by Jodi Thomas
“Morning, Sheriff,” she said, as if she barely knew him. “How can I help you this morning?”
The maid’s cart was one door away, and Brandi had no doubt the chubby little maid, the one who always turned off her heater, was within hearing distance.
“I wanted to inform you, Miss Malone, that there has been a fire at the place where you work.”
“I know, Sheriff. My boss called me an hour ago. He said you might be heading over to help out with police work, and he’d send word for you to give me a ride if you had time.” She said the words with the emotions of one reading prescription instructions.
Dan nodded. “I’m headed over now, if you’re ready? Don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I might be able to add a few names to the list of folks who were there last night. Listening to you sing was worth the snowy drive. I considered it an honor to have heard you before you hit the big time.”
His eyes said he was telling the truth, but she suspected the compliment was more for the maid’s benefit than hers.
She fought down a grin. “Thank you, Sheriff, that’s very kind of you.” Brandi felt like she was in a school play. “I’ve already packed and called the office to check out. It’s been a lovely stay, but it’s time I moved on.”
Without a word, he reached in and took her huge suitcase. Brandi followed him out with the rest of her things.
They were pulling onto the highway before he glanced at her. “Where you going from here, pretty lady? You have no dressing room, and you just checked out of the only motel around.”
She almost told him the truth. She knew small towns. They might have gotten away with him bringing her home in the middle of a snowstorm, but someone would see them if he parked, even in the back, again. “I was hoping you’d know another motel I could switch to. Maybe something out on the highway to Lubbock? I only picked this motel because it was the closest to Nowhere.”
“That means you’ll be within driving distance if I get a night free?” He wasn’t looking at her, but she saw the corner of his smile.
“It does. I thought I’d take a few days off. My next gig isn’t for two weeks. Hank says as soon as he can find a few minutes he’ll take me in to buy a new van. In the meantime, if I can find a place, I thought I’d hole up and write a few of the songs dancing around in my head.”
“You’re not worried where you’re headed, are you, Brandi?”
“Nope. It was just stuff that burned in the fire. No one was hurt and always-drunk Sorrel even managed to save my guitar. I’ve nothing to worry about, and I can think of at least one reason to hang around this part of the country for a while.”
He winked at her. “We could share a little time.”
“We could. I’ll make sure the next hotel isn’t too close to Crossroads.”
“I’d appreciate that. I doubt anyone would ever think we’re together. If they saw my cruiser outside your door, they’d probably assume I’d stopped by to check your insurance papers.”
“Or you might want to question me about the fire. Maybe I’m a disgruntled employee and set the fire?”
She touched his arm. “You are the only one who knew exactly where I was all night.”
Dan slowed the car and looked at her, laughter in his warm, honest eyes. “Sorrel knew where you were, might even have seen you go out the back door. No one else would have known you left the building, so maybe you were the target. You got anyone gunning for you, pretty lady?”
Brandi’s hand shook as fear plowed through her veins. “You really think someone might have been trying to kill me?” Impossible.
“Maybe. I talked to the bartender on the phone. He said he’d been moving around in the place turning on lights during the night. If someone was outside watching, they could have thought it was you. Sorrel’s car wasn’t in the lot because his wife dropped him off. Her last words to him when he asked if she was coming back to get him were ‘when hell freezes over.’ So he could have been the target, except she had four kids under five in the car with her when she drove away. Women with that many toddlers don’t usually have time to plot a murder. Plus, even drunk, he was bringing in income.”
“That’s probably why he sleeps at the bar. It’s quieter. Or maybe he doesn’t want number five.” Dan shrugged. “Or maybe he’s too afraid of her to ask for a divorce.”
“Or maybe he loves her,” Brandi whispered, knowing she was allowing her thoughts to drift in the dreamworld again.
She stared out the window for a while, watching the landscape. Spikes of tall, brown grass poked from the snow-covered ground, and tumbleweeds almost as big as Volkswagens bumped their way across the flatland. Desolate, lonely, barren.
Like her, she thought.
Dan stopped the car on the side of the deserted road. “You want to talk about something, Brandi?”
“No,” she whispered as she turned toward him. “I want you to kiss me. I’m hungry for the taste of you on my lips.”
“Right here? Right now?”
“Right here. Right now,” she answered, pushing her worries back as if they were no more than bangs in her eyes.
To her surprise, he leaned toward her. She leaned toward him, too.
His lips were cold when they touched hers, but they warmed as he kissed her lightly. She’d expected him to pull away quickly, before anyone came along, but he didn’t.
Smiling, she finally straightened. “Aren’t you afraid someone will see us?”
“It’s a chance I’m willing to take. Another mile and we’ll be in sight of the bar.” He rested his hand on her knee. “Part of me couldn’t care less if the whole town sees us. I’m not in the habit of doing things I’m ashamed of, and I’m not ashamed of being with you.”
She laughed. “Oh, but think of what knowing you could do to my reputation.”
“In that case, I’ll back off.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want you to back off, Dan. I want you running full out toward me. Only in private. Not public. I’ll be gone in a few days, and I don’t want to leave the town a story to tell about their sheriff.” She’d lived in a place where stories from the past hung on you like funeral clothes never letting you step into a new day, a new life.
A delivery truck passed them. The driver waved at the sheriff.
Dan cut the wipers. She watched snow slowly curtain them off from the world.
His hand moved up her leg, warming her through the wool slacks she wore. “Then private is how we’ll have it. A wild affair no one will ever know about. Something between just you and me.”
“A memory we’ll share forever.” She leaned back, loving how he touched her, knowing that she needed a few great memories to stack up against all the bad.
When she turned toward him, his eyes had darkened.
He whispered, “I’ll call you up every fall and say one word, remember, and then I’ll hang up and know that wherever you are, you’re remembering me.” His bold hand moved up her body and inside her coat.
“Sheriff, I think you missed your calling. You should have been a poet.”
Big flakes had covered the windshield. He leaned across the car and pulled her to him. His kiss was now hungry, and she loved pushing him further onto passion’s edge.
With a sigh, he pulled away. “I want far more of you than this.”
“So do I,” she answered. “I’ve been thinking that I’d like to see you exhausted from making love to me. Maybe you’d better get some rest, Sheriff. You’re going to need all your strength.”
Laughing, he winked at her. “You stay around, pretty lady, and I’ll take up running.”
He straightened and put the cruiser into gear. Neither said a word. She knew what he was thinking. To do any more sitting in the middle of a road in morning light would have been too much. To do less would never be enoug
h.
It was good that people would be around at the club. Another kind of fire was building inside her. What they were both planning would be best tonight if it was left to simmer all day in their thoughts.
As they pulled up to the Nowhere, fire trucks, pickups and cars were everywhere. The place had never been this full, even on a Saturday night.
Hank stepped away from a crowd of firemen as they climbed out. “You two missed all the fire,” he said.
Brandi didn’t dare look at Dan.
Hank was high on adrenaline. “When I got here, I feared I’d lose the whole place, but it appears most of the burn was along the back wall. We may be able to even save the stage. Too bad you won’t be able to perform tonight, Brandi.”
She swore she could feel Dan’s gaze on her, but she didn’t move.
Hank rattled on, explaining details.
Brandi moved around the edges of the still-smoking ashes. She noticed a leather notebook in which she often wrote lines for songs. It must have been on the stage. The cover was cracking and the pages were wet, but she picked it up anyway.
What would she have saved? Of this life? Of her past? Nothing. Only memories.
When the sheriff’s cell sounded, he stepped back as Brandi continued to walk with Hank. A few firemen joined them, all talking about what might have happened. All signs indicated that the fire had been set. Hank complained that his list of people he’d made mad by not serving or had to kick out would be four or five pages long. Any one of them could have driven by and dumped gas on the back wall just to get even.
About the time Hank was listing every moment and every feeling since he’d got the call from Sorrel, Dan pulled Brandi out of the crowd and they walked toward his car.
“I have to go back to Crossroads. Will you be all right?” He wasn’t looking at her as he asked. He was watching the crowd.
“I will.” Something had to be wrong because the sheriff’s voice was curt, all business. “I’ll get Hank to take me somewhere to stay. Call my cell later, and I’ll let you know where I am.”
“Will do.” He climbed into his cruiser.
“What’s happened?” she asked. The man who glanced at her was so different from the one who’d touched her leg when they’d been driving over.
He shoved the car into gear. The moment before he turned away she heard him say, “My one prisoner just escaped. I have to get back to town.”
She watched him go, knowing no matter how long it took, he’d come back to her. What was building between them wasn’t over.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CODY WINSLOW HAD slept most of the day after Ranger Tess Adams left him at the hospital, but he’d dreamed about her. Her thick, chestnut-brown hair was undone from the braid she’d worn. The tiny freckles across the bridge of her nose fascinated him. Something about the woman drew him. She didn’t seem to have a helpless bone in her body.
As the day aged, the hospital seemed determined to kill him. When he wasn’t being moved or tested or tortured in general, he slept. The good news was his leg was a clean break that would heal quickly. The ribs were cracked but would also heal without surgery. His head wound didn’t appear to have caused any brain damage. The cuts on his shoulder and arm were stitched up and dressed.
Basically, Cody felt like the Thanksgiving turkey. He might be bruised and swollen, but he knew what he had to do to get out of the place.
He never asked where the park ranger was or when they thought she might come back. He’d wait. She would come.
One day passed, then another.
Mostly, the staff talked about the weather. A few mentioned having to work double shifts because roads were closed and their relief couldn’t make it. Once two men cleaning the room talked about a fire at some nightspot, but Cody barely listened.
He didn’t talk to any of them more than to answer in one-word sentences. He recognized the drill; he’d been hurt much worse than this before. He knew when his leg took his weight and the pain didn’t make him scream that he’d be out of the hospital.
Once he was home, he’d trash the drugs the doctors were feeding him and let whiskey wash away his pain. In life’s crappy pickings gallery, Cody figured he’d rather be a drunk than hooked on drugs.
He told himself that he didn’t want Tess to see him like this, hurting and weak. If she stayed away a week, he’d be through the worst part. She was a strong woman, and he’d face her on that level.
He wanted to be walking up to her door on their first date, maybe pull her chair out for her at the restaurant and lean down a few inches to kiss her good-night on the porch. Cody figured he didn’t have a romantic bone in his body, but he wouldn’t mind kissing his way across her face the way the sun already had with freckles.
He’d never spent much time dating, and between the army and being a ranger, he didn’t even know many women. Cody didn’t know the right things to say to a woman he’d like to get to know. He felt like he was still in grade school where relationships were concerned and most of them were in middle school. But Tess might be worth the effort to learn. Maybe he’d just try being honest, tell her what he wanted, and see how she reacted.
What was the worst thing that would happen? He’d be alone. He’d already worn that spot out.
Long after dark, he’d been given a sleeping pill to help him rest when he sensed, more than heard, her in the room.
“That you, honey?” He felt her hand slide into his. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back.” He closed his fingers around hers, which were ice cold. “You shouldn’t have come. I’ve heard the roads are still bad.”
“You’re right, the weather’s terrible, but I wanted to check on you. I had to work an extra shift and...of course, run your place while you were napping up here in this warm hospital and having folks bring you meals.”
“Of course.” Dear God, how he’d missed her humor. Her touch. Her voice. “Did you feed the animals, check the backup generator and pay the bills?” he joked back.
“I think I did.” She didn’t sound so sure. “Now where’s that generator?”
“In a shed a few feet from the north side of the barn. It’ll kick on if the electricity goes off.”
“Oh, then it’s fine. The lights are still on. It’s like a beautiful winter wonderland out on your place. The evergreens along the windbreak look fat and heavy like giant snowballs.” She stood at the head of his bed, just beyond his vision.
Cody hated winter. To him there was nothing pretty about cold weather. Mud, naked trees, work that couldn’t get done and disaster waiting around every corner. “Anything else to report?” He didn’t want to think about the snow; he just wanted to hear her voice.
“The gray mare had her foal last night. I was the midwife.”
“You know how to deliver a foal?” He was starting to believe she could do anything.
“No, but I Googled it.” She laughed. “In truth the mare did most of the work.”
He felt Tess’s weight on the bed beside him. She must have leaned down because her whispered words brushed near his ear. “It was unbelievable. The colt’s the most beautiful creature in the world. He stood up on his thin, wobbly legs and looked right at me like he was a duckling and I was his mother duck. I started cleaning him up, but the mare pushed me out of the way as if to say she’d take care of the details herself.”
Cody smiled. He’d seen horses born all his life. His father was a veterinarian, and by the time Cody could help, he was the assistant. He knew that rush of excitement. He was glad the first birthing she watched went easy.
“What are you going to name him?” she asked, wiggling closer as if she wanted this conversation to be private.
Cody wondered if she was simply his first dream for the night and not real. If so, it was a great way to start. “You name him, honey. He�
�s yours.” He opened his eyes to see her face but, for once, the nurse had turned down the lights and she was mostly shadow.
“Sure, you say that now, but wait until you see him. He has the cutest milk coat and funny little tail. I kept trying to hug him, but the mom pushed me away. I think she wanted him to nurse.”
Cody loved this dream. It was almost as if they were lovers and simply discussing the workings of the day, not strangers who met at the scene of an accident. His accident. “How’s everything else? Did the shipment of grain come in that I ordered last week?”
“There was a message on your machine in the house from someone named Whitaker. He said he’d be dropping off the load as soon as the road cleared. He said to leave him a check by the coffeepot.”
“Did you?” he asked.
“Sure. I’m running your life now, remember.”
She laughed as if she was telling the truth, but he knew she must just be joking again.
“You might as well take over, honey. I haven’t been doing much of a job at it lately.” For a man who’d lived and breathed his job with the Texas Rangers, there wasn’t much left after he was shot. He was too old to go to his folks. They wouldn’t know what to do with him anyway. He was too young to buy a rocking chair and sit on the porch.
How did a man go from being a Texas Ranger, the best of the best, to being nothing? Now, the outlaws he fought were demons in his head who haunted his world at night. Some nights he’d stay awake, walking the floor, reading, riding, anything to keep them at bay. Other nights he’d drink until he passed out.
He wasn’t just relieving the night he’d been shot on the border; his nightmare had expanded and warped into something far darker. Some nights he crossed into hell and fought there.
Tess cuddled next to him, pulling him from his dark thoughts. Her head rested on the other half of his pillow, her cheek almost touching his. She seemed to be testing to make sure it was all right to be so close.
He wished he had the words to tell her that it was. They might be almost strangers, but she’d saved his life. She was the one person who could come as close as she liked.
