by Jodi Thomas
Brandon opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind.
She circled beneath the bleachers and crossed the darkness to where Noah had parked his pickup.
“Eight,” she whispered to herself. “He was only on the ground eight seconds.”
Chapter 31
ALEX WISHED SHE WERE AT THE RODEO INSTEAD OF DRIVING the back roads looking for any sign of a spark. It had been two weeks since the last fire. If trouble was going to flame, it would be soon. The guy they were looking for had set maybe as many as seven fires in the past three months. Either he was hooked on the adrenaline of what damage each new one might cause, or he loved to watch the flames build and grow. She could almost see him in her mind, planning, waiting maybe for more wind or a time when he thought no one was watching.
Waiting for her to blink.
She had no intention of blinking. This was her town, by blood and by occupation. She wouldn’t let someone destroy it. She glanced at the man beside her and knew Hank felt the same.
In the past dozen days, she’d seen Matheson about ten times and talked to him on the phone at least twice a day. Neither had mentioned the parking lot episode. She had no idea if he thought about it as much as she did. Hell, it had become her favorite bedtime story on those nights she didn’t fall asleep before her head hit the pillow.
Alex stopped her cruiser at the crossroads of Lone Oak Road and the county highway. Hank got out with his binoculars while she stepped to the front of the car and searched the horizon. They’d been riding together for two hours, both constantly checking in with all other spotters. They’d had a feeling it would be tonight, but now she had her doubts.
Hank wanted them to go together over what he called the eye of the circle. He was guessing they’d be able to spot something first, and if they did, both could be in contact with their people at once. With luck, if a fire started, the police could cut off all exits out of the area and the fire department could move in fast. Putting out the fire would be first priority, but catching the criminal would run a close second.
“Nothing,” Alex said for the tenth time in an hour.
“Nothing,” Hank echoed.
They both knew that all the other fires had been set before nightfall. It was almost an hour after dark. If someone had set a fire, it would be burning bright enough to be seen for miles on a clear night like tonight.
“I’ll check and see if Derwood’s called in yet.” He lifted his cell and nodded toward her radio.
She understood. She picked up the receiver to call dispatch.
She could hear Hank talking as she waited for dispatch to answer. One ring. Two. Three.
“Derwood called in ten minutes ago,” Hank reported as he snapped his phone closed and circled to her side of the car. “Nothing. He’s making another flyover, then I told him to call it a night.” Hank sounded tired. They’d been chasing a ghost every night since the last fire. Both were exhausted.
She’d thought tonight would be the night, almost wished for it, so they could catch the criminal and this all would be over. Even going back to changing the lightbulb outside Dallas Logan’s house looked good compared to what she had been doing.
Fourth ring, then just as the fifth one dinged, someone picked up at dispatch.
“Alex,” Andy’s voice scratched across the radio. “Sheriff McAllen!”
“Here,” she answered as she reached into the car to turn up the speaker so Hank could also hear. “What’s the problem? Any fire?”
“No fire,” Andy was almost screaming at her. “All quiet in that area, but, Sheriff, your brother, Noah, is on his way to the hospital. He was hurt at the rodeo.”
Alex dropped the radio and grabbed her binoculars resting on the hood.
When she turned back to her door, Hank was already there, shoving her aside. “I’ll drive. You call in and see if you can find out anything.”
She ran to the passenger side. Andy had patched her through to the ambulance by the time Hank hit eighty miles per hour.
“He’s breathing,” she echoed what the EMT said. “Looks like a blow to the head and multiple wounds on his arms and legs.” Alex paused, then added, “I heard.”
“What?” Hank glanced over at her. “Alex, what else?”
She looked at him, but didn’t really see him as she repeated the driver’s words. “My dad’s riding in the ambulance with Noah. Adam was at the rodeo.”
Five minutes later, they were pulling up to the county hospital. They jumped out and headed inside at a full run. The ambulance had emptied its load, and everyone had disappeared behind the emergency room doors.
The waiting room and desk were deserted. The place looked old and tired. Alex felt she was walking through death’s parlor; she kept moving.
They ignored the sign that read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY at the next set of swinging doors.
Adam McAllen, tall, thin, and gray-haired, stood alone at the end of the hallway that was marked NO ENTRY. He looked strong as a statue, but she didn’t miss the worry in his deep blue eyes. He was dressed like the successful businessman he was, except for the blood that was spattered across his jacket and the dirt-stained knees of his trousers.
Alex didn’t move into her father’s arms. There had been too many times he hadn’t been there for her. Her brothers might have come to terms with their father leaving their mother, but Alex never had.
Adam held his daughter in his stare but made no move to touch her. “They took him straight to the operating room to do the examination. Both doctors on duty are with him.”
“What . . .” Alex wasn’t even sure which questions to ask.
“I don’t know anything,” he admitted. “But I think it would be wise to call your mother.”
Alex wanted to scream that he should call his own wife. After all, they were still married even though he never called her anything but your mother, and they hadn’t seen each other more than a dozen times since Warren’s funeral three years ago.
But there was no time for that. Noah was all that mattered right now.
Alex walked to the windows and dialed her mother.
IN A MATTER OF MINUTES, THE LITTLE WAITING AREA WAS filled with friends, family and high school kids. If anyone in town had need of the emergency room tonight, they’d have to fight their way in.
The crowd parted as Frances McAllen rushed in. She was wearing a peach jogging suit and looked fit enough to step out on the fifty-yard line and cheer at the Dallas Cowboys football games. Thirty years of being a mother might have turned her hair silver-blond and carved tiny wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, but she was still a beauty.
Frances went straight to her husband.
To Alex’s surprise, her father put his hand on her mother’s shoulder and talked to her softly.
The room went silent and Adam’s words drifted like smoke through the air. “He took a blow to the head, Fran; I think that’s what concerned the doc most. The other injuries look like they’ll heal.”
Fran leaned against Adam’s shoulder and began to cry. A river of ice set Alex’s spine. It was a scene she’d seen once before three years ago. Warren had been dead when they lifted him from the road, but they’d still loaded him into the ambulance and brought him here. Her parents had stood just as they were now, her father talking softly, her mother crying. Two people who never got along in the calm of life clung to one another in crisis.
Alex pushed her way through the crowd. There wasn’t enough air in the world for her to breathe. She made it outside and away from all the bright lights. She couldn’t watch her parents. Not again. She couldn’t look for Hank, either. If she saw Hank now, all the memories of Warren’s death would flood back and she couldn’t deal with it, not with Noah hurt.
Once she passed the doors, the only dark place she spotted was a shadowy drive leading to a back parking lot behind the hospital. Alex almost ran to it.
One person stood in the center of the drive. She saw him too late to choose another direc
tion. Hank. He’d found the darkness before her.
Part of her wanted to turn and run. Part of her knew this one man would be the only one to understand. He’d walked the nightmare once before. He’d hear the echoes of it again.
He turned to her and opened his arms. She stepped into his embrace, needing the strong hug her father had never given her.
He pulled her close. Holding her to earth as he always had.
They stood for a while. When she felt the silent tears running unchecked down her face, she pulled back. “It’s too much like . . .”
“I know,” he answered.
He pushed her hair out of her face. “Noah isn’t Warren. We don’t know much, but we know one thing: Noah’s alive.”
She nodded. “Promise you’ll stay until we know more?”
He smiled. “Of course.”
They moved apart and walked back into the waiting room, where she joined her parents. Everyone else in the room was talking, but she felt she was floating in a silent bubble with her parents. The only thing keeping her sane was Hank ten feet away, keeping an eye on her. She had a feeling if she bolted again, he’d be right there to meet her in the shadows.
Finally, the doctor emerged with a status report. Noah seemed to be out of danger. He had two cracked ribs, multiple bruising, and a concussion. They were keeping him for a few days to run more tests.
Alex closed her eyes and breathed.
Her parents went in to see Noah, and Alex encouraged the friends and relatives to go home. The doctor had insisted on no visitors.
When the last one left, she turned to Hank. “Thank you. For being here.”
“You’re welcome,” he responded, his hands in his pockets. After a moment, he added, “I called in ten minutes ago. Still no sign of fire.”
She’d forgotten about the fire. “Good,” she managed. “I think I’ll ask if I can go in and say good night to Noah.”
Hank moved toward the parking lot. “I’ll be here when you get finished. Take your time.”
“You don’t have to wait.” She frowned. She’d appreciated his presence tonight, but that didn’t make them a couple.
He smiled. “Yes, I do. You’re my ride back to my truck.”
“Oh.” She felt stupid. “Of course. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
In Noah’s room, her parents were on either side of the bed. Her mother clutched Noah’s hand in both of hers. Her father stared at his sleeping son with tubes taped to his arm.
“I can’t stand seeing him like this,” Frances whispered. “His riding days are ended.”
“We’ll talk,” Adam also whispered in his gruff tone.
“He’ll wear a helmet and a vest from now on. He should have had one on tonight.”
Alex let them leave without her, knowing they’d be arguing as soon as they stepped outside the door.
“Hold on, little brother,” she whispered to Noah, as she must have a thousand times when they were growing up. She threaded her fingers through his. “Hold on tight.”
Chapter 32
“I KNOW YOU’RE THERE.” NOAH SOUNDED LIKE HE HAD A sore throat. “You might as well come on out.”
Reagan thought of staying in the corner between the blinds and the shelving filled with supplies. Maybe he’d go back to sleep and when he woke again he’d think he’d dreamed he had seen her hiding.
“Rea, come on out.”
She looked at the door. A nurse wandered in now and then, but she’d heard a racket in the hallway and knew that another round of customers had arrived at the emergency room. Slowly, Reagan slipped from concealment and approached Noah’s hospital bed.
“You look terrible,” she whispered.
He raised his left hand. The back was blue from where it had been stomped on, and the fingers were swollen double in size. Three or four stitches laced across a cut at his wrist.
“I probably look better than I feel,” he said. “My side is killing me and I feel like one of the doctors, the fat one, is sitting on top of my head.”
Reagan smiled. “He is. You want me to tell him to get off?”
The corner of Noah’s mouth twitched. “Any chance you want to hug me, Rea?”
“No, and even if I did, I’d have trouble finding a place on you that’s not bruised, bleeding, or bandaged. They could use your body for the model in a new Operation game.”
Noah lifted his right arm. There was a bandage from his elbow to his shoulder, and his hand had tubes taped to it. “I don’t like this.”
“Me, either.” She scrubbed at her cheek. In fact, she hated seeing him like this, all broken and pale.
“Have you been crying?”
“No,” she lied. She’d waited until everyone left, not knowing what else to do. When a dozen people from a bar fight stormed in, all the hospital staff had their hands full. It hadn’t been that hard to slip between the doors and find Noah. She’d planned to just talk to him a minute, but she’d waited an hour for him to open his eyes.
His cracked lip twitched again. “You were worried about me.”
“No, I wasn’t.” Reagan ducked into the shadows as the door opened.
Noah closed his eyes.
A nurse whose name tag identified her as Georgia Veasey looked at the monitors, adjusted a few bags, and left. Before the door closed, they heard someone down the hall yell that someone had thrown up in room three.
Reagan reappeared and finished her sentence. “I wasn’t worried about you, I was just worried I wouldn’t have anyone to eat lunch with. I’ve kind of gotten used to you bothering me.”
“You should go on home. I’ll be all right.” His words came slow, like someone who hadn’t slept in days.
“No,” she said simply.
“You think I’m lying? I’m just waiting until you’re gone so I can die.”
She bit her lip. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”
He smiled weakly. “You’re staying then? No matter what I say?”
“Until they kick me out. You’re not much in the way of a friend, but you’re all I got.”
He moved his left hand away from his body, making room on the bed. “You may not like any touching, Rea, but I could sure use someone next to me about now. You look tired enough to drop, plus you’re the only one left around.”
She hesitated, glancing at the door.
“What are they going to do,” he asked, “kick you out five minutes earlier? They’ll do it anyway; you might as well rest until she comes back.”
She crawled carefully up beside him and stretched out next to him, her hand gently crossing below the bandages on his ribs.
He sighed and kissed the top of her head. “It’s over, Rea. You don’t have to cry. I’ll be around to bug you tomorrow.”
She closed her eyes, and they both fell asleep to the rhythm of the machines.
Fifteen minutes later, Nurse Veasey opened the door to check Noah’s bags. She froze at the sight before her. A Truman was curled up against a McAllen.
Everyone born in Harmony knew that the youngest, and soon to be the last, Truman had come to live with her great-uncle out on Lone Oak Road. Georgia hadn’t seen the girl up close, but there was no mistaking that wild red hair.
Georgia smiled. The kids were close in age, about sixteen or seventeen, but he looked double her size. The girl was curled close, barely touching him with her hand resting on one of the few spots on his chest not bandaged. They were both sound asleep.
As a nurse, she should wake the girl and tell her to get out, but Georgia couldn’t. Everyone knew Trumans and McAllens never spoke, not for years and years. Yet here they were, curled up together like a lion and a lamb. Only from what she’d heard from her husband, who taught English at Harmony High, the girl was the lion.
Georgia slowly closed the door, knowing it would be an hour or more before she got all the drunks now piling into emergency sorted out, doctored, and sent home to sober up. Let the kids sleep until then. She’d see they weren’t disturbed.
> The feud, if there still was one, could wait for another day.
Chapter 33
UNCLE JEREMIAH WALKED THROUGH THE BACK DOOR AND into the kitchen. He crossed to the sink and washed his hands, then sat down to breakfast.
Reagan had made French toast, which he ate without comment.
“Where’s the McAllen kid?” he asked between bites with the same disinterest with which he asked everything.
“Maybe he spent the night here,” she answered, just to see if Jeremiah would bother to look up from his food.
“He didn’t.” The old man kept eating. “If he had, you’d have set another place.”
Reagan smiled, guessing that if Noah walked into the room in his underwear, Jeremiah would simply tell him to pour himself a coffee and keep eating.
“Noah was hurt last night at the rodeo.” She whispered the words, hoping that would make them sound not so frightening.
Now Jeremiah looked up. “He all right?”
“He will be. I stayed with him until midnight just to make sure he didn’t die, then I drove his pickup home.”
“I thought you two might be planning to leave for parts unknown in that old junker of his.”
“Nope.” She passed him the syrup. “I think I’ll just go to see him as soon as the dishes are done. I won’t be long and I’ll work extra fast to make up the time I’m missing in the orchard.”
Jeremiah nodded as he refilled his cup. “The sheriff told you not to drive until you passed your driving test.”
“I know, and since Noah’s her brother, she’s bound to notice when I drive his truck back into town to check on him this morning.” She stopped and waited.
Like a slow cooker, he stewed on what she’d said a while before he asked, “You want me to drive you in?”
“Would you?”
He nodded. “But I’m not going in. I don’t like hospitals. I went in one back in eighty-seven with one problem and came out with two.” He reached for the calendar on the wall behind the door and marked off the date. “Month is sure going by,” he mumbled, and put the calendar back on its nail.
