Winsor, Linda

by Along Came Jones

  Gee, eat favorite treats or take out a guy big enough to break a dog in half? It was a no-brainer. Why she'd ever longed to have a dog eluded her at the moment. She edged back to the bathroom and closed the door without a sound, thanks to the healthy dose of cooking spray she'd put on the hinges the other day With luck, the intruder would never know she was inside.

  But if something did go wrong, what would she do? Deanna glanced at the tub. Hide behind the shower curtain? Her overactive imagination played the infamous shower scene from an old Hitchcock movie, nipping that idea in the bud. If a confrontation were in order, she'd at least see what was coming at her.

  A rattle of doors from the other side of the bathroom wall froze thought and breath. The gun cabinet. Oh great. Now she had an armed burglar to deal with.

  What am I going to do? She stared at the useless bolt on the bathroom door. It had no keeper to lock into. As long as the burglar had dog biscuits, nothing but a well-buttered door was between Deanna and the gun thief in the other room. She should have brought a knife with her from the kitchen. She should have holed up in a room that had an escape route. She should have—

  The bolt of a rifle clicked and reclicked, cutting off her second thought. Had he loaded one of Shep's guns?

  God, don't let him shoot the dog—or me, for that matter, she finished, awash with a sense of foolishness. She ought to let the dog pray for itself. She ought—

  She was panicking. She tried forcing breath through her fear-strangled throat. Glancing about for anything she might use to defend herself, she quickly assessed her arsenal: a plunger, a toilet bowl brush, a few men's toiletries. Useless, all useless—unless she was going to pin an armed man to the wall with the plunger and brush him to death.

  Her frantic gaze came to rest upon a small book lying open on the back of the commode. It was a devotional like the ones Gram used to read daily. Oh, God, I really need Your help.

  Deanna grabbed it, desperate for some instruction. The boldface type at the top of the page read, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13."

  "But, Lord, it would be so much easier if I had a gun to even my odds." Without thinking, she leaned against the lid on the tank. Time stood as still as Deanna's heart at the scrape of raw iron to raw iron. The words of the verse echoed in her mind again and again until suddenly, they offered more than comfort.

  Brightening, Deanna lifted the porcelain-coated top from the back of the toilet and raised a silent prayer beyond the rust-dotted exhaust fan in the ceiling. Thank You, Jesus!

  The lid was heavy, but not too heavy to lift. If the stranger did find her, she'd be able to manage only one swing, so it would have to count. In one step, she backed against the wall to the side of the door as footsteps sounded in the hall. If the man just took the guns and left, she'd remain right where she was, but if he so much as—

  The knob beside her turned and the door flew open against the adjoining wall. Deanna's thought launched into action. Hard as she could, she swung the heavy lid upward and into the face of the man who stepped through the doorway. The dull clang of it striking the intruder in the face sent vibrations up her trembling arms. It was followed by two successive thumps—that of her victim and that of her weapon striking the floor in the little hallway.

  In the remote light from the bedroom door and kitchen, Deanna retrieved the lid lying on the stunned man's chest in case she needed it again, when she saw blood seeping from his nose. As the downed figure felt for his face with uncoordinated hands, she lifted the lid once again as a precaution.

  He groaned, his fingers brushing his nose, and then his hands fell limp upon his chest.

  A sick, sinking feeling threatened to take out Deanna's knees. "I've killed him."

  She dropped the tank lid with a clang and grabbed towels from the rack on the wall. Kicking the hunting rifle he'd carried beyond reach in case he regained consciousness, she knelt and raised his head before he choked on his own blood. No, she needed to tilt his head back to stop the bleeding. Or should she try to sit him upright? Why hadn't she paid more attention to the first aid class in her Scout troop instead of selling more cookies than anyone in the entire district?

  Now finished with his treats, Smoky trotted up to where Deanna frantically rolled a towel and stuffed it under the unconscious man's head. Head cocked in seeming uncertainty, the shepherd mix gave a short, inquisitive bark.

  "Oh hush up, you wuss. If you'd done your job, I wouldn't be—" Before she could finish, her unhelpful, unpredictable companion bolted back into the bedroom, overtaken by yet another fierce surge of barking.

  Was there someone else out there? To Deanna's dismay, Smoky's outburst suddenly grew fainter and fainter. The dog had jumped through the open window. Dare she hope he'd drive off the intruder?

  Half frozen with fear and half with hope, she heard what sounded like a vehicle door slamming. The fickle animal must have heard its approach and now, of all things, ran out to greet the driver. Smoky might be man's best friend, but he definitely wasn't this woman's.

  Dear Lord, make it a friend.

  No sooner had the prayer formed in her beleaguered mind than a man's voice hailed her from outside. "Deanna!"

  "Shep!" Thank You, God. Thank You, thank You, thank You!

  Springing to her feet, she nearly tripped over the tank lid to meet her knight in shining armor as he raced into the house with Smoky at his heels.

  "What the—"

  She threw herself into Shep's arms, babbling in relief. "Burglar... broke in... dog biscuits... worthless ball of barking fur..." The words poured out, incoherent against Shep's chest, her tears soaking into the warm cotton of his shirt. "Your guns..."

  "Take it easy; it's okay." Shep pried Deanna from her death hold around his neck, his voice soothing sweet to her ears. "Everything is all right, but I need you to pull yourself together, okay?"

  Shep was right. He was here and he was right. It was okay She'd survived and Shep was here. Deaf to her thoughts, her lungs struggled with large hiccoughing gasps while her pulse thundered in denial between her temples.

  "I... he... I k-killed a man." Try as she might, she couldn't make her babble coherent.

  Shep held her back at arm's length, staring in confusion. "What?"

  Hapless, she pointed toward the dimly lit central hall.

  Brushing her aside, Shep hurried to the side of the still, bloody-faced intruder. As he put his fingers to the man's throat, Deanna's released a squeak of a whisper. "Is he dead?"

  "No, but he's going to wish he was," he told her grimly "Turn on the hall light and then get some ice in a bag... and more towels."

  It took a moment for the order to register. Shep's level voice and methodical actions effected a semblance of calm on the storm-pitched sea of emotion in her brain. Everything would be fine. Shep could handle the stranger, should he regain consciousness. Shep could call an ambulance on his radio. Shep could fix everything.

  Still trembling, she backed away from the men and fumbled for the switch. With a click the hall filled with light.

  "Oh no!" What little comfort Deanna had begun to feel was shattered by Shep's explosive outburst. "For the love of—"

  It was probably just as well that she didn't understand the rest of what he said as he pulled the unconscious stranger upright and dragged him against the wall, so that it supported his back.

  He shot the frozen Deanna a riveting glare. "Get me that ice!" The scarcely checked hostility in his voice startled her into action.

  Behind her, she heard the victim moan.

  "Easy, Ty, just sit tight," Shep said, returning to that soothing, all-is-under-control tone. "We're going to take care of you, buddy."

  Ty? Buddy! Her stomach did a slow rollover as Deanna stumbled to the refrigerator and yanked it open as if she were being sucked into a raging vortex of desolation and it was her only escape. The cool metal door offered support, but not against the winds of condemnation lashed at her from within.
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  Smoky's barking had been a greeting, not a threat. She'd nearly killed one of Shep's friends. How could she explain that all she could think about was the people who'd set off a car bomb in C. R.'s car and ransacked her apartment? That the best she could have hoped for was a burglar and not an assassin?

  The burn of ice against her groping fingers hardly registered as she tugged a tray loose from the frozen grip of the freezer shelf. All she felt was a desire to crawl into the freezer and close the door behind her until she was too numb to register anything at all.

  "Deanna, what are you doing?" Shep demanded from the hall.

  But there was no escape. Not for her. Not this time. She dumped the ice onto a kitchen towel, watching the brittle cubes fall, cracked and broken as the hope she'd begun to find at Hopewell.

  Fourteen

  Tyler McCain looked like death warmed over as he lay on Shep's bed, propped upright on pillows. Shep had managed to get Buffalo Butte's own rodeo star cleaned, bandaged, and in a fresh shirt. Now he tried to convince the sandy-haired broncobuster to let them take him to the hospital. He didn't think Ty's nose was broken, but Shep thought his lip needed stitches on the inside.

  "I've had worse than thish," Ty declared, his voice distorted by the swelling of a split lip.

  "I am so sorry, Mr. McCain." Deanna pressed the ice bag, which Shep found when her makeshift one fell apart, to the young man's mouth. "I honestly thought you were a burglar stealing Shep's guns. If you hadn't come into the bathroom where I was hiding—"

  Ty moved the bag aside. "I told you, it's perfectly undershtandable. If I wash in your position, I'd have done the shame thing. Though I don't rightly know if I'd have thought to flail the dickensh out of shomeone with a toilet tank lid." The charismatic smile that Shep had seen make seasoned cowgirls trip over their own ropes broke into a wince. "I'll never live thish one down, buddy"

  "You shouldn't try to talk," Deanna chided, easing the cold pack back. "Now you hold this, and I'll get another ice bag for your eye and nose. That one is almost melted."

  "It'ch fine. I gotta get back to my buddies at the hotel."

  Shep overrode him. "Go ahead and get another, Deanna. If you can't get him to the doctor with a split lip and concussion, maybe frostbite will do it."

  The stricken look she gave Shep made him feel guilty for the acrid note in his jibe, but she wasn't the only one with unsettling secrets. Besides, she'd practically packed his friend in ice in her effort to make up for the damage she'd done. And she had been trying to protect his guns.

  When Shep pulled up by the house and saw Smoky vault through the open bedroom window, he'd felt an icy dagger of dread run through his chest, given what he knew about the people after Deanna. Only years of experience made him stop long enough to retrieve the long-handled flashlight/nightstick he kept beneath the driver's seat.

  On hearing the sheer terror in Deanna's answer to his hail, he thought certain he'd have to use it, but instead of finding her at the mercy of some drug thug, he'd found an old friend in need of protection from her.

  "I don't think you ought to be driving," Shep spoke up. "Why don't you let me take you back to your friends? Deanna can follow me in the Jeep." He had to go back to town anyway. Maisy O'Donnall had hailed him over to the diner as he left the sheriff's office to remind him of the church fund-raiser meeting that evening. Shep would skip it, but he'd been elected the chairperson.

  "Nah," Ty declined. "Just radio Esther and have one of them come get me."

  "I've got to go back to town anyway," Shep informed him, ending the subject with the finality of his tone. "But I will raise her and have her tell your friends what's going on. They can kick around town and plan on heading out tomorrow if you're up to it."

  Tyler and some of his rodeo cronies had taken a few days off to go hunting. Since Ty and his father, who had one of the nicest spreads in Montana, had a falling out over Ty's wanderlust in the rodeo circuit, he kept most of his belongings at Hopewell. That was why he'd parked behind the livery stable to pick up his camping gear. But Shep kept all the guns on Hopewell locked in his gun cabinet. When Ty found the door locked, he'd just come in the same way he and Shep used to when they were wayward teens not wanting to awaken Uncle Dan and Aunt Sue. He knew Smoky from previous visits, although it took a few dog biscuits to reacquaint himself with the ruffled dog.

  "Couldn't think of that pup's name for the life of me," he'd told Shep and Deanna as they tried to clean him up, "But I shaw that tin of dog bischkets on the porch and remembered what a shucker he was for them."

  Ty had no idea when he decided to wash some of the gun cleaning oil off his hands that a frightened female armed with a toilet tank lid was waiting for him. If she'd hit him head on, Shep wasn't so certain a hospital could have helped him.

  "Besides—" Shep gingerly lifted away the expired ice pack from over his friend's eye—"you've lost most of today anyway. And it's gonna be wet tonight according to the weather band."

  "You're the boss man," Ty conceded. "If things were different here, we'd love to have you come along. Might spot that red you've been after."

  "Nearly had the rascal the other day," Shep said. "No, I have to shore up some things around here before I can bring him in."

  "You just shay the word, and me and the boys'll come up and help. I'd love a chance at bustin' that one."

  "Appreciate the offer, partner." Shep turned toward the door, calling over his shoulder, "Now stay put till we're ready to leave."

  Deanna passed him in the central hallway on her way back with another ice pack. Avoiding Shep's gaze, she hurried into the bedroom. Once again, he heard her apologize. Right now Shep had to build up a trust of another kind, and it wasn't going to be easy, knowing what he knew now. He took up the radio mike. Trust was hard to build on a false foundation.

  It took a while before Esther responded and promised to give the traveling circuit riders the message.

  "And keep an eye on him, Esther. He took a hard knock," Shep advised.

  "I will, but you haven't forgotten our meeting tonight, have you?"

  "No, Maisy reminded me this afternoon." With all that was going on, it had slipped Shep's mind until then. The church needed a new roof, and the citizens of Buffalo Butte weren't exactly rolling in dough enough to do it out of pocket. "I'll see you later."

  As he signed off, Shep glanced out the kitchen sink window at the stable, thinking about bringing Ty's truck around when it dawned on him that there were no curtains on the rusty white rod over it. In fact, there were no curtains at any of the kitchen windows. He'd been so absorbed with taking care of his friend, he hadn't noticed.

  "I've never seen a rodeo," Deanna was saying in the other room. "I mean, I saw one on television, but.

  She had that same note of awe as the wide-eyed teenaged girls who stood in line to get autographs from the circuit riders. It used to amuse Shep, but for some reason, it annoyed him at the moment. With a disdainful set of his mouth, Shep interrupted Ty's open invitation to come as his guest anytime.

  "Deanna, where are my kitchen curtains?" He hadn't technically bought them, but he had inherited them. Thus justified, Shep crossed his arms and stared out the sink window at the barn where Patch helped herself to a drink at the watering trough. When the mare finished and meandered away and he'd still heard no answer, he turned to ask again but stopped short at the sight of the distraught young woman standing in the hall.

  "I washed them," she answered in a small voice.

  Instinct bade Shep hold his tongue, but it didn't stop a finger of anxiety from skimming the back of his neck. If her manner was any indication, she'd done something terrible.

  "And they fell apart." Her chin quivered, but she mastered it. "They were yellow with age and I bleached them... apparently too much. I know I sound like a broken record," she said, haplessly tossing up her hands, "but I'm sorry"

  Trust, an inner voice reminded him. He was supposed to win her trust and biting off her head was not the w
ay to do it. Besides, it was hard to tell how old the curtains were. More than likely his Aunt Sue had been the last one to wash them. Disaster seemed waiting around every corner for this woman to waltz blithely through it.

  "Guess they needed replacing anyway." Terse as his admission was, Deanna seized on it.

  "You can see through the glass in the windows now." The spark of hope lighting in the desolation that possessed her face disbursed the remainder of Shep's irritation, even though he didn't recall not being able to see out of them.

  "Oh yeah. They look good." Actually he'd thought they looked good before, too, but why hurt her feelings? It was bad enough that he was going to spy on her and win her trust. The whole ride back from town, he'd argued with himself and God about his obligation to allow Deanna Manetti, a wanted woman, to stay at Hopewell. He owed the DEA nothing, especially not Jay Voorhees. He owed her nothing, save a car repair, which he could honor while she was under someone else's watch.

  Yet, for every argument Shep came up with against sheltering her, he kept thinking of the Scripture about as one does to the least of others, so one does to Christ. What if God had turned him away when he'd been on the run? True, it hadn't been from the law, but it had been from life. In the wilderness of the high country, Shep had slowly healed, both physically and emotionally. He reestablished the relationship with God that had faded.

  Maybe he could help her by this charade. The idea certainly took some of the bitterness out of working with Voorhees again and made Shep feel a little less guilty to boot.

  "I saw Patch out there looking at the house. Guess she's hungry." Shep glanced out the window to see if the horse was still in the corral. She was. "If you can keep Ty down till I get my chores done, we'll take him to town and grab some dinner. I have to go to a church meeting after that, but it won't be long."

  Deanna glanced down at her rumpled clothing. "I'm afraid I'm not decent enough to go anywhere. Not even a dryer sheet will help now."