shortly. Have a good evening.”
The trim, middle-aged man was always pleasant enough, but there was something about him that was too neat, too straight, too perfect. Single for all of his life, as far as his records indicated, he lived in the upstairs garage apartment of a wealthy widow in town, who thought she’d won the jackpot at having a police officer watching over her and her property at night.
“Watch, she ends up in Officer Ted’s freezer one of these days,” Alana had muttered to her uncle upon hearing the woman’s gushing praise of the guy. She’d added that she caught Ted openly staring at her once too often, and it had given her the creeps.
“You should worry if the guy doesn’t look at you. You’re a beautiful woman,” Duke had scoffed. “He probably just doesn’t understand why you won’t go out with him.”
“It’s because I have a feeling I’d have to share my high heels and best lingerie with him,” she’d replied. “Or worse yet, I’d have to share him with his blow-up-doll collection.”
Her uncle had laughed until tears filled his eyes, but Alana was only half joking. She’d even warned Bunny to be careful about flirting with him, even though Bunny thought they had a lot in common because they both seemed to enjoy the written word so much. Oddly enough, Ted didn’t seem interested in anyone over Ally’s age and, offended, Bunny had given him the cold shoulder ever since.
“He wrote an extremely catty review of the latest Reese Witherspoon movie,” Bunny confided, as the front door closed behind Ted.
Alana couldn’t believe she bothered following his blog. “What do you want to bet that he thinks he could have played her part better?”
Giggling, Bunny took her se
at and opened her insulated tote to set up her desk for the evening. “By the way, I saw the chief pull into your driveway on my way into town. About thirty minutes ago. I stopped to pick up Louie’s heartworm meds at the vet, or I could have told you sooner. Where’ve you been that you missed that?”
Startled, Alana struggled to come up with an answer. She’d been there! She’d been in the house. In the shower? She must’ve been—and he must have gone around and drove over to Last Call.
“Oh. Oh! That’s what he did,” she said, thinking out loud.
“What did he do?”
“Uh, go back to the barn for something, and I didn’t think to look there. Did you get the word about keeping mum about Mack Graves?”
“Yeah, the chief called me. Poor guy. See, I wasn’t far off about him possibly being suicidal. Are his wounds life threatening? He seemed to be moving pretty well, although he looked pale and tired.”
“He just wants some quiet time. To get used to the idea of Fred being gone, as well.”
“Yeah. That’s tough, too.” Bunny made a face. “You won’t believe this—I had to check with Joey to make sure he didn’t say anything to his friends, or at the lumberyard where he’s working. My typical teenager son, you know what he replies? ‘Who’s Mack Graves?’ I swear, unless I’m writing him a check, he ignores me like he does the commercials on TV.”
In this case, that was a gift, Alana thought. “Okay, I’m heading out. I see Skip leaving,” she said of Skip Donaldson, the other day-shift officer, “so Ed is obviously already out and about. See you later.”
Once she had driven away from the station, Alana called the house. Her uncle picked up on the second ring.
“Wondered how long it would take you to figure things out.”
Not only was Alana miffed that he’d snuck by her so successfully, she was annoyed that he sounded so pleased with himself. She pulled into the supermarket parking lot to talk safely. “I’m not sure I even want to talk to you,” she replied.
A Holiday to Remember Page 6
