“That’s better. Thanks.”
Again, he studied the spectators. Considering how attached Danny was to his mother, and to him, he expected to see the boy pulling Louise’s arm and leading her closer.
He didn’t see the older woman or the child at first. Then, he saw Louise weaving through the crowd.
An officer stopped her from coming closer.
Thad could see her waving her hands and speaking but he couldn’t make out what she was saying.
Apparently satisfied that she should be let through the barricades, the deputy stepped aside and pointed toward the ambulance.
Blotting his still stinging eyes, Thad wiped his face with the towel. When he lowered it Louise was standing in front of him. Danny wasn’t with her.
“Where is he?” Thad demanded.
She was wringing her hands. “I don’t know. He said he was cold so I let him go back to your truck for his jacket. He promised he’d come right back but he never did.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Just a few minutes. I told Harlan and Adelaide and they’ve already started a search.”
Thad was beside himself. He’d thought it was safe to leave the boy with another responsible adult. The choice had been his. He’d desperately wanted to rescue Lindy, and he had, but if that decision had cost her her son, she’d never forgive him.
Gritting his teeth and trying to suppress another coughing fit, Thad realized that he would never forgive himself, either.
That little boy meant more to him than life itself.
* * *
Danny saw the menacing-looking men standing next to Thad’s truck. Two of them. And they seemed familiar. Where had he seen them before?
In the house. That night when Mama and I hid behind the couch. He’d never forget those mean faces or the way they had yelled at him and his mother. It was so scary.
One of the men, the taller one, turned his head in Danny’s direction.
The boy felt as if his sneakers were nailed to the courthouse lawn. He wanted to yell. To run. To hide. But his body refused to move.
The tall man pointed. “There he is.”
Danny wished he could melt into the ground and disappear. His mouth felt dry. He knew he was trembling.
A heavier, meaner-looking guy was circling the truck and both of the men were starting to come his way.
Run! Run! Now! his instincts screamed.
He tried to lift one foot. Nothing happened. The men seemed to be moving in slow motion, edging closer and closer.
Try harder, something inside him insisted. Go find Thad.
Thoughts of seeking sanctuary with the ex-marine were strong enough to enable Danny to break free.
He whirled. Started to run.
Behind him, someone yelled, “Get him!”
That only spurred more speed. More agility.
Ducking and weaving between spectators who had gathered in response to the sirens, Danny felt as if his feet were flying, barely touching the ground.
He knew he didn’t dare stop. But where was Thad? Was he still helping the firemen?
Danny bobbed. He cut right, then left, then right again, never daring to slow down enough to look back. Nobody had to tell him the men were still chasing him. He could feel them back there even if he couldn’t hear them anymore.
A bright spotlight suddenly blinded him. Someone called his name.
Danny kept running.
Running for his life.
Looking for the one man he knew he could trust.
His eyes widened. There! Was that Thad? It had to be.
Gasping and nearly spent, the child altered his forward course just enough to bring him into line with his goal. He didn’t slow until he’d rammed into Thad. Grabbing him around the knees, Danny began to sob.
“Easy, son, easy,” the man soothed. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
He let himself be pried loose and lifted into his rescuer’s arms.
He had never been more terrified in his whole life.
And he had never felt safer than he did right now.
* * *
Lindy was resting in the ambulance with a small oxygen mask over her nose and mouth when she saw Thad approach carrying her son.
They both seemed to be the worse for wear yet had never looked more dear.
She lifted the clear plastic mask and smiled. “Hi, fellas. Nice night for a little excitement, don’t you think?”
Noting that Thad was wheezing and Danny was taking shuddering breaths as if he had been crying, she scowled. “What’s up? I know where I’ve been. Where have you two been?”
“I carried you out of the jail,” Thad explained. “You were unconscious when I found you but the medics said you’ll be fine.”
Lindy tried to suppress a cough and failed. “Then I owe you my thanks. Again.” Her reddened eyes widened. “Wait a minute. Where was Danny while you were rescuing me?”
“I left him with Louise Williams, from work.”
Lindy could tell there was more to it than he was admitting but she was too weary to insist on an immediate explanation. “Good. I’d like you to continue to look after him for me. Please? They tell me I’m going to be sent to the hospital. If Samantha’s on duty tonight and I see her there, I want to be able to tell her she doesn’t need to notify Family Services.”
“No problem. Danny and I will follow in a little while and see if they’ll let us visit you. In the meantime, I intend to find out just what happened here.”
“I think I saw something like a smoke bomb or maybe tear gas. It was tossed through the door from the main office and there was no way I could keep from breathing the fumes.”
“We know. The fire department has the device.”
Lindy watched her self-appointed guardian draw a shaky breath, then force a smile. She knew he was thinking the same thing she was—that this had been another attack specifically aimed at her. The question was why?
Pausing to take another deep breath from her mask she finally said, “This doesn’t fit with the other things that have happened to me. I mean, why gas me? They’d already succeeded in framing me for drugs, emptying my bank account, ruining my credit and evicting me from my house. What else could they hope to accomplish?”
Seeing the way Thad’s arms tightened around her son, she was suddenly aware that the child was acting strangely. He wasn’t merely upset. He was behaving as if he was scared to death.
“Mama’s going to be okay, honey. Don’t worry,” Lindy said to reassure him.
When the boy remained mute and buried his face against Thad’s shoulder, she grew more suspicious that something else was wrong.
As her gaze met Thad’s and held it, she was positive.
He cleared his throat, turned aside to cough, then faced her again. She could tell from his expression that he was about to reveal a secret. She just hoped she was up to hearing whatever he had to say.
“I think they were either after you or Danny, or maybe both,” he said quietly. “He told me he spotted the guys who broke into your house and swore they were chasing him. I didn’t see anybody but it’s possible he’s right just the same.”
Before she could fully accept Thad’s statement, he added something even more ominous.
“I’ve told the sheriff what I think and he’s agreed to let you stay in the hospital overnight. You’ll have a guard posted at your door. That’s more to keep somebody else out than it
is to keep you in. Harlan doesn’t really believe you were selling or using drugs. He just has to follow the letter of the law.”
“So I’ll be lying there, totally exposed to danger, while the police pretend to be watching me?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite that way,” Thad replied. “I’m sure they’ll do their jobs.”
Lindy couldn’t help sounding a little bitter when she said, “You mean like they did their jobs when Ben was shot?” She gave a harsh-sounding chuckle that ended in another coughing fit.
“Would you like me to stay at the hospital, too?” Thad asked.
She wanted to tell him yes, but doing so would mean that her innocent child would also be exposed to possible danger. Therefore, she did what any good mother would have done. She said no with as much conviction as she could muster.
The way Lindy saw it, the only way things could get worse for her at this point was if something bad happened to her only child.
Keeping Danny safe and sound had always been her job. She wasn’t going to change her mind about that now, no matter what happened to her.
FOURTEEN
It was hard for Thad to entrust Lindy to the care of a sheriff’s deputy but the fact that it was Adelaide Crowe who had been assigned the duty helped him accept it. That young officer was not only sharp-witted, she was savvy. Nobody with ulterior motives was going to get past her.
After assuring Lindy that his breathing was okay, he had taken Danny home with him and managed to talk the boy into going to sleep by agreeing to “camp” in the living room in sleeping bags. There was enough adventure and fun involved in doing that to placate the child and still allow Thad to get some needed shut-eye.
By morning he felt rested, although his nerves were still on edge. A quick phone call to Lindy’s room would let him know she was all right and hopefully help untie some of the knots in his neck and shoulders.
“Morning,” he said as soon as she answered the bedside phone. “How are you?”
“Better, thanks.” Her voice sounded muted and he suspected she was cupping a hand around the receiver. “I still have my babysitter at the door, though.”
“Adelaide?”
“For another hour or so. Then she goes off duty and they’ll give me someone else, I guess.”
“We’ll be by to visit before that.” He felt a tug on his sleeve. “Here. Somebody else wants to talk to you.”
Listening to the boy’s side of the conversation, Thad could tell that Lindy was cautioning him to be good because he kept nodding his tousled head and murmuring, “Uh-huh. Uh-huh, I will.” Finally, he handed the phone back.
“We’re going to go out for breakfast,” Thad said. “Is there anything we can bring you or are you loving the hospital food?”
“A sweet roll and coffee would be wonderful. And make sure Danny wears his jacket. It’s cold outside.”
“Okay. Look for us in about half an hour or forty-five minutes. I thought I’d take my little buddy to Hickory Station where we first met.”
“Fine.” Her voice gentled. “And, thank you, Thad.”
“My pleasure. He’s a great kid.”
Bidding Lindy goodbye, he realized how much he’d meant what he’d said about Danny. They were getting along very well, in spite of the scary episode the night before, and thankfully he hadn’t had any combat dreams while the boy had been in his care.
“I wanna go see my mama,” Danny piped up.
“We will. First we’ll go get breakfast, like I told her, and then you can take her some goodies from the restaurant.”
“Yeah! I love doughnuts!”
“You can eat some this one time. It might be best if that was our little secret, though. I don’t think your mother approves of too many sweets.”
It made Thad smile to recall that Lindy had asked him to bring her a sweet roll. She might have rules for Danny’s healthful diet but there were clearly times when those rules were broken on her own behalf, particularly when she was facing a tray of bland hospital food.
He’d have to pick up an extra treat or two for Adelaide or whoever took over for her, too. There were plenty of stale jokes about cops loving doughnuts but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
Grinning, he locked up his apartment, ushered the child to the truck and made sure he was safely belted in.
Clearly, Danny was excited about the prospect of seeing his mother again, although that didn’t mean he hadn’t also brought along an armload of the toys he’d salvaged from his room at home.
Thad’s smile broadened even more and he felt his cheeks warming as he slid behind the wheel and fired up the truck. Danny wasn’t the only one who could hardly wait to visit Lindy.
A certain ex-marine was pretty eager to do so, too.
* * *
The morning was creeping by. Lindy glanced at the clock on the wall at the foot of her bed. What was keeping her two guys?
She huffed in self-deprecation. Two? Last time she’d looked, there was only one who belonged to her. Danny. The grown man was another story, one she felt was still being written.
Thad might keep insisting he wouldn’t make a good father but that didn’t make it so. She knew better. She had seen him with Danny. Had repeatedly watched their interaction with a lump in her throat. They were so well suited to each other it was amazing.
Did that mean that she was the real problem? Maybe. Or perhaps Thad just didn’t want to commit to anyone. She certainly wouldn’t blame him if he avoided getting tangled up in her confusing life more than he already was. Any man who considered marrying her had to be more than brave. He had to be a little foolhardy.
The door to her room swung open.
Lindy beamed, assuming she knew who was entering bearing the enormous bouquet of flowers that hid his face.
How sweet.
She leaned to look on either side of her visitor. Where was her son?
About to ask, she sat up straighter, got a glimpse of the bearer of the flowers and almost gasped.
“Good morning, Lindy,” James Reed said smoothly. He put the vase on a side table and stepped back, smiling. “I was sorry to hear you’d had an accident.”
Speechless, she frowned and stared. How did Reed know about her being in the hospital? Who had told him? And why would he care enough to drive all the way to Serenity to visit her? They had no real connection anymore, not after Ben’s sick leave payments had ended and she had rejected Reed’s theory that they might share a reward for finding hidden bank accounts.
“I can see you’re surprised to see me,” the suave businessman said. “Let me explain.”
Stepping back from the array of blossoms, she saw that he was holding something. Something dark and fairly small with sharp angles and a hand grip.
He swiveled and pointed the barrel of the gun at her while laying the index finger of his other hand across his lips. “Shh. You don’t want to be responsible for getting that pretty cop I saw out in the hallway hurt, now do you?”
Lindy shook her head. Her hands drew folds of the bedcovers into her fists and twisted them.
That was her only tangible hold on reality, on her turbulent emotions. If she called out or screamed in terror, Adelaide would come bursting through the door to be greeted by a bullet from Reed’s gun. Lindy had seen that kind of failed rescue attempt before when Ben had tried to save her and Danny. She was not going to contribute to anyone else’s death. Not knowingly.
“I’m g
lad to see we understand each other,” Reed said, pocketing the firearm. He approached and perched a hip on the edge of her bed, just out of reach. “Now, you and I are going to have a little chat, Mrs. Southerland. If you tell me what I want to know, I’ll disappear and you’ll never see me again. I hear the Caymans are lovely this time of year.”
Lindy bit her lip to help control herself. All she wanted to do was get rid of him, one way or another. “How, how can I help you when Ben didn’t tell me a thing?”
“I’m sure you’ll think of a way.” He gave her a snide smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
The menace in his expression was as frightening as the gun had been—maybe more so.
Racking her brain for something—anything—that would send him on a wild-goose chase and get him out of the hospital, Lindy was praying silently when she saw the door start to move again.
It swung open.
Reed stood and backed off.
Danny burst in, raced across the room and scrambled onto her bed with a joyous, “Mama!”
Lindy took him in her arms and pulled him close. Held tight. Kept praying wordlessly.
Her gaze met Thad’s and locked. She desperately wanted him to take Danny and go away. If she revealed that she was in danger, she knew he’d try to rescue her. And then what would happen to her little boy?
Hide your feelings, her instinct insisted. Don’t let him see how scared you are.
When Lindy tried to smile, she could tell it was too late. Thad’s expression was already wary and growing more guarded by the second. His attention was so focused on her, she wondered if he’d even noticed that James Reed was also in the room.
“Thad and me, we brought doughnuts, Mama,” Danny said happily.
She eyed the paper sack and take-out coffee container in the man’s hand. “I can see that. Thank you. Now get going or you’ll be late for school.”
“There’s no school on Saturday,” the child told her. “Silly you.”
“You should still be going,” Lindy insisted.
Her eyes were drawn back to Thad’s face. In his expression she read a multitude of emotions including concern. As the seconds ticked by, however, that concern was rapidly being replaced by determination and what she could only assume was the readiness to fight even though he had not even acknowledged that Reed was present.
Standing Guard Page 15
