She's The Sheriff (Superromance Series No 787)

by Duquette, Anne Marie

  Jondell wasn’t the friendly type, and she’d been unable to locate him at the campsite. That could very well be him, driving a stolen vehicle!

  Gun or no gun?

  Either way, Desiree knew one thing. Her sworn duty as sheriff was leading her straight into the fires of hell.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DESIREE REMOVED her gun belt with its extra bullets and quickly stowed it in Pearl Drop’s saddlebags. A compromise decision, of sorts. She shoved her weapon in her pocket, then moved toward the flames, using the natural landscaping outside the pavement to approach safely. All the time, she watched the moving car try unsuccessfully to make its way out of the flames. The night air and smoke didn’t allow her to see inside the vehicle, even with her flashlight.

  “This is the sheriffs department! I’m ordering you to abandon the vehicle! Get out now!” she yelled.

  No response.

  “There’s no exit! Get out of the car and get away from the flames!”

  Just as Desiree was about to venture into the parking lot, the car stopped. Someone climbed out, turning nervously to the left and right to look at the fiery cars.

  “Over here!” Desiree waved from her upwind position. “Head for me over here!” There was a somewhat safe exit path for a person.

  The driver—a woman, Desiree noticed—ignored her. She actually started unloading the car!

  This fool’s surrounded by burning gasoline, and she’s trying to save—what? Her luggage?

  “Get away from the car! That’s an order!” The woman continued to throw bags and boxes from her car. This time Desiree did use her radio. “This is Hartlan. We might have burn injuries. Inform the ambulance and...”

  Flames flickered down into the gas tank of a large-capacity pickup truck a mere two cars away from her own location at the edge of the paved lot. The gas ignited and started building heat. That process didn’t take long, and the pressure grew quickly inside the nearly full tank. Desiree’s words were cut off by the sound of a huge explosion bouncing and echoing off the mountain walls.

  VIRGIL WORE his portable radio clipped to his jeans waistband and tuned to the sheriff’s band. He heard Desiree’s voice just as the explosion cut her off.

  Desiree? He grabbed the radio, his voice echoing the shout in his head. “Desiree? Answer me!” He ignored Onyx, who nervously sidestepped at the thunderous sound. Despite the darkness of the night, a shirtless Virgil urged his mount faster.

  CARO, TOO, HAD the ranch house’s police radio tuned to the sheriff’s band. She’d been married long enough to know the Bodines’ signal. That tap on the door filled her heart with dread. She knew the brothers always went their separate ways—unless there was trouble. Then they banded together tighter than bats in a cave.

  She’d gone downstairs for the note she knew Wyatt would leave her. She listened to the police radio as she had countless other times in the past. After all, she was a policeman’s daughter, a lawman’s wife. She, like Wyatt, could handle trouble. But this time, the trouble was Desiree.

  Despite her vote, Caro didn’t have half the confidence in her sister’s abilities that she did in the Bodines’. Only the fact that Wyatt and Virgil and Morgan and, yes, Jasentha, too, would look out for Desiree tonight comforted her. She herself would look out for Travis, Cat and Cat’s future sibling. She would be patient.

  Until the sound of Desiree’s voice asking for an ambulance was abruptly cut off, and harried inquiries by Virgil and Marta didn’t raise her. In seconds Caro picked up the ranch phone.

  “Rogelio? Can you send someone over to the house to watch the children and saddle me a horse? Something’s happened to my sister....”

  DESIRE INSTINCTIVELY covered her eyes at the force of the blast. The woman in the parking lot screamed and fell to the ground as the windshield shattered, showering glass through the air. The initial blast over, Desiree raced through the burning cars to the fallen woman. She wasn’t moving, but whether from shock or injury, Desiree couldn’t tell.

  There wasn’t time for standard first aid practices. The heat around her was intense, and the other flaming vehicles held the threat of explosion themselves. Desiree grabbed the woman’s shoulder and lightly tapped her cheek. “Are you all right? Can you... Lozen? Is that you?”

  Lozen Cliffwalker, Jasentha’s mother, blinked open her eyes. “Desiree?”

  “What are you doing here?” they asked at the same time.

  If we weren’t in danger of being barbecued, this might almost be funny, Desiree thought. “Trying to save your skin!” she said.

  “Where’s—where’s Jasentha?” Lozen asked, looking dazed.

  Definitely oxygen deprivation.

  “Jaz is here?”

  “I see her car. I left the hospital so late—an emergency. Drove out to visit her. Saw her car here and decided to check—”

  “You can visit your daughter later,” Desiree interrupted. “This whole place is on fire! We’ve got to get out of here! Can you stand?” Desiree didn’t wait for an answer. Already the heat was searing through her shirt, and rivulets of sweat poured down her temples.

  “What about my car?” Lozen sat up and pushed strands of graying black hair away from her face.

  Desiree yanked Lozen to her feet. “Forget the damn car!”

  “My purse...”

  The woman must be in shock. She’s completely out of it! “No purse! Are you hurt?”

  “No, but, oh, the clothes!” Desiree wasn’t prepared as Lozen pulled away with sudden strength and rushed back to her car.

  “Buy new ones!” Desiree grabbed Lozen’s arm and pulled her back again as flames roared higher all around them. “Your car could catch fire next! Let’s go!”

  “But the clothes are for Jasentha’s baby! It’ll be too late to replace them before the shower!”

  “And I can’t replace you! Move it!”

  “Just the one suitcase in the back! Just that and I’ll go!”

  “No! Nothing!” Desiree tugged at Lozen’s arm.

  A vehicle three cars over exploded, this time sending the hood soaring their way. Desiree saw it coming. She hit Lozen with a fierce tackle, theoretically to move the other woman away from the descending metal. But Lozen hung on to the door handle and the suitcase, ruining Desiree’s plan. Her action did get Lozen clear of the projectile, but she herself was left directly in its path. The hot hood hit Desiree a glancing blow to the shoulder, the force strong enough to slam her headfirst onto the concrete, arms still wrapped around Lozen.

  Pinpricks of light from scrambled nerve endings—the proverbial stars—flashed before Desiree’s eyes as her head bounced off concrete, and then everything faded to black.

  VIRGIL REACHED THE SCENE first. “Oh, my God...”

  He slid off Onyx with record-breaking speed and tied the horse near Pearl Drop. His fingers were keying his radio as he hurried toward the parking lot.

  “Jamie, what’s your ETA?”

  Jamie’s voice crackled through. “Maybe twenty minutes. We’re right behind the fire truck, but not even halfway there yet You know the roads.”

  “Wyatt and Morgan are headed here. They’re right behind me.”

  “Good thing. We can’t help you out yet. Any injured?”

  “Can’t tell.”

  “You hooked up with the sheriff yet?”

  “No. Bodine out.”

  Virgil unfastened the radio from the waistband of his jeans—the only clothing he wore—and dropped it to the ground.

  “Sheriff? Desiree? Where are you?”

  He saw a woman’s hand wave from somewhere in the middle of the blaze. What’s she doing out there?

  The smell of burning vinyl, burning rubber, gasoline and other noxious gases made him choke. He had no light, but someone—Desiree?—was flashing one from the parking tot.

  “Help me!” the woman cried out. “She’s hurt!”

  “Where are you?”

  Virgil studied the maze of burning cars surrounding the woman, sea
rching for a safe way in. The flames, so close by, were already scorching the bare skin of his chest. He could feel the heat through the thin soles of the Italian loafers he’d slipped on bare feet, the easiest footwear to use. The 9 mm he’d grabbed—he hadn’t bothered with the rifle—was shoved into his jeans pocket. He dropped it next to the radio now, trying to figure a way through the flames.

  “Off the side-pillar twenty degrees from the main entrance!” the woman called. “The pillar near the glyphs! Come in from that direction!”

  A local who knew the caves well enough to count degrees?

  “Lozen, is that you?”

  “Yes, Bodine! Caro’s sister isn’t moving, and my arm’s hurt. I can’t get her out!”

  Desiree’s injured? Not moving?

  The words momentarily made him immune to the heat, the gases, the danger. His whole body was arctic-chilled, his heart arctic-frozen, his soul colder than polar ice. He ran toward the side pillar, ran for the back of the parking lot, ran to the rescue. But it wasn’t Lozen who was uppermost in his mind. It was Desiree.

  The flames were everywhere, the gases rising and fouling the air as he zigzagged through the cars. The heat rose through his leather soles, burning feet that had grown soft away from cowboy boots. Virgil hardly felt it. His attention was on the waving arm. He approached cautiously until Lozen was visible. Her free arm hung down at a crazy angle.

  Broken. But where’s Desiree?

  He looked at Lozen’s feet. There, covered with the dirty, singed pastels of a baby comforter, was Desiree.

  He dropped to his knees, his mind registering the blood on her head. He lifted her limp body into his arms and against his chest. “What happened?” he asked in a voice so harsh he barely recognized it as his own.

  “I was late coming here—saw Jasentha’s car. Stopped in the caves to see if Jasentha was working. Then I came out and—” Lozen trembled. “I tried to get my luggage—”

  “You what?”

  “I had things for Jasentha’s baby. Then...then Desiree came to get me, but I wouldn’t leave, and a car hood came flying, and she pushed me out of the way, and—” Lozen burst into tears. “Virgil, don’t look at me like that! I thought I had time! I really thought I had time!”

  “Enough.” He picked up the blanket and covered Desiree’s head. “Grab my waistband with your good arm. Now.”

  Lozen scrambled to obey.

  “Hold on tight. I think I can get us out of here.” Virgil studied the way he’d come in as Lozen coughed and choked. So far, we’re still clear.

  “So help me, Lozen, if you stop to salvage one damn thing, you’re on your own! Hear me? I can’t carry you both!”

  Lozen nodded, once more in control. Virgil tucked the blanket around Desiree’s face:

  “All right, here we go.” Hang on, Desiree.

  He ran as fast as he could with Desiree in his arms. He fell to his knees as another explosion sent flames shooting out sideways in front of him. Trust you to be right in the middle of trouble. He rose and began to run again, the sparks singeing the hair on his arms and head. Lozen’s hand remained tightly hooked to his waistband.

  Spots in the heated asphalt sagged like hot putty, and one of his expensive loafers was pulled right off his foot. He kept running. Where’s the fire truck? Where’s that ambulance? Come on, Desiree...

  He passed the second-last row of cars, where he lost his other shoe. He kept running, feet blistering from the heal With a final rush of adrenaline he raced to the last row of cars, then he was free and out in the open, free and upwind in blessedly fresh, breathable air. Lozen let go of his jeans and cradled her broken arm. He fell to his knees, coughing and choking, Desiree still in his embrace. He pulled the now bloody blanket off her face just as Caro dismounted from her horse, Cactus Blossom.

  “Virgil, are you all right? Who’s that with you?” Caro asked—and then the blanket cleared Desiree’s face, exposing her split scalp, the blood dripping freely over his arm and onto the ground,.

  Caro’s voice rose. “Ray? Ray? Oh my God, what’s happened to her?”

  As Caro rushed toward them, Lozen moved closer to examine Desiree, her medical expertise finally kicking in. “Hold the edges of the head wound together and press hard,” she ordered Virgil.

  Virgil was already doing that. Lozen stared at the blanket, then at her flaming car. “So much for the baby shower,” she said shakily. He could have screamed in frustration.

  Scientists were descending from the nearby caves, Jasentha among them. He barely spared them a thought. He could trust his sister-in-law to guide them to safety.

  “Caro, get Lozen toward the road. Splint her arm until the ambulance shows up. I’ll take care of Desiree.”

  Caro didn’t move. She knelt in the dirt, her trembling hand clasping Desiree’s limp one. “Hey, sis, talk to me. Say something.” Caro lifted her face to Virgil’s, desperation in her eyes. “Is she going to be all right? My God, what am I going to tell Mom and Dad?”

  “What are you going to tell Jasentha if you don’t help her mother? Her arm’s broken! Get her and yourself away from the flames!”

  “No! What if that madman’s still loose?”

  “Whoever did this is long gone,” Virgil insisted.

  “You don’t know that for sure! I’m staying with Ray!”

  In the end, it was a barefoot Virgil who led the two women away from the flames and back toward the horses to wait for help. He carried Desiree and refused to release her, even when they reached the safety of the road.

  “I’m sorry, Caro,” Lozen sobbed. “I didn’t mean for Ray to get hurt, but I just wanted to grab one suitcase—”

  “No talking, Lozen. Deep breaths,” Virgil ordered, for Lozen’s sake. And Caro’s. “You’ve already told me what happened. Did you see anyone besides Desiree?”

  “No one.” Tears of pain and remorse ran down Lozen’s cheeks. “If only I’d listened to Ray.” The whole story came tumbling out again. “I should have listened,” she said. “I should have listened.”

  Caro helped Virgil keep pressure on Desiree’s wound, but Virgil could tell how agitated she was. He felt as close to panic as he’d ever been. He still couldn’t bring himself to place Desiree on the ground. Instead, he sat cross-legged in the dirt, the unconscious woman in his lap.

  There’s nothing to her, he thought. How can such a small woman pack such a large wallop?

  He cradled the delicate shoulders, noting the burned hair and the singed skin on her neck.

  “Is she breathing okay?” Caro asked. “Did she inhale much smoke? Lozen, say something! You’re a doctor! What else can we do?”

  “Caro, please!” Virgil was almost begging. “I hear sirens. The EMTs will take care of her. She’ll be all right.” Please, Desiree, be all right.

  Incredibly, Desiree stirred slightly in his arms, but it was Caro who moaned, Caro who wrapped her arms around her lower abdomen.

  “Oh, no,” she gasped. “Oh, no, not now...”

  Virgil instantly understood. “Quick, lie flat, feet up,” he said.

  “Put them in my lap,” Lozen urged.

  Tears ran down Caro’s face. She did as she was told. The ambulance pulled up a minute later, along with the fire department. Morgan and Wyatt arrived at the same time, from the opposite direction. Jasentha quickly joined them.

  Wyatt reached Caro first, but it was to Morgan that Virgil gave orders. “Tell Jamie to get an APB out on Albert Jondell. He’s at the campground. Have one of the ranch hands pick up my horse and Caro’s. Desiree’s, too.”

  “What happened here?” Morgan asked.

  “I’ll tell you on the way. Lozen, you’ll have to ride to the hospital with Jasentha and Morgan. Morg, Lozen’s arm’s broken. Take her in the truck. Caro’s having pains. We have to prevent a miscarriage. Desiree...” Virgil’s voice caught as he continued to apply pressure to her wound. “Caro and Ray will have to take the ambulance.”

  “I’m going with Caro,” Wyatt in
sisted. He held tightly to his wife’s hand, but Caro nudged Wyatt and gestured toward Virgil’s blistered feet. Wyatt stared at the blisters.

  “Where’re your shoes?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let Virgil ride with me, sweetheart,” Caro urged between deep breaths. She seemed a hell of a lot calmer than Wyatt. “He’ll keep an eye on us, right?”

  Virgil nodded. Even without the blisters on his feet, there was no way he was giving up his place to Wyatt—no way he was leaving Desiree alone.

  “I’ll see you at the hospital,” Wyatt promised his wife as the medical team arrived.

  “I know you will.”

  Desiree was placed on a gurney first, then loaded into the ambulance with Caro. Wyatt and Morgan helped Virgil to a seat in the back. Jamie arrived with reinforcements and the firefighters did what they could with the flames. But this was the desert, not an urban center with hydrants on every corner. As the ambulance pulled away from the parking lot, leaving the flames in the distance, Virgil gazed out the back window.

  He held Desiree’s limp hand on one side, Caro’s tightly clasped fingers on the other, and implored the ambulance to go as fast as possible.

  Desiree, he thought to himself. What have you got us into?

  DESIREE’S EYES FLUTTERED open just as the doctor in Tombstone’s small hospital finished suturing her scalp. She started to sit up, but the pounding in her head convinced her it was a bad idea.

  “Hello, there. Do you know where you are?” the trauma doctor asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Is this where I have to answer dumb questions like what my name is?” she groaned.

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Only if you answer mine.” Desiree closed her eyes. “How’s Lozen Cliffwalker? Do you have an ice pack? And where’s my deputy?”