“I’m sorry. I wish…”
“Hey, don’t be sorry.”
Cade reached for her hand and she let him hold it. Truth to tell, she was so conflicted she didn’t know which way to turn. In desperate need of moral support, she was also furious at him for prying into her past. She let her misty gaze meet his and was astounded at how touched, how sympathetic he appeared to be. She opened her mouth with the intent of arguing. No words came.
“Nothing that happened, then or later, was your fault,” he told her.
Paige found her voice. “That’s not what my parents said.”
“They were frantic. Stressed. At a loss and feeling totally helpless, which is exactly what you were feeling, too. It’s hardly surprising that they didn’t know how to act. News reports said your father nearly took apart the police station on one of his many visits.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Really. You know, only God can help you handle the rough stuff like what your family went through. It doesn’t matter how your parents acted then, or even how they behave now. What counts is your relationship with the good Lord.”
“God gave up on me long ago,” she whispered.
To her relief, Cade didn’t pressure her or preach anymore. He did, however, pull her into his embrace and hold her close for a brief moment. That was enough to cause a wayward tear to slip past her lashes and slide down one cheek.
Paige wasn’t touched so much by the fact that he was hugging her as she was by the reason behind it. He knew she was hurting. He cared. And he didn’t blame her. That was the biggest surprise. After all this time, after all her weeping and wailing and self-reproach, she had finally found solace.
At that precious moment she almost took his advice, turned back to God and gave thanks through prayer. Her heart wanted to. It was her mind that held her back.
Giving Paige time to compose herself, Cade opened his laptop again and checked his email to see if everything was still peaceful in Austin. It was. And since he’d been sitting out there with Max, nothing odd had occurred locally, either.
He smiled when he noticed Paige’s quizzical expression. “Looks good all around. No more problems reported. The sheriff hasn’t seen anybody messing with your house, either.”
“That’s good news. I still think it’s too soon to tell Angela she can go home, though. Don’t you?”
“Yes. Let’s wrap up this case first and then talk about that.”
“Which reminds me. I need to go see how close the lab is to being done.” She gracefully got to her feet. “Don’t go away.”
Cade nodded. “Not a chance. I’ll be ready to roll whenever you are.”
He knew Paige well enough to tell that it was a struggle for her to smile and act so nonchalant. That was all right. Now that she knew he was fully aware of her tragic past, he figured she’d eventually get around to discussing it. At least he hoped so. She needed to unburden herself as well as study the details of the case as an adult so she could stop viewing the loss from a child’s perspective.
If freeing her of that undeserved guilt brought her happiness, all the better. In the meantime, he was going to continue praying that she’d recognize the emotional freedom that was available if only she’d exercise her Christian faith instead of denying it.
Cade’s jaw clenched. Not even a man who loved her the way he did could make that kind of decision for her. All he could do was wait and pray and try to protect her while she sorted it all out.
Closing his eyes, he prayed silently for the strength and wisdom he’d need.
When he opened them again, Paige was coming toward him carrying not one bag, but two. And this time her grin was genuine.
She held them up, one in each hand. “Got ’em. Let’s hit the road.”
THIRTEEN
The drive back to Austin seemed unusually long. Paige had been daydreaming so much she almost missed pointing out the café where she’d told Cade she wanted to stop.
“Look! There it is. Pull in.”
“You sure that’s where you want to eat?”
“Positive. You haven’t seen any sign that we’re being followed, have you?”
“Nope, not a thing.”
“Then it should be safe to lock everything in the truck with Max, give him some ventilation and go in to eat like we did this morning. Right?”
“Sure. As long as I can find a parking place right outside a window. We’ll want to keep a close eye on everything, the same way we did the last time.”
“Perfect.” Paige pointed. “There’s an empty spot!”
“You must be really hungry,” he teased. “Can’t say I blame you. We haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
Sliding out, Cade once again held the door while Paige shinnied across the seat to join him. This time, she’d held up her hand and ordered, “Stay” before the dog had had a chance to get the notion he was going with them.
“Poor old Max,” Cade said as he shut and locked the door.
“Don’t be fooled by that sad expression. He’s very good at manipulating people by pretending he’s miserable when he’s not. It works on me almost every time.”
She cast a backward glance at the truck as they entered the café and saw that the dog was circling in preparation for lying down on the passenger seat. With the real skull and the reproduction securely boxed and stored on the floor, she saw no problems. Besides, she added, slipping her hand into her pocket and feeling the disk containing the information from the 3-D scan, there was no way anybody was going to stop her now.
Cade’s cell phone rang during their meal. He answered, nodded as he listened quietly, then thanked the caller and bid him goodbye.
“So, what else have our jungle friends been up to lately? I can hardly wait to hear.”
“Who?”
She leaned across the table and cupped a hand around her mouth to say, “The Lions of Texas, silly.”
“The call wasn’t about them,” he assured her. “I do wish you’d be more serious, Paige. This is not a game. These guys play for keeps.”
“What can they do to me that’s worse than watching some lowlife make off with my baby sister and having to accept everyone’s opinion that she’s long dead and it’s all my fault? Huh?” Pushing herself back against the booth she crossed her arms and stared, chin up and her head cocked to one side, as if daring him to argue. “You could be killed,” Cade said, surprised to hear the rasp in his voice.
“I have no intention of getting killed,” Paige said firmly. “I have you to protect me. And I should be done with the reconstruction in no time. After that, I can’t see this threat continuing, can you?”
Cade didn’t know whether to level with her or not. He decided it was better to alarm her than to let her become too complacent.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” he said. “Organizations like the Lions don’t get powerful by letting their enemies just ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after. They may still target you.”
“Why? I’d be no threat then.”
“I didn’t say it made sense. I’m just saying that they’re probably more ruthless than you can imagine.”
“And the Texas Rangers are the best in the country, if not the whole world. You’ll break up that drug ring soon and I plan to help you do it.” She began to smile. “So, what’s our next move, partner?”
He had to chuckle. “Our next move? I don’t believe you. Aren’t you at least a little scared?”
Nodding, she rolled her eyes. “There are times when I’m petrified, especially if I’m trapped in the dark like I was when you first came to see me, or about to be run down by a speeding car, or whatever. Then I think about Captain Pike and that poor man whose face I’m about to reconstruct and I get really mad. If I curl up in a corner and hide because I’m frightened, the bad guys win. I can’t let that happen any more than you’d be willing to lay down your guns and quit pursuing justice.”
“Bravo!” Cade said.
Paige giggled and b
lushed. “You need to brush up on your Spanish, cowboy. You should have said, ‘Brava’, with an a.”
“Only if I’m calling you courageous. Besides, a cheer is a cheer,” he countered. “In case I haven’t told you this before, it’s a great pleasure to be working with you.”
“Back atcha,” Paige quipped. She eyed his nearly empty plate. “Are you going to eat those fries? Because if you’re not, I’d like to take them out to Max. He loves ’em with ketchup.”
“Okay. I imagine it will be pretty messy but have at it,” he said, passing the remnants of his dinner to her. “He’ll be drooling on your knees this time, not mine. I’ll go pay the bill, get you a takeout box and be right back.”
“Okey-dokey.”
At the counter he accepted his change, dropped the loose coins into a charity contribution container, then returned to the table with the empty plastic carton.
His jaw dropped. Paige’s purse was still there but she wasn’t.
Whirling, Cade scanned the quiet café. There was no sign of her. Could she have gone to use the ladies’ room? Surely not without telling him. His jaw clamped, teeth gritting. If that woman was up to her old tricks of wandering off, he was going to give her a lecture she’d never forget.
And if she hadn’t left of her own accord? His hands fisted. His heart lodged in his constricted throat. If someone had taken Paige from right under his nose, he’d never forgive himself.
She had stood to stretch while Cade was away from the table. Pausing next to the booth, she’d glanced casually out the window at the Ranger’s white pickup for the hundredth time. Her jaw had dropped. Oh, no!
Paige was moving toward the door before she even thought about what she was doing. Some skinny kid in a backwards ball cap was trying to break into Cade’s truck!
Dodging between the small tables and chairs she straight-armed the exit and burst through. It slammed behind her. She paid it no mind. Nothing mattered but getting to the truck before the car thief managed to open the door.
“Stop!” Paige shouted, closing the distance between herself and the truck. “Get away from there. Thief! Robber!” Her voice was shrill and she was attracting plenty of attention, as she’d intended, but no bystanders were making any moves to come to her aid.
She tackled the astonished car thief by grabbing his bony shoulder from behind and pushing him to the side. He wasn’t hefty but he was wiry enough that he kept his balance. Still grasping the thin metal lever that he’d been using to try to open the locked door, he went into a crouch as if he might be preparing to attack.
Inside the truck, Max began growling, barking and clawing frantically at the window they’d left slightly open for ventilation.
Paige’s first thought was for Max’s welfare if the glass broke. Her second was that Cade was going to be livid about any more damage to his precious truck. Well, too bad. A window could be replaced. Living things could not.
Behind Paige, a woman screamed. She didn’t look to see why because she’d have had to take her eyes off the thief to do so and she still wasn’t sure whether he was going to make a run for it or attack. Judging by the feral look in his narrowed eyes, he wasn’t sure, either.
Then he straightened, lifted the lever and took a menacing step toward her!
The bang of a gunshot was so loud, so close, it hurt Paige’s senses and left her momentarily stunned.
She ducked and covered her ears with her hands. In the millisecond before she peeked out at the thief, he had turned tail and was scrambling across the crowded parking lot, half on all-fours, half running as if he expected the next bullet to catch up to him.
Someone grabbed Paige’s arm. She screamed.
Cade had heard the restaurant’s door slam at about the same time he’d discovered that Paige was missing. He’d wheeled and run outside just in time to see her tackling a slim, canvas-jacketed youth wearing a dirty baseball cap.
Pulling his .45, Cade had shouted, “Freeze!” The guy had lunged toward her instead of stopping, so Cade had fired a warning shot into the air.
Her adversary lit out, pretty much as expected, and disappeared among the many cars in the dirt parking lot next to the diner.
Cade reached for Paige, grasping her arm to pull her erect. She began to screech and thrash like a coyote caught in the jaws of a pelt hunter’s trap.
“Easy. It’s me,” Cade said, holstering his sidearm so he could draw her into his arms. “I’ve got you. You’re safe now. He’s gone.”
Shuddering, she pressed her cheek to Cade’s chest and slipped both arms around his waist. “I saw him trying to steal your truck.”
“Maybe it wasn’t the truck he wanted,” Cade said, tensing and scanning the innocuous-looking parking lot. They’d begun to gather a crowd, particularly now that the passersby had seen that a Texas Ranger was involved and had deduced that the danger was over.
Eyes wide, Paige looked up at him. “The evidence, you mean?”
“Yes. We should have taken all that inside with us.”
“But, we can easily have everything duplicated now that I have it on disk. Surely, they’d know that.”
“That’s true. Maybe all that guy wanted was a nice pickup.”
Paige managed a wry chuckle. “With a big, ugly crease down one side and a barking dog inside it? Yeah, right. Max may be a wimp at heart but he didn’t look it just now.”
“Make up your mind. Do you want me to agree with you or not?” Cade kept an arm around her shoulders and started to guide her away. “Let’s go back inside for a few minutes so we’re out of sight while I phone in a report, take names of witnesses and notify the local sheriff. There’ll have to be an internal investigation because I fired my weapon.”
“Were you shooting at that man?”
“No. I’d never do that unless he posed a direct threat. I couldn’t see if he had a gun or a knife. I wouldn’t have shot him unless I was sure he was dangerous.”
“All I saw was one of those thin metal bars that thieves use to break into locked vehicles. The way he was holding it after I pushed him away, it looked like he was going to take a swing at me.”
“A slim-jim, you mean? I saw it, too. I’ll have the sheriff’s men scour the parking lot in case he dropped it. Fingerprints would be nice. I’d like to have something we can enter into IAFIS, the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, and see what we come up with.”
“Right now, about all I want to do is get my dog and find a place to sit down. I was afraid Max was going to break the side window of the truck trying to get out.”
“Okay. Just keep a tight hold on the leash in case he spots the thief again.”
“Right.”
She’d left one arm around Cade’s waist in spite of his gun and the other gear on his belt, and was sticking to him like glue. That felt so right it made his heart race and his breathing grow shallow, uneven. At this point he didn’t care what anyone else thought or said. He was staying as close to Paige as she’d allow and he didn’t care who noticed.
Paige wondered how much longer they were going to have to delay before resuming their trip. She hadn’t realized how exhausted she was until the furor had died down and she’d lost the surge of adrenaline that had been powering her ever since she’d gone to Max’s defense.
She felt a bit sorry for Cade, having to explain his actions, but there was no way she could help him other than to stay out of his way and keep quiet. Doing so was usually a trial for her, especially since she liked being involved in ongoing investigations.
“This time, I’m just a tad too involved if you ask me,” she muttered, talking to the weary dog that lay at her feet. She sighed deeply. It became a yawn before she was finished and she covered her mouth.
“Tired?” Cade joined her on the secluded bench beside the restaurant’s side door and handed her the purse she’d left in the booth inside.
“Yes. How’s it going?”
“Fine, considering.”
“Are y
ou in trouble for shooting?”
“I don’t think so, at least nobody’s said so yet.” He held out a hand. “Come on, let’s hit the road again.”
“We’re done here?”
He nodded. “I dusted the door of my truck and managed to lift a few partial prints. They may pan out, they may not. Nobody was able to come up with the guy’s tool so what I got is all we have.”
“I didn’t see a black SUV this time, did you?”
“No. I suspect they’ve changed vehicles now that we’ve gotten pictures from several surveillance cameras.”
“I thought you said their license plate was stolen?”
“It was. But we do have some long-distance photos of the driver. They’re being checked at my office till you get your systems back up and running. Then they’ll email them to you.”
Paige sighed again. “Shouldn’t be long. I was promised that computer ASAP.”
“Can’t rush things like that,” Cade said. “We don’t want to lose the data you already had stored and have to start over.”
“Goodness, no.” Paige almost gasped. “It took me months to load and process that the first time.”
“See? All in good time.”
When he started to walk, Paige boldly slipped her hand into his and was thrilled when his fingers closed around hers. His hand was warm. Large and comforting. Yet his grip was as gentle as a caress.
She’d had boyfriends in high school and had dated a little after that, particularly in tech school when she’d taken the special courses that had qualified her for her current job. But never had she felt this kind of true belonging, this peaceful presence that bathed her heart in joy and left her yearning for more.
Her feelings didn’t make sense. They didn’t have to. Not now. Later, when the danger and excitement were over and she and Cade were back to their regular assignments, then she’d analyze what seemed to be happening between them.
She tightened her grip and felt him return the soothing pressure. Her fingers tingled. Her eyes grew moist. Her loneliness had vanished.
Face of Danger Page 12
