by Rachel Lee
Until this moment. Never again.
Roger wheeled her out onto the porch and he and Della sat on the porch swing.
“Now, I like this,” Della said approvingly. “You say you can get a position at the local hospital, Haley?”
“I checked when I got here because I thought maybe I’d want to keep Grandma’s house. And, yes, they’d hire me.”
Della looked thoughtful. “Maybe I ought to check for me. If the two of you could stand a roomie, that is.”
Both Haley and Roger laughed. He assured her he’d be pleased if she decided to stay.
But before that conversation could go much further, a police vehicle pulled up out front and Gage climbed out. He was smiling and waved as he limped up the short walk to climb the porch steps. He welcomed Della to Conard City and asked if she’d be staying awhile.
“It crossed my mind to hang around on a permanent basis.”
“You’d like it here.”
Roger crossed the porch to get him a folding chair, and Gage sank into it, wincing visibly. “Dang back,” he muttered. “Okay, official business.”
Haley tensed, her hands gripping the armrests on her chair. Part of her was eager to hear and part of her wanted to run from it. What if this wasn’t the guy? What if he hadn’t tried to kill her on the highway? What if...?
Roger leaned over from the swing and took her hand, squeezing it gently.
“Okay,” Gage said again. “Mr. Not-So-Smart, also known as Edgar Metzler, should never take up lying for a living. He couldn’t keep his own stories straight. By six this morning he was beating his head with his hands, telling everyone that the dumbest thing he’d ever done in his life was kidnap Haley. Then he admitted to being scared she’d recognize him, so, yeah, he’d run her off the road. And those doughnuts? Well, when we searched his house, we found a bottle of homemade ricin poison. Only one reason for that. You still got those things?”
“In a garbage bag, untouched,” Roger answered.
“My God,” Della breathed. “Ricin? Really?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s what broke him. No earthly good reason for making that stuff.”
Della shook her head. “If any of us had eaten those doughnuts, we probably wouldn’t have survived. If we didn’t die immediately, then I doubt the local hospital would have even known what to look for. It’s not something that tops the list in an emergency room.”
Haley nodded agreement, even as a cold breeze seemed to blow through her. “He might have succeeded.”
“He might have,” Gage agreed. “But he didn’t. And like I said, he’s not that bright. He kept tripping over his own lies until he’d boxed himself in and we finally got the whole story. The FBI is taking him away on federal charges, including kidnapping, and I’ll be glad to see the last of him.”
“So will I,” Haley agreed vehemently. “No more nightmares.”
It was truly over. After twenty-five years, it was over. No more fear. Maybe a few bad moments here and there, but at last she could be confident that creep wasn’t still on the street. For the first time in ages, she beamed.
* * *
Della went upstairs early for the night, pointing out that she was still on East Coast time. Haley had returned to the couch for the night, and Roger pulled a chair close so that he could rest his elbows on his knees and hold her hand.
“I came so close to losing you, Haley.”
She smiled at him, despite the ache in her leg and side. “Couldn’t quite shake me off,” she teased.
“I don’t want to shake you off.” He hesitated. “I know things have been a mess since you got here, but I need to tell you something.”
Her ears perked, even as tension began to creep into her. Was this the kiss-off? Go back to Baltimore? It’s been fun, but?
His grip on her hand tightened a bit. “I want you to know...well, if you want to stay here, then I want you to stay. Permanently. Because I’m in love with you.”
Her heart nearly stopped. “Oh, Roger...”
He waved his other hand. “I get that you probably don’t feel the same. It’s been rough for you. Hell, I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to get as far away from this state as you could. I just needed you to know.”
She honestly didn’t have to think about it. Her heart filled with so much joy, she felt as if it might burst right out of her.
“I want an intimate wedding,” she said. “When I can walk again.”
His eyes widened, a laugh escaped him, then he leaned forward and gave her a long, deep kiss. “You got it, lady,” he murmured. “You definitely got it.”
Then he leaned in to kiss her again, and a glow of happiness filled her to every corner. “I love you,” she murmured against his lips. “I think I always have.”
* * *
Don’t forget previous titles in Rachel Lee’s
Conard County: The Next Generation series:
Conard County Watch
Conard County Revenge
Undercover in Conard County
Conard County Marine
Conard County Spy
Conard County Witness
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Navy SEAL’s Deadly Secret
by Cindy Dees
Chapter 1
“Hoo baby, Anna. You’ve got a hot one at booth number nine!”
Anna Larkin glanced at the back of the diner and the lone man hunched in the last booth, looking intensely uncomfortable, as if he wanted to shrink into nothingness. As if he was attempting to be invisible, or at least to blend in with the locals.
Not happening. He was tall, broad-shouldered and gorgeous, with dark hair and eyes so blue she could see their color from the other end of Pittypat’s Diner. Not the kind of guy who would ever blend in with the mere mortals of Sunny Creek, Montana.
He’d given it a good try, though. He wore a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and she would bet he was wearing jeans and cowboy boots under the scarred linoleum table.
“Well, go on,” Patricia Moeller, the Pat of Pittypat’s, urged her. “Say hello to the pretty man with no wedding ring.”
Anna rolled her eyes at her boss. But she did tug down the hem of her T-shirt before she headed over with a glass of ice water.
Hoo baby didn’t cover the half of it as she drew near her customer. His face was tanned, his features strong, his cheekbones chiseled out of Montana granite. She guessed him to be about thirty years old. A thin, red scar started near his ear and ran down into his shirt collar along the powerful neck of an athlete.
She studied him more closely. He looked familiar. But surely she would remember a face like that if she’d ever seen it before.
The old caution kicked in. She knew better than to fall for a pretty face. Much better. She’d suffered enough psychological wounds from the last pretty-faced man who crossed her path to make her skittish for a lifetime.
Maybe that was why she plunked this one’s water down a little too hard, sloshing it onto the table and into his lap. He jumped, and their hands collided reaching for the paper napkin folded under his fork.
Hot. Hard. Strong. The sensations raced through her almost too fast to name. She jerked back, scalded. “I’m so sorry!” she stammered.
“It’s just water. I won’t melt,” he said gruffly. He lifted the napkin out of her slack fingers and mopped at his crotch.
Realizing in horror that she was staring at his groin, she mumbled, “I’ll, um, get you another glass of water.”
“I’d rather have a cup of coffee.”
“Right. Uh, how do you like it?”
His gaze snapped up to hers, startled and wary, as if some alarming innuendo was buried in her question. But then a faint smirk bent his lips. “I like it hot and sweet.”
She stood there staring down at him like she’d lost her marbles until he murmured, “Coffee? May I have a cup?”
“Coffee. Right. Coming up.” She whirled away, her face flaming in embarrassment. Good Lord. She’d been standing there, staring at him like a starstruck girl. And she was neither starstruck nor a girl anymore. She’d been both when she’d left Sunny Creek at the ripe old age of eighteen, but Eddie Billingham had stolen both her innocence and the stars from her eyes long ago.
“You okay?” Patricia asked her at the coffee station. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“No ghosts in here,” she retorted. Just ghosts in her head. The ghost of her innocent self. The ghost of her girlish hopes and dreams. The ghost of Eddie—
“I don’t know,” Patricia was saying. “Is that one of the Morgan boys? He looks mighty familiar.”
Anna glanced over her shoulder at the customer and jumped to see him staring at her. Intently. She looked away hastily, staring unseeing at the coffeemaker. The Morgan family had four sons and two daughters, but they’d all moved away from Sunny Creek in the past decade. Last she’d heard, none of them showed any signs of returning.
Pattie continued, “He’s got the look of a Morgan about him with that dark hair and those blue eyes. Good-looking like a Morgan, too.”
“If you say so.” She’d only had eyes for blond-haired, pale-blue-eyed Billie in high school. Stupid her. Anna poured a mug of coffee and piled a handful of sugar packets and containers of creamer on the saucer beside the mug. Determined not to spill hot coffee on her customer, she put the drink down carefully in front of him. “Can I get you a bite to eat?”
“Nah. Not hungry.”
“Petunia baked this morning. Sure I can’t get you a slice of her world-famous pumpkin chiffon pie?”
“No thanks.”
The guy was showing no signs whatsoever of wanting to be social with her, and God knew, she didn’t want to be social with him after making a complete fool of herself. She moved away, pausing at the next booth down to check on a retired couple passing through town in an RV. They asked for the check, which gave her an excuse to come back to this end of the dining room. She dropped off the bill and swung by the hunk’s table.
“Need a refill on that coffee?” she asked.
“Nope. The deal was I had to drink one cup. No more.”
What deal? She was tempted to ask him, but he forestalled her by frowning faintly at something over her shoulder. He muttered, “Someone just walked in and wants to be seated.”
Far be it from her to look like she was hanging around his table trying to get his attention! She turned quickly and headed for the newcomer, yet another lone guy. Except this one looked to be in his early twenties. And if she didn’t know better, she would say he was high. His entire demeanor was jittery. His hands were never still, and he tapped his booted heels incessantly. Like a flamenco dancer on crack.
God, she knew that look. Eddie used to get it when he snorted crack to hype himself up before auditions...and used his fists on her to come down from the hype after auditions.
The guy pushed past Anna toward the counter and the cash register, and she turned to ask him if he’d like a booth, determined to be polite after being such a doofus with her last single male customer.
Over the newcomer’s shoulder, she spied her customer. He was frowning heavily, his gaze shifting back and forth warily between her and the new guy. Trepidation leaped in her gut. The old panic that she would do something wrong and provoke jealous violence flared, making her insides quail.
Oh, wait. Not Eddie. She drew a breath of relief, tried to exhale away the panic attack and turned to face Flamenco Heels.
She spied a flash of silver in his fist. A knife. Her gazed riveted on the blade and time slowed around her to a strange, silent blur while her mind kept churning away.
Of course it was a knife. Karma was a bitch that way.
She watched the guy with the knife take a step toward her. Her entire world narrowed down to that lethal bit of sharpened steel with her name on it. Of course it was going to stab her in the belly. To gut her. Just like she’d gutted Eddie.
The remembered feel of the blade slipping into her husband’s flesh, the slight resistance and then the slippery slide of it, the heat of blood gushing out onto her fist, the metallic smell and taste of blood...
Relief flooded her, taking her by surprise, as the guy took another slow-motion step toward her.
Thank God it was finally over. Justice had caught up with her. There would be no more running from the truth. No more pretending she wasn’t racked by guilt. No more fake smiles when people offered condolences.
She’d had no idea she was waiting for this—for the swift and certain retribution that was owed to her—until a punk with a knife charged her.
Her hands dropped to her sides. She stood up straight, threw her shoulders back and closed her eyes.
Peace. At last. A finish to the self-loathing and constant voice of judgment in her head.
Her body jerked backward without warning and she opened her eyes, startled.
Apparently, Flamenco Heels had stepped around behind her and thrown his arm around her neck, yanking her back against him. She staggered and choked as his arm dug into her airway.
She was no stranger to being choked and went limp in his arms, not fighting the unconsciousness to come. The kid turned, putting his back to the counter, dragging her with him.
She saw her customer surge up out of his booth, sending his coffee across his table in a spill of sable. Anna stared at him in dismay as he charged toward her. There was no need for him to put himself in harm’s way! Not on her account. Particularly not since she’d been waiting for this ever since she got back to Sunny Creek. She’d known someone would come for her eventually. Eddie Billingham had always had plenty of hard-drinking friends and family in this town who were as violent as he had been.
She tried to shake her head at her customer. To warn him off. She managed only a frown, but hoped it was enough.
Nope.
He merely frowned back at her and kept on coming in a swift prowl that screamed of violence. And skill. He moved like some sort of trained killer.
“Give me all the cash in the register!” Flamenco Heels shouted in her ear. She was shoved forward violently and slammed into the edge of the counter.
Now. Kill me now, she begged the kid silently. Before my customer gets here and stops you.
The counter had slammed squarely into her solar plexus and knocked the wind plumb out of her. Gasping for air, she pushed upright just as something big and fast rushed past her. Spinning around to face her attacker, she was in time to see her customer smash into the would-be robber, shoulder first.
Both men crashed to the floor, the robber on the bottom taking the brunt of the impact.
The two men grappled, the kid’s knife grasped in both of their fists. Her customer forced the punk’s hand up over his head, but then the punk slugged her customer in the side with his free hand. Her customer grunted in pain, letting go of the kid’s knife-wielding hand and rolling away sharply. She danced back out of the way of both men as they jumped to their feet.
Her customer slid in front of her, hooking his right arm around her waist and shoving her behind him. The robber jumped forward, knife first, and her customer reacted so fast Anna barely saw him move. His fist slammed down on the kid’s elbow, and a terrible crunching sound of bone and tendon giving way accompanied the clatter of the knife on the floor. The punk screamed and collapsed around his ruined arm.
As the robber’s face went down, her customer’s knee came up, connecting squarely with the kid’s nose. Blood gushed from the robber’s face, streaming down his chin onto his white T-shirt. He staggered back, holding his face.
“Take a knee,” her customer said in a voice colder than arctic ice.
The robber was oblivious until her customer grabbed the kid’s good arm and gave it an upward wrench. “Go. Down.”
The robber dropped to his knees, and her customer maintained a grip on the guy’s good arm, holding it twisted behind his back. The look in her customer’s eyes was wild. Haunted even.
The front door burst open and she looked up sharply. The sheriff, Joe Westlake, charged in, hand on his holstered weapon. He took in the situation quickly, nodded at her customer standing over the bloody robber wannabe, and closed the snap holding the flap over his revolver.
“Helluva way to find out you’re back,” the sheriff boomed, pounding her customer fondly on the back.
Gradually, the trapped-animal terror in her customer’s eyes faded. Caution replaced his panic. Belatedly, he mumbled, “Hey, Joe.”
“Whatchya up to?”
“Doin’ your job for you.”
The sheriff laughed and cussed out her customer fondly, calling him Brett. Brett who?
Her brain clicked in recognition. Brett Morgan? Of the wealthy and powerful Morgan clan? Patricia had been right. All the Morgans were good-looking as sin, black Irish on their daddy’s side and Norwegian on their mama’s side, a big brawny bunch who owned and operated the Runaway Ranch. It sprawled north of town in the High Rockies beyond the Sunny Creek Valley. She’d never been out there, but she’d heard it was an impressive spread.
