Her Cowboy Distraction

by Carla Cassidy

  “Lizzy, are you hurt? Can you get up?” Mary asked softly.

  Lizzy opened her eyes and slowly moved to a sitting position, a spasm of coughs overwhelming her for a moment. When the coughing finally stopped, a trembling began in the center of her stomach and slowly worked out, down her arms to her fingers, down her legs to her toes.

  In the faint moonlight that splashed down and with her eyes adjusting to the near-darkness, she could see Mary’s worried face in front of her, and standing just behind her Courtney looked on, her eyes wide in fear.

  “I thought I was going to die,” Lizzy finally managed to gasp. She looked past Mary to Courtney. “Thank God you saw me. Thank God you screamed.”

  “I knew you’d be getting off work, so I was going to run down to your cabin and grab the playpen,” Courtney said. “I stepped outside and saw you…saw him. Oh, Lizzy, thank goodness I stepped out when I did.”

  “Did you see who it was?” Mary asked Courtney as she helped Lizzy off the ground.

  Courtney shook her head. “It was too dark. I couldn’t see his face. I just saw somebody big and with his arm around her neck, and when I screamed he ran off.” Courtney’s voice still rang with fear. “I’ve got to go get back to Garrett. I left him in his crib in my room.”

  As Courtney ran back toward her cabin, Mary led Lizzy toward the café’s back door. Lizzy felt as if with each step she took she was just beginning to awaken from a particularly horrible dream.

  When they reached the back door, she turned to Mary and stared at her in shock as the full impact of what had just happened slivered through her. Somebody had nearly killed her, and that somebody wanted her out of Grady Gulch.

  Chapter 6

  Daniel was in the process of heading upstairs to get ready for bed when his cell phone rang. Picking it up, he was surprised to see from the caller ID that it was Mary Mathis.

  He answered the phone, his heart racing as his thoughts instantly went to Lizzy. “Mary, what’s going on?”

  “Everyone is fine,” Mary began, these initial words instantly sending Daniel’s worry through the ceiling. He clutched the phone tighter against his ear. “Somebody attacked Lizzy as she was leaving work and walking to her cabin. She’s shaken up, and I just thought maybe seeing your friendly face might calm her down.”

  “I’m on my way.” He didn’t wait to hear another word. All he knew was the driving need to get to Lizzy as soon as possible. Mary thought Lizzy needed him, and that was all that was important.

  Within ten minutes he was in his truck and headed to the café, his heart banging painfully hard against his ribs. Attacked. Exactly what did that mean? He should have asked Mary more questions.

  Attacked could denote a number of things. Had somebody hit her over the head? Beaten her up? Tried to rape her? As each possibility crawled through his mind, his heart beat faster, more frantically as he pushed on the gas pedal to get to her as quickly as possible.

  Whatever had happened to Lizzy, it wasn’t so bad that Mary had called him from the hospital, and that was the only comfort Daniel had as he raced toward the café.

  When he veered into the parking lot, it was empty except for Mary’s car, Sheriff Evans’s car and another patrol car. The sight of the official vehicles once again stoked a new raging fear inside him.

  As he entered the café, he saw Mary, Cameron and Lizzy seated at a table. Obvious surprise widened Lizzy’s eyes at the sight of him.

  “I called him,” Mary said to her. “I thought maybe you needed him here.”

  Lizzy’s cheeks flushed a faint pink color. “You didn’t have to bother him. I’m fine.”

  “Well, I’m here now,” Daniel said as he sat next to her with a nod to Cameron. Besides, as far as he was concerned, Lizzy didn’t appear to be fine at all. Her face was chalky pale except for her throat, which appeared angry and red. Daniel wanted to somehow comfort her, but at the moment he was more interested in Cameron getting the answers he needed to apprehend the culprit.

  “You didn’t sense anyone in the area when you stepped out of the café back door to head to the cabins?” Cameron asked.

  “No, nobody,” Lizzy replied, one of her hands rising to her throat. “I just took a couple of steps and then I thought I heard something, but before I could turn around he wrapped his arm around my neck, pulled me tight against him and started choking me.”

  For Daniel that answered his first question of what, exactly, had happened. He tamped down a surge of impatience and reminded himself that if he just listened he’d probably get the full story.

  “And you didn’t see his face at all?” Cameron asked.

  Lizzy shook her head and dropped her hand back to the table. “No. He attacked from behind. I didn’t see anything but dark shadows as he squeezed tighter and tighter.”

  Daniel’s stomach knotted as he thought of her helpless and being choked by somebody. Was this attack tied to Candy’s murder? Was there some killer out there preying on vulnerable women?

  “Did you get any sense of the size of the man? A smell coming from him or any idea of what he was wearing?” Cameron continued.

  Lizzy frowned. “No, nothing like that. It all happened so fast. He was definitely tall and strong.” Her frown deepened. “But, I’m not sure he meant to kill me. I think maybe he was going to just hold on to me until I passed out.”

  “Why would you think he wasn’t trying to kill you?” Daniel could no longer hold on to his silence. The idea of somebody squeezing the life out of Lizzy not only terrified him, but filled him with an unexpected simmering rage.

  “Before he let me go he said that it was a warning, that I should leave town.”

  Cameron’s frown was as deep as Daniel’s. “He told you to leave town?” Cameron said.

  “He said ‘Leave town, bitch. This is a warning, Lizzy, get out of town,’ or something like that,” she replied.

  “‘Lizzy’? He called you Lizzy?” Mary looked at her in surprise.

  “So he knew you by name,” Cameron added.

  Daniel could tell by the widening of Lizzy’s eyes that she hadn’t really processed that information yet. “Yes,” she said, her voice fainter than it had been. “He definitely knew me by name. But, if he’d wanted to kill me, I got the feeling he was strong enough to snap my neck like a twig. I really believe it was a warning for me to leave town.”

  “But, why?” Mary asked in obvious confusion. “Why would anyone want you to leave Grady Gulch? Everyone loves you, Lizzy.”

  “Apparently somebody isn’t a big fan of mine,” Lizzy replied darkly.

  “Anyone giving you problems? Maybe a customer you fought with?” Cameron asked, and it wasn’t lost on Daniel that he’d asked the same kind of questions about Candy after her murder.

  “No, nobody,” Lizzy replied. “Everyone has been extremely nice to me since I’ve been in town. There’s only one person the whole time I’ve been here who looked at me like I was a piece of dog poo on her shoes, and I know she wasn’t the one who strangled me.”

  “Who is that?” Mary asked.

  Lizzy directed her gaze to Daniel, who answered the question. “Maddy Billings was in earlier.” He didn’t need to say any more. He knew that both Cameron and Mary knew the history between him and Madison Billings. “Denver Walton was with her,” he added.

  “If Maddy was going to have her boyfriend strangle anyone, it would be you, Daniel,” Cameron said dryly. “Still, I’ll check him out.”

  “Maybe Deputy Collins will find something. Maybe the attacker dropped something as he ran away or left some footprints or something,” Lizzy said, a slight edge of desperation in her voice.

  Cameron looked at his wristwatch. “He and Deputy Temple should be checking in anytime now.”

  “You know, I was already planning to leave here in the next couple of weeks. Maybe it’s time to move up my timeline,” Lizzy said.

  Daniel wanted to protest. He definitely hadn’t been ready for her to come into his life, but he
also knew he wasn’t ready to let her go…at least not yet. But, he kept silent.

  After all, what right did he have to ask her to stay there and face any more potential danger? He had nothing to offer her and knew that even if he did, she had her promise to her mother to fulfill.

  “I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’d rather you stick around here for a few more days,” Cameron said. “You’re at the center of this particular investigation. You heard his voice, and even though you don’t remember anything else specific about him right now, it’s possible that once some of the shock wears off you’ll remember some little detail that might be important.”

  Daniel could feel the fear wafting from Lizzy, knew that her natural instinct would be to flee from here, where she had no ties and absolutely no reason to remain.

  Still, he knew she would agree to stay because Cameron had asked her to, and Daniel knew he’d never sleep peacefully again with the thought of Lizzy alone in that little cabin behind the café.

  “You can stay out at my place,” he heard himself saying. “I’ve got plenty of guest rooms and you’ll be safe there.” It was impossible to read Lizzy’s eyes as she turned to look at him.

  “That’s a great idea,” Mary said before Lizzy could protest. “And I’ll get busy hiring a couple of new waitresses to fill the vacancies.”

  “I’m not a vacancy yet,” Lizzy said. “Even if I stay out at Daniel’s, I don’t intend to quit working here.” She raised her chin slightly. “He can chase me away from my cabin, but I’ll be damned if he’ll make me quit my job before I’m ready to.”

  “That’s up to you,” Cameron said, “although I definitely think it’s a good idea if you move out of the cabin until we have this all settled.”

  “What about Courtney?” Lizzy asked. “Rusty can probably take care of himself, but I don’t want her and little Garrett to stay out there all alone.”

  It touched Daniel that, despite the fact that she was the one who had been attacked, her thoughts were for her friend and her little son.

  “I’ll get Courtney and Garrett settled in at the motel for the rest of tonight and then we’ll figure something out for them more permanently tomorrow,” Daniel said.

  At that moment Deputies Temple and Collins walked in, both of them wearing expressions of defeat. Daniel felt not only his own disappointment but also everyone else’s at the table.

  “Nothing,” Deputy Collins said with a frown. “We couldn’t find anything in the area. We searched in the direction Courtney said he ran and found nothing there, either. He must have run hard and fast, but he didn’t drop or leave anything behind that we could find.”

  Cameron drew a weary hand through his dark brown hair. “Ben, why don’t you head out back and see to it that Courtney Chambers gets moved from her cabin to the motel for the night.”

  “Will do,” Ben Temple said and immediately turned and went out the door.

  “And Jim, see if you can find anyone who might have seen a car parked around this area, or somebody running down the streets,” Cameron continued.

  “Do you think this has something to do with Candy’s death?” Lizzy’s voice sounded smaller than usual as she looked at the sheriff.

  He hesitated a long moment. “I don’t know. To be honest, it’s just too early to tell. If it was the same person who attacked Candy, then I don’t know why he didn’t wait until you were alone in the cabin to attack you. He took a chance doing it out in the open, where somebody might see. And then there’s the matter of the weapon. He used a knife on Candy, but you haven’t mentioned him having any weapon.”

  Lizzy shook her head. “All he had was his arm wrapped tight around my neck.”

  Cameron rose wearily to his feet. “Right now my gut instinct tells me these are two isolated incidences, but I’m not ruling out any connection between Candy’s killer and what happened tonight.” He turned and looked at Mary, and his gaze softened. “You make sure you lock up tight here, and we’ll continue patrols.”

  “Our living quarters are secure,” she replied.

  He nodded. “Make sure they stay that way. Doors locked whether you’re in there or not.” He turned his attention to Daniel. “Take this woman to your place, where I know she’ll be safe for the rest of the night.”

  “I’ll keep her safe.” Daniel felt his determination rumble in his chest. Nobody would hurt Lizzy as long as she was with him. He’d make sure of it. He turned to look at her. “Shall we go pack your things?”

  She nodded and together they got up from the table. “Call me if you think of anything else,” Cameron said as they headed for the back door.

  “Trust me, you’ll be the very first person I call,” Lizzy promised.

  It wasn’t until they stepped out into the dark of night that Lizzy edged closer to him, as if fear alone controlled her movements.

  He hated that. In his brief relationship with Lizzy she’d appeared fearless, and it broke his heart to know that some of that charming courage had been stolen away from her by an unknown attacker.

  “Wait here,” she said just outside the cabin door. “It will just take me a few minutes to gather up my things.”

  Daniel stood at the door and listened to the sound of her packing. He stared toward the back door of the café. If he had his way he wouldn’t have wanted her to continue working, but it wasn’t his call. It had to be hers, and apparently she didn’t intend to let anyone chase her away from the café.

  What was going on in Grady Gulch? Who was behind these attacks? Like Sheriff Evans, Daniel wasn’t convinced that Candy’s murder and the attack on Lizzy were related, but the idea that they might be was horrifying.

  Lizzy’s attacker had warned her to get out of town. Why? Why would her leaving town be important enough to somebody for him to attack her? What would happen if she didn’t heed the warning and remained here?

  She would be the first woman in his house since Janice had died, and the idea of having Lizzy beneath his roof, albeit in one of his guest rooms, both excited and terrified him.

  He’d offered to take on the responsibility of her for safety reasons and certainly had no intention of offering her anything more than room and board, his protection and friendship.

  But, he had nothing more to offer her. No matter how much he wanted to taste her lips, no matter how much he wanted her in his bed, he wasn’t about to do anything that might make her believe there was a future there with him, not that she’d given any indication that she wanted one.

  He just wanted to keep her safe, and he hoped he was doing the right thing by bringing her home with him. The last thing he wanted was to be responsible in any way for another woman’s death.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Lizzy followed behind Daniel’s truck in her own car. She had no idea if she was doing the right thing or not by going home with Daniel. His offer had shocked her, and the fact that she’d accepted his offer had equally stunned her. But, there was no question that she was afraid, and the only people she truly trusted in this town were her waitress buddies, Mary and Daniel.

  She kept telling herself she needed distance from Daniel, that he was the first person in her travels who held a threat to her plans, to her promise to her mother. He had the potential to be the right man, but it was definitely the wrong time in her life to entertain any kind of romantic thoughts.

  Don’t be silly, she told herself. He was still tightly bound in love to the wife he’d lost. He’d given her no indication that he was ready to move on. Rather, to the contrary, he’d made it clear that he had no desire to move on with anyone.

  He’d offered her a safe haven, and right now that’s all she wanted. If she’d had to stay in that cabin, she would have never slept again. She wasn’t worried about Rusty, who was a tough older man, but she was grateful that Sheriff Evans was making other arrangements for Courtney and Garrett.

  Get out of town, bitch. The words thundered in her brain, and she clutched the steering wheel with tightened fi
ngers. Who would want her out of town, and why? She wasn’t a threat to anyone. She didn’t know anything that might harm anyone. She had no secret knowledge that could destroy a marriage or wreck a business. Even though she had discovered Candy’s body, she certainly had no information that could point a finger to her killer.

  It didn’t make sense, and when something didn’t make sense it worried her. It also didn’t make sense that on some level she was eager to see Daniel’s home, to see the things he surrounded himself with every day, things that might tell her more about the man.

  And even though she’d be leaving there in a couple of days or so, she wanted to know more about Daniel the man. There was no question that in the week she’d been spending time with him, some of the dark shadows in his eyes had abated.

  Mary had warned Lizzy not to break his heart, but what Lizzy feared would happen was that if she wasn’t cautious, she’d be the one leaving there with a broken heart.

  By the time they pulled up in front of Daniel’s house, not only was Lizzy exhausted by the adrenaline that had finally dissipated from her since the attack, but she was also tired of overthinking everything.

  She got out of her car at the same time Daniel got out of his truck. He walked with her to the trunk of her car, where she’d stashed three hastily packed suitcases.

  She grabbed the smaller pink toiletry bag while he lifted up the two larger suitcases. They didn’t speak as they left her car and walked to his front porch.

  He set the suitcases down, unlocked his door and then ushered her inside. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected of Daniel’s living room, but the homey atmosphere created by overstuffed furniture and dark wood end tables atop a huge braided rug that complemented the gleaming hardwood floors wasn’t it.

  There was a bookcase against one wall holding a variety of books about ranching and several small bronze sculptures of cowboys. The couch was situated in front of a beautiful stone fireplace, and it was easy to imagine stealing some of the throw pillows from the sofa to lie on the floor in front of a roaring fire. A flat-screen television hung above the fireplace mantel, and Lizzy knew that Daniel probably spent most of his spare time sprawled on the sofa watching TV.