“I’m concerned about more than a concussion,” he said in a brusque, businesslike voice. “You’re probably going to need stitches, too.”
Before she could guess his intention, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, gathered one corner together and pressed the fabric to the wound.
His big hand inadvertently brushed against her cheek and she closed her eyes as she tried to steel herself against the odd emotions rushing through her. How long had it been since a man who wasn’t related to her had been this close? Three years. Three long, lonely years.
“I’ll make sure I get the wound cared for, Deputy. Thank you.”
Sensing that he was making her uncomfortable, he handed the handkerchief to her and stepped back.
“Be sure that you do.” Curling his fingers around her upper arm, he asked, “Can you make it over to my truck? I need to write up the accident and you’ll be more comfortable there.”
Sitting down would be a relief. At the moment it was an effort for her to remain upright. Her head must have taken a harder whack than she’d thought. The dizziness and nausea she’d felt the moment she’d stood on her feet was still coming and going in great waves. “I think so,” she told him.
With his hand on her arm, he supported most of her weight as the two of them waded through the tall grass and weeds. Just as they reached his truck, another patrol car braked to a jarring halt at the side of the highway.
An officer climbed out of the vehicle and Deputy McCleod called over to him.
“If you haven’t already called for a tow truck, do that now, then deal with the fence.”
The other man lifted a hand in acknowledgment.
The deputy led Lucita around to the passenger door of his truck, which he’d left idling, and helped her into the seat. Once she was inside and he’d shut the door behind her, she began to shiver, but whether her reaction was from the air-conditioning blowing from the dash or anticipation of a grilling, she wasn’t sure. She just knew she wanted this whole ordeal over with so that she could go home to her family.
Lights of all shapes and colors illuminated knobs and meters on the dashboard in front of her. A two-way radio crackled as voices intermittently sent information across the airwaves. Behind her head, against the back windshield, long, high-powered rifles rested in a gun rack. She wondered if the lawman had ever been forced to use any of his weapons.
Seconds later, the deputy was sliding into the seat next to her. He switched on the interior cab light and the small space was filled with a dim, yellowish glow. She studied his profile as he silently reached for a clipboard and began to copy information from her driver’s license.
The man was somewhere in his mid to late thirties, Lucita decided. A strong, square jaw was covered with a faint stubble of dark whiskers. Coffee-brown sideburns ended at the lobes of his ears while his hair was just long enough to curl against his nape. His nose was on the large side and surprisingly straight for a man who’d undoubtedly been involved in a fair share of physical scuffles. Faint creases bracketed a roughly hewn set of lips, which at the moment were pressed together in a grim line. No doubt he was very unhappy with her careless driving.
Head still bent, he continued to write. “I don’t think I need to point out how lucky you were tonight. I think you already realize you could have been killed.”
Lucita drew in a deep breath. She wished she could see his eyes. They might give her a clue as to what he was actually thinking. But they were totally shadowed by the brim of his hat. Her gaze fell to his left hand. The ring finger was blank. But what did that matter? Why was she even wondering if the man was married?
She tried to focus on the real reason for sitting next to this lanky deputy. He seemed like a strong, capable man and something about his presence gave her a sense of security. She needed to tell him what actually happened on the highway. She needed his help. Otherwise, she might not survive. “Looking at it that way, I suppose you’re right. But at the moment I don’t especially feel lucky. I—you see, only moments before my encounter with the hog, there was a car tailgating me. It got so close that it bumped me.”
Turning his head, he looked directly at her. The full view of his face was almost as jolting as hitting the power pole, she decided.
“Bumped you?”
Even though he’d only spoken two words, she could hear disbelief in his voice. Looking at it from his view, she could see how ridiculous it sounded. This was a rural area where most people lived at a slow pace. Neighbor knew neighbor and they definitely didn’t try to run one another off the road.
“Yes. At first the lights were so bright and close I was practically blinded. I sped up to try to get ahead of them, but the car wouldn’t back off. Finally it got so close, it rammed my bumper—hard enough to nearly wrench the steering wheel from my hands. I was trying to decide whether to try to outrun it or simply pull over and stop when the hog ran in front of me. I swerved to miss it, and my car began to spin. The next thing I knew, the front end was wrapped around the power pole.”
His gaze dropped back to the clipboard. “Are you sure the vehicle actually bumped you? This particular highway has a few potholes. Hitting one at a high rate of speed can cause serious jolts and even accidents.”
Feeling more blood trickling through her hair, she pressed his handkerchief more firmly to the wound on her head. “I understand that this all sounds unbelievable. But it wasn’t a pothole. The car really did bash into me.”
As though he needed a closer inspection of her, he turned toward her as his thumb pushed the brim of his hat a fraction higher on his forehead. “Did you have any sort of altercation with this vehicle before the accident? Maybe you forgot to dim your lights and the driver got angry and wanted payback? Or you cut them off from a prime parking space? Unfortunately, road rage can get out of hand.”
Shaking her head, she said firmly, “No. Nothing like that happened today, yesterday or any time.”
A faint dimple grooved his cheek as he smiled. “You must be a very courteous driver, Ms. Sanchez.”
Looking away from him, she reminded herself that she’d never been attracted to lawmen, that they were too cocky for her taste. This one was no exception. Still, there was something about him that affected her in the most sensual sort of way.
“Most Texans are courteous drivers,” she replied. “Except for the idiot chasing me.”
He glanced thoughtfully out the windshield. “If this wasn’t a case of road rage, then why would someone be chasing you? Have you had a personal dispute with anyone?”
His questions made her squirm uncomfortably. She realized the more she tried to explain the accident tonight, the stranger she sounded. “I realize I must seem paranoid to you, or worse, a woman suffering from histrionics. But I’ve been—I believe that someone has been following me around. Stalking me.”
She glanced over to see he was staring at her with genuine concern. She was relieved he was actually taking her fears seriously.
“Have you reported this to the authorities?” he asked.
“No.” She probably should have, but without proof, law officials would have considered her a paranoid loon or something. Besides, she’d continued to hope the whole matter would simply go away.
“What about your family? Did you tell any of them about this?”
“I mentioned it to my aunt Geraldine. But at that time, it was only a feeling on my part.”
His dark gaze continued to search her face as though he was trying to see the truth. She could have told him he wouldn’t find anything underneath her skin. She was just a plain, totally forgettable schoolteacher.
“Do you have any enemies that you’re aware of?”
Lucita released a long, pent-up breath. “Not really. But in this day and age, how does anyone ever know? I do teach high school in Victoria at St. Francis. I suppose an angry student could be wanting to scare me.”
“Scaring is one thing, but stalking is a criminal act and very serious.”
> The long chase she’d gone through tonight had certainly felt criminal. But she didn’t want to think about that now. She didn’t want to think that someone might have actually wanted to scare her that much, or even worse, to make her crash.
She tried to shake off the sinister thoughts. “Well, the car did go on after I crashed. I suppose if the driver had really wanted to do me harm they would have come back to finish what they started.”
The deputy’s lips pressed into a grim line. “I don’t want to scare you, but this person might have believed the crash finished you and he or she didn’t want to risk being caught at the scene of a crime.”
Lucita’s blood turned ice-cold. “I can only hope you’re wrong.”
His expression softened slightly. “I hope I’m wrong, too,” he replied, then asked, “Can you tell me more about the vehicle?”
Shaking her head, she sighed wearily. “Not much. I’m fairly certain that it was a car, low-slung and sleek. It looked black or some dark color.”
“Nothing more about the make or model? The tag?”
A dull ache was beginning to spread through her whole head. She wiped a hand over her forehead while wishing for aspirin and a cool pillow beneath her cheek. “No. I didn’t have time to catch any details. It zoomed up behind me and then I was too blinded to see anything more.”
Nodding, he jotted something down on his notepad. “Well, right now you’re probably going to be more angry with me than the tailgater, because I’m going to have to write you up on a traffic violation for reckless driving.”
Wide-eyed now, she stared at him. “What about the hog? Doesn’t it count for anything? And the tailgater—or whatever he was?”
One corner of his mouth lifted wryly. “Other than your word, I have no proof of a tailgater or a hog. But I do intend to make a search.” He handed her info back to her, then, picking up the flashlight, he opened the truck door and ordered, “You stay where you are.”
What the heck did he think she was going to do? Lucita wondered. Her car was incapacitated and her legs felt like mush. It was still several miles to the ranch. She could hardly walk home from here. And she wasn’t about to stumble around in the dark to help him hunt for a dead hog.
Far off to her left, beneath a beam of headlights, she could see her crumpled car and the officer called Lijah working to upright the barbed-wire fence. To her immediate right, Deputy McCleod was searching the shoulders of the highway, sweeping the high grass with his flashlight.
The man was a handsome devil, she thought. There was no denying the fact. Something about this man had caught her attention the moment he’d stepped up and dabbed his handkerchief to her bleeding head.
She still couldn’t believe she’d actually searched his left hand for a sign of a wedding ring. What could have possibly possessed her? The deputy’s marital status had nothing to do with anything.
She wasn’t looking for a man to curl up to. Even one that looked as good as Deputy Ripp McCleod. She’d had one good-looking, smooth-talking man in her life and now that he’d gone with the wind, along with her family inheritance, she’d vowed to never have another. But this Texas lawman was more than enough to make a woman forget her vows!
Chapter Two
Her head now throbbing with pain, Lucita pulled her handbag onto her lap and began to search for a painkiller. She was still pawing her way through lipstick tubes and crumpled receipts when the cab door opened again and Deputy McCleod slid beneath the steering wheel. With him came the warm night air and his distinctly male scent. A prickle of awareness suddenly dotted her skin with goose bumps.
“No hog, Ms. Sanchez,” he told her. “Once it’s daylight, the department will have a closer inspection of your car. Of course, if we find anything, we’ll inform you.”
She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Actually, I’m glad you didn’t find the hog. I didn’t want to think I’d ended its life, even if it would have helped me avoid a ticket.”
He reached for the clipboard and the paper where he’d jotted down her license information. “Hog. Tailgater. Whatever. You were obviously driving way too fast, Ms. Sanchez. I’d say if you put any value on that neck of yours, you’d better slow down.”
Lucita clamped her lips together as she watched him scratch more comments across the bottom of a second set of documents. He was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to watch him write what looked to be a whole stack of driving tickets.
“What am I supposed to do if someone starts to harass me on the highway again?” she asked with a hint of sarcasm.
He looked up and Lucita couldn’t help but notice the way his dark brows met in the middle of his forehead, the way the corners of his chiseled lips turned faintly downward. The man even made frowning look sexy, she thought.
“You really are concerned about a stalker, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “It’s just a hunch, but enough of one to scare me.”
To her surprise he reached across the seat and gently touched her forearm in a reassuring way. “I wouldn’t borrow trouble, Ms. Sanchez. Unfortunately, lots of people encounter rude, reckless drivers on the highway, but that’s where it ends. I doubt you’ll have any more problems. Just be vigilant and drive safely.”
Under normal circumstances, Lucita would agree with him. But her past wasn’t exactly normal. Three years ago her ex-husband had stolen every penny of the inheritance her family had given her after she’d turned twenty-five. And so far the police hadn’t been able to locate his whereabouts. But she wasn’t about to get into that sordid story with this man. After all, Deputy McCleod considered this a traffic incident and nothing more. And perhaps it would be best to let him keep thinking that, Lucita decided. Especially when she hadn’t a lick of proof that the person who’d practically run her down on the highway was Derek Campbell or anyone connected to him. Besides, during their ten-year marriage he’d never once threatened to harm her in any way.
Yet for the past few weeks she hadn’t been able to shake the idea that her ex was somehow connected to the person who’d been shadowing her comings and goings.
Folding the lawman’s handkerchief into a tight square, Lucita pressed it back to the leaky wound on the side of her head. “You’re right, Deputy McCleod,” she said after a moment. “I need to quit worrying and be glad that my car was the only victim tonight.”
“Like I said earlier, you’re one fortunate lady,” he said in a low voice. “I guess you know that?”
“Yeah,” she said with feigned cheerfulness, “this is definitely my lucky night.” Straightening her back, she looked away from him and said, “If you’re finished writing up that report, I’m going to call my brother to come get me.”
“That won’t be necessary,” he said curtly. “I’m taking you home myself.”
Her head turned toward him. “What?”
“We’re not that far from the Sandbur,” he explained. “There’s no need to bother your family. Besides, I think I need to talk with them about this little accident.”
Lucita couldn’t help but stare at him and wonder at his motive. As far as she knew, it wasn’t the legal responsibility of the sheriff’s department to see that she got home safely. “Is that normal procedure?” she couldn’t help but ask.
His face stoic, he ripped her portion of the ticket from his clipboard and handed it over to her. She took the piece of paper and without a glance crammed it into her purse.
“There’s no need for you to concern yourself about my procedure, Ms. Sanchez. I never step out of bounds.”
With the law, or women? she wondered. But she kept that question to herself. If this man knew she’d been looking at him as anything other than an official of the law, he’d probably write her a second set of tickets.
Deputy McCleod twisted the key in the ignition and the truck sparked to life. As he whirled the vehicle onto the highway, he picked up the two-way mike fastened to the dashboard. “Lijah, I’m headed to the Sandbur. Be sure
to measure the skid marks and try to locate the owner of the damaged fence. If those bulls get out we’ll have accidents and lawsuits all over the place.”
“Gotcha, Ripp. Will do.”
Grabbing the seat belt, Lucita fastened it across her lap while the deputy gunned the truck down the highway toward the Sandbur turnoff.
Once she had the belt securely in place, she settled against the seat and stared out the blackened windshield. Her throbbing pulse was causing the gash on her head to leak even more and she pressed the handkerchief tightly to the wound. The fleeting thought passed through her mind that the snow-white fabric he’d lent her would never be the same again. She would owe him a handkerchief. But would she ever have the opportunity to repay him?
Idiot, she scolded herself. Seeing Deputy McCleod again was the last thing she needed to be thinking about.
From the corner of her eye, she watched him reach for the two-way radio. After the female dispatcher responded he began repeating letters and numbers that Lucita quickly recognized from her car tag and driver’s license. She understood. Even though her family was well-known in this part of Texas, he had no way of knowing if she had outstanding tickets or warrants. He had to treat her like any other person involved in an accident.
Moments later the dispatcher came back on the air. “Everything clear on that license and tag, number two.”
“Roger. Thanks.”
“Did she call you number two?” Lucita asked curiously.
“That’s my code,” he explained. “I’m the chief deputy behind the sheriff.”
“Oh.” She should have guessed he wasn’t a mere deputy. The man reeked authority, along with all that masculinity.
“Where will my car be taken?” she asked after a moment.
He answered her question. “To the only salvage yard in town—Santee’s. But just in case you’re wondering, I can save you the trouble and tell you right now that the vehicle is totaled.”
Her Texas Lawman Page 2
