Shelter from the Storm

by RaeAnne Thayne

  It was nearly midnight when he pulled up in front of the clinic. Three or four inches of snow had fallen while they had been in the city and her aging Volvo was buried.

  He reached across the space between them to his jockey box for his window scraper. The movement brought him closer to her and he was surrounded by jasmine and vanilla.

  His mouth watered and his insides gave one big sigh, but he did his best to ignore his automatic reaction. He pulled out the scraper and returned to the safe side of the vehicle—but not before he heard a quick, indrawn breath from Lauren.

  He chanced a look at her. The SUV was parked under a lamppost and in the pool of light, he found her blue eyes wide and her lovely features slightly pink.

  He wasn’t quite sure what to think about that so decided to put it from his mind. “Wait here where it’s warm,” he ordered.

  Her forehead furrowed with her frown and now any flush that might be on her features turned to annoyance. “Are you kidding? I just put seven stitches in your arm, Daniel. You wait here where it’s warm. Better yet, go on home and rest. I don’t need a police escort to scrape the snow off my car.”

  “Wait here,” he repeated, in the same no-nonsense voice he used with the prisoners at the jail.

  Her sigh sounded exasperated, but he didn’t let that stop him as he stepped out into the blowing cold that soaked through the layers of his coat to settle in his bones.

  Nights like this made him feel all his thirty-three years—and more—and he couldn’t help but remember every single hit he took as a running back at Wyoming. He ignored the aches, especially the throb and pull of the stitches in his arm, as he brushed the snow off her car then scraped the thick ice underneath.

  He wasn’t particularly surprised—just annoyed—when she joined him in the cold. She slid into the driver’s seat of her vehicle and turned over the engine. After a chugging kind of start, the motor engaged. A moment later, she emerged with another window scraper and went to work on the other side of the vehicle.

  When the windows were clear, she stood back. “Thank you for your help,” she murmured. “And for the ride.”

  He didn’t want it to end, he realized, as tense and uncomfortable as things became at the end there.

  How pathetic was that?

  “Don’t you have any gloves?” he asked. “Your hands are going to be freezing by the time you get home.”

  “They’re around somewhere. I keep buying pairs and losing them between here and my house.”

  He reached into the pocket of his parka. “Here. Take mine. I’ve got an extra pair in the squad vehicle.”

  Her mouth lifted slightly. “No offense, Sheriff, but your hands are a little bigger than mine.” She waggled delicate fingers that would be dwarfed by his gloves and he felt huge and awkward. “Thank you for the offer but it’s only half a mile. I should be fine.”

  “Good night, then,” he said. “Thanks again for your help earlier stitching me up.”

  “You’re welcome. Be careful of those sutures.”

  She smiled a little and it took all his willpower to keep from reaching between them, tucking her into his warmth and kissing the tired corner of that mouth.

  She climbed into the Volvo and he returned to his Tahoe as she slowly pulled out of the parking lot into the deserted streets, her tires crunching on snow.

  He pulled out behind her and they seemed to be the only fools out on the road on a cold January night. Everybody else must be snuggled together at home.

  Okay, he didn’t need that image in his head. Suddenly the only thing he could think about was cuddling under a big quilt with Lauren in front of a crackling fire while the snow pelted the windows, her soft body wrapped around him and jasmine and vanilla seducing his senses.

  Reality was light-years away from fantasy—so far it would have been amusing if he didn’t find it so damn depressing as he followed her through the snowy streets.

  She lived on the outskirts of town, in a trim little clapboard house set away from her neighbors, the last house before the mountains. When they reached it, Lauren pulled into her garage and slid from her Volvo. In the dim garage light, he could clearly see her exasperated look as she waved him on.

  He shook his head and gestured to the house. He waited until the lights came on inside and the garage door closed completely before he drove off into the snowy night.

  She stood at her living room window watching Daniel’s big SUV cruise slowly down the street.

  How very like him to follow her home simply to ensure she made it in safely. It wasn’t necessary. The distance between the clinic and her house wasn’t far. Even if her ancient car sputtered and gave out on the way, she could easily walk home—in good weather, she walked to and from work all the time.

  Yet Daniel had been concerned enough to take time out of his busy schedule to follow her home. A slow, steady warmth spread out from her core as she watched his taillights disappear in the snow.

  She shouldn’t feel so warm and comforted by his simple gesture, as if those big, strong arms were wrapped around her. It was foolish to be so touched, but she couldn’t remember the last time someone had fussed over her with such concern.

  Just his nature, she reminded herself. Daniel was a caretaker. He always had been. She could remember watching him on the bus with his three younger siblings, how he had always stood between them and anybody who might want to bully them. He wouldn’t let anybody push them around, and nobody dared. Not if they had to run the risk of incurring the wrath of big Danny Galvez.

  Oh, she had envied them. His sister had been in her grade and Lauren used to be so jealous that Anna had an older brother to watch out for her. Two of them, since Ren was just a year younger than Daniel.

  She had longed for a noisy, happy family like the Galvezes. For siblings to fight and bicker and share with.

  Siblings. Her mouth tightened and she let the curtain fall, hating the word. She shouldn’t feel this anger at her father all over again but she couldn’t seem to help herself.

  She had siblings as well. Three younger brothers from her father’s second family, the one she and her mother had known nothing about until after R.J.’s suicide and all her father’s dark secrets came to light.

  A few years ago she had met them and their mother—a woman who had been as much in the dark about her husband’s other life and Lauren and her mother as they had been about her. They had all seemed perfectly nice. Children who had adored R.J. as much as she had and a widow who had still seemed shell-shocked.

  They hadn’t wanted any further relationship. Just as well, because Lauren didn’t know if she quite had the stomach to continue being polite to the innocent children who had been the cause of R.J.’s relentless need for cash. Maintaining two households couldn’t have been cheap and her father’s way of augmenting his income was dipping into the public till.

  She sighed and pushed thoughts of her half siblings away, focusing instead on Daniel Galvez and his caretaking of the world.

  She shouldn’t feel singled out simply because he followed her home to make sure she arrived safely. This wasn’t any kind of special treatment, just Daniel’s way with everyone.

  Imagining it meant anything other than politeness would be a dangerous mistake.

  She turned away from the window and the dark night. Returning to her empty house late at night always depressed her, highlighting the lonely corners of her life. She needed a dog, a big friendly mutt to lick her chin and rub against her legs and curl up at her feet on the rare evenings she was home.

  With her insane hours, she knew that wouldn’t be fair to any living creature, though perhaps she should get a fish or something, just for the company.

  She turned on the television for noise and headed for the bathroom. A good, long soak in hot water would chase away the tension of the day and perhaps lift her spirits.

  She had no reason to be depressed. She was doing the job she loved, the one she had dreamed of since she was a young girl in
junior high biology class. If she had no one to share it all with, that was her own fault.

  She was lonely. That was the long and short of it. She longed for someone to talk to at the end of the day, for a warm body to hold on a winter’s night.

  Too bad her options were so limited here—eligible single males weren’t exactly thick on the ground in a small town like Moose Springs—but she was determined to stay here, come hell or high water.

  What other choice did she have? She owed the town a debt she could never fully repay, though she tried her best. She couldn’t in good conscience move away somewhere more lucrative and leave behind the mess her father had created.

  The best cure for loneliness was hard work and she had never shied away from that. And perhaps she ought to stay away from Daniel, since spending any time at all with him only seemed to accentuate all the things missing in her life.

  Her gray mood had blown away with the storm as she drove through the predawn darkness the next day through town. Her clinic hours started at nine but she figured if she left early enough, she could make it to see Rosa at the hospital in Salt Lake City and be back before the first patient walked through the door.

  She felt energized for the day ahead as she listened to Morning Edition on NPR. The morning was cold and still, the snow of the night before muffling every sound. She waved at a few early-morning snow-shovelers trying to clear their driveways before heading to work.

  Most of them waved back as she passed, but a few quite noticeably turned their backs on her. She sighed but decided not to let it ruin her good mood.

  This area was settled by pioneer farmers and ranchers and for years they had made up the bedrock of the rural economy. But for the last decade or so Moose Springs had become more of a bedroom community to workers in Park City and Salt Lake City who were looking for a quiet, mostly safe place to raise their families.

  She was glad to see newcomers in town and figured an infusion of fresh blood couldn’t hurt. Still, she hoped this area was able to hang on to all the small-town things she had always loved about it.

  The interstate through the canyon was busy with morning commuters heading into the city, but the snow had been cleared in the night so the drive was pleasant.

  As she had promised, she stopped at her favorite bakery not far from the hospital to pick up a dozen doughnuts and several cups of coffee for Kendall and the floor nurses.

  Juggling the bag, the cup holder and her laptop, she hurried inside the hospital and went straight for the E.R., hoping she could catch the nurses who had helped with Rosa before their shift changed in a half hour. She had learned early in her career that nurses were the heart and soul of a hospital and she always tried to go out of her way to let them know how much she appreciated their hard work.

  She found several nurses gathered at the station. They greeted her with friendly smiles.

  “No sexy sheriff with you this morning?” Janie Carpenter, one of the nurses she had worked with before, asked her.

  If only. She shook her head. “Sorry. I’m on my own. But I brought goodies, if that helps.”

  “I don’t know.” A round, middle-aged nurse grinned. “Between doughnuts or a hottie like that, I’d choose the sheriff every time. I was thinking I just might have to drive to Moose Springs and rob a bank or something. I certainly wouldn’t mind that man putting me under arrest.”

  “Or under anything else,” Janie purred. “Think he might use handcuffs?”

  Lauren could feel herself blush. She wanted to tell them Daniel was far more than just chiseled features and strong, athletic shoulders. But maybe he enjoyed being drooled over. She pulled one of the doughnuts out and grabbed the last cup of coffee in the drink holder.

  “I owe this to Dr. Fox. Is he around?”

  Janie rolled her eyes. “Haven’t seen him for a while. He’s probably flirting with the nurses on the surgical floor. I’ll be happy to set it aside for him, though.”

  She handed over the stash, not believing her for a second. Oh, well, she tried. It was Kendall’s own fault for being such a player.

  She waved goodbye to the nurses and headed up to Rosa’s floor. Nobody was in sight at the nurse’s station on this floor except a dour-looking maintenance man haphazardly swirling a mop around.

  Served her right for coming just as the nurses were giving report. She could hear them in the lounge as the night shift caught the fresh blood up on their caseload.

  She smiled at the janitor but he still didn’t meet her eye so she gave up trying to be nice and began looking for Rosa’s chart. Probably in with the nurses, she realized, and went to the lounge to ask if they were done with it.

  “Here it is. She had a very quiet night,” a tired-looking nurse said, handing over the chart. “No more contractions and I peeked in on her about an hour ago and she was sleeping soundly.”

  “Thank you.”

  When Lauren returned to the desk, the janitor was gone. She spent a moment flipping through the chart, pleased with what she saw there. Her vitals were stable and her pain level seemed to be under control. The few times she had awakened, she had seemed calm and at ease.

  Lauren didn’t want to wake her patient, but she also didn’t want to leave after coming all this way without at least checking on her.

  As she paused outside the door to her room, a strange whimpering noise sounded from inside and her heart sank. Despite what the night nurse had charted, maybe the mild painkillers Rosa had been treated with weren’t quite cutting it.

  She pushed open the door to check on the girl, then gasped.

  The horrific sight inside registered for only about half a second before Lauren started screaming for security and rushed inside to attack the man who was trying to smother her patient.

  Chapter 4

  After that first instant of disoriented, stunned panic, everything else seemed a blur. She rushed the man, almost tripping over the mop and bucket on her way toward him as she yelled for him to stop and for security at equal turns.

  With no coherent plan, she slammed into him to knock him away from her patient. The force of her movement knocked them both off balance and they toppled against the rolling bedside table, sending it crashing to the floor and the two of them after it.

  The man scrambled to his feet to get away and Lauren lunged after him, barely registering the coarse fabric of his janitor’s uniform as she grabbed hold of it. For some wild reason she was intent only on keeping him there until security arrived, but he was just as intent on escape.

  He shoved her to get her away from him, hissing curses at her in Spanish as he fought her off. Finally he just swung his other beefy fist out and slugged her, the blow connecting to the cheekbone and knocking her to the ground.

  White-hot pain exploded in her skull. In an instant he was gone. She couldn’t have stopped him, even if she hadn’t been forced to release him when she fell.

  Lauren’s vision grayed and her stomach twisted and heaved from the pain. She wanted to curl up right there on the floor, but Rosa was clutching her throat and still gasping for air. Lauren forced herself to keep it together for her patient’s sake. Using the bed for support, she pulled herself to her feet and hurried as fast as possible to the terrified girl’s side.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” Lauren urged, grabbing the oxygen mask from the wall above the bed and placing it as gently as possible over Rosa’s mouth at the same time she hit the emergency call button.

  “Take deep breaths. That’s the way. You’re fine now. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

  Though she forgot all about the language barrier and spoke in English, Rosa seemed to understand her. The shaken girl made a ragged, gravelly sound deep in her throat and Lauren handed her the water glass by the side of her bed just as the first nurses rushed in.

  “What is it? What happened?” the first one asked. “Are you okay?”

  Lauren was shaking, she realized, and her head throbbed like it had been crushed by a wrecking ball. “No. I’m not
okay. A man just attacked my patient. Call security. Have them block all the exits and entrances. They need to look for a Latino male in his mid-twenties. He was wearing a maintenance worker’s uniform but it was too short for him so I’m guessing it wasn’t real.”

  “You’re bleeding!” the nurse exclaimed.

  “Forget about me,” she said harshly. “Just call security!”

  The nurse rushed out and Rosa gave a strangled whimper. Lauren saw she was inches away from hysteria. She slid onto the bed and gathered the girl to her, as much to comfort her as to find a safe place to sit for a moment before her legs gave out.

  “You’re okay. You’re safe now.”

  “Mi bebé. Mi bebé.”

  “Okay, okay. We’ll check everything out but I’m sure your baby is all right.”

  As the adrenaline spike crested, Lauren had to fight to hold on to her meager breakfast. It wasn’t easy.

  She had been physically attacked only once before in her life and finding herself in this situation again brought back all those long-dormant feelings of shock and invasion she thought she had worked through years ago.

  She didn’t know what was stronger, the urge to vomit or the urge to crawl into a corner and sob.

  “Rosa. Is that the same man who hurt you?”

  The girl hesitated, though Lauren could tell she understood her fractured Spanish.

  “The only way you can be safe is to report what happened so he can be arrested.”

  The gross hypocrisy of her words struck her, but she couldn’t worry about that now. Not when her patient’s life was at stake.

  “Rosa, you’re going to have to tell someone what happened. You have no choice anymore. Will you talk to Sheriff Galvez?”

  Rosa let out a sob and curved both hands over her abdomen. After a moment, she gave a long, slow nod.

  He was bone-tired, so tired all he wanted to do was pull over somewhere, put his hat over his face and doze off for a few decades.

  A smart man would be home in bed right about now dreaming soft, pleasant dreams that had nothing to do with crimes or accident reports or people in need.