Lawful Engagement - Linda O Johnston

by Intrigue Romance

  Bea shook her head. Not a strand of her blue compact hairdo moved out of place. “No, but I saw the truck speed down the street.”

  “I saw it,” said a teenager on a bicycle. Under his bright-blue-and-red helmet, the boy was wide-eyed and appeared nearly as shaken as Cara felt. “He looked like he was going to hit you.”

  “Yeah.” Cara became aware of a pain in both arms and along the side of one leg. Her whole body would turn black and blue. “Did you get a good look at the driver?” When the kid shook his head, she asked, “How about his license number? Did you see it?”

  “No,” the boy said.

  Since he appeared ready to cry, Cara said, “That’s okay. No harm done.” Except that he got away. For now.

  “Can I drive you to the hospital?” Bea asked.

  “No, thanks. I’ll catch my breath, then I’ll be fine.”

  “If you’re sure—”

  Cara nodded, though she wasn’t sure at all.

  At least she had the presence of mind to remind Bea who she was, introduce herself to the boy, Tommy Dalford, and hand him her card. “I’m working on a story about poor Nancy’s death for the Gazette. I’m sure this was just an accident, but…” She got promises from both of them to let her know if they remembered anything important about the speeding, menacing truck.

  When Bea and Tommy left, Cara shakily headed back to the street—though she looked carefully to make sure the guy wasn’t plowing toward her again.

  She ruefully surveyed the long scrape along the side of her poor little yellow Toyota. Not bad enough to turn into her insurance company and get hit with a big rate increase, but it would take a bite from her budget to fix. And she certainly wasn’t going to live with it that way.

  At least she was going to live….

  The sound of a motor startled her. She hurried back to the curb and watched as the vehicle screeched to a stop beside her car. It was a white sheriff’s department sedan. Mitch Steele leaped out without his hat, slamming the door. His uniform was crisp and clean—unlike Cara’s rumpled clothing.

  “Cara! What happened? Are you all right?”

  Only then did she recall she’d been in the middle of a phone call with him. That showed how shaken she was. Vaulting out of the way of a speeding truck could be the only reason she would forget she’d been speaking to the sexy deputy with whom she had to weigh every word.

  “I’m okay,” she said, ignoring the wobbliness in her voice and hoping he would, too. She scanned the ground for her phone till she found it against the curb in a couple of smashed pieces.

  “You don’t look okay.” Mitch’s strong hands grasped her arms, holding her steady—sort of. Irritably she realized her body still trembled as much as her voice. She looked up defiantly into his face. His golden eyes studied her as if she were a fragile vase that had been slammed against a wall.

  Fragile? Her? Still, the idea that Mitch worried about her felt surprisingly good. “I appreciate your concern, but—”

  “Now tell me what the hell happened.”

  So much for his considering her delicate. “A truck. I saw it earlier today after we left the Lone Star Lodge, and—”

  “You saw it before?”

  “I think so. It pulled out after me, though I didn’t see anyone get into it.”

  “Can you describe it? Did you get a license number?”

  “Yes and no.” She blinked as he went out of focus, then back again. “Mitch, I’m sorry, but could you take me home? We’ll talk there, but I really need to sit down.”

  MITCH KNEW WHERE CARA LIVED. It was in her witness statement in the Wilks murder. He was aware of the new Mustang Valley apartment complex that attracted singles and young marrieds—nicely landscaped grounds, amenities including swimming pool and spa and apartments that were small but well equipped. The kind of place for someone too busy to worry about maintenance or repair.

  Not the kind of place Mitch liked, but he was glad Cara lived there because it had a security system.

  He accompanied her to her apartment and found reasons to like it even more. Cara had decorated it to look as vibrant as she was. Beneath the sloped ceilings, bright splashes of color in handmade wall hangings, braided rugs and chair throws contrasted with bright white walls and starkly shaped wooden furniture.

  She walked in ahead of him, then collapsed onto her sofa and pulled off her low-topped western boots. She hiked her feet up under her, tucking them beneath her long blue skirt. “You know,” she said, “there aren’t many times I’d say this, but if I could live the last day over, I think I’d take a trip.”

  “Where to?” He figured she’d choose a big, bustling city full of news.

  Instead, she said, “A rafting tour of the Grand Canyon. Or just camp out in the mountains somewhere.”

  Both sounded inviting to Mitch. But he wasn’t here to daydream with this attractive woman who kept surprising him. And he certainly wasn’t here to daydream about her. Still, when she stretched her legs out and leaned sideways, her curly red hair contrasting with the deep-green afghan tossed carelessly over the back of the couch, he imagined sitting beside her, taking her into his arms. Holding her.

  Touching her—

  Back off, damn it. If he let her under his skin, she’d only distract him more. And letting someone, especially someone outspoken and likely to call attention to herself—and him—get close to him, was a big mistake.

  “I suppose you want to know if I have any idea who tried to run me over,” she said sleepily, blinking at him.

  “Do you?”

  “No. I doubt it was Roger Rosales, since I saw the truck before I met with him. Unless it was a different old blue pickup. And unless he killed Nancy and was following me because he knew I was on my way to her place at the time, and—”

  “Okay, point taken. I’ve already radioed in for the patrol units to watch for a blue pickup with a scraped side. Now, fill me in on your conversation with Rosales.” He pulled his small pad from his pocket and took notes, though nothing Cara said shed light on the Wilks murder. Nor did it amount to her threatening the guy, as Rosales had claimed to Sheriff Wilson.

  When she was through, Mitch relayed what Ben Wilson had insisted he tell her. “I’m here to warn you not to bother Rosales.”

  He nearly laughed at the fierce expression that shadowed her face. “He’s the one making threats,” she exploded. “Against freedom of speech, the right of the public to know. Just like that damned Sheriff Wayne back in Shotgun Sally’s time.”

  “Shotgun Sally? What does a fictional—”

  “She was real!” Cara’s anger a moment earlier seemed like a minor irritation compared with her riled demeanor now. Her soft red eyebrows were hooked into furious lines and her full lips parted as if prepared to battle the slightest contradiction. “Don’t you know the story of Shotgun Sally and her fight with Sheriff Wayne?”

  “Not exactly,” Mitch admitted. He’d never paid much attention to legends, except for those about his mother’s people that she’d related to him when he was young. And he never considered them anything but stories created to explain otherwise inexplicable things to a complex but unsophisticated people.

  Cara’s former sleepiness seemed to have evaporated. Her anger, too, for it gave way to enthusiasm as she spoke. “Sally really lived, Mitch. And all the stories told about her—well, most were probably real, even though they seemed to contradict each other because the whole time, she was an undercover investigative reporter for the Mustang Gazette. It was a tiny paper then, before newspapers were even started in Dallas or Ft. Worth, but it had a fairly large circulation considering the number of people who lived around here. And the best of Sally’s stories was about her clash with Sheriff Wayne. Wayne was the head of the local sheriff’s department, and that made him Deputy Zachary Gale’s boss. Zachary was Sally’s lawman lover.”

  Lawman lover. The words ignited Mitch’s fantasies, and not about Shotgun Sally. Not while he had his eyes trained on the vivacio
us Cara Hamilton….

  Yeah, and the last time he’d gotten involved with a woman for anything beyond a casual roll in the hay he’d learned the hard way that Ellen had been more interested in learning if Native American men did things differently in the bedroom from ordinary men. That had been just before the scandal with Mitch’s dad broke. When it did, Ellen left, but not before making it clear to Mitch that he wasn’t so exciting after all.

  And Mitch was sure Cara wouldn’t settle for anything casual. She’d throw herself into a relationship with the same zeal she had for everything else.

  Tantalizing…but not for Mitch.

  He forced his attention back to her story. It was long and convoluted, and involved the legendary Sally’s quest to find her sister, Sarah’s, murderer. “Sheriff Wayne claimed to be heartbroken, since he’d been courting Sarah. He tried to pin Sarah’s murder on Sally and was loud and outspoken about it. That forced Zachary to appear to go after Sally, accusing her, too—not that he believed it. It was only a ploy so Zachary could keep his job and help her, too.

  “Sally hated the way Sheriff Wayne used his authority to try to shut down the Gazette for printing slurs about him—even though they were true. Her editor supported her but kept warning her to back off. For a while she hid out on her family land but couldn’t do much investigating from there. Eventually she disguised herself as a ranch hand and went to work at a neighboring spread owned by a rich tenderfoot from the east, Clarence McJanuary.

  “Sally kept sending news stories back to her editor at the Gazette, making innuendos about the sheriff and even Zachary, so no one would know they were working together. And her editor, despite all the arm twisting, kept printing them, bless him.

  “Sally suspected Sheriff Wayne was the murderer—until she found evidence that she was the intended victim.

  “She kept digging and ostensibly feuding with Zachary until she actually was shot by the bad guy, good old Clarence McJanuary. He was after the land owned by Sally’s family and figured he’d never be able to steal it as long as she was in the public eye as a crusading newspaper reporter. He’d intended to kill her, not her sister. Sally caught him, and by doing so she meted out the Texas law of the West on her own terms.”

  “Interesting story.” Mitch was surprised that he meant it. “I’d heard some of it before.”

  “When?”

  “I went to high school in Glenside.” Glenside was a town only a few miles from Mustang Valley. It wasn’t a time, though, that he wanted to talk about. He and his parents had moved there when he was a junior, and it had been a tough time for a quiet kid who’d wanted to fit in. He’d learned his lesson well—by fighting everyone who called him or his Native American mother names. Finally he’d fit in by being left alone. Just the way he wanted.

  Cara’s expression became contemplative as she looked at him, but she seemed to think better of asking what was on his mind. She finished her story. “Like other Sally legends, this one has multiple endings. One says she died from her wound, though I hate to think that. The one I like best says she just retired from reporting—at least under her own name—and Zachary and she married and lived happily ever after on her family’s land, after McJanuary was convicted of killing her sister and hanged.”

  “And you think this story was true?” Mitch shouldn’t have goaded her, but he was coming to like the way she looked when her most belligerent streak took over. In fact, he was coming to like the way she looked no matter what was on her mind.

  “Of course it was.” Cara seemed ready to argue further, until she yawned into her hand.

  “There’s nothing else you can tell me about that truck or your interview with Rosales?”

  “No,” she said. And that meant it was time for him to leave.

  As much as he had an urge to stay.

  It wasn’t the most professional thing for a deputy sheriff to do with a crime victim, potentially hostile witness and reluctant ally, but he bent down and kissed Cara’s warm, smooth cheek. He was as taken aback by the gesture as Cara’s amazed look suggested she was.

  “Lock the door behind me,” he said gruffly, “and get a good night’s sleep.” He left the apartment, shutting the door firmly after him.

  DRAT! CARA THOUGHT. If she’d been wider awake, she’d have reached up and given Deputy Sheriff Mitch Steele a real kiss.

  Yeah, and lost any ability of getting the Sheriff’s Department to cooperate with her story research. She’d have run Mitch off as fast as if she’d proposed marriage to him.

  Now, where the heck had that come from?

  Angry with herself for her thoughts, and for flirting with Mitch while knowing he wasn’t the kind of man to succumb to feminine wiles and disgorge the information she wanted, she stood and did as he’d ordered—locked the door.

  She still felt sleepy, but wired, too, after her death-defying experience. Despite her soreness all over, she went to the small desk in the corner of her kitchen and turned on the computer, intending to make notes.

  Her answering machine light was blinking, so she listened to messages. All could wait to be answered except the one from her parents. They’d called to follow up about Nancy’s death and how she was handling it. She didn’t enlighten them about her latest misadventure. After assuring them she was all right, she decided to return one more.

  “Hi, Della? This is Cara Hamilton.”

  “Cara? How are you? I’m so glad you called back. I read your article in the paper this morning. You found poor Nancy—how awful!”

  Della Santoro had become a friend of Cara’s several years ago, when Cara was researching Shotgun Sally for fun, and not for an article. Back then, Della had recently joined the faculty of Mustang Valley Community College as an instructor of literature. Her specialty was the genesis of local legends and how they changed with time. She’d already known a lot about Shotgun Sally, and had been willing to exchange information with Cara and her friends, who were also Sally aficionados.

  “I’ve had better experiences than finding a friend in that condition,” Cara admitted to Della.

  “Do you know yet what happened? Who did it?”

  “No, but I’m working on it. I’ve written about what happened, of course, but unearthing the murderer will make a heck of a story.”

  “Like the time Shotgun Sally found her sister, Sarah’s, body and turned the experience into a series of articles for her paper,” Della said, turning on her professorial voice.

  Picturing her in her mind, Cara thought Della really looked like a professor, her dark hair always pulled away from her face with a clip or in a bun, and silver-rimmed glasses she wore perched on her nose. She lived near the community college campus.

  “The truth behind that situation has been fairly obscure,” Della droned on, “but at first Sally was accused of killing her sister.”

  Ignoring the repetition of just having told Mitch the story, Cara responded, “Until she proved she had been the intended victim and was attacked…” Cara’s voice trailed off before she could say, “Like me.” It wasn’t like her. There was a world of difference between McJanuary’s Colt .45 and her attacker’s miserable old truck. She didn’t even intend to do a story on the hit-and-run…yet. It wasn’t really newsworthy, for she hadn’t been hurt. But if she found out who did it, and if it was tied in to her investigation of Nancy’s murder…

  “Right,” Della said. “That made quite a story. Of course it’s nothing like what happened to Nancy.” She hesitated. “Is it? I mean, why did you really go there in the middle of the night?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that all day,” Cara said. “Anyway, let’s get together soon. I want to spend some time with you discussing Sally.” And escaping from the nasty things going on around her.

  “Anytime,” Della said.

  As soon as she hung up, Cara took a long, muscle-soothing shower, put antiseptic on her scrapes, then climbed into bed. She fell asleep quickly, despite the way her thoughts swirled around Nancy Wilks, a batter
ed blue pickup truck…and the too-brief touch of Mitch Steele’s lips.

  THE NEXT MORNING, before leaving the house he’d rented because it wasn’t far from department headquarters, Mitch made his weekly call to Tim Bender, an assistant attorney general for the State of Texas. While a rookie at the Dallas Police Department, Mitch had testified in a case for Tim and they’d become friends. More important, they’d developed a mutual respect. Tim was the only person Mitch told of his quest to learn the truth about his father’s death. Tim had promised the attorney general’s support if Mitch found evidence of murder and who the culprit was.

  “What’s with that new murder?” Tim asked when Mitch identified himself. Mitch filled him in, including the involvement of a reporter for the Gazette, without describing his uneasy alliance with Cara. “Any tie to your father’s case?” He’d asked the same thing about the other recent murders in Mustang Valley, and Mitch had had to admit he didn’t know…yet.

  “The law firm connection seems more complex with each new matter,” Mitch said. “I’m going to review the department’s cold case files again from a year or so before my father’s death to see if I can find anything helpful.”

  It would be the latest of Mitch’s ongoing, frustrating efforts. When his dad’s death was shrugged off as suicide, Mitch took on the single-minded, surreptitious mission of proving otherwise, collecting the sparse evidence by himself and sending it to Tim for analysis. There’d been nearly no physical evidence, so Mitch had, with Tim’s assistance, researched Juniper Holdings, the outfit from which his father had been accused of accepting bribes. Its principals were some attorneys from the East whose backgrounds were spotless. The company had folded shortly after the scandal.

  Mitch had also examined the backgrounds of nearly everyone in the Sheriff’s Department. Some results were interesting, but nothing pointed to anyone as the potential murderer. Mitch’s bet was on Ben Wilson, who, as a deputy, had vied with Martin Steele for the position of sheriff and lost. On Martin’s death, he had finally gotten the job he wanted.