Going Home (Nugget Romance 1)

by Stacy Finz

  From what Maddy had heard even Stu and Ethel were holding court at the Nugget Market, telling their customers that Chief Shepard had put a bullet in their robber. And even though they’d never see a dime of their stolen money, they could at least feel safe in their store again.

  Last night, before they’d gone home, someone from the Plumas County Sheriff’s Department had come to take Rhys’s statement and his gun for testing. “Nothing to worry about,” Rhys had assured her. “It’s standard procedure in any police shooting.”

  Maddy had also been questioned at length by a deputy. Now she and Nate stood outside the inn, leaning against his Jaguar, drinking coffee, waiting for detectives to clear the scene. They’d promised it wouldn’t be too much longer. A crime-scene cleaning crew sat in a van, ready to go. Nate had hired them. Maddy didn’t even know businesses like that existed.

  “You okay?” In the last hour he’d been asking her that repeatedly.

  “I’m fine.”

  “It’s not going to creep you out going back inside—like having flashbacks?”

  “I hope not,” she said. “I don’t want to let some tweaker ruin this beautiful place for me.”

  She’d had a pretty rough night—lots of bad dreams, fits and turns. But Rhys had held and rocked her—made her feel safe. She kept visualizing him, both hands locked on the grip of that gun, eyes narrowed over the barrel, voice controlled and commanding. He might’ve seemed stoic immediately after the shooting, but while they lay in bed she’d felt the rage pulsating through him.

  And when they woke up, he’d made love to her slowly, watching her surge beneath him like he was trying to commit the shape of her face, the feel of her body and the taste of her mouth to memory.

  “I love you, Rhys,” she’d said, clinging to him.

  Because in that moment she’d realized what she felt for this man was so much more powerful than anything she’d ever felt for anyone.

  She’d loved Dave with all her heart. But not like this. What she felt for Rhys took her breath away, it was that indescribable, that astounding. It made her weak and invincible all at the same time. It made her tremble and burn. It made her feel infinitely secure. Because Rhys never wavered—he was like an ancient tree trunk; anchored, solid, steadfast.

  But Rhys hadn’t said it back. He’d just cuddled her and told her that everything would be okay.

  Nate poked her in the arm. “Where’d you go?”

  She tried to clear her head, purge it of the night’s dreadfulness. “I’m concerned about Rhys.”

  “Maddy, he’s a cop. He can handle it.”

  “It’s not just the shooting,” she said. “He takes care of a lot of people and doesn’t have anyone to take care of him.” And the truth was, he might not be capable of letting anyone. Growing up the way he did, Rhys had good reason to want to protect his heart.

  Nate knitted his brows together, guilt covering his face. The whole morning he’d been blaming himself. “Christ, Maddy. I shouldn’t have left you alone to lock up. If I’d stayed, none of this would’ve happened. The thought that he could’ve . . . I can’t even go there.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Nate. The guy nearly killed Colin. If you want to blame someone, blame that maniac.”

  The maniac was Robbie Salter, according to his driver’s license. Apparently, he’d been living on and off in the Sierra for some time and had taken up with a circle of druggies and ex-cons.

  A deputy came out of the inn and called them over. “We’re done here. It’s all yours.”

  Nate signaled the cleanup crew and he and Maddy went inside. Despite the morning chill, she felt a trickle of sweat run down the valley between her breasts and had a hard time making her legs move beyond the confines of the foyer.

  “Here, hold my hand,” Nate said, sensing her trepidation. “We’ll go in together.”

  Other than a dark kidney-shaped stain on the hardwood floor, the front parlor showed no signs of a shooting. It didn’t even smell bad, but Maddy opened a few windows just the same.

  “I’m okay,” she said, her arms folded over her chest. “Everything happened so fast last night that I guess I expected to walk in this morning to find a Texas Chain Saw Massacre–kind of mess. But I can deal with this. I can definitely deal with this.”

  After a while she got up enough nerve to wander into the kitchen where the man had first attacked her. Again, she felt nothing. No fear. No post-traumatic stress. Maybe it would come later, but for now it felt over. Done.

  “Hey.” Colin smiled at her through the back door’s broken windowpane. He held up a new panel. “I had some wavy glass left over from the cabinets. It’ll work in here.”

  “I didn’t hear you drive up.”

  “You were in the parlor.” He broke off the remaining jagged pieces of glass from the door. “You okay?”

  People would probably keep asking her that for a while. “Yep.”

  “Good,” he said. “I finished those chairs you wanted and put them on the front porch.”

  She followed him around the side of the house, where four rocking chairs and a glider sat on the veranda. “Oh, Colin,” she squealed in delight. “They’re spectacular.” She jogged up the stairs, testing and touching each one.

  More feminine than his usual work, the chairs had graceful lines—slender and somewhat ornate—without being fussy. And instead of leaving them natural pine, Colin had painted the rockers glossy white.

  “I think they go,” he said, standing back to assess the chairs in their new setting.

  “They absolutely go. They’re the most beautiful pieces of furniture I’ve ever seen.”

  His face positively glowed from the praise. Maddy wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. “Thank you. This makes the place feel like a home—not like a crime scene.”

  It was really too cold to sit outside, but Maddy couldn’t stand the thought of being closed up inside her apartment alone. So she wrapped herself in a flannel blanket and planned to spend the rest of the day cuddled up on her glider, relaxing, since she hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. Everyone was gone, and oddly the noises from the forest helped to soothe her frayed nerves.

  She’d begun to nod off when the sound of an engine brought her awake. At the top of the driveway a Lincoln Town Car sputtered to a halt. She shielded her eyes with her hands and craned her neck to get a better look.

  Maddy was relieved when Rhys’s truck pulled in behind the Lincoln. It would be a long time before she’d feel comfortable having encounters with strangers. A man got out of the limo, but Maddy couldn’t see his face as he started down the hill. Unfortunately, she’d know that stride anywhere.

  Dave!

  He’d left at least three messages on her machine. But she didn’t have the wherewithal to call him back.

  “Maddy?”

  She rose, met him halfway, and he scooped her up in a passionate embrace. “Oh, baby, you all right? I’ve been calling and calling.”

  “I’m okay.” It struck her how overly polished he looked—like a mannequin in a fancy men’s store. Had he always dressed so formally?

  “I finally got ahold of Sophie and she told me what happened.” He held her away from him. “Let me have a look at you.”

  Rhys came up behind them and did his head-nod thing. “Hey.” There was no warmth in his salutation. Maddy presumed he’d already figured out that the man with his hands all over her was Dave.

  Rhys continued to stand there, his arms akimbo, and Maddy wanted to disappear. Just let the ground swallow her up whole. She wanted to tell Dave to go home, to go back to San Francisco. But she was stuck. So she made polite introductions while silently pleading with Rhys to trust her.

  Dave wasn’t typically rude, but he turned on Rhys. “What kind of department are you running that a madman holds a knife to my wife’s throat?”

  “Dave,” Maddy could feel her face flush, “Chief Shepard saved my—”

  “He wouldn’t have had to, if he’d been doi
ng his job properly in the first place.”

  Rhys slowly appraised Dave’s Hermès tie, his monogrammed shirt, his Ferragamo loafers. “I’ll let y’all get reacquainted.” He tipped his head—“Mrs. Wellmont”—and strolled to the fifth wheel.

  “Rhys,” she called after him, but he kept walking.

  “Let’s get you packed up,” Dave said, seemingly oblivious to the tension. “I want you out of this town. Which one is yours?”

  She absently pointed to her side of the duplex and started to go after Rhys. But Dave had taken it upon himself to walk right into her apartment. As if he owned the place. “Dave, where are you going?” she shouted, and jogged after him.

  As soon as she got rid of him, she’d go talk to Rhys. All she could think about was the look on his face when she’d called him Chief Shepard.

  “So this is where you’ve been living for the last four months?” He looked around the small living room and walked through Maddy’s bedroom into the kitchen. She could see his disapproval and it irked her.

  “I’ll get you home soon,” he said.

  “Dave—”

  “You’ve gotta be exhausted, baby.” He grabbed her around the waist and steered her to the bed. “Lie down. I’ll get Renny from the car. Together we’ll pack this place up while you rest.”

  “Dave, I need you to listen to me.” Either the man was intentionally being obtuse to get his way, or he was completely crackers.

  He played with the scarf around her neck. She’d worn it to cover the bruise where the psycho had choked her. “What’s this?” He lifted the locket that peeked out from under the silk and opened the pendant. “The Lumber Baron?”

  He took a closer look and grinned. “It needs a paint job.” Then he tried to kiss her, but she moved her face so all he caught was the side of her cheek. “I’ve missed you, Maddy.”

  “Look, Dave. This thing you’re doing here. Not working. I’m sorry I stood you up, but—”

  “Yeah, I know, you were busy nearly getting stabbed to death.” He rubbed his face and looked at his watch. “I was hoping to get out of here before it gets dark. I’m still pretty jet-lagged.”

  “Well, it was great of you to come.” She got up, hoping he’d take the hint. Get. Out.

  “Mad, enough! I get it. You want me to feel your pain over Gabby until I grovel. Okay, you’ve won. I can’t look at a picture of Max without making myself sick. Half my friends aren’t talking to me, including Soph and Mariah. Even my own mother.”

  When Maddy muttered, “Yeah, right,” Dave said, “She thinks you’ll find a loophole in the prenup and take us to the cleaners. So game over, Maddy. I pronounce you the victor. Just come home already. When you’re feeling better in a week or two, we’ll come back. I promise.”

  “Dave, there’s no we anymore.” Why had she never noticed how self-absorbed he was?

  “Look, baby, I’ve had a lot of experience with hotels and you’re sunk. No one is going to want to stay in your inn now. It’s tainted. I’ll buy it off you and Nate—turn it into a halfway house or something. It’ll be a good tax write-off.”

  She laughed. Not just laughed, roared. “Dave, you don’t know anything about Nugget. These people love a story of survival. This is the home of the Donner Party, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Okay,” he said, running his hands through his perfectly coiffed hair, trying to placate her. Clearly, he suspected that she’d lost her mind. “Maybe we should stay the night. With a good night’s sleep, you’ll see reason in the morning.”

  “Dave.” She wanted to rip her hair out. “Sit.”

  When he took his place next to her on the bed, she said, “I forgive you.”

  Dumbfounded, he turned and looked at her like he thought it might be a trick. “Really? For Gabby, for everything?”

  “For everything.”

  “So, you’ll stop this divorce and we can go back to the way we were?” The man was so self-entitled that it actually made him dense.

  “No.” Back when anger and pain had consumed her, she’d fantasized about this moment. How she would make him beg for her forgiveness. Now, she just wanted him to go away. For good.

  “Why?” he asked. “Why can’t we go back to the way we were?”

  “Because we were never that way.”

  He rubbed his temples, and Maddy registered that he was trying hard to understand. Not getting his way was as foreign to Dave as Tristan da Cunha, the most remote inhabited place in the world. At least according to Wikipedia.

  “So you’re saying our whole marriage was a sham? Which means you haven’t really forgiven me at all, have you?”

  “I have forgiven you,” Maddy said. She took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m just not in love with you anymore.”

  She watched as the color drained from his aristocratic face. “Because of Gabriella?”

  “Maybe in the beginning.” Now, Gabby didn’t even factor into the picture. This was about her, about her evolution. “But then I changed, became a different person with different needs.”

  “And I can no longer fulfill those needs?” he asked, and for the first time seemed to be actually listening.

  She thought about Rhys, about how he was a man to always count on, and said, “I don’t think you ever could.”

  He leaned his head back and shut his eyes. “Is there a chance, if we tried, you could love me again?”

  “No,” she said, and saw the exact moment when it finally sunk into his head. It was really and truly over.

  “You look like something the cat dragged in, man.” Clay figured his friend was in a bad way so he came to the police station to see what he could do. “Where were you last night? I called you five times.”

  “Stayed in Reno. Shut off my phone.”

  “The shooting, or that Lincoln that drove through town?”

  “You heard about that, huh?”

  “There’s very little in this town I don’t hear about. That her husband?”

  “Yup.”

  “Figured as much. She leave him, or did they ride off into the sunset together?”

  “Dunno.”

  “She lives next door to you. How do you not know?”

  Rhys squinted his eyes like he had a headache. “He came down the driveway all duded up in designer clothes, got in my face about Rotten Robbie attacking Maddy, and then disappeared inside her place. When I got home this morning, the Lincoln was gone.”

  “You didn’t knock on her door?”

  “She’ll let me know when she’s ready—send an email, a text, whatever.”

  Clay gave Rhys a hard perusal. “You’ll be okay with it if they’ve reconciled.”

  “Sure.”

  Yeah, right, Clay wanted to say. The boy wore his goddamn heart on his sleeve. “My escrow closed. Let’s grab lunch and I’ll buy you a drink.”

  Rhys muttered, “Had plenty of those,” and grabbed his jacket.

  “And the shooting?” Clay asked on the way over to the bowling alley. “You okay with that?”

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Don’t pull that on me. I’ve been to war. I know what killing a man feels like. And it can fuck you up.”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “But if it makes you feel any better, there’s still plenty of time for PTSD to set in.”

  Once in the Ponderosa, they grabbed two menus and instead of waiting for a host, seated themselves. Mariah waved from behind the bar.

  “Seems like that escrow closed pretty fast,” Rhys said, after a server took their orders.

  Clay shrugged. “Foreclosure—cash deal.”

  Rhys whistled. “Must be nice to be rich.”

  “Not rich anymore. It wiped me out. So buy the goddamn house. Otherwise, my boys ain’t going to college.”

  Rhys rolled his eyes and leaned forward. “Houston wants to make me a homicide lieutenant.”

  “No kidding!” He high-fived Rhys. “You’ve been wanting this for a long time.”

  “Yes,
I have.”

  “Congratulations. Then I guess you’re taking it.”

  “Yup,” Rhys said, falling back against the cushioned bench. “How are the boys? You and Justin patch things up?”

  “No.” Clay let out a breath. “That’ll take some time. Right now he blames me for Jen’s death. I figure better him blame me than having the memory of his mother sullied by the truth.”

  “He’s going to find out eventually.”

  “Yeah, I know. And when that day comes, it would sure help if you lived next door.”

  “You fight dirty, Clay.”

  “I fight to win.” He pulled a pen from his jacket, scrawled a figure on a napkin and shoved it at Rhys. “That’s what it’ll take to get in the house.”

  Rhys shoved the napkin back. “I have it on good authority it’s worth twice that.”

  “Hey, if you wanna pay more, that’ll work, too.”

  “I don’t want to pay anything, since I’m going back to Houston.”

  “You on duty?”

  “Nope—paid administrative leave until the sheriff deems that the shooting was clean. It’s just a formality.”

  There was no doubt in Clay’s mind that the son of a bitch had had a bullet coming. “Hey, Mariah,” he called across the dining room, “get my friend here a Jack, neat.” He turned to Rhys. “When are you going to stop running? This place needs you, Rhys. Sam and Lina like it here and God knows those two kids have been through enough. Now you’re gonna drag ’em to Texas? I’m not buying this promotion shit. Chief trumps lieutenant.”

  “This job’s not permanent.”

  “Bullshit!” Clay waited for Mariah to put down the drinks and go back to the bar. “It’s yours if you want it.”

  “Not if Sandy Addison has anything to say about it.”

  “Screw her,” Clay said. “Now hear me out. I’ll carry the note on the house.” Rhys tried to interrupt him, but he wouldn’t let him talk. “This is a sound business proposal for both of us.” He made a few calculations on the napkin and shoved it under Rhys’s nose. “Over a thirty-year fixed loan this is what you’ll pay the bank in interest—even if you get the lowest rate possible. That’s a hell of a lot of money and I’d prefer you pay it to me.”