Larger Than Life

by Alison Kent

  The last to arrive, Neva reached the Barn after Candy and Spencer had followed Yancey and Holden inside. What irony, she thought, walking from bright light into dim. The first time the showroom was filled to capacity, not a single one of the visitors was here to buy a thing.

  It was in the next moment, however, as her eyes adjusted to the change, that the irony was lost in the face of panic. Two faces, to be exact. One belonged to Candy, her dark eyes wide as they darted from case to case as if accounting lor all of her precious babies.

  But the other face, the face of Liberty Mitchell, her long dark hair pulled back in a scrunchie that emphasized her suddenly pale skin, her wide brown eyes brimming with tears, her usually smart mouth with lips that now quivered—it was the panic in that face raising hackles along Neva's nape and chilling the moisture coating her skin.

  She looked from Liberty, who stood clutching a roll of paper towels and a bottle of Windex with FM resting at her feet, to Candy, to Spencer, to Holden, and finally to Sheriff Yancey Munroe.

  "Uh, hi. Does someone want to tell me what's going on here? The showroom is closed." She tapped the sign in the door's window listing the hours of operation. "So unless you're here for a private viewing or with a warrant, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

  Standing on widespread feet, his arms crossed over his chest, Sheriff Munroe spoke first. "Neva, I have to say I'm disappointed. I've defended you for five years against rumors. Rumors that now appear to be true."

  Neva wasn't sure if the knot of emotion in her stomach was dread or relief. She'd known this was coming—she'd just never expected to be so lucky. The showdown over Liberty might not be a pleasant cap to the day, but at least there were plenty of witnesses to the truth.

  She stepped farther into the room, raised a brow. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Sheriff. Sorry."

  "He's obviously referring to the proof standing in front of us." Holden, posed in the center of the room, turned to face her, the creases in his designer slacks sharp enough to cut glass, as was his vindictive tone of voice. "Proof that you do harbor runaways."

  Before Neva even formed a response, Candy sputtered, "I don't know where you got your law degree, but even I know that part about innocent until proven guilty. Neva picked up the dog on the side of the road. We don't know if he's a runaway or if he was abandoned there."

  Leaning into his elbows propped on one of the display cases, Spencer chuckled. His father glared. Neva used her fingers to cover her smile. Even Liberty regained a bit of the color in her face.

  Holden wasn't amused. "Thank you for that, Ms. Roman. But the runaway you and Ms. Case will be prosecuted for harboring is Miss Mitchell."

  "Who said she's a runaway?" Spencer asked. "If she was, wouldn't she be hiding somewhere instead of working out in the open?"

  "Stay out of this, Spencer." Yancey's voice was low, just this side of threatening, the voice of the law, not that of a father. "It's none of your concern."

  "Liberty's a friend," Spencer argued. "That makes it my concern."

  "He does raise a good point, Yancey," Neva put in before the Munroe family animosity could escalate. "The only one here talking about runaways is Holden."

  Yancey took a long moment to finally remove his sunglasses, hanging them by an earpiece over his shirt collar. He rocked back on his heels and spoke down to the floor as he said, "Then would you care to explain what the girl is doing here? Why you haven't reported her whereabouts to her parents? Why they had to hire an attorney—"

  Spencer snorted. "Sounds to me like someone's jumping the gun, hiring an attorney."

  This time the sheriff's pointed tone of voice nearly clipped the thread of his temper. "Spencer, I told you to stay out of this."

  Spencer pushed away from the display case, taking a long step forward. His ringers flexed as he fought making a list. "You're talking about a friend of mine, and making accusations about my girlfriend. I have as much right to be here as anyone."

  "Spencer, baby." Candy stepped in front of him to soothe. "It's okay—"

  Yancey jabbed a finger at Candy. "You shut your mouth." Another finger at his son. "You go outside. I'm not telling you again."

  Oh, no. Neva wasn't going to be having any of this. She was sick of powerful men running roughshod. "No, Sheriff. You go outside. Unless you have a warrant, you have no rights here and no reason to be interfering with my employers or how I run my business."

  "I'd say based on the evidence, I have every right in the world and the law on my side." Yancey pulled his handcuffs from his belt. "Nevada Case. You are under arrest—"

  "Stop it!" Liberty screamed, heads swiveling her way. "Everyone just stop it! You can't arrest her. I didn't run away. I just wanted a job and she gave me one."

  Holden moved closer, a buffer between the girl and the sheriff. "You left home without telling your parents where you were going, Liberty. You left everything you own behind. Don't feel that you have to defend Ms. Case."

  "I'm not defending her." Liberty stared at the roll of paper towels in her hand. "I only wanted a job. And besides, I lied and told her I was eighteen. I didn't want her checking with my parents about giving me room and board. They won't let me work, and I wanted a job."

  "Liberty, they're very worried about you," Holden said.

  "Then tell them I'm fine."

  "Actually, you'll have to tell them yourself," Neva said, hating that she had to do so. She'd known when she'd offered Liberty the temporary solution that it was just that. Temporary. The girl had needed a place to lick her wounds and get her head together, and Neva never had been able to tell a troubled young woman no. "I can't have you staying here without their permission if you're underage. It's the law, sweetie. I'm sorry."

  Liberty's mouth quivered; her eyes grew wide and wet. "But I don't want to go back. I'm afraid to go back."

  The sheriff blew out a long breath of impatience, at which Neva rolled her eyes and which Holden ignored. He moved to block Yancey's access to the girl, asking her softly, "Why would you be afraid, Liberty?" She shook her head, her pony-tail coming loose, and he prodded again. "Liberty? Why would you be afraid?"

  "I can't tell you."

  "I don't understand. Why can't you tell me?"

  "Because of what happened to Jase!" Liberty dropped to her knees, the dog rising up protectively in front of her as she sobbed. "Because of what happened to Jase."

  Neva started forward, her spine trembling with the fading echo of Liberty's cry. Spencer followed. Already there, Candy bent down, took the towels and glass cleaner out of the girl's hands, set both items on the nearest display case.

  Holden hovered close, yet it was Yancey who took command of the room. "Spencer, take Miss Roman and the two of you wait outside. Please. Neva, you, too."

  Spencer and Candy did as they were told. Neva stayed, shook her head. He was not getting rid of her now. "I'm not going anywhere. The girl needs an advocate, and I'm taking the case."

  "Her family has hired me—"

  One raised palm and she cut off Holden's rhetoric. "Right. To look after their best interests. I'm only interested in Liberty's."

  Yancey looked from Neva to Holden and back. He held her gaze while asking Liberty, "Miss Mitchell. I need to ask you a few questions about Jase Bremmer. Do you want Ms. Case to stay or to go?"

  "Please stay," Liberty whispered, nodding fiercely.

  "Of course I will." Neva offered a hand, helped the girl to her feet, insisting she focus. "If there's anything I don't want you to respond to, I'll let you know. Otherwise, just answer the sheriff honestly and everything will be fine."

  Liberty nodded as Yancey pulled a notebook and pen from his pocket. "Radford called us over this morning and told us that he hasn't seen Jase for a week. When was the last time you saw him?"

  "Last Friday night. A week ago," she answered. "We went out."

  Yancey nodded. "Did Jase drive? Did he pick you up? Or did you meet him somewhere?"

  "I met him
at the Dairy Mart. I had a salad." She shrugged, tilted her head to one side. "Jase had a burger. And a Coke. Except he didn't eat much of anything."

  The sheriff's pen paused. "He wasn't hungry? He was in a hurry?"

  She shook her head. "I think he was nervous. He said he had something he wanted to tell me." Twisting her fingers together at her waist, she cast her gaze down. "I thought he had figured out a way for us to leave Earnestine and be together."

  "Then you were running away?"

  She glanced nervously at Neva, who gave her the go-ahead with a brief nod. "Not really." She rubbed her hand over FM's head. "It's just that we both hated Earnestine so much and wanted to leave, but it was really just talk. We never made any actual plans."

  "Okay." More notes. Another pause. The sheriff looked back up. "So, Jase was nervous. But if not about running away, do you know what it was?"

  She avoided his gaze, reached down to tug on one of the dog's ears. "He'd stolen money from the printing and supply store where he worked."

  Yancey glanced at Holden, who shook his head. Neva did the same. She hadn't heard anything either—surprising, since that sort of gossip traveled as fast as rumors about the Barn.

  The sheriff took it all in, cleared his throat. "This robbery. Did he give you any details? When it happened? What he took?"

  Liberty continued to pet and play with FM, continued to look only at the dog. "It wasn't like a robbery with a gun or anything. He didn't hold up a bank. He just took some of the money he was supposed to deposit out of the bag. I don't know when."

  "I'll have to check with the store tomorrow." Yancey talked while his pen scratched over the paper. "See if they've noticed they're short."

  "They should've noticed," Liberty said with a snort. "He said it was two hundred thousand dollars."

  Neva gasped. "What?"

  Holden frowned. "That's impossible. The Paisleys own that store. I know them both."

  Yancey remained silent, obviously struggling with his own disbelief, finally narrowing his eyes at Liberty. "Are you sure about that—"

  "Yes, I'm sure. God!" The teenage drama queen switched into high gear. "He didn't know where it came from or how it got in the bag. But it had to belong to the guys who came after him later. The ones with the guns."

  "Whoa. Wait just a second—"

  "I'm telling the truth, Sheriff." She pleaded with him to believe. "We ditched his truck at one of the back gates into his dad's ranch. It's probably still there. He thought someone was following us, so we ran. He wanted to hide in an old hunting blind. He'd put it back up after his dad tore it down and he thought we'd be safe there."

  Yancey pondered that for only a moment. "I know where that is. It's a plot he used to lease."

  "We never got there," Liberty added, moving closer to Neva, who wrapped an arm around the girl's shoulders and absorbed what she could of her tremors. "I fell down and couldn't run and then my shoe broke. There were all these trucks and lights and men shouting, and Jase ran off. Then I heard gunshots. And Jase screaming."

  Neva stroked her hand over the girl's hair. "Oh, sweetie. You must've been so scared. What did you do?"

  Liberty sniffed. "This guy, one of the ones after Jase, he told me to walk toward the county road. So I did."

  "He let you go?" Holden asked. "Just like that?"

  She nodded. "No one else was around. He told me if I told anyone what had happened that he would kill me. That's why I came here." She turned her beseeching gaze to Neva. "I'd heard the rumors and thought I'd be safe here. I'd have to answer too many questions back in Earnestine, and I couldn't. I knew the guy with the dreadlocks was telling the truth." She swallowed hard. "That he'd kill me if I talked."

  "Dreadlocks?"

  Liberty nodded at Holden's question. "He was black. And had an accent. Like, Jamaican."

  The sheriff returned his sunglasses to his face, his notebook and pen to his pocket, and headed for the showroom's door, leaving the three of them with a curt, "Excuse me."

  Deciding they could all do with a bit of fresh air, Neva gestured for Holden and Liberty to follow, closing up behind them as the Mitchell family attorney took Liberty under his wing, guiding her around the side of the Barn to the picnic table on the porch.

  Neva followed the duo and the dog, passing the sheriff's car in time to hear a snippet of Yancey's radio call, a mention of a development in the Bremmer case, a request for a state crime scene unit to be called in.

  As appalled as she was at what Liberty had been through, Neva couldn't help but send up a prayer of thanks that her intuition had kicked in days ago when the girl had arrived at her door. Liberty's cries hadn't resonated with the same desperate distress as those of the girls Neva helped whisk away from Earnestine in the middle of the night.

  The teen had been upset, but she hadn't wanted to talk about why she'd come to the Barn. That reluctance had been Neva's first clue that Liberty's plea for a job wasn't about a forced marriage. Taking her in as a boarder and putting her to work had given the situation time to come to a head. An ugly head, yes, but Liberty was safe, and Neva had dodged another bullet aimed at the Big Brown Barn.

  She settled onto the bench beside the girl and leaned in close. "Are you okay?"

  Liberty nodded. "I didn't know how much that was killing me to keep inside. I mean, I'm scared—"

  "Don't be." Holden pushed off from the end of the table on which he'd been leaning and knelt at her side. "You've done nothing wrong. You're not alone in this. And no one is going to get to you. Trust me."

  He sounded so warm and sincerely human that even Neva had to consciously stop herself from being sucked in. Toads of his nature didn't have it in them to be so compassionate, but she didn't have time to analyze the reason for the act.

  In the next second, Candy walked onto the porch from the studio into which she'd obviously disappeared earlier, Spencer in her wake. She glanced at the group sitting around the table. "Is everything okay?"

  Neva gave a small shrug. "I think so. Liberty's been through a bit of an adventure, but the sheriff's on it."

  "Does it have to do with Jase being missing?" Spencer asked.

  Liberty nodded. "I'm sorry. I don't know what happened to him."

  "Shh." Holden. Calming again. "The only thing that matters now is getting you home, and letting your parents see for themselves that you're safe and sound."

  "Do you think that's wise?" Neva didn't like how this pat ending to the drama was going Holden's way. She didn't like it at all. "Liberty can stay here as long as her parents give their permission. It's not like we don't have plenty of space. If she's in danger, being away from Earnestine might not be a bad thing."

  The sheriff walked up then, interrupting what would more than likely have been Holden's objection. "Miss Mitchell, I may need to ask you more questions later, but in the meantime, I'll drive you home."

  So much for her concern, she mused, looking up at the sound of another vehicle arriving unexpectedly. A big black Range Rover with dark-tinted windows spit gravel and rooster tails of dust on its way down the road from the house to the Barn. She wanted to groan; she so did not need anyone else bringing trouble to her doorstep today.

  The SUV pulled in beside the sheriff's car, and everyone at the table turned as the driver shut off the engine. The door opened; a pair of black combat boots, unlaced and tongues flapping, hit the ground, drawing Neva's gaze before drawing a startled gasp she wished she'd managed to stifle.

  It was too late. Everyone had heard.

  "Uh, Neva?" Candy asked as Neva slid from the bench to her feet. "Were you expecting someone?"

  All Neva could do was shake her head because Mick Savin had made his way around the open driver's-side door and captivated her attention. He wore his sunglasses, his outback hat, and a white T-shirt beneath the navy blue sling immobilizing his arm. The shirt was bunched over the waist of a pair of worn jeans, the legs of which were bunched over the tops of the boots.

  He looked like a
man who'd barely managed to dress himself. He moved like a man in pain. She wanted to go to him, prop a shoulder beneath his good one, wrap an arm around his waist, help him get to where he was going as quickly as he could in order to ease the brackets from around his mouth.

  What was he doing up and around? No, wait. What the hell was he doing driving? She couldn't imagine being in his condition and wanting to do more than lie still and sleep. He looked like he'd been chewed up and spit out. The sunglasses he wore did nothing to hide the bruises beneath his eyes.

  But none of that meant that she wanted him here. And she certainly didn't want witnesses to her reaction to his arrival. She walked out to meet him at the edge of the patio, stopping and crossing her arms over her chest to keep him from coming any closer.

  "What are you doing here?" she asked, a question that was much simpler than all the questions behind it, especially the ones demanding she examine why her heart raced so madly at seeing him again.

  He cocked his head to the side, and then he smiled—a smile that made the day that had gone before nothing but a distant memory. God, but she needed help. She was obviously on the verge of losing her mind. She shouldn't have wanted him here, but she'd never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

  He reached up with his one good hand, used his index finger to tug the dark lenses away from his eyes. They sparkled, and her pulse jumped, jumped harder at the sound of his voice when he gave her a wink and said, "I hear from the veterinarian back in Pit Stop that you took my dog."

  After watching Liberty Mitchell willingly leave with that snake Holden Wagner, who'd sworn not to let anyone get to her, Yancey climbed into his car. He slammed the accelerator to the floor, spun his tires out of Neva's drive onto the main road, and hit the switch for his lights.

  Spencer's truck wasn't but a quarter mile ahead, and damn if the boy was going to get home without having his ass handed to him for making fools out of the both of them. The boy had gotten too big for his britches, back-talking in public. Bad enough he had no respect for his father, but to have no respect for the law was an attitude in need of ad-justment.