Riverbend Road

by RaeAnne Thayne

  It took a bit more wrangling but she and Andie were finally able to persuade the Shaw sisters to leave.

  “Whew,” Andie said after she closed the door on them. “Getting the two of them to finally leave was harder than that crazy honeymoon trivia game you made us play.”

  Wynona managed a smile, though now that the urgency of throwing the shower had passed, she could feel the emotion and uncertainty pressing in again.

  Andie must have picked up on it. “What’s wrong?” she asked softly, her pretty features concerned.

  Wyn couldn’t help noticing the other woman had a new calm about her. Even though she had relaxed the last few weeks, obtaining the protective order that morning seemed to be empowering for her. She was no longer skittish, anxious. She seemed...serene, somehow.

  Had it really been just that morning? It seemed a lifetime ago. So much had happened, Wyn didn’t feel like the same person.

  She forced a smile now. “Nothing’s wrong,” she lied. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Why don’t you go to bed and let me clean this up?”

  “Forget it,” she exclaimed. “My house, my mess. It looks worse than it really is, anyway. We mostly just have to throw away the garbage and take down a few decorations. Sam and Katrina did a good job of keeping up with the dishes throughout the night. It shouldn’t take us long.”

  Her words turned out to be prophetic. Between the two of them, they set the house and patio to order in less than half an hour.

  “You need to take some of this leftover food home to your kids,” Wyn said as they were finishing up in the kitchen. “Oh, and don’t forget your pickles.”

  Andie made a face, looking at the gigantic gallon-sized jar of dill pickles she had received as a gag prize for winning one of the shower games.

  “You can keep it. Really. I’m never going to eat this many pickles. Take it down to the police station with you and give them out to people who come in with complaints or something.”

  “You’re too generous. I insist. I’ll even carry it home for you. I’m in the mood for a walk.”

  Somehow she was going to have to come up with the strength to talk to Cade. Better to take the initiative and stop in at his house, rather than to let it fester between them, making them forever awkward with each other.

  She would just tell him, yes, she was in love with him and she understood he didn’t feel the same. She would get over it once she moved on with her life.

  It was a lie, but with a little work she could probably sell it.

  As she might have expected, Pete perked up at the magic word walk so she grabbed his leash, picked up the giant jar of pickles, then headed out into the summer night beside Andie.

  “I didn’t have the chance to talk with you about this earlier, but who’s babysitting Will and Chloe?” she asked, as they passed the Jacobses’ home and the sweet, elegant scent of roses growing along the fence.

  “Barbara Serrano recommended her youngest daughter. She seems like a nice girl.”

  “Parker. She really is. I used to babysit her, before she could even talk. That makes me feel old.”

  “You’re not old. Trust me. Wait until you have kids, then you’ll feel old.”

  Wynona did her best to ignore the clutch in her stomach. Maybe she wouldn’t have children. She had given her heart to a man who didn’t know what to do with it.

  Stars spangled the sky overhead and she could hear the river gurgling beyond the trees. Oh, it would be hard to leave this place she loved so much.

  “If I haven’t said it today, thank you.”

  At the words, Wyn looked over at the woman walking beside her. Andie seemed to be much lighter of step, despite the packages of food she carried.

  “For?” she asked.

  “Everything. This morning, standing by me. Inviting me tonight. Making me feel so welcome here in Haven Point. Being my friend. Most of all, I guess, for giving me hope again that I can move past everything and get my life back. Between the restraining order and our phone call, Rob has to know I’m not going to sit by anymore and play the victim. You gave me the courage to do that.”

  “No, you had it all along,” Wyn insisted. Andie had only needed someone to help her uncover it from beneath all the rubble of her pain. She had done the same, after her attack followed so closely by Wyatt’s devastating death. Moved forward. Surely she could recover from this too.

  “I made an appointment to see that counselor you suggested,” Andie said.

  She managed a smile. “I’m so glad.”

  “You were right. I was giving someone else too much power over my life, even though I moved five hundred miles away from him. No more.”

  “Good for you,” Wynona said as Pete led the way up the steps. The dog paused at the door, sniffing the air, probably on alert for one of the Jacobses’ cats, who tended to wander.

  “I don’t hear any chaos from within, so I guess Parker survived the two-kid demolition team,” Andie said.

  This time Wyn’s smile was a little more genuine. “Your kids are the sweetest. Now, if you want to see a two-kid demolition team, you should check out Lindy-Grace’s boys. Just ask Darwin Twitchell, if you don’t believe me.”

  Pete growled and she frowned at his unusual behavior. “Hey. Behave yourself. Children are sleeping inside.”

  He wouldn’t go anywhere without her, she knew, but she still looped the leash around a newel on the porch steps while Andie unlocked the door.

  “Parker,” she called softly. “I’m back.”

  No answer greeted her and the lights were out.

  “They must have completely tired her out,” she said with a laugh.

  She flipped on the living room light and then made a small, terrified sound and dropped the bowl she carried. It clattered to the floor, spilling bits of pasta salad everywhere.

  All the color leached from her features like a photograph exposed to harsh sunlight and the other woman’s gaze fixed on the man who sat on the living room sofa, with a sleeping Will curled up against his chest.

  “Hello, Andrea,” he said with a smile that sent jagged icicles down Wyn’s spine.

  He had sandy-blond hair and a cop’s mustache and she knew instantly this had to be Rob Warren.

  The son of a bitch.

  How dare he show up now, when the only weapon she had was a gallon-sized jar of pickles?

  He held a finger to his lips. “Shhh,” he said, with that cold smile she wanted to smack away. “You don’t want to wake the little guy.”

  “Wh-where’s Parker?” Andie said, her eyes frantic.

  “I sent her home,” he said, still with that smarmy smile.

  “And she just...left?”

  “I paid her. Don’t worry. Very generously, actually. She didn’t want to leave without calling to check with you first but I convinced her she would ruin my big surprise if she told you I was here. The kids were both so happy to see me.”

  Wyn’s brain felt foggy, numb, as if she’d had far more than one glass of wine, but she forced herself to assess the scene. She could see a black handgun on the table next to him. With Will sleeping in Warren’s lap, Wyn could think of no possible way under the circumstances to disarm the other cop safely.

  She needed backup and she needed a weapon.

  Cade. He would have a spare weapon and extra ammunition. She could have him here in two minutes, and then both of them could arrest Robert Freaking Warren.

  “Who’s your friend?” he asked.

  Andie didn’t say anything, her features pale as skim milk.

  Wyn knew in an instant she couldn’t tell him her real name. He would connect it with the female officer who had spoken with him earlier that day, when she had warned him in no uncertain terms never to come to Haven Point.

 
He struck her as a cornered rat, dangerous and canny, and she decided her best play was to keep her true identity a secret.

  “Samantha Fremont,” she said, putting her best drunken giggle into her voice. “I’ve got pickles.”

  “Yeah. I see that.”

  “What’s your name?” she asked, injecting a little flirtatious note, even though it made her want to vomit.

  He looked mildly amused. “Rob. Andrea and I go way back. Isn’t that right?”

  Andie looked as if she might fall over with a puff of air but she nodded stiffly.

  “That’s great. So great. Old friends are the best.” Wyn giggled a little more and ended on a slight belch. For the first time in her life, she was grateful for three brothers who taught her to burp on command from the time she was in preschool.

  “Sorry. I think I might have had a few too many margaritas tonight. That was some shower.”

  She gestured blindly behind her. “I’ll just, you know, leave the pickles and let you two catch up.”

  “Wh-what?” Andie turned, her eyes huge.

  She tried to send a message to her friend, to assure her she wasn’t abandoning her.

  “Yeah. I’ve got an old friend too. He lives just across the street. He’s sooo cute. Think I’ll drop in and say hi,” she said with what she hoped looked like inebriated infatuation. “I’ll see you soon.”

  She gave Andie a hug. “Get Will out of here,” she whispered. “Whatever you have to do.”

  She caught a quick flash of understanding and gratitude in Andie’s eyes and hoped that Warren didn’t see it.

  “Nice to meet you, Robby,” she lied with another boozy giggle, then let herself out the door.

  She wasted precious seconds fumbling to unhook Pete’s leash. At least that fit with the role she was playing. Just in case Warren was watching from the living room window, she forced herself to walk slowly and a little wobbly across the street, as if she had nothing better to do than drop in on a cute neighbor at ten on a Thursday night.

  She could only pray that Cade was home and that he would help her keep Andrea and her children safe.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I’M IN LOVE with you.

  Wynona’s words rolled around his head in an endless refrain.

  He had tried to shove his emotions aside as he went through the final police-department plans for Lake Haven Days, due to start the next evening and into the weekend, but now that he was home, he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about that scene at her house and the one earlier in his office.

  She thought she was in love with him but he instinctively wanted to tell her she couldn’t be, that she was too smart to make that kind of mistake.

  At heart, he still felt like one of the outlaw Emmetts, which he knew was a completely ridiculous reaction after all his years of public service, but it was hard to shake something imprinted on him when he was a kid.

  His family was still a mess. His mom had died of liver failure, his dad had died in jail, and his brother wasn’t speaking to him, as he waited in jail on a DUI charge.

  He wasn’t his family, though. Hadn’t he been fighting to prove that since John Bailey took him under his considerable wing? Through his teenage years and his adulthood, he had done his best to show he wasn’t defined by DNA, by his family’s criminal tendencies, his father’s disregard and contempt for the law.

  He had been a damn good police chief since John Bailey had been shot. He worked hard and he cared about his community, which he hoped was evident in the performance of his department.

  Yeah, he might be an Emmett, but it was only a name. How ironic, that the one person he was having trouble convincing after all this time was himself.

  Wynona Bailey loved him. He didn’t know how or why but it seemed a miracle, somehow, an amazing, precious gift that he had decided he would be an idiot to turn away.

  While he didn’t want her to leave the department and would miss her terribly, that was yet one more obstacle between them that had been removed. A month from now, she wouldn’t be working for him. If they could hold off for that month before slipping into a full-fledged relationship, he would be over that sticky conflict.

  He loved her. He meant what he said to her. She was the strongest person he knew. She was brave and smart, funny and compassionate.

  How could he not love her?

  He laughed a little for the first time all evening, wishing he dared go to her house right now. He had told her they would talk. After they did, he would have to do his best to stay away from her for another month, to keep things light and casual until she actually resigned from his department.

  He wouldn’t sneak around with her. Those things never ended well.

  It would be the hardest thing he ever did, though.

  What he needed right now was a good swim in the bracing waters of Lake Haven but he decided a cool shower would have to do. He had just turned on the water and taken off his shirt when he heard a frantic banging on the door. Three knocks then two more then three more, interspersed with his doorbell.

  He didn’t stop to think, he just rushed to the front door, picking up his sidearm as he went.

  He forgot he’d left his shirt in the other room until he yanked the door open and found Wyn on the other side wearing one of her pretty, feminine sundresses and holding tightly to Pete’s leash with a wild look in her eyes.

  She rushed inside and let go of the dog. “I need your clutch piece now! Where is it?”

  She looked around frantically, as if she expected him to leave his backup gun lying on a side table.

  “Why?”

  “My weapon’s at home and I don’t have time to get it. I need that Glock 27 you keep in your boot. You’ve got mags for it here, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Where is it? I need it. Grab yours too. And a shirt.”

  He had seen her in tight situations before but he’d never seen that tight, frightened look on her face. Something was very, very wrong. Ice crackled through his veins.

  “Wyn, slow down. Tell me what the hell is going on.”

  She was close to hyperventilating but she drew in a deep breath and then another, fighting for control. After the second breath, the raw wildness in her eyes clicked down to panicked urgency.

  “We don’t have time to chat. The bastard cop who raped Andie is sitting in her living room right now.”

  “What?”

  “Rob Warren. The one we had Judge Jenkins sign a restraining order against today. I’m guessing he didn’t take kindly to being served because right now he’s in her living room holding her sleeping son with a SIG Sauer P226 on the table next to him. I need to go back there but I can’t take him on by myself, unarmed.”

  He had time for only an instant of fierce gratitude that she hadn’t tried before he grabbed the nearest shirt he could find, a T-shirt off the stack of clean laundry on his kitchen table he hadn’t yet had time to put away.

  He opened the drawer where he kept his extra weapon and leg harness and handed it to her.

  “I don’t have anywhere to put a weapon in this dress and I don’t want him to know I’m armed. Do you have a sweatshirt or something with a pocket I can conceal?”

  He grabbed the closest one he could find out of his closet. It swamped her, made her look even more small and fragile. He suddenly wished he had a closet full of Kevlar too.

  “I’m calling for backup. Jess and Cody are on.”

  She nodded. “Fine, but have them come in dark. We need the element of surprise on our side.”

  He made the call before they left the house, explaining to his officers that he didn’t know the situation inside the house yet and ordering them to stand by at the end of Riverbend Road.

  “Stay here, Pete. I’ll be rig
ht back.” She patted her dog, who whined a little but settled onto the rug by the door.

  As Wyn opened the door Cade looked out carefully. Across the street, he could see only thin slats of light on the edges of the tightly closed blinds. No shapes or movement made it through. He wanted to beg her to stay at his house and let him handle the situation but he knew that wouldn’t be fair or right. She was a trained officer and he trusted her to know how to handle herself.

  “What’s the play?” he asked. “How do you want to get inside?”

  She tucked her arm through his and headed across the street. An interesting approach, but he wasn’t about to argue when every instinct warned him to tuck her against him and keep her safe.

  “I didn’t want him to know I was the officer he spoke with earlier in the week. He thinks I’m Samantha Fremont and I’m drunk from the bridal shower. Let’s use that.”

  “Fine,” he said. Before they reached the steps, he stopped and kissed her hard.

  “FYI, I love you too.”

  She stared at him, her eyes huge in the moonlight. “Now? You’re throwing that at me now?”

  “I just wanted you to know. Be careful. I want the chance to show you how much.” He kissed her fiercely once more before releasing her.

  She let out a ragged breath, shook her head, then squared her shoulders and turned toward the house.

  How could he help but fall in love with her all over again?

  Wynona was a trained police officer. She was excellent with a firearm and she could kick the ass of any one of his officers at hand-to-hand combat, himself included.

  She had this.

  She knocked on the door. “Andie? It’s Samantha again.”

  He didn’t know how she did it, but Wyn somehow made her voice sound drunk, ditzy, like she was trying—and failing—to whisper.

  “Andie? Open the door!”

  There was no answer for a long moment and he kept watch, aware every moment of the solid weight of his service weapon at the small of his back.

  “Andie? Andie? Are you in there?” She pitched her voice a little louder. “Please. It’s an emergency.”