by Sharon Sala
Lane’s gut twisted. This wasn’t what he’d expected or wanted to hear, and it set a whole series of what ifs circling in his brain.
“Who the hell was it?” Lane asked.
“Samuel Sumter.”
The skin crawled on the back of Lane’s neck. “Then that means...”
“That’s not all,” Holley said. “The pawnshop in town was robbed sometime last night.”
Lane didn’t want to hear this sitting down. Something told him that if he did, his legs might not be able to hold him up when he left, and he’d already made a mental plan for departure before Holley had finished talking. The chair squeaked, then rolled backward as he ejected himself to an upright position.
“What was stolen?” he asked, and he could hear the disgust in the sheriff’s voice as he answered.
“Guns and ammunition. Not a good way to start a day, is it?”
Lane closed his eyes against the news, but there was no way to deny what he suspected. “Damn.”
“That about summed up my opinion, too, boy. I don’t suppose I have to ask if—”
“Notify every law enforcement agency in the area to be on the lookout for a man answering Emmit Rice’s description. I'll handle the fax information from here.” As he spoke, he thought of Toni alone on her farm and got sick to his stomach. “Every resident within a ten-mile radius of Chaney should be notified to be on the alert. Set up checkpoints on all the roads and highways leading out of the area. It sounds to me like someone is planning to make a move.”
“That’s just about what I expected you to say,” Holley replied. “It’s already in the works. I'll let you know what—”
“You won’t have to let me know anything. I should be there in three or four hours, give or take a few.”
“What are you gonna do, hitch a ride with Superman?”
“Something like that,” Lane said. “Look for me when you see me coming.”
Three and a half hours later, a helicopter set down in the field behind the Chaney city hall. A big, long-legged man emerged from the cockpit, ducking when he ran beneath the spinning rotor.
Lane Monday was back.
* * *
Toni walked the length of fence that stretched up the back pasture, placing the last of the metal clasps on the angle-iron posts that would hold her new four-strand barbed-wire fence in place. Down the hill, she could hear the clank of metal against metal as Justin loaded the fencing equipment into the back of his truck.
Working side by side with her brother had been an odd experience. She didn’t know whether or not she was going to be able to deal with being told, once again, what to do and how to do it, but she knew who she had to thank for Justin’s help. It was Lane. And it had all begun the day that she’d gone out to repair her mailbox.
She could still remember the high flush of color on Justin’s cheeks as he’d yanked the posthole digger from her hands and sent her back to the house, when only moments earlier it had been his suggestion that she repair the broken mailbox post herself.
She sighed, and mentally shut herself off from the pain of thinking about the man she’d pulled out of Chaney Creek. It did no good to dwell on what might have been. For Toni, her might-have-been had come and gone and she was right where she’d been before the crash had occurred.
Sweat ran beneath Toni’s shirt, tunneling along her spinal column in a sticky, persistent track. But she didn’t notice, or if she did, she didn’t care. The job was over. The fence was complete. She dropped the sack of leftover clips in the toolbox and slid into the passenger seat of Justin’s truck without comment, then let her head fall back with a weary thump.
“Hot one, isn’t it, Toni?” Justin asked.
She nodded. “It’s been hotter,” she said softly, and rolled down the window as Justin started to move.
“Want me to turn on the air conditioner?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No need. I'll just get hot all over again when we get out to unload.”
He sighed. “Judy said for me to bring you home for lunch when we were through.”
Toni smiled and then did what was, for her, an unusual thing. She patted her brother on the leg and then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek as he pulled up to the barn.
“I appreciate your help, Justin. Really I do. But tell Judy thanks, but no, thanks. As soon as I clean up, I've got to go into Chaney. The cows are out of salt, and I want to pick up some cubes and sweet feed for the steers.”
Toni noticed Justin’s shock. She couldn’t remember the last time that she’d done something so out of character as to kiss her brother. It was such a female move that obviously he didn’t know how to respond.
They exited the truck and began to unload.
“Just so you know,” he muttered, “you're always welcome.”
She paused in the act of lifting a near-empty spool of wire and rested her arms upon the fender as she gazed across the truck bed at Justin. A Madonna-like smile changed her features from intense to introspective.
“I know that, Justin. It’s late. Go on home and get your food before Judy throws it, and you, out to the hogs.”
He did as he was told, and minutes later, Toni made the hot, dusty walk from the barn to her house alone. Within the hour, she was clean, cool and on the way to Chaney when she remembered that she still hadn’t eaten.
“I'll get something in town,” she told herself, and kept driving, her eyes on the road before her, because concentrating on what was going on inside her head might make her insane.
When Toni drove into Chaney and parked her pickup in the alley near the loading dock of Dobbler’s Feed and Seed rather than on the street, she missed seeing a big man exit the sheriff’s office with Dan Holley and then get into Dan’s car.
After leaving the store, Toni went to the café downtown, and was patiently waiting for her order to arrive, unaware of the chain of events that had already taken place that morning in town. If she had paid attention to the babble around her, she would have heard all sorts of comments flying fast and furious about the theft at the pawnshop. But she wasn’t listening to the murmurs around her, as much as to the replay of memories inside her head.
The echo of Lane’s voice in her ear as they’d made love had not gone away. Neither had the feel of his lips upon hers, or his hands tracing the shape of her body before he took control of her mind. All she had to do to bring the memories back was simply close her eyes and let go of everything but the sound of his name.
Lane.
The blaze of blue from his eyes and the breadth of his shoulders as he lowered himself inside her would be forever in her heart. For a giant, he’d been gentle beyond belief. His first and last thought had been for her. She sighed, and bit her lip to keep her chin from trembling. Crying in front of the customers of the Inn and Out Café would not be smart.
“Do you want catsup with your fries?”
Toni jerked to attention, brought rudely back to the present by the food that the waitress had slid under her nose. She looked down. The hamburger was thick, hot and shiny with grease, as were the fries.
“Catsup?”
Toni couldn’t think what to say. It was impossible to go from making love to Lane to an overdose of cholesterol and not be confused.
The waitress sighed. Obviously, the woman was too weary from the noon rush to be patient any longer. She repeated her question in a short staccato chain of words.
“Catsup, Toni! Do you want catsup?”
“No. No, thanks. I don’t want any catsup.” I want Lane Monday.
Toni kept her last request to herself.
* * *
Four farms and thirty minutes later, the sheriff turned from the main road onto the driveway leading up the hill to Toni Hatfield’s farm. The residents that they’d been notifying had reacted with varying degrees of alarm and alternating decisions. One man had even started packing up his wife and children to take them into Knoxville to his mother’s home until the problem in the area w
as solved. But Lane knew that when Toni was notified, she wouldn’t be going anywhere. He could already imagine how her chin would jut, and her eyes flash.
“Hmm,” Holley said as he pulled into the yard and parked in the front of Toni’s house. “I don’t think she’s home.”
Lane got out and started toward the porch, although he’d already come to the same conclusion. Her red-and-white pickup was missing from its parking place in the hallway of the barn.
Lane knocked on the front door, and then turned the knob. He cursed when the door swung open to his touch.
“Damn it,” he muttered as Dan followed him onto the porch. “She doesn’t even lock the door when she leaves.”
Dan shrugged. “Not many do out here. Haven’t had much reason to... before now, that is.”
“I'm going to leave her a note,” Lane said. “I'll tell her to call the station for details, but for now, I don’t want her in the dark about what’s going on.”
Holley nodded, then dropped into the porch swing while Lane entered the house. He was struck by the realization that the essence of Toni was everywhere. A pair of her tennis shoes was sitting beside the living room couch. Her hairbrush was on the hall table, and one dirty sock was in the hall, as if she’d dropped it on the way to the wash.
He bent down and picked it up. At least he knew where that went, he thought, then tried to focus on his mission as he headed for the kitchen where he knew she kept a notepad and pen for making grocery lists. He tossed the sock onto the washer and tried to think of what to write. But he kept seeing her alone in this house, and then remembered the calf that she’d found and her nephew’s dog with a broken neck. The mischief had gone from missing chickens to stolen guns and ammunition. The way Lane saw it, someone had been holed up in these hills, stealing from the land and the people who lived on it, recuperating and readying himself to make a run. With the theft of the guns and ammunition, all clues led him to believe that the person was ready to move out. Although the thought was repugnant, gut instinct told him that it was Emmit Rice.
“If I could live through the crash, then, by God, so could he,” he muttered, and started writing his note.
The message was brief. He could imagine Toni’s shock when she read it, especially since he’d signed his name. But it was for her own good, and the good of the people, that he’d come back. Not, he kept reminding himself, because he wanted to see her one more time. Not because he couldn’t get the feel of her body and the memory of her scent out of his mind. He was a U.S. marshal doing his duty. Nothing more. Nothing less.
When he stepped onto the porch, it was just in time to see a familiar pickup pulling into the driveway. He stifled a grin at the glare of the man who crawled out from behind the wheel and stalked toward the house.
“What the hell are you doing back?” Justin demanded.
Lane grinned. “Good to see you, too, Justin.”
Justin flushed, then glared.
“We were on our way to your place next,” the sheriff said. “Just as well we caught you. It'll save us some time.”
Justin looked startled, as if realizing that someone else was with Lane Monday. “What’s going on, Dan?” Then he looked around at the yard, staring intently toward the barn where Toni’s truck ought to be. “And where the hell is my sister? It’s nearly four o'clock. She should be back from town. Has something happened? Has she had a wreck? Is that why you're all—”
“Whoa,” Dan said, and started off the porch. “It’s nothing like that, boy. Settle down.”
He quickly proceeded to tell Justin exactly what they had been telling everyone in the area regarding the thefts and who they believed was perpetrating them.
Justin went pale. He thrust his hands into his pockets, then yanked them out and combed them through his hair instead, giving him a slightly startled appearance when the strands stuck up in all directions.
“She wouldn’t come eat lunch with me and Judy,” he said. “She said she needed to get stuff in town. She was leaving for Chaney as soon as she cleaned up.”
Lane hated the way his gut twisted. It was too reminiscent of the instinct he had that something was already wrong and he had yet to find out what.
“Go call,” he ordered, and had the satisfaction of seeing Justin react toward him in a positive manner. “You know where she was going. Find out when she left, okay?”
Justin bolted into the house while Lane and Dan waited on the porch. A few minutes later, he came back more anxious than when he’d gone in.
“She got feed. I talked to the man who loaded it. They said she was going to the café. I checked. She left there over an hour and a half ago. I even called home on the chance that she’d gone there to see the baby before coming back. She’s crazy about kids, you know.” Sweat beaded across his upper lip as he seemed to be considering where else she might have gone.
“Did you tell your wife to be on the lookout for strangers and to lock the doors?” Dan asked, and was rewarded with a nod from Justin.
Lane tuned out the thought of Toni and babies and frowned. There was no need dwelling on what could never be when he needed to be focusing on the issues at hand. And while he wasn’t one to jump to conclusions, he also wasn’t going to waste time waiting to see what happened.
Lane’s hand slid beneath his jacket, feeling for his gun. It was an instinctive safety test, a lawman’s gesture that he’d performed many times. And then he stepped off the porch and started toward the patrol car.
“Are you coming?” Lane asked the men.
“Where to?” Justin countered.
“To look for Toni. Where else? It takes exactly fifteen minutes to get from here to Chaney. She might have had engine trouble. She might have a flat. Whatever it is, I'm going to see for myself.”
He couldn’t let himself think of Toni lying beneath him, giving and giving, while he took and took, and then imagine her in danger. They would find her and then they would all have a good laugh.
“Hurry up,” Lane muttered as the sheriff opened the door of the patrol car.
Dan obliged by sliding into the driver’s seat as Lane began to fold himself inside the small car. Lane didn’t have to look back to see if Justin Hatfield followed. Even inside the car, he could hear the gravel flying as the pickup tires spun out on the driveway. He didn’t blame Justin for being concerned. The day had started out bad; there was no reason to assume it was going to get better anytime soon.
* * *
Toni’s meandering thoughts came to an abrupt halt as the familiar flap, flap, flap of a flat tire could be heard upon the blacktop road.
“Well, great,” she muttered, and pulled her pickup to the side of the road before getting out.
It couldn’t have been a worse time or place to have a flat. This was the only stretch on the entire road home that had no shade, and she had a load of feed in the back. It would be hot and heavy work, jacking up the bed and replacing the tire. And, what made it even worse, her spare tire was on a rack underneath the truck bed.
With a muffled curse, Toni grabbed the key from the ignition, flopped flat on her back, then scooted beneath the bed of the truck, quickly unlocking the spare. Moments later, she was hard at work, doing the thing that she knew best how to do. Cope.
* * *
Emmit’s two-week growth of beard itched. He scratched it and cursed beneath his breath, unwilling to investigate the itch too closely. It could be fleas. It could be poison ivy. It could be both. He’d encountered both during his time in hiding. But it was of no consequence to Emmit Rice. He had needed a place to heal, and he’d found it.
The first day after the crash had been hazy. He remembered waking up in the wreckage, surprised that he was still alive, then staggering up into the hills. He had no idea where he’d gone or how he’d gotten there. And it had been much later before he realized how lucky he’d been to have escaped during the storm. The rain had washed away virtually every trace of his flight from the area.
He hadn’t k
nown that the one-room shack he’d found up in the hills was Samuel Sumter’s own getaway place until the big man had walked up on him in the yard. Emmit had never considered trying to talk his way out of the encounter, not after he saw the way the man had eyed his bright orange prison coveralls or the remaining leg iron he had yet to remove.
All it had taken was a swing of the hammer that he’d stolen out of a neighboring barn, and the man had dropped like a felled ox. It had been a simple matter to pull the body to the creek and then toss it into the current. He had considered it a point of luck that the creek had still been in flood stage; otherwise, the searchers he’d seen combing the hills might have found the man’s body long before, and Emmit would have lost valuable healing time in trying to hide.
Most of his forays for food had centered on the neighboring farms and their livestock, and had taken place during the day, when many were gone on errands or out in the fields at work. His most daring exploit had been into a house while two women were working in a nearby garden. He still laughed, remembering the pie that he’d filched from the back porch while no one was the wiser.
Emmit had known from the first that he was going to get away. He considered it divine intervention that he had survived and then escaped without detection. And he had run, with no thought of his fellow prisoners or the lawmen who might, or might not, have had a chance to live had he stopped to help.
His cuts had healed, leaving an ugly track of scars as serious proof of his injuries. Long gashes that had been in desperate need of stitches had sealed themselves over and then run with infection before finally coming to a halt. The raised scars that were left behind ran the gamut of his face and body like thick red worms, some still bearing scabs. Emmit Rice could have cared less. It was nothing more than an added disguise for him, a man who because of size alone had a difficult time hiding his presence.
But now he considered himself healthy enough to move out of the area. The searchers were long since gone. He’d laughed, watching them drag the flooded creek, as he’d crawled back up the hill to hide.
