Stranger in Cold Creek

by Paula Graves

  “Not yet.”

  “Should we?”

  Good question. “How long ago did you talk to the station?”

  He looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes. He said backup was already on the way, so it might be a little longer than that.”

  It took about ten minutes to reach this part of Route 7 under good weather conditions. “The snow’s probably slowed them up.”

  He gave a quick nod and fell silent, his expression hard to read. She wouldn’t say he looked worried, exactly. Watchful, maybe.

  Silence unspooled between them as they waited, the silence of forced proximity between strangers. Normally, Miranda preferred silence to pointless chatter, but the events of the afternoon had left her nerves raw.

  So when John Blake’s cell phone rang, it sent a shock wave rippling up her spine. He gave a slight start and pulled the phone from his pocket. “It’s the station,” he murmured. He lifted the phone to his ear. “John Blake.”

  He listened a second, then looked at Miranda. “She’s right here.” He handed the phone to her.

  It was Bill Chambers on the other end. “How’re you holding up, Duncan?”

  “I’m okay. Head’s a little sore, but I’ll live.”

  “Good to hear, because we have a problem.”

  * * *

  JOHN LEANED AGAINST the back of his chair and tried not to eavesdrop, though there was no way to avoid hearing Miranda’s end of the call without leaving the room.

  She picked up the washcloth he’d laid on the coffee table beside her and pressed it to her head wound while she listened to the caller. “How many injuries?”

  Whatever answer she received made her frown.

  John stopped trying to pretend he wasn’t listening and met her troubled gaze. She was still pale, but her hands had stopped shaking finally and her gray-eyed gaze was clear and sharp as it rose to meet John’s.

  “I’m fine. The cruiser’s not going anywhere, and I’m not alone. Just stay in touch, okay?” She ended the call and handed John the phone. “There’s been a pileup on Highway 287. Over a dozen vehicles. Every EMS service in three counties is responding. All the deputies are out on calls, too. I guess you’re stuck with me a little longer.”

  He nodded, but something in his gut twisted a little at the realization they were alone and more or less stranded out in here in the middle of snowy nowhere for the next while.

  He had a pistol packed away in the closet. His Virginia concealed-carry license was honored in Texas—he’d made sure before he headed west to finish his recuperation in relative anonymity. But if he retrieved it now, what would Deputy Duncan think?

  “What are you thinking?” she asked, apparently reading his expression.

  “That we’re sort of isolated out here,” he answered, not seeing the point of hiding his concern. Someone had run the deputy off the road and then taken shots at her.

  Would they take a chance and try again?

  “You think the person who was shooting at us may come back?” She laid down the washcloth and sat up straighter, her gaze moving toward the front door.

  He hurried to the door and turned the dead bolt to the locked position before moving the curtain aside to check the road. The snow had slowed finally, visibility restored to a hundred yards or more, though the highway in front of the house was covered with at least a couple of inches of the white stuff. He could probably drive to town without incident, he thought. Get her to her dad’s house, at least.

  He looked over his shoulder at her. “The snow has slowed. I think I could drive you back to town.”

  “I don’t want to leave the cruiser,” she answered. “If you don’t mind my staying here a while longer.”

  Did he mind? On one level, he didn’t mind a bit. She was an interesting woman, and not bad to look at, even with her hair plastered to her head with sticky blood.

  But she was also a cop, and while he technically had nothing to hide from the law, he didn’t want anyone looking too closely at his life. In a way, Cold Creek, Texas, was a hideout. There were people back in Virginia who’d like to get their hands on him, and he was currently in no condition to hold his own.

  Soon, though, he promised himself. He’d be back in fighting form soon. And then it wouldn’t matter who knew where he was.

  “I don’t mind,” he answered.

  Her eyes narrowed a notch. “Took your time answering that question.”

  He smiled. “I’m a bit of a loner.”

  “Is that why you moved out here? To be alone?”

  “I guess.”

  “You said you were in the hospital not long ago. Car accident?”

  He shook his head but didn’t elaborate.

  “Assault?”

  He should have known silence would only pique her curiosity. But he was tired of lying. It seemed as if he’d been lying for years, first as a CIA agent pretending to be an international finance manager, then the decade he’d pretended that he found life as an accountant satisfying.

  And then, there was the past year, working undercover for Alexander Quinn. Using an alias, pretending a career that didn’t exist, acting as a go-between for Quinn and another undercover operative trying to infiltrate a dangerous militia group called the Blue Ridge Infantry—

  What would Miranda Duncan think if he laid out his whole deception-riddled history for her examination?

  She’d probably think he was crazy. Or lying.

  Or both.

  “I guess you could say I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said finally.

  “That’s...cryptic.”

  He smiled. “Yes.”

  To his surprise, her lips quirked in response, a faint half smile that dimpled her cheeks. He felt a drawing sensation low in his belly that caught him by surprise.

  She was so not his type. Hell, he wasn’t sure he even had a type.

  But damned if he wasn’t sitting here, wondering what she’d look like naked. In his bed.

  Her smile faded suddenly, and her head turned toward the front door. “Do you hear that?”

  Listening, he realized what she was hearing.

  A car engine, idling somewhere outside the house.

  He crossed to the window and parted the curtains an inch. The snow was picking up again, but not enough to obscure his view of the road, where a dark blue sedan sat idling on the shoulder, directly in front of the house.

  “What is it?” Miranda asked, her voice closer than he expected. Glancing to his right, he found her beside him, trying to see out the window.

  “It’s a dark blue sedan,” he answered, easing the curtain closed and pulling her with him deeper into the cabin.

  “Is it—?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. He hadn’t had a chance to get a good look at the vehicle earlier while dodging bullets and trying to get Miranda to safety. “It looks similar. And it’s idling outside my house, about forty yards from your wrecked cruiser.”

  Miranda’s face went paler. “Are all your doors locked?”

  He met her troubled gaze. “I don’t know.”

  Chapter Three

  While John went around the house checking the locks, Miranda pulled the M&P 40 from the holster at her hip and crossed to the front window, taking a quick look outside. The sedan remained idling at the side of the road. The windows were tinted, obscuring the occupants from view.

  What do you want? she wondered.

  John’s footsteps drew her gaze to him. He was carrying a pistol in his right hand, barrel down, his finger safely away from the trigger. But the sight still gave her a start.

  What did she know about him, really? Did he even have a license to carry that pistol?

  “I have a Virginia CCW,” he answered as if she’
d asked the question aloud. Was she that easily read?

  Up close, she saw that the pistol was a Ruger SR45. Big and black, with a brushed stainless slide. If she were the type of cop who indulged in weapon envy, she’d be indulging in it big-time.

  “We need to call for backup,” she said, forcing her gaze away from the big gun and back to the sedan idling outside her house.

  “Already done.” He nudged her away from the window. “I told the guy who answered that we needed a unit out here if they had to pull it off the pileup.”

  “That could take a while.”

  “Better late than never, right?” He glanced toward the window, his brow furrowed. “I wonder why they’re just sitting out there.”

  “Maybe it’s an intimidation tactic.”

  “Or maybe they want one of us to come outside to see what’s going on.”

  “If we did that, we’d be sitting ducks.”

  “So we wait.”

  She nodded. “Whoever’s out there knows I’m armed. But they can’t be sure whether or not you are.”

  John slanted a quick look at her. His expression was neutral, unreadable, but something in those hazel-green eyes set off warning bells in her head.

  Did he know something about the car outside? She had the strangest feeling he was keeping something from her.

  Something important.

  “The doors are locked,” he said. “The windows, too.”

  “The windows, too?” She looked in his direction again, took in his wary expression. He was definitely keeping something from her. But what?

  She didn’t think he wanted to hurt her. She was vulnerable from her injury—it wouldn’t take much to get the drop on her. He could have done so at almost any point since he’d dragged her inside the house.

  Hell, he could have killed her out in the car, or made it possible for the shooters to do so, if he’d wanted her dead.

  So maybe what he was hiding wasn’t about her.

  “Accounting,” she said.

  His gaze cut toward her. “Accounting?”

  “You said you were of the accounting Blakes. When I said I was from the hardware Duncans.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Are you taking a sabbatical from that kind of work?”

  A huff of laughter escaped his throat. “No. I did that kind of work for ten years. That was ten years too many.”

  “Are you unemployed?” She knew the answer to that question. She might not remember what happened to send her rolling off the highway, but she remembered her computer search earlier at the station.

  Even then, John Blake had piqued her curiosity.

  Seeing him armed and appearing both competent and dangerous, she knew she’d been right to wonder what he was doing in a sleepy backwater town like Cold Creek.

  “I’m a carpenter,” he said. “I work for a construction company. Blanchard Building.”

  “Down in Garza County?”

  His eyes narrowed slightly, and she realized she’d made a mistake. What would a Barstow County deputy know about a construction company two counties to the south?

  “Have you been investigating me?” His tone wasn’t threatening, but his grip on the Ruger tightened enough to make her stomach turn a flip.

  She decided honesty was her best option. “We don’t get a lot of strangers in Cold Creek.”

  “So you did a background check?”

  “Not quite that drastic. I just looked up your name in the computer. With a few search parameters.”

  “What did you find?”

  “More questions than answers.”

  His lips quirked at her admission. “I’m an open book.” He didn’t even bother to pretend he was telling the truth.

  She smiled. “If you were, you wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.”

  One of his dark eyebrows lifted, but he didn’t respond.

  She was starting to feel shaky again, she realized. Some of the adrenaline that had kept her on her feet and moving had begun to seep away, and her injuries were making themselves known again.

  She tried not to let it show, but John’s sharp gaze missed nothing. “I think that car is trying to wait us out. So maybe we should do the same. We have backup coming. So let’s go sit by the fire. It’s cold in here.”

  She let him lead her back to the fireplace and gratefully sank onto the comfortable cushions of the sofa. The heat from the fireplace felt like a living thing, wrapping around her with tendrils of warmth until some of the shivers subsided.

  “You’re a Cold Creek native?” John asked a few minutes later, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.

  “Born and bred.”

  “You like it out here?”

  “I do,” she said with a slight lift of her chin. She saw the hint of a smile curve his lips in response and felt a little childish, as if she’d stamped her foot and dared him to disagree.

  “It’s not quite what I expected.” He didn’t sound negative, just bemused, which was a good mark in her book. She knew few people who could appreciate the flat, wind-blown plains and endless isolation. But at least John Blake hadn’t outright dismissed the possibility of its appeal.

  “What did you expect?”

  “More heat, for one thing.”

  “You came to the wrong part of Texas at the wrong time for that.”

  “So I’ve discovered.”

  “Where are you from originally?” she asked, even though she knew the answer.

  He shot her a look. “Didn’t your background check tell you that?”

  “I didn’t find your birth certificate or anything.”

  “Johnson City, Tennessee,” he said.

  Where his father’s accounting firm was located. “You worked for an overseas company a while back, right?”

  His lips quirked again. Not quite a smile, but close. “Yeah. For about a year.”

  “Didn’t like global marketing?”

  Her question made him smile. A knowing, secret-keeping smile that made her curious streak vibrate like a tuning fork in the pit of her stomach.

  “I think it’s more a matter of global marketing not liking me—” He stopped short, his head cocked. “Do you hear that?”

  She listened, hearing nothing. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Exactly.” He rose and edged his way back toward the window, staying clear of the glass panes as he checked outside. His back stiffened. “The car is gone.”

  Miranda joined him at the window. He was right. The car was no longer idling on the highway out front. “Do you think it’s a way to lure us out of the house?”

  He gave her a thoughtful look. “I don’t know. But I don’t hear its engine running anymore. Do you?”

  “No.” But she did hear something else, she realized. “Sirens.”

  They were only faintly audible. She supposed the walls of the house muffled the sound somewhat. But whoever had been sitting in that sedan outside might have heard them coming a good bit earlier.

  “Maybe the sirens scared them away,” John said, reading her thoughts.

  Within a couple of minutes, a sheriff’s department cruiser pulled up outside the house, and the sheriff himself, Miles Randall, emerged from the cruiser, along with one of the younger deputies, Tim Robertson.

  John unlocked the door and opened it before the sheriff had a chance to knock. Randall stepped back in surprise, one hand dropping to the pistol holstered at his hip.

  “It’s okay,” Miranda said quickly, showing herself.

  Randall reacted with surprise at the sight of her. “Good God, Duncan, You look like hell.”

  “Thanks.”

  Randall gave John Blake a quick, curious glance, then looked at her again. “Want to tell
me what happened?”

  “That,” she admitted, “is a very good question.”

  * * *

  IT TURNED OUT that the deputy Sheriff Randall had brought with him had previously been a volunteer fireman with some paramedic training. Tim Robertson looked ridiculously young to John, but he assessed Miranda’s condition as if he knew what he was doing, working with a skillful efficiency that set John’s mind at ease.

  Sheriff Miles Randall was a tall, rangy man with a drawl as big as, well, Texas. He questioned John about what he’d witnessed, asking good questions and not overplaying his suspicions. But John could tell Randall wasn’t ready to trust his word completely.

  John couldn’t blame the sheriff. He wasn’t exactly a man without secrets.

  “I think we need to get you at least to the clinic in town,” Randall told Miranda after Tim Robertson finished his examination. “Tim’s not a doctor, and your daddy would kill me if I didn’t make sure you’re not going to keel over the second I leave you alone.”

  Miranda smiled. “I promise, I won’t. But shouldn’t someone stay here and protect the crime scene?”

  “That’s what Tim’s here for.”

  Miranda’s gray-eyed gaze slanted toward John, as if looking for his input. He straightened his spine, surprised. What did she expect him to do, back her up? Tell the sheriff he wanted her to stay?

  He did, he realized. He wanted her to stay. But that was a selfish impulse, fed by his hormones and his isolation out here.

  “You should do what the sheriff says, Deputy Duncan,” he said, keeping his tone impersonal. Formal.

  Her brow wrinkled briefly at his words, but her expression shuttered quickly. “Thank you for your help, Mr. Blake.”

  “Glad I was here.” As she started to turn to go, he said, “Wait.”

  She looked at him, her expression somewhere between curious and wary.

  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Inside, he withdrew the card he’d picked up earlier that morning at the hardware store. Her father’s name was on the front. He flipped it over. “Can I borrow a pen?” he asked the sheriff.

  The sheriff pulled a pen from his front breast pocket and handed it over, his expression watchful.