by Cindy Dees
When she brought the thick file back to Lester, he snatched it out of her hands and immediately thumbed through the stack of documents. She thought he might have slowed down in the middle of the pile, right about where the Hidden Pines drilling contracts were, but she couldn’t be sure.
“Did you look at these?” he demanded abruptly.
Startled, she stammered, “Uhh, no, sir.”
He glared at her suspiciously. She was such a lousy liar. She felt the heat creeping up her neck against her will. Cursing her fair skin and telltale blush, she mumbled, “I’d better be getting back to work. I have a lot to do.”
Still giving her a damning look, he waved her out of his office. She wasted no time leaving and went back to her desk and resumed plowing through the tall pile of tedious payroll records for Walsh Enterprises. Interesting how Atkins had pulled her off the Walsh Oil Drilling records practically the moment Craig Warner had gone into the hospital.
It was dark when Rachel left the Walsh building that evening. She’d stayed late to catch up on the mounds of work Atkins had heaped upon her in what she suspected was an attempt to keep her so busy she wouldn’t go anywhere near the Walsh Oil Drilling records again anytime soon. She probably ought to mention it to Wes. But in her dazed state, she was having trouble working up the energy to get around to it.
The warm spell that had spawned the tornado had passed, leaving the night air bone-chillingly cold. It always took her a few weeks to acclimate to the winter’s cold each fall, and she wasn’t there yet.
As had become her habit, she didn’t drive directly home. Rather, she drove slowly down streets along the edge of town, peering into the night for a glimpse of a brindled brown dog with a limp. She figured by now he’d chewed the cast off his leg.
She approached a dark corner behind a row of warehouses, and maybe because her attention was focused on the tall weeds of an empty lot to her right, she didn’t see the other car coming from her left. She started out into the intersection, and before she knew it, something had crashed into her car, sending it careening into a spin that threw her forward into the exploding airbag, which slammed her back in her seat, pinning her in place and blinding her to the other car.
Shockingly, the vehicle sped away into the night. By the time the airbag deflated enough for her to see around it, she caught only a glimpse of red taillights disappearing in the distance. Fast.
Stunned, she sat in the car, replaying the last few moments. And something odd occurred to her. The other car hadn’t had its headlights on when it barged out into the intersection. Given that it was pitch black out here, that was really strange.
Her brain finally kicked in and she fished her purse off the floor where it had fallen in the collision. She pulled out her cell phone and called the sheriff’s office.
“Sheriff Colton.”
“Hi, Wes. It’s Rachel Grant. I’m sorry to bother you, but I was just in a car accident.”
“Are you hurt?” he asked in quick alarm.
“No. Just shook up. The airbag deployed.”
“Where are you?”
She gave him a rough description and he said he’d be there in five minutes. She was to lock her door and not move a muscle in the meantime. Sighing, she leaned her head back against the headrest to wait. Wasn’t it odd for him to tell her to lock her door? Shouldn’t she unlock it in case she passed out or something? That way he or a paramedic could get into the car easily to treat her. Did he think she was in some kind of danger? The guy who’d hit her had taken off. She wasn’t in any danger if he’d fled the scene, was she?
Wes was the sheriff. Probably just erring on the side of caution. It was his job to be paranoid and protect everyone, after all.
Someone knocked on her window and her eyes flew open in fright. Wes. She unlocked the door and started to open it, but he stopped her.
“Stay right there. I want a doc to look at you before you move. He’s right behind me. While he’s checking you, I’m going to take a few pictures of your car.”
On cue, another vehicle pulled up to the scene, a heavy-duty pickup truck. A silhouetted figure climbed out and strode over to join Wes, who was just finishing up. Her heart sank. Finn.
Darn that Wes. Why couldn’t he leave well enough alone? Whoever said men weren’t nosy matchmakers would be dead wrong. They were as bad as any interfering auntie or momma impatient to be a grandma. Men were just clumsier about it than their female counterparts. The two men strode over to the car.
It was as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water over her, shocking her system fully awake for the first time in days. She shivered, stunned at the intensity of the emotions coming back to life within her. Who was she kidding? She was as in love with Finn Colton as she’d ever been. But loving someone doesn’t necessarily mean he’s good for me.
Finn had believed the worst of her, and she’d let him. That last part wasn’t his fault. It was hers. And until she knew she would never lose her sense of self-worth again, she dared not engage in any romantic relationships.
Her door opened and Finn’s achingly familiar voice said, “Don’t move. Let me have a look at your neck first.”
Oh, for crying out loud. She glared at Wes as Finn reached into the car to slide a big, warm hand carefully behind her neck. “My neck is fine. I’m fine,” she groused.
“Why don’t you let me be the one who decides that,” Finn murmured back, his concentration clearly on examining her vertebrae. “Does this hurt?” He pressed two fingers gently on either side of her spine.
“A little.”
“Describe the pain.”
“Like a sore muscle getting poked.”
“Any nausea? Headache? Blurred vision? Tingling in your hands or feet? Numbness anywhere?”
“No to all of the above.”
“Slowly tilt your chin down and tell me if it hurts.”
She did as he directed. “It hurts a little. Like I’ve strained my neck and it doesn’t want me to move it.”
“I’d say that’s a pretty fair description of your injury. You can get out now.” Finn held a hand out to her. She would have to shove past it to get out of the car without accepting the offered help anyway, so reluctantly she took his hand and let him half lift her out of the vehicle.
She turned around to survey the damage. The rental car’s entire left side was caved in and had a huge, black scrape down its white side. “I guess the car that hit me was black, then?” she said drily.
Wes nodded. “Yup. Nailed you pretty good.”
Finn commented grimly, “If he’d hit her much harder, he’d have rammed her car right over that embankment.”
Rachel glanced behind her car and gulped. Only a few feet beyond its rear tires was a steep drop-off, at least twenty feet. At the bottom lay a double set of train tracks. If she’d gone over the edge of that, she could’ve been seriously hurt, or worse.
“What can you tell me about the car that hit you?” Wes asked grimly.
“Not much. I was looking off to my right. Although I did notice its headlights weren’t on.” An awful thought occurred to her. “Ohmigosh. Did I run a stop sign?” She looked back over her shoulder in alarm.
“No. In fact, the other guy was the one with the stop sign.”
Rachel frowned. “He must have run it then, because he came at me way too fast to have been stopped a moment before.”
Wes nodded. “Given how far your car was pushed beyond the point of impact, I’d estimate he was going fifty miles per hour or so. So there’s nothing you remember about the car, Rachel?”
“Nothing. I never really saw it. I was driving along here slowly, looking into the weeds, and then all of a sudden he was coming at me and there was nothing I could do. Then the airbag inflated and I couldn’t see a thing.”
“Thank goodness for the airbag,” Finn muttered fervently enough to make her turn her head and look at him. Come to think of it, he didn’t look all that great. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked.
He sco
wled at her. “I swear you’re going to give me heart failure if you keep having these near-death experiences.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was in a little car accident. It was hardly a near-death experience. Now, that pipe falling on my desk at work—that could have been a near-death experience.”
Wes asked sharply, “What pipe?”
“The one that fell out of the ceiling at Walsh Enterprises and smashed my desk to smithereens. The building inspector said it was a good thing I wasn’t sitting at my desk or I’d have been crushed.”
The two men traded glances. Wes looked grim and Finn looked furious. “All right, all right,” Wes muttered. “So someone is trying to hurt her.”
Rachel spun to face him. “I beg your pardon?”
Finn answered for his brother. “Wes let you get mixed up in the Walsh murder investigation by having you give him all those financial records. I told him he was going to draw the killer’s attention to you.” Finn made a sound of disgust.
Wes asked, “Have there been any more accidents or incidents in the past few days like the pipe or this hit-and-run?”
“You don’t think the driver hit me intentionally, do you?” she asked, aghast.
Wes frowned. “I can’t be certain until I analyze the crash scene fully, but yes. Basically, I do think someone crashed into you and hoped to shove your car over the embankment.”
Rachel stared. He had to be kidding. This was Honey Creek. The world capital of “nothing ever happens around here.” Oh, wait. Until Mark Walsh was murdered.
Finn shook his head. “First Walsh. Then Warner. And now this. Someone’s trying to hide something over at Walsh Enterprises. And it’s too damned dangerous for Rachel to be involved anymore. I’m calling an end right now to her snooping around there for you.”
Wes sighed. “You may be right. I may have to go ahead and talk to Peter Walsh. See if he might be willing to poke around the company. He is a private investigator, and he’s also a Walsh. He ought to be able to have a look around without arousing too much suspicion.”
Rachel interrupted. “Wouldn’t it be some sort of conflict of interest to let him help investigate his own father’s murder?”
Wes exhaled hard. “Yeah, that’s a big problem. It’s why I haven’t hired him already. And the district attorney would probably have my badge if I did. But I don’t know how else I’m going to get inside that place and figure out exactly who’s hiding what.”
Finn stepped closer to Rachel. And if she wasn’t mistaken, he’d gone all protective and he-man on her. It was kind of cute, actually. Well, actually, it was totally hot. “And in the meantime, she’s not staying alone. Until you catch the bastard who’s pulling this stuff on her, I’m not leaving her side.”
Rachel gaped. Not leaving— “Oh, no you’re not!” she exclaimed. An unreasonable terror of being alone with Finn swept over her. It was hard enough to resist the pull of him when she didn’t have to see him at all. But if she was with him 24/7, no way would she be able to control her urges. And she positively knew that that would be a disaster.
Finn gave her a stubborn look she knew all too well and announced, “I’m not arguing with you about this. End of discussion.”
Her gaze narrowed. “I’ll remind you one more time, Finn. I am not fifteen and willing to be bullied by you. I’m an adult, and no way will I stand for you hovering over me day and night.”
“Then act like an adult and make a sensible decision,” he snapped.
Wes murmured, “Let me handle this, Finn.”
Rachel turned to Wes for support. “They were accidents. Who in their right mind would remove the supports holding up a giant pipe exactly over my desk? And as for the guy tonight, he probably just didn’t expect there to be any cars out in this part of town at this time of night.”
“What were you doing in this area, anyway?” Wes asked.
“Looking for Brownie,” she answered miserably.
“Who?” Wes echoed.
“Her mutt,” Finn replied. “No luck finding him?” he asked her sympathetically.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
Tears threatened to fill up her eyes. Since when had she turned into such a baby? She sniffed angrily. She was not going to cry in front of Finn. But at least it looked like she’d distracted him from his harebrained scheme to become her personal bodyguard.
But then Wes had to go and say, “I have to agree with you, Finn. I’d feel better if Rachel wasn’t alone until we figure out who’s behind these accidents of hers.”
“Wes Colton, you can stop trying to play matchmaker right this—”
He held up a hand. “I’m speaking as the sheriff. And Finn’s right. This is not open to discussion. I’m worried about your safety. Either you let Finn stay with you or I’m taking you out to my family’s ranch to stay until I catch your assailant.”
“The Colton ranch?” she squeaked.
“Yes,” Wes answered, crossing his arms over his chest resolutely.
She glanced over at Finn, who was gaping at his brother. Crap. He thought Wes was serious, too. She glared at both of them. “Wild horses couldn’t drag me out to that ranch. And no power on Earth is making me stay there.”
Wes’s eyebrows went up and he looked prepared to demand to know why. But Finn intervened hastily. “And that’s why I’m going to stay with you until this guy’s caught.”
Rachel glared. “I don’t like it.”
“Do you have a better idea?” Finn demanded.
“Sure. Hire Peter Walsh to keep an eye on me. He’s a trained private investigator. They do that sort of thing, right?”
Thunder gathered on Finn’s brow. “Rachel, we need to talk.”
She scowled back at him. “No, we don’t. We said everything we had to say to each other the last time we talked.”
“No, you said everything you had to say. I didn’t say everything I wanted to by a long shot.”
Alarm skittered through her. The man did not sound happy.
“Uhh, okay then,” Wes said uncomfortably. “It sounds like you two have some stuff to work out. Finn, you take Rachel back to her place and don’t let her out of your sight until we talk again.”
Finn nodded briskly and took Rachel by the arm.
“I am not a sack of potatoes to be hauled around wherever you want,” she barked.
“Fine. Then walk over to my truck and get into it of your own volition like the adult you claim to be. Otherwise, I’m going to throw you over my shoulder exactly like a sack of potatoes and haul you over there.”
Oooh, that man could be so infuriating! And it didn’t help one bit that a creeping sense of relief was pouring over her like warm water.
Chapter 14
Finn’s big pickup wouldn’t fit in Rachel’s driveway with the giant pile of fire wood taking up most of it. Nor could he park in front of her house, given the pile of stacked debris awaiting removal. Honey Creek was mostly cleaned up from the tornado, but pockets of town, like this street, weren’t quite back to normal. The guys at the landfill had been working around the clock all week to get caught up.
He ended up parking a few houses down on the street and walking Rachel back to her place. For her part, she’d been silent and sullen on the ride back to her house. And frankly, he didn’t give a damn. No way was he leaving her alone to face whoever was out to hurt her. An itch to get his hands around the guy’s neck and snap it came over him. He took her elbow as she climbed the steps onto her front porch.
“I can go up a few steps by myself, thank you,” Rachel muttered.
“Get used to it. I’m not leaving your side.” Not ever, if he had his way. But one step at a time. First he had to make her safe. Then he’d move on to the subject of their future.
“Really, Finn. Did you have to go all caveman on me? I’ll be fine. I’ve been…distracted…since the tornado, and it’s made me accident-prone.”
Since the tornado, or since their mind-blowing night together? H
e didn’t voice the question aloud, however. No sense provoking open warfare with her if they had to be together for a while. He followed her into her living room and sighed with pleasure as its homeyness wrapped around him like a blanket. He’d always preferred her family’s cozy home to his family’s cold mansion. They’d been happy together, the Grants.
“I always envied you for having the parents you did,” he commented.
“Really?” she asked, surprised, as she set her briefcase down and shrugged out of her coat.
“You were a real family. We Coltons never were.”
“I don’t know about that,” she disagreed. “You guys seem to stick together pretty close.”
“My old man is a big believer in survival of the fittest. He saw it as his mission in life to toughen us all up. To make ‘men’ out of us.”
“While his methods might leave something to be desired, I’d say he didn’t do too bad a job all around. I don’t know your younger brothers all that well, but Duke and Damien and Wes all turned out pretty good.”
He shrugged. Maybe. But he was inclined to believe it was in spite of his father and not because of him. “Stay here. Let me have a look around the place and check for bad guys under your bed and in your closet, okay?”
He hated the fear that flickered across her face. Thank God he was here to look out for her. The house checked out fine and he returned to her in the living room. She’d turned on a lamp, and in its warm light he got a good look at how pale and drawn she looked. Her skin had gone almost transparent, and violet smudges rested under her eyes.
His doctor side kicked in. “When’s the last time you ate?”
She frowned, thinking, and that was answer enough for him. He headed for the kitchen. “And when was the last time you got a decent night’s sleep?” he called over his shoulder.
Her sharply indrawn breath was answer enough to that question, too. It was the last decent night’s sleep he’d gotten, too. He considered the odds of them spending tonight in each other’s arms again and decided regretfully that it would be too much too soon. He had a lifetime with her to consider. He could behave himself for a few more nights.
