by Sylvia Fox
7
I stayed up late, lost in a Carson McCullers book I couldn’t put down. Morning came and went while I slept, so I wandered over to J.P.’s place to check on his progress. To his credit, my car was up on a lift and parts were scattered about. Whether he was accomplishing anything but looking busy, I couldn’t tell, but he’d evidently taken Rosie’s warnings to heart and he was at least putting in some time on my ride out of Lonely Pine. I was a little disappointed that Lester the dog was snoring loudly in the bed of J.P.’s truck. I’d missed my escort when I’d explored town the day before.
The mechanic did have one piece of unsettling news for me. He’d found a device hidden inside one of the wheel wells, a GPS transponder. I was puzzled at first by it, but then everything clicked. That was how Turtle had tracked me.
I wondered how long he’d been monitoring my comings and goings. He and I were so fucking finished. He disgusted me.
I thanked J.P. for the update and for his hard work.
“Since this ain’t yours, I’ll have a little fun with it if you don’t mind. I’ll put it on somebody’s car I know is heading into Mexico,” he suggested. “Send your stalker on a wild goose chase. What do you think?”
“I think I’ll be buying you an extra slice of pie tonight at Rosie’s,” I told him, laughing.
With nothing else to do, I walked back over to Pages From the Past, the book store, to scratch Hemingway’s chin and say hello to Ruth.
When I walked in, Ruth was talking to an old woman with a shoebox filled with paperbacks she was trying to sell.
I smiled at her and spotted Hemingway toward the back of the store, disappearing around a set of shelves. I tried to sneak up on him, saying “A-ha!” when I turned that same corner, but the surprise was mine.
Standing there, apparently waiting for me, was Turtle.
“This shit has gone on long enough, Darcy. You’ve even got the fucking sheriff harassing me? You’re coming home with me. Right now. I’m parked in back. Let’s go.”
He grabbed my arm before I could react, pulling me toward a curtain hanging over what I’d guessed must be a stockroom or office at the rear of the store.
Hemingway hissed at him, but my fear, and the memory of him hitting me, robbed me of my voice. I wanted to protest, to scream, to pull away and run, but no sound came from my open mouth.
He yanked me through the curtain and into a dimly-lit room with stacks of books and boxes, and I could see a door down a corridor that must have led to the parking lot. I was terrified.
“You’re hurting me! Please stop!” I managed, but my voice was little more than a squeak.
He only pulled harder, wanting to get me out of the store and into his truck as quickly as possible.
As we approached the door, I saw my chance, my last chance perhaps, and I intentionally knocked over a stack of boxes, which I knew would cause a loud crash.
“You stupid bitch!” Turtle hissed at me, and this time he grabbed me around the waist and picked me up off the floor like a caveman.
My adrenaline surged, and I found my voice again, screaming for help at just the instant Ruth appeared in the storeroom.
The last thing she expected to see, however, was me being abducted by a hulking man, and her panic froze her.
“Stay out of this. It doesn’t concern you!” Turtle shouted at her, and he pushed through the door toward his waiting truck.
I began to struggle, and he dropped me from his shoulder to the ground, pushing me forcefully up against his truck.
“I don’t know what your problem is, but calm the fuck down. You had your little escape. Time to come back to the real world. You got that? Nobody walks out on me.”
He was screaming at me, red-faced. I could smell alcohol on his breath.
“Hey, what’s going on back there?”
A man’s voice called out, and then I heard footsteps running in our direction.
“None of your fucking business. Get out of here before you get hurt!” Turtle warned.
The stranger was a few years older, but he resembled Darrell, the boy I’d met riding a horse when I first arrived in town. He ran up to Turtle and directly into an overhand right. The punch crumpled my would-be savior, and he didn’t appear capable of continuing the fight.
I took the distraction as my opportunity to run, but I only made it a few steps before Turtle tackled me onto a strip of grass between parking lots. The wind knocked out of me, I began to cry.
He stood over me and gestured to the man he’d punched.
“See what you made me do? This is your fault, Darcy. But to hell with it. You line ‘em up, I’ll knock ‘em out. The whole damn town if I have to. But at the end of all that, you’ll be in my truck and we’ll be on our way back to Phoenix,” he snarled.
I said a silent prayer that Ruth had called for the sheriff, but who could say how long it would take him to arrive? Rosie and her shotgun seemed more likely to save me, but there was a building between me and her place. My hope dwindled as he bent over to pick me up off the ground.
A loud “pop” followed by a hiss drew Turtle’s attention, and he took off running toward the sound shouting: “Hey! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
I sat up and watched a man in a cowboy hat plunge a knife into the rear tire of Turtle’s truck, and the air escaped with the same hiss I’d heard a moment ago. Two tires were now flattened, and the man rose and sheathed his knife.
I hadn’t been able to make him out at first, but excitement lifted my spirits. It was the Ranger I’d noticed two days ago at Rosie’s. The incredibly sexy Ranger, to be more precise.
Turtle charged him, but slammed on the brakes when he got close enough to notice the star on his chest.
“That’s my truck, you asshole! Private property! Badge or no podunk badge, you can’t get away with that!”
The Ranger was unperturbed in the face of Turtle’s wrath.
“I was hoping it would give you reason to take a swing at me,” the Ranger explained. “That way, I could have some fun with you, fat boy. Otherwise, I just cuff you and turn you over to the sheriff. Should have figured you wouldn’t have the balls, though.”
Turtle turned bright red and shook with rage. He looked at his truck, then back at me, then at Lincoln Sinclair, the Ranger.
“Are you fucking kidding me? If I didn’t know you probably had ten of your friends on their way here right now, I’d stuff that star down your fucking throat!”
The Ranger smiled under his hat and reached down to his chest and removed the star he had pinned there. Ruth had come out of the store, and he walked over and handed it to her.
“No, no backup. And now, no star. I’m just a guy. Like you, just not near as ugly. Take your shot.”
Turtle balled his fists. His chest heaved. I could tell he was beyond furious, but, drunk or not, I didn’t think he’d actually take a swing at a law enforcement officer.
Of course, I’d never expected him to take a swing at me, either.
Sheriff Blinn pulled up, and a small crowd of Lonely Pine’s citizenry began to gather. The Ranger and Turtle stared each other down for several moments before the lawman spoke.
“Last chance to punch your way out of here, you chump. Otherwise, you just go to jail.”
Turtle turned back to me and began to take a step. With speed that belied his bulk, he spun, throwing a haymaker at the Ranger.
The punch missed by a hair as the Texan leaned left just in the nick of time. He returned a punch of his own, a thudding body shot that dropped Turtle to one knee.
Rather than press his advantage, the Ranger backed up, and motioned for his opponent to rise. “Come on. Get up. At least give me a light workout.”
Turtle lunged from his kneeling position but the Ranger anticipated it and stepped deftly to the side. “Sheriff Blinn, if this old boy doesn’t want to fight anymore, he’s all yours,” the man in the cowboy hat called out. Turtle rose, seething, and seemed to consider his options
. None of them looked promising.
Short, choppy steps carried Turtle directly to the Ranger, and he unloaded a barrage of punches on the shorter, lighter Texan. Each blow was either parried or avoided, and with a blinding counterpunch combination of hook and uppercut that happened so quickly nobody saw it happen, Turtle was suddenly flat on his back. He made one half-hearted attempt to rise, but he didn’t have it in him.
Satisfied that the fight was over, the Texas lawman walked over to retrieve his star, as the sheriff moved in to handcuff the fallen form of Turtle.
The Ranger helped me up and dusted me off. I was shaking, my adrenaline still pumping, and he wrapped his powerful arms around me and held me tight to his chest.
“You’re safe. You’re alright. Take a deep breath, darling. I’ve got you. Ain’t nothing bad gonna happen to you now.”
I composed myself, but I was in no hurry to leave his embrace. He offered a handkerchief, and I used it to clean the tears from my cheeks.
He held me at arm’s length and looked down into my eyes.
“Did he hurt you? Do you need a doctor?”
“No, I think I’m okay. Yes, I’m okay. Just shaken up. You rescued me. Thank you… I don’t know how I can ever thank you.”
“No need,” he replied. “I was just doing my job. I’m glad I was here. Sheriff Blinn will take him over to the county jail to process him, and he’ll go in front of a judge in a day or two. He’s got quite a lot to answer for. Assuming you wish to press charges, of course. I’m sure the State of Texas will pursue charges for assaulting a peace officer, among other serious crimes. I don’t know what your relationship is with the accused, but your words will carry weight with the judge.”
“Yes,” I replied. “I want him to answer for what he’s done. Absolutely.”
A deputy who’d been speaking to Ruth appeared and chatted with the Ranger for a moment.
“I told them I’d get a statement from you. Are you staying here locally?” he asked me.
“Yes, at Rosie’s,” I replied.
“I’ll walk over there with you, okay?”
I nodded and tried to will my pulse into slowing back down to normal. He jotted something down in the small notebook he carried.
God, his eyes were blue. It was the first time I’d gotten a good look at his face, and especially at his eyes. They were the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. At least since Cade Carter had captured my grade school heart.
I was mortified when he looked up and caught me staring. “Is everything alright, Ma’am?”
“Oh, yes, I’m sorry, I was thinking of something. Of somebody. It’s embarrassing.”
He gave me a look that suggested mild annoyance and went back to scribbling in his notebook.
I couldn’t help myself.
“You just look a lot like somebody from way in the past. States and years away from here. He was a star quarterback at the high school in my hometown.”
He stopped writing and gave me a look I couldn’t read.
“Where was that?”
“Oh, a place you’ve never heard of. A small town in South Carolina. It’s called Palmetto Creek.”
He gave me a hard stare and put a hand on my arm, up near my shoulder, to steer me a few steps away from anyone who might overhear us.
“Say that again,” he commanded, more than asked.
“What?” I was completely confused.
“The name of the town where you’re from. Where you say you saw the football player.”
“Palmetto Creek.”
He looked all around, as a man searching for someone in a crowd, then leaned in close, his low voice aimed directly into my ear.
“How did you find me? Who sent you?”
“I don’t understand…” I stammered.
He made eye contact with me, close enough that I could smell his breath, his gaze was molten in its intensity. I could feel myself shaking and tearing up.
Seeing how upset I had become, he softened and put his hand on my face. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to get you so upset. You’ve been through a lot, and you didn’t deserve that. You just caught me off-guard. I haven’t thought about South Carolina in a very long time.”
I was more confused than ever.
“Can we talk? Maybe over at Rosie’s? Sit down and get something to drink or a bite to eat? I’m really sorry about all this.”
“Sure,” I agreed. My mind was going a million directions at once, none of them, as I was about to find out, the right one.
The Ranger walked over and had a brief chat with the sheriff and they shook hands in parting.
As he returned to my side and began to escort me around the corner to Rosie’s, he stopped in his tracks. I took two steps before I realized he was no longer by my side. I turned around to find him staring at me like I was a ghost, and then his entire face lit up with a Christmas morning smile.
“Darcy Shotwell? You’re Coach Shotwell’s little girl! I’ll be damned!”
I was, indeed, but how the hell did he know…
Oh.
He knew for the same reason he so resembled Cade “The Cannon” Carter.
Lincoln Sinclair, Texas Ranger, and Cade Carter, star quarterback, were the same person.
Separated by nearly two decades and several states, but the facts were unmistakable.
“You’re Cade Carter!” I exclaimed.
He looked back to make sure nobody was within earshot. He approached and whispered, conspiratorially. “Nobody’s called me that in forever. But, yeah. Guilty as charged. Let’s go have that chat.”
He threw an arm around my shoulder and pulled me in tight, giving me a reassuring squeeze.
As we walked, I swear he leaned back to check out my ass. That idea was more implausible, however, than the fact that I’d apparently encountered my childhood crush in the middle of nowhere, West Texas.
Guys who looked like Cade Carter (or his new name, Lincoln Sinclair) didn’t “check out” girls who looked like me.
I attracted Turtles.
8
We found a booth inside Rosie’s and she set us up with glasses of sweet tea.
“What happened to you?” I asked. “To your family? We all woke up one day and you were just…gone.”
Cade had a faraway look in his eye. “Believe me, it wasn’t my choice. This wasn’t the direction I ever expected my life to take. Growing up in my family, though, I’d learned years earlier that my home life, my folks, were a little different from what most people experienced.
“You were probably too young to remember it, but I didn’t grow up in Palmetto Creek. My childhood was a lot like having a dad in the military. Except rather than him being deployed or reassigned, he was staying one step ahead of the law. Or somebody who wanted him dead for this reason or that. I’ve had more names than I can remember. I learned not to get too comfortable anywhere, or as anybody.
“We’d spent time in Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Alaska, Florida, heck, you name it, I’ve probably been there. Except Hawaii. That’s on my bucket list. But anyway, we didn’t wind up in South Carolina until I was in 8th grade. My momma always stayed on top of my schooling, through different locales and name changes. She was determined that I’d get an education, that she’d see me graduate.
“She was the only thread that was constant through all those years. And football, of course. I could always throw a football.”
He stretched his right arm, loosening his shoulder before pantomiming throwing a pass.
“South Carolina was good for us. My old man had some sort of a racket going with those Flynn Boys, and we had a little money, for a change. I stayed in the same school for the better part of four years, which was a record for me. I went out for football my freshman year and made the varsity as a starting defensive back and backup quarterback, behind a senior.
“Your dad was the first real coach I’d ever had. He fixed my mechanics. I’d always just gone out there and flung that ball around. Tried to be like guys I’d se
en on TV, you know?
“Sophomore year, I started, and we had a good season. But my junior year is when everything exploded. It just all came together for me. I grew a few inches that summer and started to fill out; I could throw the ball harder and farther than ever before, and when guys would try to tackle me, I could drag them for a few steps rather than going right down. I started getting recruiting letters from everybody. Georgia, Clemson, South Carolina, all the big schools.
“Just when I thought life was going to be ‘normal,’ when I thought all the moving and the running was behind us, my dad got into it with those bikers. He was right in the middle of that mess at Flynn’s Roost. He killed somebody that night. Maybe more than one person. That place was all shot to hell. I remember him waking me up in the middle of the night, shaking me, and he was all covered in blood. He put my momma and me in our truck and gave her an address in Texas. Told her to go straight there. That’s how I wound up here.”
“But my dad,” I interrupted, “He called all the college coaches he knew, looking for you. He was sure you were going to be a star in college, maybe even the NFL.”
“I never played football again,” he confessed. He looked sad, like he was reminiscing over an old flame, or a relative who’d passed on, years ago.
I was stunned.
“My momma said it was too dangerous. I fought her on it. Told her I didn’t care who knew where we were or who I was, that all I wanted to be was a football player, that without football I wasn’t going back to school.
“But she was adamant that I couldn’t play. Even with my new name. I’d be too recognizable. So, I hung up my cleats and pads, never put on a helmet again. The last time I threw a ball that meant anything was that state championship game, for your dad. My junior year.”
I recalled the game vividly. Superman himself couldn’t have played any better. It had been a chilly early December afternoon, and I wore white sweatpants and a Palmetto Creek hoodie over my cheerleading uniform. The varsity girls who let me cheer next to them were like beautiful movie stars to me.
“That game was so amazing,” I gushed. I knew I sounded like a star struck preteen. What a conversationalist I was. I wished I could kick myself in the ass without him noticing.
